Development
for the Rich
(Kaisa
Vikas? Kiska Vikas?)
SECTION-1:
INTRODUCTION The Indian economy
grew much faster in the 1980s than between 1950 and 1980. But this was driven
by government expenditure through domestic and external borrowing, along with
opening up to imports. The result was a severe balance of payments crisis. In
1991 when the crisis reached its peak, the government took massive loans from
the IMF and World Bank, even though other options such as taxing upper-income
groups and restricting imports were also available.
This period was marked by the dominance of
international finance capital and the collapse of the Soviet Union as a
countervailing force to the Western countries, which led to a serious
questioning of self-reliant development as pursued by India and many
other developing countries. Major policy changes followed. Under pressure from
the IMF and the World Bank as well as the US
and other Western powers, successive governments in India embarked on the path of
liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG) and adopted the ideology
of neo-liberalism.
Neo-liberalism Liberalization involves
loosening of government control over the economy in favour of market forces.
Government investment is gradually withdrawn, while private capital, and
specially foreign capital, are encouraged in all sectors. This implies that the
broader social good is no longer the guiding principle, but expansion of the
private sector into all parts of the economy including public services is
assumed to be for the greater public benefit by definition, even though
evidence may show that only some sections actually benefit.
Privatization relates
not only to government selling public sector units or shares in State-owned
enterprises to private companies, thus gradually dismantling the public sector,
but also opening up all sectors including education, health, infrastructure and
so on to private players, in the belief that running these services as
profit-making entities is better than promoting social well-being through
government action. Experience the world over shows that this leads to reduced
access of the lower-income groups to education, health, energy, transport and
other public services and infrastructure.
Globalization, the
third element of LPG, means opening up the country to all sorts of imports at
low taxes and with few government controls as regards items, quantity etc. Even more importantly, it means removing
restrictions on the free movement of capital into and out of India . This is
the single most important aspect of LPG reforms, and the one with the most
disastrous consequences. It has immediate impact on the government’s ability to
forge and implement an independent policy, since foreign investors can always
threaten to take their funds out of the country if it adopts policies they do
not like.
LPG calls for minimal taxes, government
regulation and government expenditure.
This has serious consequences for the government’s welfare programmes
and investment policies. Since 1991, successive governments in India have cut
back social welfare programmes and public investments, much to the detriment of
lower-income groups and sharply widening social and economic inequality.
Impact of Neo-liberal Policies Supporters of
neo-liberal policies point to the strong GDP growth in India after the 1980s. The average rate of growth over the entire
neo-liberal period has been over 6 percent, even going up to 8% over occasional
short periods. This is no doubt impressive during a period when most developed
countries have shown lower growth and only China has registered regular high
GDP growth of 9-10 percent over an extended period of 30 years.
The issue, however,
is not just GDP growth, but the nature and composition of growth, and its
implications for different socio-economic classes. First, it is the service
sector that is growing most rapidly. The share of the manufacturing sector in
GDP has been stagnating at about 16 percent of GDP, whereas the share of
agriculture and allied activities such as forestry and fishing, and mining and
quarrying, has declined to around 17 per cent. This has serious implications
for job creation. The services sector contributes 58 percent of GDP while its
share of employment is only 30 percent or lower.
Job creation has been
the lowest during the neo-liberal period than in the preceding decades.
Moreover, almost all increase in employment has been in informal jobs that not
only offer very low wages, but involve long working hours under poor
conditions, no welfare benefits, and are completely insecure with poor labour
rights.
The last two decades
have seen huge and continuing distress in the agricultural sector and the rural
economy. More than 300,000 farmers have committed suicide between 1997 and
2015. Growth in agriculture and food grain production has been the lowest since
independence during the neo-liberal period, with the annual growth rate being
just 0.6 per cent between 1995 and 2005. Agriculture and the rural economy have
been devastated by the neo-liberal policies that include severely reduced
subsidies to agricultural inputs, removal of restrictions on imports of
agricultural produce, reduced credit flows,
sharply curtailed government expenditure on rural infrastructure
including irrigation, agricultural research and extension services, and
weakened food security by imposing a targeted public distribution system,
excluding millions of the poor from access to food at affordable costs.
Neo-liberal policies have also not made a significant impact
on poverty in terms of its depth, severity and wide spread, even though
governments have often claimed the contrary. Recent research shows that per
capita income decreased between 1994 and 2005 in places located more than 5 km
away from urban settlements, such regions accounting for over half the
population of India .
