A possible solution for AP like crisis- shifting prime institutions out of the urban cities into far away clusters of rural villages - an engine for geographically equitable growth?

Dr. Jaya Prakash Narayan,  now popularly known in AP as JP, is   a retired senior IAS officer who quit the secure and powerful job with a long career still awaiting  and plunged into active politics with  a new set of ethics and values and is passionate about good governance. He is the head of 'Loksatta',  the new political party  he founded. He is currently not only the lone representatative of Loksatta in AP state assembly, but also one of the very few hopes of Indian politics.
I had the pleasure of discussing these concepts/ideas with him during March 2011 in Hyderabad.
His pointed question was,
            'How would the faculty colleagues respond to the suggestion of shifting, say, IITD to four or six IITD campuses in far flung rural village clusters?'

Well, it is said, 'charity begins at home'.
I would like to know  the responses from my esteemed colleagues, in particular from those who are inclined  to Gandhian model of decentralized development as the best chance for  being sustainable and holistic,  on the concepts presented here.
Here is the note that I had mailed him prior to the face to face over 45 minute meeting.


Dear Sri Jaya Prakash ji,
Jaihind!
First let me thank you for the tele-meeting this morning.

I humbly submit the following points which may aid in resolving the crisis AP is unfortunately going through.

1. Basic Problem/s
   Unbounded  and  cancerous growth of  cities as a result of centralized large production systems based on misplaced over confidence on 'bigger the better' of economics relying  solely on 'square -cube law' as against  'small is beautiful’ , a concept that was proposed/backed  by eminent scientists  much later.
This development model has promoted unholy nexus between  ...
        (unscrupulous) politicians, businesses and mafia gangs including those of land mafias.
Basically many  problems of the above development model have arisen because 'economics of the market' alone is relied up on.


2. Immediate problem:
    Huge hopes and investments in Hyderabad. 
3. Long term Solutions:
Development model  based on decentralized systems with production systems included,
---  somewhat in line with Gandhiji's Gram Swaraj.
100 years ago Gandhiji was ridiculed as ignorant of economics upon his objection to centralized large production systems on grounds of human problems ( relations included) alone.
Today Gandhiji’s  stand is increasingly getting to be vindicated
not only because of human /social problems
but also because of issues like
                  energy, ecology and global warming concerns and sustainability issues.

Once a cost is assigned to each of the above, along with those of human related ones, as per the free market ‘economic’ principles, almost nothing would remain economical –
Certainly not the power/energy from oil, coal and other non renewables,
Certainly not the production of building materials like  steel, cement,  aluminum, plastic composites etc.,
            and the list goes on.

Suggestions for the long term:
#1.  Restrict unhindered cancerous growth of cities/towns/villages by 'statutarily transferring' the governance of the city/town village to the next higher group . For eg., once beyond 'a limit', Hyderabad may be governed by central parliament. 

Local politicians, my may be my naive  presumption, would then prefer to divert business/industry growth to a different city of the AP rather than lose political control.    
            i.e., it would drive a wedge between the vested interests of  local politics and  businesses/industries
                   and this would reduce if not eliminate the role of mafias, in particular land mafias.

#2.  Deposit taxes, direct and indirect, through ‘tagged’ accounts, each representing a policy or opinion.

       Every time any purchase is made, the applicable taxes would be routed through the tagged account of the purchaser's  choice. 
The present IT would make it implementable at affordable costs.

                              It would be a measure of the public opinion that would be  much more efficient  than any other present today.

                              Can end the intensity of violence in the  bandhs being claimed  as public opinion by the unscrupulous.

#3.  Land for any use other than for zero carbon foot print agriculture can only be leased at ‘market’ rates. 
Reason : land is fundamentally different from all other traded commodities. And may remove the possibility of the fly by night operators  making fast buck, the back bone of most vested interests - politics - businesses/industries - mafia gangs.


·         Immediate Solution for AP crisis:
# Disperse the campuses of universities, R&D labs, high end schools and hospitals from  Hyderabad, Vizag, Vijayawada, Guntur,  Tirupathi etc  to at least six clusters of villages, two from each of the three regions, but not less than, as an example, 300 km from Hydrabad and 30 km from the nearest tier 1, 2, 3 cities.
 # Each campus carries its own brand name and sets up its campuses in all six clusters.
                    Much like several campuses of Univ of California. So different university brands get to have a healthy competition in each cluster.

The new campuses are to be in the clusters of villages, as sugar is in milk, without the  bulge/over flow, and  only by leasing out the lands needed.
            And letting the farmers farm their lands except where the roads and buildings come up
               and letting the farmers develop & maintain any particular greenery needed in specific cases.
    The agricultural and other univ campuses in the cluster  can play a pivotal role.


Original campuses vacated in Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam etc., can be used for developing residential/commercial complexes including those related to 'healthy' tourism with at least one mega convention centre in each such campus which,
             would  be owned by the original organization, but professionally managed and
             the income there from credited to all the campuses of the original owner organization.

The lakhs of crores of rupee funds generated would more than finance building of about 5 to 10 new hopefully superior campuses for each campus vacated from the big cities and

would have enough surplus to build fast communication systems including mass rapid rail systems all over the state.

Ultimately the model could be applied to all over the country.
  I would be glad to explain/illustrate  further given a chance over the next few days of the week.
with best regards,

Dr P Sudhakar
Associate Professor
CRDT, IIT Delhi
New Delhi- 16
+91 - 9312323702

A partial solution for avoiding problems such as in AP: A healthy taming of unbounded growth of urban islands bleeding the rural country side

Ramesh Hegde :
1. Pl see Note 1 below, wrt Kautilya's Arthashastra.
2. Do we have in IIT-D a copy of the excerpted -English interpretation with Sanskrit shlokas, pronounciation and transliteration of the Arthashasstra?

