Indian Economy: News and Discussion (Apr 1 2011)

[Yogi_G]

No matter what anybody does, WB isn't going to see better days unless the flow of illegal Bangladeshis is stemmed. The topic is so politically incorrect that it appears that there has never been a completed serious effort into determining their numbers. That some of them were found in criminal activities as far as in Rajasthan speaks volumes on their well, volumes. More mouths to feed without a necessarily increase to the productivity.

[tejas]

Whatever the question is, more Bangladeshis is NOT the answer.

[vera_k]

income distribution has been posted by neel in page 64 of this dhaga

I ll repost it

Prima facie that data seems wrong given this statistic -

62% of Mumbai lives in slums

If Mumbai's data is used to extrapolate to urban areas, it implies nearly 2/3rd of Indian city dwellers are dirt poor, while the other 1/3rd are quite well off.

[gakakkad]

^^ first thing 62% of Mumbai residents don't live in slums..the figure is absurd...that data is wrong prima facie , secunda facie , tertim facie etc..you ll find a huge number of MUTU articles with the absurd slum and toilet data....I have practically seen the whole of mumbai..from the poor areas of ghatkopar to the shiny ones in Colaba.. that figure is beyond preposterous...

and slum dwellers are less common in other urban accumulations ..some of the slum dwellers are wealthier than you might imagine..slum in mumbai is more of a political problem than an economic one..

second thing the , if we look at the data from some surveys we have more people with income greater than 1.8 lakh than less than 60k ..urban or rural...

[Abhijeet]

You cannot take per-capita GDP and multiply it by household size to get household income, as someone did above. The two are not the same. There is also a difference between median and mean income, with median values typically being used in statistical analysis. Mean values are not useful because they are skewed by outliers.

For example: median US household income is $45K. Per-capita GDP is also about $45K. Household size is between 2 and 3. If you simply took the per-capita GDP and multiplied it with household size, you'd get about $100K for (median? mean?) household income, which is far from the official value.

An NCAER study from 2004-05 lists median urban income as Rs. 51,200 [1]. Assuming, as gakakkad did, compound annual growth of 15% since then -- a lot of it inflationary -- we get a value of about Rs. 156K for 2012-13. Not coincidentally, I believe the NCAER lists Rs. 2 lakh as the lower end of the "middle class" classification. A more up to date report would be interesting, but I couldn't find one with a quick Google search.

Median income in rich cities like Mumbai or Surat (?) would need to be 5 times the median all-India urban income to be Rs. 8 lakh. It's not a factor of 2, as people would like to believe.

I think a more reasonable number for median income in the top 10 Indian cities, say, is Rs. 3 lakh.

[1] NCAER report from 2004-05 (PDF): http://www.ncaer.org/downloads/Reports/ ... nIndia.pdf

[gakakkad]

^^ since everyone under-reports incomes ,the actual income will be more than what is surveyed ..the figure of 3 lakh is even less than the figure of 4 lakh that was surveyed back in 2008...more over there is far more economic inequality in the India than people might want to believe..its not china level , but still more than what is popularly believed..surat being 4 times richer than rest of country is very believable..

US has a gdp deflator of 200% ,base 2000 so a inflationary component exists in every major economy ..

For example: median US household income is $45K. Per-capita GDP is also about $45K. Household size is between 2 and 3. If you simply took the per-capita GDP and multiplied it with household size, you'd get about $100K for (median? mean?) household income, which is far from the official value.

that is because not every part of the GDP goes to the household wages...


Anyway the original point I wanted to make is , barring a few exceptions , we are unlikely to have a western level infra ,even when we have a comparable household income if the present policies continue.. many cities will reach amreeki level household income by the end of the decade ...but infra is unlikely to keep up ..

[Theo_Fidel]

Anyway the original point I wanted to make is , barring a few exceptions , we are unlikely to have a western level infra ,even when we have a comparable household income if the present policies continue.. many cities will reach amreeki level household income by the end of the decade ...but infra is unlikely to keep up ..

I don't think it is that easy. We are a long ways away even in our better developed cities. And yes, even in Gujarat. AFAIK not a single one of Gujarats indicators have broken above the Indian state spectrum. I does not even top any category yet. It is an above average state so far and doubt it will break free of the Indian pattern anytime soon. I truly doubt that will happen even by 2050. There are true structural and societal problems in the way. For instance in the treatment of our women. As I have said before we have not arrived. Yet. And certainly we are not going to have that level of income without infrastructure. Or without full social reform.

All these discussions are missing the fact that there is a definite underclass in our society. The bottom 30% or so who are entirely destitute. Even in cities that 20%-30% exists. They lack all education and completely lack skills. Their income levels are seasonal to non existent. They live on government handouts. Modern production simply has no place for them. Their children however can be captured and turned into productive members and this is happening slowly.

