Month: September 2019

Modi Govt’s idea to restructure the stretch from India Gate to Rashtrapati Bhavan is an attempt to bulldoze over things that do not conform with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s world view

Earlier this month, the Modi government announced an ambitious plan to redevelop, reinvent and rebuild the area around the four-kilometre stretch from the India Gate to the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the Indian Capital. Also known as the Central vista, the wide lawns in the heart of Delhi, are flanked by a host of buildings which house various Central government offices.

Besides the imposing Rashtrapati Bhavan, which rests on the Raisina Hill, the North and South Block as well as the circular Parliament House are among the well-known buildings providing a befitting backdrop to the sprawling India Gate lawns which were constructed between 1911 and 1931 when the British shifted the Capital from Calcutta to Delhi. The other buildings like Shastri Bhavan, Udyog Bhavan and Nirman Bhavan were constructed in the sixties to provide accommodation for government officers attached to various ministries.  

Dating back to the colonial era, the entire area represents a slice of history as it provides a glimpse of Delhi’s growth and evolution from a colony to an independent nation. Often compared to The Mall in Washington D.C, India Gate lawns are a favourite haunt of Delhi citizens for a leisurely stroll or an evening out with the family for ice-creams.

However, there is fear and concern in Delhi that its residents may be denied access to the Capital’s largest public space  while the skyline along the majestic Rajpath would be drastically altered  as the Modi government gets set to “build a new Capital”  by the year 2022 when India celebrates its 75th Independence Day. These fears have been fuelled, following the government’s recent announcement inviting proposals to redevelop the Central Vista, to construct a new common secretariat for all ministries and to build a new Parliament building. Alternatively, the present Parliament House could be revamped and modernised. A final call on this is yet to be taken but bids for the new mammoth project have already been floated.

Describing the proposed plan for a new Capital as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream project, Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Puri justified the mega scheme, stating that several buildings in the Central Vista reflect the “colonial ethos that the country was subjected to” and that many buildings which were constructed in the sixties and seventies should have been torn down years ago.

Puri explained that the move had been necessitated as the present office buildings did not have sufficient space to accommodate the vast army of government officers. He proffered the same argument for the construction of a new Parliament building though he denied that the present one will be demolished. However, it could be converted into a museum along with the North and South Block buildings which currently house the prestigious Prime Minister’s Office and the ministries of defence, external affairs, home affairs, and finance.   

The government’s decision has led to serious concern among architects, urban planners and conservationists in the Capital in view of Modi’s known passion for constructing grand towering structures. More importantly, everyone is convinced that this mega project is an attempt to erase the past so that Modi can leave behind his own personal legacy. It fits in with the BJP’s moves to remove or downgrade buildings associated with the old regimes, especially the Nehruvian period. For instance, both the South Block building, as well as the Parliament House, serve as a constant reminder about the role played by the country’s first Prime Minister and other senior Congress leaders in the nationalist movement and building a modern India. Sadly, the BJP has no such icons to showcase and so the urgency to leave behind its own imprint.

Puri’s reference to the building reflecting “colonial ethos” has everyone particularly worried as it would appear that the Modi government wants to change the character of Central Vista and its surrounding areas which are dotted with heritage buildings. This is being viewed as a dangerous trend as it could set a precedent for designating Hindu and Mughal-style architecture and justifying the destruction of what does not conform with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s world view.

Though there is agreement that some of the latter-day government buildings do need to be revamped, there are strong reservations about the manner in which the government is rushing ahead with its plans. No proper guidelines have been laid down for the project though it has far-reaching implications for the Capital’s heritage zone.

No heritage assessment has been conducted about the state of the buildings to identify structures which need to be demolished or others which can be modernized without razing them. There has also been no consultation with various stakeholders and no public discussion on this massive project. The unilateral announcement came as surprise when the government, without giving any inkling about its intentions, invited bids for the redevelopment of the Central Vista.

