Traffic Jammin' 2

The other day I called a friend who informed me that he was performing a very important and unavoidable daily ritual: negotiating the Hosur road traffic jam and feel frustrated. Talking to him made me think that there must be so much of fustration and plain simple bordom being faced by other perople like him who are stuck in the same jam and that they might think that there is something better that they can do during the 3-4 hrs. a day for covering a 4 Km stretch that they have to spend in the jam stuck in the company bus or the public buses right? then I thought, why not modify these buses to accomodate a small cafeteria, library, smoking chamber, mobile theatre etc.. Developing on this idea futher, this idea can be extended to other perinially traffi jam prone routes of the city. Who knows, there might acutally be a route where you can savour traffic jams across the city with friends over dinner and a drink and debate whether the authorities will wake up to the plight of the city or other hot topics like the quantum of increase in city taxes or cutting edge topics like innovative new taxes being added.

"Bangalore Infrastructure Problems" Public Unlimited

One keeps hearing so much about Bangalore's “Infrastructure” problems that it has it is better to rename the city to Bangalore Infrastructure Problem itself. Much is written, spoken and debated about in all forms of media. The government, the bureaucrats, police, developmental authorities are all blamed, labelled incompetent, corrupt, In short no one is spared. All the parties accused play a blame game, Issue promises, set deadlines and promptly break them. These days all the outside world hears about Bangalore is stories of incomplete fly-overs, pothole ridden roads, power problems, exorbitant and spiralling real estate prices, water shortage, In a nut shell every conceivable urban problem in the universe and from the rise of civilisation is present here.
The truth about Bangalore problems are that they are all too real. The rapid rate of development the city has witnessed in the last 2 decades is probably more that of all the years of existence put together. Areas which were considered back of beyond and unheard of until recently have now become very much part of the urban fabric. From a 1 Million population in the 60's to over 6 Million (Bulk of it being floating population) currently that too bulk of the population being added in the last 1-1 ½ decades has been dramatic. From being the hub of a hand full of Public sector and private manufacturing company units to the status of a Information Technology sector hub has been a dramatic transformation. From limited employment opportunities to abundance of lucrative employment and lack of manpower, Bangalore has come a long way in such a short time. Time too short for any normal paced governing authority or bureaucrat to react effectively. The actual issue here is that no one planned nor could have planned for the city to become what it has become today. The problems seem to be slowly sorting itself out the same way it came about in the first place. All of us are just spectators commenting and not doing anything to mitigate the scene.
In a nutshell, the adage "Success has many fathers, A failure is a orphan" seems to hold good. Bangalore never had any visionaries, planners or supportors, just a bunch of greedy people like builders, developers and realtors who are out to make a quick buck come what may, Small minded administrators and politicians who want credit but not responsibilities, A large floating population including people like me who are there on account of good oppertunities at present and will migrate if things turn non-condusive to success.

Caught behind the wicket!

Looking at the Indian cricket team's performance on the field as well as the ever present cricketer on TV, It looks like there is the desperate need to have real team work and greater accountability in the way things are handled. Today's corporate environment has evolved from fixed pay to the concept of performance based incentives and commissions. Our cricket team too should have a similar approach. One idea stuck in my mind and I thought sharing it will free my mind.
The idea is as follows:
Divide the players into Two teams, India A and India B which basically stand for India "Advertising" and India B the team actually playing cricket!
Make it mandatory for team members to have time out from playing the game to focus on serious ad related and promo activities. Players who are just unable to come to form should get priority in serving time in the B team.
Ad and other promo activity payouts should be based on multiples of the team members performance statistics. I don't know much about mathematical formulae so the illustrative example I can think of is to mutliply a players strike rate at time of shifting from A to B X say 10 Lakh Rupees or some other critical data which determines the players contribution to the team as well as individual performance.
Bonus points for winning critical matches such as finals, winning against arch rivals, breaking records etc.
The better a player performs the more he earns and the other way around.
The idea behind all this kooks sounding idea is to make sure that for one a player has to perform to earn well. Secondly it gives opportunity to greater number of players (For a 1 Billion+ population the odds of getting into a 11-12 team is pretty high!). Thirdly the players get time off from playing, also can focus on the tasks at hand with greater zeal. Fourthly the companies are sure to get a better deal for their money.
Hopefully we will have more wins if this is implemented!

