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Fresh bailout in
Europe Infant deaths in
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Seven billionth baby Time to tackle demographic dilemmas That world population will touch the seven billion mark has been known for some time. The news that the seven billionth baby of planet earth should be born in one of the world’s most populous countries should come as no surprise.
Libya after the
Colonel
World’s fastest
THE
CHALLENGE OF ADDING ‘TWO MUMBAIS’ EVERY YEAR Self-regulation the
best bet for real estate players
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Infant deaths in Kolkata
It
could not have been a unique constellation of stars that caused the death of 12 infants in a day, in a prestigious hospital of Kolkata. Since the enquiry conducted by the government did not find medical negligence by the hospital staff as the cause for these mortalities, the Mamata Banerjee government would have us believe that it was a mere coincidence. Systemic failures, unless they are routed through the never- ending maze of blame-game, often go unpunished in our country. And the death of 12 infants was no exception. Planners and managers of the health services have been crying themselves hoarse over the past many years about the growing gap between demand and supply in the health services. According to the Medical Council of India (MCI), the country will require seven lakh more doctors by 2015 to meet the expanding demand for medical services. But, even though a million more doctors are trained and pressed into service, the doctor-patient ratio in the rural areas is unlikely to improve where the infant mortality rate is the highest. This is despite the fact that the Union Health Minister, Mr Ghulam Nabi Azad, had offered incentives for young doctors like 10 per cent extra marks for spending one year in rural areas and ensuring about 50 per cent seats in the masters degree courses for those who spend a couple of years in villages. Since all these baits have proved to be ineffective for the modern medicine man who is reluctant to visit poorly endowed rural Bharat, the other systems of medicine which have been prevalent in the country for centuries should have been strengthened. Two such experiments introduced in Maharashtra by SEARCH (the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health), in Gadchiroli district, and the Comprehensive Rural Health Project, in Jamkhed district, which recruit ordinary women to take care of the health of villages, have shown a drop of 50 per cent in infant mortality. They have improvised, organised and replicated the old system of medicine with preventive care in a new avatar. It is such examples that need to be increased manifold if unfortunate happenings like the ones that took place at B C Roy Hospital in Kolkata are not to be repeated.
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Seven billionth baby
That world population will touch the seven billion mark has been known for some time. The news that the seven billionth baby of planet earth should be born in one of the world’s most populous countries should come as no surprise. So, as the world is looking towards India, Lucknow, the capital of the country’s most populous state, is all set to welcome its seven billionth baby, and plans are afoot to mark the arrival of the newborn. Indeed, the birth of a baby is a cause for celebration. But given the population dynamics of India, the joyous moment hailed as a milestone by some, also calls for concern. India, which is projected to become the most populous nation by 2060, certainly needs to stabilise its population growth rate. Though there has been a three percentage point drop in the population growth rate in the last decade, we are still far behind the National Population Policy (2000) goals. Moreover, India’s demographic dilemma is not confined to population growth alone. Besides tackling questions like whether India can feed a population of 161 crore by 2041, there are issues like high infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate, malnutrition among children and women and skewed sex ratio that need urgent attention. It is heartening to note that the celebrations will not focus on the birth of just one child but seven girl children. However, a concerted action plan is required to ensure gender justice and reverse the damage done by rampant female foeticide. If India has to exploit its much-touted demographic dividend, it would have to meet the socio-economic challenges posed by numbers that are still growing too fast. Besides, the country has to work towards the population figure that is sustainable with development. On the global front that is expected to touch the eight billion mark by 2025, the UN may not have sounded the alarm bell as yet and projected that the world can absorb big gains. But India that has only 2.4 per cent of the world’s landmass and 17 per cent of the world’s population cannot afford to be complacent. The political class should put the issue of population stabilisation, moved out of national consciousness after the Emergency experience, back on
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A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
— Rober Frost
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Libya after the Colonel Celebrations
