Last updated : TUESDAY 13 MAY 2008

Sheltering the Many
Dr BK Mukhopadhyay
Needless to say, housing has been one of the neglected areas during the planning era. Though such requirement was felt long ago, its success has not been on the expected lines. Even in the field of financing such activities, the effects have not kept pace with the requirement — spatially, temporarily, functionally and hierarchically.
If we go deep into the problem, we will find that not only in our country, but also in many parts of the world, the problem of housing has been looming large and virtually taking a back seat despite the demand. As a result, even in economies like China, Sri Lanka and Philippines, there are still gaps on this score. The challenges have reached such a level that by 2025, because of high growth rate of population, cities like Kolkata and Mumbai would bear the brunt of the challenges in the housing sector, as per UNDP projections.
Naturally, thrust on the housing sector has assumed significance. One more crucial — and disturbing — factor is the one arising out of natural disasters like cyclones, floods and earthquakes. These disasters keep on visiting many parts of the country almost on a regular basis.
Investment in housing as a proportion of the total Plan outlay has declined from 34 per cent in the first Plan to 12 per cent in the eighth Plan. Thereafter, it has continued to move to lower levels. Scarcity of developed land, construction cost hike, occasional scarcity in the matter of availability of building materials, skilled manpower shortage and highly speculative land cost trend have added fuel to the fire. Government incentives and near stability — till a couple of years back — in prices have, however, acted as a saviour.
Most banks and other financial institutions have been making foray into the housing sector so as to have a rising share. The recent budget has also given a better thrust to housing and housing finance activities — such as repeal of ULCRA, increase in depreciation rate in respect of new dwelling units purchased by companies for their employees, change in the previous method of taxing on loans from accrual basis to actual basis, changes in foreclosure laws through amendments to the NHB Act, and obviously the stipulation of lending by banks to the housing sector. A good deal of publicity as resorted to by banks and private financiers has also acted as a timely booster.
In fact, the well-publicized 20-point programme, and thereafter the formulation and implementation of the programme, did cover such aspects in the rural context. Subsequently, housing has been treated as one of the areas under priority sector. Finance extended has grown quite very rapidly. Yet, it has been found to be inadequate in as much as the banks extended only a low percentage of the total advance to this area. It is only in the recent past that banks — private, public and foreign — have given the housing sector a renewed thrust.
Many housing finance companies — both in the public and private sector — are coming forward to play their due roles. The works done by HUDCO and NHB deserve fair mention. Even so, the magnitude of the problem is so big that mere extension of credit on a stray basis may not yield the desired result, especially keeping in view the demand for urban and rural housing that has been on the rise in recent times. One must take into account the rising cost of construction too. This apart, delay in project implementation has also affected the very purpose of low-cost housing.
The demand for shelters in urban areas is extremely high. The top 100 towns and cities in the country have experienced urbanization and unplanned growth to the extent that new socio-economic and environmental problems have arisen. A considerable portion of agricultural land has also been encroached upon, with no significant planned development there. Though there has been good growth in input supplying sectors — mainly steel, wood, and cement — the sheer absence of a comprehensive planning has been telling upon the very aspect of desired level of housing growth. At the same time, the newly built satellite towns have also failed to deliver as far as the supporting infrastructure requirements are concerned.
Housing is closely associated with several aspects of metropolitan/urban growth. Naturally, financing of sectors like infrastructure comes to the fore. However, even the facilities that have been created remain meagre compared to the effective demand. The magnitude of the problem is such that immediate investment is required. It has to be linked with economic and social development as a whole. One cannot afford to sustain with the procedures followed, which are rigid and have not reached the micro level to a significant extent.
It needs to be reiterated that simply asking the public to go for availing housing finance at a cheaper rate of interest will not solve the housing problem, whether in the rural sector or in the urban counterpart. Rather, there is need for a planned approach — spatially, temporally, functionally and hierarchically. There is tremendous scope in the housing sector, and an accentuated construction boom in the regional context would lead to income and employment generation. The planned townships are few in number. The prime need of the hour is to optimally utilize the potentialities, despite resource constraint. The growth of semi-urban areas would also contribute to the happening of housing.
In the given context, the role of panchayats and municipalities naturally assumes added significance. They have to ensure that projects are not initiated all of a sudden but only after a lot of homework is done. One must do away with the practice of completing projects after lapse of a considerable period of time and subsequent negligence in the matter of project supervision. What is needed is proper planning in order to accommodate the future population of the country.
(The writer is a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Bank Management, Guwahati)

