Kolkata Korner

First Impressions

The Deluge

Vanishing Waterbodies

Yet another reason behind the flooding of Kolkata is the city’s topographyand its vanishing waterbodies. Kolkata’s gradient is towards the east;earlier, rainwater would drain into the wetlands and waterbodies in the easternand northwestern fringes of the city. Over the years, these have been filled up.The creation of Salt Lake by filling up large waterbodies that used to existthere is now being seen as a monumental tragedy. But even as realization of thefolly has sunk in over the last few years, land sharks and promoters have had afree run filling up more waterbodies and reclaiming wetlands. Laws have beenflouted, often with the help of Left politicians. Of the 20,000 acres ofwetlands that existed in the city’s northwestern fringes in 1945, only 8,000acres exist today and they, too, are under threat. All over the city and itssuburbs, unscrupulous promoters, with the patronage of local politicians, arefilling up ponds and lakes. As a result, there’s no place excess water candrain into. The silver lining is that the CPI(M) state secretary, Biman Bose,has announced a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards such elements. This week,after the waterlogging, he issued a call to citizens to form committees toprotect waterbodies. He was drawing inspiration from (where else but) Shanghai,where people formed resistance committees to prevent wetlands from being gobbledup. As in Shanghai, so in Kolkata.

Green Hope

Two weeks ago, Kolkata Korner lamented the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’sperfunctory tree-plantation drives that resulted in 28,000 of the 30,000saplings that were planted by the civic body meeting an ignominious death. Anangry forest department which handed out these saplings for free had said itwould now charge for them, but the civic body pleaded it doesn’t have funds tobuy them. Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who’s known to beeco-friendly, stepped in and asked the KMC to lay off tree plantation drives.The responsibility for increasing the city’s green cover has now beenentrusted to the forest department, which has already drawn up plans to plant2.31 saplings -- and this time, tree guards would be erected around the youngsaplings -- this year. The department has drawn up a reasonable target of ensuringthat at least 70 percent of the saplings survive. A high-level monitoring panelfor the ‘Green Kolkata’ project has been formed with the Chief Secretary atits head and large sums of money have been sanctioned. The plan includescreation of eight urban forests in the city, up from the existing two forests.As for the KMC, it has been relegated to implementing tree plantation drivesonly in its own parks and distributing saplings to organisations andindividuals. Surely, the Mayor isn’t happy over this rap.

Gadfly

That’s what transport minister Subhas Chakraborty truly is. Despite thecontroversies he courts and his alleged links with criminals, he continues to bea minister, thanks to his nonagenarian patron Jyoti Basu. His penchant forputting his foot in his mouth has often landed the Left Front government in anembarrassing spot, but Chakraborty remains unrepentant. His uncalled-forcomments and interventions on subjects that elude his intelligence, to put itcharitably, are inexplicable. Like those he made recently on the Tata's Rs onelakh car project. According to Chakraborty, there was no way Tata couldmake such a low-priced car, given the cost of components and accessories. Now,everyone knows a prototype of the car is running at a test centre at Pune; theTatas are ready to invest huge sums of money in this dream car project inBengal. The state government has showcased the Tata’s decision to invest hereas a prime example of Bengal emerging as a prime investment destination. Andthen along comes Chakraborty to express his ill-informed doubts over theproject. Provoking even his own party leaders to question his intellect, wisdomand judgment. The Tatas, as one of Chakraborty’s senior colleagues commented,are professionals and wise; they know what to do with their money and wouldn’tchase pipe dreams and the last person they need to tell them about the viabilityof their projects is Subhas Chakraborty. This is exactly what senior partyleaders told the Minister a few days ago. And he’d be a wise man if he followstheir advice to keep mum.

Cricket Controversy

Controversies are not the exclusive domain of Subhas Chakraborty; even theChief Minister sparks some at times. Like the one triggered by his unbecomingremarks that Jagmohan Dalmiya should not contest the Cricket Association ofBengal (CAB) president’s post this time. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee deputedChakraborty (who’s also the Sports Minister) to convince Dalmiya (who nowholds the CAB president’s post) not to contest the elections. But Chakrabortyfailed to convince Dalmiya, who, it seems, is worried about the fate of hissupporters in the sports body if he steps aside. Kolkata Police CommissionerPrasun Mukherjee, who’s being backed by the CM, filed his nomination papersand it appears that Dalmiya will also do the same, setting the stage for aninteresting contest. The grapevine has it that the names of former CAB chiefB.N.Dutt and former CM Siddhartha Shankar Ray (who headed the CAB many yearsago) as well as the Sports Minister himself were suggested as compromisecandidates to Dalmiya. But Dutt is ill, and the names of Ray (a Congressman) andChakraborty (the CM doesn’t trust him) didn’t inspire much confidence ineither camp. CAB insiders say Dalmiya has strong support among the various clubsthat make up the CAB and the police chief would face a stiff challenge. IfMukherjee loses, as he well could, it would be a huge embarrassment forBuddhadeb Bhattacharjee. A prospect that the sports minister relishes.

