VOT 4 I VOT 4 U

 

Recently I was reminded of time spent in Tamilnadu during one assembly election. People had just realized that they could ask questions from the candidates and they had started to ask `Yenna Da vot 4 I vot 4 U’. Roughly translated it means `What You Fellow!!! What for should  I vote for you’.  I asked the same the other day in Hindi to the MLA candidate for the constituency in which I live.

One tall fat man came to my door accompanied by some other fat men in white clothes. The most noticeable feature of this lot was that they were all willing to do `Namaste’ (fold hands) at the fall of a hat. I did not count but they executed at least twenty Namaste s in a span of five minutes while talking to my wife and self. They happily addressed my wife `bhabi ji’.  They had all come to ask for my vote for the assembly election in which the fat man is a candidate.  He seemed the kind of chap who had made money in business somewhere, I didn’t know if he has funded the expensive walking shoes for all who were with him, but himself he had invested in good walking shoes and seemed to want to lose some weight also. Win or lose the election, but definitely win this battle with the flab.  He had the expression of an otherwise ferocious dog who just wants another bone rather badly and he is willing to wag his tail and beg for it without any qualms.

 He is introduced by one of his chronies, the plain-white-clothesman who said `AAP  Mr. such and such hain, AAP ke chunav kshetra se khade hain, AAP ka sahyog chahte hain,’ ) The  first AAP meant  fat man, second AAP meant me and the third AAP meant all the adults in my family.  I knew about him, I had seen his publicity posters, he has no reputation for social work, of helping any one other than himself, no other claim to fame except that he has a fetish for power and that he was willing to spend some fifty lakhs or so from his pocket to fight the election.  He didn’t offer me any money or liquor but I did suspect that he had paid for the `support’ of the men accompanying him.

He gave me a copy of his manifesto, it had nothing new in it, every body including him are now saying that they are inspired by Anna Hazare. I asked about his particular agenda and he muttered `Vikaas’.(Development). He just said that his  party would take the state towards ` vikaas’. Spending money on Development was  all important because the earlier governments had failed and as if spending Government money is itself `Vikaas’.   He didn’t have a programme. He also muttered a few words about how bad some other parties are.  He didn’t really talk about things that he would do as an MLA, any location specific business ideas, He didn’t have any think intelligent to say in his five minute stay except that he wanted a `sewa ka mauka’.(an opportunity to serve) 

My head went in a bit of a tizzy, does this man know anything. Did he know anything about building schools, Highways, or sewage treatment plants?. Did he know how state’s economy works, how much of the state’s rupee goes where and why?, Does he know about the lacunas in the PDS system., does he know of the problems of development in the hills ? Does he support the increase of no. of tourists in the wild life parks, is he aware of the plight of the Indian sailors stuck  in the gulf of eden?. Does he know the value of one Kg of Yarsa Gambu, does he know about the rampant sale of hooch ? Does he know how many people are buying adulterated milk. Does he know that the auto drivers overcharge at least 80% of the times? Does he know about rampant malnutrition in our kids and women? Is he a good manager and does he know this complex business of managing a four layered workforce in the government? Did he know about sustainable development, global warming?. I had my serious doubts. He looked very worried about the fact that his mobile phone was ringing and he couldn’t answer it. He also kept looking at his own spot less shoes and uniform.  I took pity on him, didn’t ask him any more questions. More smiles and more Namaste’s and they went away rather assured that I would vote for them.

At this point of time he seemed capable of nothing except to smile and spread the charm, looking for a `mauka’(opportunity). I suspected that he had earned pots of money in his life and he wanted to taste real power too. He was looking for a `mauka’ to enjoy power, the `sewa’ part was just incidental.  I could be wrong and maybe he is a nice hard working man.  I regretted that I didn’t directly ask him, the question learnt from the Tamil Nadu elections in the same intimidating tone   `Yenna Da ’ VOT 4 I VOT 4 U  ?’  Maybe he could have told me? Maybe he does have a game plan outside his manifesto.

Hell !!!!! will never know because I suspect he will not win.

Param Jigyasu

You can send your feedback to paramjigyasu@gmail.com

what will they do with the corruption money?

 

WHAT WILL THEY DO WITH THE CORRUPTION MONEY

Corruption in the government happens at many levels.

1.      Post man/lineman level

2.      Clerk/ peshkaar level

3.      J.E.  Level, superintendent level

4.      Policeman level

5.      Police inspector/ Assistant engineer/SDO level

6.      Magistrate level/ executive engineer level

7.      Junior judge/ Sup. Eng level

8.      District judge/ chief eng. / deputy secretary  level/head of independent bodies like nagar nigam

9.      Additional secy/ MLA level

10.  Secretary, junior minister level

11.  Principal secretary/ minister of state level

12.  Chief secretary/ state cabinet minister level/ central minister of state level

13.  Chief minister/ central minister level

14.  A Raja/ Mayawati level

The list is indicative and by no means comprehensive.