While questioning the unseemly haste with which the government is proceeding with this project, architects and conservationists, including AGK Menon, Raj Rewal, and Gautam Bhatia have been at pains to point out that heritage buildings like the Parliament House and North and South Blocks should not be razed and instead these should be modernized while retaining the outer façade. They cite the examples of the Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. and the British Parliament (Westminster) in London in this regard as these have been upgraded over the years but the outward look has remained unchanged.      

As the debate on this project rages on, the Delhi chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage has drawn attention to specific issues in connection with this project. AGK Menon, chief consultant INTACH, pointed to the bid document laying down that guidelines must be followed for the redevelopment of the Central Vista. But there is no clarity on what these guidelines are as these have not been spelt out. “There are no objectively defined parameters in place to guide future development,” the INTACH statement added

Referring to the haste with which the government intends to carry out its plan, INTACH has pointed out, “The bid document states that the government wants to build a legacy for the next 150 years, but the timeline proposed to complete the project does not support this objective.”

Menon further pointed out that the financial terms set to identify potential bidders were designed in such a way to exclude the country’s best architects and planners. Seeking changes in the terms, Menon maintained that the financial terms for the bid “appear to be an open call to foreign players or large multinational Indian entities.”

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There are films that set box office records and there are some that script history. Shakti Samanta’s masterpiece creation Aradhana did both

Anniversary recalls of films are reserved for classics. Many may argue, but Aradhana, released on 27^th this month, fifty years ago, was not one.

But it was much else. There are films that set box office records. There are some that script history. Aradhana did both. It made money, selling across India, in the erstwhile Soviet Union and elsewhere.

It refurbished romance as a popular theme and survived those that celebrated violence and the “angry young man”, invariably ending in tragedy.

Aradhana was essentially producer-director Shakti Samanta’s creation. Bengali literature provides numerous themes that can be made into films. Many have been first made into that language before being re-made in Hindi. But Aradhana was straight out of Hollywood, based on To Each His Own (1946).

Besides a gripping story, obvious inspiration was the Oscar-winning performance by Olivia de Havilland, the role that Sharmila Tagore enacted. Retaining the air force pilot bit but relocating it in scenic North Bengal, the Indianization by writer Sachin Bhoumick left little trace of the original.

This family drama spread over two generations was the launching pad for Rajesh Khanna’s twinkly-eyed superstardom. He had four flops before. With Aradhana began his journey of 17 consecutive hits at the box office between 1969 and 1974. 

I met him at a party during that period, dressed in gaudy silk kurta and tehemat, basking in success that few before him had enjoyed.

But his superstardom was short-lived. Undoubtedly charming and even successful, he lacked the physique and the mind to bear its burden.

Samanta had switched from his long-time favourite Shammi Kapoor who had given him two hits (Kashmir Ki Kali and An Evening in Paris) to this fresh-faced newcomer. Pairing him against Sharmila, his senior by a decade, was a gamble that paid off. 

Aradhana was a great musical. Samanta had replaced his long-time favourites Shankar Jaikishan. See any collection of old songs today – Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar or S D Burman – practically all Aradhana songs are there.

With S D Burman’s advent preference for male singers changed. The film cemented Kishore Kumar’s position as India’s most popular playback singer (Kora Kaagaz tha and Roop Tera Mastana) at the expense of Mohammed Rafi (Gunguna Rahe Hain). Kishored’s versatile but untrained voice, lost among those trained by Ustads of Hindustani Classical of that era, had remained on the periphery for 22 long years.

As in Guide (1965), both Rafi and Kishore had given outstanding songs to composer Sachin Dev Burman. But Kishore burst the popularity charts the second time over in Aradhana, never to look back. Common to both films, of course, were voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Burman’s own, in title songs.

Burman fell sick while composing for Aradhana. Son Rahul Dev Burman took up the baton. Kishore, too, shared the music credit. Once out of the father’s banyan tree shadow, RD’s musical genius came into its own.

