It is the infrastructure STUPID!
by B G Mahesh Wednesday, October 20 2004 22:17 Hrs (IST)
The Kannada song that comes to my mind is "Oh Krishna nee begane baro" [Oh Krishna, please come soon]. The three men at helm of affairs in Karnataka, Ex-PM Deve "Son of Soil" Gowda, CM Dharam Singh and Deputy CM Siddaramaiah, are ignoring the public of Karnataka. Everyone is talking about how Bangalore was during SM Krishna's tenure as CM. The situation in Karnataka is so bad today that even astrologers have stopped predicting our future.
Read through the following links and you will see how Bangaloreans are yelling, moaning, crying and begging for help.
Since our politicians believe they are hard core Gandhians they have been doing a good job in not hearing, seeing or speaking of any evil. In their eyes complaining about infrastructure is "evil".
Income Tax Waiver for IT & BPO
Bangalore is known as the Silicon Valley of India, well atleast we Bangaloreans like to pamper ourselves everyday by reminding ourselves that all big IT and BPO companies are in Bangalore. Common man has asked this question many times, "How can the government fix the roads to keep IT chiefs happy when their companies don't pay any income tax? ". Well, Azim Premji has a solution for this - let his employees pay more tax!!.
But his employees are not happy about it. It is time for the Government to collect tax from companies that earn more than Rs 50 crore in profits.
Infact many argue that the roads have deteriorated after the BPO Qualis-Sumo army have been parading on Bangalore's roads 24x7 to spoil our roads further. It is time we Bangaloreans come to terms - our roads have valleys all over Bangalore.
And my unbiased suggestion is that Internet portals should instead be given this tax holiday ;-) Hey, we portals are finally making profits folks.
BangaloreIT.com: It is the infrastructure STUPID!
One has to admire Philips for taking a bold step in boycotting BangaloreIT.com.
STPI blames the media for these kinds of bad publicity but they need to understand that "it is the truth and nothing but the truth". STPI also needs to understand that nobody can blame STPI for bad infrastructure in Bangalore, it is not their department.
A particular locality too protested for having to go on bad roads, the very next week that locality was punished by not having water for many days. I was afraid the same thing would happen to these IT majors, but finally IT majors surrendered and decided to participate in the show.
Every flyover project is progressing at snail's pace. Government is just not bothered. The roads beside the upcoming flyovers are so bad that scooterists could fall and hurt themselves badly. But then who cares?
Talking about who cares you must visit Janaagraha. The Ramanathans have done a commendable job in bringing up a movement to improve Bangalore. But the new government has been very successful in ignoring Janagrahaa. The govt also tried to shut BATF but it may again be back in action. The shocking part is that the govt doesn't spend any money on these organisations and the govt gets excellent constructive advise but these NGOs are not wanted by the Karnataka Govt.
Pollution
The pollution on our roads is reaching an alarming level. Majority of the abusers are government buses, trucks and autorickshaws. It is very sad to see how the traffic policemen are made to stand on the roads for over 9 hours a day. These policemen are sure to get into very serious health problems as they get old [i.e. if they are lucky to live that long].
It is high time the traffic police association/union [if there isn't one they should talk to our friends in CPM] take action against the govt by filing a PIL [Public Interest Litigation]. Is it really that difficult for the government to enforce the anti-pollution laws on our roads today? They just lack the Will.
Kannada Vs Non-Kannada Movies
Bangalore has become very cosmopolitan over the last 10 years. Thanks to IT and now to BPO. Both tax-paying and non-paying companies have contributed to this development. Kannada movie-land (Sandalwood), is going thru depressing times, wonder if it is having hormonal problems.
Kannada movie actors and producers are insisting on stopping Hindi movies being released in Bangalore for 7 weeks. Most of them don't understand the logic - this move will not help the Kannada movie business. On the other hand it will hurt the people who work in theaters [security guards, cleaners, admin staff] who depend on this income for their daily bread, uh..sorry let me stick to being a Bangalorean "for their daily idlis and dosas". Just one or two actors and their families are behind this move. Even the PM had to call the CM to fix this problem.
The state government is losing a lot of money [sales tax] because of this movie embargo. Let the Kannada movie producers produce good movies and then people will atleast make an attempt to go to see their movies. As a compromise it may be useful to reserve a minimum of one theater in multiplexes for Kannada movies. Experiment this for one year, show to the producers if the theater made profits or losses.
Talking about Sandalwood, finally Veerappan is dead, so are the political secrets he had buried in his head and moustache
Finally our politicians can sleep in peace. Their secrets will remain as secrets.
So you thought paypal.com offered smooth transactions? WRONG! Money exchange operation between Veerappan and the politicians was so smooth that I bet even paypal.com would want to study this desi process.
And a friendly reminder to you all...the Bangalore International Airport is yet to start seriously. As if this was not depressing enough other projects decided to join this party - Bangalore Metro Rail and Bangalore Infrastructure Corridor!!
This infrastructure corridor project has been going on forever, Mr. Deve Gowda was the CM when he started this, then the PM, then the ex-PM and finally the Super-CM. Not sure if any these projects will ever see the light of the day anytime soon but they definitely look good on paper!
The author is the Co-Founder & CEO of Indiainfo.com Ltd. Views expressed in this article are his alone and not necessarily of Indiainfo.com Ltd.
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