I would love to live in a smart Indian city and I bet you would too. If that’s not going to be possible, I could settle for a city that is just a little bit smarter than the one I live in now and I bet that is what you could too. The problem is our cities are only as smart as their planners are and, unfortunately, that’s not very smart.
Having lived for over five decades in three of India’s largest cities and experienced firsthand their unerring descent into decrepitude, when someone declares that not one or two or a dozen but 100 smart Indian cities will be built, it’s hard not to be sceptical.
Mumbai Metro (HT Photo/Kalpak Pathak)
India’s cities are a shameful mess: the big, older ones, the small ones and even the fledgling new ones. Mumbai may be the financial nerve of India but it is no more than a rapidly degenerating slum; fast-expanding s and its spread, now known as the NCR, is a perfect example of how not to anticipate that growth; as for Kolkata, it always miraculously manages to breach your belief that nothing could be worse.Over the years, instead of improving, the quality of life in each of these three cities — ones that I have grown up and worked in — has declined to grievous levels.
In smaller cities, things are worse. In 2011, the urban development ministry surveyed 1,405 cities in 12 Indian states and found that more than half of them do not have access to either piped water supply or sewage systems; that 80% of the households there get water for less than five hours a day; and, more gravely, more than 70% do not have access to toilets. Between 2001 and 2011, India’s urban population grew from 27% to 31% but urban infrastructure hopelessly lagged behind. Far from being anywhere near smart, our cities are rather dumb.The future could be bleaker. A year before the government survey, a McKinsey Global Institute report estimated that the number of Indians living in cities would grow from 340 million in 2008 to 590 million in 2030.
Thirteen cities would have more than four million residents and half the population in five states would be urbanised. To keep pace with that, India would have to spend $1.2 trillion or nearly 70% of last year’s GDP on cities.
Noida Expressway (HT Photo/Sunil Ghosh)
The government wants to build 100 new smart cities that would rely on technology to create world-class urban infrastructure and — on paper — that could seem great. The idea, say urban development officials, is to use information technology as a tool to provide efficient-energy systems, clean drinking water and sewage disposal.
Infotech certainly is a tool. In Delhi, the municipal corporation has an online system to disburse death and birth certificates and enable people to pay their bills and property taxes; in Bangalore, infotech is used to relay real time information on bus timings, congested routes and so on; and, even in a smaller city such as Indore, the traffic police have installed infrared devices to nab rule violators.
Pretty smart stuff, all of that. But the real challenges that India’s cities, burdened by a relentless surge of migration and population growth, face is about resources. In 2007, the supply of water available to cities was 56 billion litres a day compared to a demand for 83 billion litres; by 2030, demand may soar to 189 billion litres but supply will still be around 95 billion litres.
Similar burgeoning gaps are predicted for sewage disposal, availability of mass transportation, electricity, housing and roads. Infotech, however smart, cannot sort those shortfalls out.
In the quest to build smart cities, you’ll likely see government officials, planners and their ilk make frequent sorties across the world to study cases — in China, Singapore and elsewhere — that have managed to balance high urban demand with adequate infrastructure, but the fear is if India doesn’t fix the dystopian nightmare its existing cities face, building 100 new smart ones could remain a utopian dream.
The Defence Minister of India had assured the Parliament in May 2012 that 82 strategic roads in the north-east were being double-laned, as priority, to provide effective logistical facility to India`s defence forces in the Arunachal Pradesh border with China. India’s road network in the region constructed and maintained by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) involves nearly 11700 km of roads. BRO was conceived and raised in 1960 by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with the objective of speedy development of road network and infrastructure in the northern and north-eastern border areas of India. A substantial part are General Staff (GS) roads, i.e., roads which primarily serve logistical needs of the defence forces and are funded by the Union Ministry of Surface Transport (MOST) budget while the others are roads of economic and strategic importance (assets of the states) constructed with non-MOST funds but within the purview of the BRO.
The importance of the road network in the north-east needs no emphasis. India is now raising the 17 Mountain Corps at Panagarh in West Bengal to augment its strategic strike capability vis-à-vis China. The BRO is the key instrument to realise the road network objective and provide the required logistical capability to this Corps. But is the BRO adequately attuned towards achieving this objective?
According to an official testifying in the Parliament on the 8th Report of the Standing Committee on Defence (2009-2010), “…two years back the philosophy of our nation was that we should not make roads as near to the border as possible. That philosophy is telling today very clearly as to why we do not have roads. It is only two or three years back that we suddenly decided a change of philosophy and said no, we must go as far forward as possible.”1 This Parliamentary Standing Committee Report had succinctly summed up the hiatus between the strategic needs of India and concomitant priorities and actual functioning of the BRO.
