Mak-ing (Rural) India
On an early morning, I chose to travel from Gurgaon to Delhi on a passenger train. Eventually I find myself lucky to get a seat, more importantly the window seat on a route that goes parallel to the World class New Delhi International Airport, described by some of my “travel-mates” as “a shining glass box” (albeit a background of filth). “Here comes a flight from London” cheers a young girl. “Another one from Amrika!! Shooooohh” and so the saga goes on for these young kids, as their parents refuse to pay heed to their panglossian hopes.
Incidentally, my eyes fell upon a lady in her 40’s, who sits next to the boundary wall of this magnificent structure, exposing her bare bottoms to millions of stranger travellers. Pressed by the necessities of nature and perhaps confused by the demands of urgency and shame, she along with a few more people, discharges themselves of this uneasy load.
I rather try escape from my thoughts, as the kids tell me a Lufthansa flight coming down probably from Germany, a country that most kids around have only heard off. Though my thoughts remain lost into recent sight and While this area of Bijwasan and Shahbad Mohammadpur is currently under South Delhi Municipal Corporation (because panchayats are not allowed in Delhi UT), I find it difficult as to why should this area be categorised as an urban area when it is marked by lack of sanitation facilities, pakka roads, electricity connections and majority of people working into poultry, animal husbandry and allied industries. But may be owing to the key investments made by Delhi Airport and Reliance ADAG in this ghetto makes this a habitat of an “urban” poor.
It is not right to say that Rural infrastructure in India is not comparable to the urban areas. For the urban counterparts too are plagued by the chronic ills of lack of affordable medical and educational facilities, reliable public transportation, unemployment and carries with them the age old baggage of caste and class discriminations. Therefore, the basic concept behind schemes like Provision of Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA) makes little sense to people like me.
It is rather important to create holistic plans for the villages, to build and reshape Rural-Urban linkages and transform our islands of poverty into an ocean of prosperity. In the vision of Mahatma Gandhi, that the idea of a Village Swaraj has to be one of a complete republic, independent of its neighbours for its own vital needs and yet interdependent for many others in which dependence is necessary.
While men of reason may argue that the future of India will lie in cities, they may say that the 70% rural population producing less than 15% of India’ GDP and is therefore unproductive. However the potential and the size of India’s rural economy cannot be ignored. Policies cannot be made only for the influential 1%. There is already a considerable anguish and a glaring potential for the nation to invest into its rural economy. Indian Agriculture over-ridden by the complexities of the draconian Agriculture Produce Market Committees, lack of technological knowhow and small land holdings is a source of livelihood for millions of people and until industrial capacity and education attainment is not enough to absorb the youth, rural economy would continue to play a vital role in India’s development and self sufficiency.
While India certainly has no limitation of thinking minds and foreign expertise to substantially aid its policy formulation, however the state certainly does not have the capacity to augment capabilities in a time bound manner. Even today, it exists as a colonial structure overwhelmed with the socialistic principles and philosophy and plagued by lack of manpower and investment.
It will therefore have to rely heavily on private sector for investments and outsourcing of non vital tasks such as construction and manufacturing activities. Its success will lie closely on the sophisticated planning, outsourcing and reviewing process. It will have to play a vital role as a harbinger of services and in the delivery of last mile connectivity.
Institutional Capacity – Panchayati Raj Institutions
In pursuance of Article 40 of Indian Constitution the Indian government passed the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution passing way to the sustainability of a three Panchayati Raj system. While India had an age old history of local history of local self governments (LSG), this was first given a legal framework by subsequent Resolutions of Lord Mayo and Lord Rippon, who in order to provide for administrative efficiency and political education, provided for local bodies with a significant majority of elected non official members.
Subsequently, the village panchayat act (1912) and Government of India Act (1919) provided for strengthening of panchayats as units of local self government and judicial bodies. Several states in Independent India too passed some laws for the third tier of governance in the 1950’s and 1960’s. However, most of these reforms failed to take off due to lack of real autonomy and sincerity of execution.
The 73rd Amendment of Indian Constitution was a landmark in ways more than one. For the first time, it provided a Constitutional backing to the Panchayati Raj Institutions in the country. The constitution through Article 243D (3) provided for the reservation of one third of the seats for women. This in practice meant that India has the highest number of democratically elected women as office bearers for the Government in the country. Article 243G provided the State governments to authorise LSG’s to collect local taxes in order to become financially self sufficient.
