Re: predictions!!

Let me take a stab at it (Ignore the pun please)...

CBN gave priority to Roads, S&T, but not agriculture and rural
development:

This is a classic chicken and egg problem. Let us say, you are made
responsible for a pot of money and asked to perform. You have two
concerns, how best to use the money and how to grow the pot size down
the road.

Let us take the 1st concern, How best to use the money?

Depending on how best you understand the needs in a total context you
will do this. Identifying one sector or set of issues will not work
ofcourse. Given the context, CBN and team thought, by improving the
infrastructure, the money will be well spent. This is the so called
trickle down economics in a nutshell. Having spent the money that way,
I am sure good came out of that. Unfortunately, anything that is going
to benifit over a time, takes time for everyone to see the results.
Soil mapping, Developing methodologies for crop rotation, developing
the infrastructure to limit the role of middle men in marketing the
farm produce, eSeva, Roads linking towns and cities all fall into this
category. All of these are aimed at making sure the form sector
stabilizes and be more effective, governace becomes more transparent.

He has developed the "platform" if you will, which will be the
playground for future development activities. This is not to say that
he should ignore the immediate need to farmers/people. I do not think
they ignored. It is only the perception, and unfortunate one at that.
Should he have done more, of course yes. But, be sympathetic to the
need for balance.

The second concern is, how to increase the pot size?

By having the capacity to generate more growth, the state is bound to
have more funds at its disposal for future activities. So, always have
the vision of increasing the size of the pie so all get bigger pieces.
Having good infrastructure, leads to such dynamics and we all will see
the benefits sooner or later.

The bottom line is, I do not say what they did is without a plan or
misguided. They did under a context and it may not have helped him
politically, but if you stop and think, you will appreciate the
strength of those plans.

The easy answer for anyone to say is, do both! How you can do both to
the extent you would like to do, given the pot size? That is the
challenge!

Regards,
Chandu