Household structure in India and USA is not comparable. For instance a large chunk of USA households are single individual. Also dependents in a household are far far fewer. Even very old people live independently on SSI of ~ $12,000 per year. India's dependency rate is still sky high and only now gradually declining. In Chennai it is average to find a 2 income(husband wife) home with 8-9 mouths to feed. Many shipped in from small towns. 80% of Chennai lives in those circumstances. Anyone who starts making good even marginally finds all kinds of relatives shipped in because the villages are far worse. Despite the recent recession there is nothing like that level of dependency in USA. That said as our income levels rise our cities will start looking better. As they already are. The failures of GOI relate to inability to get faster growth not to true wealth destruction. This is a function of continuing reforms. It is not right to think that our towns look shabby even though Indians are somehow wealthy.

Our towns look shabby due to a fundamental lack of resources. For instance people are shocked to know what the total Chennai corporation budget was. You will be even more shocked to know I exaggerated. The real budget was Rs 29 Billion. Yes that is right, only about $500 Million. The budget for trash collection was Rs 700 Million. For an entire city of 8 million. For comparison the municipal budget of New York city with comparable population of 8 million people was roughly $70 Billion. This gap is not going to be bridged in 10 years if ever. Again for comparison Surat Municipal budget is Rs 28 Billion for a city of 4.5 million and Ahmedabad budget of Rs 43 Billion for population of 5.5 Million.

I'll settle for a per capita income of ~$12,000 with a municipal budget of $8-10 Billion by 2050 for Chennai if the population remains at 8 million. I think this is reasonable and achievable. Of course if population increases to 20 million, as is projected, budget will increase to $20 Billion. I don't even want to speculate what NY cities budget will be by 2050.

[wrdos]

Our towns look shabby due to a fundamental lack of resources. For instance people are shocked to know what the total Chennai corporation budget was. You will be even more shocked to know I exaggerated. The real budget was Rs 29 Billion. Yes that is right, only about $500 Million. The budget for trash collection was Rs 700 Million. For an entire city of 8 million. For comparison the municipal budget of New York city with comparable population of 8 million people was roughly $70 Billion. This gap is not going to be bridged in 10 years if ever. Again for comparison Surat Municipal budget is Rs 28 Billion for a city of 4.5 million and Ahmedabad budget of Rs 43 Billion for population of 5.5 Million.

I'll settle for a per capita income of ~$12,000 with a municipal budget of $8-10 Billion by 2050 for Chennai if the population remains at 8 million. I think this is reasonable and achievable. Of course if population increases to 20 million, as is projected, budget will increase to $20 Billion. I don't even want to speculate what NY cities budget will be by 2050.

I am shocked too, $500million for an 8-million city is too too small a budget. Shenyang, the capital city of Liaoning province where I was from and being an exact 8-million city too, has a municipal budget of 63.5 billion yuan (=US$10 billion) in 2011. The budget is 1/7 of New York but 20 times of Chennai!

The difference between Shenyang and New York can be explained exactly by the difference between the GDP. However officially Indian per capita GDP is something 1/3 or 1/4 of China, so where is the money going to in Chennai?

[gakakkad]

I don't think it is that easy. We are a long ways away even in our better developed cities. And yes, even in Gujarat. AFAIK not a single one of Gujarats indicators have broken above the Indian state spectrum. I does not even top any category yet. It is an above average state so far and doubt it will break free of the Indian pattern anytime soon. I truly doubt that will happen even by 2050. There are true structural and societal problems in the way. For instance in the treatment of our women. As I have said before we have not arrived. Yet. And certainly we are not going to have that level of income without infrastructure. Or without full social reform.

w.r.t Gujarat ,most indicators will reach western standards in a decades time.. unless something horribly goes wrong..willing to place a bet on this..You and I will surely remain in brf when that day arrives..

80% of Chennai lives in those circumstances.

You mean to say 80% of Chennai lives in a joint family ?

Yes average Indian household is larger than us.. but not that large ..Average amreeki household is 2.6 ...average urban Indian household is 3.5 ...there are advantages of having a more intact household structure... bottom 20% of any country are skill less..

I d surely like to see the revenues of chennai..because I happen to know the revenues of some far smaller corporations ...500 million for chennai seems a little too small..someones already pointed out the budget of both mumbai and delhi which are already several billion..

EDIT-- OK the 1 billion revenue seems believable ..

Chennai city has a population of 4.5 million not 8 ...BOSTON CITY with a population of 0.7 million has a city council revenue of 2 billion..per capita income is 35k ..chennai with a 8 times less per capital income is expected to have a correspondingly lesser revenue..And boston in one of the higher taxed cities of Khanate...since expense in India is still a lot lesser than khanate , for the time being the revenue will not pose a problem..having said that , the rich in India truly enjoy a lot of financial benefits.. for instance a 25k sq feet house in a'bad is only taxed INR 20K A year..a house of similar size in the US would face a monstrous tax..

[vina]

The difference between Shenyang and New York can be explained exactly by the difference between the GDP. However officially Indian per capita GDP is something 1/3 or 1/4 of China, so where is the money going to in Chennai

Ok. Since you seem to REALLY want to know, I will give you the true answer and how the Indian democracy makes it different from China and even the USA.

