The Ease Of Living Mantra – OpEd
India’s 7933 urban centers covering approximately 98618 sq kilometer with 522.9 million population contribute 60% of the country’s GDP. According to the World Bank, 37% of India’s population lived in urban centers in 2024. The United Nation has predicted the population of urban India will reach 877 million by 2050. Though urban India makes a massive contribution to the GDP, the ease of living deludes the urbanites for decades. The government should improve the ease of living in urban areas so that it would sustain the GDP growth.
It is not the realty, infra and services sector only but the majority of the urbanites contribute to the GDP growth with their hard work, sacrifices, knowledge capital, investment, skills and imagination. Though they contribute to the GDP growth they suffer a lot due to bad roads, pollution, food adulteration, high cost education and health care facilities, lack of safety, urban flood, poor after sale services and adverse possession of private property etc,.
The availability of basic needs at an affordable cost will generate surplus with people who can buy products or deposit it in the banks; both will contribute to the economic growth. The surplus will be utilized for creating economic assets and for grooming human resources. Ease of living in urban India will redouble the revenue gain; it will let youth focus on creative activities, research and innovation. The job of ease of living is cut out for the truly patriotic leaders with a vision. Ease of living lays the foundation of building a strong and prosperous country.
Good urban roads always contribute to the ease of living. Bad roads break bones, damage vehicles, take lives, erode people’s surplus income, reduce productivity, increase stress level and make commuting time longer. Good roads reflect the character, integrity, honesty and efficiency of the leaders; their courage and ability to control the road contractors speak through good roads which can last more than ten years. Bad roads boost the income of automobile industries, contractors and the hospital sector.
The economic loss due to bad roads is inestimably high. Barring a few good roads, the majority of roads in Hyderabad have potholes in every 20 feet distance. Badly made humps, protruding manholes, broken road edges, absence of pedestrian paths and lack of foot over bridges cause fatal accidents. Motorists while negotiating potholes and manholes often meet accidents. Loose electric wires from electric poles kill dozens of commuters in the city every year. Similarly, the roads are not well maintained in most parts of Pune, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Calcutta; the pedestrian paths have disappeared from most parts of those cities. The historic cities like Lucknow, Cuttack, Kanpur, Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam etc are getting messier day by day. How to build and maintain good roads has become a big challenge for the states.
Air and water pollution adversely affects the ease of living. The disappearance of thousands of water bodies, native trees and open space from urban areas increases the atmospheric temperature, creates water scarcity and adversely affects people’s health; the ease of living deteriorates. Water pollution boosts the growth of the water purifier companies and drinking water bottle factories. It drains people’s surplus income as people spend more on water and on treating various water related diseases.
Food adulteration is a stumbling block before the ease of living. A recent food safety investigation in Noida and Greater Noida found that a significant 83% of paneer samples have failed quality standards, with 40% deemed unsafe due to the presence of harmful chemicals and unidentified substances. Milk also showed considerable adulteration, while ghee had a notable failure rate, raising concerns about food safety. Food adulteration is rampant in cities and even in pilgrim places. Once the pilgrim center Puri was famous for a variety of sweet items. Today one will neither find taste nor quality in most of these items. The sale has gone down because of adulteration. The sweet sellers have axed their own legs; no effort has been made to save the reputation of the sweet items of Puri. The government of Odisha raids the food adulteration industries in the state but those industries are still marketing adulterated food. India needs a strong law to eradicate food adulteration as the economic loss due to food adulteration is too huge. The ease of living in urban India will not be possible without eradication of adulterated food which has a negative impact on trade, tourism and services sectors. Purity will significantly increase the export of food items from India.
High cost of education and health care facilities makes life difficult in urban centers. It erodes much of people’s surplus which could have been used for buying products and for investment purposes. Spending and making deposits are growth boosters. Now GST cut will create surplus in the market; this is a welcome step of the NDA government. In order to make ease of life possible the government has to establish more central and state government run schools across the country; it should make a strong law to delist the private schools which operate on business principles overlooking the most important service to the nation. Similarly the government should revitalize the government hospitals in urban areas so that people could save their surplus income for economic growth.
Safe atmosphere in urban areas makes life easier and happier. It increases productivity hours and encourages women to work. Unsafe atmosphere in urban areas is like a dark cloud looming over economic prospects. The Times of India in a series of reports has indicated rising populations with number of vehicles and vulnerable urban areas contribute to crime rates, with women’s safety and police presence being significant concerns. Population should not concentrate in a few big cities; it should be scattered among small cities for ease of living. Unlike the west and European countries, India has many productive villages which need transparent marketing support and work culture.
Over the years, the urban flood has become too frequent in cities. The beautiful city Bhubaneswar was planned by the famous architect, Le Corbusier. There was no urban flood in Bhubaneswar 30 years back; the temperature was pleasant. Now People experience long painful summer months. Today encroachment of open space and disappearance of water bodies have brought urban flooding to many parts of the city. The exhaust routes of water are blocked with too many concrete structures. One will come across cars turning into boats in many cities during the rainy season. Poor after sale service continues to disturb the residents in cities. Many companies do not attend to the service request in time and make living difficult. Government should monitor and punish those companies who neglect after-sale service. Public sector banks were once the harbinger of change due to their strong internal check and control system, dedicated audit and inspection etc. They used to generate nearly 1.2 lakh probationary officers posts every year. An efficient and patriotic government should have identified the root causes of high NPA in PSBs in the last decade and inducted better human resources in the banking system. Both private and PSBs should co-exist keeping in view of India’s diversity of client base.
Adverse possession of private property by tenants deeply disturbs the life of thousands of urbanites. Often the landlords let out their houses to tenants out of trust and without lease agreements. The tenants take adverse possession after a limited period. A house owner builds a house with his lifelong savings and lets it out for his sustenance, suddenly finds himself amid property dispute; it destroys peace, economy and health of the owners. This adverse possession act should be repealed with immediate effect. Any owner having the registered sale deed should have the right to possess his property at any time. The Indian economy is blessed with too much diversity to make a perfect balance among the economic sectors.
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