Opportunity behind the face of disastrous flood threats!!
By Santos Kumar Pattanayak / NV Paulose
Chinese word is the same for both difficulty and opportunity. The word interestingly justifies the fact that there is an opportunity lying beneath every threat or difficulty. Turning the coin from the side of difficulty into the side of opportunity is the transformation process. As a nation India should apply lot of thoughts in converting our difficulties into our strengths. Tough times teach us lessons of survival. People when challenged always had come out with golden achievements and permanent solutions instead of surrendering and succumbing to the situations. This should not only be our approach in negotiating personal life but also in formulating national plans. Participation of large number of people in such endeavors can be the key to success in nation building.
All of us in India are living in a dichotomous situation as flood in some part and droughts in other part of the country is a regular phenomenon than exception .
Jawaharlal Nehru inspecting the Nangal Hydel Canal, 8 November 1953
The wide scale environmental degradation over the years has led to natural disasters in succession .The recent flash flood in ‘God’s own country’ – Kerala is the recent testimony to it. There is a victory hiding in the face of floods, water dam crisis and large rain falls at various parts of the country. This is one side of the coin. Places that are repeatedly facing water scarcity and farmers who are asking only for water are on the other side.
The moot question or rather the challenge is as to how can we take the water from low lying areas to the higher lands. Can we make the recurrent difficulties into opportunities with our innovative thought process and workable solutions? Asking this question and leaving the topic is no solution for the crisis that we are facing year in and year out. There need not be a definite answer while we start of a research on this topic. This is one of the problems we encounter in India. Every research starts from an outcome that is fixed in advance. How can it be a research then? Hiding something and searching for the same thing cannot be called research.
Research by itself is a search towards the unknown. We are of course in need of a solution. We can start our search for it with available resources and all our existing knowledge base. Many unknown things will get revealed and provided by the forces in the nature as we sincerely make our efforts in the process of finding a solution for what we are searching for.
Metro Water Ways!
It is a query or a search from the heart of inquiry. Can we solve the crisis of flood by creating Metro Water Ways between certain places? Can this be a method to form twin city models like that of Hyderabad and Secunderabad? Can we create new twin cities that promote international tourism in a big way? Questions can be added to any number. But, the basic question is all about creation of wealth out of the large water resources that is the essence of existence of the universe. Metro Water Way taught us the great way for using our skies for fulfilling our dreams. It is not just dream in the sky. We should also build our empire over there. What can we do with Metro Water Ways?
PM Narendra Modi Inspire India with the idea of Digital India
Permanent Solution for Water Crisis in other places:
Water crisis areas are near and far everywhere. Water can be provided at the needy places once it is stored in an elevated position. There can be a cheaper pricing that can bring in so much money considering the quantity of water that can be routed through this process. Total economy can be improved on this initiative. One side supplying water at low prices and the other side supplying farm products at a cheaper price are a perfect barter. Agro processing units can be set up so that the entire country can get sufficient food products or higher organic quality.
These are detailed topics that need further studies and analysis. Corporate houses also can take part in the process by setting up micro units that can create large employment in the rural sector. This is how we should convert potential competitions in the market. Today’s method is more or less elimination of the competitor. While eliminating a competition, we are also losing lot of resourcefulness that are associated with the system in such an existence and the whole eco system gets affected, and many times we fail to measure the agony on others faces.
Water Crisis in Kerala
Complementing with a potential competition can create synergy between the two and it can create large results in favour of all the stakeholders. More employment and better margins always help society to grow faster. We are stuck in competition and duplication of capital outflow in similar establishments while we can avail the benefits with amicable arrangements.
This is a basic change required in our approach in establishing systems and practices. There is no need of reinventing the wheel. What is available should be utilised to the fullest extent and there should not be unnecessary capital outflow for duplication of existing facilities. Banks should insist their clients for mergers in process while their management remain separate for taking the advantage of micro management. It is easy to operate when things are divided in units.
Metro Airports for Seaplanes:
We can create Metro Airports when we can create Metro Water Ways with sufficient depth, length and width. Seaplanes can land in Metro Airports. Runways in an Airport are not as wide as an Airport by itself. Real landing happens in the runways. Seaplanes that are comparatively smaller aircrafts can be easily operated on Metro Airports. This can transform our tourism sector. This can make history in Health Tourism Campaigns too.
Some of our Universities are able to take up new projects on Metro Water Ways and Metro Airports using their own funds. NRI Participation in the Model of Cochin Airport can make it an easy go. Mini models can be tried initially. Seaplanes need only one kilometre length of water and few meters depth. Width can be set according to technological potential and funding sources.
Metro Legend Sreedharan
Pipeline Power Stations
A series of power stations can be planned when we make use of the water in the dams in the high lands to flow in pipelines. Artificially created waterfalls over to large motor pumps that are set in the reverse motion is the way of generating electricity. Water collected at the top land dams are used for power generation. Same water is then let go into irrigation projects down the line.
We can create pipelines in different directions towards down line sectors and can have many power stations and irrigation projects in multiple directions. These projects need not be too big in nature but can be many in numbers. We can make use of the annual rain cycle since electricity can be stored over a period of time. India is the only nation in the world that is blessed with Monsoon and weather cycles on a regular order.
Macro Implementation of Micro Projects:
Micro funding and Macro implementation of projects are the way ahead. National budgets are very small and there is no surplus available for new projects every time. Routine expenses are always on the rise since governmental systems most of the time remain white elephants.
Creating revenue models in every sector other than that of essential services and for the bottom line of people in the society in contemporary time is the way ahead. This will open up new opportunities even for the under privileged in the society who should be brought up to become self-sustainable in due course. Let us create avenues for self-respect and abundance of satisfaction.
It is always better to do projects in unit forms than in large forms. This will make the projects much more feasible and sustainable. The common people can be the real stakeholders in funding them confidently by assessing the size of the projects. Sustenance of the project also can be measured in this way. Present crisis of banks are basically do to the large size of banks. Small holes in the ship go unnoticed but such together are enough to collapse the system in the long run.
There should be micro units that are operated by the beneficiaries and none other than them. There should be collective operation and management but running the show should be entrusted in the hands of trusted professionals.Monitoring and rewarding system should be organised in such a way that there is no way for anyone in the system to get into corrupt practices. As such,there are fool proof monitoring systems that are functional at many places.
Dignified people never indulge in corrupt practices. Developing character is thus very important while attempting to do the impossible. Initiatives of higher magnitude should happen with Public Private Partnership and there should not be any kind of supervision from government side Rather the work should be executed through a transparent self-governance system. India has enough land and all other resources to attempt projects of very high magnitude. It is high time for us to think about the mission impossible.
GOOD LUCK INDIA!