and joyous scenes on Libyan streets for days after the capture and killing of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi are entirely understandable. The Libyan people, except for the dreaded dictator’s hardcore supporters, have reason to be happy with the end of his 42-year tyranny. At the same time, the challenges facing “liberated” Libya are turning out to be far more serious than was anticipated. Remarkably, telling pointers to this have come from none else than the country’s transitional government leader, Mustafa Abul Jalil. After announcing his country’s liberation and the end of the eight-month civil war at Benghazi, the birthplace of the revolution, he appealed to the people to show “patience, honesty and tolerance” and to “eschew hatred” as they “embark on rebuilding war-torn Libya”. Absolutely fine so far, but the outlook became deeply disturbing as Mr Abul Jalil set out to spell his vision of Libya’s future. For, he declared in no uncertain terms that Sharia law would be the “basic source” of legislation in Libya, adding that the existing laws that “contradicted the teachings of Islam would be nullified”. He then called upon the people “not to express their joy by firing in the air but by shouting Allah-u-Akbar”. As if this wasn’t enough, he also announced that only the Islamic system of banking that does not permit interest on deposits would prevail in Libya. As for the existing loans below 7,000 dinars ($10,000), interest on them would be written off. This is exactly how General Zia-ul-Haq had started in Pakistan nearly 35 years ago. And see what has it led to. Pakistan today is the epicentre of jihadi terrorism and Islamic extremism. So much so that its “key ally”, the United States, has been constrained to warn it of action if its army and intelligence agency, ISI, do not snap their ties with terrorist groups such as the Haqqani network. Is this the direction in which “new Libya” is headed? And wouldn’t the contagion spread to other West Asian and North African countries that are also in great turmoil and yearning for change? No wonder, a veteran Indian diplomat with expertise in both the Arab world and Pakistan commented: “Like the Iraqis, the Libyans seem set for moving from the frying pan into the fire. Regime change under NATO firepower can produce unexpected, unforeseen and unanticipated results.” There is yet another important question waiting for an answer: Have the Western powers that militarily intervened in the name of “protecting the civilians” and actually brought about regime change learnt their lesson in Libya and would not repeat this effrontery elsewhere? No one can be certain even though it seems rational to believe that they might desist. The economies of both France and Britain, the ostensible leaders of the military intervention in Libya, are in a mess. The US, that led the adventure from the rear, is also mired in a massive economic crisis. Therefore, they might not have the stomach to start other misadventures. However, there are thoughtful European commentators who are arguing that both President Sarkozy in Paris and Prime Minister David Cameron in London are quite capable of trying yet again methods they think have proved both “feasible and desirable” in Libya. To be sure, they wouldn’t rush in any country that produces only melons and is ruled by a tyrant. But they may yet be tempted to try their luck in countries that offer such prizes as oil and other minerals. If the US and its obedient European allies haven’t been able to apply the Libyan treatment to Syria it is entirely because Russia and China vetoed the UN Security Council resolution that would otherwise have been passed despite India’s wise abstention. No one can forget that the old imperialists and neo-colonialists brazenly violated the Security Council resolution 1973 in order to attain what they wanted in Libya. Doubtless, the unfolding situation in Syria is a cause for the deepest concern to the international community. The violence that has killed both civilians and security personnel must end. The case for President Bashar al-Assad’s departure is strong but the use of Libyan pattern is unacceptable. In any case, Mr Assad has promised requisite reforms. He should be given time and space to show that his offer is sincere. Anyone inclined to shed tears for Colonel Gaddafi should get his head examined. But it would be inhuman not to condemn the highly brutal manner in which the former dictator was done in, notwithstanding the evil that he did in his lifetime. No one is taken in by the pretence that he was shot while resisting arrest. Nor has his murder been a purely indigenous exercise. The NATO aircraft bombed the caravan in which Colonel Gaddafi was trying to flee, and there are reports that a missile was also used. There has been no postmortem of his body, nor is there the slightest chance that a truly independent inquiry into his killing would ever be held. Robert Fisk is one of the finest experts on the region and no admirer of Gaddafi. Indeed, quoting Thomas Friedman in a different context, he describes the late Libyan dictator a “crazy combination of Don Corleone and Donald Duck”. He has underscored the reason why an inquiry into the killing of Gaddafi suits no one. For, neither the Americans nor the Europeans could have faced the revelations that Qaddafi would have made had he been dragged before the International Criminal Court for his war crimes. After all, asks Mr Fisk, “didn’t Blair (British Prime Minister then) slobber over him (Gaddafi)?” He compares the Libyan leader’s death with that of Ceausescu of Rumania in 1990, adding: “Didn’t we live with Ceausescu’s death and his wife’s? So, why not with Gaddafi’s whose wife is safe?” A French commentator has pointed out that not very long ago the Libyan dictator was an honoured guest of Mr Sarkozy and was indeed allowed to pitch his tent in the garden of Elysee Palace. But then such is life. It is also the way of the world that just when Libya’s transitional leader was promising his country an Islamist future, Tunisia, where the Arab Spring began, held what seems a genuinely free and promising election. In Egypt, the situation is dicey. The spring there has turned into autumn and could become scorching summer if the current state of affairs goes
on.
