Dharam Singh made to search for answers

Dharam Singh made to search for answers
The Hindu

BANGALORE, DEC. 9. The Chief Minister, N. Dharam Singh, has been forced to be on the defensive on the functioning of his coalition Government and also on account of the reverberations of the criticisms of some of the captains of the information technology (IT) industry on the state of infrastructure in Bangalore. His replies at a press conference in New Delhi today showed that Mr. Dharam Singh had some explaining to do. Adding to his discomfiture was the statement of the new Governor of Maharashtra, S.M. Krishna, regretting "sad developments such as the government-corporate sector split and the transfer of former Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Commissioner Jayakar Jerome."

In an interview to The Hindu , Mr. Dharam Singh had defended the transfer of Mr. Jerome on the ground that he had held the BDA post for nearly five years. He had also noted that his Government had posted a competent officer in his place, M.N. Vidyashankar.

Policy forgotten

Those observing the industrial scene in the city and the well-orchestrated criticisms of the IT industry in particular, recall the wisdom of the industrial policy adopted by the Janata government in 1986, which banned the establishment of new industries in the city. The then Chief Minister, Ramakrishna Hegde, had realised that the infrastructure then available in Bangalore could not accommodate any more new industrial units. That policy was revised in 1994 and it was followed by the IT boom. The 1986 policy was forgotten.

Also generally ignored today is the decline and closure of several of the traditional industries in the city and the sickness of two public sector giants. A West Bengal Minister had spoken of the large-scale unemployment caused by the closure of industrial units in Banglore. "Bangalore is bursting at its seams" is the comment frequently heard. Its narrow roads are inadequate to meet the steep increase in the number of vehicles. The variously denoted Metro Rail project has remained a non-starter.

Critics of the IT and biotechnology industry, who are not few, pose the question as to whether the infrastructure in Bangalore was better before the coalition took over. It could not have deteriorated in the past six months.

However, Mr. Dharam Singh is known for his fund of patience. He is almost every day fielding the stock question from journalists about the expansion of the Ministry. Unlike some of his predecessors, he does not shun journalists although he has not been so open and candid as was the late J.H. Patel.