KOCHI: Though Kerala is priding itself as a model State in literacy and many of the human welfare indices, the level of infrastructure in the State is miserably lagging behind, compared to others in the Country. The infrastructure requirements can be categorised into five, based on their function or output. They are Food, Housing, Electricity, Water and Roads.
Food Infrastructure
The rice required for the State for one year is forty lakh Tonnes. We are able to produce only five lakh tonnes out of this huge demand. The vegetables required in the State is twenty lakh tonnes per annum, of which we are able to produce only seven lakh tonnes. Thousands of hectares of agriculture fields which are lying barren in the State must be brought under cultivation on a priority basis. The problem of the shortage in farm labourers can be solved through large-scale mechanisation and by deploying the labourers from other states.
Housing sector
Twelve lakh families in Kerala are without a proper shelter. A considerable number of existing houses are dilapidated or of sub-standard quality. The initiatives of the elected Governments in the housing sector are very nominal, in our State. The declared projects in housing sector generally meet with little success, because of corruption and lack of commitment of the Civil engineers in Government service. If you visit Wayanad, you can see for yourself, the condition of the houses built by the Government for the Adivasis. They are invariably either incomplete or in dilapidated condition because of the bad quality of construction and lack of monitoring.
Electricity
Till 1987, our State was excess in Electricity. Now after three decades, we are buying sixty million units from outside, to meet the daily consumption of seventy-five million units, of current. Meanwhile, at least forty numbers of small hydroelectric projects are held up since decades due to the failure of the Civil engineering division of KSEB. The collective capacity of these forty stopped small Hydel projects is a whopping five hundred Megawatts. If you want to understand the construction quality of KSEB, just observe the concrete distribution posts along the roadside. Not even one percent of those posts are vertical, where verticality and horizontality are the two essential attributes of every Civil construction.
Water supply
Water is required for household purposes, Irrigation, Industrial and Commercial usage. The water distribution is done by the Government arm of Kerala Water Authority. Could they lay at least ten kilometres of pipelines which are not leaking, in the last thirty-five years? Recently it could be confirmed that the underground pipelines in Kerala are laid without any wrapping coating or cathodic protection. You need not search anywhere else for the cause of continuous leak and spray of water pipelines, along with the length and breadth of Kerala.The leaking pipelines not only cause wastage of water and disruption of supply to the end users but also damages the roads, thus spreading misery in many ways.
Roads
Kerala’s roads are the worst among the other Indian States. The roads in our State don’t have a median, banking, drainage, road marks, road signs and traffic lights. In the last seventy years of independence, we could only construct forty kilometres of road between Mannuthi and Angamali, fit to be called a road.Sixteen years before, the then PWD minister proposed the North-South Corridor along the middle of the state for a length of seven hundred kilometres, with two plus two lanes, at an estimated cost of five thousand crores. As usual, we opposed it, raising the silly reason that the State will be cut into two, by this highway. The idea was dropped on political pressure. If you want to build the same highway now, it will cost a whopping two lakh crores, a forty times escalation in the cost, during the last sixteen years. Because of this historic blunder, Kerala’s roads and traffic culture remain worse than even the poorest countries in the world.
Remedial Measures
The proposed remedial measures are briefly described as follows:-- In the Electricity sector, the five hundred Megawatts worth stalled small hydroelectric projects must be completed in the next two to three years. The State must go in a big way in the installation and operation of rooftop solar panels. All the houses built under various Government schemes should have full solar panel roof.
Jacob Jose is a former Joint General Manager of Essar Projects
(The views expressed by the author are his own)