What
is different in my view is the political pressure exerted by business, industry
and the big farmers on the state to have decent roads to transport their goods.
Therefore, authorities - top bureaucrats, legislators and ministers - have
to balance the money they can make by eating up their roads with the money they
can make by direct and indirect contributions from the industrial lobbies and
the need to retain their patronage. This, in turn, makes them do two kinds of
things:
1.
Increase the public expenditure on roads
2
Prevent standards from falling below a basic minimum.
I think in Assam, this
pressure on Govt is simply not there. Partly or to a great extent it is the
public apathy which makes the Govt non accaountable. That is why I believe
we need to hold the feet of the general pubic to fire where necessary.
We cannot just elect someone and expect things to happen perfectly without
constant pressure. So far I know that is how democracy works
everywhere. In Assam this public pressure seems to be almost
nil.
In this respect we need to
keep in mind two things>
1) Progress in
development
2)
Corruption
Lot of time, the public
seem to be so much concerned about corruption that they seem to accept lack of
development. I think Assam ( as well as other staes) will gain a lot if
instead of being too much paranoid about goverment corruption, they would
simply insist on government results. This is in no way to say that we
should not go after corruption. But in India in general, and Assam in
particular, people are so much focused on anti-corruption that the project slips
(and corruptions goes on anyway).
We need to focus on
projects. All
projects should be announced for public information, and public should
demand results first and foremost, and anti-corruption
later.
I know it may sound too
radical, but it will give much needed results and corruption will be
controlled..
At present instead of
results, the government official is simply trying to prove that he is clean
but that his hands are tight. (That is so easy to do by any
Indian).
I don't know if I could
make myself clear.
Rajen
Barua
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 11:26
AM
Subject: RE: [Assam] roads in assam
The
explanation for the poor state of roads in Assam is not just corruption of PWD
officials. Corruption certainly exists and makes the state of the
roads worse than it ought to be. Yet, that does not explain the horrible
state of the roads fully.
The
premise that other states with better roads are significantly less
corrupt is, in my opinion and experience, quite false. I am not
just talking of Bihar like states here - anyone who has lived in states
like Punjab or Haryana or Delhi or Maharashtra will know that
the intensity of corruption, the political and money power of the big
contractors - are at least as high as in Assam. Its in fact linked to violent
organized crime, bonded labor and several other social ills. The cuts you pay
to the engineer before a "tender" is sanctioned is of a similar proportion -
sometimes even higher as periodic outbreaks of scandals show.
What
is different in my view is the political pressure exerted by business,
industry and the big farmers on the state to have decent roads to transport
their goods. Therefore, authorities - top bureaucrats, legislators and
ministers - have to balance the money they can make by eating up their roads
with the money they can make by direct and indirect contributions from the
industrial lobbies and the need to retain their patronage. This, in turn,
makes them do two kinds of things:
1.
Increase the public expenditure on roads
2
Prevent standards from falling below a basic minimum.
The better state of roads there reflect
this.
In
Assam, for many years now, the state government has barely been able to meet
the financial needs of paying salaries to its officials. I know that netters
often get very upset about central monies sanctioned for development not being
used by the state government. However, these monies are for very
specific projects - like major bridge, a national highway, border roads...
MOSTLY, THEY CANNOT BE SPENT ON GENERAL MAINTENANCE OF EXISTING PWD
ROADS - particularly, the ones you encounter in smaller towns and
villages.
We
also do not have a significant industrial lobby to bribe our ministers
sufficiently to prevent them from pilferaging the limited funds they
have.
I am
willing to debate this to the very end. But I do not have the facts on my hand
and I am not an engineer. I was hoping someone from Assam PWD would actually
be on the net ( at some point the former head of the department wrote a few
messages). Let me tell you what I know to be facts but can't substantiate
right now with numbers.
For
the roads funded, built and maintained by the state PWD, the expenditure per
km is quite a bit less than "the better roads" in other states.
The
national highways in Assam are built and maintained by the same state PWD -
the same kind of Assam engineers - that do other roads - the condition of
these national highways is very good, particularly in comparison to what I
have seen in other Eastern states such as West Bengal. The main reason is that
they are built to different technological specification and their per
kilometer expenditure (funded directly by the Central govt)
is significantly higher. That is also true for roads funded by the
North Eastern Council, Indian Railways (approaches to
rail-cum-road bridges) etc.
The
Border Roads Task Force (a military civil engineering department of the
central government) has built several highways in the border regions - at one
point, they used to be of better quality than the national
highways built by state PWD & cited as instances of local
incompetence - and then it was discovered that their per kilometer expenditure
was significantly higher than what the central govt allowed the state PWD
to spend.
Finally, the road network in and around the major
cities of Assam have seen tremendous increase in traffic - including freight
traffic. Just think about it dispassionately. Think of your small town. Have
the roads expanded significantly? Probably not. Do you think the real dollars
spent per kilometer on maintenance has gone up significantly - unlikely. How
about the number of trucks you see plying? The deterioration in quality
of urban & feeder roads is much more likely to be explained by that
physical pressure of traffic in a rainy weather state rather than increasing
corruption.
I
could go on. But let me sum up here. I strongly disagree that
the INENSITY of corruption and leakage is much higher in Assam and that
therein lies the explanation for all ills. The quality of engineering
knowledge as always been high too. The difference in quality of roads is
largely explicable by the difference in expenditure per kilometer on
construction of non-centrally funded roads and more importantly, on their
maintenance (which is what is reflected in every day life) and the
intertemporal deterioration in quality is largely explained by difference
in pressure of traffic in urban areas - partly, a result of unplanned
urban expansion and population growth.
Santanu.
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