HISTORY LOSES PRESENCE

Historical sites in India have gone missing...

When it comes to the ‘missing act’, world renowned magician, Mr P C Sarkar, would lose hands down to certain realities in his own land. If Mr Sarkar could make an entire train or a monument disappear in front of thousands of people, here in India, hundreds of historical monuments are disappearing in front of a billion people. The only difference between Mr Sarkar and the later is, that whatever the master magician made disappear, reappeared, but in the later case, whatever has disappeared has disappeared forever! And here I’m referring to none other than those 34 historical monuments which have gone ‘missing’, as stated by Ministry of Culture!!

A few months back, the cultural ministry admitted the fact that around 34 monuments are untraceable. Around 12 monuments are missing from Delhi itself - Moti Gate, Phool Chadar, Mubarakabad, Barakhamba and Alipur Cemetery, Joga Bai Mound, Shamsi Tallab, Mehrauli and Nicholson statue; eight from UP – from Lucknow, Banda, Hardoi and Jalaun, and few others from J&K - the rock carvings of Sitala, Narada, Brahma, and a cave temple. Similar missing incidents were also found in Karnataka - a pre-historic site, Gujarat - an ancient site in Surendranagar, Haryana - Mughal Kos Minar and Rajasthan - Nagar Fort – to name a few!

The concerned authorities blamed the whole ‘disappearing act’ to the growing urbanisation, commercialisation and infrastructural projects. This clearly indicates complete lack of co-ordination between the cultural ministry and other different departments that deal with developmental initiatives. Hence, the authorities or the ministry that gives clearance for developmental projects - neither have any idea of the presence of the historic monument in the site area nor did they find it worth preserving the same. Neither did the cultural ministry keep a check nor did anyone raise any alarm. Otherwise it is practically impossible to remove a huge monument and build something else overnight or in a few weeks time.

However, learning from past mistakes, the culture ministry has finally decided to recruit 10,000 attendants in order to safeguard the remaining 3,675 monuments. But then with idols and other artefacts being stolen and openly sold in international markets, mere recruitment of attendants will not solve the problem in the long run. There had been numerous cases where symbols/ idols and precious items of historical and cultural importance were found stolen. In spite of having attendants, many sites like the ancient copper-plated temple, ancient cave temples in the northern town of Basohli have been reduced to ruins.

The solution to this could be adapted from various initiatives taken up by various governments, globally, with a singular objective of restoring their historical legacy. London, for example; boasts of having somewhere around 500,000 well-maintained heritage structures, which also attracts scores of tourists. This is what India needs to learn and replicate – a proven PPP model, through which we need to make sure that our historical sites are professionally managed and well-maintained. To further this initiative and make this model more economically viable we must also need to make them ‘tourist-friendly’, to earn revenues, which could then be used in maintaining of such sites. Firms like Getty Foundation, Dharmothana Trust, Apeejay Surendra Park Hotels are doing wonders along with maintaining its historical essence, in India itself. All in all, we, the stakeholders of our legacy need to realise that history cannot always be recreated, and once lost, it is lost forever!

HONEY! I SHRUNK THE RATES

The new 1 paisa per second call has a lot more…

The entire telecom sector is going through a huge structural shift . From a point in time wherein a user had to pay obscene tariff s even for incoming calls to a time where the same end user is getting paid for every time he makes a call – the entire industry has observed a tectonic structural shift . No wonder, this is an outcome of the intense competition that the industry has observed over the past few years. In their pursuit to retain their existing customers and attract new ones, each and every new entrant is offering such schemes which defy basic economics.

It is needless to state that competition is always healthy as it makes the consumer feel like a king! But then what is happening to the telecom industry is something which is neither helping the industry nor the consumer. On one hand, competition is putting sustainability to question and on the other, it's creating confusion in the end users' mind. Today there are more than 2,000 tariff plans across the country. Everything from Re 1 for 3 minutes, to 50 paisa per STD call - every type of tariff plan is on offer. Continuing the legacy of the price war, the telecom service providers have recently introduced the much awaited per-second calling rates. Following Tata DoCoMo’s tariff plan of 1 paisa per second, many other players too have jumped into the bandwagon and are offering similar plans to their customers! Older players such as Idea and Reliance have also introduced competitive tariff s with 1 paisa-persecond plans. Such has been the impact of this plan that as per reports, a huge proportion of operating margins have disappeared from the balance sheets of the existing large players, as they used to generate sizeable revenue from the unrendered services. Even the recent HSBC Global Research, in a report, had described that the ‘per-second plan’ could hurt the sector’s revenue by 10-15 per cent.

But then, pushed to a corner, on account of ensuing tariff war, the service providers are finding ways and means to cover up their margins. So, though on the face of it the tariff s may look extremely competitive but the underlying ‘terms and conditions’ are killer in themselves. For example, BSNL users need to recharge their phone with Rs 45 STV (Special Tariff Voucher, valid for a month) to make a local call (including any network) at Rs 0.01 for one second. In case of TATA DoCoMo – for STD calls, the first 27,000 seconds in a month are charged at one paisa, beyond which the rate becomes two paisa per second for that month (this needs to be accompanied with a special recharge voucher). Similarly, Vodafone’s and Airtel’s one paisa per second call offer is meant for calling within the local network only. Few networks call for special recharge to activate the offer – generally with a one month validity. Some service providers have limited these facilities to first few hours and then revert the tariff to the normal scheme. And most of the service providers do not allow this tariff plan for calls made outside their own circle or network!

All in all, India does have the lowest call tariff in the world but then our teledensity is still very poor. A lower tariff with a high density is understandable as then the economies help sustain business and they are then equipped for better services.

These kind of structural shift s are leaving the end users high and dry with respect to intense information asymmetry. And here comes the role of the regulator (TRAI). It has to definitely ensure that the fine prints are adequately highlighted, so that an over-enthusiastic (and rural and semi literate audience) customer does not get overboard and ends up paying more than what he thinks he is paying.