Now what
TN gets almost 2/3rds of Cauvery waters while Karnataka gets 1/3rd.
Once all the breast beating is over, can we please stop for a second and think of what to do next? Getting a larger share is a lost cause. TN has more than enough clout at the centre to influence any future decision, while we only have our Mannina Maga to show for in "Central politics".
This is my hypothesis. There is enough water in our share for both industry and drinking supplies. There is however not enough for agriculture.
How about we change the utilization of all the agricultural land that cannot get enough water? Let us build industrial parks, satellite towns and the like and attract manufacturing and services like never before. Of course this will attract more people, and a bigger strain on water resources, but surely this will defer the pain? Building an industrial base is the only way to eradicate poverty on a mass scale, as exhibited by every non-poor country (excluding the oildoms). In the meanwhile, let us plan on a comprehensive water management strategy. If Chennai can do it under Jayalalitha, so can we.
All of us - urban people, poets, journalists, writers, "activists", politicians - are guilty of romanticising an agrarian life, while the reality is anything but romantic. This will also enable our people to break out of subsistence farming, which any farmer will readily tell you is not something he wants his children to do.
Changing the utilization of these lands will, in addition, also free us from the eternal curse called "hereditary property dispute" which has resulted in lakhs of acres of inefficient farm land due to microdivisions.
Hernando de Soto (a Peruvian economist) argues that most poor people in countries like India are actually very rich. The problem is that they cannot transact on or monetize their assets as easily as their First World counterparts can.
An enlightened government can actually make something positive of this award. The enlightenment is the missing piece.
posted by YSK at 7:36 PM
2 Comments:
Proposing that agricultural land be given away to industries will only give the politicians an excuse to whip up the masses into a frenzy, as is happening in West Bengal.
And, won't making conversion of agricultural land into industrial land a government policy lead to massive misuse? It may be a good idea theoretically, but I think it's just a pipe dream considering the execution skills of our politicians.
The way the government can do it well is that it notifies the area as commercial land.....and then stays off of it. Let it make money from the registration fees etc., but let market forces prevail. Once the land is commercial, the value shoots up. Farmers are anyway not dumb to sell the land at a pittance. They are cheated only when the land is "acquired" by the goverment.
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