The Big Conspiracy..

If you are of the idea that all our ministries spend their allocated budgets but still are not able to produce fruitful results for India, think again. The reality is that our ministries find “no time” or “no resource” to finish spending their allotted budgets. Here I present to you some facts for the academic year 2006 – 2007, which will make you sit upright and exclaim, “What?!!. I did not know this..”

* Ministry of Public Health and Family Welfare could spend only 40% of their allotted budget of Rs.11,670 crores till now. The Government of India spends only 0.9% of the GDP on public health which comes to about Rs. 200 per Indian per year, making India one of the lowest spenders out of the 175 nations listed in UNDP HDR. This is all that the Government spends on
- those 5 million who are living with AIDS
- those 1.8 million fresh TB patients every year
- 67% of all children who are underweight
- 75% of all infants and 60% of all women who are anemic

* Ministry of Civil Aviation could barely manage to spend Rs.1 crore of the Rs.130 crores allotted budget. This, that too after P Chidambaram stated that by 2012, infrastructure alone would require an investment of around Rs.11,00,000 crores.

* Slightly better, thanks to Sri Laloo Prasad Yadav, Ministry of Railways could spend 67% of its allocated Rs.6800 crores.

* Ministry of Urban Development could spend only 71% of the allocated budgets till now, given the fact that 35 Indian cities have population more than 1 million, and almost half of the urban population do not have access to sanitation and 50% of solid waste is not disposed.

* Ministry of Non-Conventional energy ends up spending only 18% of the allocated budgets till now, at a time when the whole world is securing energy resources and investing crazily in non-conventional energy resources.


This makes one wonder: Are our ministers aware of what their job is? Are they aware of the current situation in India? Do they know what a budget is and how to make judicial use of it? Do they take the effort of setting their feet on the land and making some visits to places which are severely affected by their inaction? I am sure if they would have done this even once, and if they had a sane mind and a humane heart, they would have themselves shuddered when they saw the plight of the people and the environment of their habitation. Are the people occupying the power chairs truly worthy of the honor?

If the answer to the above questions is NO, then this makes one wonder: What are the people who know about this doing? What about those people who can do this job the best, are they raising their voices? The people who directly suffer from these problems are unheard of, and their voices get muted, all we get to hear are muffled squeals. But on the other hand, the people who are not directly affected and have the power to raise concern do not seem to have a voice in first place, forget getting muted.

Finally one gives up wondering with these last few thoughts in mind: Will anything ever become of my nation? Will I ever get to live in a glorious India that I dreamt of living in, as a kid? Will I..? Will I..?Will I..?

Think about it.

The Truly Indian's Airways

For a second, you will feel confused whether you are traveling by bus, or train, or is it indeed an airplane for which you had booked the ticket. Mad rush at the terminal for boarding makes you wonder if you are in a fish market. Frustrated by the repeated departure delay announcements, you will wonder if you will enjoy the privilege of a good night’s sleep. After pushing yourself through a crowd of people swearing at the terminal executives, you board the plane and to your shock you find it is a free seating arrangement. The only thing that separates this setup from that of traveling by local bus or train is that you will not find anyone reserving a seat by the uncivilized Indian way of placing the handkerchief! The coffee onboard is for sale and the once you are done, the stewardesses come with large black-colored disposal bags wide open for you to throw your cup into. It is almost as if the stewardesses have it written on their forehead “Use Me”!

Guys, this is Air Deccan for you, and if you want to add some spice and ‘teekha’ to it in the ‘Tapori’ style you may as well call it the ‘Air Dhakkan’. I am even told Air Deccan is not supported by Insurance !! I sometimes wonder what kind of feedback are they going to get in case they were to conduct anything like a customer satisfaction survey, i.e. if they would ever dare to.

But lets us just look at what this “weird but great” airline company has achieved. Air Deccan had a main objective when it was started in 2003 i.e. “ To make airways available and affordable to every Indian”. And how successful have they been ! Today Air Deccan tickets are available to everyone at prices as inexpensive as Rs 3 on. Of course, this requires prior booking and this is also exclusive of airport taxes, but still today an Indian is able to travel on air at a total expenditure as minimum as Rs 1500. This is something which never seemed possible during the “bi”poly times of Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. The demand supply balance was totally tilted against the consumer and the price rise was positively steep. But the new stream of airways have changed it all. Every Indian can now dream of reaching his destination within a couple of hours at a much affordable price. And when so, who will really bother about the food and refreshing towels that Jet and like airways provide? If one is very particular about reaching on time and about the comfort onboard, these well-established airways are always there for them. It’s only a matter of time before Air Deccan gets the necessary capital to improve their infrastructure and get substitution in place to keep to their time commitments.