Sharmila Tagore had by then done 22 films. Launched by Satyajit Ray (Apur Sansar in 1959), she had paired opposite Bengal’s superstar Uttam Kumar (Nayak in 19660. For Samanta, she had done Kashmir Ki Kali (1964), Sawan Ki Ghata (1966) and An Evening in Paris (1967). But her Aradhana performance was vastly different.    

Precisely three months after Aradhana’s release, when she married Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the cricketer, it is said, the Nawab’s mother faced the dilemma of having to choose between a bikini-wearing bahu (first Indian actress to do so in An Evening in Paris) and a self-sacrificing unwed mother of Aradhana and of her earlier film, Satyakam (1966).

The sensitive unwed mother theme was not new. At least two films, B R Chopra’s Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and Dharmaputra (1961) with both roles enacted by Mala Sinha had preceded Aradhana. But in Sharmila’s two performances, neither the mother nor the child, aroused pity or disdain.      

After Aradhana, Rajesh-Sharmila became the hit pair of the 1970s. Samanta repeated them with similar success in Amar Prem (1972). It was located in Calcutta (now Kolkata) for which R D Burman lent that rare Bengal folk lilt. No fan of Rafi, RD took Kishore all the way. Today, it would be difficult to judge which of the two films is better, popular.   

Indeed, the first half of the 1970s belonged to Rajesh-Sharmila. Other directors starred them together in Safar (1970), Daag (1973), Maalik (1972), Chhoti Bahu, Raja Rani and Avishkaar – seven in all.

Sujit Kumar, who drives the jeep riding which Rajesh croons “mere sapnon ki rani” acquired huge fan following. After being the leading man’s sidekick, he leap-frogged to play lead roles in Bhojpuri films.

Shakti Samanta did many more films later, including Kati Patang (1971), pairing Rajesh with another senior, Asha Parekh. It had great music by RD. But arguably, that film is not so lasting in public memory as Aradhana and Amar Prem. 

Half-a-century hence, Samanta and his story-teller Bhowmick are gone. Rajesh Khanna passed away in 2012, to be posthumously awarded Padma Bhushan, the third-highest civilian award.

He won four Filmfare Awards for performances and two special awards for lifetime achievements. Long past his superstardom, he remained popular, though, and was elected to Parliament (1992-1996). The generation he mesmerized has faded.

Sharmila, gracefully aged, looks the same — pretty and petite. Her children have taken to films and she had a long stint as the Chief of the Central Board of Film Certification.   

Both the Burmans are gone, none to replace them — none to replace Kishore Kumar either.

One of the few survivors, Farida Jalal, the bubbly muse of Suraj, the pilot-son who sang Baaghon mein bahar hai, trade-marked that kind of role for years. Even as she plays the mother today, she remains a happy combination of wit and wisdom.  

For Samanta, Aradhana won the Filmfare Award for Best Film. At the 17th Filmfare Awards, Sharmila won her first Filmfare Best Actress Award. The song “Roop Tera Mastana” fetched the Best Male Playback Singer for Kishore Kumar.

Originally released in Hindi-Urdu and dubbed in Bengali, Aradhana’s huge success led to two remakes, with Tagore’s role being enacted by Vanishri. The Tamil film Sivagamiyin Selvan and the Telugu film Kannavari Kalalu were both released in 1974.

Old records say that Aradhana made a large impact on Indians in general. Wearing kurta over trousers became fashionable, and so was Khanna’s hairstyle, with parting in the middle, ears covered.    

It inspired many to take up films as a vocation. One of them was the popular American actor Tom Alter, who had made India his home and Bollywood his artistic arena.

He confessed in an interview that impressed watching Rajesh Khanna in Aradhana, he had headed to Film and Television Institute of India to train as an actor.  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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Modi deserves credit for bringing out space science from its bureaucratic halo of the past and creating a mass following through an approving media

Science is one of those disciplines where even a failure can leave much to explore, learn and correct. This is the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s immediate task after the last-minute debacle of its moon mission Chandrayaan-2.