However, a lot what was promised merely on paper. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) which submitted its report in the year 2002 found that most State Governments were reluctant to share their fiscal powers with the LSG’s. It felt the need for introduction of a concept of a separate tax domain for the LSGs. Several Independent reports have also suggested that LSG due to intense political competition are unwilling to tax their subjects.
In addition, NCRWC favoured that the State Governments must be bound by the recommendations of State Finance Commissions (SFC) for the devolution of funding from state governments to LSG. Further the panchayats (like their municipal counterparts) be allowed to borrow from independent financial institutions in order to augment expenditure on infrastructure development. This will infuse more professionalism into the working of Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and also force the PRIs to rationalise user development fee from Community Centers and other such institutions, which are currently subsidised and often ill maintained.
The Constitution is also silent on the subject of recruitment of personnel staff by the PRI in order to expedite development work. Most LSG are today dependent on state government and state laws for the recruitment of administrative personal. LSG will need staff to plan, outsource, review and audit their developmental works. Relying on the state government’s apparatus for such outcomes only undervalues the importance of planning at the regional level and put excessive strain on the already overburdened state governments.
Disregarding above recommendations, the Central Government continues to run multiple schemes with the aid and advice of PRI’s. These schemes are largely aimed at poverty reduction and infrastructure. However, often they miss out on bottom up plans and effective coordination between the Central plans and state plans. Some of these schemes have achieved considerable success, while others have failed to make their. MGNREGA, for instance, was able to increase rural incomes and consequently rural consumption. However, its track record in terms of asset creation has been abysmal.
Industrial Support – Agro Based Industries
It is an irony that one of the largest producer of agricultural commodities, India is also blotted by high incidence of farmer suicides, low yields per unit and whose urban consumers anguish at high food inflation year after year. Although agricultural growth in the Eleventh Five Plan (2007-12) was close to 4.1% with the Capital formation in the agriculture sector increasing to 19% in the same period.
However, there are structural faults and gross inequalities in the Indian agriculture, which need to be tackled seriously. Government programmes such as Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna, National Horticulture Mission, and HARIYALI have been met with limited success till now. Agro Processing Industry (API) can serve as a vital link between farmers and consumers. It role in economy would not just be limited to processing of agricultural products, but also as an enabler of backward and forward linkages and to augment rural incomes along with promoting export of agricultural commodities.
The Vision 2015 document of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MOFPI) says that agricultural production in India is increasing faster than the population and the consequent increasing marketable surplus of various agri-produce particularly of perishables, has led to an unfavourable price regime for the farmers. Further it says that inadequate storage, transport, handling and processing has led to unacceptable level of wastage and loss of value.
Agro-based industries can thus produce stable and profitable enterprises, thereby absorbing the unskilled and landless agricultural labourers. Broadly, Agro-based industries can be defined as industries engaged into post harvest processing of Agricultural products and preserving them for intermediate and final consumption. Industries engaged in the production of bio-fuel, fibre, medicines, herbal products, and food products such fisheries, dairy products, meat, jams, pickles etc can be put into this category.
Amongst the various Agro-based industries, sugar industry forms the most important industry being a lifeline of over 50 million farmers (Source: The Indian Sugar Industry Sector Roadmap 2017) in the country. It further serves a source of raw material for bio fuel, paper and beverage industry in the country. Today sugar cooperatives in the country have provided for irrigation facilities, educational institutions, medical facilities, public lavatories in the country. However, political interference apart from tough competition from private players has certainly slowed their performance.
Textile industries, especially those based on cotton and silk have played a prominent in the development of the country since time immemorial. Apart from the people of ancient Harrapan civilisation and Vedic period, who had the knowledge of spinning and weaving of cotton, the first cotton mill using modern methods of production was established in Mumbai as early as in 1854. Textile industry currently provides employment to over 35 million people and the sector was pegged at $55 billion in the year 2009-10 and is expected to reach $220 billion by 2020.
Currently 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through automatic route is permitted into the textile sector. To support the handicrafts sector, the GoI provides Health Insurance and Life Insurance facility to the artisan’s community under the Rajiv Gandhi Shilpi Swasthya Bima Yojna. While number of SEZ’s such as Surat Apparel Park and Mahindra City SEZ in Chennai are already established.
The scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP) initially approved under the 10th Five Year Plan proposes to set up Integrated Textile Parks through Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), which will provide a common infrastructure for the production of textiles in the country.
In the recent decades, countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam have been able to give a tough competition to the country in terms of attracting FDI both from Global and Indian textile manufacturers. As of writing this article, the Government of India (GoI) has in recent times reiterated its commitment multiple times [1, 2] to finalise a New Textile policy. However, India seems to have failed to take advantage of China’s declining presence in the global textile market, largely due to its own policy failures, political bickering and poor connectivity issues.
Apart from inelastic labour laws, and unfair electricity distribution, Indian cooperatives and rural initiatives have also chocked due to lack of credit growth. Most small and medium enterprises (MSME) in this regard are unable to meet the credit requirements in order to fund their initiatives and meet international quality standards.
Food Processing Industries (FPI)
One of the biggest challenges for the country has to been to provide remunerative prices to the farmers, ensure low food inflation in urban clusters without the burden of any additional subsidy on the GoI. Changing trends of the Indian market such as increasing disposable incomes of urban households, organised retail stores, working women along with changing lifestyles and aspirations has increased the burden on markets to provide for healthy, nutritive and “tasty” food products.
In the past few years, people in India and world have begun to rely more on marine products due to their potential health benefits. An average Indian spends over 50% of his/her income on food. As income levels increase, consumption of pulses, meat and other sources of proteins is further bound to increase. However, processing of fruits and vegetables in India is only 2-3% in comparison to 80% in the US, 70% in Brazil, 40% in China and 78% in Philippines.
And this is not just it. India has the second largest arable land in the world and produces a significant portion of the World’s fruits and vegetables. It has some of the most diverse agro-climatic zones in the world along with a number of fresh water and salt water lakes and a huge coastline. It has amongst the largest livestock population and is amongst of the largest producers of fish and dairy products.
However food processing sector is still at nascent stage with low penetration and high fragmentation of the farm produce. Food processing if done in a sustainable manner will not only provide employment, but would be the key to inclusive and environment friendly growth. It will reduce food wastage and has a potential to make India as the World’s food basket. In light of this, corporate initiatives like ITC Chaupal Sagar, TATA Kisan Sansar and others to provide for collection and storage facilities have been welcomed wholeheartedly in the Rural India.
While reasonable men may argue against food processing. However, its growth is both inevitable and important for the country’s economy. The National Mission on Food Processing (NMFP) called for Mega Food Parks, excise duty exemptions, custom duty concessions on import of Cold storage and refrigeration units apart from service tax exemptions on sale of food grains, fruits and vegetables, eggs and milk.
However some of the recent steps of the GoI have gone against the spirit of NMFP. The GoI has delinked NMFP from support from Union Budget. It has been left open to states as to whether they wish to continue NMFP or not. In addition, a number of states in the country have put restrictions on beef. Several states have put ban on provision of eggs in Mid-day meals. This, they say, has been done in order to respect the sentiments of the Hindu community. However, secular analysts have pointed that such steps on part of the GoI would hurt the Industry sentiments. It is to be seen how the food processing industry reacts to such moves.
Infrastructure Development
A significant proportion of rural population in the country is outside the road network. Connectivity issues not only hamper trade of goods and services, but also make it difficult for provision for socio economic benefits and have a significant impact on poverty reduction. There were over 3.3 lakh rural habitations in the country with no road connectivity (according to Planning Commission’s Working Group on Rural Roads for the Eleventh Plan).
Launched in the year 2000, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) envisaged provision of all weather road connectivity to unconnected habitations with a population of 1000 persons. An important aspect of this scheme was that the unit for this Programme was a Habitation and not a Revenue village (or a Panchayat). A Habitation, it says, is a cluster of population, living in an area, the location of which does not change over time. These unconnected habitations were to be connected to the nearby connected habitations, thereby making provision of health and educational benefits in the area easy.
The critics of this scheme are many. Stories of poor implementation and inordinate delays run repeatedly with repeated mentions of lack of proper quality of roads. It has to be understood that this scheme has an enormous potential to connect the industry with the farm and thus adequate focus must be placed by the relevant functionaries.
