Jal arrives and the music begins

Ik Din Ayega, oh yes the day will come but before that let us hope that we will not have to deal with more of the kind of Jal, the cyclone storm that just plagued Chennai for the whole of this Sunday, because invariably the city planners of Chennai did very little to help the growing city adapt to deal with some, if not all of the natural hazards this part of the world is increasingly becoming prone to.

Yes, your thoughts quite like mine might be drifting towards the Bheegi Yaadein of the Mumbai incident. No No, not that one but of the 26/7, that’s right the floods of 2005.

The incident was a simple one, heavy (994mm) incessant (for 24hr) rain plagued Mumabi on the 26^th and the 27^th of July; and world the witnessed the plight of the suffering Mumbai residents.

Roughly 22% of the land was flooded. All roads where flooded, rail was non-operational, airport closed down for 2 days and thus the transportation infrastructure ceased to be useful. Telephones (wired and mobile) stopped working the public address system was never effective and the people were effectively cutoff from the rest of the world. Some of the power stations were flooded and a few of the power lines were broken. With the effect Mumbai was dark, deaf and stuck. The situation undoubtedly complicated as hours passed by, no food reached the people and there was this growing concern of an epidemic, given the fact that the sewerage has merged with flood water.

So, let us try and see what went wrong.

First we ought to look at the rain itself. Was the rain on this spiteful day any different form the rain jo Mumbai ko Adaat hai? Well, technically this was a rain of a different kind as this was the 8^th highest 24hr period recorded rain ever. The next; could the MET department have told us about the coming rain, at least in theory? Well perhaps. But then the important question is would the few hours’ notice be of any use? Or in other words does Mumbai’s century old storm water drainage system have, at least in paper, the needed capacity to deal with the effuse of this kind? The answer is No, its design capacity is about 25mm drainage per hour (it rained hard, 994mm in 24hrs).

Wonderful, now that things have cleared up, was the authorities in charge aware of this impending danger? Undoubtedly yes. In fact there was this McKinsey report that brought to daylight the steps to be taken to turn Mumbai into Shanghai where this small but exceedingly relevant issue of the need for expanding the drainage capacity was pointed out. In addition Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had commissioned a UK based firm in 1990 to look into this issue and a project a INR 600 crore project was proposed and soon scrapped(in the name of cost of course;Note direct flood damage ran into abut INR 450 crores)

Beautiful, now that we have successfully convicted the lack of infrastructure for the case of flood, lets us try and see what the infrastructure ‘development’ has actually got to do with the whole issue.

The starting is clear, the development happened and hence the demand for drainage increased to the extent that 40% of the sewerage was carried through the drainage network; slums are one of the reasons for this. The second; limited maintenance of the system; in part attributed to new development ‘on drains’, plastics and other waste clogging the drains and so on. The unplanned development of Northern Mumbai is the third and most important reason. The last but definitely not the final, of the clearing of the mangroves and the swamps which served to ‘buffer’ the effect of floods in the past. Up to 40% of Mumbai’s swamps were lost from 1995 to 2005 to builders and slums; and the effect is clear.

So the take away is that there is a lot to be done to help our existing cities cope with natural disasters and some meticulous planning should go into cities that we hope to develop in the future. For Chennai, may Jal be the vaccine will wake the authorities to reality; setting the ball rolling for the development of the needed immunity not just against flood but against all natural disasters! So let the music begin!

Reference

1. Monograph on Flood Hazard In Urban Area, Envis Center on Human Settlements, School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharashtra_floods_of_2005

3. http://knol.google.com/k/floods-in-mumbai#

4. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/a060726103620.c9ebvxoi.html

5. Mumbai Floods: Another wake-up call, Shveta Mathur and Anshu Sharma, Coordinates

6. News on Jal,

7. Do visit: www.jaltheband.com

Of measuring Infrastructure Needs

Well, we have people from the government parting insights that the present requirement for infrastructure as being so many crore rupees of roads and so many crore rupees of bridges and the like; and we have a group of people informing us that the major issue today is not finance but the lack of ability of the systems to absorb these kinds of amounts. I have one question?

How in the world did they end up getting the units wrong?