The secret to this riddle is that in India (like much elsewhere), the wealth is generated in a few concentrated pockets and that historically has been the cities.

For eg, for a long long time, Bombay (now called Mumbai) contributed over half maybe even 2/3rds of India's tax revenues. Even today, Mumbai will generate around a third of India's revenues. For eg, Bangalore, which is in the state of Karnataka will generate close to 75% of the state's revenues. So the cities in India are the wealth generators and taxed. Now if you remember what your Marx/Engels/Communist Manifesto etc.. 'To each according to his wants, from each according to his ability" all that works here.

The countryside is poor and is simply NOT taxed at all. For eg, there is no local tax, no poll tax, no land tax and all agricultural income is tax free! On top of that, there are massive subsidies and wealth transfer from city to country side, subsidized farm inputs (fertilizer, water, credit, support prices), social and health services (schools, primary health centers) etc. The net result is the massively overwhelming majority of the Indian population dont pay any direct taxes.

Now what percentage of the wealth generated and taxed in the cities are spent back in the cities. For eg, how much of the taxes collected out of Mumbai and Bangalore and Chennai etc get pumped back into the cities. Negligible. So, the cities in India are shabby and under invested compared to their contribution by DESIGN . That happens because the state redistributes the income. But how does that happen. Because everyone gets to vote here and people vote for their interests. If you don't spread the wealth and growth out without some measure of redistribution, you will get thrown out of office. So all the doles, subsidies and wealth transfer to the poor and rural areas. That is the way it should be and that is "progressive", "fair" and is what "Socialism" (as it is understood) is supposed to be like. Add to this that there is total freedom of movement and everything, what you get to see in the cities and the semi urban and rural areas is a rough/crude equalization. What you see reflects the fundamental truth of the state of the country. There is no window dressing, no hiding and it simply reflects the fact that yes, while things are improving, Indian cities are not going to start looking like a 1st world city, with that kind of gleaming infra, unless the entire country's average goes up. That average going up is going to be a decades old slow progress, even with fast, quick growth rates.

What happens in China, because of the monopoly of power by the Chinese Communist Party is that historically, the flows were the flows were REVERSE. The Chinese country side subsidized and provided capital and wealth for the Cities. It is a perverse logic and goes against the grain of all progressive and egalitarian principles, but there you have it. There are two distinct set of people, the "City Dwellers" and "Rural Dwellers" and twain hardly meet , with the city dwellers enjoying a much higher standard of living, services etc over rural dwellers and standard of life protected by having rural and outside influx carefully managed via an internal passport system.. Hukou. What you have created in China are "Islands of prosperity" .. ie Beijing, Shangai,Shenzen and the other city centers , in a sea of far less affluence. That way, what you see in Chinese cities is somewhat not real and doesn't reflect the fundamental truth of China, but rather shades of truth. There is no redistribution of wealth of the cities and privilege is enforced.

This thing happens in US as well, where the spending goes back to the tax base which contributed and that is why you see 'Zip Code" segregation in the US, where the rich areas are great and the poor areas are terrible. In India, you will find a slum right in the middle of the city and the value of the real estate the slum sits on will be simply mind boggling. Slums are created in India by politicians, because you have a captive vote bank who will vote for you consistently in return for a few doles.

What I mean is if you want to find out real answers that reflect the truth ,rather than what you see first hand in both India and China, you need to go deeper into the nature of govts and societies in both countries, how they work, the effect on economics and society and then look deeply. A dumb ass, pamphleteering/slogan shouting/propaganda rubbish of Xinhua and other CPC media is simply bull*hit. It will be impossible to put up "Islands of Prosperity" in India due to the nature of the polity and I think neither is it desirable.

For eg, if you go back in history and look, what was common between Bombay, Singapore and Hong Kong until 1947 ? They were all islands that were the financial , industrial and economic hubs of their hinterlands (Mubai - Western India, SIngapore of the Malayan peninsula, Hong Kong of China) that were globalized. So why does Bombay look like it does today while Singapore and HK have 1st world infra and standards of living? The secret is the separatism of Singapore and HK from Malaya and China respectively. The wealth generated there stayed there, while Bombay's was paid out all these years (now increasingly less, because the rest of the country now contributes far more thanks to growth) to build out India. What if Bombay were a separate country since 1947 and all of Bombay's wealth stayed inside ? How different would it have been today from say Singapore, Hong Kong or Manhattan ?

[Suraj]

There's no mystery in Indian cities having a low working budget. It isn't about lack of income. In the Indian system the lowest effective level of devolution of fiscal powers is the state level . Cities have no independent means to levy or generate revenue to apply towards their maintenance - the money goes into the central pool and is distributed to the states. They in turn apply most of the money into rural schemes, because the rural vote bank is still stronger and more politically aware than the urban one - citydwellers avoid politics and in the process lose out because they end up cross-subsidizing the rural areas.