At the time of global economic recession and before the Lok Sabha elections of 2009, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was extended to all the districts in India. The Act was enthused with multiple objectives, with providing livelihood security to the rural poor as its top priority. Several reports found that MGNREGA had a positive impact on protection of environment, empowerment of women. There was substantial decline in Rural Urban Migration and a consequent increase in Rural Consumption.
The scheme has been applauded by several agencies of the United Nations as one of the most ambitious and largest social security scheme in the world. It was hailed to have contributed positively to public works. Social Audits, RTI and Jansunwais (public hearing) have bought in substantial level of transparency in the working of the Act.
At the same time, several analysts have doubted that MGNREGA was one of the biggest contributors to inflation post recession, due to the fact that it increased rural wages and consequently demand. It is said that the scheme has made agriculture unprofitable. This scheme too was marred with corruption and similar deficiencies. However, the biggest failure of this scheme was a lack of focus on asset creation. The scheme could have been linked to PMGSY, Total Sanitation Campaign or even regional irrigation schemes in order to maximise the benefits to rural population both in short and long term.
A CAG report pointed that the institutional capacity in several states of India was not adequate to meet the planning process or the demand of social audits. A lack of awareness and initiative taking by several Gram Sabhas was cited as one of the biggest reasons of its failure. The State and Central Governments too failed to ensure evaluate and monitor the scheme at regular intervals.
Other schemes such as National Rural Drinking Water Programme, Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) and Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) have had their own ups and downs. IAY has often been criticised for poor construction quality and incomplete constructions. RGGVY has focussed only on rural households. However the focus on providing electricity to the farms has been missing. This is obviously going to have negative impact on mechanisation of agriculture and consequently rural food processing industries in the country.
In this regard, the efforts of Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) must also be talked about. Set up in 1957, the CWC has setup 464 warehouses in the country with a total capacity of 11.3 million tonnes, providing warehousing facility for both agricultural and industrial products. The corporation has been a financially viable option for the GoI and it has been awarded a Mini Ratna status, thereby giving it more freedom to invest in the country. It has to be seen whether CWC will be able to provide build good quality warehouses not just for food grains, but also for fisheries, wherein India lags in exports due to unavailability of warehouses.
Access to Credit
Large swathes of paper have been wasted have poor penetration of banking industry in the country. It is therefore unwise to repeat the same old story. One of the biggest initiatives in this regard was setting up of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development by the parliament on recommendations from Shivaraman committee setup by RBI to institutionalise credit and further the aims of Financial Inclusion.
Over a period of time, it has offered direct loans to warehouses, cottages, Cold storage chains, and to Central and state Cooperative Banks. There are several success stories in the name of Social responsiveness of this corporation. NABARD has supported watershed development of over 2 million hectares of land in the country.
The Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) was initiated into NABARD in the year 1995 with an objective of giving low cost fund support to State Governments and State Owned Corporations for quick completion of ongoing projects relating to medium and minor irrigation, soil conservation, watershed management and other forms of rural infrastructure.
A report by IIM Bangalore pointed out that an irrigation potential to the tune of 117.84 lakh hectare had been created at all India level by the year 2007. NABARD was appreciated for timely delivery of funds and ensured compliance to quality of projects. Apart from the study, NABARD has also been applauded for mobilising resources through a mix of instruments of various types and tenure, viz. Bonds, Certificate of Deposits, Commercial Papers, Term Deposits, Corporate Borrowings, Term Money Borrowings etc. The Union Budget in 2015-16 provided Rs 25,000 core to the corpus of RIDF.
Other success stories such as those of Andhra Pradesh Smart Card, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY), Aadhar Card, Direct Cash Transfer etc have been applauded by various spectators. However, financial inclusion in the country cannot be merely achieved through opening of banking accounts. There has to be some continuity in the process. Most often in the past, it has been that financial inclusion schemes that were setup with the noble aim of providing bank accounts to the last mile failed in lieu of ghost accounts, duplicate accounts, absence of bank branches and lack of financial literacy amongst the participants.
Conclusion
Several economists pointed that democracy in India has forced the government to be more responsive to the needs of the people. However, a temptation to win the upcoming elections has forced legislators to plan for the short term and often neglect the long term planning forecasts.
