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Saturday, October 28, 2017

The True Freedom

When the freedom of India was being considered by the British, Sir Winston Churchill a two-time prime minister of UK and an exceptional leader and a visionary had said
' The power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freeloaders; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongue and silly heart. They will fight among themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. Not a bottle of water or a loaf of bread will escape taxation, only the air will be free.'

I am sure most of us must have read or heard of this prophecy in our growing years and witnessed what was said is repeated often in the year's post freedom.

We have made huge progress despite many hurdles in the years gone by and we too could have improved the quality of lives had we also ensured that moral fabric of the people was retained.
Keeping ourselves confined to only the NCR region of Delhi a realistic review will reveal that there are silver linings in the dark clouds that loom from time to time.
The two fundamental rights- the clean air and water need no emphasis. A project steered under the stewardship of Suresh Prabhu the Union Railway Minister and Amitabh Kant the CEO of NITI Aayog is ensuring measures to improve the quality of air and water. A concerted drive to introduce CNG buses, the removal of commercial vehicles older than 15 years, restrictions on burning of agriculture residue, stricter enforcement on builders to reduce the pollution of air is some of these. More than 10 million trees have been planted to give a green cover so that the city can breathe easier. This year for the first time the Supreme Court had imposed a ban on firecrackers on Diwali to contain the pollution levels of particulate matter. The 'Odd and Even' formula has been introduced a couple of times to ensure that lesser vehicles ply on the road.
The Digital India initiative of the Prime Minister will go a long way in improving the lifestyle in NCR by taking some steps like:
1. Digilocker- Submission of the documents  to the government agencies like Aadhar card, Passport etc in electronic format rather than hard copies to the government bodies
2.Driving Licenses, registration of Births and Deaths, and digitisation of many other kinds of data
3.High-Speed Fibre network to improve the internet connectivity by the participation of private players too.
4.Modernization of post offices and converting these to multi-service kiosks
5.Wifi hotspots across the NCR for assorted usage of smartphones and devices. A stellar role has been played by operators like Vodafone who have created more than 120 free hotspots in places like the DLF Malls, Delhi Haat, Fortis Hospitals and other places ( https://www.vodafone.in/home-delhi. )
6. Appointment with doctors online to avoid long queues in OPDs of AIIMS and other government hospitals

Besides these initiatives, the booking of gas, settlement of utility bills have not only increased the cashless transactions but also improved the efficiency

The future trends that cannot be ignored are the use of wearable technologies with sensors that can synchronize with smartphones and fitness trackers to monitor health. These can help manage the health by monitoring parameters like heart rate, blood sugar levels etc and taking timely preventive actions. Also, the use of incinerators to handle the solid wastes will help in cleansing the city and improving the quality of air.

An optimist, I sincerely hope that collectively we the residents of the NCR will be able to make the city more liveable and to some extent prove Sir Winston Churchill wrong by making the NCR a world-class city in future

8 comments:

  1. Need urgent steps Rahul. It's very bad, esp Gurgaon. But here it's mostly construction dust and crop burning smog.

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  2. Rahul what I see around me every day is enough to make me gnash my teeth. Administration, accountability are non-existent . sanitation too is, zero, diseases rampant.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. I think the problem lies in the mid level and lower level. The facilities/schemes announced by the govt is not trickling down to the lower level.

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  5. Let us hope for non-corrupt politicians and people too!

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