Con-gress antonmy of Pro- gress

If con is antonym of Pro… Is con-gress not an antonym of Pro-gress…?

Education, Infrastructure and communication network are few things which can be termed as the base of development of any nation. Of these infrastructure is a set of subsets like- road network (connectivity of major cities with the tier II cities, and villages to district headquarters), transportation, water transportation, port, housing facilities etc to name few.

To talk about only one of the above mentioned bases of development- Infrastructure-

In our 50+ years of Congress governance in India what has been the achievement and where do we stand in infrastructure development. For 50 years we had 2 lane highways/ GT road across the country with the limited connectivity to the villages tier II cities. Then came the NDA government- a government with the willingness to do something and to improve the infrastructure condition of the country- They launched the biggest development project in the history of independent India – The Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) project (and this was not named on someone from the “..” family as they do as part of brand building excercise )which even today is considered as one of India’s showpieces.

The first phase of the Rs.54, 000 crore National Highway Development Project was the world’s biggest infrastructure project when launched, with a aim to link East, west, North and South extreme corners of the country and the metros with eight-lane world class expressway that (not to forget the huge employment opportunity it created even for the people in the rural areas). To support this were the same quality links and bypasses that were to be created by upgrading existing highways.

This was the time when I was in a job which required a lot of traveling and used to see the work to build these express highways. It gave a proud feeling and I use to think what motoring would be once these roads are done. And then I was in Noida experiencing the Delhi Noida super express highway. It was dream drive from Delhi to Noida on this super express highway ‘a breeze’ I must say (considering the road conditions in the other part of the country which was under construction) driving at a speed of 100 KMPH and reducing the travel time by half.

And now years later when I travel, the scene on the ground is different. The activities are more sluggish I can barely see progress at sites where a bridge is being built or the road is being widened even after traveling these roads after year’s gap.

The story on govt. paper though is good. According to the Economic Survey of ’07-’08, 7,962 Kms of NH with the bulk of 5,629 Km lying on the GQ was completed till Nov.’07. About 7,744 Km NH are under construction. Nearly 96% works on GQ have been completed by Nov’07. The up gradation of 12,109 Km has been approved by the govt. under NHDP Phase-III at an estimated cost of Rs.80,626 crore.

On ground though things just opposite, delays and problems are dogging projects which are taking ages to kick off. Work has been slowed down or stalled at many points due to problems in law and order, issue with contractors or simply trouble over acquisition of land and removal of structures/ encroachments, and hardly anything has been done to solve the issues and whatever work is underway, is on the land acquired and cleaned by the NDA govt. of which the current govt. is trying to take the credit of.

To make things even worst the surface transport ministry under whom the NHAI works has replaced three Chairmen in the last four years.

On the ports front also there hardly has been any progress in the last five years. Though the overall port traffic has increased the most of this has gone to the private ports forcing the govt. to decrease the traffic targets of these ports. The poor management, crowding and longer turnaround time have left the trade literally high and dry.And then there is the much hyped the Setusamudaram project… launched as a showpiece project of UPA. Spoken to add winds to the shipping and exports from Tamilnadu but the sails have literally got grounded in political controversy and the govt. has not even been able to prove/ justify the financial viability of the project and that is a reason the project finds no mention in manifestos or achievement as the people behind this themselves are in a state of dilemma.

This is just one of a example of what the Congress lead UPA govt. is been doing. UPA- A bunch of anti development, opportunist’s parties. One can go in lengths talking over the anti development policies of the UPA.

Should India be voting for this anti development group again- the answer to the question lies with us an obvious NO AN ABSOULETE NO.

So…..

If con is antonym of Pro… Is con-gress not an antonym of Pro-gress…?