Election Enigma

Stage set for 15^th general elections in India : Pune along with almost half of Maharashtra will be voting on 23^rd April. As in any election, there’s no dearth of issues. Lets have a look at my compilation (Priorities are subject to vary) :-

1. Infrastructure

- This includes physical structures like Roads, Water, Electricity, Transport (Road and Air) [Favorite pie for all politicians]

- Developing a hassle-free setup for industries : Maharashtra is no. 1 in terms of red tape in business i.e. you need average 28 licenses to start a normal business in Maharashtra which is the biggest number in the nation.

Has it ensured safety ?

Have we successfully managed to stop job cuts ?

There’s still no provision for betterment of unorganized sectors like SSI,

House keepers, Security professionals, Prostitutes

- Tourism facilities development : Maharashtra lacks good tourism facilities. Though some of the pilgrimage, tourist destinations are well developed, there’s lot be desired in supplying better Tourism experiences (something like Mauritius or Thailand).

- Migration needs to be controlled big time; we’re running out of resources and space. No further slums can be accommodated in Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur and industrial cities of Nashik, Aurangabad and Kolhapur.

- Electricity shortage has become a huge problem. Despite highest power capacity in India (17000 MW which 40% more than second ranked Tamilnadu), Maharashtra still faces acute shortage. We have also been affected by issues like heavy dependency on conventional energy resources, projects of power generation from non-conventional energy resources have taken very long to setup.

- Further development should be greener !

2. Measures to nurture and promote Marathi culture on International stage

- No active steps taken for getting Marathi in the league of Classical languages

- Setting up schools for Marathi in universities around the world is an activity still carried out by State universities and cultural organizations. We need to scale up this issue to national responsibility with a separate entity operating for it.

- Tourism development can be closely related to cultural engagement

- This is an intellectual state, we love literature : Why no big funds for the great Marathi Saahitya ? (Most of the urban areas are witnessing these issues raised)

- Its time we view and project our culture as something to be savored for our future generations

3. Easy duties for residents

- Online availability of land records is a plus, now we need a better and a faster system even for old records (I learn from the sources that this is in progress)

- Maharashtra, the fruit hub of the nation needs to be equipped with better facilities at district level to preserve and export. Same shall apply to grocery, cotton and sugarcane. (this long running demand has not been entirely fulfilled yet but election promises are being made)

- Better transport facilities including Metro and Sky bus projects. There still seems dearth of action on fly-cheap promise. No plan yet to utilize and interconnect more than 15 airports (8 of them domestic operational).

- Fuel and Power seems to be the biggest glitch of Marathi middle class, need to be resolved at the earliest. [Thankfully these are on the list of most of the political parties]

- Stay in Maharashtra must be made pleasing for everyone !

Watch out this space : more to come soon on Macro level !