Counting the poor - how many do we have?

silkboard - 15-JUL-2010

Public Agenda dear, here is that intellectually ruminating discussion we said we will have soon. How many poor people do we have in our country? The debate, and understanding the number is important because the classic quote goes - "you can't fix what you can't measure". If you can't count your poor, you can't check how your poverty alleviation programs are working.

Two important things around which disagreements arise are 1) How do you define a poor household? 2) How exactly do you count people using the poverty definition you accept?

First of all, the two popular stats that are quoted to start a discussions like this

• Arjun Sengupta - 77% of Indians lived on less than Rs 20 a day.
• Suresh Tendulkar co. - Poverty ratio at the all India level ... 37.2% in 2004-05. Rural poverty ... 41.8% and urban ... 25.7%. Criteria, spend per person per month. Rs446.68 in rural areas. Rs578.8 in urban. (see http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_an-honest-measure-of-poverty_1323446)

Some other notable stats:

Alternatives to Road-Widening

pdk - 14-JUL-2010

This post is in response to criticism that road-widening critics haven't provided alternatives to widening.

Two things.

1. Sorry for the extreme illustration, but suppose I find someone committing a murder. I'm not sure that I have to provide an alternative to him and only then try to stop him.

2. I think the people mentioned above have suggested various alternatives. The 'people' say that the problem is a unsustainable number of private vehicles on our roads. Following from that, they have likened road-widening to 'loosening the belt to cure obesity' and recognised that it is a unworkable response to traffic congestion. They have provided following alternatives to resolving traffic congestion. None of these may help by itself. But some combination of them should be tried. The list has been made from the following sources:

SBC's Convention invite

The Solution - CyBaNa

Stupidity of road widening

Corruption and Technologies in BMTC - List of Questions

kbsyed61 - 10-JUL-2010

Extending the discussion on Pilferage by BMTC Conductors/Official and taking SBs suggestion for coming up with the list of questions for possible direct answers from BMTC or filing RTI with BMTC.

In any case, as a civil city and residents of Bengaluru, it is our duty to hold the powers responsible for all that good and bad happens in public institutions and corporations.

BMTC needs to be held responsible and answers should be demanded for all the relevant issues and questions.

Let us collate all the questions here. Pls feel free to list the questions via comments under two categories.

1. Pilferage via in-bus corruption
2. State of technology use in BMTC

REQUEST - Pls do not start discussions on Private vs Public. You may do so by starting a separate post on it.

Citizen participation in governance

idontspam - 7-JUL-2010

Can non IAS/Politico citizens add value to governance?

Dozens of dapperly dressed young people gathered to attend a conference entitled, "Exploring Spaces for Young Indians in Government."

Suri, who is spending the summer assisting the office of Sachin Pilot, Minister of State for Communications and Technology, is among the growing ranks of young Indians who are showing an increasing interest in exploring careers in public policy and government - areas in which Indian civil servants have had a historical monopoly.

Counter-intuitively, the majority of the attendees were young people comfortably ensconced in private sector jobs. If these two things are anything to go by, then it strongly signals a slow but steady shift in the years and decades to come, towards a younger, more inclusive and level playing field in India's governing fabric, which will ultimately bode well for its nation-building project.

Do you support commuter rail service (local trains) for Bangalore?

idontspam - 6-JUL-2010

* Yes * No

ಮಹಾತ್ಮಾ ಗಾಂಧಿಯವರ ಜನ್ಮ ಸ್ಥಳದಲ್ಲಿ ಸತ್ಯದ ಕೊಲೆ?

mbnataraj - 3-JUL-2010

JUSCO & 24x7 Water Supply

pdk - 22-JUN-2010

There have been discussions here on JUSCO getting the Mysore contract. 24x7 supply has been noted as a major change that this contract will achieve. Now, JUSCO has been managing the water supply in Jamshedpur. Jamshedpur is also known as just "Tata", which is not surprising since the city was founded around the Tata Iron and Steel Works factory there.

Rethinking road-widening - Tunnels?

Transmogrifier - 22-JUN-2010

One of the core infrastructural issues we are facing is an inability of our arterial roads and highways to provide rapid cross-town access. Globally, city and highway planners recognize and create different infrastructure for highways and city roads. See Dr. Joglekar’s posts here for a succinct description of this problem plaguing most Indian cities. A simple schematic (full size image here)and an inventory of city highways reveals the problem.

Thru Highways:

1. NH7 (in blue)
2. NH4 (in red)

Terminal Highways:

BWSSB Ultrosonic Flow meters What can they do?

psaram42 - 20-JUN-2010

I saw this leak presumably Cauvery water, during my usual morning walk to day at about 6:15 AM. Instead of picking up a telephone and putting in my complaint at some BBMP  ward office I thought of putting a blog entry on Praja. The BWSSB has installed Ultrasonic flow meters all around Bangalore  for detecting pilferage and or leakages.

   Picture 1. The Ultrosonic Flow meter installed at 80 ft Road

I am not sure whether these kinds of leakages can be detected let alone the exact location identified.

Picture 2. The Drinking Water Pipe on 80 Ft Road Indiranagar Laid beneath the foot path in front of the BSNL Telephone Exchange

Picture 3. The Water gushing at the 12th main 100 ft road Junction at Indiranagar

PUPs: Alternative Approach to Governance Reforms

pdk - 18-JUN-2010

Interesting story of an alternative vision of reform in government departments, from Tamil Nadu: