Sathya Sankaran

(1/2)Bluru perfects new kind of Infra-theatre. 1st,Metro Yellow Line: Ready,but no trainsets like a new airport with no airplanes Now,Sequel coming: BSRP C2&C4 Stations rising but Tracks missing. Depots await work&Trainsets await Orders. C1 awaits 1st brick,even after 64months!!

Across the political spectrum cash transfers are being implemented in the country. So, there must be a strong felt need for welfare. Markets do not solve all economic problems. There is a need for a good balance between welfare & growth. Good debate!! Let us do a podcast on this someday.

THE NEXT UPROAR Every few weeks, we get something in the governance space that agitates a lot of people - the latest is the cost of street sweeping machines. Some thoughts on this. (a) Some people are convinced this is a loot, but they're mostly going by what they see as a high figure. 600+ crores is big money even in Bengaluru, because the median income even here is less than 10L a year. 6000 times one's income is bound to seem like a big number, anywhere. (b) Some people think that renting them will be cheaper than owning them. A few people even said that they KNOW it is cheaper, but there aren't any public numbers to back this up. GBA says it is willing to share the calculations. Awaited - the sooner the better. (c) A lot of people agree that if the government does the job itself after buying the machines, it is bound to be a disaster. This is in fact the biggest problem - sarkar is seen as the weak link in our development story, but it is also the one making many of the decisions. (d) As a rule, any contract worth more than 5% of a corporation's budget should be carried out very publicly, so that the tender, the cost calculations, the bid, the awarded contract, terms, etc. are far more known to the public. Some info will be private and confidential, but a lot isn't. (e) The confusion between GBA and the corporations continues. This is really not GBA's work, but it is clearly municipal work and should have been tendered by each corporation as per its needs. Who will pay? GBA itself or the corporations? At some stage, there has to be clarity about GBA - is it a planning body (as already notified) or a super-municipal entity unlike any other, or an arm of the Urban Development Dept? Too many avatars.

One more deadline that will surely be missed. There are entire roads that are only potholes. There is no question of filling them even in six months! This kind of announcement is not even good PR. Pothole filling by a deadline is a mirage. Frankly, even the public doesn't expect that. What we need is a process for quickly attending to them without waiting for an uproar from the public, a scientific way of filling them, and a contracting process that holds people to account.