IndiaPost.com - Indian minister in US to study transport systems

India Post News Service

NEW JERSEY: India’s Minister for Urban Development Jaipal Reddy was in the US and Columbia over the last couple of weeks to study the public transportation systems in this part of the world. "When we are undertaking major initiatives in public transport systems (in India) we must assimilate world experience, avoid their mistakes and learn from their experience," Reddy told India Post explaining the reason for his study tour.

The minister was on a multi-city tour from Bogota, Columbia to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC and New York to understand the mass transit systems here and adapt feasible projects to ease traffic congestion back in Indian cities. "Quite apart from the fact that we cannot put the infrastructure in place for so many roads the globe cannot afford the wastage of petrol on personalized transport," Reddy said justifying the dire need for increased mass public transport systems in the urban areas in India. "In India, roads are getting jammed even though they have been widened, and because of the tendency of new sections of society to buy cars. At the end of the day, in a huge country like India, there is no escape from extensive use of public transport."

Speaking to India Post after a community event organized in his honor by the American Telugu Association at the Ramada hotel in New Jersey on June 3, Reddy said, "In Bogota, Columbia, we studied the bus rapid transit system and in New York, the underground metro system."

Reddy said work on metro rail systems, similar to that already running in Delhi, has started in four other Indian cities including Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. "The Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) and I have already laid the foundation stone for these projects, so in another 4-5 years all major cities of India will have a huge metro rail facility."

Stating that the projects have been awarded through transparent, competitive bids, Reddy said in Delhi and Bangalore, the central government has given 50 percent funds by way of equity and is participating in a public-private model for the projects in Mumbai and Hyderabad. "One part of the Mumbai metro line has already been awarded to the Anil Ambani group," Reddy added. "Soon, second tier cities like Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Indore and Pune will also have major bus rapid transit systems."

Responding to a question on the need for social responsibility to ensure that poor farmers are not displaced in the urbanization wave, Reddy said, "Urban land or land as such is handled by State Governments and the Government of India has no say in it. But I think the farmer must be in some way made a stakeholder in the new venture then the controversy can perhaps be minimized."

Reddy further said that apart from providing compensation to the farmer, developers must make the farmer a part of the development process. "Land is acquired for various developmental projects, but the farmer should not be palmed off through one-time compensation. However, we need to increase our productivity. At any rate in 2007 nobody can say India does not need urbanization, and there’s no way of forcing people to stay back in villages.

There’s huge migration from rural areas to urban areas and those people need to be settled too." Compared to the western world where nearly 90 percent of the populations live in urban areas and 50 percent globally, only 30 percent of the population in India lives in urban areas, Reddy pointed out. "That is a sign of backwardness, and we still have a long way to go in urban development," he said. "However, by 2025, more than 750 million Indians will be urbanized."

On the issue of how the government is reconciling between modernizing the Indian society and tackling issues like the caste clashes in Rajasthan that arose with the Gujjar community demanding reservations in educational institutions and for jobs, Reddy rationalized saying, "After all we are an ancient society trying to become a modern democracy. Contradiction and conflicts are inevitable, but our democracy is so strong, it will be able to manage those contradictions."

Earlier, addressing a gathering of the New Jersey Telugu community, Reddy said NRIs in the US were more romantically attached to India than most Indians in India. However, he exhorted the NRI community to be loyal to their adopted country and "be Americans in America". "America is a great, liberal country which allows you to love America and India as well," he said. "But don’t be in America and think of India all the time."

Exhorting them to fund developmental projects in India, Reddy said, "You should give back to your native villages and alma mater back in India but when you do business with India, do it selfishly, not as charity." Reddy also said the Indian American community should be more politically involved. "More Indian Americans should take interest in American politics. You just need to connect to politicians, they are far more reasonable than politicians in India," he quipped.

At the event, the ATA also honored Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Minister for Irrigation in the Andhra Pradesh government. Lakshmaiah briefly touched upon the various developmental projects being undertaken in the state of Andhra Pradesh. Receiving laurels as the only Telugu Indian American to become a member of the State Legislature in the US, Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula informed the gathering that he was organizing a legislative delegation to India in February 2008.