The Ministry of Defence had then indicated to the Committee that more funds would be allocated to the BRO and the organization was to be provided with adequate manpower.(2) The fact, however, is that the BRO does not suffer from any resource constraint and also has an enabling organizational structure, with its functionaries having adequate administrative and financial powers. The BRO`s expenditure on GS works has increased from Rs 830 crores in 2003-04 to Rs 2773 crores in 2012-13.2 However, the BRO could spend Rs 2773 crores only in the last financial year of its budget (BE) allocation of Rs 3300 crores on GS works.3
The BRO project chief engineers execute their projects by engaging hired civilian labour in the construction companies. The availability of labour with the task forces and the construction companies is not an issue. The chief engineers have institutionally an internal financial advisory support element and are vested with full powers to decide on the labour rates. In other words, neither fund availability nor manpower resources may be deemed as constraints for the BRO in achieving its GS works targets. The apparent shortfall in the BRO`s performance in relation to the logistical needs of the armed forces, is therefore, required to be carefully examined.
As a line organization, i.e., an organization which implements programmatic functions, the BRO has had a degree of autonomy in its administrative and financial matters. The availability of financial resources over the years has been substantial and incremental. At times there may have been less allocation of funds in the short-term, in relation to the estimates of the works planned for implementation but this, however, has to be viewed in the backdrop of an apparent disconnect between the formulation of annual plans of the BRO and its executing capability. Environmental constraints by way of local socio-political milieu-generated pressures and related governmental clearances have also occasionally militated against the BRO achieving its targets and security objectives. The above referred Parliamentary Standing Committee had observed that in 2010 the BRO was faced with a situation wherein, within its present capability, the planned quantum of GS works was beyond its executing capability. The present situation does seem to be much different. In this backdrop, there is a view in the higher echelons of Ministry of Defence that the BRO chief engineers of their projects take on the responsibility for executing other than GS works, i.e., works for other state governments, civil departments but only with prior administrative approval of the Centre. This will prevent the BRO from spreading its resources too thin and at the expense of the GS works/India-China Border Roads (ICBRs).
Without a focused approach and judicious prioritization, the BRO may not be able to achieve its Long-Term Perspective Plan-1, which involves the construction of 61 ICBRs (based on the India-China Study Group Report) involving a total road length of 3394 kilometers estimated at more than Rs 6500 crores. This would be to the detriment of India`s security, particularly when a remote county, Medog in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has been recently connected by an all-weather road with Zhamag, a place bordering Arunachal Pradesh, with much fanfare.4
Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.
(“Mumbai lacks the political push that’s needed for these projects, while the government and state agencies in other cities are collectively working on clearing logjam on the ground so that they can expedite infrastructure projects,” an expert said.)
MUMBAI: Vinayak Thakur, a foreign exchange dealer with a UK-based investment bank, has lived in Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mumbai and currently resides in Bangalore. Looking back, he thinks the city of dreams, with its creaky infrastructure, is a nightmare.
With many cities such as Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and even relatively sleepy Jaipur rapidly modernising and developing swanky metro lines to ferry people, Mumbaikars, barring the privileged few who live and work in South Mumbai or posh pockets of some suburbs, are beginning to feel left behind. “Mumbai was the city where careers were made earlier, so people were ready to struggle everyday in the trains or fight the traffic on roads. Now other cities offer growth opportunity and have better infrastructure, so why would I want to live in Mumbai,” Thakur says.
The metropolis that once dreamed of becoming a global financial hub and outshining Shanghai offers choked roads, multitudes living in slums, and people taking jam-packed trains to their office that may be in a shiny tower in the middle of a dirty, low-lying locality.
Civic authorities admit there is chaos on the roads. “City suffers from serious traffic congestion with the average speed on major city roads being less than 15 km per hour. Due to lack of availability of land it is difficult to expand the road network and local trains are already overloaded, so building of a mass rapid transit system is the need of the hour,” Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority said after tying up funding for metro line III.
The city has built flyovers, a sea link that bypasses jammed roads on way from the airport to south Mumbai, and recently commissioned 16.8 km Eastern Freeway. But it hasn’t kept pace with demand and the congested city where land is scarce, has lagged behind other Indian cities in developing mass rapid transport despite grand plans. “The strategic planning done for Mumbai has been technically very impressive.
Agencies like MMRDA have explored all options, taken all factors into consideration and planned ambitious projects, whether it is a sea link or metro rail. The problem is that the pace of development is slow that it is leading to despair,” said Vinayak Chatterjee, chairman and co-founder of infrastructure consultancy firm Feedback Infrastructure.
Shobhaa De, author, columnist and a Mumbai resident, says, “We can’t speak of Mumbai in the same breath as London, Singapore or Dubai! We are resolutely in the Third World. Fifty years behind the others. Even Colombo has better expressways!”
