ho-halla

It takes me 1.5 hours in a day to commute office while by bike, it takes half an hour. Not that there is another shortcut, but because of poor transport facilities. Wasting two hours in day in polluted air, mindless honking hurts. So, the day i have enough money to buy a two wheeler, i will. Because for me, comfort is more important.

In middle of all the ho-halla regarding falling rupee vs dollar, i was going through one blog which was suggesting to use swadeshi to save rupee. Here is the link for  reference:  http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/masala-noodles/entry/practise-swadeshi-save-the-rupee .It caught my attention because just few hours before reading the article, i was listening to our PM urging us to reduce petrol  and gold consumption because they are a big sum on our import bill. Have a look on the pie chart with distribution of different imports.

So, 32 percent is petroleum. While its right for them to ask citizens to decrease the petrol consumption. My question is, given my situation, why do i think not to buy a bike and use public transport that waste my 2 hours unnecessary. Globalization has increased our purchasing capacity and i do not mind even if the petrol price is Rs. 100 per liter. What if the city offered me a better transport facility? I would not have even thought of buying a bike. Even if it cost me some more time, i would have preferred public transport. Running a big country like India is not an easy task and surely they can not please everybody. But the welfare programs which are major expenditure of government, why cant government cut them little and pays more attention to things that needs immediate attention. Why dont make roads, buy buses, metro project in city like pune which will be facing nightmare traffic situation 10 years later. Instead they are launching Food Security Bill which will cost another handsome percentage of government treasury, and that too in middle of economic crisis. NCERT economics books says due to increased expenditure in social welfare programs in 1980s with  rampant corruption caused debacle that saw economic crisis of 1991. The reforms taken in 1991, were not a natural choice to our rulers then, but it was as a part of the conditions that India was forced to agree while borrowing money from IMF and World Bank. So, the large market that India offered and for what MNCs lobbied were now open. Money came, and so increased our purchasing capacity. My father used to say scooter were luxury back then and these days everyone wants a bike and cars are must for anyone who can afford EMI. On the other side, we failed miserably on manufacturing industry. We still export raw materials which we import as finished good at a higher price.