India Poised? How can India become great? Read on

I live in Bangalore. 1000 cars are added everyday to our city. The roads cannot be widened. Congestion increases on a day to day basis. A journey to Bannerghatta road that used to take me 20 minutes 5 years ago now takes me 1 hour and 15 minutes. If you extend this it will take me over 3 hours within a few years! And that is not hard to beleive if you see the traffic in our major cities. But what is the solution? Is there a solution?

One suggestion is to set up Satellite cities. These are cities setup between 60 and 150 kilometers from the main city. For example in Bangalore 5 satellite cities can be setup in five different directions. Preferably using barren land. If fertile land is used it should be only as a last resort. Even if fertile land is taken, unused land elsewhere should be cultivated to have the same production as the land acquired. Farmers should be given a stake in the new city if they so wish.

Once 5 cities are setup 5 enterpreneurs from each city with a sterling reputation should be chosen. Each enterpreneur should be put in charge of one city. A group of private citizens should be put on the board to monitor progress of the new cities. Companies like Infosys, Reliance , ITC etc with unimpeachable reputaions for project work should be chosen to manage the cities.
The cities will be built with private funding with the best infrastructure possible (the enterpreneurs will see to that). Water, Electricity, Sewage, transportation will be the best available. The enterpreneurs will make a huge profit on the surge in land prices in the Satellite cities. This profit will pay for all infrastructure spending they will incur. Their reputations will be on the line. There will be no government interference. Only regulation by private citizens and the media. Complete transparency will be mandatory. There will be no taxes since they will be given SEC (Special Economic Zone) benefits as they will require no external government funding. Only personal income tax will be applicable.

Each city will be connected by a superhighway and highspeed underground railway to the main city. The main cities will gradually decongest as the new cities will handle future growth. India will become a great power as it should. Just like the progress of the IT sector which was due to private enterpreneurs. For example private enterpreneurs will be able to see that by having proper roads the diesel and petrol consumption will reduce and pay for the cost of having better roads

India will be great as it should but not unless we remove government interference. Government funding should concentrate on 5 thrust areas. Irrigation canals, Metro railways in all cities, Roads, Electricity, Ports and Airports. All these projects should be privatised.