It’s wrong and immoral but the corruption of the first three levels is small.  It is in the region of 0.5 to 5 lakhs a year. Govt employees come from middle class /poor families and this much extra money doesn’t even get noticed for a few years, loans are repaid, shares in family land are bought, fresh land in the village is bought, gifts to parents and family, some jewellery, some fixed deposits in the names of family and self, a new motorcycle, sometimes a car or a house. A sisters marriage, a shop set up for a sibling or parent, A little increase in personal expenses for clothes, cosmetics, paan, gutka, booze etc. In later years this lot starts to buy small plots of land in the towns.

The next four levels make on kind of choices, the levels from 7 to 10 have another set of dreams depending on their upbringing. The next two (11 and 12) have big ambitions and uses for the money. The last lot is megalomaniacal and will not stop at anything. Even Murder.  Let us look at the holes in which the loot is filled.

Officers from levels 4 to 7 depending on the `plumness’ of their posting have an extra income of Rs 5- 50 lakhs a year.  Mind you these people have worked at level no. 1 to 3 for a long time before reaching this level.  The initial avenues for investing the money have been used up. Now these people have come to the stage that they try to hide this money from their own kin also. Who goes around gifting gold jewellery worth Rs 5 lakhs to one’s mother.  If she is educated she may just ask `where did you get so much money son’.  So this is the kind that buys` benami’ properties and invests with big builders who accept big black money contributions to carry out real estate deals. They invest in the share market under some false ID for which they are themselves signatories.  Since the black to white ratio in most property transactions of high value is 50-50. This crowd goes for big posh properties in other cities. They also buy upcoming commercial properties in other states where nobody is looking. The cash component is no problem, the white money has to be arranged as no interest loans from relatives and friends and from banks (often the guarantee for the loan is an FD made some years ago, or a benami made in the name of Fakir Singh, Tamatar Singh. Bure Singh etc.).  This lot also tends to increase their personal daily expense. They don’t mind buying a bottle of liquor for Rs 1000/- every day for self and friends, they buy expensive shoes, overpriced clothes, golden watches; they put their children in expensive schools and colleges and give them huge pocket money. (how do you thing nearly 150 stores selling overpriced clothing and shoes are surviving in Every small town ?). The really scared ones hide currency under the ground in mattresses and inside puja houses.

All this while they have a lifestyle which appears to be commensurate with their real salary, well maybe it appears that they have 1.5 times their actual salary but not more.

LEVELS 7 TO 10 are different because they are suave and English speaking, have been groomed in fancy government institutes to act like kings. Their loot could be between Rs. 10- 100 lakhs a year. They also travel abroad. This is where the real spending happens. Once they reach a destination abroad , they buy everything with illegally bought dollars and cannot be caught. These guys do everything with a little more care because they are under the media scrutiny. Of course they have done everything described in the levels described above. These people plan, sanction and acquire at subsidized rate `officers colonies, only to sell their rights at a later date. They are also inducted just after retirement/early retirement  as advisors, patrons, directors or consultants in companies which are owned by sons, daughters, friends and relatives. These companies are often built with the corruption money supplied by them.

Level 11 and 12 could make up to 5-6 crores a year. They have a pretty good chance of making real savings because their jobs have plenty of perks like a house, Car, expense accounts, free telephone, entertainment allowances sometimes, travelling allowances . They have a comfortable and respectable life only if they would be satisfied. No they want to be like the czars of the private sector, they wish to fly in chartered planes and to have accounts in Mauritius and other tax havens. Their single minded agenda is to export money abroad. Fortunately for them, frequent deals with representatives of foreign companies makes their task easy. Postings where such transactions take place are very very `expensive’.

We will come to the megalomaniacs later, first let’s look at the uses for the loot up to a level 12 

The million dollar question is ` what will these guys do with the money?

In the prime of their life, guys don’t have  a good time, they are scared to let this money show. They cannot use much of the corruption money in their youth as they are busy making it.  They can only use so much and a mattress full of bank notes is surely damn uncomfortable.  They are unlikely to use in their middle age as they are almost at the top of their careers (of making black money)  and they don’t want a disproportionate assets case against themselves). The only age left to use it is your old age where you can see it being plundered by your thankless kids who are thankless because they know where the money came from and how. . I have a feeling that this ill gotten money will be used for

1.      Cultivating useless, bad habits such as booze, cigars ,imported food etc

2.      Buying useless possessions which can be hidden such as gold, watches

3.      Getting knee replacements, also hip, kidney and liver etc.

4.      Getting false hair, breasts, nose, pacemakers

5.      getting expensive and sometimes useless foreign  education for children and grand children

6.      buying fancy cars for children

7.      keeping mistresses

8.      buying farm houses with swimming pools  in which they can neither, farm, nor live, nor swim

9.      Going on foreign guided tours specially designed for senior citizens.

There are plenty of honest people too. Please don’t get the impression that there are no honest people working in the govt. There are a lot more than you think and they are happy to be honest. They work hard, get their salary, get respect from everybody they work with and retire. They are the ones who get toughest tasks, most amount of work, maximum no. of transfers, least no. of junkets and only pension to support them.  They sleep easy. They run this country. May their breed grow.

