Kolkata Korner

The Price To Pay
Does democracy prevail in West Bengal? If recent events are anything to goby, we perhaps live in a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat' a la China orNorth Korea. This week's incidents at Jadavpur University (JU) only serve tostrengthen this impression. The CPI(M)'s students wing, the SFI, was routed atthe varsity students' union elections in which Nandigram was a major issue.Immediately thereafter, the campus was embroiled in a series of unfortunateincidents, including vandalism and ransack of a room used by the university'semployees' union that, by the way, owes allegiance to the CPI(M).

Angered at the defeat of its students wing and the show of defiance by thestudents, the Marxists ordered the employees union to go on an indefinitestrike. And there was a sinister purpose behind it. Campus interviews wereslated for this week, but with the employees on an indefinite strike, theinterviews couldn't take place. JU administrators (the Registrar's closelinks with the Marxist party is well known) did their bit in keeping recruitersaway by asking them (including IT majors like Wipro and Infosys) to postpone thecampus interviews. This, I'm told, has been done to teach the students whovoted overwhelmingly against the SFI a stern lesson. It's well known that thebig firms won't wait and will go to other campuses to meet their requirements.Hence, JU students won't land the coveted jobs. That's the punishment theCPI(M) had in mind for them, and it would serve as a lesson to the juniors, andall those who'll join the JU in future--that the price to be paid for opposingthe SFI, and by extension, the CPI(M), is a stiff one.

Thankfully, this diabolic gameplan hasn't succeeded; first, Governor GopalKrishna Gandhi issued an appeal to the employees to lift their strike and thelatter found it difficult to ignore the appeal and, second, the CPI(M) itselfrealised that the outcry that would follow if JU students don't get goodplacements would be far too damaging for it than the SFI's rout.

CITU's Licence Raj
A recent survey has revealed that there are more than 63,000 autorickshawsin Greater Kolkata (the city and its suburbs). Of these, less than half-just30,000-odd-are licensed by the transport authorities. The rest also holdlicences, but these are issued by the CPI(M)'s labour arm, the CITU! And theCITU's licences are far more precious than the transport authorities', forthe simple reason that autorickshaw drivers holding the CITU licences are neverbooked by traffic cops for traffic violations, can flout the law with impunityand get preference in parking and other matters over the ones holding theregular and legal licences!

The CITU, of course, collects a fee from the autorickshaws owners and driversand even if one were to assume that they charge Rs 10,000 for each licence (I'mtold the amount is many times this) the CITU would have ‘earned' a whoppingRs 33 crore from this ‘business'. The union renews the licences every yearfor at least Rs 5,000 per auto. That means an earning of a cool Rs 16.5 crore ayear. And all this is black money, money that is perhaps channelised to fundvarious other illegal (and even anti-national?) activities like raising andmaintaining death squads like those that were deployed to kill, rape and lootthe villagers of Nandigram last month. But what baffles me is how this goes onwith the full knowledge of everyone. Isn't this country governed by rules andregulations, or don't they apply to the CPI(M) and its affiliates?

Power Pollutes
Talking about Kolkata's autorickshaws--most aren't only unlicensed, but allare the biggest polluters--brings me to the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government'sclaims that it is doing everything it can to reduce vehicular pollution.If the present pitiable state of the vehicular emission testing infrastructureand emission norms enforcing mechanism is anything to go by, it clearly isn'tdoing enough. But to be fair to the state government, there 's little it canreally do to reduce vehicular pollution drastically. For, that would entailcracking down on the polluters and the biggest ones are the publictransport--the smoke-belching taxis, buses and autorickshaws.

The state machinery can't touch them, for they enjoy the protection of theCITU. Most of the owners and drivers of these modes of public transport belongto unions that are affiliated to the CITU, which will never allow the lawenforcers to do their duty. Thus, the 88 auto-emission testing centres inKolkata are a big joke--anyone can purchase a ‘pollution under check'certificate for a few hundred rupees without bothering to even drive his vehicleto such a centre. And even then, most of the public vehicles on Kolkata'sroads don't bother to acquire this certificate. Emission tests by the trafficpolice and transport authorities on the road--a routine in many other cities ofIndia--are never carried out here. No wonder, then, that despite the stategovernment's ‘best intentions' and it doing everything it can(which doesn't amount to anything, by the way), pollution levels in Kolkatakeep increasing by the day.