With the global economic crisis and its impact on the Indian economy, small
increases in employment between 2005 and 2015, and continuing sharp cuts in
subsidies, the extent of poverty is likely to have gone up in recent years.
Food insecurity is a
widely prevalent condition in India .
There has also been no significant
reduction in malnutrition, and the indicators even show a worsening in some
parts of the country especially among socially and economically vulnerable
sections.
Inequality It is well known that India ’s development over three
decades of neo-liberal reform policies has been highly unequal. Reports have
brought out that the net worth of India's billionaires has increased dramatically by 12 times
in the past 15 years, enough to eliminate absolute poverty twice over in the
country. Income inequality is also on the rise. India is ranked fifth in
terms of number of billionaires with 70 billionaires, 17 more than in 2013.
Interestingly, India has a higher
number of these super rich individuals than Germany ,
Switzerland , France and Japan
With further informalization of
the labour force, slow growth of employment, severe agrarian crisis and
cutbacks in expenditures on social protection and food, fertiliser and energy
subsidies, as well as the privatization and commercialization of education and
health, inequality across social classes and across the rural-urban divide has increased
significantly over the period of neo-liberal policies.
Besides income inequality, there
are also the other axes of inequality such as gender, caste and rural/urban. In
all these dimensions, the degree of inequality in terms of wealth, incomes and
access to health and education have all increased substantially.
Perhaps the most tragic outcome of neo-liberal policies
in India India
Against
the above background, one would have expected that the government’s development
policies would be directed at reversing this trend of increasing social and
economic inequality. The new government’s slogan of “sab ka saath, sab ka
vikas” (i.e. development for all, with participation of all) may have given
rise to expectations that steps to reduce these inequalities would be reduced.
On
the contrary, the key flagship development programmes of the government reveal
its intention to promote greater development for the urban, better-off sections
which can only worsen the inequalities noted above between rich and poor, urban
and rural, and along social fault lines of caste, gender and region.
Flagship Development Programmes The major development
programmes being pursued by the present government follow the broad development
pathway outlined above and closely follow the neo-liberal prescription.
The Case Studies in
this Booklet would make clear how the development trajectory as represented by
these flagship schemes are heavily tilted towards the better-off sections and
the so-called “aspirational” middle-classes i.e. those upper-income sections of
the middle classes who look forward to somehow achieving living standards and
amenities like those in developed countries. Unfortunately, what these sections
do not fully appreciate is that the few supposedly “world class” infrastructure
or facilities that are created are, in most cases, either not really up to
international standards or are doomed to remain islands of prosperity in the
midst of grinding poverty, deprivation and lack of access with regard to
amenities and public services such as for education, health, transport and
energy for cooking, lighting, cooling or heating. Can such isolated examples of
infrastructure or facilities really be considered “development,” if they are
accessible only to a small upper-income segment and leave the rest of the
population with little or no access to them? Are the rest of the population
supposed to merely stare at these “wonders” from far away, and dream of some
day actually being able to enjoy them? Is this really “sab ka saath, sab ka
vikas” (“with all and development for all”)?
The Case Studies
also show that huge amounts of public money are being spent on these examples
of lopsided “development,” while at the same time people of this country are
told that there are no funds for expanding or providing quality education, or
to provide health care to the masses? In all such cases, the State is rapidly
withdrawing from these sectors, citing a shortage of funds, and opening the
doors to the private sector including even foreign companies and multi-national
corporations. Gradually even education and health are getting beyond the reach
of the common man, while even the middle-classes are forced to turn towards
private providers of services at ever-higher costs.
Neo-liberal
economics, as dictated by the advanced countries and by multi-lateral agencies
such as the World Bank and the IMF, demands that even though the poor cannot
afford even rudimentary facilities or services, existing subsidies should be
withdrawn and the very idea of subsidies, even for subsistence requirements, is
wrong. Yet at the very same time, there
is no hesitation in extending all kinds of subsidies and support to
corporations, industrialists, trading companies and the upper middle classes!
It is well known, for example, that huge loans extended to private companies or
prominent industrialists are lying unreturned, that massive so-called
non-performing assets (NPA) which are in reality loan defaults exist and are
mounting, and that such loans have often been secured through unfair means,
without adequate collateral or necessary requirements. Similarly, enormous
amounts of taxes are outstanding from corporations and prominent businessmen or
other rich people. These are, in effect, subsidies to the rich, to the
corporate class and to private companies while public expenditure for
education, health and food and nutrition security is denied to the poor,
lower-income groups and the toiling middle-classes.
