Page 10 - EW May 2020 for Flipbuilder

Editorial

OPPORTUNITY FOR ELITE ATONEMENT direct benefit transfers into the bank
accounts of the country’s 150 million
poorest households, for the next 12
GRAVE INJUSTICE TO WHICH THE Grounded at their work sites, unable months. This sum can be returned
intelligentsia and great Indian to get back to their village homes due by the Union government to RBI by
A middle class are helpless spec- to suspension of public transport, mil- raising an additional Rs.8 lakh crore
tators, if not complicit, is spreading lions of them started out on foot to in the Union budget 2021-22. (see
across the country in the wake of the reach homes hundreds of miles away. https://www.educationworld.in/
novel Coronavirus, aka Covid-19 pan- Such is the faith of the country’s poor- union-budget-2020-21-small-change-
demic. The impact on the livelihoods est and weakest in government assur- for-human-capital-development/).
of an estimated 100 million migrant ances pertaining to their welfare. However it has not received any sup-
labour citizens has been the harshest To be sure, the Centre and states port.
ever since the stringent nationwide have taken some initiatives to provide Your editor’s guess is this proposal
lockdown was imposed on March 25 accommodation and food to stranded has not gained traction because it en-
for six weeks to prevent the spread migrant workers. The Union govern- visages additional (modest) taxation
of the pandemic, for which an anti- ment’s first relief package of Rs.1.7 of the middle class by way of slashing
dote has not yet been discovered. If lakh crore and second package of Rs.1 non-merit subsidies, reducing estab-
we assume that each migrant worker lakh crore for banks and finance com- lishment and defence expenditure, fire
obliged to seek low-wage employment panies aggregates a mere 1.18 percent sale of public sector enterprises and
far from home — because leaders of of GDP. On the other hand the US, a mere Rs.1,000 modest flat tax on
newly independent India adopted France, UK and several other coun- all income tax assessees. Clearly this
a nihilistic economic development tries have allocated near 10-15 percent package is unacceptable to the upper
model and persisted with it for over of GDP to compensate their citizens middle class which runs the country
four decades — has four dependents, for loss of livelihoods. and has cornered all the gains accru-
over 400 million of India’s 1.3 billion It’s not as though India, now a ing from independence from foreign
people are in danger of death by mal- middle income economy, lacks the rule seven decades ago.
nutrition and associated maladies, resources to provide meaningful re- The Covid 19 crisis offers India’s
including mental derangement and lief to the vulnerable majority dev- cruel middle and upper classes which
suicide. astated by the Covid virus. Your edi- include the intelligentsia and acad-
Stranded migrant labour, it’s perti- tor has been repeatedly advising the emy, an opportunity to atone for
nent to record, were given a mere four Central government to borrow a sum mistakes of the past. They can — and
hours’ notice before the national lock- of Rs.8 lakh crore (3.52 percent of should — be willing to bear some pain
down was imposed to prevent trans- GDP) from the RBI and immediately for the greater good of the least of
mission of the Covid-19 contagion. deposit Rs.4,444 per month by way of these our brethren.

LIFE-SAVING BRIDGE DELAYED TOO LONG (pop. 1 million plus) — as television
news anchors routinely intone with a
hint of pride — has grown into Asia’s
HE EMERGENCE OF PENINSULAR was first mooted in the 1970s when CI- largest slum habitation, and latterly a
Mumbai — the finance and com- DCO (City Development Corporation), Covid-19 hotspot.
Tmerce capital of India — as the a public-private civic planning organ- The silver lining to the dark Co-
most afflicted hotspot of the Covid-19 isation, was promoted to examine the vid-19 cloud looming over Mumbai
pandemic is the outcome of decades of proposal. However Cidco’s brief to is that work on building the Mumbai
civic planning neglect and unchecked connect Mumbai’s dockland area with Trans Harbour Link began on January
avarice. Mumbai’s condition is in- the Indian mainland was opposed ab 20 when the first girder was installed.
deed precarious. Of the total number initio by the get-rich-quick interests But before that four attempts of full-
of 81,970 reported Covid-19 positive of the city’s politician-builder nexus. scale bids to build the bridge begin-
cases countrywide, it has reported Instead Cidco — now a Maharashtra ning in 2004, were sabotaged by the
16,579, and of the total reported num- state government company — was realtor-politician lobby which fears a
ber (2,649) of fatalities nationwide, commissioned to connect the north- crash in Mumbai’s sky-high property
Mumbai has reported 621 (May 15). eastern suburbs of the city with Thane prices.
However the megpolis’ grim condi- in the north of the mainland through Originally scheduled for comple-
tion was a prophecy foretold. The ob- a modest 1.8 km expressway across a tion in 2019, and being constructed
vious solution to decongest the maxi- narrow creek. by Larsen & Toubro, IHI (Japan),
mum city (20 million) was to build a Meanwhile the number of officially Daewoo Corp (Korea) and Tata Proj-
road and rail bridge (s) to the India acknowledged slum habitations have ects, the new 21.8 km six-lane steel
mainland, a mere 8 miles (14 km) as also multiplied and currently over motor way toll bridge is scheduled for
the crow flies. This proposal which en- 40 percent of the city’s population completion in 2022. Unfortunately,
visaged a multi-purpose bridge from — even some corporate executives — although it will make Mumbai a bet-
Sewree in the Bombay dockland area live in inhuman conditions, acutely ter place in the future, it’s come too
to make landfall in New Bombay (aka experiencing appalling air, water and late to save the maximum city from
Navi Mumbai region) on the mainland sanitary pollution even as Dharavi the ravages of Covid-19.

10 EDUCATIONWORLD MAY 2020