Monday, August 28, 2017

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Niti Aayog is a good idea' that was published in Newsband

Niti Aayog is a good idea
A long-term vision called Niti Aayog is being developed by government thinktank. Niti Aayog will initiate changes providing a welcome roadmap for economic reforms. Niti Aayog can boost economic growth, urbanisation and infrastructure development and help absorb surplus agricultural labour.
Niti Ayog first should propose to make our Goverment run Hospitals clean and also make government run schools efficient. In Mumbai, people are losing their lives due to potholes. State Govt remains insensitive
Senior citizens’ homes should be set up for city dwellers on a vast scale in villages. There is a huge number of senior citizens who live alone or with spouse in cities. They would like to live in a community without the hassles of cooking and daily housekeeping in a peaceful and pollution-free environment. Fresh vegetables straight from farm would be loved. There being huge scope for social involvement in villages they would keep busy in a noble cause.
 Any large scale initiative to create rental housing in the public sector needs to keep in mind MHADA's experience. Absent rent control, private rental housing is possible, is now a regular feature of urban areas but, given the cost of land, it will cover the upper middle class and above. Rental housing for poor migrants is a daunting challenge.

Most of the incremental GDP that India requires to become a middle income country will have to be generated in urban areas. Not much juice left in agriculture, for either growth or jobs. Almost without exception - barring Delhi, which is a city state - our major cities are starved for funds, since state governments are also responsible for large rural hinterlands. Niti Aayog might wish to address this problem, how metros can retain more of the resources they generate. The other major constraint is the high cost of land, which compels a majority of migrants to start their urban odyssey in a slum.

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