There were similar claims made by the respective ministries:

1. India needs 100 million broadband subscribers in the next three years. It has eight million users now
2. India needs 500 million telephone subscribers by 2010. This was met. An exception
3. Four percent growth rate since 1997 to feed the billion plus population. Never met
4. Roads: 20 kms of road to be laid per day. Never met or no way to know
5. Twenty GW of solar energy by 2020:  We just have to wait for 2020 on this one. If you would like to know what is its installed capacity in solar energy it is 2.12 MW. And there are no typos in the figures mentioned
6. Half a million Twitter followers for an Indian politician in one year. This was met. Shashi Tharoor did it in less than six months. He now has 671153 followers. But this was never a goal. What a shame
   

I don’t have a problem with the numbers. I like them. In fact I am sucker for numbers and goals. But when we attach them to aviation and make big hairy audacious goals where only two percent of the population travels by air and where the country ranks between Ethiopia and Nigeria in air travel, I have a problem. A big one.

So here is a request to the ministries. Please don’t pull out numbers from hats. Do some math. You know the intelligent kind, where highly paid people use spreadsheets to come up with numbers called projections. I mean the real ones. Or give us a number and tell us how you are going to achieve it. How many by the end of 2012, how many in three years from now and so on.

Ten year horizons have two problems. I might not be blogging 10 years from now and you might not be the aviation minister anymore.

PS: There is an argument of aiming for the moon and reaching a star. That doesn't work all the time. The only argument left is “I am quoting this out of context”.

PPS : About the Lamborghini, I decided against it. I will take a Prius and the rest in cash. Come to think of it, Gallardo doesn’t have much of ground clearance and in India all we want is ground clearance – A minimum of 180 mm.