When was the last time you heard of any city mayor rising to national political stage ? There are none, because cities are a political dead end and have no intrinsic politically driven economic clout to benefit them, except in cases of city states like Delhi. As we all know, Delhi already looks way more developed than any other city in India. Career politicians and state CMs are the ones who rise up to national level.

Contrast this to the Chinese case, where city administration absolutely is a path to national political prominence. Jiang Zemin, for example, went from Mayor of Shanghai to CPC politburo, the PSC and then became paramount leader after Deng. Not just that, but they've entirely devolved some major cities into their province-level municipalities, independent of surrounding states - Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing. This would be like us turning Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad into union territories. The working budgets of cities in the two countries simply cannot be compared because the mechanism of political and economic power devolution is very different.

As I said previously, the best way to ensure our cities develop and have funds to maintain themselves is to extend political and fiscal devolution from state to city level. That will automatically generate competition between cities within the same state and among cities in different states, and will align political motives of administrators with the economic imperatives of citydwellers.

[Singha]

TN is the highest urbanization state in India (45% iirc) and one of the most industrialized. Plus its ruled by someone who brooks no opposition when mind is made up.

TN and Gujarat would seem to represent the easier testcases for the city devolution model.

neither is that big on agriculture due to arid climate so the power of farmer politicians will be less - NaMo, the DMK Family, JJ none of them come from immediate farming backgrounds...

I agree that if all the money raised from metros remained in metros to be reinvested, in a few short years our well run metros would be at north european level and the less well run at malaysia/thailand/brazil middle level atleast.

[Theo_Fidel]

G,

Chennai city limits were recently expanded and the population size has gone up and the Greater Chennai area has 8 million.

As far as Gujarat we will have to wait and see. I hope it become all you think it will. I'm not so certain it has broken into a different economic plane.

WRT urban household size, the 3.5 number maybe for upscale areas but I have data from extensive Chennai mapping projects of population densities linked to residential units and job status. They consistently show a dependency ratio of 70%. This means roughly 3.5 individuals per job. So family with 2 jobs means 7 individuals. On average. Large chunks are much worse. This is not counting the homeless and the destitute. Way back in the 80's the dependency ratio used to be as high as 85. Meaning 6 individuals per job. It is the gradual decline of this ratio that has brought us better prospects, better savings and better cities.
----------------------------------------------------------

Indian cities have very few resource/taxation options. Most taxation is occupied by the state. Cities depend on state level grants.

We do have many many cities that have UT level independence. Pondicherry, Karaikal, Daman, Chandigarh, even a Goa, spring to mind. This did not make them over night successes. There is no alternative to bringing everyone up for the prosperity of cities.

[Singha]

pix in the link below.

· Asia's largest solar power field as part of its 600 megawatt solar energy. (making larger than China's 200-megawatt Golmud Solar Park).

· Spread across a desolate 3,000-acre (1,200-hectare) swath of desert.

· 21 companies involved in its management and development, including four from the United States

· Gujarat has budgeted another $400 million for developing renewable energy, and plans to encourage rooftop solar panels on homes

· The government has trained more than 100 people to look after the panels and the park's security, bringing employment to a desolate area.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 730580.cms

[vina]

They too were completely clueless and made jackasses of themselves. Eventually they settled down and now TN is relatively one of the better run, taxed and invested states. But there was a stretch in there where TN was dead last in industrial investment and growth

Well, it seems that during UPA-I and UPA-II, all the alliance partners got to share in the bonanza. If the commies in Kerala and Bengal could get the Govt of India to pay out their baksheesh while they spent until kingdom come, DMK seems to have done something similar in TN over the past 10 years. No fare incrases in bus, power and other key public goods, leading to rotten buses in Chennai compared to Bangalore (exactly the reverse of what it was until a few years ago, today BMTC is firstclass, PTC is rotten), TNEB is in such dire straits that the folks who put up all the windmills and stuff that you wax so eloquent about havent been paid for like 8 to 9 months now leading to financial stress and delinquencies in payment.

Thankfully, the TN govt seems to have got the writing on the wall and you had the 40% power hike and all other services being hiked. It is the accumulation of the past 10 years of misdeeds being passed on, very similar to fuel and fertilizer by the Govt of India.. The diesel hikes when they come are going to hurt a lot.

The difference is Amma doesn't go to GOI and ask for debt moratorium, she knows she cant get it and there is no love lost between here and GOI, while Mamta Didi, rants and raves and wants the old Baksheesh train that the commies got to continue.

That is simply unfair. If Mamta Didi wants a moratorium to continue her spend until kingdom come, why not TN and KA ask for the same thing from GOI ? Time Mamta actually started governing and stopped the melodrama and hiking the rates in Bengal and cutting subsidies and hand outs. Her latest on being solatium of Rs 2500 per month for Maulvis in Bengal, imagine!

[vina]

TN and Gujarat would seem to represent the easier testcases for the city devolution model.

Wont happen. Which idiot will let go of the cities and the massive wealth they generate ? Why will they take their hand out of the cookie jar ?

Imagine, Chennai or Bangalore getting independent budgets and strong mayors like say NYC. Can't happen.

Consider where devolution has ACTUALLY happened in India. Why power is devolved at the village level to the Panchayats! Easy to let go, next to nothing to squeeze out of them and so it happened. In fact, Indian villages have greater economic and other powers than cities.

[wrdos]

Vina, thank you very much for sharing knowledge of the Indian financial system, it is highly appreciated. However, for all your description of the Chinese situation, i have to say it is full of imagination and wishful thinkings. It is not a right place firstly, and nobody can stand a chance to win an oral debate with an Indian, so i will not debate at all.

Best regards.

[Suraj]

Cities will get more economic and political power when more people are in cities than villages. It's only a matter of time before devolution of fiscal and political power accelerates from state to city level, because the generators and majority of consumers of wealth are in the same locale. That is not the case now - cities produce and rural areas get the largesse. I predict that as states cross the 50% urban tipping point, there will be a rapid change in the political power balance between states and cities, with the latter rapidly gaining strength, resulting in city development accelerating the way New Delhi transformed and continues to do so.

[svinayak]

and nobody can stand a chance to win an oral debate with an Indian, so i will not debate at all.

[gakakkad]

second thing is are we under estimating urbanization ?

I mean I look at a village on the outskirts of Nadiad.. It has a population of 10k , 2 high schools and a primary health centre . Most people go to nearby cities for employment ..It is classified as a village..access to broadband is presently lacking but dial up is there.. 20-25% people live on agriculture..all the houses are brick cement concrete..like every village in Guj it is electrified .

I look at a town of Simsbury in connecticut where a relative lives..It is classified as an urban area ...population and demographics are similar to the above mentioned indian village ,with the excpetion that very few if any live on agriculture..


......................................

Gujarat contributes 9% of tax revenue and 35% of exports revenue..yet receives only 3.45% share from centre...same is true for better performing regions in other state.. Ideally policy should promote rather than prevent urbanization .UPA in its wisdom does the opposite..

edited after verifying facts

[vina]

Only one sentence, never imagine Indian countryside is better off than its Chinese counterpart, pls.

Oh well, I did try. But the facts have an inconvenient way of intruding into your make believe world .

For instance, when you and your folks panned the Indian Govt's official poverty level for food and other subsidies as laughably low, I showed how that it was exactly the same as the World Bank's $1.25 PPP and the Chinese govt's poverty lines are lower and simply disabused you of the facts that despite the Chinese Govt's raising that limit and still be eligible (per "Glandpa Wen's" speech), the Chinese level of definition of poverty was actually LOWER than India's and that the Chinese were simply massively under reporting poverty and destitution.

I know you would have forgotten that, because, I didn't hear back from you and your friends after I showed that particular point. Loss of face and all that I think, but that bit doesn't bother me. I don't care about face and I do think for once, you too can possibly make yourself vulnerable and open and dispense with that "face" rubbish. I assure you that you will find it quite liberating.

And I am not even talking about right to property and all the other things that makes life secure for the millions here. Quick. How many farmers in China own the land they farm on, how many rural homesteads stand on the land they own.. Do I hear zero as an answer?

[Raja Bose]

It is not a right place firstly, and nobody can stand a chance to win an oral debate with an Indian, so i will not debate at all.

oh come come biladel, we didn't re-educate you too harshly now did we?

PS: We miss you at the PRC Eco-no-money thread.

[harbans]

I look at a town of Simsbury in connecticut where a relative lives..It is classified as an urban area ...population and demographics are similar to the above mentioned indian village ,with the excpetion that very few if any live on agriculture..

You are right. Most 'villages' in North India have 50-100K people. I posted this a few times here..and request those interested to look up google map and scan villages even 100 km from Delhi. Concrete ghettos, barely half a square km, half to 1 meter wide at most in the innards, no green patches. But the folks own some 20 km of lush green land all round it. Even if you had 1GW of power right up outside a village you cannot electrify it because those at the innards don't want it because of chances of yes..electrocution. They want power but cannot have it. One cannot even lay a modern sewage system as there is no space. Summers the whole place bakes up. Without decongesting modern villages it is impossible to supply power, modern sewage systems to thousands and thousands of villages.

It is not good enough to make a road leading up to a village of a 100k. It is important that the innards of a village be connected. It's an utter shame that people that own so much lush land all round have to crowd into a slum like ghetto where you cannot provide electricity or modern sewage systems. Every village over 20k people should be treated as a urban center and policies must be put in place to create manageable hamlet systems for living. I have travelled a lot in China including the rural areas..and they are better because they have more hamlet type living than ghettoized Indian villages. It's easier to provide power and modern sewages systems there because of that fundamental difference so neglected by rural planners in India. Our rural planners still go by village concepts of <5000 populations of 50 years ago. Just go to Google and check if one cannot go to the innards of a village.

