PMS...!

A week ago, on last Friday, I expressed a concern on Pune city LocalCircle about the SPV to be set up for implementation of Smart City Project and warned the Punekars that it would be us who will eventually pay the price of it and yesterday’s Pune newspapers proclaimed there would be a hike of 12% in Water Tax under the ‘ambitious round-the-clock water supply’ project! This revolutionary ‘joint’ decision was taken after ‘brainstorming’ the options of hiking water tax by 50% for the non-metered users and by 25% for metered users. Now, I am neither a water expert nor a technocrat to decide who should use how much water, who would provide it and what the provider should charge for the ‘service’ offered? However my common sense suggests that whatever needs to be ‘charged’ should be ‘measured’ as it would give a realistic account of how much we have, how to consume it and why it should be charged? If this was not the case, hotels wouldn’t have menu cards, petrol pumps wouldn’t have meters or any consumable wouldn’t have price tags ever, isn’t it?

In the present scenario while humans are already using 1.3 earth and all its natural resources are being consumed exorbitantly making them scarce one by one, I am no fool to say that water should be provided to a soon-to-be-smart city for free but would it be illogical or unreasonable to expect to be charged for what you consume and not what your postal address reads? Why can’t we have metered water connections just like electricity, CNG, telephone, internet, TV cable etc.? Won’t it be rational to let the consumer decide what, why and how it consumes any utility as long as it is made to pay for the consumption? If a wealthy person decides to take shower 3 times a day, wash all his/her cars daily, water his/her garden profusely and also give bath to all his pets and no ethical, moral or ecological counseling could convince him/her to rethink the routine, why not make him/her pay for it, at least? Even the wealthiest of a person would be forced to rethink any of his/her indulgence once a rupee-measurable cost of the luxury is arrived in form of a monthly bill! The revenue generated from such billing could be used to subsidize the taxes for those who really and genuinely cannot afford to pay them but would need the basic facilities like water, all the same.

But being the SMART administrators that we are, we have come up with a new revenue generation model which is nothing but old wine in, not even new but, rebottled bottle – compulsion of wearing helmets which is monetarily punishable otherwise. To support this re-charged decision some statistics is being presented about the deaths of helmet-less riders in road accidents. Those facts and figures might be right but at the same time it would have been logical to present the figures of deaths of all other victims of road accidents including pedestrians and law-abiding citizens just because of sheer indiscipline of the vehicle drivers including but not limited to two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers and buses. If the traffic controllers believe that making the two-wheeler drivers wear helmet would bring in the discipline in the entire city traffic, they are either day-dreaming or are being threatened by some nightmare. In the core city area where it is extremely difficult even to walk or cross the roads at times, what good a helmet could do to the rider who is busy in shifting gears and maintaining balance except tucking his/her mobile under the helmet and have a ‘safe’ mobile talk while driving?

Moreover, if the people elected representatives are really and sincerely concerned about the health and safety of its people, why don’t they think of some measures like TDS – tax deduction at sources? Why the manufactures are not instructed to include helmet in the list of ‘compulsory accessory’ (another oxymoron!)? Why two-wheeler dealers are not compelled to provide a helmet with every purchased vehicle? Why RTO cannot make it mandatory to produce the proof of having a helmet at the time of registration of the vehicle or validating the driving license? Why it always comes down to street level as disciplinary action and never conceptualized at policy level as social behavior development? There is no ban on making Gutkha but you cannot sell it… where would we take the civilization with such hypocrisy bundled in politically (ill)motivated intentions?

Even an illiterate, uneducated and lifetime villager, farmer has the least conventional wisdom of checking the roots and nourishment of a plant that bears a rotten fruit. He never blames it on the fruit or curses the surrounding branches and leaves of the plant for having produced a rotten fruit. He immediately reaches the roots to check the infection and apply pesticides to kill the germs and bugs that are bugging the healthy growth of the plant. Unless and until we check the sources and deploy PMS (Preventive Measures at the Sources) there would be no use of any ‘development’, including river-front, for a larger good in long run.

Although this hypothesis is universal and applicable to any human civilization in any niche of the only livable planet; being a Punekar I have taken the references from the recent developments in the over-smart city and would love to hear Punekars reacting on it as well. Meanwhile, there is an idea being discussed around at my place to buy a Helmet as Birthday gift for my daughter, how about that…?

Stay tuned, Be Aware and Take Care! (Protected) Way to go…