Partial Mitigation of the problems of mega cities as islands of 

development amidst neglected/impoverished regions  

A General Solution for the Andhra Pradesh like burning problems in the spirit of Hind Swaraj 

 

 

A solution for mitigation: 

Prima facie, let it be made clear that it is only a solution towards mitigation rather than a holistic cure.

 

    1. The capital city of any state, upon growing  beyond a certain size*, stops being governed by the state and

        automatically goes under the central rule where

            all the (Indian) nationals become 'sons of the soil' and

            all the revenues of the mega city belong to the entire nation, administered by the parliament. 

    

     2. A logical extension down the line  would bring^# 

            any city with in a 'district'  under the governance of the state legislature directly and not the 'district' body;

            any town with in a 'mandal' under the district body and

            any village with in a 'panchayat' under the mandal body.

    3.  Every income tax paying individual or organization to have an option of specifying a cerain region- village, mandal, district or state - to which  a definite part of their tax payments would be allocated  for its development; the particular way in which  the money is to be spent may be decided by the local governing body.

 

* The critical size could be defined by a weighted average of population, geographic size and GDP,  per capita income and carbon foot print etc.     

 

^# Village, Mandal, District and State are the units of regions in 'Indian' context; but it should be equally applicable universally. 

The above would achieve the following:

The first two would bring in the natural vested interests of the local socio-political forces - a tendency to not give up the governing control to 'out-siders' even at the expense of loosing out on the  flow of investments into their area; 

        These natural vested interests would  drive them towards agreeing to  and even encouraging 

        the diversion of the fund flow into a neighbour, but  not too close** a  city, town or village. 

        

        It would be in the best 'vested interests' of the two local bodies, the new and old growth centres, 

        to create a good communication/transport infra structure in between the two local regions.

        The current tendency of the free market forces tending to invest only in the area  that already has been well developed is hither to strongly supported by the local socio-political vested interests. It would then be balanced by the interests of the locals   

In other words, the unholy alliance of the  interests of the current free market elements and socio-political elements in colluding to create a few islands of development and prosperity amidst atrocious poverty all around the country side, a prime reason behind the sad and unfortunate social tensions,  would be broken.

Not only is this consistent with the age old native wisdom in  principles of good governance - Kautilya's 'Artha Sastra', nearly 2000 years ago  suggests  creation of new cities and villages once the same grow beyond some size- but  these constitutional restrictions on the governance of the local regions  may also not be inconsistant with any of the modern world's love for basic democratic rights either.
(Note-1 : (Pl see Architect -Lloyd George's suggestion below))

 

In fact the third item which empowers every individual to exercise one's  will as to where the funds (at least part of one's own contribution) should go,  can play a healthy role in  one's natural urge to do some thing for the development of one's native soil, irrespective of where one has managed to generate the wealth. 

** If they are too close, then the combination would run the risk of merging into one bigger twin city region with the control slipping out of the local body. 

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It may not have been apparent at the time of Hind Swaraj, but it becomes increasingly clear  that free market's sole aim of maximising profit  albeit subject to some approved norms of society and governance, leads to mega centralized production in all spheres. More often than not, the famous  'economies of scale' originally guided by the 'square cube law', in practice, seems to suggest that the bigger the centralized production the better it would be for the free market economics.

 

Rapid growth of  Hyderabad as a IT hub in the past decade, almost challenging Bangalore,  is some times seen as a result of the badly planned / managed infra structure of Bangalore and not necessarily out of any  love for Hyderabad on the part of the  MNC giants in IT.

A young well meaning IT professional who has set up shop in Hyderabad,  says with a great  conviction that his decision to return to India from the lucrative silicon valley and choosing  Hyderabad is strongly influenced by the mega investment of Micro Soft in  Hyderabad.

That may be recognised as the power of 'square cube law' even out side its original domain of physical processing.

The mega city would in turn attract the nearly evenly distributed  best talent from the distant interiors. 

Even  the growth of mega cities has its own multitude of problems. 

Providing proper infrastructure, in practice,  eats up a  major part of the entire economic resource of the state to the horribe neglect of the other wise well distributed communities of the state in sevaral cities, towns and tens of thousands of villages. 

And when the consequential social turmoil results in demands for separate smaller states, the problem literally burns not only the state but also the nation.

 

The burning of AP (similar troubles already brewing at other places in the country) is a case in point. The solution becomes intractable with the native community of the mega city region fiercely demanding sole possession of the mega city while the other communities, equally fiercely, fight back to retain what they see as their share in the mega city, that not only generates most of the tax revenues but also offers most of the economically lucrative work (employment/business)  opportunities to the millions.

 

The problem is also  fuelled by the human greed to invest in the  real estate for making a fast buck by being at least in the periphery, if not in the heart, of the mega city.  This is  perceived, and may be rightly so, by the locals of the 'Greater City Region' as being  dominated by the 'out-siders', in the process.

 

The mega cities  no doubt  contribute to most of the tax revenues of the nation, but are also forced to spend most of the its revenue in developing the infrastructure in their own limits, to make life more bearable to the growing  millions  in its cramped city limits. 

The result is not very humane:  

        India(read, some of those in the few mega cities) shining while 

        Bharat(read, majority in  most of the villages) bleeding. 

 

The sad part of the story is that even those  shining in the 'India shining'    hardly get to lead  a healthy life style. 

But that is another story.

NOTE 1: Architect Lloyd George had remarked that once a city's population grows beyond 1.5 million, the cost of supplying utilities (water, electricity, drainage, basic healthservices and the like) and public amenities starts increasing disproportionately to the average cost of providing services for the first million population.  Therefore the new cities like Silvasa (Pune) being established in our country, incorporate some of the principles of Lloyd George and Kautilya.