To me, a hardly baked civil engineer, this issue seems important. No, no I have not yet lost my mind, I am merely trying to point to the obvious; or what I think is obvious, you can’t measure the length of the road to Mumbai from Chennai in rupees you have to invariably do it km (or cm if you have the patience that is)

So I have a few questions; sticking to the metric system how much road length has to be added this year? How many more schools are to be built in the rural areas? How much more water per household should the government plan to supply this year?

Boring? Well the point is, I want it to penetrate. The fact that someone from the side of the government comes up with the length of road in rupees is worrying to me. One, because if there is an actual requirement of a 100km of road in Hogsmeade village in Tamil Nadu and the “agency”, be it the government estimator or some international agency, comes up with a statement “Hogsmeade requires 400crs of roads” then you have a problem. Because given the fact that the occupation of the residents in Hogsmeade is magical and that they can turn anyone who come to acquire their land without twice the land value as compensation into stone, it is easy to understand if I say the final project cost will run over 700crs. Now the authority involved in construction has two ways out, one build 57km and say the work is done which is largely true as he will have built for 400crs, the projected requirement; or chicken out and say I cannot absorb the funds and I have no capacity to build.

The point is the estimated project cost and actual project cost can largely vary and that matters.

So what is the way out? Well there is always an option to hire Sherlock Homes and make him look into the matter but I fear that the application of his pristine faculties would yield an explanation quite simple and indeed trivial; ‘you either need to pay a lot more attention to your estimates or you need to look into better ways of releasing funding’ is perhaps what he would advise the government authorities. Perhaps he will go to the extent of suggesting that a central pool of funds directly accessible to the contractor upon legitimate demand is the only viable solution.

However I would reexamine the delicate yet dangerous issue of the “lack of ability to absorb”. For it is a strange acquisition but might never be an illicit one, because there may not actually be the necessary capacity to absorb the funds. Then in the case, you might accuse me of unduly accusing the government; however I would refute and enlighten you with the fact that the lack of capacity is in part the making of the government and its funding mechanism.

For with the contractors fearing the no-nonsense-negotiating mechanism of the government and with their profit margins clinging to such low values, it is perfectly justified for them to stay without work than to work and make losses. There is also this strict qualifying criterion followed by the government in the selection of “qualified” contractors which is posing quite a serious entry barrier to this field; for newer contractors that is.

All in all what I wish to say is that the government needs better methods to estimate, better methods to release funding and above all it should let the contractors and the other private parties involved to take their share of fair profits. In addition it also needs a better method to estimate the likely benefits from what they plan to build as without it there can be no real cost benefit analysis with which they can try and please the tax-payers.

Reference

1. Lecture by Mr Vikram Kapoor

2. Lecture by Mr Raj Cherubal

3. “ Infrastructure requirements too large for budget provision”, Hindu

4. http://www.cvc.nic.in/3%20Tender%20Stage.pdf

Negotiators, All Hail! (nah!)

The negotiation game that we did in class effectively brought to light one of the several issues that are common with negotiations; primarily the lack of clarity in communication especially, of the requirement and of the interests, among the parties involved. However, my interest today is not to reiterate this issue; nether is it to suppress its importance nor is it to enlarge the importance of another. My whole and explicit point is to negotiate a position for the ‘invisible’ part of the negotiations in the process of negotiations.

Well, issues like that of lack of communication will almost certainly be a minor factor when you consider extended negotiations; however a factor that will hold ground all the time and which always will is the part of the ‘requirement of the parties’ which forced the negotiations in the first place. For instance take the interstellar egg case that we shared in class; on the one hand ‘A’ needs it for his/her mother and ‘B’ needs it for his/her sister then would it not be wise to first implore the relation of ‘A’ with ‘B’. You may to your astonishment find that in a particular case, which is seldom uncommon, that ‘B’ turns out to be ‘A’’s long lost uncle in the distant galaxy, infrapm alpha.

My point is; you will be clear and simple, only if you need to.

This might not be easy to digest; so let me take up an example to highlight the point. The idea of negotiations between the two neighbors India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue has been in and out of the media lately. What is the purpose of such negotiations? What the people of Kashmir want is their peace and that, they can rest assured, can never be found if they were part of Pakistan as some among them claim. So why negotiate to change the borders? Well to me, it looks like everyone involved is just trying to buy time; dust up the files and leave us in the dark.