Even city congestion is primarily due to entrenched village ghetto's. The people from the innards just spill to the roads. Look at Mehrauli, Sikanderpur, Badarpur, Mahipalpur on Google..and you will realize why these areas are so congested.

Congestion in India is the cause of overcrowding, not lack of space. Congestion is the cause of lack of power, inability to bring in modern sewage systems. But then we do tend to overlook some very basic stuff. The first step in empowering rural India is decongestion of the village system Until that is not internalized our route to eliminating inequalities will be hard and long.

[Yogi_G]

and nobody can stand a chance to win an oral debate with an Indian, so i will not debate at all.

It is posts like these that justify a new BENIS thread for the Chinese.

[Singha]

No, but I think a bositiv neuj threat on Bartania is long overdue.

I dont usually attack china because there are things we can adapt from them, but Bartania brings out the beast in me

[Abhijeet]

I believe according to the recent Census the all-India median family size is 5.3.

One of the reasons the cities look so shabby is indeed because of wealth redistribution. However, Theo is correct that the basic cause is that income is still low -- even if all the wealth from Bombay stayed there it would still look poor, because it is. It's wildly optimistic -- to the point of delusional -- to say that Indian cities will reach American per capita income levels this decade.

Make people rich, and things will automatically start looking better. India is not unique among its per capita income peers with regards to the way things look. Things are equally shabby in Vietnam and the Philippines. Hopefully, as we get to Thailand or Malaysia's per capita income (nominal, not PPP, since infrastructure building costs are mostly global), our infrastructure will be on par with them.

[harbans]

I have my reservations on the above. Old Delhi is shabby, but the people are rich. The reason for shabbiness squarely lies in congestion. Look at any moderate size city in the developed world. It has 2-3-4 or more airports servicing them, Delhi and NCR with a population of 20 million has just one. 40 million people travel through the airport every year..and they use just 1 or 2 arterial roads to get to their destination. Take cities across the world that are divided by a River, they have half a dozen bridges connecting across. Calcutta to Hooghly just had one till quite recently. Gurgaon to Delhi has millions traversing each day, yet till very recently there was only one interconnection. Congestion which equates to shabbiness is an artificial construct. Where there is congestion one cannot get economic opportunity and in the case of villages even basics like power and sewerage facilities. If i bottle 100k people into an area 0.5 sq km i am inviting plain disaster for which there is no fundamental solution possible. Please do look up some villages on Google barely 80 km from Delhi itself. Look also at the empty vast lush surroundings all round the ghetto villages. Look into Delhi itself..remember the spots where you find the maximum congestion and people spilling all over. Zoom in and you'll find an swallowed village ghetto next to the road. Whereas good cities earmark 20 % or more area for roads and connecting infrastructure..we just don't plan for decongestion. Same happened while designing the Toll and link roads Gurgaon to Delhi. The planning commission later admitted they miscalculated (underestimated) the road traffic by 4 times or so. We have not yet internalized the fact that decongestion of both cities and villages is a basic developmental step.

[gunjur]

Some info on biggest trading regions for india.
Foreign trade: Straddling the East-West divide

India's foreign trade, it has been a slow and methodical shift from the West to the East, from the North to the South. Imports from OECD countries plunged sharply, by almost 50 per cent between 1960-61 and 2000-01.

For close to three decades, trade with Asia and Asean regions languished around 12-15 per cent. Trade with Asia and Asean region jumped to over 56 per cent in 2005-06.

WANA, West Asia and North Africa, has been gaining currency in India's foreign trade lexicon. WANA region alone accounts for over 25 per cent of India's foreign trade.

One would have presumed the Asean region comprising Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and others would have been an equally important trading partner. Accounting for 9.6 per cent of India's foreign trade, the region is definitely important. But it remains a distant second cousin to WANA.

The other interesting region is North East Asia comprising China, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and others which account for close to 20 per cent of India's trade.

The poorer cousins in the region are countries of South-East Asia, which also include the SAARC countries. Despite its close proximity as well as political and economic ties, the region accounts for a meagre 2.85 per cent of the country's total trade.

We also need to improve our exports to sub-sahara, Asean, latin america much more. It may be better with Asean, NE Asia, WANA having 20% each and sub-sahara&latin america around 20-25% and oecd around 15-20%.

[gakakkad]

Average household size in Urban India is less than 4..

Median household size drops below 4 in cities

With 49.7% of all Indian households having four or less members, the median Indian household has just a fraction over four members. In rural India, the median household size is between four and five members, but closer to four than it has ever been. As many as 47.1% of rural households now have four or less members, compared to less than 40% of rural households ten years ago.

The new batch of Census 2011 data showed that India now has 24.7 crore households. The data also lists households by size, and tells us what proportion of Indian households has one, two or three members and so on.

Even the size of the average rural household is less than 5..

