India: Why life is elsewhere

Ministers themselves, as we know to our cost, are among the most frequent flyers of all Indians and so should have noticed that even provincial airports in small Southeast Asian countries provide better facilities than Mumbai. You do not need a survey to know that India’s international airports are a disgrace and that Mumbai, supposedly the best, lacks even minimal facilities like decent arrivals and departure lounges or sufficient parking space for visitors. What interested me most about the young man and his survey, though, was that it was a fine example of the workings of the Indian bureaucratic mind which has perfected the art of doing nothing while appearing to be busy doing a great deal.

So, once the minister announced that he wanted Delhi and Mumbai airports to become world class as soon as possible the first thing that would probably have happened at the bureaucratic level was a trip around the world to examine other airports. Wives and children would have gone along as Air India is usually unable to refuse free tickets to high officials. Once the study tour was complete there would, in all likelihood, have been tedious, incomprehensible reports written which once off the minister’s radar screen would have been put away on some very high and dusty shelf.

Then if the minister asked what happened to his world class scheme there would have been the suggestion of a survey. Since most of the Vajpayee government’s ministers are still learning on the job the minister would have thought it an excellent idea although he only needs to take a quick walk around Mumbai airport to see exactly what is wrong. But, just in case he does not have time here is a short list. All entrances and exits are blocked by mobs of visitors because the arrivals lounge is too small and reeks of unclean toilets. Things are not much better in the departure lounge because, unlike modern international airports, we still have only one and all flights to India appear to arrive and depart at the same ungodly hour. Immigration and customs services are cumbersome and outdated and restaurants and shops still bear the unmistakable stamp of our socialist past. In short not only is a survey not required but it is merely a bureaucratic delaying tactic at a time when we should be getting on urgently with building new international airports in all our major cities.

The Vajpayee government is nearly at the end of its tenure and should be getting on urgently with doing a lot of other things as well especially where public transport and infrastructure are concerned. The railways come instantly to mind as an area desperate for change and modernisation. If the Prime Minister’s personal interest could have resulted in his government building eleven kilometres of road a day compared with eleven kilometres a year in Congress times why should the railways not be able to change as fast? If our airports are a disgrace our railway stations are worse than disgraceful because railway officials appear to have given up the fight against squalor. Change will come when the Ministry of Railways realises that the best way to clean up our railway stations is to allow them to be used commercially. Everywhere in the world except in India railway stations have shops and restaurants that help pay for their upkeep and maintenance. Why do we not allow this to happen here? Mainly because our bureaucrats remain mired in our ‘socialist’ past in which profit from a public utility was considered evil and so far we have not had a minister who has come up with the innovation and imagination needed to make change possible.

Sadly, this is true of most other ministers in the Vajpayee government as well and here there really is a need for surveys. In the months before the next general election the Prime Minister would be doing himself and the country a favour if he ordered surveys of the important infrastructure and economic ministries with the idea of finding out why it is only the Ministry of Surface Transport that has been able to force the pace of change. The task could be given to all those semi-employed ministers of state who complain constantly of not having enough to do. And, if there is still more help required may I recommend the services of an earnest young man at Mumbai airport who is happy to work late into the night to conduct what has to be the most useless survey ever.

Write to the author at

tavleensingh@expressindia.com