'the brown city'

mangalore to manipal. 2008.the highway near Kottara Chowki and Suratkal is witnessing the construction of flyovers. forget the inconvenience of a bumpy ride and the backaches for regular commuters; they are temporary and in the interest of the 'greater common good'.

as you leave mangalore, you pass Baikampady Industrial Area, and also, the Kudremukh Iron Ore Company Limited (KIOCL)-which is thankfully, closed now-, the timber yard at Panambur, and the port area. KIOCL is brown. there s no other word to describe the utter deserted atmosphere of the place as seen from the road. the road again, is competing for that very look. the road that leads to Panambur beach is totally brown. all the trees on that road are covered with such a thick layer of dust from the iron in port, that they are only recognisable by their structure.

seems the in thing now. brown.

dont mistake it for a chocolatey brown though. it isnt half as nice as that. this brown is a blanket of filth that simply cannot be cleansed. a brown blanket that covers all, including the green of the trees, making me think of a world that is dying a slow painful and silent death. and is dying, before my very eyes.

Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL )and Mangalore Fertilizers Limited (MCF) also are a part of this industrial area. soon, if things go according to plan, there will be more such industrial ventures along that road, in that area. by about 2014, there will be more, somewhere around 2020, some more, and by 2026 we could call Mangalore 'the Brown City' of India.

but it will be a hard won title, if we do get it. wondering why? well, the competition is tough you know. out of 439 SEZs proposed, 195 have been notified. but wait! i see a ray of hope! talking about rays, it will indeed become an extict phenomenon, to see a ray of light through the coulds (natural ones i mean, not the clouds of smog that will inevitably appear with the monstrosity called a PCPIR). hmmm, ray seems to be somewhat inappropriate. lets just call it hope. i see some hope for Mangalore bagging the title. Mangalore has a slight edge over the others because while all the other projects ens at being SEZs, the one in Mangalore is just phase I in the grand scheme of things. it is called a Petroleum Chemical Petrochemical Investment Region. this means that by 2026, this region will have 300 sq kms of polluting factories in the petrochemical, chemical, fertilizer and pharmaceutical, synthetic textiles, sectors, and god knows what else.

the reason Mangalore is the privileged to be setting up this PCPIR (not that it should be set up elsewhere, im dead against it) is because
(1) its location on the West Coast close to the West Asian oilfields
(2) the New Mangalore Port
(3) the presence of MRPL
(4) its connectivity with the rest of the country by road, rail and air.

so you see? our chances of winning that title are not so bad after all. whew! what a relief!