Traffic Jamming

As I was caught in one of the legendary Bangalore traffic jam (This time at the Airport road Junction jam) with the car engine idling away in misplaced faith that the traffic will start to move and at the same time rapidly loosing hope of ever getting out, My thoughts began to drift towards the vehicles around me who also had kept their engines idling either in hope of traffic moving ahead or to keep the car air-con running and began to actually see our foreign currency reserves going up in flames. I then snapped out of this and switched on the FM radio which was blaring away the usual “jam buster” bit and “thanking” the dumb guy who had actually smsed in about the traffic jam he is stuck in instead of giving him the smelling salts- He has still not realised that the same traffic jams happen at exactly the same places and at exactly the same time on exactly the same week days (and at bit different time during week-ends), This lead me to think that why not turn this routine and unavoidable occurrence whose duration can only keep increase into a money spinner? Instead of being stuck in a boring traffic jam and watching the guy in the neighbouring car leading a expedition into his nose as entertainment, People would defiantly pay good money and possibly a premium for something more entertaining like walk-in movies, snacks, beverages, magazines, facial treatments, surf the net etc. which can all be done in the convenience of a traffic jam!

Think of this- The investment to do this will be minimum to moderate depending on the services, Firstly modify the traffic lights poles or the street light posts to accommodate drop down screens which will screen popular movies, surfing the net can be done by setting up hot-spots at potential traffic jam spots, hawkers can sell the access cards, have portable mobile charging units manned by hawkers with tags for identification of one’s phone, mobile facial treatment clinics where you can get a foot massage or pedicure or manicure, hawkers on call serving you whatever food and beverages one might want by means of a cellular hotspot and toll free number set up at potential traffic jam spots, the menu choices and number can flash on your cell phone when you reach the jam area! How convenient don’t you think? If banks start placing ATM’s strategically at traffic jam spots or offer the hawkers portable swiping machines the cash problems to customers can be overcome! A loyalty program or traffic jam membership discounts can ensure that people might actually not consider other routes!

Happy happy, joy joy!

When I was waiting for the previous post to be published, I got a very kooky and unconventional middle path that the Sales “Tax Collection” authorities can prescribe to maintain their ROI’s and yet keep collections good: Issue receipts (Printed at the now defunct but still functioning Telgi press)to the “charges” levied by them to business community on the spot, pay a good portion of the “charges” collected by them into cash collection boxes which will be placed at strategic locations in the tax offices so that the Sales “Tax Collection” authorities can deposit the collected cash discreetly which will be then added to the sales tax collections of the government. This should bring about good increase in sales tax collections. As far as the tax payers are concerned, the receipts issued to them will have to be included in their income tax returns, who will now be able to cross check the cash collections against these issued receipts! Now the beauty is that everyone benefits and people can still be rotten on the inside but have a clear conscience that they have done their bit for their country!

Of course, this is pure fantasy and a far-fetched and ridiculous idea, but what the heck… blogging is fun or what? What do you think?

TaxTricks presents VhatATax!

As the deadline for implementation of VAT (Value Added Tax) draws close, a glance at the morning paper Business section features articles about one state or the other planning to drop out from implementing the dreaded tax. The justification given for this is that there are a lot of complexities involved in implementing the tax, the neighbouring state may not implement it, the states will loose autonomy and tax revenue etc. et. al. At surface level this looks like perfectly reasonable concerns; but if one were to scratch the surface and add facts that one comes across in the same papers, one realises the harsh realities and the extent of rotting in the very fabric of what we call a democratic existence:

After the introduction of service tax (Servicing the Government’s coffers tax!), one has seen that this particular tax has seen dramatic increase in collections and has become the most important and largest source of revenue for the Government. The fact remains that the collection of sales tax has shown stagnant to marginal increase for more than a decade. What is the reason for this? Is it because for some mysterious reason the sales of goods has remained the same or has registered abysmally low increase?

Forget complex economic jargons or justifications (loads of this can be heard on TV emitting from the mouths of the very rarely well educated, English speaking politicians), one can logically deduce that if the service tax collections have been increase at a dramatic pace (Even after negating the constant expansion in the list of service providers and constant increase in the rate of tax from 5% to 10%) then there has to be a average to good increase in sales tax at least on account of the service providers (Forgetting the exploding increase in the population and hence consumers in the same decade) Why is this not happening?