A 2012 study conducted by global consultant Mercer on quality of living in Asia-Pacific ranked Mumbai 134 among 221 cities, Mumbai, however, was ahead of other Indian cities surveyed. But many experts believe other cities are beginning to race ahead.
While Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, and even cities like Ahmedabad and Jaipur are adding new transport infrastructure, several mega projects in Mumbai haven’t moved beyond the blueprints. Some projects like the Rs 2,500-crore Mumbai Metro Line 1, and the Rs 2,500-crore Monorail projects faced hiccups due to delay in environment clearances, relocation of religious structures and issues relating to right of way, are nearing completion now. But the second phase of metro rail, extension of Bandra-Worli Sealink, new routes of monorail, Navi Mumbai international airport and the ambitious Mumbai trans-harbour link project which are critical to reduce the pressure on the city’s existing infrastructure have not taken off.
“Mumbai lacks the political push that’s needed for these projects, while the government and state agencies in other cities are collectively working on clearing logjam on the ground so that they can expedite infrastructure projects,” Chatterjee said.
Metro Line 1 took seven years before trial runs began in May this year. In contrast, Jaipur’s metro project, helped by the Delhi Metro, took only three years.
“It is not easy to build infra projects in Mumbai. The city is very dense. There are issues like litigation that causes delays. These delays have resulted in huge cost escalation and now many problems have been created because of this,” Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan said last month. Indeed, Mumbai has its own problems.
The trans-harbour link project didn’t get any bids as developers had concerns over the financial viability of the project. The second phase of metro faces termination due to disputes between the state and Reliance Infrastructure. “The developer in Metro I project is asking for a major hike in tariff and advertising rights. We are not sure how this will work out. One option is to go into arbitration and the other is to negotiate. If it gets worse, we may think of even taking over the metro project. It is now clear that Mumbai’s Metro II project will not happen now,” Chavan said.
Experts say Mumbai faces a bigger challenge of bureaucracy, land acquisition and approvals than other cities because often there are conflicting views from within the government. A senior executive from an infrastructure conglomerate says, “For the ruling political parties, Mumbai is very strategic and important and often the two parties have different views on infrastructure projects. As a result the project suffers”. Another infrastructure executive says, “Sometimes we wonder if MMRDA and BMC work for the same city!”
The Congress-NCP government, which has ruled Maharashtra for three terms now, have often been at loggerheads over several projects in the past, some of which have eventually been scrapped. For instance, a feud between the NCP-led Public Works Department and the MMRDA and Urban Development department, both of which are led by Congress, has derailed several projects, including the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link, industry executives say.
“Executing a project in a congested city like Mumbai is not easy as we don’t even get the land needed to set up site office and store our construction material. Also, it is very difficult to set up labour camps near the site,” said a senior executive heading a big infrastructure project. “We have even faced problems relating to migrant labours who are now choosing to work in other cities, which are affordable and where they don’t face discrimination.”
But Chavan believes that private players are shying away from projects in Mumbai, primarily because of the “economic slowdown and the lack of confidence among private players…We may be facing a difficult situation for some time to come but it is our attempt to instil a sense of confidence among the private players,” he said. Chatterjee of Feedback Ventures suggests that Mumbai needs to be developed on similar lines as Manhattan, the island city where the business hub is connected to the satellite cities through bridges, rail and road. “Mumbai needs a network of metro, elevated rail and bridges connecting the hinterland to the city so that the population spreads out evenly and eases the pressure on the city’s infrastructure.”
Manhattan or Shanghai may be a distant dream. Given how Mumbai is losing time, it may be left behind other Indian cities if new infrastructure projects don’t move on from blueprints to reality.
Traveling to different developed countries as a teenager, I would be impressed by the roads, airports and continuous power supply available always. Yet, one would long to return to the warmth of our motherland, India. But, the sorry state of the airports, roads and the impending electricity cuts would immediately meet and greet me. These would make one hope fervently that our India be better than the best when it came to physical infrastructure, too.
Over the years, except for some pockets and cities, our country is still far from even being as good as the rest. We are still grappling with the challenges of urbanisation and the related issues of roads, airports, electricity and water, among others.
Traditionally, world over, the public sector has dealt with infrastructure projects. Since 2000, however, these are increasingly implemented in the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode with debt and equity. A profit-seeking private sector is believed to be more efficient, cost conscious, customer-focused, delivers faster and brings better value for money and enhanced innovations.
This augments the often constrained state budget too and government can get things done without having to raise taxes or issue bonds.
