This theory does not however, hold good in the case of manufacturing cars, for they can be made either in Andhra Pradesh or in Kashmir, or for that matter anywhere else. Industrial units - manufacturing facilities specifically erected for turning out a particular consumer goods—being man-made, operating in an enclosure of their own can simply be erected anywhere. Thanks to globalization, factors such as proximity to raw material supply, or nearness to consumers, etc. do not matter any longer: what matters today is how different one's product is from that of the competitor—in terms of price and quality and its efficacy in serving consumers' needs. Thus, computer hardware designed in the US is made in China, chips designed in the US are made in Taiwan, and software meant for European businesses is written in India and sold and bought by people across the globe. That being the order of the day, one wonders why the West Bengal government is so bent upon establishing and SEZ as a hub for chemical industries in Nandigram, despite the known resistance from the local farmers. Still bigger question is: Does it warrant police firing killing 14 persons and injuring scores of people?
This
apparently simple question, of course, calls for a complex answer. First, it is
in everybody's knowledge that India's infrastructure is in a poor state and according
to the Prime Minister, it needs an investment of $350 bn in the Eleventh Five-year
Plan, if it has to sustain the current growth rate of 9% in GDP and take it to
double digits. And it's commonsensical that with the kind of budgetary allocations,
we have been making for infrastructure development, the rising demand for capital
from social sectors and the kind of bureaucracy that we have had, we cannot create
the required infrastructure overnight. |
