Sometime back, the newspapers carried a photograph of a new highway road of four lanes, which then gets narrowed to two lanes, when it comes to a long bridge across the river. This causes endless chaos when the traffic from four lanes gets to the narrow start of the bridge. How could such a bridge be planned? It would seem silly when you look at the picture in the newspaper!
We are not completely surprised because we hear and read about large bridges that have been built in recent years and have shown flaws in just three years after being built!
One of our great failings in India, as individuals or as institutions, is the lack of broad thinking—what they call in the West, ‘holistic thinking’. This is where most mistakes are made and a heavy price is paid in the long run. But we remain complacent, even happy, that we have solved problems for the immediate present; and the problem will not surface again, at least in the immediate future—hopefully!
Our philosophy of life is exemplified very dramatically and visually by the manner in which we conduct our road repairs in big cities like Mumbai. The main highway has innumerable potholes after the first rains. There is a hue and cry from motorists. With the first series of sunny days, the municipality fills up the potholes. They do the job fast and imperfectly.
Some weeks later, there is torrential rain again. The repair cannot stand the intensity of both heavy rain and heavy traffic. The potholes appear again. Again, there is a hue and cry. The taxi-drivers threaten to haul the municipal corporation to court, to pay for damages to their vehicles. Again, the roads are hastily and badly repaired. And the cycle goes on—again and again and again; at least three times each monsoon season; and every year for the past many years that I have been living here.
Why can we not lay cement roads? And do them well, so that they last for 10 years if not 20 years? A cement company has developed a cement mix that is easy to use; sets very fast, so that there is minimal disruption to traffic; and has a guarantee of 20 years. If we have a long-term vision and a broad perspective, should we not build such roads, which are expensive in the short run but, in fact, are more economical in the long term? But we do not have such a vision or a broad outlook.
I live in a suburb of Mumbai. There were only houses of one or two floors in this area for the past 50 years. With Mumbai’s population increasing every month, there has been pressure on living space. So the government authorities have allowed tall buildings to be constructed in these areas, where only small houses existed. The government has worked out a complex system of TDR—transfer development rights—where you can buy some useless land in a faraway place and claim additional floor space in the north suburbs of Mumbai. The tall buildings now accommodate 16 to 30 families instead of two families. And they are constructed without making provision for adequate parking facilities or a supply of water.
Now, everyone living on the road does not have enough water. Those who have lived here for 50 years and never had trouble in the past and those who have moved in recently, find that their new home has brought them a larger share of problems. One of the major ones is that they have to wake up at 5am to fill buckets of water to last them for cooking, washing and bathing for the rest of the day.
And driving down this road, which was quiet and tree-lined in the past, is now a nightmare because cars are parked on both sides of the road. If by chance, you alight from a taxi to get into your building, then the road is completely blocked. There is no space for another vehicle to pass, except if it is a bicycle. Is there a vision of the totality of town planning? Do we match the building plans with the provision of the infrastructure required? We don’t. We do not know how to think and plan holistically!
There is a new regulation that public taxis should change from petrol/ diesel to CNG (compressed natural gas) as the fuel. This is a laudatory objective. CNG is environmentally friendly. At least, much more so than petrol/ diesel. In fact, all vehicles, including buses and trucks, and private vehicles should use CNG as fuel. This will do all of us a great deal of good, whether we are motorists or pedestrians. But while the government has given directions on the use of CNG, and many taxi drivers in Mumbai have adjusted their vehicles at considerable cost to use CNG fuel, they are now going through a harrowing experience to find gas stations that supply CNG.
To begin with, the number of gas stations equipped to store and fill CNG is very low compared to the demand. Many of these are out of CNG stock a lot of the time. Result: Long lines of taxis, inching their way forward and spending three to four hours before they can get their taxi fuel tanks filled. What a loss for cab drivers. And what a waste! Does this not show a lack of a total plan? Does it not again demonstrate a lack of holistic thinking?
When will we learn to paint the big picture - to scan the whole horizon? The more we deal with the problems with piecemeal solutions, the more time, effort, and money we will waste. A waste that India cannot afford!!
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)
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However on reading the article I observe that you have successfully completed a creative task. It is necessary for the government to read this article to avoid mistakes
Please accept my heartiest felicitations for this educative and inspiring article.
Joseph DLima