Who Is Stopping Development Of Economically Backward Districts Of India?

Last week during a casual chat with my friend Akshay Malhotra, I got to know about his plan to open a new electrical component manufacturing unit. Akshay is a successful businessman who owns 2 electrical component manufacturing plants in Delhi NCR.

Looking at the upward swing in electrical component industry, he was contemplating to open 3rd factory with an investment of approx. Rs 210 crore. I suggested him to open factory in my native place Ramgarh, 140 KM from Varanasi.

Akshay was a bit apprehensive for Ramgarh as air-connectivity is poor but since I convinced him, he decided to do recce himself so he left for Varanasi very next day. As per plan, upon reaching at Varanasi airport he hired a taxi to travel to Ramgarh and the journey to dusty small town started. Soon after a drive of 20 mins, car took a sharp left to state highway and this was the moment when all shining glory of high end infrastructure went for a toss.

The single lane road from Varanasi to Ramgarh was in bad shape with crater sized pot-holes. There were few small hamlets on the way and encroachment coupled with wrong parking of trucks and tractors on the road had made the journey miserable.

To crack the silence Akshay asked the driver why still the infrastructure is so bad. Driver Chandrabhan, who eventually belonged to Ramgarh only, laughed and cheekily answered ," after distributing free laptops, free cycles and unemployment allowances, our UP Government has no money left for building and maintaining Roads". The 5 hours journey continued through the dusty road with occasional solace coming from music system with Kishor Kumar songs until they were greeted by a huge board "Heartiest welcome to Ramgarh".

As they crossed the board there was an unusual toll booth; barrier made of Bamboo with long rope to bring down the Bamboo tied with a weight on another end. Akshay was quite surprised to see such make shift tool booth where the toll collectors were looking like goons. Driver Chandrabhan told that these toll collectors are men of local mafia Ramashankar. Next stop was closed railway crossing which was clogged with 2, 3 & 4 wheelers. Once train passed and barrier was lifted there was total Chaos. They were stuck in bad traffic jam which was caused just because of poor lane discipline. Akshay noticed there were 2 policemen who had stopped a truck (to get some bribe) which led to further jam.

Driver Chandrabhan told that though a flyover was sanctioned almost 4 years back but 2 petrol pump and few shops of Dinesh Pratap were falling under the flyover hence he along with few more shopkeepers bribed local MLA and Chief Development Officer (CDO) of Ramgarh to delay construction of flyover as well as to reduce the length of flyover hence work on flyover stopped.

Now Akshay was curious to know more about the area, when inquired about condition of electric supply he came to know that that power cut is 6-8 hours daily hence shopkeepers need to use generators to run their business.

Having seen enough, Akshay was in deep dilemma of opening factory in Ramgarh. He was thought that it is impossible to work in Ramgarh and decided to return immediately and took U turn.

As said, "in life, you lose some, you win some", but in this case there was no win, it was all losses for Ramgarh. Imagine the kind of jobs it would have created in the area and prosperity it would have brought to people of Ramgarh.

My heart goes out for Raju, a post-graduate in physics who is working as teacher in private school with meagre salary of Rs 3800 a month. He will never come to know that he lost a job opportunity of Rs 20,000/month as production supervisor in Akshya Malhotra's proposed factory in Ramgarh. Similarly, Sanjay, a hosiery shop owner will never know that he lost a sale opportunity of a saree and kurta which Raju might have purchased for his parents out of his first salary as production supervisor.

Bhola pan & tea stall which is near the location of possible factory will not know that he lost opportunity to expand his stall into small restaurant. Chandu, having his barren land adjacent to proposed factory lost the opportunity to change his fortune, but sadly he will never know about his loss.

Ramgarh will never know that hundreds of Raju, Sanjay, Bhola and Chandu just lost a chance to change their life.

Today I am wondering who is stopping development of Ramgarh ?

Is it Businessmen like Dinesh Pratap, corrupt policemen, MLA, CDO or the common men like Raju, Sanjay, Bhola and Chandu who voted for corrupt MLA or it's poor infrastructure?

You tell me, if you know the answer!!!