The Case Studies
in this Booklet, on Bullet Trains, Smart
Cities , Regional Airports
etc India
No doubt some
people will criticize the opinions expressed in this Booklet. Those expected to benefit from such schemes
will of course differ, and may not care if other sections do not benefit. But
there will also be those who believe that a few show-case projects will make
the Indian people proud of their nation’s achievements. And some sections of
the aspirational middle-class may hope that even if only elite sections get
benefits today, their own turn will come tomorrow, and soon others too will
benefit. In reality, everybody knows that “trickle down” economics does not
work. All over the world under neo-liberalism, the rich get richer, income
disparities get wider, and concentration of wealth increases. Same applies to infrastructure
or facilities, those created for the rich will remain with and for the rich
only, and will not mean that similar or comparable facilities will be available
for ordinary people.
The Case Studies
show that the vision of “Development” being put forward is an elitist model
designed to cater to and please upper-income urbanites and supposedly show the
world that India is making rapid strides in economic growth, has the ability to
spend vast amounts of money, and is catering to a growing upper middle-class
whose substantial purchasing power should attract further foreign investment
which has now become such a dominant goal of Indian economic policy.
=========================================================
CASE
STUDY 1: SMART CITIES
The
Government has launched one of Prime Minister Modi’s pet programmes, namely to set
up 100 “smart cities,” along with plans for upgrading 500 towns and cities
(Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation or AMRUT), and a pledge
to provide housing for all by the 75th anniversary of Indian
independence in 2022, a target that requires an improbable 20 million housing
units.
Taken together,
these programmes with an outlay of around Rs.2 lakh crores ($33 billion)
including contributions of the States, with eventual expenditure many times
that amount if the expected private sector investments are included, constitute
perhaps the largest development initiative announced by this Government and
highlights how important the programme is for this government and its
leadership. The Scheme also underlines the government’s belief in urbanization
as “an engine of economic growth,” especially of a certain kind.
The government’s
Concept Note released in November 2014 laid out the goal very clearly: the Note
said that “smart cities” are meant to respond to increasing urban migration and
to cater to the “neo middle class… [and its] aspiration of better living
standards.” Clearly, there is no illusion about who is expected to benefit from
this Scheme.
This new policy not
only embodies an urbanization-led development pathway but also a vision of what
these new centres of modernization and economic growth would be like. The
“smart cities” programme outlines a specific urban model that other cities
would aspire to, while requisite infrastructure would be laid in the 500 AMRUT
cities as a stepping stone to become smart cities sometime in the future. Let
us see what exactly this “smart city” model is and who would benefit from it.
Elitist
Gated Enclaves We have put the term “smart cities” within quotes is because the
term is being used very differently in India
In
this sense, the use of the term “smart city” in
Of
course, 24x7 electricity supply, quality water supply and recycling, clean air,
good educational and health care services, entertainment and sports facilities,
dependable security, high speed interconnectivity, fast and efficient urban
mobility as promised for “smart cities” are not attributes specific to smart
cities but should be available in all Indian cities, not only in some select
areas supposedly providing “European-standard” lifestyles. But the Concept Note
makes doubly clear that the 100 “smart cities” in India are being set up as
special and isolated luxury zones for upper-income groups and the corporate
class, what are known as “gated localities,” by promising “simple and
transparent on-line business and public services that make it easy to establish
a business and run it efficiently without any bureaucratic hassles.” There is token
acceptance that skilled labour too would be required but, other than that, the promised
“smart cities” appear to be residential and commercial islands for higher-income
professionals and corporates with provision for some essential workers and
service providers. It is left unclear if the latter will reside within or
outside the “smart cities.”
Evidence that ‘smart cities” in India greenfield business
district located between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, initiated when PM Modi was
Chief Minister of Gujarat . GIFT is visualized
as a global financial services hub with state-of-the-art communications,
infrastructure and transport links to the main city. Wave
City near Ghaziabad
on the periphery of Delhi is another example, a greenfield
This elitist orientation of “smart
cities” is also illuminated by other indications. While high quality education
and health services are spoken of, much of these are expected to be in the
private sector, including a 50-100 acre “medi city” in each “smart city” for
tertiary health care. All services are expected to be provided by private or
PPP entities operating on full cost recovery
including capital costs, a long-time favourite neo-liberal World Bank prescription.