It might have failed in one of its objectives, but the mission itself is not a failure. The ISRO came tantalizingly close to creating history in the early hours of September 7 when the robotic lander Vikram followed the predetermined descent trajectory and came just within 350 meter of the lunar surface before contact was lost.

Vikram was located a day later. But mystery surrounds whether it landed ‘softly’ as its fall was slowed or crash-landed and its condition after the fall. The orbiter and other systems, however, continue with their assigned tasks.

If successes have their stories, so do failures on which future successes are hopefully built. This writer, although not equipped with science studies, had meant to dwell here on India’s numerous achievements in the field of science. Now, it must be a solemn narrative, admitting the obvious that there have been both failures amid successes.

ISRO deserves applause for its maiden effort at moon landing. Only three other nations, the United States, Russia and China have done it, after multiple efforts “soft landing” on the moon’s South Pole. Someone calculated the cost of Indian mission at a measly Rs 9.78 per capita — peanuts when compared to what others have spent.

To put it in perspective, there have been 38 attempts so far by other countries to land a rover on the moon and have succeeded only a little more than half the time. This April, Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander crashed to the lunar surface. Early January this year, China’s Chang’e-4 touched down on the lunar far side and deployed the Yutu-2 rover to explore the South Pole-Aitken basin.

A significant and positive change lies in the way the world has viewed the mission. Support and sympathy came from NASA and space agencies of advanced nations most of whom are cooperating/ collaborating. The foreign media in general applauded the effort. Gone are the days when the West viewed Indian efforts condescendingly, advising against putting money on expensive ventures and instead, feed and educate the poor.

Or, when there was unwillingness to give credit. When late APJ Abdul Kalam became the President of India, sections of Western media had sought to project the home-grown scientist as one who had ‘borrowed’ knowledge. Much was made of the brief visit to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) he had paid as a practicing scientist. An economically strong India is in different league today.  

At home, applause is due for this scientific mission capturing the imagination of a whole nation when the ruling political dispensation and its myriad ideological affiliates pursue a revisionist agenda that encourages obscurantism.

Whatever critics may say, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did well to go back to the grieving scientists who lost by a whisker and offer his shoulder, literally, to their emotional leader. The heart-felt consolation was also a morale booster for the scientists and calmed the millions who had anxiously watched the wee-hour aborted touch-down. 

Undoubtedly, Modi deserves credit for bringing out space science from its bureaucratic halo of the past and creating a mass following through an approving media. But his critics complain with some justification that even space is not the limit for his personal political branding.

It contradicts and mercifully, corrects the prevailing ethos to which he has contributed. It was Modi who initiated at the Indian Science Congress in 2014 the trend of mixing up science with religion, beliefs, tradition. To be fair, he has not got the science wrong since. But the trend he set has encouraged his many ministers and partymen and women to question, among other things, the Darwin Theory. Recent deaths of ailing ruling party stalwarts were blamed on “destructive magic” of opposition parties that are already in a political coma.

India survives, even thrives on such contradictions. They have always been there, even when Jawaharlal Nehru, the first premier after two centuries of slavery, laid the foundations of modern science and technology, including this space programme. He had then advocated that a tradition-bound people should develop “scientific temper.” He is a political untouchable today. Even this expression is shunned and history is sought to be selectively rewritten.         

All of India expressed solidarity with ISRO and its scientists. But disregarding Modi’s morale-booster to the scientists, some of his acolytes dragged in “Pakistan and its Indian supporters” (read the Modi’s political opponents) for “planning celebrations.” Select TV channels also chimed in with this cacophony. To think that their consumers and purveyors are educated middle class people.

They offer the mirror image to their adversarial neighbour. Over there, too, predictably, amidst the current tiff over the changes India has made in Kashmir, the narrative was one of India’s ‘hopes dashed” and its space agency experiencing “lunar moment of truth.”

