I recently relocated to Jamshedpur, also known as Tatanagar (i.e., Tata Colony). Like other industrial cities that developed around one manufacturer, everything in Jamshedpur revolves around Tata Steel. In the most literal sense, Tata’s main steel plant and blast furnaces sit atop the only hill, overlooking the entire city. Nearby, there is a Tata hospital, Tata school, Tata research archives and museum, and even Tata security – the only public structure missing is a Tata Temple. However, unlike Nike in Niketown or Benz in Stuttgart which are deified in public, Tata is even ubiquitous in the home, thanks to its horizontal diversifications into the manufacturing of every commercial good. We cook with Tata salt, drink Tata tea, watch TataSky tv, which is powered by Tata electricity. [Most recently, Tata has started bottling water as well, so it’s only a matter of time before that catches on]
But much as I mock the invasion of Tata branded everything in my life, it is also a blessing to live under Tata’s competent operations. There are parts of Jamshedpur which are maintained by the public government of Jharkhand, and the differences in quality of life between the privately and publicly managed areas are stark.
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During these hot summer months when electricity is in high demand, load shedding is a part of life. My building’s electricity is supplied by Tata’s power plant, but the building across the street is not and is instead wired to the public grid. The dependability of Tata power versus public power is as different as fire and ice. Tata power suffers infrequent outages the longest, of which I’ve experienced, lasted ~15 minutes. In comparison, it’s not uncommon to watch the lights across the street suddenly spark out every other night. As the heat reaches 50C in the peak of summer, these outages are also becoming more frequent across the street and last for longer periods. The luckier families across the street have small back-up generators, but for the large majority of those who live in humble houses, they sit in darkness without light and worst of all, without a fan to relieve them from the heat. Last week, the publicly supplied power was out for 3 days straight.
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Jamshedpur proper has a reputation of being the “Green City” and “Clean City”, titles which it lives up to. Most areas of the city are exceptionally clean and litter-free, remarkable for a metropolitan in India. Jubilee Park, a popular gathering place for families during the evenings, is spotlessly kept with neat rows of trees and well tended green lawns. The streets of the city even have sidewalks, which pedestrians use! Tata has taken a great effort as a private corporation to maintain the city, and it shows. The contrast is on the other side of the tracks (literally), in Jugsalai – a periphery of the city, which is maintained by the public government. Immediately upon crossing the railroad tracks, the narrow streets are covered with trash and order is left behind. The rubble piles, common to most cities in India, narrow the already crowded streets. In order to drive through Jugsalai, one has to inevitably drive over piles of building materials – gravel, sand, etc. – and avoid running over people and cattle who walk in the middle of these streets because the sidewalks have disappeared.
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It’s hard not to favor private management over public management when I witness such disparities within one city. As a stranger to this city, it’s hard for me comprehend how these two sides of Jamshedpur co-exist and how the public government can evade taking actions to improve the situation. How has there been no demand by the population to close the gaps between these two realities? I would demand a more dependable supply of power that won’t leave people sitting in the dark looking across the way into the brightly lit living rooms of their neighbors. The public government should start with that at least, otherwise Jamshedpur will always continue to be two cities – public and private – and we know which one wins that competition.
