Arvind Shah
Jammu, the city of temples is one of the blessed cities of India. It is blessed not merely because for its possessions of temples that propagate more spirituality than religiosity, it is blessed by its geographical position as well. My objective of writing this piece is not to introduce the readers to the spiritual glory and the history of Jammu, but I will attempt to portray the services that the community of Jammu is provided and the habitual behaviour of the inhabitants of Jammu to live with such services.
No Government and governance is required for the fundamental need of food for survival because all living creatures – plants, insects and animals manage to get it, and survive to live and be productive in continuing their race. But a civilized human settlement requires food that is good to help live healthy, clothing that saves from severity of seasons and gives a good feeling and still there is the requirement of housing – the housing with utility civil services in a place that is habitable and developed. The quality of services that a person lives with make processes that help an individual to live quality life and be at peace with himself and be a useful individual for the overall community. The quality of services determines the quality of development of a person, a community and a country. Jammu, the province of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in the union of India is a bigger part of the state.
The plight of Jammu deserves to be discussed, despite the fact that people of Jammu have contributed in maintaining an atmosphere of social peace and tranquillity despite difficult challenges to help the development of the province, but the people of Jammu are subjected to miserable services. The people of Jammu carry on to submit to sustain peace so that the province sees the development in infrastructure and the service and deserves no derailment for the basic needs.
The services determine the civility of a place and it influences the life of the people living there. Lot of research has been done to understand the service sector and its dispensation to human community. According to Donald Cowell , “marketing of services” Heinemann, London, the services for a human community are classified as, Utility, Law Enforcing, Civil Administration, Defence Services, Transportation and Communication. Utilities have three main components: the management of sewerage, management of electricity and management of water supply.
When I said in the opening that Jammu is a blessed place, my intension was to invite the attention of readers to the fact that, being situated in different elevations on Shivalik Hills of Trikuta Tange , it has a geographical advantage to maintain its cleanliness on the face of it. The waste water and sewerage naturally runs down to cannels keeping the city clean. The city gets washed with every shower of rain. And the water cannels carry all the dirt of the city to leave it neat and clean. But it is a question, how the dirt of the city that gets washed into its cannels is disposed off and managed. The geographical position of Jammu is such that people get to live in a clean city more because of its topography than efficient systems of management.
The man made systems of service leave much to ponder upon and lament. After displacement from Kashmir, Jammu became my so called home town, though I may live in Delhi as well. The experiences of living in Jammu as far as the service utility of electric supply and water supply is concerned – less said is better said. One needs to live through it to understand it. Whatever be my little experiences of travelling in different capital cities of India, it is amply clear that Jammu stands among the worst places as far as electric utility is concerned. The question is not when there is no electric supply; the question is when there is electric supply. Getting no electric supply for a reason or getting electric supply under a particular schedule can be a mechanism of supply management, but the sad story is that the supply is on but the fluctuation in the supply measures anything between 40 volts to 240 volts. The variations in voltage and the fluctuation in supply is the way electric supplies are. No steady supply – no steady supply at all. Every home has transformers ranging from .5kv to 5kv in a bid to stabilise the electrical supply and it is not rare to see these transforms not to match the mending ability of the erratic electric supply. The summer temperatures soar between 40 degree to 45 degrees Celsius, the state of electric services sore, all the more. The ineffectiveness in providing the basic utility service of electric supply leaves public high and dry. There is little difference in quality of life whether the electric supply is on or not, the voltage variations and fluctuations makes it no less miserable than the situation when there is no electric supply. Jammu population lives with services akin to a unauthorised juggi cluster.
Jammu and Kashmir has been a power deficit state, which the government claims, now has been addressed to a great extent, but the situation on ground level is adverse not to substantiate the improvement of the power generation / supply. After all what is the reason of this primitive state of affairs in this utility service sector? The reason is exclusive inefficient proprietary of government, both in generation and supply. The reason is the sick polity of the State that has been taking the toll of people for long. The reason is the compromises of the people with the substandard service provided to them. The reason is surrender of the right to have the best available. The reason is corrupt practices at every level of functioning. The Government and the concerned department may reason so many ifs and buts, but the whole story is a sorry state of affairs. There can be so many cock and bull stories and every story will reveal inefficiency of Government and governance and at the same time inefficiency and bad approach of the people to compromise. It is no herculean task to identify areas of attention and draw a plan of execution to pull out this service sector out from the pathetic situation to a better performing sector.
There is mismatch between the power supplied and the revenue earned; this is one of the main reasons of poor services. There are engineering leakages, but even more, there are leakages on account of power theft. Engineering leakages are always there in delivery / supply, but that they can be minimized with efficiency. The first thing must be to set an equation between the power supplied and the revenue collected. Electric theft cannot be part of power management system. It is no un-common affair to see rampant misuse of power in Jammu. The power theft cannot be accepted as a public habit and if it is a public habit and a phenomenon, then governance and the managers of power are fleecing the public and pushing its population into backwardness and primitiveness. Political dispensations are equally responsible for the sad state of affairs. Nobody can claim to be decent by getting benefitted through a process of theft. It is the inefficiency, incompetence or mala fide of the department if they are not able to check the power theft, it is malfunction of governance to be unable to check theft and it is unhealthy polity, if it tries to corrupt and win over people by giving a cover to public in doing power theft. Inability to check corrupt practises and power theft is pushing the province of Jammu into misery. If the government feels the burden of electric rates are high on the public the costs can be kept low or subsidised. But no unit of power shall go free it must be paid by the consumer or by any agency of Government. If the government does set the services sector in order the same people who gave it electoral victory will give it a defeat.
The population of Jammu must spell it clear that everyone using electricity is willing to pay to a steady supply of electricity. The people must seek from the government and the concerned department, a minimum commitment of quality electric supply to a connection holder (client). If the government / the department does not do so the people must en-masse tell the Government to withhold electric supplies till the supplies are made up-to-date. Then onus will be on the Government to withhold the electric services and resume them when up-to-date, until then no client in view of its request to withhold electric supply shall be charged and made liable to pay the electric charges. The government and the department is unwilling to improve electric services, but the public has right to strike and not to pay for erratic power supply.
(The author is former branch head, regional office (Asia Pacific Region) INFOVA)
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