India’s GDP :- India has become the fourth largest economy in the world. From ministers to businessmen, everyone is talking about this achievement and why not. Vande Bharat trains, expressways, digital payments or big brands, all these are now a part of the Indian growth story. But there is a saying about life in India that inside your home you are living the life of a developed world, but as soon as you step out of your home, you realize that this country is developing, there is waterlogging on the roads, there is no end to the traffic and the air is polluted. But do not think that only poor people suffer from these things.
If you buy a luxury car in India with your hard work, then you have to pay double the taxes on it as compared to other countries. But which roads will you drive your car on? If you do not have money, you have gone to a good college, you have got a good job and you have a good salary, then also you have to suffer from these things because we can divide India into three tiers. I learned this from Jaideep Sen Sharma’s tweet where he told that in India there are Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 tiers where India is a shining example. This is the India which is like developed countries.
Here only the contribution of private sector is there. Tier 2 is where the government has to work together with the private sector and Tier 3 are those things where only the government is involved and the country is in a mess. To explain about Tier 2 and Tier 3, what are these tiers, we experienced the life of four young urban professionals from four big cities of the country, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata. So let us know about the actual quality of life in our country.
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First of all, let’s talk about the country’s tier one which is a shining example for the country’s growing economy. This tier one runs purely due to the private sector where comfort and convenience are valued, like this is Bengaluru, the country’s tech Capital Here Aditya roams around in Indira Nagar and orders his take away coffee from Starb Later he chills at the WeWork office and orders nachos from the vending machine and orders Rapido auto taxis from his phone for commute .
In the evening after getting tired he chills at Bob’s Cafe where he gets craft beer This is the urban lifestyle that you won’t find even in developed economies because it’s all about comfort and convenience Like in Delhi Rimi works for a law firm and eats at fancy cafes like Horse Then she goes to Khan market which is an upscale market in South Delhi Easily he can even order a pedicure through Urban Club Now for a simple pedicure in developed economies you have to drive and go somewhere but all these conveniences are available at home because of tier one.
In fact now you can even order a household one in just 10 minutes Now this is The good part is the problem starts as soon as you step out of your house and you have to interact with the government because in T20 India, the government works with the private sector. This is your roads, footpaths, drains, garbage outside your house, public transport and traffic management and this is where the problem lies. Recently many wars are happening and I find it very interesting that Indians react to some of the war toned countries. They get those visuals of war toned countries and their first reaction is that there is a war going on here but their cities are still cleaner than our cities. The same thing happened in Gaza and recently it is happening with Tehran where people are surprised that these cities have better urban infrastructure than our cities. So even though Aditya pays ₹200 for his Starbucks coffee to thank you, he has to travel on the same road that millions of people in Bangalore are using. There is so much traffic, man! In Bangalore, people have accepted traffic as a way of life.
Infact Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar even said that even God cannot fix the roads of Bengaluru. Talking about Mumbai, it is almost impossible to walk on the footpath there. Either there is garbage on the road or vehicles have been parked there due to which one cannot walk there. You will definitely find the most expensive houses and restaurants in Bandra, but you can see the dirt and infrastructure. And because travelling in the local train of Mumbai is like an Olympic sport, people have to fix at what time they go home. In DLF Gurgaon, you will also find houses worth crores of rupees and you can also shop in expensive malls, but if there is a little rain outside the mall, you can see what happens.
This is the condition of Kolkata. In tier two, basically those things come where the government is providing services, but when a private company takes sole responsibility, then actually there are very good examples of this in our country like in the expensive societies of DLF. If you go there, they have themselves built footpaths, parks, roads and you will not face the kind of problems that you face on government roads, but imagine that you will have to walk on this road every day to reach your nearest metro station, you pay taxes and you hear so much about India’s growth story, but what is the use of this growth story if you cannot even walk peacefully on the roads of your city, but this is still okay, the problems get worse when you interact with Tier 3 India where there is a monopoly of the government, no private company can enter into these things and this is Tier 3 India is something that everybody avoids. Everybody prays that I never have to face this Tier 3 India because in this Tier 3 India there is police, courts and municipality.
Nobody wants to go to these things but they have to go when there is a problem in their life, if their car is stolen then whom will you go to, if the drain is overflowing outside the house then whom will you go to, if potholes are dug in the road then whom will you go to. Tier 3 India is such a black hole where if you enter by chance then it can take years to get out and that is why there are many strongmen leaders in our country because the reason for spending 10 years in the court is that it is good that a strongman leader mediates and resolves a legal dispute, why am I telling you this, just look at the example of Delhi where a property case of Delhi went on for 26 years.
A property case went on for 26 years in our legal system. If we talk about the police then only 25% Indians trust the police. The condition is so bad. It is true that our countrymen have accepted that Tier-3 will never work and it has serious consequences. We believe that rules will not be enforced in any system and when this happens, people do not follow the rules. Traffic signals are not laws but suggestions. Standing in line is not a norm but a formality.
That is why no one is afraid if you say that brother I am going to call the police. In fact, people are afraid in our country when someone says brother do you know who my father is. Now I will not even say that the country does not benefit from GDP growth. Due to high growth, people’s lives are transformed. Your income will increase. You can spend more on health, entertainment and eat better food. But what I am trying to say is that India’s quality of life will not be reflected by just numbers because for quality of life you have to look at different things. Now India is doing very well in Tier-1, but what about Tier-2 and Tier-3? The role of our government is the sad thing is that I have not come across even one politician, not even one politician who is prioritizing urban civic infrastructure who wants to make our cities better.
The Chief Minister of Delhi recently said that if it rains, what is his fault in that? So water coming is natural, but there is no pan below that it will go from above and evaporate below. DK Shivakumar said that even God cannot fix the roads of Bangalore in one year, two years, three years. Bhag, what these politicians do not realize is that because of these problems, the smartest and most talented people of India do not want to come back to India.
I have many friends who are in top jobs in countries like Singapore or the US and they do not want to come back because of India’s quality of life. Instead of attracting these people, many more Indians want to leave the country. I also talked about this in my IIT video, where I told how top IT rankers mostly live outside India. Look, This is a signal. I don’t think that Indian politicians are not smart. In fact, I think that they are one of the most intelligent people in our country. They have decided that urban civic infrastructure is not a priority.
They have decided this because it is not their political priority. What will they gain from it? Which is quite sad that they are taking urban voters for granted. They are getting votes from elsewhere. So their reaction is, why should I fix the roads? Oh my God. Because the problems that we face are very obvious. RBI has written a detailed report on what the problem is in Indian municipalities.
I have also made a detailed video on this, which I would strongly recommend. You watch this video. There, I have talked in detail about what our problems are and what the problems are in cities. For example, if I quickly summarize, our municipalities have neither financial power nor political power. If we talk about it, they have to beg from the state and central government. 12 buses are locked. If we talk about political power, the municipal head has to look towards the chief minister to get some work done.
You tell me yourself how can the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh decide which drain of Banaras will be cleaned. And thirdly, there are mostly no incentives. You tell me that if your city is dirty, is anyone losing their job? No, but if the quarterly performance of a company is very bad, can’t the CEO lose his job? So basically, because of these reasons, our cities are so dirty and the condition is so bad. So, why am I making this video? Because I do feel that urban voters in India are taken for granted and awareness is the first step to change.
I want us to put pressure on politicians and the politicians should also know that brother, they cannot do this, they cannot take us for granted because a lot of the tax comes from people like us, but the services we are getting are not good. In return she is like this and that needs to change and like I told you