It is further no doubt that the process of urbanisation and industrialisation in the country is both inevitable and desirable. It is here when the GoI’s noble vision of Growth with a human face comes into picture. The efforts of a sustainable development must therefore evolve by taking into consideration of the society along with the environment. Realising that human life is not a vegetative life and to ensure that an individual does not become a cog in the society, it has to give due care and attention to an individual’s faculties, foster his/her creative abilities and provide connectivity to the last person.
Israel’s lessons for the right wing
“Those who leave early may be saved, but the wines and music are so seductive that we donot want to leave, but we do ask ‘What time is it? What time is it? Only none of the clocks have any hands”
A map of the current breakdown of authority in the Israel/Palestine region source: huffington post
The Israel Palestian conflict has increasingly become a tripartite strugle with the stakeholders involving the state of Israel and palestine sides involving west bank ruled by fatah and the gaza strip in control of the democratically elected hamas with each of them playing political and psychological intermingled with strategic bombing at times inflicting pain and fear onto each other. The sequential bombing intermingled with ceasefires play a crucial role in furthering the political hegemonies of the leaders, While the civilians in gaza are reduced to ashes and the israeli civilians dread the rockets from the hamas, fear stricken they refuse to move out of homes, send kids to schools and college and stay away from work, inflicting huge losses onto the economy apart from loss of men and material, if any!!
Over sixty years down the line, israel contines to get backing from the leaders in west. The red lines are hardly drawn. All major countries now recognise the existence of Israel or have under the table dealing with the jewish empire. No Arab country dares to challenge or feels the plight of their Muslim brothers. At the begining of each doldrum, Israel’s right wing center has a clear word ‘We will continue to fight’. While the other sides continues to proclaim ‘We will continue to resist’.
Mahatma Gandhi had described palestine as a land of arabs. According to him “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs… Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home”
However the call for justice has been long forgotten, what remains is a piece of human population smashed between the land and the seas. The arabs in palestine have been divided between the hamas and fateh. What remains to be seen is not who will survive. It would rather be interesting to see how long do they survive and how much can they resist. When would Israel be congratulated for his pyrrhic victory remains a mystery.
While drawing out a few politically convenient conclusions, Dr Subramanium Swamy recently called for drawing good relations with Israel and signalled the importance of wars which must be drawn for retaliation. Linkages in the behavorial psychic between the right wing in India and Israel must not be be ignored. The fact that indian economy in 2014 shows little chances of improving and continues to remain entrapped in viscous circle of low growth and high inflation signals danger for the party in power. Her political leaders in New Delhi have started looking for ways to keep hold of the people’s nerve. Thus the PM is offering prayers to lord shiva in Nepal while cancelling talks with pakistan and making a few occasional taunts here and there (though these taunts have coming from time immemorial).
Though the political party in power may not, New Delhi realises that Israel’s long and continued war on palestine hasn’t achieved much on numbers. The atmosphere in that region has always been grim. People have died and the progress of Israel (no doubt incredible) has suffered. Thus any comparision of kashmir or the related issue with the israel palestine conflict must be carefully drawn. The Aam Aadmi for a naive show of patriotism cheers at the advent of war, he must attempt to understand the disaster that may follow.
Modi’s provocation to the pakistani army is quite dangerous in it’s first attempt. It has to be understood that pakistan being a fragile society that it is, it’s army often looks at India for establishing it’s political hegemony and thus any sort of playing with fire will only burn our hands. It would throw us deep into the financial crisis, expanding our fiscal deficit apart from the support and sympathy that pakistan will garner internationally.
The fact that a person belonging to an ideology resonating with hindutva is already difficult for the extremists in pakistan to chew and thus any grave provocations by the statesman would be difficult to digest.
Thus he must carefully tradeoff between his politics at home and preventing yet another Kargil from initiating.
Pension Reforms India
All over the world, retirement is no longer seen as a beginning of the end, but rather has come to be associated with a new chapter in life. People in the west have perceived that their parents are living a “Golden age” . Social security and easy availability of pension funds have played a key role in the process.