Pakistan’s minister for science and technology Fawad Chaudhary tweeted his glee at the failure of the mission and advised India not to ‘waste’ money in trying to reach the moon. He was rightly pulled up by saner compatriots who said it was ‘childish’ to attack India when Pakistan’s own achievement in space science was largely borrowed and miles behind.

Leaving domestic and sub-continental shenanigans behind, one must return to Chandrayaan 2. The orbiter is safe in the intended orbit around the moon. And with the “precise launch and mission management”, its life span will extend to almost seven years. Carrying eight of the 13 payloads, the orbiter will spend the next nearly seven years making high-resolution maps of the lunar surface, mapping the minerals, understanding the moon’s evolution, and most importantly looking for water molecules in the polar regions. Some of the impact craters in the South Pole are permanently shadowed from sunlight and could be ideal candidate sites to harbour water.

With the U.S. wanting to send astronauts to the South Pole by 2024, NASA, in particular, will be keen on data from the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter. The ISRO’s Moon Impact Probe and NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper on board Chandrayaan 1 had already provided evidence of the presence of water in the thin atmosphere of the moon, on the surface and below. A NASA study last year found regions, within 20° of each pole in general and within 10° in particular, showed signs of water. The Chandrayaan 2 orbiter will now possibly reconfirm the presence of water on the moon.

For ISRO, there is vast scope beyond the moon. It wants to go to Venus, and send up a manned space mission. France is a partner. Time was when France launched Indian satellites in the Pacific. Then, India launched French and other satellites in the Indian Ocean region, The two have agreed to send up almost 12 satellites to enhance maritime domain awareness.

Didn’t poet Muhammad Iqbal say, exhorting the mankind’s never-ending quest: “Sitaraon se agey, jahan aur bhi hain”?  

The writer can be reached at mahendraved07@gmail.com

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Not just the Narendra Modi-led Centre, even state regimes are targeting their opponents through various means of intimidation, and this phenomenon is not limited to the BJP-ruled governments

Each time Bharatiya Janata Party leaders get on to a podium they never fail to mention the suffering endured by their senior colleagues who were thrown into jail by Indira Gandhi in 1975 when she declared a national Emergency.

These references are invariably peppered with strong critical comments about how dissenting voices were suppressed during those dark days, the media muzzled and democratic norms crushed by wielding the proverbial stick.

While recalling the BJP’s struggles, its leaders cite their experience during the Emergency to pledge their party’s commitment to the freedom of the press and citizen’s rights. They vow to uphold democratic values and Parliamentary norms and promise never to silence their critics by going down the road traversed by Indira Gandhi.

However, all these promises and declarations have a false ring to them today. Ever since the Modi government came to power five years ago, it has systematically targeted its opponents, whether they are political leaders, human rights activists or journalists, by arresting them, filing police cases against them and embroiling them in prolonged legal battles. With the Centre taking the lead, it is not surprising that the states have been quick to follow suit and this phenomenon is not confined to BJP-led governments alone.

And all this is happening without declaring a national emergency. Little wonder then that this government’s detractors these days often remark that the country is witnessing an undeclared emergency. There is, however, a difference between 1975 when Indira Gandhi declared an emergency and the present situation. Indira Gandhi’s move met with strong public disapproval and this anger was reflected in the 1977 Lok Sabha election when the Congress was routed. But today, the Modi government’s decisions enjoy wide popular support and are actually cheered on by the people.

Or alternatively, the people are plain indifferent to these daily occurrences. All those who would normally be expected to raise their voices against these developments are silent. The opposition parties are battling for survival, civil society has been crushed and the media has been successfully co-opted.

Take the case of the detention of mainstream political leaders, activists, lawyers, other professionals and students in Kashmir since August 5 when the Modi government moved quickly to abrogate Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two Union Territories. Three former chief ministers – Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti – are under house arrest while their party colleagues have also been detained. On September 16, Farooq Abdullah, a sitting Lok Sabha member, was booked under the draconian Public Safety Act which allows the state to detain a person for up to two years without a trial.  