Interestingly, history tells us that the first railway line in India, as also many other lines, was actually built in a PPP mode. The 30-km-long Bombay to Thane railway line was built in 1849 by the Great India Peninsula Railway Company!
Today, studies show that infra-investment leads to a one-for-one percentage increase in GDP.
Clearly, inadequate infrastructure hinders economic growth. India’s infrastructure forecasts an investment need of a trillion dollars from 2012 to 2017.
Way back in 2001, I remember zipping through the squeaky new Vadodara-Halol toll road, which really felt like a driver’s paradise! Over the years, toll roads have made travel easier and pleasant, saving precious time. Yet, some questions were doing the rounds in my mind. Would these tolls further alienate the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’? Would world-class infrastructure ‘take a toll’ on the economically disadvantaged sections, further accentuating the gap?
Last week, I had participated in a case study session on the brown-field project of refurbishing the Mumbai airport. One understood the serious challenges & risks encountered and the many innovative ways in which the project was designed and built. A state-of-the-art airport, this has been ranked as the third top airport of the world. During the discussions, there was a ‘voila’ moment! I realized that the major revenue would be from the non-core or the non-aero sector.
This includes restaurants, hotels and shops in the airport.
Only about 30% of the revenue would be from user charges, which would be regulated. This win-win proposition answered my knotty concerns, ensuring low, regulated user charges yet providing excellent facilities for all!
More and more infra projects in the PPP mode would also mean greater awareness for sustainable, eco-friendly designs with sufficient concerns for the social dimensions.
Each time we pay a toll, turn on a switch or enter an airport, let us pause and reflect. Let us bridge the 1 trillion dollar infrastructure gap across the coming five years and empower the 1.2 billion aspiring Indians. Infrastructure that boosts the quality of life, productivity and economy of our nation would make India a special paradise on earth.
“There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.” Mark Zuckerberg
The author is a Harvard educated civil servant and writer, now working in the education sector
— Prof. B.B. Pandey, Advisor – Sponsored Research and Industrial consultancy, IIT Kharagpur
Dr. B.B. Pandey, who has been associated with IIT Kharagpur since 1964, has developed a new technology for maintenance-free rural roads using recycled plastic and an ‘in-vehicle falling weight Deflectometer’ for evaluation of strength of Highways. In this interview with Lalitha Rao, he discusses the state of roads and highways in India and how technology can improve their quality and durability.
Are you satisfied with the current technology used in Indian road construction?
The technology used in India is almost the same as that practiced in developed countries. Many roads in India are constructed without any regard to the quality. Most road builders do not know or do not want to know the finer points of road construction.
Quality control is sacrificed in India in most roads. In USA, quality control tests are done both in contractors’ as well as the government’s laboratory and if the two results are in agreement, the work is accepted. Government’s laboratories in USA have state-of-the-art equipment and laboratory staff appears to be very knowledgeable, as found during my interactions with them.
Our government laboratories in different states are ill equipped and few have the expertise and familiarity with complex nature of tests that are needed for quality control even though the project cost is very high. That is one of the reasons that many of our state and district roads are damaged within two years of the construction as against minimum of five to 10 years of maintenance-free life for a newly constructed road surface in Europe and USA.
There is much hue and cry about the fixing of IPL matches, but there is hardly any commotion when a new road fails in India. Nobody is held accountable. There is no enquiry also.
In spite of having national standards, why does the quality of national highways differ from state to state?
Leaving aside tolled four- and six-lane national highways built and maintained by private concessionaires to an acceptable standard, other national highways passing through different states are looked after by the respective states. Level of expertise varies greatly from state to state and engineers in some states are a little more knowledgeable. No record of performance of roads is maintained and little effort is made to try different methods to get rid of recurring defects that develop during the service. Hardly new trials are made to develop better specifications. There are a few individuals in every state who are knowledgeable and they have a burning desire to do a good job given the freedom by the seniors in the government organisations.
Different states in India have different climate but practically the same specifications are adopted all over India. This is one of the reasons for widely different performance in different states. Performance of highways is continuously monitored in USA, in different states, and every state amends standards from time to time in light of the performance to suit the local climate. A large amount of fund is set aside by state governments in USA for practical research by universities so that students and faculty can actively participate in the solution of practical problems. Similar is the setup in other countries.
Such a system does not exist in India presently. Hopefully, things will change when right thinking daring officers take charge of the affairs of road infrastructure.
In a tropical country like India, which would you prefer – bituminous roads or concrete roads?
Both cement and bitumen industries employ lakhs and lakhs of people and both forms of roads have to be constructed. Properly built concrete roads are very durable though the initial cost is high. In localities where drainage is poor, bituminous roads get damaged in a short time while concrete roads survive. Bituminous roads are comfortable to drive due to much lower sound while a concrete road is very noisy. Drivers prefer well-made bituminous pavements
You have done research on maintenance-free rural roads using recycled plastic. Can you tell us more about it?