The talking of time compels me to write about a very interesting case of Caterpillar’s Solar Turbines Inc. Negotiations ended in favor of Americans (the owners) as their Russian clients fell for the sunshine of their neutral negotiation location in France. Such external factors are important and are often manipulated to take advantage.

Another curious case is that, which is quite common, when the Asian corporate personnel have negotiations with their American or British counterparts. The Asian, quite probably a master in English in his place, will use an interpreter to communicate. Ask for a reason and I will give you two; when he speaks, his counterpart listens to his interpreter and fails to see the non-verbal cues that he may have unintentionally given away by means of facial expression had he spoken directly. On the other hand when the Asian listens, he listens twice, ones directly from the American and then from the interpreter. Also he gets double the time to think and speak. Interesting right? But does this all matter at all to negotiations? The answer is quite unclear.

But where am I taking all this to? All the way to prove that negotiations are seldom solid. All negotiators are vulnerable.

The days is not far when negotiations will be done with the push of a button; for they are now a mere excuse; done by the feeble, to be mastered by the dumb.

Reference

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negotiation

[2]The Kashmir imbroglio: thinking the unthinkable, Dr Vithal Rajan

[3]Negotiating Power, Getting and Using Influence, Roger Fisher

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

Secret of Success for Common Wealth

I do not intend to talk of the secrets of success of the athletes at the Commonwealth Games. Nor will I talk of the secrets of the organizing committee of CWG in successfully recruiting langurs for security. Neither will I attempt to mimic the Shiv Khera and his splendid methods to instill success. But I will quote here a simple yet powerful quote

“Start early and begin raising the bar throughout the day.”

-Bruce Jenner (American Athlete, b.1949)

And try and see where it will get us in infrastructure, a common wealth, development .

We all know where the discussion on raising tariff ends when we talk of privatization or PPP. And it is this end that which is quite often discussed in class, of which I wish to elaborate on, today.

The idea is clear, the government or the agency that was responsible for handling the specific service, say water supply, prior to privatization or PPP, will have to begin the process of raising the tariffs before the powers and responsibilities are transferred to the partner (pvt sector).

Let us question this accepted wisdom and let’s begin by asking “Why?” and this question appears first in the form “Why PPP?” when we talk of basic services like water. The answer is in the lines of, government inability in operating the service; which almost always is on account of lack of revenue which in turn is on account of incredibly low tariff. Of course the garnishes like corruption and higher employment cost in lower wage category over industry average, is ever present, when we talk of any government but these are minor issues; after all, governments today have anti-corruption cells and if government agencies can contract hire consultants I see no reason why they can’t contract hire other category of employees and pay them suitably.

So the real reason is coming to light, lack of revenue on account of low tariff is why the government can’t run the service. And low tariff stays so long as the government runs the show; else if the tariff is raised government won’t stay. Political will is perhaps the only reason why the tariffs are remaining low. So our nostrum of starting early and raising tariff is not going to work.

And if that does not work, then I see a lot of reasons for the PPP to not work. The unrest among the masses over anti-private sentiments for essential services may get aggravated by the sudden rise in charges once the private sector takes over.

So, I believe, our cure-all should not be to start early, as it might never work; but to start low and keep rising. And to start with a low tariff, the government should subsidize the private sector heavily and pay to cover the additional cost over and above that which is recoverable from tariff. This subsidy should be gradually reduced over the years and the tariff be raised to compensate. Funny, isn’t it, when you think of it, I am asking the government to subsidize my water with my own tax money. For all you know, I might not know about this and things might just work out fine. Besides the cost I will have to pay for a screwed up PPP or poor water supply may match with/ or fall below the losses through tax inefficiency.

We still have not answered “why PPP?” yet; but as I see it

“Once the people begin to reason, all is lost”

- Voltaire

There is no need for PPP; but things seldom change spontaneously in the world and PPP might be the right reason for the government to make a little change. The government could have very well decided to raise taxes and made things better. Ah, but think of all the pockets that would remain empty.