THE MEGALOMANIAC LEVEL (LEVELS 13 AND 14)A BJP MLA did not get something he wanted from the party, became a rebel and joined mayawati’s party. Mayawati had no chance of winning   that election but she gave him a helicopter to campaign. Everybody saw a blue helicopter going the length and breadth of the constituency without purpose or hope of winning the seat.  A million questions that I had had about the use of ill gotten money were answered in a minute. Of course we also know that Mayawati makes trips to Switzerland to get some direct foreign investment sometimes.

The collective knowledge about the uses of such large volumes of corruption money is somewhat new.  We don’t even know what a cache of a 1000 crores look like, we definitely don’t know what or Rs 1700000000000/- looks like (1, 70,000 crores) and what is the likely use of it by a family in a single life time.

 Perhaps they can light a bon fire with bundles of Rs 1000/- bills, which will also be 17000000/-  in number. Perhaps they can get a gold throne, and a secret coronation, x no. of wives; maybe they can eat gold foil on toast every morning. Maybe you can keep six mistresses or gigolos; you could get a get a 22 carat gold bed. Mattress will have to be of a soft material say mink fur. Maybe they can buy a BMW for each day of the week (no no that will attract attention).

 Maybe they can put it in the bank and say that all the people of this country gifted it to me (it has been tried). They can say that my son is now working in America and he sends me a million dollars a month (helluva son  of ........ the soil)

India’s financial planners have used much of their creativity in finding uses for black money (such as voluntary disclosure schemes). I am not going to comment on that, its time the government made a systematic analysis of corruption, maybe close down some atom bomb department but get a bloody system to secretly monitor the global assets of every government employee before joining and every year in order to catch them young before they become the A Rajas of this world.

Param Jigyasu

You can send your feedback to paramjigyasu7@gmail.com and view this article on paramjigyasu7.blogspot.com

 

Private sector has to pay for the Governments failure in EWS housing sector

I have written many times about the failure of the government to provide any sort of succor for those who cannot afford a 20 -30 lakh rupee house. I have written that all its departments have failed to deliver even a single dwelling unit at low prices to the poor and the middle class in the last 5 years.

A developer told me that the latest government rules will also systematically kill the prospect of any group housings getting built in the state even for those who are not so poor.

Group housing flats are generally being sold at Rs 25 Lakhs each or more. I don’t know of any proper housing being sold in Uttrakhand for less than that except for some box like structures being sold near Roorkee for around Rs 10 lakhs.

Now they are going to become more expensive, because of Governments `Tughlaki Farmaan’ (dictat). Anybody who builds a group of flats will build 15% area for the EWS and the LIG housing. He will then transfer the same to the Government at a fixed price. The govt. will then allot them to whoever they think fit.  The builder is also supposed to deposit a bank guarantee of a certain percentage  of the cost of development until  the work is over.

As if the taxes were not enough, these are expenses difficult to recover, another uncertainty for the builder. He will just load it onto the buyer. After all he is a builder. His job is to build and sell and to make profit.

The builder is already supposed to construct the houses and all the amenities completely, get an occupation certificate and then only will he be allowed to sell. If he charges a percentage of cost from the buyer in advance, a huge service tax is payable.

Somebody wrote to me in response to my earlier article about housing in Sidcul , I am told that the place where Deep Ganga apartments now stand in Haridwar, there were houses  for the industrial workers which were broken for building five storied apartments.

The governments hands have now been tied because of the announcement of the Election schedule but the fact that this condition will have to be removed otherwise the little activity that is happening in the organized housing sector will also stop.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN THEN

At present the most attractive/ easy way to build a house in this state is to build it illegally. Take some agricultural land, cut it into plots and build houses on it, big houses, very big houses and small houses. Land will be cheap because it has wrong land use. There will be no permissions involved, no taxes, development or municipal. You will electricity and water by bribing your way through or by getting a Gram Pradhan Sanction. Bank loans are hard to find for these houses.

It is also possible to get hold of some land in a `Low income colony’ on a Patta. It is like  a possession letter  handed over by one to the other, sometimes it could have been given by  a Pradhan or some past owner of the land. It has doubtful legal validity. People build houses on these in the face of threats of evictions and demolitions. They have no choice.

When these tenements become large in number, the government, any government has only few choices. One is to shoot all the people and the Second is  to resettle them in a safer place and the Third is to build roads and drains and to make that area legal. It is like letting a disease grow till it becomes life threatening before starting some treatment.

In both types of Colonies described above, there will be no roads or drains because there are no agency involved, sometimes people may build roads and drains collectively. Sewage disposal will be with the help of Soak pit and septic tank anyway.