Those Quaint Rickshaws

Relief for TV Viewers

News about the Delhi High Court’s order on implementation of theConditional Access System (CAS) in the three metros (Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata;Chennai has already implemented it) must have been welcomed by millions of cableTV viewers. More so in this city, where viewers have been at the mercy ofunscrupulous cable operators (who provide the last mile connectivity to ourhomes). There can be no argument against CAS. Viewers will have a wide choice of150 channels and will have to subscribe to them through the set-top box. Yes,cable bills will go up, but only for those who want to watch many channels. Morethan 70 channels will be free-to-air and anyway, an overwhelming majority ofviewers, including the poor and the lower middle classes, watch only thesechannels. Viewers will have to pay for watching channels like Discovery and StarMovies. Do the poor or lower middle classes watch such channels? No. Theimmediate fallout of CAS is that the monopoly of the local cable operator willgo, and that’s welcome news. These cable operators under-declare theirsubscriber base to cheat the broadcasters and multi-system operators. The amountof money they make illegally in this manner is mind-boggling. Kolkata, forinstance, has 20 lakh cable homes, according to modest estimates. But cableoperators say only five lakh homes here subscribe to cable TV. They charge, onan average, Rs 200 per cable TV connection and multiplied by the 15 lakhconnections they don’t declare, their illegal earnings are a whopping Rs 30crore a month! No wonder, then, that they and the political parties backing themdon’t want CAS.

A Welcome Step

The Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s decision to remove all those uglyhoardings from Dalhousie Square (or BBD Bag, as the area is now known as) isdefinitely a welcome one. The entire area that houses the Writers’ Building,the GPO and other old colonial structures has been declared a heritage zone. Buthuge billboards and hoardings act as visual pollutants there (and in most otherparts of the city as well). While the KMC’s move to remove them has to belauded, it remains to be seen if the civic body can resist pressures frompowerful lobbies and go ahead. Advertising agencies that will be hit by the banare up in arms; some of them even claim hoardings add to the beauty of a place!Imagine a huge billboard advertising underwear adding to the beauty of a Gothicstructure! But such specious arguments aside, what the government needs to do isto immediately legislate laws to ban hoardings that have mushroomed all over thecity, especially at major traffic intersections. That would be a significantstep towards Kolkata’s beautification.

Wise Counsel

The CPI(M)-affiliated Coordination Committee of state government employeeshas some healthy advice for the tourism department-open bars in the West BengalTourism Development Corporation’s lodges. The committee’s suggestion hasbeen driven by its need to protect the interests of the corporation’semployees (and, hence, the Coordination Committee members) who man these lodges.If the government allows liquor to served in those properties, they’ll startmaking profits. And then, there’ll be no need to privatize them. The committee’sleaders, of course, haven’t stated this explicitly; they’ve said the lodgedcan’t compete with private hotels that serve liquor and the government needsto be practical and allow free flow of liquor in its lodges. But whatever be therationale behind the suggestion, it definitely is a practical one. It nowremains to be seen if the government is as pragmatic as its employees.

Welcome News

Amidst all this news of chaos and controversies comes the welcome news of asoftware firm headquartered in Kolkata having bagged the prestigious contract ofdesigning the entire software that’ll run Beijing’s new internationalairport. Skytech, with its head office at Salt Lake here, has been working forthe past two years to develop the software for all operations in the airportranging from security to baggage handling, landings and take offs, passengermovement and administration. A team of 50 young software engineers aredeveloping it at the firm’s Salt Lake office. Skytech’s CEO Dibyendu KishoreChoudhury says the entire software will be ready by next year. Skytech competedagainst much bigger rivals to bag the contract for the 3.36 lakh square metreairport that handle 1000 landings a day and nearly eight crore passengers by thetime of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Skytech makes for just the rightinspirational material for Bengal and Bengalis.