The simple fact is that the segment which is supposed to be in the sales tax paying community in collusion with the sales tax “collection officials” have contributed to the building of possibly the largest parallel economy in the world!

The people who are supposed to be paying the tax don’t want to pay the tax, the tax collection authorities have to bid and pay their political masters for their plump posts and hence have to first recover the investments and then they have to worry about their ROI, they land up aiding the tax evading community, and this cushy and symbiotically existing relation is also being aided and protected by the complex and archaic tax laws and legal loopholes.

Like Neo when in Matrix when he sees the world for the computer generated play it is, one begins to see the rot and corruption: Top to bottom, Bottom to top whichever way you look at it, whichever any plane or angle you look at it from, all you see is ROT! (One can even produce a movie on the Indian tax system on the lines of the Matrix and call it Tax-Tricks!) Similar to the Matrix, out comes a miracle cure for the rot called VAT (Whether it was introduced by Martians from outer space who hypnotised some “tax reforms” officials is still being debated!) which will force the tax-evading community to compulsorily maintain books of sales (They stand to loose input credit if they don’t maintain records) and hence exorcising them into honest sales tax payers and since all these records will be maintained, the other blood sucking leeches called Income tax officials can have a field day with them (More on them in another post!) and since are at least honest sales tax payers (Out of compulsion than choice), they need not pay the sales tax “collection officials”, who now cannot pay their politico masters! Blasphemy! Now what do they do?! Harp about “insurmountable implementation complexities” (Where will we make the moolah now?); create the “chicken and egg” situation by complaining that the neighbours may not be implementing VAT on time, complain about protests from the “business communities” (The Fungi requires the Lichen for symbiosis to survive) etc.

What will ultimately happen will have to be seen as of now, the fear and desperation levels among the Sales Tax “Collection Authorities” has reached such astronomical proportions to salvage whatever can be “Collected” is that today they are even stopping individuals who might be ferrying that hard earned microwave or stereo home from the store to their homes and asking for proof of purchase! So be wary before travelling on your bikes or cars without a proof of purchase for that new CD or tape or something new, lest you get caught by the Sales “Tax Collection” authorities!

Ringa Ringa Road us, The Road is full of pot holes

For the past couple of days I have been travelling to Electronic city from Cambridge layout because of official work and forced to take the Outer Ring Road (ORR) to get to the Hosur road instead of the Koramangala Inner Ring Road (IRR) route. The reason for this is obvious... In case it is not so, I shall elaborate more on this in another post! On the drive along the ORR I began to notice the humungous constructions on this stretch of road- A Multiplex, Family restaurants, A Club, Apartment blocks, The "IT-corridor", Shops etc. I still can't believe that this was the same stretch of road that used to be totally barren until about 3-4 years back the only life that existed was some shabbily constructed, ill-equipped dhabas and some small shops catering to the truck drivers passing through. True, this route is faster than the conventional route but the fact is that if the same pace of development continues for even about 2 years the outer ring road will become just another jam-packed, slow moving, heavily polluted, pot-hole filled, traffic signal ridden city road. Already some segments of this road are displaying symptoms of things to come- the stretch that cuts outside Banaswadi and Austin town in particular. This also made me recall reading a newspaper article about a proposed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR). This new ring road will connect far, flung areas of Bangalore to form a ring and will be far large than the current outer ring road. Judging the way the IRR has been reduced from a fast connection between central Bangalore and Koramangala because of large scale developments- legal and illegal to a dangerous drive at own risk road and the slowing down of the ORR which is currently underway it is not unfair to say that the proposed PRR also will suffer the same fate. The question now before us is: Where do we draw the line... er... Ring... The reason de existence for the Ring Roads themselves are being threatened because of high density developments being sanctioned instead of low and medium density that the ring roads can take... the actual purpose was of these roads was to decongest the main city from heavy commercial vehicle (HCV) traffic and promote low density, well spread developments on the side. We are repeating the same mistakes every single time and that to the scale of the mistakes keep on increasing every time! Unless we address the issues of accountability for developments taking place i.e. basically either plan for the kind of developments beforehand high density, medium density or low density and then follow it meticulously or do we allow large scale deviations and then regularise them and then keep on creating loops and further loops to the problem and then name them outer ring roads?