One of the reasons the cities look so shabby is indeed because of wealth redistribution. However, Theo is correct that the basic cause is that income is still low -- even if all the wealth from Bombay stayed there it would still look poor, because it is. It's wildly optimistic -- to the point of delusional -- to say that Indian cities will reach American per capita income levels this decade.

not delusional interest...compound interest onlee ..

In 2004 our gdp was 500b ..in 2012 it is 2T.. 4 Times in 8 years.. Unless UPA does not make a gigantic mess , it ll grow at a similar rate throughout the next 2 decades...gdp by the end of the decade can probably be expected to 8T level...there are many sources that show the 2008 AHI of surat to be 4.5 lakh..use g-chacha... if u apply cagr , by 2020 AHI of surat can be expected to be 3-4 times the present level , which is the AHI of amreeka bahadur..

if reforms kick in ,which they will in all probability than expect further accelerations..

[nawabs]

Maruti's Manesar workers demand 5-fold rise in basic pay

http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... /163504/on

Emboldened by the recognition of their union, workers at Maruti Suzuki India's Manesar plant are understood to have demanded a hike in their basic salaries, as high as five times in some cases, ahead of the scheduled wage negotiations with the management.

According to sources close to the development, the newly formed body— Maruti Suzuki Workers' Union (MSWU)— has submitted a list of about 20 demands to the management for consideration while finalising the three-year wage settlement agreement.

"The union submitted their list to the management last week. Among the major ones, the workers are demanding raise in basic salaries that can be as high as five times more in some cases," a source said.

The workers have also asked for linking of dearness allowance (DA) to basic pay instead of a fixed amount being given currently, the source added.

When contacted, MSWU General Secretary Sarabjeet Singh said: "We have submitted our demand list to the company management on April 18. It has about 20-22 different points."

He, however, refused to disclose anything about the demands, saying MSWU is yet to start negotiations with the management.

Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) Managing Executive Officer (Administration) S Y Siddiqui declined to comment.

Among other demands, it is understood that the workers have also asked for increasing the number of privilege and casual leaves, offer conveyance services within 100 km distance from the plant and help the employees in getting affordable accommodation.

According to an employee at the Manesar plant, a permanent worker with a designation of Junior Associate-1 (JA-1) draws a total salary of about Rs 15,000-17,000 a month.

"Out of this total amount, basic pay is Rs 5,000, travelling allowance is Rs 1,600, HRA is around Rs 1,400 and an amount of Rs 200 for washing our clothes. The major component is a variable performance-linked allowance of Rs 7,000-9,000," he added.

Besides these, the workers get a fixed DA of Rs 150 every month, he claimed.

"A worker is made permanent after three years of serving as a trainee at the factory and offered a designation of JA-1. All the employees, who had joined the plant, are JA-1. There is only one worker at JA-2 level and he was transferred from the Gurgaon plant," the worker said.

A trainee's monthly remuneration varies between about Rs 7,000 and Rs 11,500 depending upon seniority. Also, a contractual worker gets Rs 6,000-7,000 every month, he added.

The worker further said: "Various levels of hikes have been demanded in the list keeping in mind all types of workers at the plant."


On April 12, MSI had said it is likely to finalise the wage negotiation agreements at Gurgaon and Manesar plants by the end of May and it will be implemented with retrospective effect from this month.

Siddiqui had then said MSI has already started wage negotiations for a three-year period with its workers at the Gurgaon facility, while the same for the Manesar plant was likely to start within the next 2-3 weeks.

MSWU, which was formed after the office-bearers of the erstwhile Maruti Suzuki Employees' Union (MSEU) had left the firm after taking a severance package of minimum Rs 16 lakh each, received its registration number from the Haryana Labour Department in February this year.

Last year, MSI witnessed three instances of labour unrest at the Manesar plant, which mainly produces the Swift, causing a total production loss of about 83,000 units.

In June 2011, a 13-day strike demanding the recognition of MSEU brought production to a standstill at the plant. It was followed by another standoff between the management and the workers on August 29 and lasted for 33 days.

In October, the company again saw its workers going on a 14-day strike that ended after the signing of a tripartite agreement between the management, workers and Haryana government representatives.

[shyam]

I believe according to the recent Census the all-India median family size is 5.3.

Just curious. How can median family size can be 5.3? Do they count child in mom's tummy as fraction?

[saip]

All it means is that 50% of Indian families have more than 5.3 members and the other 50% have less than 5.3 members. It does not mean any one family has exactly 5.3 members.

[Hari Seldon]

^^^ aah, saip, then why not have the median as 5.4, eh? or 5.2? There's a reason medians of sets of integers are multiples of 0.5. Only. Anyway OT here.

[gakakkad]

anyway ,the actual median family size is 4.1 ..

[Theo_Fidel]

I have my reservations on the above. Old Delhi is shabby, but the people are rich. The reason for shabbiness squarely lies in congestion..... Please do look up some villages on Google barely 80 km from Delhi itself. Look also at the empty vast lush surroundings all round the ghetto villages. Look into Delhi itself..remember the spots where you find the maximum congestion and people spilling all over.