The technology consists of placing a formwork of cells of plastic strips over compacted soil, filling up the cells with concrete and compacting it with a plate vibrator. Alternatively, the cells are filled up with single size stone chips, compacted with a road roller and cement-sand-water slurry is applied over the compacted stone chips. The slurry fills up the void space between stone chips. Upon curing with water, a very strong road is formed which is practically maintenance free, the construction is labour intensive and local villagers are to be involved in cell making.
The technology was used about five years back in Karnataka, at Doddaballapur under Swarn Gram Yojana of the Panchayat Raj Engineering Department, Government of Karnataka. The technology was transferred to engineers of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar. A road was constructed by IIT Kharagpur about eight years back in a village 10 km away and the road is still in good condition with zero maintenance. The cost was 50 per cent of a conventional road. Mizoram is going to adopt the technology in a big way.
What solutions do you have for potholed roads in the metros?A simple technique is now available for pothole repair in a short time. The area around the pothole is heated with LPG, the material is taken out, fresh bitumen is added to the same material along with some new aggregates, and the pothole area is refilled with hot bituminous mix and compacted. The pothole problem is thus fixed. Even when the road is wet, this method can be applied in metros. Cold bituminous mix using cut back or bitumen emulsion can be applied over other roads in dry periods.
Key problems and solutions
Education
If one wants to destabilise a country, destroy its educational system. Our educational system is in shambles. Even in IITs, the students coming from better families lack ethics. Possibly, schools do not teach character building so that students take to righteous path in future. Masses do not have access to education. Lack of education and extreme poverty are root cause of many ills of rural society. They become victims of unsocial elements and commit crimes for a small reward. A good education is a must if we want to develop into a civilised society.
Our school education should emphasise on character building. Teachers have to be paid very high salaries. Unless there is missionary zeal on the part of all involved with flowering boys and girls, we cannot produce great souls in numbers. Teachers should demonstrate, by examples, different scientific experiments in the elementary class itself to generate curiosity in students at an early age. I was fortunate to have been taught science by a teacher in a very average school in Patna who demonstrated scientific experiments in class VIII in 1951. Nowadays it is not happening in most schools.
Research:
Barring a few exceptions, the aim of most research in academics is to get doctorate degrees and paper publications in order to get quick promotion for the faculty and a good job for the scholar .Most of the problems are theory based and scholars do get good training. Good investment in the form of scholarship and some additional grant is made in research in science and technology but the outcome is a doctorate thesis and published papers. The country does not benefit directly in terms of new products capable of generating wealth for the country. The Chinese are able to produce wealth because of their focus on applied research. We are not doing much because of lack of direction on the part of funding or user organisations.
Good amount of funds should be spent in time bound basic and applied research with positive outcome in mind so that the country becomes rich. Our import bill is too high compared to export. Now we are buying plenty of equipment from China in spite of having a large number of technical and scientific manpower.
Talent:
India is not living up to its potential. There is plenty of talent in India. When a scientist goes to US or Europe, he does wonders. We are unable to use our talent. IIT graduates as well as those from NITs and other toppers in science and technology in different universities possess enough brain power and have the capability to lead the country in science and technology but they end up in marketing, banking, management because of attraction of money and glare. Many others who do not get prestigious jobs like those in civil services or paying jobs in private sector end up in research and teaching. It is not difficult to guess why DRDO is not able to produce quality tanks and other gadgets for warfare. Developed countries including China have gone far ahead in this direction. My laboratory, also, has purchased Chinese equipment and it is working fine.
Law enforcement:
Law enforcement is practically nil. Only a fraction of the cases come under the net of the law enforcing agency. Overloading on trucks on roads is to be regulated by motor vehicle department but it is not done in spite of Supreme Court’s directive for the enforcement of the law of the land regarding legal axle load limits of trucks. Roads are damaged in a short time. Huge sum of money invested in the road is lost.
Government policy:
Our policy is good, but its implementation has to be done very strictly. Senior students of schools/and colleges may be involved in a big way in developmental programmes of the government in rural areas, since they are still free from many vices. This sort of activity can be a part of the curriculum. Bookish knowledge alone without any purpose is ruining us.
Farm production:
Agriculture production is not showing much growth. Agricultural research is not making a wide impact. Some areas in Bihar which I visited show very low yield. Huge amount of groundwater is wasted in irrigation. Year after year, increasing amount of fertilisers is being used to maintain the yield. Quality of groundwater is going to be effected. Many areas on the banks of the Ganga in Bhojpur district of Bihar have underground water polluted with arsenic.
