Herald, 30 May 2008 Infrastructure Development: To What End?
By Vidyadhar Gadgil The agitation against mega-projects in Goa, which are changing the character and nature of Goan villages and causing tremendous ecological damage, is acquiring greater strength and spreading to every nook and corner of Goa. Similar movements against mining and the excesses of the tourism industry have also emerged, and the entire phenomenon is threatening the political establishment, which is now closing ranks across party lines against people’s expression of their democratic rights. But in the midst of all this, one aspect of ‘development’ that goes relatively unchallenged is infrastructure development by the government. Many of these government projects are huge and can cause incalculable damage, but there seems to be a tacit acceptance that these projects are necessary. Among the grandiose projects on the anvil are the airport at Mopa, the four-laning of the NH17 stretch passing through Goa, and the construction of various bridges, most importantly the one across the river Zuari. There are also proposals for cricket stadia and, if the plans to host the 2011 National Games fructify, an entire games village. And there is a plethora of smaller infrastructure projects at various stages of implementation across Goa. The government is not bound by the same regulations and restrictions as are private builders. Since government projects are presumably for infrastructure and are based on projected future needs, they are accorded a certain level of sanctity. Aiding this are colonial-era legislations like the Land Acquisition Act, which enables the government to acquire land for public purposes. In Goa, amendments have been brought in to the TCP Act to exempt government projects from the restrictions imposed by the Regional Plan. It could be argued that in the early years of independent India this was necessary. India had, in Nehru’s words, a ‘tryst with destiny’, and this tryst was to be kept through the ‘temples’ of modern India -- massive dams, public sector industries and a variety of infrastructure projects. There was very little questioning of the development process in those hopeful days. But subsequent evidence has shown that many of the projects were essentially white elephants. Furthermore, the costs and benefits were very inequitably distributed. The costs were paid by the poorest of the poor, including tribals and scheduled castes; the benefits were cornered by the elites and the middle classes. While the record of planned development is pretty dismal, at least one could argue that it appeared to be the best possible strategy to bring the country out of poverty, and did yield some short-term benefits . The motivation, at least, was positive. But that began to change in the 1980s and 1990s with the onset of neoliberalism. The theory was that the government had failed in bringing about development, and that the process should now be left to ‘market forces’, i.e., the private sector. But what has actually happened is a strengthening of the nexus between the government and the private sector; the powers of the government have been placed at the service of the private sector. One sees this in the case of the SEZs. If there were really a belief in market-led development, private parties should have been left to go to the market and acquire land to set up SEZs. Instead, government powers have been used to acquire large swathes of land below market price. These are then turned over to the promoters of SEZs, in what is nothing but a massive real estate scam. In places like Chhattisgarh, the powers of the government have been used to create private armies like the Salwa Judum, to enable the tribal population to be dispossessed of their lands, which can then be turned over to industrial groups. In Goa, while this syndrome has been operating with the SEZs, IT parks and food parks, it has also been happening in the case of various realty projects, where the government acts as an enabling mechanism for private sector players to reap their profits. This was evident from a recent statement by Amar Britto of Acron Developers. Reacting to the protests against mega-projects, he points out that “poor infrastructure is at the heart of many of our problems”, and that this is the problem that should be tackled rather than opposing mega-projects. In other words, the government should provide the infrastructure to enable developers to build their projects and reap their profits, irrespective of the fact that these mega-projects are of no benefit to the people at large. Another major flaw in infrastructure development is that it is based on projections made on the assumption that things can continue indefinitely just as they are now -- that natural resources are inexhaustible and that we can continue to exploit them forever, without irreversible damage to the environment. There are two aspects here: the first is about the desirability of allowing such a process to continue, when the ill-effects are all around us; and the second is the issue of whether such a process can continue. Already the worldwide food crisis indicates that all is not well with agriculture. There are clear signs of an environmental breakdown, of which global warming is the clearest sign. And the continuing rise in the prices of oil is only going to get worse. Yet plans are made for more and more infrastructure without taking any of this into account. The recent draft report of the Task Force on the Regional Plan indicates that no lessons have been learnt. The profuse rhetoric about transparency and people’s participation notwithstanding, there are no actual mechanisms to achieve these. The village-level survey, which was supposed to provide crucial inputs into this process, has not been conducted. Essentially, there has been no attempt to gauge the genuine needs of the people. But none of this has deterred the government from going ahead with its planning exercise. After all, planning is not really about people’s needs. As long as the road is cleared for more and more projects to be approved, things are fine. As Steven Wilkinson has pointed out in a study “The Politics of Infrastructural Spending in India”, infrastructural projects are essentially about building political support and about channelling money to politicians and parties. The rot has reached quite serious proportions, with all concepts being twisted into their opposites. Improving education means that centralised school complexes will be built. Beautification of a riverside means that invaluable mangroves will be destroyed to be replaced by concrete. A bridge across a river, more than being a link between two places, becomes an unnecessarily expensive tourist attraction. In such a scenario, citizens need to be vigilant and examine all proposals for infrastructure projects with caution. We need to critically examine whether all this infrastructure is really needed, or whether it will only lead to further growth that will create a need for yet more infrastructure projects, in a mutually destructive circle. -- Question everything -- Karl Marx