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World’s fastest When
an Italian automobile manufacturer recently demonstrated the world’s fastest saloon-car clocking 407 kmph, I thought of the cherry-brown Ford “Tourer” which my family owned in 1936. The boast of that car was its speed-meter, calibrated up to an incredible 80 mph! Now, outside the Maharaja’s cars (which included one Rolls Royce, Silver Ghost), our car was the fastest on road, in the public domain. India at that time was at least a decade from shedding carts for bicycles, so the Ford’s movements through the mofussil country-side left human beings awestruck and children shrieking both with delight and fear. Animals stampeded with flared nostrils and swishing tails and poultry cackled hysterically, sustaining the pitch of pandemonium in the car’s wake. Now what of the Ford’s looks? Well, it was simply a magnum sized, tin bath-tub with two horizontal planks, upholstered in suede leather, to seat five in comfort. A foldable canvas-hood topped the cabin-frame but sans any glass-panes in between to block the dust and rain. One memorable journey often recounted was a holiday to the Srinagar Valley in 1958. For some unknown reason, the engine over-heated beyond the Banihal hump. The car was pulled off the road berm and the cooling-down period utilised for a coffee-break. The antiquated Ford caught the fancy of a passer-by traveller. And the up-shot of the convivial tête-à-tête which followed, was a surprise 10-minute broadcast over the BBC’s overseas programme a week later, about the exploits of Henry Ford’s 1928 invention, in India! My last experience of the car was during a short visit home in 1963. A British couple was visiting us and the young lady said, “Wouldn’t it be fun to go visiting the Qutab in the Ford?” So the canvas top was duly folded back giving it the looks of a sleek, elegant sports automobile. And we set out on the narrow, single lane 16-km stretch from Gurgaon to the Qutab sans any vehicular traffic or habitation, in those days. The high point of the drive occurred on the return journey. One of the rear wheels punctured mid-way to home. The spare wheel was also found deflated. While we debated our options, a camel-cart laden with wheat-straw chaff, trundled by. The sturdy Haryanvi pulled up as much to satisfy his curiosity as to offer help. Our Good Samaritan suggested that we remove the tube and allow him to stuff the tyre with wheat chaff. We laughed good naturedly but agreed to let him try. When 45 minutes later, the Ford chugged off at a goodly 30 kmph nonchalantly, the Haryanavi had the last laugh. A few months later, a vintage cars enthusiast from Nagpur, accompanied by a mechanic, drove away that Model T as effortlessly as she had arrived home, back in
1936!
