Topic started by Ashok (@ nat-52.laurelnetworks.com) on Sat Jun 8 16:59:59 .
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I visited India for about three weeks recently. The last time I visited india was in 1998. What I am going to write about is going to be a personal observations of india, This is not a political assessment of India....
Let me start from my first experience (was negative but I will list it anyways) with india in this trip. I landed in delhi, I was carrying with me 2 350ml bottles of alcohol and was immediately tagged. As I was carrying a laptop and video camera, I went through the red channel to enter this in my passport. So upon meeting teh customs officer, this man had the nerve to tell me that I can no longer enter the items in my passport and that the rules have changed. At this statement I got very pissed and went on to give him a disertation on the 2002 baggage rules. Then this guy tells me that "you are not doing us a favor by coming to india", I reply "neither are you doing me a favor by giving me bogus rules". He gets pissed and send me to another lady, this lady straight out asks me for $100 I tell her that I do not have $100 in cash however if she wants to put duty on my items, which I should not be paying anyways I will pay it in travellers checks. I am not going to make a trasaction in cash. Now she realizes that I am not interested in wetting her hands so she makes me stand there for about 2 hours at which point she sends me to this other guy. He too asks for money, however finally this guy lets me go. SO I get out of the airport scott free without paying even a cent bribe or duty. The Point I was making here si that if you really do not want to pay a bribe you can get out of it, but you must be willing to wait and sacrifice some things.
Second I noticed that delhi has made CNG (compact natural gas) compulsory in commercial vehicles. Which has decreased the pollution tremendously. It was definitely a welcomed change. I also noticed increased civic sence in people, I noticed that people are a lot more aware about their civic duties. Again a pleasant surprise. The government bathrooms (paid bathrooms) were kept very clean. The only problem I noticed was the traffic. The improvements taht delhi could make is the planting of trees which would improve a lot of things. Also Delhi must now focus on water management. I think they have started the move in the right direction.
Next I travelled to bangalore in the train. It seemed like the trains nowadays arrive on time more often. Also The bathrooms are a lot more cleaner, I think this is a reflection of the civic sense of the people of india. Bangalore as always was awesome. People were very friendly and again I was impressed by the increased civic sense. However, pollution in bangalore has increased, and I hope they also move towards CNG.
Now after bangalore I was off to jamnagar, again in a train. we went from bangalore to bombay by train and then took the plane to jamnagar. Bombay again has moved to CNG also, great!!!
Jamnagar, takes the cake though. My father works for Reliance petroleum. First we go to our house in the reliance colony, let me tell you this is probable the closest thing to heaven. Amazing.... They ahve eben able to plant trees and grass in the most barren land in Gujrat. In 1998 all of the 8000 acres that reliance owns was barren land where nothign would grow. This they had turned into a beautiful plantation of sorts. First reliance provides 24 hours water supply of pure "mineral type" water. This is achieved through desalination plants that the refinery uses. These plants, as they provide excess water water is given back free to the rest of the people of jamnagar. Also the water that is used by the colony and the refinery is reprocessed to feed the plants and trees. SO no water wastage. Then they also have a power plant in the refinery, which provides 24 hour stable electrical supply to the colony as well as the refinery again excess electricity is given free to the gujrat electricity board. To generate this electricity Reliance uses the byproducts of the refinery, again no wastage. The kicker is that reliance has a 300 acres of mango farm, which is the largest mango farm in south east asia, with 100,000 trees, this year this farm provided 2300 metric tonnes of mangos. All this in barren land which was unfarmable. The way they achieve thsi is by creating dwarf mango trees (genetic manipulation by reliance life sciences) and through drip irrigation. Also they have an orchard, pomegranite farm, and all other fruits and vegetables. They are also going to start to export these fruits and vegetables. A very pleasant surprise. The refinery even betters teh euro 3 standards (which have still not been installed in europs. europe presently follows euro 2 standards). If this was not sufficient, every single by product is used or sold. Even the sulfer and coke(or slush). It was truly a great surprise to see this kind of a company in India. By the way reliance petroleum is now a profitable entity, with profits in the range of $300 million, soon to go over $600 million.
Copletely forgot, Jmnagars average temperature has decreased since reliance came into being. Also the frequency of rainfall has increased, thanks to the water collection reservoirs reliance has installed, and the plantation of trees. They also have other trees like teak which will improve the atmosphere in jamnagar.
Truly India is changing, if we have more companies like reliance which take to the plantation of farms as commercial entities. By the way reliance is also profitable in their farms project. This shows that we can truly be capitalists in india and improve it. Now if this movement starts and the regular people start to emulate these things to a small degree, I thiink the people of india are for a very pleasant surprise. First we must build energy efficient houses, which might have a 10% more cost upfront but in the long run we will benefit from it. A friend of ours has built a house which is totally energy efficient, and also has water collection units which collect rain water and use it for house hold use. He has installed solar cells to power a lot of his equipment in his house. This has decreased his electricity bill as well as his water bill. Th extra cost that he spend in doing this was only about 20% more. He built his whole house for about 20 lachs. and about 10 lacs for the land.
We dont have to do such an extensive work on our house however if we keep in mind environmental consideration when we build our houses, I think we can truly help ourselves and india at the same time.
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