Critique of RSI Paper
Summary
Primary infrastructures are meant to provide the basic services for the livability of a city. In developing nations, these basic services such as water supply, power supply etc. are not very reliable or consistent. This results in individual households getting their own private secondary infrastructures to make up for the deficiencies. This additional infrastructure is called Remedial Secondary Infrastructure (RSI). “RSI is defined as privately owned infrastructure required to complement municipal delivery of daily primary infrastructure services when the utility is not providing reliable and high quality basic services” (Reiner and Ramaswami 2016). Regardless of socioeconomic status, everyone depends on RSI for smooth operation of his or her household. Additional costs are incurred to maintain the RSI. These costs depend on the quality of RSI that is installed in the household (Reiner and Ramaswami 2016).
Remedial Secondary Infrastructure possesses some unique characteristics that distinguishes it from other types of infrastructures such as decentralized infrastructure, redundant infrastructure, supplemental infrastructure etc. “RSI replicates the same function as the primary infrastructure that it seeks to remediate, but it is situated and operated at the end users’ location” (Reiner and Ramaswami 2016). However, it differs from decentralized infrastructure as it can’t replace primary infrastructure services for extended periods of time. RSI differs from redundant infrastructure by working in series with primary infrastructure at the end user level as opposed to working in parallel. Due to municipalities’ inability to provide basic services to households, there is a market for RSI components that entrepreneurs can capitalize on (Reiner and Ramaswami 2016).
RSI has unique implications for future infrastructure design and policy in developing world cities. The following are some points regarding the design and policy of future infrastructure. RSI’s economic and environmental impact must be evaluated to figure out the long term impact of not upgrading infrastructure. Due to the mistrust that people have with their local suppliers, it would be hard for them to change their behavior toward upgraded infrastructures even if they would provide 24/7 water supply etc. Therefore, a lot of behavioral studies must be conducted to determine whether the end users will accept the new infrastructure technologies. When RSI exists on a large scale, transitioning to distributed infrastructure becomes easier. Whenever RSI technologies are being implemented, RSI stakeholders should be involved as they are powerful and have experience. In order to assure the smooth performance of RSI technologies, quality control and quality assurance procedures must be developed on a nation-by-nation basis. Due to the great economic disparity in developing nations, issues regarding equity and social justice arise. People who are well off would be able to use high quality RSI technologies while poor people might be angry if there is a reduction in municipal services (Reiner and Ramaswami 2006).
In conclusion “The dependency on RSI is prevalent in all socioeconomic classes, in all developing nations, and has been established over generations, creating a behavioral component to be considered for future infrastructure design and acceptance of future infrastructure design path dependencies” (Reiner and Ramaswami 2006).
Implications and Usefulness of Results
This paper implies that current primary infrastructure systems and services in developing nations are not reliable, causing the end users additional stress and making them bear addition costs due to privately installing Remedial Secondary Infrastructure technologies in their households. It also implies that even if steps are taken to improve the infrastructure, it would be hard to change the behavior of the end user due to the mistrust that exists. The paper emphasizes the changes in infrastructure design and policy that would be required to enable smooth operation of new RSI technologies and also acknowledges the quality assurance and quality control procedures that would have to be put in place to regain the public’s trust.
The results of the paper point to the open market that is present for RSI services. It encourages and provides a great argument for entrepreneurs to look deeper into this sector. Readers can use this paper to get a better understanding of RSI and conduct further research and determine the practicality and feasibility to design future infrastructure in developing nations. The paper clearly defines RSI and its necessity for all socioeconomic strata.
Problems with the Paper
Although this paper helps the readers get a better understanding of what RSI is and the changes in infrastructure design and policy that would be required to implement new RSI technologies, it doesn’t provide sufficient evidence and justification to support the idea that new RSI services are needed in other developing nations. The paper only discusses problems in India and doesn’t look into other countries where it could be implemented. Along with looking at other third world countries it could examine the possibility of use in first world countries.
Contribution with regard to other published work
This paper was published earlier this month, and therefore isn’t cited in other papers yet. As for the references cited in this paper, none of them are related to the definition of RSI or what it is. All the citations are used to provide evidence and justification for the one example the authors use to show the use of RSI and the necessity for more reliable infrastructure technologies and services.
References
Reiner, M. and Ramaswami, A. (2016). “What Is Remedial Secondary Infrastructure? Implications for Infrastructure Design, Policy for Sustainability, and Resilience.” J. Infrastruct. Syst. , 10.1061/(ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000285, 02516001