Hyperloop for ancient Tamil Nadu sounds far too fanciful

The rum irony of Tamil Nadu being part of a proposed yet most fanciful Hyperloop transportation system won't escape those who have followed the state's recent moves aimed to taking us all back to the Sangam Age.

The state has said no to hydrocarbon extraction believing the devil resides in the oil trapped within the rocks, but by taking out which the USA has changed the economy of the world.

The plunging oil prices were the creation of the energy self-sufficiency drive of the US which fracked the rocks on its way to liberation from Saudi, Russian and OPEC prices which were above the $100 per barrel mark till not so long ago.

No modern technology is without challenges. The state, which suffered a lot from not knowing how to handle and contain an oil spill, will be paying the price over the next few decades for having stained its sea waters irrevocably.

Handling liquids and gases is a hazardous process but this has been made possible by modern engineering evolving to far higher levels than they were even 10 years ago. However, Tamil Nadu is so worried that it will not even allow gas pipelines to go through the state.

It appears this land of Luddites is heading right back to the Middle Ages and behind, driven not by a fabled time machine but by the mindset of rulers that has held its development back.

Now, compressed natural gas (CNG) is far less polluting than conventional fossil fuels like petrol and diesel. Only if there is a grid of pipelines can the gas be pumped around the country to bring down the cost of energy.

CNG is about 35 to 40 per cent less expensive than more refined fuels and this goes a long way towards making industry more efficient and profitable. Tamil Nadu opposes the gas pipelines passing through its land. How then do we expect all the buses and autos to run on CNG and bring down pollution levels?

The state opposes Neet, the common entrance test for courses in medicine on the grounds that most of its students study the less intensive Matriculation or SSLC qualifying exams and that they are not upto CBSE standards. Also, poor rural students do not have the wherewithal to go to tuition classes.

Sure, valid point, but why doesn't the state help raise the standards and get its student tribe competitive so that they can take on all others of India, many of whom also come from well beyond the cities and from the heart of the very rural hinterland of the country?

The building up of opinion is somewhat easy these days as the social media kicks in and people start believing in what is posted without even thinking too much about the issue.

Suddenly, popular movements appear to have the backing of all Tamils and the politicos think they are bending to popular opinion by seizing upon these moments.

The jallikattu question is again one that could help take us back to the Sangam Age—its glories in literature having the most admirable qualities to commend it though—but in a nice sort of way that would not hamper development and in fact would so something for preserving the native breeds of cattle.

To apply the jallikattu equation of popular perception to Neet, shale oil and gas pipelines is to invite regression. We are going backwards in technology out of the fear of not being able to control it.

But that is because of absolute carelessness as on the part of the port navigators to allow two ships to collide near the safe haven of the harbor, which at least we have because the British created an artificial harbor for Chennai, nee Madras. As we suffered the natural disasters of a tsunami and a tropical storm blowing through the heart of the city, we seemed to lose the willpower to modernise.

We don’t want a Greenfield airport beyond the city to handle the traffic of the next few decades because we are too lazy to contemplate building a super highway to the new airport even as the old airport crumbles, despite an expensive makeover that seemed to beautify its glass and chrome exteriors only to find that the materials or the engineering were so shoddy as to set up a Guinness record in breaking and falling glass.

We have built one line and a bit of a loop on another on the Metro, but it is taking so long that the city commuter feels defeated, not only by the lack of a city fully connected by Metro and suburban networks but also hobbled by the pace of construction after having surrendered half the road width in main thoroughfares in building the Metro.