Tell us about your invention – weight deflectometer?
Falling Weight deflectometer (FWD) is not my invention. I developed one with the help of students after working on it over a period of six years. Its price in the international market is too high to be affordable by most consultancy and government organisation. The equipment consists of applying an impact load on a road and the deformed profile of the measured. From the impact load and the deformed profile, different layers of a road can be evaluated for its strength without damaging the road. The technology of FWD was transferred to an Indian company who has started manufacturing and selling at 25 per cent of the price of the imported equipment.
So, where does India stand today? Which direction is it headed?
Add to the above answers touching on these issues, the economic slowdown worldwide, on one hand, and subdued market sentiment, lack of political will, policy and reform paralysis, and infrastructure stagnation in India, on the other.
NEW DELHI: In order to make freight movement seamless on the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), railways have undertaken steps for eliminating 27 level crossings along the 625 km long route between Rewari and Iqbalgarh.
While 22 road overbridges (ROB) and road underbridges (RUB) will come up in Rajasthan, five will be constructed in Haryana to do away with level crossings in the 625 km route, which is part of Western DFC.
“Rajasthan government has agreed to share the cost of construction of 22 road overbridges and road underbridges. We are having a discussion with Haryana government for working out details for eliminating level crossings on the DFC route,” said a senior Dedicated Frieght Corridor Corporation (DFCC) official.
DFCC had recently awarded a contract of approximately Rs 6700 cr to an international consortium of Sojitz-L&T for constructing 625 km long corridor between Rewari to Ikbalgarh.
DFC is to be commissioned without any level crossings along the route to make it faster and seamless movement of freight trains.
The construction of the ROB and RUB on the DFC route has to be shared equally between state government and railways.
Managing Director of DFCC R K Gupta had reviewed the arrangement for shifting utilities coming in the way of alignment of the DFC project.
The Western DFC project is likely to be completed by 2017 and expected to create multiple opportunities in industrial and transportation sector.
The last three years have been remarkable for Indian road infrastructure: projects of 15,000 km were awarded during 2010-13. Yet, there is a huge task ahead. A decade ago, the bulk of the programme was done via the public funding route, today, 90% of highway development is undertaken via public-private partnership (PPP): on a design, build, finance and operate basis, where the private sector is involved in the entire project life cycle and shares commercial risks.
Surprisingly, many bids received did not ask for viability-gap funding and, instead, went for a hefty premium. While such flamboyant bids were a recognition of the unforeseen and untapped multiplier and induction effects of highways networking, they underlined the importance of private funding and effective implementation of contracts.
Some of the most strategically important cities of India are being connected now: for instance, Ahmedabad-Vadodara and Kishangarh-Udaipur-Ahmedabad would connect with Delhi-Jaipur-Ajmer-Kishangarh-Mumbai-Surat-Vadodara to complete the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. Similarly, Gwalior-Shivpuri and Shivpuri-Dewas would fill critical links for another alternate corridor connecting Delhi and Mumbai via commercial Indore. Similarly, Amravati-Jalgaon-Dhule would help connect Hazira port in Gujarat to Paradip port in Odisha and eventually mirror the East-West corridor along India’s economic hinterland of Gujarat and Maharashtra all the way to Kolkata.
But when the economy hits a speed breaker, the projected network externalities appear exaggerated and committed financiers pull back. When a single project languishes, it has a domino effect on all others whose viability suddenly becomes suspect. In normal times, there are challenges of financing because of an asset-liability mismatch and exhaustion of exposure limits of banks. Today, highway development requires stronger commitment to tide over wavering macro fundamentals. Besides, there are many roads of low-commercial viability in economically-backward areas that can only be undertaken through public funding.
But the most critical challenge today is on the implementation side. The National Highways Authority of India is overloaded and focused largely on award of projects. Contract management and oversight to ensure quality construction, maintenance and completion has taken a backseat under the PPP model. The private sector faces a dearth of managerial resources that can competently handle complex issues involved in coordinating with a multiplicity of governmental and local agencies.
While PPP models are useful to support fiscal constraints, they are not perfect panaceas. The government cannot afford to depend on the efficiency of the PPP developer. The former needs to nudge, cajole and guide the concessionaire and work with him to make him fulfil his commitment without compromising on standards, quality and timeliness. The regulatory capture of the independent engineer is a reality that cannot be ignored and discounted.
Further, the involvement of state governments has been missing despite their key role in facilitating acquisition of land, shifting of utilities and providing security and encroachment-free passage for uninterrupted right of way. States, along with their city governments, need to build their own connectivity corridors and spruce up main district roads and municipal roads by adopting innovative methodologies that leverage land and development rights. States should establish Road Development Corporations and vest them with adequate authority and resources. Having the chief minister as the chairman and the chief secretary as the vice-chairman, a model adopted in Madhya Pradesh in early 2004, will ensure highway development gets strategic support.
