New Year & Common Man's Home Agenda!

Don’t gain the world & lose your soul, wisdom is better than all the silver & gold…Bob Marley.

Friends, the New Year has arrived & this quote when I read in a write up in one of the news paper, really caught my attention as I was thinking about the New Year’s agenda’s! How important it is to make this quote itself as an agenda, I realized it when started pressing my thoughts more on the zest of the particular quote. Look around the news we got on the eve of New Year; Women abuse crimes, accidents on roads, corruption, murders, each day some species of animal/bird getting declared as endangered, hike of price of Petrol or Diesel, continuously increasing rates of  essential commoditys', decreasing numbers of tree cover all around & illegal constructions! Husshhhh the list of negative things happening around is increasing like tail of Hanuman in Ramayana! So what should I take as my agenda & what difference a single individual is going to make on such a dark back ground? Was the question I asked to my mind.  Also why I myself alone should think on these lines what should be the agenda of people concerned with related fields of such things? Human mind is very tricky thing when it comes to fantasize! Well let’s share some of my fantasy about the agendas of the different people or organizations in our surrounding related to real estate & the city…

First of all our politicians or rulers we can say who runs this city in which live. They have decided that this year they will keep city as their priority & not their own wealth. Whatever decision regarding development of the city it will be taken clearly keeping city’s future in mind & every party will take it as their common agenda forgetting individual party’s agenda of rivalry. On the issues like garbage, traffic, water supply, slum rehabilitation all parties will come together & any law or policy will be made jointly because if the city survives the party will survive. And whatever has been decided all parties will see that it comes in existence by keeping proper check on civic administration & for that they will act united. They will remember what they have committed in their election agenda & try to work on the same & keep the effort in front of public periodically for their review. They won’t support illegal constructions & encroachments of roads or footpath or public places & will help administration to clear the same. I think even this much our political leaders decides & follow the city will be in much better place to live. Many politicians will get offended but then if they do introspection of their own past they will realize that’s what is the image of most of them in public eye.

Then comes Civic Bodies’ & various Govt organization’s administration. And this includes Municipal Corporation, Collector office, City survey office, Town Planning, MSEDCL i.e. MSEB, Urban Development Ministry & even our Judicial System i.e. courts. All these organizations will decide that to serve the people will be their main agenda from the New Year & not just follow the law books & pass the buck game. They will decide not to bend their knees in front of political pressure in running the development plan & clear their table on daily basis. They will make the policies with open mind & for benefit of the common man & not for just few business men or rulers who just think of individual profits. Also they will be flexible in changing the rules which are age old & useless in today’s situation for e.g. asking for NA i.e. non agriculture permission for lands even in residential zone. They will decentralize the authority & reach out to the people than people coming to them. They will become proactive instead reactive & listen what Professionals & NGO’s say about their policies & adopt the changes in the same with open mind. They will stick to their commitments about various development projects in the city & strengthen infrastructure like public transport, affordable housing instead just clearing files of some It parks or SEZ’s or townships. They will be transparent about every file & proposal & make it available on line for viewing of any person. They will give a specified time to common man in their office & will be available at that time to clear the problems of a commoner. Looks like real day dream, isn’t it? But no harm in doing it. The courts decided to conclude in the civil cases at war level & clear the pending cases giving justice to the right persons in their life span making people believe in the judicial system & obeying the law with fear as well respect for it.

Next in queue are Developers/ Builders of this very city. The community will accept their responsibility of providing homes for every segment of the society & within their budget than just making homes for riches. Instead building just large homes with luxurious amenities they will build smaller  homes too & instead escalating the home rates they will work on self  disciplined moderate profit margins. They will decide to follow all the laws of construction & mainly take proactive efforts to conserve the environment of the city. They will contribute to social as well eco sensitive activities & help in making their customer aware about the same. Most importantly the developers will decide to deal transparently with their customers & follow the commitments they have made to their customers while selling the home. They will decide not to tie hands with politicians & bureaucrats for wrong things instead to form a pressure group with their financial as well net work power & use to for making the policies which in end will help society. In New Year the builder community will decide to gain the name & fame for the good deeds they will do for society & stick to their agenda. Here again many will say we are following it already but then improvement has no limit! And it’s from this sector the city expects a lot on the front of housing for every common man. The city has helped many of the developers to fetch good earnings & in the New Year they will decide to pay back part of it to the city by deciding that they will make this city a better one by their acts.

Then comes the NGO’s working in different areas of civic issues like Traffic, Greening, Education, Public Health, RTI & many such. The NGO’s will decide to fight for the right cause & not just oppose every policy of the Govt for the sake of opposing. They will be open to suggestions from professional’s as well different business communities instead naming them as money makers. The NGO’s will be to the mark in pin pointing the problems & giving solutions which are workable.

Even Media also joined the New Year agenda planning & decided to be fair & clear in supporting the right things irrespective of which party or business house the person involved is! They decided to print the facts only & with proper study i.e. going to the root of the subject & not just by telephonic interviews or searching Google! They decided that their main agenda will be to make the common man aware about the situation & show right path with the help of professionals as well reports & not just the readability of their product.

At the end came common man who was in search of his home & then he realized that with all above entities deciding so many good things for him he has nothing to decide for his daily needs! As he has never used to such situation because last so many years the poor common man has been used to decide to do all good things by himself as his agenda of New Year because above segments weren’t deciding anything for his needs. So finally he could decide to do something good for the society which will be creative & making his surrounding with his act. After all what is a good society? It’s nothing special but where people use to think about others first & about their own self later! But for that we need to create that environment where a common man will be able to think about others.

And what better agenda we can think for our self for New Year than joining this cause of making a better society around? That’s what I did at the end when came out of my fantasy about New Year Agenda!

--
Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Envo-Power Committee, Credai, Pune

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