India is drowning in its own excreta

Re:India is drowning in its own excreta by LekkoscPiwa on Monday April 29, 2013 @07:07AM (#5625340)

You don't want too much Government in that department. But, it really is easy to fix by a simple Government regulation. Folks in Singapore used to litter a lot. Like really a lot. The place used to be extremely polluted too. So polluted and littered. We're talking about 1960s. At that time Singapore probably didn't look better than Mumbai looks today. Simple regulation: fine of $100 or more per each piece of paper you drop. Great income for the city, so hell yeah they would make sure to enforce it. And don't give me "cultural" differences stories because Singapore has rather large Indian population and they had to adjust to this too. How to get rid of pollution? Look at the UK. You know how Thatcher famously solved problem of pollution coming from big factories? She passed a law that said that the factory had to have its water input right below its waste water output. And factories need really clean water to operate and not waste water. In other words if the factory didn't invest in the top-of-the-line water treatment plant they could as well go out of business. Because waste water would enter the factory processing machines and probably brake them. You see, simple solutions work. Especially those that bring financial hardship on offenders. Hundres of buraucrats with their political agendas will just make matters worse.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:India is drowning in its own excreta by mailshanx on Monday April 29, 2013 @07:30AM (#5625436)

>> Simple regulation: fine of $100 or more per each piece of paper you drop

While you are right about the fines imposed on Singaporean society, the Singapore government's policies had far wider scope and were coupled with efficient execution.

The fines were augmented with large scale awareness campaigns. Even today, you can see posters in many different places in the city exhorting citizens to not litter. Garbage bin density is so high, that you can mostly find one within 10 minutes of wherever you are. Of course, the various awareness campaigns were part of a much larger nation building effort which include a conscription system (all males serve ~2 years in the army), a compulsory national savings system, policies to maximize home ownership, and so on.

The Singapore bureaucracy itself quite a unique system in it's own right. The best students are awarded scholarships to study in Oxbridge, and they are expected to return and serve in the civil service.

Considering all of this, i'm sure solving these problems entails good governance, and is certainly not a "simple" matter of imposing fines.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:India is drowning in its own excreta by Flimm on Monday April 29, 2013 @02:36PM (#5627862)

Exactly. Good policies are worthless without good execution.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:India is drowning in its own excreta by LekkoscPiwa on Monday April 29, 2013 @04:00PM (#5628337)

This can be said about any policy. And there is no way to find out how execution will go without at least trying to execute vs. complaining that execution won't work.

Funny. Because when you read my post you will certainly see that I explained the execution part. Good income source for Mumbai -- fines for littering that is. When fines are high enough and cops get their monthly quotas of them - as explained in my original post - this would lower the scale of the issue if not resolve it completely. I also have given an example of Singapore with large Indian population where this has worked.

It seems some people prefer to always complain than to actually at least try doing something...

[ Parent | on HN ]