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THE CHALLENGE OF ADDING ‘TWO MUMBAIS’ EVERY YEAR
The
thrust of the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill (LARR), 2011, to dovetail the interests of the acquirers and developers with that of the land owners/farmers is indeed welcome. This is the first serious exercise when the government is seeking to protect the interests of the small and medium landowners on the one hand, and the landless labourers who get affected due to the acquisition, on the other. India has been urbanising at a fast clip with addition of more than 50 million people in our urban areas in less than 10 years – Year 2001 to 2008. McKinsey in its report ‘India’s Urban Awakening: Building inclusive cities, sustaining economic growth’ estimates the urban population to soar to 590 million by year 2030 from 340 million in the year 2008, and form about 40% of the total population. This will translate to a net addition of 250 million urbanites, which approximates to an impending demand of 50 million new dwelling homes. Put differently, the report estimates that 700 to 900 million square meters of commercial and residential space needs to be built every year - adding more than two Mumbai(s) every year. It says further that “This urban expansion will happen at a speed quite unlike anything India has seen before.” It is an established fact that India is woefully short of affordable housing for the wannabe urbanites. No wonder that the present infrastructure of our metros and cities– both social and amenities – is highly stretched, bordering on implosion. Over the last two decades, Indian developers have sought to develop a number of townships, but most of the inhabitants in these townships still compete with their counterparts in the parent cities for the ever shrinking basic comforts and amenities of life due to lack of matching external development works by the state bodies despite the same being funded by the customers. To make up for the deficit in our infrastructure, the government had drawn up ambitious plans for building highways, industrial parks, business parks, SEZs, knowledge cities, medical cities, spiritual destinations etc but sadly, even after more than twenty years of ‘India in reforms’, it has remained a mere pipe dream. Most of the development plans, whether initiated by the government or private developers, have been tragically affected by the seemingly insurmountable and perennial land acquisition hurdles. When the rest of the world is aiming to build big cities – China has established Shenzen on wasteland into a world class megapolis in less than thirty years – India is still struggling with building of mere 100-acres tiny townships and yet, it is marred by land–acquisition difficulties. Probably, India has consciously elected to tread on a narrower path with the sole objective of a quick-fix to India’s burgeoning housing shortage by limiting the development of housing merely on agricultural land parcels, which is unfortunately the only source of land in our model of development. But agricultural land, unarguably a finite resource, is not the panacea for India’s defiant and stubborn housing shortage. The proposed draft LARR Act stops short of addressing India’s real developmental appetite. The laissez- faire approach to acquisition of even smaller parcels will compound our agony to the detriment of long-due completion of most of the projects awaiting acquisition of critical areas for contiguity, because even tiny acquisitions by Government will be subjected to a long drawn process and procedures. It is a matter of record that countless developmental works in India, be they industrial or business complexes or residential or retail projects or social and educational complexes, are presently in virtual animated suspension for want of a few tiny parcels of land- say for instance revenue raastas -which existed in the revenue records centuries ago. Still, they have largely remained contentious and intractable issues. Unfortunately, the proposed Bill provides no sign of a solution to crack these knotty issues. There is no clear mandate to the state to acquire such tiny parcels, which are neither used as agricultural land nor as raastas. They surely deserve to be included amongst the emergency objects of the draft bill, as only then can the government cut to the chase and instantly acquire critical areas, to finish and complete the long pending mammoth public projects entailing billions of dollars of public money, lying locked. For a country, which until year 2000 was known to be growing at the Hindu rate of growth, non-completion of public-funded project-a matter of record- is a colossal and criminal waste of India’s finite and modest resources. Conversion of agricultural land to urban land, in reality, begins at the stage when the contours of the next master plan are drawn on the drawing board. It is then and then only when the social impact of displacement has to be factored in, in the development plans, be it for industries or residential or commercial or educational purposes, and certainly not later when land is acquired, which understandably delays the process of development. No purpose is indeed served by doing such social impact study repeatedly, every time when acquisition is intended, because Master Plan has already frozen the allocation of areas for different end-uses. However, keeping in view the factum of displacement of both land owners and landless labourers, it is the bounden duty of the state to secure their interests early when their agricultural lands or their occupations come under the hammer of the master plan. Carrying out the social impact studies later, prior to every acquisition, is meaningless and aimless, it being too late and too little in the process to provide any succour to the affected families. Going by the spirit of the intent behind the proposed Act, it is immaterial whether land is acquired by the government or by the private developers. Displacement results in acquisition by either and surely begs a remedy. India is consciously developing mini-townships in the vicinity of the cities, and accordingly does not have the luxury of choosing less fertile land over more fertile ones. India needs to reconcile to the fact of swallowing the bitter pill of trading of some of the fertile land for urbanisation. To my mind, the more important issue is compensation to the farmers rather than the issue of multi-cropped vs. single-cropped land. It is a known fact that state governments have been blissfully threatening to acquire land or are acquiring land for peanuts when compared to the prevailing market prices. State governments as such could be held guilty of profiteering at the cost of land owners. Farmers and land labourers surely deserve a better deal and in this regard, the proposal in the draft bill, to acquire land at market prices along with R&R benefits is admirable. The effectiveness and efficiency of any Act of legislation, indeed, depends upon how fast it delivers on the avowed objectives. The proposed Act, given its labyrinthine procedures, seems destined to end up prolonging the very process of land acquisition, and thus retard the pace of development, specially of affordable housing.