Presumably, the urban poor will look after themselves outside the “smart
cities” which have no place for them.
Against best practices Whereas
the government has been making much of giving States a lead role in the process
of selection and project formulation, it is clear that the Centre is the main
if not sole arbiter, especially since it controls the funds.
Funding
itself is curiously structured. Although the “smart cities” as envisaged are
necessarily infrastructure heavy, the plan envisages that most infrastructure
will be taken up either through private investment or through PPPs, which the
State governments and concerned urban local bodies (ULBs) will raise, with the
Central Government’s contributions in the form of Viability Gap Support. This
despite the PPP models in urban infrastructure having totally failed in India
Besides
burdening the ULBs with this onerous responsibility, there is little or no
empowerment, capacity building and decentralization of responsibility to ULBs,
internationally considered to the cornerstone of modern urban development, and
which lies behind the many success stories in China
or the smart cities of Barcelona , Singapore , Seoul
In contrast, in India all “smart cities”
Projects will be implemented by special purpose vehicles (SPVs) manned by
unelected bureaucrats and consultants, by-passing the elected Urban Local Bodies
and directly undermining the 74th Amendment to the Constitution
aimed at strengthening democratic and representative urban governance, just as
the 73rd Amendment supports Panchayat Raj Institutions.
Flawed
Concept of Urbanization In fact, the very perspective of the
present dispensation on urbanization is deeply flawed. The “smart cities”
Concept Note argues that urban centres are “engines of growth,” and that if
previous governments had realized this, India
The Note repeats the usual
correlations between increasing rates of urbanization and GDP growth, and
projects that urban areas will contribute 75% of GDP by 2030 as against 60%
currently. But is growth really caused by urban growth? There is substantial
evidence to indicate that urbanization and rural-urban migration in India
Job creation has stagnated in India India ,
projections show that even in 2050, as much as 50% of India
No doubt
urbanization is increasing at a fast pace in India India India
The 2014 UN Report
on World Urbanization Prospects notes that rapid and unplanned urbanization has
in fact led to “urban sprawl, high levels of pollution and environmental
degradation, together with unsustainable patterns of production and consumption
patterns,” thus compelling a global agenda to forge a new model of urbanization
“that integrates all facets of sustainable development, to promote equity,
welfare and shared prosperity in an urbanizing world development.”
======================================
CASE STUDY 2: BULLET TRAINS Another
glamour project of the present government is the introduction of Bullet Trains
in India China
and Turkey India
However, a closer examination
shows that it involves enormous expenditure, will serve only a tiny proportion
of rail passengers and, to boot, will have economically non-viable high fares,
almost certainly calling for subsidies for a better-off class of passengers.
And this will be at the cost of better amenities and services for the
overwhelming bulk of ordinary lower-income and middle-class rail passengers,
who will continue to be provided slow and poor services on ageing
infrastructure and overcrowded railway lines, even while the government never
gets tired of bemoaning a lack of funds for improving infrastructure and the
subsidies being extended to this class of passengers.
Once again, a
lopsided developmental model following the neo-liberal paradigm is being put
forward which benefits a very small section, less than 10%, of those at the top
of the pyramid while ignoring the interests of over 90% of the people.
Let
us examine the Bullet Trains programme more closely, in the light of
well-documented international experience.
Proposed High Speed Rail Projects in India A favourite idea of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, also highlighted in the BJP Manifesto, is to introduce High
Speed Rail (HSR) in India
The longer-term plan
of the present government is not just one or two small stretches as has been
contemplated off and on over the years, but to build HSR corridors over a vast
6000km long “diamond quadrilateral” going around the country, somewhat like the
“golden quadrilateral” of highways initiated by the Vajpayee-led NDA government
in the late nineties. This would be a huge and dramatic infrastructure project
that would loudly project India
Many
transportation experts, financial institutions, sections of the financial press
and even renowned HSR engineering companies have expressed their scepticism
about these projects based on assessments of costs, ridership, possible ticket
prices, viability and societal benefits.
First
we should be clear about the technical definition of Bullet Trains or High
Speed Rail (HSR). Although HSR is defined in multiple ways in different
countries, the most widely accepted term defines HSR as embracing three specific
aspects namely Speed (maximum speed of at least 250 kmph, special track and special
operating conditions especially locomotives and carriages designed integrally
with infrastructure for complete compatibility, safety and high-quality
performance.