Harbans,

Congestion is not necessarily related to ‘shabbiness’. For instance old Delhi has a population density of 25,000 per sqkm. Paris old town has population density of 40,000 per sqkm and higher. What matters is the complete underground metro system Paris has. This allows the streets to decongest and the people to move much faster from place to place. There is a concept in planning called dwell time. The longer ti takes for people to get through a space or avenue the more congested the area will become. Since the primary mode of travel in Old Delhi is walking the average street dwell time is often 2 hours plus. A proper underground metro will reduce this to 10 minutes, immediately decongesting the street.

What also matters is the income levels of the people who live in Old Paris. Higher income allows them to pay more for metro type travel that leads to direct decongestion. Higher income also leads to more sedentary jobs, rather than the hustle type juggad jobs on Indian streets. Shabbiness is a function of people not having fixed job areas.

Our old villages actually suffer from the same issues. Land is all devoted to agriculture hence settlement sizes are minimized. This in itself is not bad. At such congestion, utilities and transport must move underground. It was the failure to generate enough resources to do this that doomed our dense towns.

The very high dependency ratio remains a major problem. Large numbers of people hang around on our streets with little to nothing to do. Our society has not made the full transition towards an organized industrial and service oriented society. Large numbers of old and young remain on our streets, trying to hustle for a living. When dependency reduces and 70% of the people are gainfully employed our streets will automatically clear up. Europe cleaned it self this way and we will too. Need to get income up.
-------------------------------------------------------

Is that the median family size of the household size.

The median family size is a misleading statistic. I much prefer the dependency ratio. That tells you exactly what the family structure is. In many Indian homes more than 1 family lives under the same roof. Yet they are all counted as independent households. IMHO this is wrong.

[harbans]

Theo Ji, 'shabbiness' is a subjective word so i won't go on that. Singapore, Japan, HK all have higher population densities than most places in India. But they can survive with a high standard of living precisely because they have been made decongested. Villages and cities in India are being artificially congested as my example of bad calculations by planning committees on number of vehicles plying shows. Or that villages with a 100k and more population living in half a square km of area..which prevents basics like electricity and modern sewage coming in even if the money for that is available. Thus as a result it becomes difficult for the next generations to educate and come into mainstreams. People hanging on the roadsides and spilling on it is due to innards of village ghetto's not having access. Hence they spill over with a thela or nothing into the roads.

Where electricity poles penetrate into the village innards, people just connect wires and pilfer power, spawning unsafe works amidst many urban village settings. Where one cannot afford high investment metro's etc specially in the rural areas, it is best to decongest them. A single airport serving 20 plus citizens leads to 30 plus million people using one or maximum 2 arterial roads every year..there are so many ways we could decongest without the need for expensive metro's and get surprising results in a short time..but these require us to understand that dencongestion is a very primary and urgent requirement for economic development.

[Suraj]

HK, as much as it looks nice now, was a slumridden mess (especially Kowloon) 20 years ago, even though it's per capita income at that time was far higher than India's today. They had a huge slum and large crimeridden areas. Does anyone recall Police Story or other Jackie Chan movies from the 90s ? It didn't look any different then than Mumbai does today. HK also has the benefit that all of its revenue is channeled back into itself. If you wall off Mumbai for 10 years and reinvest all its economic output into its own development, it'll look outrageously developed very quickly too.

[harbans]

If you wall off Mumbai for 10 years and reinvest all its economic output into its own development, it'll look outrageously developed very quickly too.

Completely agree Suraj. But what about villages where because of massive congestion one cannot even get power into the innards? There are hundreds of thousands of such villages in the North i know. Also while Mumbai slums are mostly settled by outsiders, the village ghetto's of Delhi are ones that have been surrounded by development. Per capita land holdings in villages has come down and populations increased immensely making villages ghetto's. The village shift from ghetto to hamlet with urban planning has to come in a very urgent manner. To deny that will be to delay or postpone development at the minimum.

[Supratik]

harbans,

the congestion you talk about in India is a reality that I have closely observed as well. IMO this is how things are at the early phase of development e.g. the sprawling suburbs that you see in the USA were a direct outcome of expansion of the highway and expressway system between 1920s-1950s. Things in India got worse because due to Nehruvian-Marxism the population expanded but the economy did not expand much till early 1990s. Poor development leads to greater congestion. Now that the economy is progressing we need to look at decongestion afresh. I believe from SSC that Mumbai is doing it with its slum redevelopment, cluster redevelopment and area redevelopment programs. Delhi should do the same as otherwise it is a very pretty city. Others need to follow suit too e.g. Kolkata has very little infrastructure and over-congestion. As we become rich there will be billions and perhaps trillions of dollars available to do the same. It all boils down to economics, planning and intent.

[Singha]

if you look at rich villagers who have made some money either in farming or in selling land to developers, they usually kit themselves up with a large compound -- a large house with ample free land for a garden and tractors/vehicles. mostly its a question of money in hands of people, they will find their own way thereafter.