The writer is Vice Chairman and MD of Ansal API
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Self-regulation the best bet for real estate players A code of conduct for real estate companies has been put in place but more needs to be done to revive customers’ confidence The
real estate sector, one of the highest contributors to the Indian economy, has of late been affected by sharp rise in prices and interest rates. Where the industry contributed around 8.1 per cent to the GDP in the last fiscal, revealed by a survey conducted by ASSOCHAM, slowdown in the realty sector is likely to bring this down to below eight per cent in 2011-12. The ripple effect created by the economic instability in various global markets has further added to this turmoil, which has seen Indian economists walking a tight rope to balance rising inflation and costs . Like all other businesses, the real estate sector is striving hard to tide through these tough times. Rising raw material costs and the repeated rate hikes by the RBI have not only cast a shadow on sales but also the growth potential. These factors combined have also given rise to apprehensions in the minds of future investors and buyers, which is not a healthy sign. Our community of builders, developers and promoters is being derided by various quarters for failing to keep unlawful practices under check, for lack of transparency, accountability and a host of other issues. But there is a need to look at the industry objectively. Every industry has its ups and downs and for ours too this is one of those times. Owing to the immense pressure of meeting deadlines for projects, all the while battling against odds of rising raw material costs and interest rates, a few amongst us are seen falling short on certain fronts. But that does not justify writing off the whole sector as being unorganised or mismanaged. Most of us associated with the sector are well aware of our inherent responsibilities which include devising ways to addressing these problems. While we are at it, we would also require inclusive support of the government, the media and the buyers. As an instance, industry bodies like the Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) have already set the ball rolling by adopting a code of conduct to be followed by its members to maintain friendly cooperation and trust between developers, promoters, builders and customers. The code also seeks to promote more transparency and accountability between varied stakeholders on various projects. In addition to this, many of us developers have been following certain asset management models, which aim to eliminate any possibility of real estate projects going off track or failing on the ethics front. These models ensure that during the sales process, systems are set in order by which the money received from clients against any sale is mandatorily transferred to an escrow account to be used only for the development of the project, thus ensuring that delivery is guaranteed and the buyer safeguarded. In addition to this, due diligence of land parcels before agreeing to start work can also go a long way in avoiding legal hassles down the line, should they arise. The issue of rising input costs, interest rate hikes and stagnant demand might yet stay put for a while but we are hopeful that the situation will change rapidly. Whilst all this might take time, we will have to understand that in these bleak conditions, the industry would also have to adopt a participatory rather than a confrontational stance with key stakeholders i.e. both the government and the buyer. It would be an added advantage if systems are set in pace to hasten the processes of seeking clearances, obtaining licenses and approvals on various projects by the government. Delays often bear down heavily on us, because it further hampers the realisation of returns from the projects, often making deadlines unviable to follow. This then leads to negative fallouts and trigger a vicious cycle. Be it the rising rhetoric for a real estate regulator or the proposed land acquisition bill, 2011, volunteering for self regulation by all those associated with the real estate sector, can go a long way in reviving consumer confidence and reinforcing brand loyalty, which is the key to the future growth of our business.
The writer is CEO of Alpha G Corporation
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