One day a colony like this will get a name, a Hindi Daily will make a sign board outside. Bye and bye there will be a representation to make the colony legal and after some years, the colony will be made legal, every body will pay some money and they will get a sanction. The whole of sahastradhara road on the right side was built like this. Huge ` bastis’  along the canal road are built like this.

Its quite sweet, people don’t pay taxes, government doesn’t build amenities, doesn’t provide services, Un organized development happens, no wide roads, no setbacks, no greenery, but one day politicians come and build roads with MPLAD funds or MLALAD funds, Slowly one haphazard growth with a large no. of houses gets added to the city.

I am secretly happy because some more people have a roof over their head.  `Jugaad’ has won. If the government had its way these same people would be living in the slums along the Bindaal river, after all they are the ones who have the unenviable title of being `The biggest enemies of housing for the poor’

 

Param Jigyasu

 

policy makers of SIDCUL are blind

 

POLICY MAKERS OF SIDCUL ARE BLIND (published in Garhwal post on 25 Dec 2011)

Uttrakhand wanted to become an industrialized state. In attempt to do so, it asked and got from the central government, some tax concessions. Anybody who sets up an industry in Uttrakhand, would get the benefit of these tax cuts, therefore the industries would make more money. (mind you the product will not be sold cheaper to the end user). This policy worked and hundreds of industrialists from other states came to set up industries, both big and small.

The reason for doing this is to bring employment and therefore money to the people of Uttrakhand. There is nothing wrong with that and the purpose to a certain extent has been served and thousands of people have found employment in these new industrial areas which are in Dehradun, (IT Park, Selakui and Pharma city), Pantnagar, Haridwar,  Rudrapur, Kotdwar, Bhagwanpur and some other areas too.

SIDCUL is the agency which has been created to establish, maintain and monitor these estates. They are the ones responsible for regulating the building work in these estates. The Industrial estate was planned and built by a large  company. It is headed by an IAS officer and has a complete hierarchy of  govt. officers to look after its affairs. As far as I am concerned it is the government which runs it.

The most wonderful thing is the fact the political class, government, policy makers, engineers, economists and everybody in this business see everybody, but they don’t see the industrial worker. They even see the non physical things such as flow of money, commercial taxes, impact on the environment, quality of air and level of noise, but they don’t see the misery of the industrial worker. They are blind to the industrial worker, I think we should carry out a psychological test in which they are made to strip completely in a room full of industrial workers, my gut feeling is that they would strip happily because they cannot see the industrial worker.

In this article let us talk about Haridwar. The industrial area is a good 6-7 km away from the main Haridwar town. There are some 250 or more industries of various sizes operating there with an estimated  50000 people working in them. Maybe 5% of these are workers who have brought from outside for the senior positions which need skill and expertise, They are the well paid ones. Lets talk about the remaining 95%.

THE REASONS WHY I SAY THE GOVERNMENT IS BLIND

1.      You have to see it to believe the ways people have devised to commute to and fro from work. Some go by bicycle, others have to take a shared auto which is sometimes shared by some 20 other people. A large section of these workers are girls, they have chartered large TUKTUK type vikrams to cart them at both ends of the shift. Some workers who live within 3-4 kilometres walk because there is a certainty about the time. Mostly workers are left to fend for themselves. A bus service would be an earning proposition. If a factory owner wants to run a bus service for its workers, it is charged road tax at commercial rates as if it was a profit making thing for him. THE GOVERNMENT JUST FORGOT ABOUT GIVING A BUS SERVICE FOR ITS OWN PEOPLE, IT EVEN FORGOT TO MAKE BUS SHELTERS. IT FORGOT TO MAKE A BICYCLE TRACK.

2.      The policy makers obviously thought that an industrial area will bring with it a need for hotel rooms and shopping areas and so they sold large plots to businessmen to make  hotels and a mall.The industrial worker does not go to these establishments. He goes to  tea shops, small dhabas, pan shops etc. The industrial workers have a life also outside the eight hours of workshift. THE GOVERNMENT FORGOT TO PUT A SINGLE SHOPPING CENTRE FOR THE MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE WHERE THEY COULD EAT AND BUY A CUP OF TEA AND  THINGS OF THEIR USE.

3.      It is not allowed to build quarters for workers inside factories because it is a risk to their lives. It is not allowed to build them just outside the industrial area because it is a landuse violation. The government has pointedly refused to give land to the industrialists for a price for workers’ quarters. They made a couple of group housing plots in which flats are selling today for Rs thirty lakhs each. Where will the industrial workers be housed on a long term.  Shivalik Nagar which is close by has turned into a slum with upto six people living in a room. Room rent for such a slum like room may be as much as Rs 5000/-.  THE GOVERNMENT FORGOT TO MAKE ANY PROVISION FOR HOUSING. IT IS NOT EVEN ALLOWINGFACTORY OWNERS AND  PEOPLE TO BUILD ON THEIR OWN. IT IS NOT SELLING LEGALLY BUILT UNITS. IT IS JUST STANDING IN THE WAY.