There have been some murmurs of protest against the government’s latest move to slap the stringent Public Safety Act against the three-time former chief minister by opposition parties but it is too early to say if it will be followed up with any concrete action. So far, there has been virtually no protest or any sign of a public outcry over the large-scale “arrests” undertaken in Jammu and Kashmir even as BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav shrugged these off, saying that “preventive arrests are a part of political activity.”

The August 5 developments have since been emulated by state leaders. Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jaganmohan Reddy of the YSR Congress, lost no time in placing his predecessor and political rival Telugu Desam Party chief N.Chandrababu Naidu and his son under house arrest. The chief minister resorted to this extreme measure when Naidu staged a protest against the YSR Congress for its mishandling of TDP workers.

At the same time, the Congress-led Chhattisgarh government arrested Amit Jogi, the son of former chief minister Ajit Jogi, on charges of cheating and forgery for giving false information in his election affidavit. He has been denied bail. Ajit Jogi himself is in the dock after a case was registered against him for falsely claiming in his election affidavit that he is a tribal.

In both these instances, the actions of the incumbent chief ministers are driven by a personal agenda to settle scores with a rival. While Reddy and Naidu have been locked in a prolonged political slugfest for the past several years, Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s rivalry with his former Congress colleague Ajit Jogi is also well known.

It is the same story in the case of former finance minister P.Chidambaram who has been arrested in the INX Media case. Home minister Amit Shah was similarly arrested in an alleged false encounter case when Chidambaram was heading the same ministry. A host of other opposition leaders have also been slapped with various charges of financial impropriety, cheating and money laundering. The list is long – it includes former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Karnataka Congress leader D.K.Shivkumar, Nationalist Congress Party leader Praful Patel, former Congress treasurer Motilal Vora, even Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s party colleagues are also facing the heat from the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The Modi government’s ire is not confined to political leaders alone. Social activists, lawyers and renowned academics like Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, who work for the rights of the rural poor and tribals, have been booked for inciting caste-violence and for being sympathetic to Maoists. None of them have got any respite from the judiciary though it is over a year since they were detained.

Among others, journalists have also been at the receiving end. Only recently, a spate of cases have been reported from Uttar Pradesh where local media persons were picked up by the police for showing the administration in poor light. Journalist Pawan Jaiswal was booked for circulating a video showing children being served roti and salt in their midday meals in a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur.  Five reporters were arrested in Bijnore when they ran a story that a Dalit family had put their house on sale after they were denied access to the village water pump. Then there is the case of another journalist in Azamgarh who was booked by the Uttar Pradesh police for reporting how children were mopping floors in their school.

But all these incidents have left people unmoved. Because it is the new normal in India.

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The government must motivate people to give up 15-year-old vehicles by incentivising the process. Next, it must draft a sound scrappage policy and build a chain of recycling units across the country

We don’t expect our leaders to be aware of the works of the two world’s leading environmental economists Martin Weitzman, the recluse who passed away on August 27 and the Nobel laureate William Nordhaus. Even then they, specially the ones living in Delhi who are exposed to inhaling toxic air, should be well aware that the millions of end of life vehicles (ELVs) are the principal culprits for fouling the city environment.

As early as 2000, New Delhi drawing lessons from the standards in the US where the focus is on emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter (PM) and the European Union where the concern is more about carbon dioxide (CO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) formulated Bharat Stage Emission Standards (BSES). In phases, the norms were made more stringent and once a new stage is set, all new vehicles will have to compulsorily conform to it.

Now the government in an attempt to ensure that all new vehicles still do less harm to air quality is leapfrogging Bharat Stage V to BS-VI to be effective from April 1, 2020. This definitely is an environment positive move, though introduction of improved technology will mean higher prices for vehicles. Definitely a small price to pay for air quality improvement. The automobile industry’s concern is that this is to happen when it is facing the worst demand slump in two decades.