Inspired by Newspapers
Madhusree Chatterjee
Contemporary art in India is drawing inspiration from a collage of new mediums, the most striking among them being daily newspapers and the internet. And Vadodara-based contemporary artist Ashutosh Bharadwaj’s works reflect just that.
Bharadwaj, whose works are on display at the Vadehra Art Gallery in the capital, is one among the current crop of contemporary painters who are falling back on alternative mediums, the internet and references from the past to colour their canvases with symbolic images and figurative forms. According to 27-year-old Bharadwaj, the borders between mediums are blurring and nouveou art is about gelling all forms and formats together. The show titled “Sleepwalker” opened in New Delhi on Saturday and will close June 5. The artist, who has shown his works in New York, Venice and South Korea, uses old newspaper clippings for ideas and research.
“Who said newspapers are cut and dried? It depends on how one reacts to news. Sometimes they act as imageries, themes and slogans to convey an idea,” Bharadwaj says. He has a huge collection of clippings, carefully filed over the last four years. “I often browse through them for new ideas.”
His multi-layered canvases use reportage and a documentary style, as a result of which his paintings, mostly in oil and acrylic, come across as a cross between promotional campaigns for brands and realistic landscapes touching upon gut issues.
His canvas, “Induced Epidemic”, a triptych (an early Christian form of panel painting usually found in sets of three) in oil on canvas, was inspired by a small newspaper clipping. “The clipping was about gadgets people design. It described a gadget to shape noses, which resembled a clothesline clip (like pincers). I loved the idea and the motif. And stored it,” the artist says.
Later, Bharadwaj chanced upon an image of a man-made carnation flower, about 7-feet-high, on the net. “I found that the hybrid flower and the nose-clip made an interesting connection,” the artist says.
He laid it out on the canvas in two segments — the blue clip at the top and red-and-russet carnation at the bottom. The overall composition, he said, was inspired by lifestyle television channel Zoom. “I liked what they were showing and it influenced my canvas.”
In his three-part series, “God has Alzeihmer’s”, Bharadwaj uses newspaper headlines of the Sensex bull runs of 1997, 2000 and 2008 to show progress and the ensuing chaos. And the title for the painting is sourced from the blurb of an old interview in a newspaper.
“Those three words stuck. I don’t even remember what the rest of the story was all about,” he says.
His themes range from economics to social issues and span almost everything that appears in the news dailies. For instance, “Animal Farms”, another three-part series with a hen, eggs, dairy pigs and a badly reproduced version of a stylised Chinese cloud (forming the sky) as the central motifs, is a comment on mass productions and the assembly line economy of affluent Asian nations.
“I use a broiler hen which lays an egg everyday to symbolize the mass production and the bad copy of the Chinese cloud to show the influx of cheap Chinese goods into the markets,” the artist explains. (IANS)

Pokhran-III Prospects Dead?
Tarun Vijay
W hat difference does it make who signed the Pokhran files? Brajesh Mishra, the powerful former security advisor to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, revealed a bit too late. There was a time when the Congress must have felt elated to claim making India nuclear. The first Pokhran test (in 1974) was their contribution and Indira Gandhi dared the Americans bravely. Should we be ashamed of it or try to delete that chapter from Indian history just because she happened to be another party’s leader?
If Rajiv Gandhi signed the file clearing the way for Pokhran-II and Vajpayee did take the final step successfully, should the fight be on credit or the efforts made for a unanimity on those brave acts to take the nation on the path of Pokhran-III — if ever required?
Indians should develop a habit of feeling elated to see any other Indian succeeding for the cause of the motherland. That way, the present United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has done injustice to the Indian cause celebre by refusing to celebrate the Pokhran-II anniversary.
It was certainly a great moment. Indira Gandhi did the first Pokhran blast and while PV Narasimha Rao could not muster courage after the leak to the Americans and their subsequent pressure, Vajpayee, like Shivaji, did the whole operation in such a grand fashion that all pervasive US satellites failed and the world shook on May 11, 1998, seeing mushroom clouds over the desert of Rajasthan. A peeved and bruised US imposed all sorts of sanctions fooled by the Europeans and the Japanese too. Who cared? We emerged taller and all the sanctions were removed without our applying for it in their durbar.
Remember the days when Americans were refusing supercomputers and Russians were stopped from providing cryogenic engines? The fuel crisis and the technological components, the essential parts for our nuclear plants and heavy industry, and so on so forth. All tactics were used to make us bend on knees and say sorry. India refused. Our scientists did us proud by producing supercomputer Param in less than half the American cost and as good, if not even better.
But everything has a price, especially to stand firm as a proud people. The cost India gave is certainly high; we have been longing to get the best in hardware for our nuclear plants and heavy industry. Even for our labs and IITs, the supplies got stuck post Pokhran-II and the votaries of signing the 123 agreement with the US put up the same argument — ink the agreement and get all what you need. The crowd crying to sign is the same that advocates beheading the solution for a headache.
A nation does not live just on uninterrupted power supplies and peaceful armed forces de-teethed to please some donors. And while donor nations keep on arming and financing our deadly enemies in the neighbourhood sitting pretty on their nuclear godowns, the nice sweet and energy-starved are advised to work on their peaceful purposes. India did its first explosion in May 1974 and named it ‘‘Smiling Buddha’’. That was Indira Gandhi’s time and we had a great patriotic scientist in Homi Bhabha. Even that time, those who are aggressively campaigning to cap our nuclear programme were frowning furiously at us and helped Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s ‘‘Islamic bomb’’ dreams get realized clandestinely.
Now India is surrounded by two unreliable nuclear power states and both of them have been at war with us, both of them have usurped a large part of our land and still clamouring for more. One of them has been singularly responsible for killings of more than 100,000 Indian citizens by way of direct war and proxy-wars through Islamic jihadis in the last three decades.
Apart from these two worthies, we are surrounded by failed states who threaten our security and territorial integrity. If Bangladesh, a ‘‘jihad factory’’, sends our dead soldiers tied to bamboo poles like animals and exports its extra heads to become our illegal guests, Sri Lankan battlefields have cast a bloody shadow on our domestic politics claiming one prime minister. And look at Nepal. The Red Army rule in Kathmandu means China reaching as close to us as Gorakhpur, and Badrinath.
In this scenario, it is not to suggest that we shall use tiny bits of nuclear explosions to silence the dangers, but having the strength to strike in times of need means having a credible deterrence to frighten the arrogant and mischievous aggressor. Given the past record, it is only India on this planet that can be trusted for using nuclear power for peaceful purpose that includes the purpose to maintain peace and scare the enemy from becoming the first striker.
(The writer is Director, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, a Right-wing think tank)