4.      Accidents are likely to happen in the industrial areas because of heavy industrial activity, work with chemicals, high temperature and work at heights. There is no special purpose hospital for industrial injuries in the area. THERE IS NOT EVEN A  DISPENSARY TO TAKE CARE OF INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS EVEN THOUGH THE GOVERNMENT TAKES HUGE CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE NAME OF ESI.

One day there is going to be a strong trade union movement and this time,it will be the government and not the industry owners which will face the music. In this business, the industrialists are complying but the the political class and the government is at fault. In my view it is stupid on part of the peoples’ representatives to neglect this class, they can be made happy cheaply and they are huge in numbers. An election can be won by making a hospital, a profit making bus service, allotment of some low cost housing plots and some small shopping areas inside the industrial area.

I want the reader to decide if the government is interested in making its peoples life easy or is it just interested in filling its own coffers by way of taxes and premiums received on selling developed land etc.

PARAM JIGYASU

You can send your feedback to paramjigyasu7@gmail.com and view this article on paramjigyasu7.blogspot.com

 

THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF RESPECTABLE HOUSING FOR THE POOR IN RURAL AREAS OF UTTRAKHAND

 

THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF RESPECTABLE HOUSING FOR THE POOR IN RURAL AREAS OF UTTRAKHAND

Last time I had written about the state of housing for the poor in the urban areas. Let us look at the state of affairs in the Rural Areas.

The entire machinery of the state related to housing and building materials is completely oblivious to the problems of the poor and their shelter related problems in the rural areas especially in the hills and the foothills.

In the rural areas the issues of land are less problematic and the issue of availability of materials and water and skilled manpower are more important. The design is done with collective knowledge and traditional wisdom.

The building materials policy of the state of Uttrakhand seems to have been written by the truck operators and the building material suppliers of Haldwani and Rishikesh. They have been helped by the armchair environmentalists of Dehradun and Delhi.

It is the assumption of these armchair environmentalists and the government that the biggest enemies of the environment are the native people of the state. If you allow them to have their way they will plunder the forests and damage the `fragile’ ecosystem of the Himalayas.  (Sadly they only have the Himalayas, where else should the villagers look for their needs).

I can debate this assumption of this government but let’s agree for some time and go to the next part of the argument. The people do not deserve to get anything Free, but the people should be able to buy things which are produced in the state in abundance.

The whole world is patting the backs of builders who use local building materials by giving them green credits. The new `modern’ are  Green buildings which do not require materials to be brought from far off and use those materials which does not consume large amounts of fossil fuels in production and Transport.  The Three big items which are the worst in this list are `BRICKS, CEMENT AND STEEL. Besides not being `green’ these materials are seriously expensive for the rural folk. The Policy for housing in the hills is a cruel joke on the poor.

The government is convinced that the best materials for construction in the hills are `BRICKS, CEMENT AND STEEL.

ALL LOCAL MATERIALS ARE DISALLOWED OR BANNED. And I Repeat

ALL LOCAL MATERIALS ARE BANNED

People when they build themselves use their own hands and sometimes some local masons. These people have skills in using mud, stone with mud mortar, timber, slate, thatch, bamboo, etc.

The picking of all these materials in the state is BANNED. They are allowed to be used only if they are either illegally procured OR bought from a Mafia of Suppliers.

MUD

It is not allowed to dig a pit in a land not owned by you to bring home some mud to build a wall. It is not allowed to buy the mud from some one if he is willing to dig a pit in his land to sell to you under the mining rules. I am obviously talking of two truck loads of mud and not a basket load.

THATCH

The poorest of the poor in the foothills, places like Ramnagar, Kashipur etc build houses with Thatch Roofs and they bring the grass which grows along the water channels on Government land. A few years ago the Government has given the harvesting of this grass to contractors so the poorest have to buy grass for making thatch roofs. Cutting of Tall grass for building your own roof is disallowed.

STONE

It is not allowed to bring stone from a land not owned by you. You cannot pick from the floor of the forest under the forest rules. You cannot quarry stone unless you go through a winding process in the local collectorate. There are very very few government approved quarries in the hill districts, which are allowed to quarry stone to sell.

In the box below is a separate piece on the business of stone and quarrying in the hills.

Imagine five little hillocks each say 200 meters wide at the base and 60 meters high. The entire Himalayan belt is made up of hillocks. Suppose we dig up hillock no. 4 the area of which is 10 acres at the base and dig it so much that it becomes a lake 20 m deep. Do you know what amount of stone will come out of it. In my view some 10, 50,000 cum or some 1, 75, 000 trucks of stone will come out. A small house may need maybe 10 trucks, if it is built from scratch.

If the stone is semi dressed at the quarry it will generate some 20% volume of usable aggregate. With semi dressed stone it is possible to build thinner walls also. This semi dressed stone has a market in the plains as premium stone. Any way hundreds of trucks bringing cement and steel are going back empty. This can bring in revenue for the state apart from giving employment to a large no. of people. A new skill of expert masons can be developed too.

