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ShareAs I perused the news of the state government planning to sell out bus stops to corporate houses and let them rename them, the ludicrousness of the project struck me. How can you be so short-sighted as to not foresee the ensuing confusion of renaming established stops? The Tunga Gaon bus stop in Powai suddenly being called Cadbury stop or Lower Parel being rechristened as Gillette Gel stop will lead to a row resulting in public protest and unrest.
Myopia in the Indian political breed is exemplary. Mumbai's rulers may be looking at a Rs100-crore corpus. In fact, Dubai began its metro services on 09/09/09 and let out various stops to corporate. That's the trick. Lease out new projects, don't raise the bar of confusion by trying out revenue-earning ideas on spots that are part of popular memory.
For instance, the stops in the new metro link that's coming up between Ghatkopar and Versova could well be leased out. No one then, I presume, would have an objection.
Talking of politicians, I'm reminded of Soviet Union leader Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev's words that politicians are the same all over and promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. Promises, yes. Mere vacuous vows which never find fruition. This may sound like déjà vu, but the fact is politicians care for voters just once in five years.
In a coalition government scenario, parties would waffle over fulfiling the basic needs of roti, kapda aur makaan to the aam aadmi, but end up seeing them poorer five years later. Now that the assembly elections are round the corner, the more important issue on hand, as the blessed breed thinks, is of stopping migration of outsiders to the state.
As the Raj and Uddhav Thackerays squabble to hog the limelight over the issue, chief minister Ashok Chavan calls them 'Ekach nanee che doun bhag' (two sides of the same coin) in a bid to fish in troubled water.
Cut to the US or the UK: Parliamentarians have risen above basic problems to debate issues relating to the environment, healthcare, education and jobs to all. The fact is that they have first fulfiled the primary needs of the people and have now sought to make their lives better still. Notwithstanding that our chosen representatives spare little thoughts about such issues, it also stands to reason that there is no point talking about them when the basics still remain unattended. It pays for our rulers to keep us craving.
That ensures their continuity. It's time politicians must be made accountable. They can't keep the country in denial forever. A few years ago, an RTI query exposed that 85 % of the assurances given by ministers had been languishing only on paper and in the records of the state legislature. Let's make the netas public: not only their big list of assets, but also their record in office.
