Water and Indian small towns

Two separate news pieces offered fodder for this piece.

This requires certain background. Chennai has been facing water scarcity for the past six years. There's no rain and our waterbeds have been drying up due to public sucking up the ground water.

The first news:

The government recently announced a plan of sourcing water from a not-so-far township-village called Veeranam for Chennai. Then came huge protests from the farmers of Veeranam and all the nearby villages. Since sourcing water from these villages will greatly affect the agriculture, they termed it as Chennai drinking the blood of the farmers.

Then came the chief minister's announcement that she's dropping the project. She is respecting the sentiments of the farmers and vox populi vox Dei. But there'll be lot of alternate arrangements made for Chennai so the Chennai people don't have to relocate during summer.

The second news:

The same farmers held a protest rally and meeting a week before this announcement, in which one farmer leader suggested the need to reduce the water requirement for Chennai. There a floating population of 15 lakh in Chennai. Like shifting high court, why not implement other measures?

The news ends and the views begin.

If you've noticed, the farmer and the CM spoke from two distinctly different angles. The CM didn't want people relocating in Summer whereas the farmer wanted Chennai population reduced.

I agree with the farmer. For a long time, I have been holding this view that the governments should stop focusing on state capitals and work on developing other districts and small towns. Chennai beach gets beautification drive, metro railways, six lane highway, and Nokia manufacturing unit.

So what happens? Trichy, Madurai, Dindigul, and various other unknown district headquarters get nothing. They remain poor with dusty, pot-holed roads. People from these places continue to relocate to Chennai, making the city more crowded and water-starved, and the rest of Tamil Nadu, further impoverished.

This applies to entire India. If you have seen Bangalore, you may not want to see Hubi, Dharwad, Bellary and Hospet. In case, you were wondering, these are the other districts of Karnataka. Bellary is a district headquarters and steel town (Jindal), still doesn't even have a covered bus stand. Hyderabad which is angling for an F1 track, cannot boast of a decent Warangal, Cuddappa, Thenali, and Nalgonda. Most of Cuddappa doesn't even have tarred roads.

My question. Why not shift secretariat out of Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore and install it in a nearby small town? If Nokia wants to come to Tamil Nadu, why not ask them to set up in Coimbatore and offer sops if they do? After all, coimbatore does have some decent engineering colleges for Nokia to source. There are lots of Coimbatoreans working in various IT companies. Hold talks with Infosys, CTS, and others to encourage them to set up bases in Comibatore. I'm sure the Coimbatoreans in Infosys will be happy to relocate to their native land if they can retain their job.

In a very short span, the urban population can be reduced considerably thereby reducing their water and other infrastructural needs and in turn encouraging the other small towns to grow.

Vox Populi any one?