In
India
If
India is adopting HSR
because developed countries have it, the international experience itself
provides enough evidence as to why HSR is a bad choice for India , and will always be a luxury project
serving the rich that India
International experience The best-known HSR
networks, and most cited as examples for other countries to follow, are the
pioneering Japanese shinkansen, the well-established European national
and transnational networks, and recently the Chinese HSR which has dramatically
expanded to cover almost 20,000km over a decade and a half!
Experience
in Europe and elsewhere have broadly borne out
these basic characteristics of viability, namely medium distances, high-density
business routes, fares competitive with air fares, relatively high spending
capacity, and high frequency services.
The French TGV
(for grand vitesse or high speed) was started in the Paris-Lyon stretch,
again one of the most crowded intercity lines in France Japan till the Fukushima
Not all countries
would or can adopt such a course. The UK
The
US started a single route HSR
service early, along with the UK Philadelphia -Boston -New York -Washington DC
Of
course, all these norms appear to collapse in the case of China China ’s first operational line opened in 2003,
but poor performance led China
to change direction and import technologies from France ,
Germany and Japan China had the world’s longest HSR network covering
around 8,400km and beating Japan
But standard seats
on the 2,200km route from Beijing
Re-think
Indian HSR According to the feasibility reports prepared
by international consultants, HSR in India is expected to cost around
Rs.250 crore per km. The roughly 415km Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor is expected to
cost around Rs.86,000 crore, so we can just imagine what the “diamond
quadrilateral” project connecting the 4 major metros would cost.
More importantly,
passenger tariffs are expected to be around Rs.8 per km or Rs.3200 for this
short Mumbai-Ahmedabad and services should cover many trains running every hour
to be financially viable. With even air fares of under Rs.2000 in this sector, these
numbers clearly do not suggest viability. Most probably, therefore, fares will
be subsidized under the guise of “initial promotional offers” or “viability gap
funding” (VGF).
Such over-ambition
in favour of some vanity projects designed to show-off advanced projects
although only benefiting elite sections, like showing off 5-star hotels, have
come crashing in other developing countries too. Argentina
embarked on a bold HSR venture in 2006 linking its three largest cities Buenos Aires , Rosario and Cordoba Argentina
All this comes at
a time when emphasis is being placed on making rail passenger services viable
and self-supporting, with major restructuring being planned for the Railways
including unbundling, privatization, and independent regulators fixing no doubt
higher fares. 90% of railway passengers
travel on 2nd Class Sleeper or lower classes and deserve good
quality services for long distance journeys. There are already huge noises
being made that the financial health of the Railways is suffering due to
subsidies for this class of passengers. Clear signals are being sent out that
rail fares will be raised, and a beginning has already been made with so-called
“surge prices” for some premium trains. Huge popular pressure needs to be
mounted to ensure that lower-income groups, the rural masses and the salaried
middle-classes are not burdened by a spiralling rise in prices for rail
services in the days to come.
In this scenario,
non-viable and elite-oriented Bullet trains which will inevitably call for
subsidies of one kind or another, clearly do not find a place and should be
withdrawn.
===========================================================
CASE
STUDY 3: REGIONAL
AIRPORTS
Many
people may ask: why are we discussing something as remote from the lives of
common people as regional airports and air services? Surely, there must be more
important things to discuss, which touch most of our lives? Even Urbanization
and Rail Services impact on the lives of the common citizen and discussions of Smart Cities
New Civil Aviation Policy The
recently announced National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP), much touted for being
the first ever policy framed for this sector, is another such pro-rich policy.
Two aspects in the
NAPC stand out and are discussed here. First, an explicit commitment to invest
State effort and public funds, including subsidies, on expanding the civil
aviation customer base and related infrastructure, with the perspective that
this will have a multiplier effect on the economy and will benefit the common
man. Second, the idea that a set of fiscal, procedural and regulatory
incentives will open the floodgates of private sector investment especially FDI
into sub-sectors that are not doing well, even though the real reason behind
the sluggishness is that, in the face of persistent private sector reluctance
and lack of capacity, the State has been and continues to be unwilling to
directly apply itself to the task. Two contradictory impulses are at work
behind these policy directions, both based on fundamental misconceptions, and
neither of which will yield the desired results.
