Driving force

The road to India’s economic transformation is still under construction, despairingly so, as this newspaper’s five-part reportage and analysis showed. To recap a few of the disturbing statistics put together by our correspondents: the showpiece golden quadrilateral (GQ) project, connecting Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai, has 5,846 km uncovered, deadlines have been extended to 2007 and 2008; the north-south-east-west (NSEW) corridor — Srinagar to Kanyakumari and Porbandar to Silchar — has a 7,300 km-long gap; only 15 per cent of the land needed for the NSEW corridor has been acquired.

There are heaps of blame to be apportioned. State governments account for a big share because land acquisition is perhaps the most fundamental problem, and states have to do the acquiring. Gujarat’s exceptional performance — 76 per cent of the 361 acres acquired — serves to damn laggards even more. What business does Tamil Nadu have to acquire only 2 per cent of the required area? DMK and AIADMK may jointly hold the world record for political antagonism, but just how irresponsible can their politics get? Where politics isn’t the roadblock, political correctness is. Governments need to take a fair but firm line on land acquisition. Compensation rates need to be the best the current local market conditions offer. Clear-out time for settlers or landowners should be reasonable. Time and money issues sorted out, state governments should brook no other arguments. There will inevitably be occasions when official efforts to acquire land will be dubbed as heartless. Those are the occasions when politics of any kind must have no influence on any politician making the decisions.

No one surely understands better than Manmohan Singh in this government, the economic multiplier effects of a world-class highway network. The PM must therefore provide political momentum. Singh took charge of airport modernisation at a time corporate lobbying and labour militancy were threatening the policy. What he did for flying, he needs to do for driving.