Why Division? These are some solutions...

It is good that Telanganaites are voicing for their share of resources. It is the responsibility of the Government to distribute the resources equitably, if failed before, for various reasons like the influence of the pressure/interest groups operating, and the domination of the politicians or their art of lobbying from a particular region etc, atleast this is high time to realise and take appropriate measures if the demands are genuine and true. Unfortunately, all the divisions in this country are politically motivated. Whenever the party in the power feels that the division helps them to get political mileage, or winnable public mandate, orelse to with hold the South from challenging the North (especially UP politicans) to emerge as the leaders at the Center, the Center goes for a division, apart from other accessory good reasons. India is the fatest dividing country in the World in the name of language, administrative convenience, or something else. We are divided into 29 states and 7 UTs from 1959 to 2011 (52 years) and there are 17 states in queue awaiting the division of Telangana to voice for their cause. It took 212 years for the United States for reorganization from 13 colonies to 50 states. If separation is directly proportional to the development we would have been developed by leaps and bounds when compared to the US which is not a reality. I dont wish to go into the details of why and how Telangana issue recurred, undoubtedly it is a political reason. The acceptance of all parties before 2009 elections, its announcement and the vertical split across the parties, their resignations and agitations on either side all are political in nature. The division is an extreme step to take when the Governments fail to address the grievances, if genuine, creating awareness in the public about which are not genuine, and experiment other models of governance. The problem is Centralization, and what is the solution? Throughout the history, the people fought against their governments whenever it exceeded its limits through centralization of the land and the resources, its inequatible distribution, lack of proper representation for their problems, inefficiency of the Governments to have a proper mechanism to find and address regular public grievances timely that are recurring on daily basis. How efficient are our Governments? Due to economic liberalization and globalization wealth had been created in a record time but its distribution failed utterly, which has become the greatest worry ever before to the have nots in the system. This centralized system created Neo-Zamindars and Neo-Imperialists. The fought began among these new generation of zamindars and imperialists to have their own region and for their own self rule, for which they lead the people and made them voice, unless whose backing and the support this would not have been organised and grown to this much level. What is paining Telangana commoners is paining Andhra commoners too. The real estate boom crushed the people in the districts around Hyderabad, now the people around Vizayawada and Guntur are being crushed, only thing is that the momentum is shifting on both the sides with the uprise and downfall of the movement. Is there time relevance for the problems of water for irrigation, and employment? Are they not addressable? We all knew, that the economy shifts from agririan low productive to industrial and high productive service sector and we took direct shift to dollar driven service sector. The usage pattern of the land has been changing rapidly recentralising, which is definitely a worry. Some economists strongly criticise investing in irrigation sector is bypassing the growth trajectory and going back in time. Then the Government has to carefully assess the professional patterns and requirements of the people and try for a gradual and smooth shift from farm to non-farm sector in which China has shown its leadership with its model of highly centralised governance and highly decentralised economy. Though fighting for government employment has little relevance at present as all sorts of jobs are available in private sector and the Government also moving forward with private public partnership, the Government has to address that the education system, skills upgradation of young people, fair share of representation in these jobs is met from all the regions. The Government should demonstrate its will to decentralise the power and the authority to regional councils, to the Local governments called Corporations, Municipalities, Zilla Parishads, Mandal Parishads and Gram Panchayats which are expected to coordinate and deliver the services of 29 departments at the bottom. The Government has to model itself so that people will not migrate to the cities and increase the pressure on them by providing all amneities, services and opportunities within the district borders. For which the economic model and ivestment should be shifted to second level cities and major towns. The people have the right to enjoy the Governance at their door steps by participating and availing services through governing processes. The State Government has to dare take and experiment alternative governing models and reduce itself to supervisory role to regulate and punish if local governments err. Who is stopping it? The MP/MLAs (neo-zamindaris) though bothered and over burdened with public outpouring of grievances do not like a Sarpanch to fulfill all the needs to his/her people at the village level itself and the bureaucracy (neo-imperialists) does not wish their power go down below the district though overwhelmed with innumerable subjects. This lack of sharing of power and authority is innate to our society and culture for generations. May be this is the reason why one of the ministers from AP came forward with a proposal to increase number of districts but not the division of the State, somewhat better idea but not the best. Then what is the best? The power should rest with Gram Sabha which is the only institution in this country where people represent directly, all other institutions like the General Bodies, the Assemblies, and the Parliament being indirectly represented by the people through their representatives from ward members to MPs. These sabhas should be empowered to take decisions, have functionaries, functions and funds enough to implement those decisions, to realise the dream of Gram Swaraj of the Father of Nation. What is reality? The reality is that the Central Governments try restrict State Governments which inturn limit the local governments. The reality is that the PM or the CMs annonce that they are empowering the local governments by conduct of regular elections and by increasing 33-50% reservations to the women, which has never been sufficient without the power, the funds and the functionaries devolved. Technological recentralization, a new phenomenon? Technology aided the centralised governance to centralise further. Its amazing to know that we pay bills directly to the peoples accounts through software aided processes, but the monitoring of the entire processes are done mostly from the State headquarters. Then what will be the people down below doing? The higher level is overburdened with, and the human resource down below and at all levels are not used and engaged optimally. It is at the bottom level the people sense the feel of Government. We need to implement the principle of "do the job and deliver a service to the people at the level where it can be done at its best", and if we try monitor daily errands of the people from Delhi, we will never satify the people, whatever may be the number of states or districts and computers we have.