“Resources for urban India” ( Business Line , March 23) appeared, by chance, on the day when the newspapers in Mumbai reported extensively on the State government's lagging efforts on infrastructure development compared to the vast unmet needs of the metro's population.

Even 40 years after the creation of Navi Mumbai — with its several nodes having grown rapidly meanwhile — a worker in Panvel has to spend more than two hours each way daily to and fro his home and workplace travelling through a rickety harbour line via Kurla.

The way the State authorities have handled the transportation issue in these decades will be a fertile material for a doctoral thesis.

It is not merely enough to allocate huge funds for infrastructure. There has to be a comprehensive way of looking at things.

That this is sorely lacking can be seen by just an example.

Local newspapers talked of how a minister travels from his home in Navi Mumbai to the Mantralaya, across the sea, in about half an hour and envisions that the people will get similar facilities too! The Government is thinking of large ferries carrying people and their cars to the main-city daily when it does pretty little on a suggestion made several years back of a road-cum-rail bridge connecting Nava Sheva to Sewri which can help people from as far away as Panvel reach the city in less than one third of the time they spend daily!

S. Subramanyan

Distrust and suspicion

It is really shocking that our country is going rapidly downhill in its reputation for honesty and integrity, as commented on in “Destabilising effect of distrust and suspicion” ( Business Line , March 23).

With 2G scam, corruption appears to be like a tsunami, engulfing and shaking our very democratic foundations.

The general citizen finds no sign of redemption, though some top upright public servants and persons, interested in a clean-up, have decided to fight, as in the case of the CVC nomination.

Saranathan

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