Why is the land area in the Uttrakhand like a holy cow and the environment of the whole country depends on it. We are talking of a size of 3 football fields (hell I didn’t think of it earlier. we can make some flat grounds for our children to play on) in two places in each district. Some 6 hectares in each district far from human habitation.  If the leopard doesn’t walk there any more or the birds can’t make a nest in the shrubs on this 4 hectares so be it. Once it becomes a lake other organisms will come. It may even become useful in other ways. This 3 hectares (78 hectares if made in two places in each of the 13 districts) is much less than the 270 hectares given to JP group for the F1 Track. Incidentally environmentally speaking the area under F1 track or Mayawati’s monuments and under thermal/ hydel power plants becomes a complete ruin. The area under mining in states like Rajasthan and MP is in hundreds of square kilometers and not in mere hectares. (I sq km =100 hectares)

The reason why such a proposal has never come up is because it is a felt need of the poor people and not the political class. Provisioning of all these materials is a daily battle of the poor people.

Families where the bread earner works outside and brings the cash once a year, they buy materials in installments sometimes over years in order to build a house. 2000 bricks bought in sep 2008, 500 kg steel bought in aug 2009, cement and aggregate bought in july 2010, extension to the house built in the holidays in November 2010. plastering pending till the next time the poor `fauji’ can get some money and `chutti’.

The entire picture of construction in the hills will change if stone and timber is made freely available to the people of the state. Our entire traditional construction will come back to life. Villages will start to get the benefit of peoples own creative skills. Our state will start to have resorts and hotels built with stone and timber rather than the ugly cement and concrete. Public buildings will look like hill constructions and not like something imported from Haryana or UP. The state can have its brand of stone available for cladding in homes in Delhi and Punjab and Haryana. Many people can get employment close to their homes in these quarries. (alternatively the state could at its own discretion disallow export to keep quarrying in check.

The new picture will have four hillocks and one lake surrounded by these four hillocks. Nothing else has to change.

SLATE

Quarrying of slate is banned. Period. The fact that it provided and still provides a viable local roof cladding material is some old village tale for the policy makers. Obviously the villager is forced to think that this policy maker is not one of their own.

There is a need for a full scale debate on the environmental impact of mining in the hill states like Uttrakhand. Mining of soap stone is good, pyrites and phosphates is good, mining of RBM in some pockets is good, mining of Lime stone is acceptable, Blasting for making miles of roads is okay, mining and blasting for making dams and hydel projects is good but mining for the provisioning of stone for construction of poor peoples housing is MURDER.

TIMBER

Too much has been said about timber. The government has a monopoly over timber production. All of it belongs to them. If you sow a tree in your own house compound so that your son may get some timber 30 years later to make some doors and windows, you cannot cut it without permission from the government. If some timber tree happens to grow on your land you are not allowed to cut it. They belong to the government.

If the government has monopoly over the timber then it should cut the trees scientifically and then sell it so that people can buy it.  Entire armies of forest department protect the forests from fire, from the local people and the unscrupulous elements, but when it comes to utilizing what they have saved, the record is poor.

There is a `Van Nigam’ (Forest Corporation) to manage the forest produce. It is not very decentralized, it has no saw mills, it owns no seasoning, sizing, or treatment plant except a defunct one at Rishikesh.

Mostly Van Nigam sells. It sells marked trees in a forest, sometimes it sells `lots’ of round logs, sometimes it sells uncut, unseasoned logs piece by piece. It leaves out jobs which can only be done by a corporation and not by a trader.(sawing, seasoning, utilizing timber waste at a large scale, making products from wood waste such as briquettes, making industrial products from good timber such as impregnated board, dip-anti-termite treatment etc.  It does the job which can be done by any small trader. These jobs are measuring, marking, making inventory, deciding prices and selling round logs.

The Van Nigam serves itself, it gives the government some money, it pays the salary of its employees, it auctions timbers to traders, it does not do any thing useful for the people directly.

Some powerful armchair environmentalists have banned all felling in the pine forests in Uttrakhand. These forests have become too dense and dangerous from the point of view of managing of fires. Let us cut pine trees and make useful timber and make it available at the district Tehsil Level for a fair price. People will return to making houses with Timber.  It is now an accepted Fact that `WOOD IS THE GREENEST BUILDING MATERIAL’

SAND AND GRIT

In the mountains there exist some pockets where the strata have been completely fractured due to some geological activity. It is commonly called a `bajri ka pahaad’ . the quarrying is banned. The picking of sand, grit  and stone from river beds except in specified `lots’ in the foothills. No such thing in the upper reaches. The only way to get it is illegally or to transport it in trucks from …..No surprise in this Haldwani and Rishikesh.

It is allowed to pick stone from the river beds for a price in the foothills (it actually benefits the environment by deepening the rivers, and prevents flooding). 

Some misplaced idea of environmental protection stopped the picking up of such materials for nearly three years in Uttrakhand. The government did not follow up the cases in the courts to get mining in the rivers restarted. The truckers of Himachal and Uttar Pradesh which are just across the border made huge amounts of money possibly in connivance with the politicians of Uttrakhand. 

