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May
17th to June 6, I had the opportunity to visit
my homeland - Patna. It was very short
considering it was after 4 years that I had
visited Patna. I saw a lot of enthusiasm in the
eye's of the people on the street of Patna.
There is a clear feeling that something great
will happen under Nitish ji's rule. We all pray
and wish that it came true!
I feel our IAS officials and ministers are daily
giving statements and also talking a lot on
policy matter but the money is still not
flowing. We have a very talented resource in
these IAS and administrative officials - all
that is required is to think out of box..
Instead of doing the same thing that is very
standard, do something different, for Bihar
needs creative planning that will draw
investors. We are competing with the rest of
India and the benchmark is so high that we have
to come out with some outstanding creativity.
Some Out of Box thinking:
1. Instead of opening Special Economic Zones (SEZ),
which all other states are doing, Bihar should
come out with TEZ, REZ, HEZ, AEZ, HEZ, EEZ and
Tier #2 and Tier# 3 IT parks. I will discuss
briefly on this issue.
TEZ – Tourism Entertainment Zones. Declare 50
kms width stretch of the entire Bihar-Nepal
border from one end to the other as a special
area marked for TEZ, HEZ, Hi Tech cities, and
EEZ. Open casinos; allow strip clubs, bars, and
all the international entertainment facilities
available in place like Las Vegas. Except
prostitution, all sort of freedom should be
given with very liberal policies like Goa or
ASEAN countries have for their tourists. It
might sound un-Bihari and a foreign concept but
then Nepal has that, Mumbai has Chamiya bar, why
not accept entertainment in the form as defined
in the west and make these zones the most sought
after tourist destinations in Asia? All we are
doing is to start the flow of tourists by
offering something different as we have
competition with the rest of India.
REZ – Religious Evolution Zones. Declare major
part of Gaya, Patna City and others as REZ.
Local people need to be removed from these
zones, as like any dam there is displacement,
similarly we need to remove the local population
and rehab then somewhere else with better
amenities .Allow Japan, ASEAN countries and Sri
Lanka to build and operate their own temples,
Museums, libraries, hotels etc in these zones
and operate it. Have it well connected with
Raxaul Train Hub.
AEZ – Agriculture Economic Zones. Have Grain
Banks, best breed animal husbandry sperm and egg
bank, R&D labs and satellite to support
knowledge to any farmers across India. Invite
Israel, USA.
HEZ – Health Economic Zones. Allow foreign
investment in opening private medical colleges,
hospitals, and health related institutions. All
these zones will operate on the law practiced in
the biggest investor countries.
EEZ – Education Economic Zones.
Tier # 2 and Tier # 3 IT Parks: Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Pune and Delhi are tier 1 IT
destinations and will lose their competitiveness
in next 3-4 years because of rising real estate
cost and salary. Bihar tier 2 and 3 zones will
give IT firms the same advantage that they had
when they invested in India 5 years back and
they will be in India rather shifting their base
to Philippines or east European countries. So in
future, if APPLE Corp decides to move its BPO
operation out of Bangalore because of high cost
in overhead and salary, Bihar tier 2 and 3 zones
will offer less costly real estate and salary
60-70% of what Bangalore demands. This can be
met by offering good township to the resources
working here.
Note these zones should function in the same
manner as an embassy, that is, the law inside
these zones should be different from the rest of
Bihar. The biggest investor of these zones will
have option of practicing their own country’s
law. This will draw big investors from the west
that is always wary of different country tax
laws, labour laws or other legal laws. Now we
make that easy for them. This will be something
really great and they can even set up offices
here to operate their offices for the rest of
India or even Asia. Bihar can become the back
office for the rest of India and in turn, we get
revenue and millions of jobs are created.
2. Reform the police by voluntary retirement and
reduce the age of the present police force. Give
the option to the retiring officials to nominate
one of their family members in their place based
on the qualification. Change the dress to either
European or American police force with all the
gadgets. The police force should be divided into
4 divisions. One that is trained for riots and
chasing the criminals and they should be
equipped with helicopters. Second for traffic
control and day-to-day police administration,
and a third one for handling business and
internet crimes. All should be trained
appropriately. This will be the preparation of
the ground work for Bihar to invite investment
in future when our police will be appropriately
deployed and understand the problem better. The
last one will be trained to deal with foreign
tourists and will be in-charge of all the ZONES
mentioned in the first point. They should be
highly educated and English-speaking cops.
Budget kahan se aayega? Well, reduce the number
of the present cops and have some consulting
firm to look into overheads of the present
police force and have less but better quality
force. A state can definitely afford five
choppers and some fast-moving jeeps and mobile
phone network for our cops. Business needs to
see this face that no state has thought of yet.
3. Power: Enron should be asked to leave
Maharashtra and invest in Bihar. For next 5
years, we need 10 Enron-type investment and they
should be given single clearance with change in
law that any change in government will not lead
to re-investigate into once signed MOUs. For the
time being, we will have to kill our socialist
urge and let them develop the infrastructure and
let them sell energy at their own price. If we
can afford, we will buy it; if not, will allow
them to sell to other states. All we want to do
is first let them start and then gradually
invite competition. Businesses sometimes have
sheep mentality - if an American firm or MNC
sees that Bihar has no political problem with
Enron, more investment will come and that will
itself decrease the price. Even if their current
rate is not affordable by resident Biharis, we
will still have power plant that will invite
business and manufacturing houses to come and
setup plants in the state. Law needs to be
changed; Bihar is so starved that whatever we
get in the direction of infrastructure, addition
should be always welcomed.
4. Bank reform: Invite Multinational banks; give
them same benefits that they enjoy in their
parent countries and ask them to lend money for
infrastructure and state’s development. They can
set up offices in Bihar and have 50% business
for rest of India. We should have no problem
with that - all we need is lots and lots of
banks to add to our urban and rural
infrastructure..
5. Develop 5-7 major townships as NCR is doing.
Have Himalayan view townships, Mountain View
townships or River View townships. I will leave
this section for readers, to come out with some
creative ideas to beat Noida or other emerging
tier #1 cities.
6. This is just a thought; have to check the
feasibility of it. Have a tie up with Nepal and
build 3-4 major dams, store the floodwater and
with the help of pipeline; sell water to Delhi
and other rich states for revenue generation.
The only fall out is since entire north India
sits on the seismic zone we have to check the
risk factor when major earthquakes happen. If
the gas can be brought from Iran via pipeline,
definitely Bihar can sell its abundant water to
Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai and make revenue in
1000 crores plus. (I am talking about floodwater
storage).
7. Build a big railway hub at Raxul/Beerganj, as
big as any overseas airport. Rope in Lalu ji to
carry on this ambitious project and his
convincing power to rope in Nepal so that we
give from this hub connection to all the tourist
destinations in Nepal and Bihar. This should
have connectivity to the international airports.
Build international airport at Raxaul - so big
that it can take care of our tourists and entire
Nepal tourism. Nepal should be involved and
revenue needs to be shared to make them more
involved and partner in our collective
development.
I promise we can end up getting $2-5 billion
dollar FDI in just 3 years and it will grow.
Form a group of 50-60 very talented officials
with good accented English and very good
business vision and totally in sync with global
changes. These people can be taken from our
present officials or from business or industry.
People who want to help Bihar. Any business
delegate visiting the state should be taken care
of by these groups rather than ministers.
Business means business - no bureaucratic and
ministerial draconian protocols. Time to change!
Kahne ko to bahut hai. Sab is article me nahi ho
sakta. Each of the topics can be explained in
detail, this is just the brief presentation what
it will look like.
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