However the situation in India is largely different.Although Indians remain optimistic about their retirement’s plans, thanks to the traditional family structure. However, only a minority of people in the Indian workforce, have the ability or the capability to save money for the old age. India’s Pension policies had traditionally been based on financing through employer and employee participation thereby restricting the coverage to the organized sector and denying access to a vast majority of the workforce to the formal channels of old age financial support. The major components of the Indian Pension Industry were the Employees Provident Fund Organization which monitored the mandatory DC scheme Employee Provident Fund (EPF) Scheme and a DB Employee Pension Scheme (EPS); a Public Provident Fund system; Civil service pension scheme; Government Provident Fund and certain other civil plans.
Lately however the benefits of contributions and rate of return varied largely from scheme to scheme and from program to program. The apparent reason for the same was due to difference in policies and rules for different programs rather than an open system, wherein people had a
real choice of choosing how to plan for their retirement. This was further supported by the fact that actual returns from the different pension
schemes were largely inadequate.
Thus, pension reforms began substantial, with the Government launching a New Pension Policy on January 1, 2004, thereby shifting all the new recruits in the central government(except in Armed Forces) to a defined contribution plan from the earlier non contributory defined benefit scheme. The scheme for the first time in India shifted the investment risk entirely onto the subscriber. The objectives of the scheme were to increase transparency and fair play on one hand, while to offer more choice to the customer on the other. It was a portable
system, giving the subscriber complete independence to shift from one scheme to another and from one Pension Fund manager to the other.
This scheme was later on extended to all non Government employees on a voluntary basis with an expectation that NPS shall generate its own demand. however the scheme has largely failed to generate a huge demand, thanks to a lack of interest shown by private companies. Some of the factors are highlighted here in the presentation itself.
Gurgaon without Maruti
Seven years ago, when I was still in my school, I had written a hindi kavita for the school’s magazine on the the menace of police in the Honda factory at Manesar. The kavita got published adding a small fame to me and everything was soon to be forgotten. For me, I had no connection with the workers whatsoever. Neither did I know them, nor could they relate to me.
Gurgaon those days for me was largely a peaceful city, any accidents or riots were rarely heard of, and largely I used to read about rape cases, accidents, murders, but most of this used to be a part of Delhi or so was my assumption. In days, i was not willing to go out. That was a Lathicharge, a powerful one, incidents like those were unheard to me. As a 13 year old, i was moved, shocked beyond repair. And immediately then incidents of kidnapping, murders became common in my city or perhaps I became more interested in them. There was a news of boys being kidnapped and subsequently murdered, a young man shot nearby and some more men stabbed. I was fearful.
Recently there was another one in Maruti. But this was perhaps less intense for me as a localite, but as a citizen, this was more disturbing.
Earlier the workers were beaten up hard. There was a massive lathicharge and then all of them were forced to come back to work. The Maruti one was the opposite. The workers were intelligent this time. No they were violent. Everything happened in the closed rooms rather in open grounds. All proofs were destroyed and people in management were killed. Add to that , parts of factory were burnt and the police was not allowed to come in.
The workers had learnt a lesson this time, they knew if they go out, they are going to be punished, no one is going to listen to them. The government is deaf, it can only act against them. Perhaps Ramdev baba taught them something. But what was to be seen was the middle people suffered as always. Huh Old story
Maruti has been important to the story of Gurgaon. The most important reason for the development of Gurgaon was the presence of Maurti Suzuki India Pvt Ltd which began in 1981.Maruti along with Hero Honda largely industrialized the state in its earlier times which further came strong with the inauguration of NH8 by the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Maruti has been central to Gurgaon and the villagers who give rooms to their workers on rent realise this fact too. The fact that more than a dozen of companies serve as ancillary units of the company and many more depend on it.
However, in midst of it comes another factor. The one of politics. During the Honda incident, i heard how the police officers received special gifts from the Honda management. While these things have no proofs and often come in the air. The current Hooda Government has also been criticized to favor the CM’s home city Rohtak over Gurgaon, Faridabad and Chandigarh.(http://www.marutisuzuki.com/Maruti-gets-700-acres-for-R-and-D-unit-at-Rohtak.aspx) . Questions have also been raised on how the government’s interference with the company’s recruitment policy (again by word of mouth).
It is important to acknowledge that the stature of cities like Gurgaon, Noida is not historical, but they developed for their potential, unlike Delhi which got importance since Mahabharata as Indraprastha. Here comes the importance of great Political leaders.
The Belligerent's Manifesto 