Problems of Calcutta

Press, 29 August 1980, Page 12

Problems of Calcutta

From a special correspondent in Calcutta

“Calcutta will always be a slum. If you improve things, as Mother Theresa does, that . only brings in more population,” says Dr Ashok Mitra, the Finance Minister of the Communist Government of West Bengal, of which the capital is Calcutta. “So we concentrate our resources in the rural areas. That’s the only way to stop people coming here.” The despair of the West Bengal Government in trying to improve India’s largest and most overcrowded city is understandable. Calcutta now has 13 million people, ■with a density four times higher than New York. An ■ estimated 10 per cent of the work force is unemployed. A: third of the population live in slums or worse. Ironical-, ly, in this city of cheap, and surplus labour, industrial unrest is widespread. The port was' idle for 150 days last year. Power stations work at 25 per cent capacity; power cuts of up to 10 hours a day are com- ■ mon. Telephones are out of order more than they work. Overmanning and absenteeism are a way of life. A Bombay bus requires six men to run it; the same bus ■ in Calcutta requires 16. Forty per cent of the bus employees go to work only 10 days a month, the minimum needed to collect their full pay. Food rationing has been in force since 1942. Dr Mitra readily admits all these, problems, but says his Government cannot reduce overmanning or -do much to improve the bitter inter-union rivalries: ‘We are • the Government; we are mother and father. If we sack ..someone, he can’t get

another job.” ■ With the state government receiving 23 per cent of revenue. and. Delhi gettirig the rest. SDr Mitra. blames, .economic conditions on the Central .Government and- • local industrialists. “For 30 years growth in -. West Bengal has been ' 1 per cent a year. -There have been many profi-

table industries here — tea, jute, heavy engineering. But what do the industrialists do with their profits? They repatriate them or invest them elsewhere. If workers saw more investment, they’d work harder. In my first year in office, I. talked to industrialists. I don’t bother now.”

The industrialist’s point of view is that if he builds a factory in Calcutta, he has no guaranteed power or phone supply; no guarantee he can move his goods by rail or sea; the likelihood of

inter-union rivalry, political interference in the? unions and grave difficulty' in sack■V,ing:anyone. If he seeks legal remedies, he finds 75,000 uncleared cases in the Calcutta

High Court and over a mil- - lion "in the state’s lower courts. The Communist • Government’s biggest headache is

’ the city’s ever-increasing population. Partition in 1947, the Bangladesh war .in 1971, the continuing poverty of that country and natural dis- ■- asters like last year’s drought in West Bengal — all have sent people pouring into the city. Some 65 per cent of the population and 60 per cent of the work force come from outside .West Bengal. These refugees from hunger, unemployment or persecution live on the city’s railway platforms, •pavements or under flyovers. They eke out a living pulling rickshaws, pushing carts, fetching, and carrying, beggary and crime. An English doctor who attends to some of them told

me hospitals will only admit

them if they are very seriously ill. He also gives out food provided by a mission hospital. .“Many queue up outside Mother Theresa’s homes; and- sell the clothes, food and blankets they are given. The state has no. provision. for these people.”

Dr Mitra’s answer 'is I to

tackle ■< the problem at source, ( to improve life in the villages so . that people

won’t want to come to Calcutta. "Our priorities are water, health and education. City people are never satisfied, but country people appreciate what you do for them.”

This year that stategy paid off at the ballot box. The Communists won 54 per cent of the country vote, compared to 44 per cent in 1977, although their share of votes in Calcutta dropped. Dr Mitra believes the present state of things cannot go on. “West Bengal, and indeed' the whole of India, has no future without assets being redistributed. Ten per cent of the people own two-thirds of the land. People won’t tolerate a zero to 1 per cent growth rate with inflation of 26 per cent, as it is this year. There’ll be a holocaust, not only here but all over.” — Copyright London Observer Service.