Now this material is available again in the foothills of the Himalayas. The so called environment has been `saved’ for three years in Uttrakhand but it has been `used’ (dug up) just across the border. You have to see to believe the vast hole almost one km wide and ten or more k.m. long  that has been made in Sunderpur just across Mohand , by removing River bed materials which have been exported to Dehradun and beyond.

GOVERNMENTS ACTIONS

The government occasionally makes noises about the importance of using local materials, the use of Earth quake safe technologies etc but spends money only in advertising or in holding seminars for the bored, already overloaded engineers for all departments of the state.

If you want to build a house in Karan Prayag or another equally remote place

1. you cannot buy legal timber in the town
2. you cannot buy local stone for a price and a legal cash memo
3. you cannot buy local sand or grit
4. you cannot get legal or illegal slate even for a price in town
5. you cannot quarry mud from the forest

But you can buy

1. Sand,
2. grit from Rishikesh,
3. steel,
4. cement and
5. third rate bricks from Muzaffarnagar specially made undersized for the hills. (so more bricks can be carried in a small truck, consumer be damned).

The reader can decide who the biggest enemy of respectable housing for the poor in the rural areas is.

 

Param Jigyasu

You can e mail the author at paramjigyasu7@gmail.com or view this at his blog paramjigyasu7.blogspot.com

 

THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF RESPECTABLE HOUSING FOR THE POOR IN UTTARAKHAND

 

THE BIGGEST ENEMY OF RESPECTABLE HOUSING FOR THE POOR

At the cost of sounding politically incorrect especially in the light of the Rs. 32/- per Diem debate, I will use the term `Poor’ and not ‘Economically weaker sections’ or `the ‘under-privileged’. I will call a spade a spade and get on with the debate about the issue at hand, shelter for the urban poor.

The cost of land on Sahastradhara Road in Dehradun is  Rs 2900/- per square meter by government circle rate .  If I bought  two acres of land  from the government at its own rate for Rs. 235 lakhs.  With stamp the total cost would be about Rs  2.5 crores.

If I then decided to help the government in its task of providing housing for the poor, I would get 230 low cost three storied flats sanctioned from the local statutory body and build them.  The flats could be two small rooms with a toilet and a kitchen with a total area of some 300 -320 sq feet. The cost of construction would be 2 lakhs per flat. The total cost of services and common things such as Boundary wall, roads, electrical connection, Government charges  etc would be another Rs 25000/- per flat.

The cost of land per flat is Rs 1.1 lakhs, cost of construction Rs 2 lakhs, cost of services and electricity Rs 25000/- per flat . Total would be Rs. 3.35 lakhs.

If I did this honestly and finished in one year, cost of finance (interest) would be Rs. 100 lakhs. This would be Rs  45000/- per flat. If a profit of 10% i.e. Rs 40000/-  is also allowed to me, the sale price of the flat would be Rs 4.2 lakhs. With stamp duty the house could be given within Rs 4.5 lakhs.

This can very easily happen and at least 10 people I know would be willing to do it.  We can have 230 needy people of this town have a house for Rs 4.5 lakhs. If the government invested its own money and did not charge Interest and profit, the house could be built and sold for Rs 3.35 lakhs.(Even cheaper if it waived development charges, royalty on River bed materials such as sand, aggregate and stone, VAT on some items). The government will still make about Rs 82 lakhs as stamp duty.

If anyone advertises a scheme to sell houses of 300-320 sq feet for Rs 4.20 lakhs. He will get thousands of applications because the cheapest house with clear title, correct land-use and proper services like water, electricity, sewage, drains, parks etc is not available. The cheapest flat available anywhere else would be for Rs Twenty lakhs. Government has not made any plots or houses available for a long time now and when it does; its prices are never very low.

Let us see the real situation. It does not happen like this. There is a government speed breaker at each step, corruption is possible at each step. Government policy comes in the way and most importantly the disinterest of everyone involved in the above process makes this impossible. Let us dissect it. 

HURDLE  NO.1 Government is not giving or selling land for housing for the poor. It can acquire land and money for all things  like offices, industry etc but not for poor peoples housing. Some years ago it had acquired some land on Bye-Pass road for `housing’ but later returned it without doing anything under pressure from the property dealers. There is no provision in the master-plan for any land anywhere for creating housing for the poor 

The developer has to find and buy land at market rate which is sometimes 50% to 70% higher, No bank will give him finance for a project where there are visible government hurdles. He has to invest his own money.

HURDLE  NO.2 The most important government hurdle are the bye laws which don’t allow a density of more than 60 dwelling units on an acre (even for poor peoples’ housing) and the cost of land per flat shoots up to four times the estimate above.(after being raised from 125/hectare to 150/hectare).

