Note to Arun Jaitley: Here’s how you can improve our economic policies which you are struggling with!

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Note to Arun Jaitley: Here’s how you can improve our economic policies which you are struggling with!Engineering drives economy. We can enhance the economic policies through the lens of engineering design.
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“Economic development is a combination of many parameters. But the main challenge is they are very abstract. We have gotten so good at putting robots on Mars, yet we have issues like poverty, inequality,” said Guru Madhavan, author of Applied Minds, How Engineers Think.

How can engineering make a difference in a country’s economic policies? Hear it from an engineer himself.

1. India is a country where the main problem is lack of a vision and a particular mission. This is where engineering comes into play. It can potentially help with the notion of backward design, or Reverse Engineering. Before forming economic policies one needs to identify what is it that you want to achieve? Then you work backwards to design the essentials (rules and regulations).

“Such a design which is a common day-to-day application for an engineer is not frequently seen in political circles.”

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2. Engineering provides a more structured approach by first making careful trade-offs. Since our economic system consists of different parameters, it is extremely important that we meticulously design the trade-offs. This would improve the line of communication between different departments and parameters.

“The first is the ability to ‘see’ structure where there’s none. Just as a talented composer “hears” a sound before it’s put down on score, a good engineer is able to visualise- and produce- structures through a combination of rules, models, and instincts,” Guru writes in his book, Applied Minds.

3. Engineering helps to identify the constraints so that we can optimise. For example, during the early 2000s Stockholm’s traffic congestion which was getting out of control was solved through engineering. To control traffic one does not need to build more roads and bridges, but instead start charging consumers who wanted to use existing bridges and highways during peak hours.

“Engineering gives a tool kit to attack some of the biggest problems that we as a nation face. Good engineers do not run away from constraints. They capitalise those constraints,” said Guru.

4. Engineering solutions actually brings in revenues to the state. Like in the above traffic congestion problem, toll tax decreased the traffic to 20 per cent and also brought revenue to the state’s transport system.

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5. One of the best parts of engineering is recombinations that is making the best of existing elements and do what is best for the situation. We do not need to spend stupendous amount of money in exporting solutions. Rather a country can make do with the existing resources. This has been proven time and again since Indus Valley civilisation. Recombine the existing economic resources and a country can become striking rich surviving on it.

“In engineering we set up tangible goals and set up a mechanism to achieve that. We are all tax payers and we always think about ways to make our life more efficient,” added Guru. He wrote in his book, “Even if there are no constraints, good engineers know how to apply constraints to help achieve their goals.”

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