The challenge is speedy award of remaining highways and effective implementation of already awarded ones. Development of high-speed corridors between important urban centres and specialised connectivity projects is the need of the hour. It is not enough just to have a highway that connects two important points.
When commercial competitiveness is defined by the speed and reduced cost of transaction, it is imperative to have safe access-controlled travel and effective last-mile connectivity.
(The writer is an IAS officer. Views are personal)
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN – On our way to the nearest tram stop, my husband and I pass a clay tennis court. Earlier, from the open window of our Airbnb-arranged apartment, I heard the grunting of players and pinging of the ball. As we walk by, I look up and notice a sign showing a hand holding two golden orbs, with a road in the background. My first reaction is that the sign offers some warning about errant balls crossing the road. Days later, as I sit down with University of Gothenburg professors Anna Nagurney and Jonas Floden, I learn that this sign is not about tennis, it’s about carbon dioxide.The two orbs actually represent coins, while the street in the background depicts arterial roads that ring this city of 510,000. The sign tells drivers they are about to pass under a camera that will capture their license plate numbers and charge them anywhere from 8 to 18 Swedish Kroner (roughly $1.25 to $2.79) each time they pass. (The charge applies only to cars registered in Sweden, and only on weekdays, between 6 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.)
The city launched congestion pricing on Jan. 1, after bolstering its bus and other public transit systems to accommodate what city officials expected to be a flood of new riders. The goals are to reduce carbon emissions from transportation, unclog traffic snarls during the morning and afternoon rush hours, and fund major, long-overdue transportation infrastructure projects. By Jan. 10, traffic in the city center had plummeted by 25 percent. In late May, however, traffic was down by less than that: only 14 percent compared to the same time period in 2012.
Not all drivers have abandoned their cars as a result of the congestion pricing, but many have switched to public transit for daily commuting, and others drive into the city outside of enforcement hours, Floden says.
“You can feel it and you can see it,” adds Nagurney, referring to the traffic reductions in Gothenburg since the program launched. She is a professor of operational management at the Isenberg School of Management at University of Massachusetts, on sabbatical at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg. Floden heads the school’s industrial management and logistics group.
“Gothenburg is continuing to grow, and cars are a major source of carbon emissions,” Floden says.
The congestion pricing program sits aside the city’s other programs to reduce air pollution. The Port of Gothenburg aims to become carbon-neutral by 2015, through a number of incentive programs such as paying shipping companies that use clean fuel. The city’s transit system also plans to start testing electric buses made by hometown manufacturer Volvo.
The congestion pricing program’s short-term intent is to raise funds for a large infrastructure project designed to improve public transit and regional train service. When I ask a young, fresh-faced greeter at the city’s transit information center if the system was set up so drivers are paying for the transit improvements, while transit users will gain all the benefits — more trains, shorter trips, fewer transfers, a new central station — without having to pay anything extra, she responds, “Yes, of course.”
“We need to get people to stop driving, or at least driving during busy hours,” she says, matter-of-factly. “And we need new infrastructure.”
Actually, the national government is footing half of the construction bills, but the rest must come from Gothenburg. Not all locals are happy with the high cost of driving as a result; a referendum has been introduced to reverse the congestion-pricing scheme. But even if the legislation gets enough votes to pass, Floden does not see how the city could actually halt the program, because ground is already being broken and the money already being spent.
Gothenburg is the third fourth European city to launch congestion pricing, following London, Stockholm and Milan. Its structure is patterned after Stockholm’s system, which has cut vehicular traffic in that city by 20 percent, while boosting use of public transit during peak hours by an impressive 78 percent.
A Gothenburg tram shelter, amid low traffic.
Some Asian cities are considering congestion pricing, and some prohibit drivers from driving every day — to cut down on congestion and smog, they’re beholden to enter roads on alternating days. Due to horrible air quality, the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang will enact a lottery to allow car ownership to just a portion of its citizens. Singapore also uses congestion pricing, but in a cruel twist, it is still seeing record-breaking air pollution, which is blamed on farmers burning fields in neighboring Sumatra.
A number of U.S. cities, including New York and San Francisco, have considered congestion pricing, but thus far have lacked the wide support to introduce it. With cameras that can quickly read license plates, the infrastructure to deploy congestion pricing is pretty simple and the pay-off, as Stockholm has shown, can be significant. Nagurney, for one, is somewhat optimistic that American cities will come around. “I think it might happen,” she says.