HURDLE  NO.3  Lets assume we get the government to agree to allow us higher density, then they would need parking for 120 cars which in the open would need a quarter of the 2 acre plot, or it would require stilt parking and therefore a frame structure and the cost of the structure would go up to 1.5 times per sq foot and you would have to construct a third more area, These factors of frame structure and extra construction will take the cost of the construction to 1.95 times.

Let us assume that the government will let us have our way and will let us make the assumption that these people will have no cars and if they do they will park them in front of the house, or the government will allow us to have a relaxed parking norm of say 1/3rd of the regular housing.

HURDLE  NO.4  The government will ask to give 6 m wide internal roads, huge setbacks of 9 metres and  7.5 metres. The trouble is that in subsistence level housing , a place to live with dignity with wife and children is more important, safety is important but some some frills can be done away with.  DENSITY, ROAD WIDTHS, SETBACKS, PARKING are rules that need to be done away with for housing for the poor. 

HURDLE  NO.5 The other road block is that the government will take one year to sanction the project which means the interest cost will also go up by 50 %  (@ 14% for one year on land value).  In this government will treat the developer like Bhu-Mafia, profiteer and a cut throat businessman and they will make him run from one pillar to post for clearances from everybody (which is in fact is their own task). The N.O.C.’s required are from PWD, Fire Department, Jal Sansthan, Neighbours, Nagar Nigam  and some others.

HURDLE  NO.6  The government will ask me to workout the electrical load of these 230 houses and buy a transformer to take the load, buy the poles to get electricity from some distance, pay a large fees for installation, reduce voltage and distribute reduced voltage at my own cost to 230 flats and collect electricity dues from each one and deposit every month. If  10 people don’t pay on time, everybody loses electricity.  The cost of getting electricity to everyone will be more. An agency will have to be created which will read meters and collect electricity charges.  Initial cost difference is Rs 10000/- per flat. There will be  a recurring cost too.

HURDLE  NO.7  The government will refuse to give filtered water connections and it will ask me to dig my own tube-well, set up a treatment plant and supply lines.  The cost is Rs 4000/- per flat

HURDLE  NO.8  It will also refuse to take away sewage. Now they want a Sewage treatment plant installed inside every housing complex instead of a simple toilet tanks. It will ask me to build public facilities like community hall etc to be given free to people in my land at my cost for the people, all this has a cost Say Rs 20000/- per flat.

In this way , because of the governmental hurdles the price of the flat goes up from Rs 4.1 lakhs to say 9.0 lakhs and this is without paying a single penny for as  corruption money .

If any developer has to go through what I described above and still make a profit of Rs 40000/- per flat, he would much rather buy the land, keep it for  two years,  not even lift a finger and sell it after two years,  He will still make a comparable profit.

There is no distinction in the government while sanctioning housing projects for the rich and the poor. If there is political will, it can be done overnight. We have seen some customary noises being made in the recent pre poll announcement bazaar.

Can I ask what the governments Housing department is doing if not making houses for the poor? It is not giving free housing to the poor. It is not subsidizing it, it is not facilitating it by way of providing land, services and components and advice.  The criminal thing it is doing is to not even allowing people to have housing at a fair cost. It is just standing in the middle of the path. If the govt. comes forward, many promoters will surely come forward. The news reports are openly saying that Awas Vikas Vibhag of Uttrakhand is toothless.

The govt. has forgotten about providing affordable shelter to the poor for which it has a department. It is in fact working against the poor and anyone else who is willing to help them. We do see with regularity the removal of `unauthorized tenements’ that the people are forced to build because of poverty and no help from anywhere else.

I would like the reader to decide who the enemy of the housing for the poor is.

Param Jigyasu

 

PURPOSE OF THIS BLOG

A blog is not about a story,it is about a thought process or a continuing train of thoughts. I have a simple middle class urban existence in a small town. Like everyone I am exposed to a large no. of ideas and things every day. I am witness to the results of Government Policies both State and Central. I am witness to the changes in the corporate world, the new things and services that are available to us. I am witness to the vast marketplace that this world has become, Things from all over the world are available right here. I am also witness to the greed of just about everyone in the government machinery. I am witness and almost a victim of the devious ways of the companies which want to take out money from everyone's pocket without giving goods and services commensurate with the money.  There is nothing new in this thought that keeps coming back to me is that if every body delivered exactly what they charged for or did exactly what they were supposed to do, rendered the exact change,did no corruption and remained happy to live within their means: life would be uncomplicated and all of us would be happy.  Almost every day I come across instances where the Government, some company, some bank, some vendor or some common folk are blatantly making a fool of the others , or doing some thing completely unethical or doing something which is harmful to the environment.  Sometimes people both vendors and consumers are unaware of the harmful consequences of some acts.( like Halwais (Sweet sellers) using excessive artificial color in the sweets. (Color is almost always toxic, but consumers in small town and villages often do not know this)  It is the purpose of this blog to bring to the fore some of these issues big and small to the public knowledge. its not as if the readers of this blog wont know these things already, I feel some of us often do not attach enough importance to it and I want you to.