Regional Connectivity Scheme The big argument in NCAP is that civil aviation has a multiplier
effect on the economy, generating 3.25 times economic growth per unit of
investment, and over 6 times the number of jobs compared to average GDP growth,
that too especially for “semi-skilled and un-skilled workers” if NCAP is to be
believed, presumably such as porters, loaders and taxi-drivers. It further
argues that, if the estimated 300 million strong middle-class buys just 1 air
ticket a year, this would mean a more than 4-fold increase! The Policy
therefore seeks to “take to take flying to the masses by making it affordable
and convenient… especially on regional routes” which are currently
under-served. This is pure myth and serves only to mislead the public that this
pro-rich expenditure is for the benefit of the common man who, of course, does
not travel by air. NCAP argues that this potential calls for a massive and
rapid expansion in air passenger and cargo traffic, which in turn “will require
concessions by the Central and State Governments and Airport Operators.”
Through
a new Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), the Policy seeks to open up air
connectivity to existing non-functional or new airports in small towns and
cities on hitherto un-served or under-served regional routes. The Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) would provide subsidy or Viability Gap
Funding (VGF) for a “significant part of the capacity,” (some reports say
this could be around 50 percent) of such routes of around 500-600km distance or
1 hour flight. Fares would be capped at Rs.2500 per seat, and a host of other
concessions and incentives would be offered apart from fare subsidies.
Currently,
commercial operations are underway in 75 out of a total of 450 airstrips or
airports in the country, some of which are being used for the odd charters,
flying clubs or other purposes. RCS seeks to revive and upgrade selected
airstrips/ airports on the basis of demand by airlines, with MoCA pledging to
meet up to 80 percent of the estimated Rs.50-100 crore cost with State
Governments meeting the balance 20 percent, the ratio being 90:10 in case of
the North-East, “without insisting on financial viability” (emphasis
added). State Governments will be required to provide all necessary land free,
levy only 1 percent VAT on aviation fuel, reduce excise duties etc etc.
The
subsidy would come from a yet-to-be-specified levy on all air passengers
travelling on trunk routes.
There
are many issues related to whether this scheme will work at all, as discussed
below. But the bottom line is that the Government will pay for upgrading new
airports, and will subsidize the airlines and passengers by contributing to
around half the passengers’ fares and capping them. Corporate circles are
overjoyed, airline shares have shot up and the pink press is overwhelmingly
congratulatory. That is paradoxical indeed, considering that the corporate
sector and pro-liberalization commentators in general have always cried hoarse
against subsidies and government “hand-outs,” especially when it comes to the
masses, for instance the 90 percent of railway passengers who travel by
second-sleeper or lower classes cross-subsidy for whom has long been begrudged
as a drag on profitability and the economy. But subsidies for the rich and for
private airlines are no problem, and viability of airports is of no
concern!
Not workable However,
despite the fond hopes of a State-led and State-subsidized expansion of
air passenger traffic, the idea itself will simply not work, ironically because
of contemporary market realities.
Of
the 75 airports currently in operation, several are already non-viable, have
very slim passenger traffic or aircraft movement, and really have little to
justify their continued functioning. For example, the once prestigious Mysore Mysore Mysore Mysore Airport India Mysore
Back in 1994, under
so-called Route Dispersal Guidelines (RDG), the pre-merger state-owned monopoly
carrier Indian Airlines was ordered to run services on what were then
loss-making routes to the North-East, the Islands ,
J&K and some Tier-II and Tier-III cities. In many cases, these locations
were remote, with virtually no other connectivity to the mainland or were
considered to be of tourist or strategic importance such as Jaipur, Agra
Of
the current 75 operational airports, around 25 even today cater to less than
250 passenger movements (in-coming and out-going together) per day, or roughly
3-4 aircraft movements daily! And this
includes large or prominent locations such as Khajuraho, Allahabad ,
Gorakhpur , Gwalior ,
Agra and Kanpur
It
is highly doubtful if a credible list of locations could be drawn up that are
so remote or so strategically located that they need or can justify the
Regional Connectivity Scheme drawn up under the NCAP? Or is this just wishful
thinking, or will they be just vanity projects favoured by Chief Ministers or
local MPs or other VIPs? Unlike the RDGs of yore, there is unlikely to be sound
justification for any significant list of deserving airports or routes. And
even if subsidy were to be given, they would be very unlikely to justify
themselves a few years down the line.
So
here is a case of the State going out of its way to subsidize transport
services for the better-off, going against the prevailing market-governed
wisdom, with little justification in terms of objective criteria and fewer
rewards even in the long run.
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