Shaming The Government
What the state government ought to have done a long time ago but still hasn't,a few NGOs are doing now: setting up a helpline that'll help citizens obtaininformation under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Such helplines have comeup and are functioning in many other states; but in Bengal, even the basicinfrastructure for implementing this Act is yet to be put in place by theMarxist government which, anyway, doesn't believe in democracy. CalcuttaSamaritans have joined hands with Association for People's Initiative forLiberation, Right Track, Action Aid International and Griha Adhikar Machna tolaunch this helpline (94336-20192) that'll operate, for starters, from 10 amto 6 pm before becoming a 24x7 service later on. Citizens can call and registertheir queries, which will then be forwarded to the relevant governmentdepartment or agency. The NGOs will track the progress of the queries andprovide the feedback from the department to the callers. They will also helppeople in filling up application forms and in other services like obtainingpensions and other retirement benefits. This laudable initiative is a step inthe right direction by Bengal civil society in stepping in where the governmenthas abdicated its responsibilities. Hopefully, we shall see similar initiativesin other areas where the government is found wanting.

Unreasonable Demands
For once, it is not the CITU, but its rival unions, who have provedthemselves irrational. The Hindustan Motors plant at Uttarpara near Kolkata(which manufactures the Ambassador cars) has been embroiled in labour troublesince early March. Trouble started when some employees' unions' leaders,demanding payment of back wages and withdrawal of a freeze on dearnessallowance, assaulted senior managers. This led to suspension of 15 suchemployees and that led to a full-blown agitation. Since then, the management haspaid the back wages, but pointed out that since the employees have approachedthe court on the DA freeze, the matter is sub-judice, and therefore thesuspension of the errant employees has not been withdrawn. The plantmanufactures 1000 to 1300 Ambassadors a month, but due to the steep decline inthe car's market share, incurs losses of more than Rs 20 crore a year. Themanagement has framed a plan to rejuvenate the plant and take it out of the red.At such a time, this recalcitrance by a (militant) section of the employees whohad even physically prevented those willing to work (mainly CITU-affiliatedemployees) from entering the plant and assaulted them has led to the managementdeclaring a lockout.

The employees' demand for back wages was fair, but they needn't havepushed for withdrawal of the freeze on DA (a move necessitated by sustainedlosses that the plant has been incurring). In fact, I'd say, the employeesshould have been grateful to the management for running the plant despite thelosses instead of closing it down altogether, as many others in a similarsituation would have done. The employees, for their own sake at least, need tobe reasonable and support the management in implementing the plan forrejuvenating the Uttarpara plant. But I cannot help observing that while theCITU may be playing a responsible role now for once, it cannot shy away fromaccepting blame for the intransigence of those in the rival unions--after all,it was the CITU which has shown the way in such selfish obduracy that had led toBengal becoming an industrial graveyard.

Green Force
There was a very happy development in one part of Kolkata just the other day.People residing along and around a busy thoroughfare at Tollygunge (in SouthKolkata), along with drivers of autorickshaws and taxis that park there, were upin arms over attempts by some advertising agencies that have put up hugehoardings along the road to lop off branches of trees. The agencies engagedlabourers to cut the trees that were obstructing the billboards. But theresidents would have none of it and when, despite earlier warnings, thelabourers cut off the trees' branches, the locals got together and tore downthe hoardings before torching them and setting up a roadblock to force theauthorities to take action against the erring agencies. It has now been revealedthat all such agencies routinely lop off branches or even cut down entire treesthat obstruct a clear view of their hoardings. Many of them even inject harmfulchemicals, like copper sulphate, into the branches or trunks of trees to killthem. Such acts are nothing short of criminal and deserve exemplary punishment.The residents of that South Kolkata locality deserve kudos for being sovigilant. The incident proves that Kolkatans are, slowly but surely, becomingenvironment conscious. But if only they'd stop dumping their household refuseon the roads in front of their houses.

A Proposal
There's no point in stating the obvious--that Kolkata has become a concretejungle with unaesthetic, faceless, characterless, matchbox-like structuresmushrooming all over. Builders are only interested in profits and, hence, therush to make the most out of as little space. Aesthetics be damned. The solutionlies in creating an Urban Arts Commission-like body that'll be empowered tovet every large construction project, whether public or private. Any privatehousing or commercial project beyond a certain threshold--say more than 20apartments or 5000 square feet of commercial space or more than four storeys--wouldnecessitate invitation of technical bids for their designs. The Commission,working with the private realtor, would then select the best design. For publicor government-sponsored projects, the best bid would be frozen and constructionbids would be invited on that chosen design. This is the best, and mostpractical way, to ensure that some beautiful and pleasing structures come up inwhatever space is still available in and around this city. But perhaps othershave other ideas?