3. Infrastructure and Development

 I have always wondered about perquisite for economic development. What is primary requirement for economic development? What is the thing that makes development self perpetuating? Is it education? Is it physical infrastructure? Or is it something else? As a child I was never in kept in doubt about the answer to this question. I read books written by academics who, without exception, talked about supremacy of education as a developmental tool. After having thought about this question for a long time, I am not very sure of education as being primary tool in armor for making a region economically developed. I am much wiser after having traveled around the world and having studied in best schools in India and the United States.

It is abundantly clear to me that infrastructure is primary tool in making a region economically developed. Once infrastructure is taken care of, other important ingredients like education, health, and social consciousness follow. Of course, at this point, you will doubt my assertion. Let me illustrate with a qualitative case study of Sikar. 

As a child growing in village far from city (at that time), only option for me to get quality education was to go to a hostel in a city school in either Sikar or Jhunjhunu. This obviously cost a lot of money (compared with cost of going to village school, but not compared with cost of not getting a good education). Only those who could afford to pay or were determined to send their kids to good school would send their kids to city school. The schooling in village was as bad as it is today. The government teachers were not regular and if they came to school, they would gather together to play cards and drink tea. They would do everything in school but teach. There seems to be no way that they could be forced to teach. The villagers whose kids go to school did not feel empowered enough to question teachers in order to force them to start teaching. 

3.1 Increasing Educational Opportunities

Presently my village is connected to Nawalgarh, a nearby town, by an all weather bituminous road. The road is not great but the commute time has been reduced to 20 to 40 minutes from two to three hours in the past. Since there exists a road today, most of the city schools send their buses to my village. As is the case with my village, most of the villages and hut settlements in Sikar have some private school bus service. These buses are regular in picking up and dropping kids in school because of fear of competitive poaching from other schools. I am not trying to argue that education standards in city schools are great, but they are much better than any government school can be. Since number of schools is increasing every year, there is a lot of competition and the educational standards are improving every year. The catalyst for this improvement wasn’t some government scheme. It is Pradhanmantri Gramin Sadak Yojana: The Prime Minister Rural Road Scheme.

 Another byproduct of road improvement in improving education has been that it has increased the awareness about education. Since competition is fierce, private schools are forced to fight for every child. As is expected in any market-based system, they respond by creating a demand for schools among parents of children of school going age. It is not unusual for private school administrators to keep track of school age children in even small hut settlements and persuade parents to send their kids to the school. Good schools in Sikar have students studying from all over India. Nav Prerna School has kids from Haryana, UP, Bihar, AP, in addition to students from educationally backward districts of Rajasthan such as Alwar, Barmer, Churu, and Jaislmer. It is not as if parents have come to Sikar looking for these schools. It is the other way round. Schools went to these places scouting for students. Good students have their fees subsidized by most schools. A student in merit makes all the difference. Therefore, it is not unusual for schools to resort to all means to attract talented students. A desirable consequence of this development is that bright students have their education subsidized. 

Next time you see a student from Sikar succeeding in getting admission in an IIT, a good engineering college, a good medical college, or any other professional course; be thankful to one more thing. The smooth well paved or potholed but still passable bituminous road is as much responsible for their success as any other external factor.

3.2 Rise of Small India

If you are an avid reader of magazines, you must have read about the rise of small India. Small India is defined as India sans the metros. If you find time, compare the background of students getting into professional courses such as NDA, IIT, medical colleges, IAS, or other professional courses today with background of students just a decade back. You will find that a large portion of these comes from small India. Just a decade back, the ratio was heavily skewed in favor of students from the metros. Many of these students are from Shekhawati region. Even the captain of Indian one-day cricket team is from small India. One of the most important contributing factor has been the road connectivity. 

India has shrunk. It used to take more than a day to reach Jaipur from my village at time of Indian independence. Today it takes two to three hours. That has made a big difference. This combined with TV penetration and mobile connectivity has helped shrink India. 

3.3 Health

The road connectivity has also improved the health and well being of people. As a child of five or six years I remember being carried by my mother and granny to Nawalgarh from my village on their back. They had to carry me to treat for burn injuries. After severe physical exhaustion and excuriating pain, we reached Nawalgarh after a three hour walk. In a critical case, wait of three hours meant that many patients did not make it to the hospital. Today there are buses, cars, trucks, jeeps and other transportation vehicles available to carry sick and injured to a good hospital. You can reach a health facility in Jaipur in three hours time from most of the villages in Sikar. As telephones are ubiquitous, you can ask ambulance to meet mid way in a critical case. No government, regardless of the economy, can provide the equivalent health facilities in villages as are available in the cities. Small number of villagers in one village and large number of villages makes it a daunting task. In addition to providing primary health care in villages, only sensible option to improve medical care in villages is to improve road connectivity.

3.4 Helping village economy 

Improved road connectivity improves economic well-being of villagers. For one, villagers find a direct market for village produce such as vegetables, milk and eggs in the cities. In villages connected by good roads, milkmen collect milk from villagers and sell it in the cities. If the milk supply is more than the city can consume, dairies spring up to supply milk to far-off milk deficient regions. When I was a child in village, excess milk was a useless resource, as you could not sell it. The best you could do was to produce Ghee. Other benefit is to the economically most disadvantaged group, the labor. Labor can commute to city for work where pay is higher. Another economical benefit is that the essential commodities in village shop cost almost the same as in city. Earlier the items such as sugar, salt and other things brought from the city would be sold at a premium to recover the transportation and storage costs or simply to benefit from arbitrage opportunity. With road connectivity, the quality of life has improved in the village, with added bonus of not having to stay in a polluted city environment. 

 Road connection has been the best thing to happen to my village. The fact that intrigues me is that villagers as such never felt it that way. They never raised a coherent demand for construction of road. I am yet to understand the reasons for this. John F Kennedy knew better. He had said, “American roads are good, not because America is rich, but America is rich because American roads are good”.

The above macro analysis points to the fact that road connectivity has played a greater role in shaping development in Sikar compared with government provisions of health, education, or any other governmental scheme. Only a quantitative analysis can confirm or reject the hypothesis. However, on a cursory glance, there is no doubt that infrastructure plays a fundamental role. Sensible citizens should, therefore, demand better infrastructure more than anything else. An eight-lane highway connecting Sikar to Jaipur and Sikar to Delhi coupled with good rural connectivity would be the right beginning.

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This quote was found pinned to a site hut during the construction of the Konkan railway

 

I take the vision which comes from dreams

and apply the magic of science and mathematics,

adding the heritage of my profession

and my knowledge of nature's materials

to create a design.

 

I organize the efforts and skills of my fellow workers

employing the capital of the thrifty

and the products of many industries,

and together we work toward our goal

undaunted by hazards and obstacles.

 

And when we have completed our task

all can see

that the dreams and plans have materialized

for the comfort and welfare of all.

 

I am an Engineer

I serve mankind

by making dreams come true.

- Anonymous