India On Business Week Cover
You come across a magazine like Business Week with "INDIA" written somewhere on its cover page and you get excited about it. It must be another cover story talking about India's 8%+ growth rate and how it is becoming a global power. However, this article read more like the articles in the 90's, rightly bringing up the infrastructural bottlenecks that India is choking upon and how corruption and the politicains are chewing away many basis points of India GDP growth rate. After reading the article, you'll more in a pensive mode rather than a proud Indian. Here are a few highlights:
* With virtually no mass transit in Bangalore, Indian technology firm Infosys Technologies Ltd. spends $5 million a year on buses, minivans, and taxis to transport its 18,000 employees to and from Electronics City.
* Economic losses from congestion and poor roads alone are as high as $6 billion a year
* ... industry is hobbled by overcrowded highways where speeds average just 20 miles per hour
* In Pune, a city of 4.5 million, it's lights out every Thursday—forcing factories to maintain expensive backup generators. Government officials were shocked last year when Intel Corp. (INTC ) chose Vietnam over India as the site for a new chip assembly plant. Although Intel declined to comment, industry insiders say the reason was largely the lack of reliable power and water in India.
* 40% of farm produce is lost because it rots in the fields or spoils en route to consumers, which contributes to rising prices for staples such as lentils and onions.
* India today is about where China was a decade ago ... 25,000 miles of expressways that now crisscross the country (CHINA) and are as good as the best roads in the U.S. or Europe. India, by contrast, has just 3,700 miles of such highways.
* China's lead in infrastructure is likely to grow, too. Beijing plows about 9% of its GDP into public works, compared with New Delhi's 4%.
* ... country's public debt stands at 82% of GDP, the 11th-worst ranking in the world ...
* Nokia Corp. (NOK ) saw thousands of its cellular phones ruined last October when a shipment from its factory in Chennai was soaked by rain because there was no room to warehouse the crates of handsets at the local airport.
* Japan's Maruti Suzuki says trucking its cars 900 miles from its factory in Gurgaon to the port in Mumbai can take up to 10 days.
* It took five hours to drive the 50 miles from the airport to the site, and when they got there they found...nothing. "No roads, no power, no schools, no water, no hospitals, no housing," says Pratyush Kumar, president of GE Infrastructure in India.
* ... country with only 25,000 tourist-class hotel rooms compared with more than 140,000 in Las Vegas alone ...
* One reason little practical help makes it from the seats of power to India's impoverished villages is that so much money gets siphoned off along the way. With corrupt officials skimming at every step, many public works projects either go over budget or are never completed. "You figure that 25% of the cost goes to corruption"
* With virtually no mass transit in Bangalore, Indian technology firm Infosys Technologies Ltd. spends $5 million a year on buses, minivans, and taxis to transport its 18,000 employees to and from Electronics City.
* Economic losses from congestion and poor roads alone are as high as $6 billion a year
* ... industry is hobbled by overcrowded highways where speeds average just 20 miles per hour
* In Pune, a city of 4.5 million, it's lights out every Thursday—forcing factories to maintain expensive backup generators. Government officials were shocked last year when Intel Corp. (INTC ) chose Vietnam over India as the site for a new chip assembly plant. Although Intel declined to comment, industry insiders say the reason was largely the lack of reliable power and water in India.
* 40% of farm produce is lost because it rots in the fields or spoils en route to consumers, which contributes to rising prices for staples such as lentils and onions.
* India today is about where China was a decade ago ... 25,000 miles of expressways that now crisscross the country (CHINA) and are as good as the best roads in the U.S. or Europe. India, by contrast, has just 3,700 miles of such highways.
* China's lead in infrastructure is likely to grow, too. Beijing plows about 9% of its GDP into public works, compared with New Delhi's 4%.
* ... country's public debt stands at 82% of GDP, the 11th-worst ranking in the world ...
* Nokia Corp. (NOK ) saw thousands of its cellular phones ruined last October when a shipment from its factory in Chennai was soaked by rain because there was no room to warehouse the crates of handsets at the local airport.
* Japan's Maruti Suzuki says trucking its cars 900 miles from its factory in Gurgaon to the port in Mumbai can take up to 10 days.
* It took five hours to drive the 50 miles from the airport to the site, and when they got there they found...nothing. "No roads, no power, no schools, no water, no hospitals, no housing," says Pratyush Kumar, president of GE Infrastructure in India.
* ... country with only 25,000 tourist-class hotel rooms compared with more than 140,000 in Las Vegas alone ...
* One reason little practical help makes it from the seats of power to India's impoverished villages is that so much money gets siphoned off along the way. With corrupt officials skimming at every step, many public works projects either go over budget or are never completed. "You figure that 25% of the cost goes to corruption"
posted by AJ at 7:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home