So, does staring early ever work? Well in the case of the Chad’s Oil Troubles, I believe that things would have been better if a significant portion of the agreed investments were made by the government for public welfare in advance, well before operations began. However the question remains as to who will give the initial funding. Maybe the International Credit Agencies (ICA) could help; with the oil as security. They could satisfy their self interest in getting the companies of the country which they represent to develop Chad and its oil; and Chad in turn may develop. Later these loans could be repaid when the revenue, from the oil, starts flowing; by this way the amount of money with the government to procure arms would be limited, which is vital as we saw.

ICAs have a reason to do this; Chad can be made to this (Pressure from UN and the like) and so this has a reason to work. So take my word, Start Early for the Commonwealth.

Reference

[1] http://www.cfr.org/publication/10532/chads_oil_troubles.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_tariff

[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11433539

Water, the price we have to pay

While the films like the ‘Thirst’ take a side and portray the fate of the people who are victims of water privatizations and while the discussions in water symposiums strive to proclaim water as a fundamental right, and even still, while we question the obligation and the extent of the efforts the various government organizations put in providing water; we forget one thing, the price we have to pay for water.

I talk not of the production and distribution and delivery cost, not of the profit margins of the firms that provide water and never of the price that a person have to pay to quench his thirst; but of the price that our future generation will be forced to pay thanks to our unsustainable utilization of the invaluable resource, water.

Well where am I going with this? Did we not talk of the issue of exclusivity of water rights for a company? How unfair it was? Why not try and take this a step forward and ask ourselves as to whether this generation has signed an exclusivity agreement with the Creator.

To prove the point let me point at some statistics. Do you know how many tube wells are there in India? Well today it is close to 21 million and each year farmers who use these bring into service another million or so every year^[1]. The farmers in India (I take India because I am an India; the situation in China or for that matter any other developing country is no different than this) who a generation ago used to pull up water with bullocks from shallow wells; today use cutting edge (literally) technology to pull water from over 300m deep. What has this done? Well for the start this turned India, in less than a generation, from a place common to famine to a rice exporter.

But the other side is quite disturbing. The amount of water that is pulled out is by no means comparable to what is being replaced by the monsoons. Water table is falling; salt water intrusions are becoming a more common problem

The problem does not end here, but merely begins. Think about what happens to farmers when the water table recedes given that today they no longer rely on government water supply as it is quite often erratic and for that matter on monsoons as they are unpredictable. Then the question remains; what do they do. It is clear; and the answer is; some of them, the larger farmers dig deeper ^[1] and continue to prosper, and the rest gets featured in the news.

Why is this happening? One; we can always blame the government inefficiency in providing irrigation water. Two; again we can blame the government for not monitoring and regulating water extraction from the tube wells. Three; we can yet again blame the government policies on subsidized electricity for the farmers. But four; we can only blame ourselves.

Ourselves, as the technical and intellectual leaders of the modern day world, in not being capable of providing better and more efficient and most importantly, implementable, irrigation methodologies, better variety of crops that require less water and so on.

Ourselves, as the members of the media, in unhelpfully interfering in the promotion and development and deployment of better technologies. Don’t we remember the brinjals that were all over the papers and news not so long ago?

Ourselves, as leaders of the political community in not taking into confidence the people that matter. Whether or not the projects are PPP is an altogether different issue; there are quite a few cases of water irrigation projects that were rejected by the community on grounds like, loss of reservoir land for instance, that are different from anti-private sentiments.

So what am I trying to say? Well the blame game can go on, but what is the point if there is no change in the scenario?

So the inevitable change has to happen and it needs to begin from each one of us from the farmers to the democrat to the scientists. As farmers we need to form better unions, we need to reach a consensus on the amount of ground water we would draw, we need to invest in water conserving irrigation technologies like drip irrigation. As democrats we need to monitor effectively the implemented regulations and the right kind of feedback and make the necessary amendments. As scientists we need to be concerned about the long term effects of the research that we pursue.

So as often is quoted “Before you blame others, blame yourself; Before you change other, change yourself” and as often is common in safety instructions “Before you save others, save yourself” so that we can leave something behind for future ourselves.

Reference

1. Asian farmers sucking the continent dry, New Scientist

2. http://www.thirstthemovie.org

3. http://www.pbs.org/pov/thirst/

4. Thirst, by Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drip_irrigation