GU: A New Low
It is the second time that Gauhati University Vice Chancellor Dr Amarjyoti Choudhury has tendered his resignation following differences with the State government and dissatisfaction over the government’s sheer apathy towards the cause of the university as Dr Choudhury had envisioned when he took over charge. It is a new low for the oldest university of the Northeast. A man of integrity and commitment to the cause of the university, Dr Choudhury had had a radical blueprint for the institution of higher learning. His had been an attempt to bring back the past and lost glory of the university. However, he needed funds to translate his dreams into reality and would have the government come to his aid — especially when the government makes tall claims about its being ‘progressive’. It is clear that such pompous claims have been belied, thanks to the government’s casual approach to higher education or perhaps its inability to evolve a higher education policy coherent with the time and needs of the university. True, the State government did provide Rs 25 crore to the university. But even that was after Dr Choudhury had mounted tremendous pressure on the government. The grant was not a natural flow of funds to the university. It was not in any way a reflection of the government’s enthusiasm to upgrade the university. For, had it been so, and had the government paid heed to Dr Choudhury’s vision, it would have engaged the vice chancellor and the teaching fraternity of the university in a sustained and meaningful dialogue towards improving the financial health of the university and even created sources of funds to respond to what the vice chancellor had been demanding. Indeed, ‘‘Rs 25 crore’’ should have happened long ago without anyone asking for it.
That Dr Choudhury was frustrated is clear from his press statement: ‘‘I strongly believe that the vice chancellor should not hold on power if he realizes that he cannot translate his dreams into reality for financial compulsions that are beyond his control.’’ One would obviously ask: Are such financial compulsions even beyond the control of the Tarun Gogoi government? Surely not; one has to just look at the manner in which the state exchequer has been penetrated by unscrupulous elements, public money wasted and funds mismanaged, and of course the manner in which pilferage of funds is overlooked because any concrete action against the guilty entails a political cost too. Even so, and despite the fact that here is a government whose arrogance knows no bounds even when it is dealing with things purely academic, Dr Amarjyoti Choudhury should have chosen to remain at the helm of GU affairs and to give a new direction to the struggle of the university pitted against political whims. Dr Choudhury should have remained where he had been, as GU Vice Chancellor, to let the people of the State know of the government’s true hue and to sustain the fight therein. Resignation is not any solution of the problems afflicting the university. In fact, the State government would always look for a perfect yes-men to adorn the post of GU Vice Chancellor so that he/she would remain eternally indebted to the political masters of the day and talk government language as it is. Dr Choudhury should have fought differently — without leaving the university high and dry. After all, the university students were, and would be, with him. At the end of the day, what is crystal clear is that a man really worth the post of GU Vice Chancellor has been forced by circumstances to relinquish his position. And who is the supreme creator of such circumstances? Obviously the government. Who else?

Law and Order?
T he Jewel Gorlosa faction of the Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) is striking its targets — innocent workers — with an alarming alacrity. On Sunday, in North Cachar Hills district where the group is active, the rebels gunned down eight labourers engaged in the construction of railway quarters. That was just a day after the rebel group issued a diktat to stop all work on the East-West Corridor and broad gauge conversion projects in the district. Sunday’s attack on labourers is a sequence of killings that the Gorlosa faction has indulged in to prove its point and make its presence felt despite counter-insurgency operations. The group has killed unarmed and defenceless workers on a regular basis. So what would the Tarun Gogoi government have us believe? That the law-and-order situation is absolutely normal or has improved remarkably as it indeed claims? Or that despite the law-and-order situation being so, investors would rush to the State because ‘‘development cannot wait for improved law-and-order situation’’ as the Chief Minister once argued? The crux of the matter is that Asom is a typical case of anarchy. It is another matter that from their fortresses, the ministers do not see or feel anything.