Do we ask relevant questions?

Real Estate seems to be making news every where. Court cases have turned heat in a few places on land acquisition. After some lull in the last two years, most of the hoardings in any city in India are of promotions of real estate projects. Many of these projects have our ‘heroes’ from cricket and bollywood endorsing. Most of them unmindful of what they are endorsing. People are booking. Moving into their apartments. Throwing lavish parties. Happy at owning their dream house.

I walked into one such large complex, where a decade ago, I had bought a flat in an apartment block that had 10 flats. Now that compound looks a huge residential complex, with three 14-storied apartments, in all 300+ 4-5 BHKs. I overheard people complaining about ‘children in the complex too naughty to handle and who are not bothered about the harm they are causing’ etc.

I asked them –

– Is there a playing arena for children? Yes, you may have a gym and may be a pool, but children need more space to engage themselves in, to spend their energy, to sweat out…

Few more questions followed, even to a couple of real estate agents who were pitching such projects? They had no answers… a couple of them even made faces, “What ridiculous questions is he asking” sorts –

WATER –
– What are the challenges relating to water? Where does the water come from? municipal supply or Bore-well? How deep it is, how long will the water last? Do you foresee water problem in the future? How would you handle it?
– Do we have any water-saving strategy?
– Do we have water treatment facility? How does it get treated? What can be the impact?
– Do we have a rain-water harvesting facility integral to the design of the complex?

SANITATION –
– Sanitation, where does it flow? Most of the complexes do not have municipal connect..Is there a treatment facility?
– Where does the municipal connect lead to? do they treat?
– How can we benefit if we can do it?

Power –
How the homes can be energy efficient. It went on to how Electricity generation can happen within the complex, what savings can be done in the process.

Most of us are least bothered about anything that is happening around us. Since we hardly care about the surroundings. In a few countries I have traveled to and lived in, there is a high premium for most of these things. The nations levy huge tax on the living space, since it has impact on energy, water, sanitation and many fundamental essentials. So not only water usage is charged, sanitation discharged is also charged! Every year your automobile has to prove its road worthiness. And even if it does, the road-tax every year is levied by the age of the car! Every traffic or road rules violation is penalized in such a way that no one dares to violate even in his sleep.

We as citizens of this world, as care takers of the world for future generations, have a lot of questions to ask – what we think about and how we live!! And a lot more responsibility to answer these very honestly!

I came across an interesting video from gates foundation…