(Images: Top by mikecogh/Flickr; others by Mary Catherine O’Connor)
IL&FS Rail (a subsidiary of Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services) awarded an approximately Rs 574 crore worth of turnkey project to a consortium of Siemens, Siemens AG and Siemens, China.
The consortium secured the contract, which is valued at about 70 million euros. The consortium is responsible for extension of the Gurgaon metro line with a new 7 km southern line. The line will add six stations in south-east Gurgaon.
Of the order, the share of Siemens is about 30 per cent or Rs 184.1 crore. However, the share of Siemens AG and Siemens, China is not known.
Siemens would deliver seven aluminium-bodied metro trains for the new section of the Gurgaon line. The trains are to run on standard-gauge track at a top speed of about 80 km/h.
The modern signalling and train control system that will ensure required service interval of 120 seconds is achieved during rush-hour traffic. This short headway will enable the metro trains to transport more than 30,000 passengers per hour.
The Gurgaon metro project is a first of its kind in India; the first phase is close to completion. The new southern line of the metro rail link from Sikanderpur station to Sector 56, Gurgaon, will bring respite to the numerous people travelling to the various office complexes and residential areas in this area.
Urban planners in China face a daunting task: they must create mass transportation systems that can handle unprecedented numbers of new urban inhabitants. It is expected that by the year 2015, more rural Chinese will move to their nation’s largest cities than the entire population of the United States,And at the same time, city planners must reduce China’s suffocating traffic and record-setting greenhouse gas emissions while saving money and construction time. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to impress the rest of the world with cutting-edge technology.
The Straddling Bus solution
To meet all of these urban mobility challenges, Youzhou Song developed the 3D Express Coach (nicknamed the “Straddling Bus”). The main compartment of these straddling buses is raised 4.5 meters off the ground and then the bus’s legs extend down to the road effectively straddling two lanes of traffic. As China’s middle class grows and her cities expand, cars have become the main status symbol and have clogged the roads. The straddling buses are designed to fill in the only remaining empty space: the space between the tops of the cars and the bottoms of the overpasses. The unique design allows cars to drive right underneath the elevated bus when it drives too slowly or when it stops to pick up passengers.
One new straddling bus with a capacity of 1200 to 1400 passengers could replace 40 traditional buses. The straddling buses are projected to not only reduce traffic by 20 to 30%, but also to save 2,640 tons of carbon emissions per year, since the straddling buses are completely battery powered. Furthermore, manufacturing the straddling buses and preparing the roadways cost one-tenth the price of building a new underground line and it can be completed in one-third of the time.
But all is not perfect
Although the straddling bus was met with widespread acclaim and named one of the top fifty inventions of the year by Time Magazine when the concept was first introduced in 2010 the concept of the straddling bus has now staled. The new buses were supposed to begin a trial run in 2010 in the Beijing district of Mentougou, but the district authorities refused to sign on until the prototype was proven successful. Critics of the straddling bus argue that the perfectly straight roads required for the buses could only be built in new areas and could not function in the already highly populated areas. They also stress that the straddling buses will just confuse drivers consequently increasing congestion. Furthermore, the gigantic overhead boarding areas cannot easily be constructed in densely populated areas. Finally, they recognize that the straddling bus is an innovative design project, but conclude that it cannot function in reality.
Consequences for urban and business mobility
espite these setbacks and criticisms the straddling bus is not yet defunct; the city of Manaus, Brazil has signed a letter of intent with the Chinese developers to create a straddling bus system. Such a practical application of the straddling bus will go a long way in determining the feasibility of such a daring proposal.
But more importantly, the concept behind the straddling bus should hopefully change the conversation in more transportation authority board rooms: while many cities’ transportation plans attempt to expand public transportation while limiting and discouraging private means, the straddling bus is built to integrate and improve both public and private systems. So, instead of merely trying to eliminate private transportation means like personal cars, maybe innovations should focus on harmonizing and improving both private and public transportation systems.
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN – On our way to the nearest tram stop, my husband and I pass a clay tennis court. Earlier, from the open window of our Airbnb-arranged apartment, I heard the grunting of players and pinging of the ball. As we walk by, I look up and notice a sign showing a hand holding two golden orbs, with a road in the background. My first reaction is that the sign offers some warning about errant balls crossing the road. Days later, as I sit down with University of Gothenburg professors Anna Nagurney and Jonas Floden, I learn that this sign is not about tennis, it’s about carbon dioxide.
The two orbs actually represent coins, while the street in the background depicts arterial roads that ring this city of 510,000. The sign tells drivers they are about to pass under a camera that will capture their license plate numbers and charge them anywhere from 8 to 18 Swedish Kroner (roughly $1.25 to $2.79) each time they pass. (The charge applies only to cars registered in Sweden, and only on weekdays, between 6 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.)