Middle men or meddle men?

It's now nearly a year since I purchased my laptop and since then the scene has completely changed and now one can buy a lighter centrino laptop for a lesser sum than what I had paid for a heavy celeron piece. So in the spirit of keeping up with the times and in the hope of buying a lighter laptop I decided to venture out into the world of buy-back offers and which better place to start than the Acer showroom at cunnigham road which I had thought would give me a fair deal as the current one is the same brand.

Venturing there I met a uninterested salesman who refused to get up from his cushy chair and insisted on remote controlling me around the showroom giving me a lowdown on the various demo pieces from the very comfort of his chair. No probs I thought, better than having a salesman with B.O. problems breathing down your neck threatening me with dire consequences if I did not purchase something. He ultimately made me make a entry in the visitors register and informed me that he would get in touch with me soon as he has a ready client on the look out for a second hand laptop. Days turned into weeks and weeks to months and two months later, I receive a call from him telling me that he has a serious buyer who would be willing to pick up the laptop with on the spot cash and that he was waiting for me at the showroom.

So thinking that the moment for changing my workhorse has finally come with a heavy heart and concerns about a lighter wallet rushed to the showroom. On reaching there I am greeted by a call which I realise is from the salesman at the showroom asking me to hurry and that the prospective client is at getting impatient, not realising that I am at the door of the showroom right in clear view from his cushy chair!

Getting in he greets me with a sly grin and asks his assistant to get me a chair and to wait as the prospective buyer has just gone out for 5 mins. He then engaged me in a conversation about my laptop configuration and asked permission to inspect it. No probs.. check it out I told him and then someone pops out of the showroom woodwork and joins him in the "inspection" which actually turned out to be a check to see if there are any games installed on the laptop that they can play to pass time until the buyer shows up! After waiting for about 15 mins., two people with broad grins across their face show up and upon entering the air-conditioned showroom let out loud burps - signs of a good, heavy lunch and strike a conversation with the woodwork man- The prospective buyer and his friend. They then seemed to be having a argument and the "argument" then is shifted to the Toshiba showroom in the basement and only when they came back did I realise that they were bargaining and not arguing! How stupid of me to have thought otherwise!

For about 20-25 mins., they seem to be negotiating the purchase of my laptop and occasionally "inspecting" my laptop completely oblivious and ignorant of the fact that the laptop was mine and without even bothering to either talk to me or asking me what my price expectation was. I hear them talking about 15,000, 25,000, 30,000 and also 37,000. Finally they agree for Rs.30,000 without even bothering to ask me if I was fine with the rate! Then all of a sudden the salesman in the cushy chair whispers in my ear that I will be getting a net princely sum of Rs. 22,000 after deducting the "charges"! Quite perplexed, I asked him what these "charges" were, He coolly replies that the two people who were supposed to be the prospective buyer and his friend were actually two computer hardware retailers, the woodwork man was also a retailer and that since he brokered the deal, he deserves a cut of the proceeds! The "prospective buyer" would be paying the cash upfront and then selling it to some buyer.

The deal structure was as follows:

Cushy chair salesman Rs.2,000

Woodwork man Rs. 5,000

Prospective buyer friend Rs. 2,000

"Prospective buyer" Rs. 2,000

End price to buyer: Rs. 33,000 which is roughly 50% of the cost which I had purchased the laptop for. Not a bad deal for him eh?

The cushy guy then proceeds to justify this by telling me that the actual buyer is very price conscious and that we have to be fair to him and give him a good deal!

End result: I decided not to sell my laptop and that I will gift it to someone deserving, will never go back there for any purchase and strongly recommend anyone dealing with them to do so at their own risk.

P.S.:- I am now thinking of buying a second hand laptop as it seems much better to be a buyer than a seller in this segment.

Blue or black teeth

I finally got fed up of using the infra red connectivity to connect to GPRS and finally went to brigade road and got myself a bluetooth dongle which now enables me to access the net wireless but now new problems are cropping up, surprissingly not the usual "security hazard, compatibility issues etc." but a rather simple one: battery drain now both my laptop as well as my cellphone are discharging much faster and so the time i can spend wireless has come down drastically.The irony is this is supposed to be an advancement in technology but the same step is stepping back in time in terms of battery time available to me! One step forward two steps back or what ?