Sales of cars and SUVs fell for ten months in a row till August 2019. Every manufacturer, except for new entrants like South Korean Kia and Morris Garages (popularly known as MG) owned by Chinese state enterprise SAIC, has been forced by sharp demand collapse to cut production and shut factories and showrooms. But in the process countless number of workers had to be laid off. Unfortunately our finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman instead of acknowledging what is happening in the automobile industry is one manifestation of the economy being gripped in a deep economic crisis wanted us to believe that shared mobility and young people using Ola and Uber services are the cause.

No doubt lowering of Goods & Services Tax (GST) from the peak slab 28 per cent to 18 per cent could prove to be an effective stimulus for demand revival. Many states with their finances in a bad shape are expectedly demurring. But as the situation is, the GST Council should be able to reach a consensus that cars up to a value of say Rs10 lakh will attract 18 per cent GST to encourage middle class to own vehicles. The empirical evidence through all economic crises here and elsewhere is that buying by the rich and the very rich are immune to market swings. Therefore, let the exchequer continue to get the maximum from sales of the likes of BMW, Benz, Aston Martin, Porsche and Bugatti, all recession proof.

To return to ELVs from the current automobile crisis. We have on the registers of regional transport authorities, a disturbingly large number of 28 million ELVs, predating introduction of BSES seriously compromising air quality, particularly in our principal cities. Ideally, 15 year old vehicles should be sent to scrap yard. This is based on global experience that emission level of old cars is ten times more than the ones in ideal condition. In the case of ageing trucks, their emissions are at least eight times higher than the new ones. The question is why ELVs in such numbers are still running in already highly polluted cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata without the authorities taking action against the owners? Obviously, the authorities don’t want to offend the urban middle class and transport companies in which many politicians have a stake.

Even while a vehicle scrappage policy is under consideration for quite some time, the lawmakers are not able to decide whether the owners will be forced to surrender more than 15 year old vehicles for dismantling or the scheme will be principally voluntary but with such built-in incentives that will motivate people to surrender ELVs. Back in 2016, the government was toying with a voluntary vehicle fleet modernisation programme. But nothing came out of that. In recent weeks minister for highways and transport Nitin Gadkari and Sitharaman have spoken of the need for a well considered scrappage policy.

They will do well to heed the advice of industry veteran Pawan Kr. Goenka, managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra. He says in our kind of situation the scrappage policy cannot be mandatory but has to be motivational for ELVs surrender. “People who are doing with old vehicles belong to the lowest economic bracket among vehicle owners. You should not force them to give up their vehicles. That will not be right. It has to be voluntary and incentivised. It’s also important to offer a considerable incentive to motivate people to send ELVs for scrapping,” Goenka says.

Environment and replacement of scrapped vehicles by new ones using the vehicle surrender linked incentive money are not the only issues involved in the scrappage programme. Apply the circular economy concept, you will find in ELVs sent for ‘depollution. dismantling, baling and shredding’ have a lot of wealth in the form recovered metals, specially steel, which is an important feedstock for steelmakers using electric arc furnaces (EAFs) and induction furnaces (IFs).

The thriving unorganised vehicle recycling units through their highly unscientific and environment compromising process are annually generating around 28m tonnes of steel scrap against requirements of 35m tonnes by the steel industry. Therefore the deficit of 7m tonnes are imported from the European Union, UAE, the US, Japan, etcetera, at considerable outgo of foreign exchange. The steel ministry has estimated that EAFs and IFs here will need 55m tonnes of scrap by 2030-31.

Ministry officials say considering the large local ELV population, India is well placed to generate enough scrap to meet the steel industry’s future demand for this raw material and imports could be eliminated. But for this to happen, the country must build a chain of authorised recycling units in different parts of the country equipped with automated plant and machinery. Why only self-reliance, there is potential to create modern recycling units close to ports which will facilitate import of ELVs from south and south-east Asia and the Far East and then export steel scrap. Unlike India, many countries in this part of the world do not have blast furnaces (where iron ore is used) and make all their steel through EAFs and IFs. They will be ready buyers of any surplus steel scrap that this country may generate in future.

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