The modern thinking Indian

People who drive in Delhi know the current bad case of Delhi's traffic obeying drivers - there is not a single rule that you can expect drivers or pedestrians to obey; whether this means stopping before the zebra crossing, no talking on the mobile when driving, no drunken driving, stopping at the red light and only crossing on the green, driving the wrong way, giving way to elderly people, and so on. All of these are meant to be broken, and are often broken down.
And why could they do this with impunity ? Well, because say for example, the fine for jumping a red light is only Rs. 100, so most people would calculate the chance of getting caught, or even of having to pay the fine, and they would be fine with doing so. After all, there is only so much that a Rs. 100 is worth nowadays; and mind you, this is only when you actually get caught.
In a classic case of why the judiciary starts to take on policy making powers, the Government dithered this way and that, and did nothing to make fines steeper so that people feel the pinch of the fine and are more careful the next time (as an example, friends who are caught speeding in the United States and have had to pay upwards of Dollars 150 as a fine are very careful from that time onwards; and trust me, in Singapore, you don't want to be caught speeding). No action at all from the side of the Government, till one fine day, the High Court added a minimum of Rs. 500 to every fine, so that even jumping a red light would charge at least Rs. 600. However, this is now a thing of the past:

Red light jumping, the most common violation for which motorists are challaned in the Capital, would cost you Rs 100 and not Rs 600 as the Supreme Court has put back the old penalty system for on-the-spot compounding of traffic offences. The Supreme Court has stayed the March 2007 judgment of the Delhi High Court directing the traffic police to slap an additional Rs 500 fine, over and above the existing penalty, on motorists violating traffic rules.
Though legal experts were unanimous in siding with the apex court's decision to stay the HC order, they also said that the present penalty system for traffic violations was very less and wanted the government to immediately take up measures to revise the amount of fine for the violations. "Otherwise, there would be a definite spurt in traffic violations, especially red light jumping which attract a penalty of Rs 100," they said.

The Supreme Court judgment was correct on legal grounds, even though it does increase the scope for traffic problems in New Delhi. The High Court does not have the power to increase fines, this is a pure policy issue that needs to be handled by the Government, and in my opinion, this is a correct judgment. Of course, the Government does not seem to have this problem of changing the fine structure to be a good deterrence. One wonders what would could move the Government to take steps in this direction.

Labels: Court, Policy, Punishment, Reform, Road, Traffic

The Delhi Traffic Police must be feeling vindicated. For the many months now in which the BRT corridor design and construction has been in progress, they have opposed the whole concept of segregating special lanes as a non-workable concept given the volume of traffic and the tendency of Delhi's drivers to ignore the needed discipline as something not applicable on them.
The Government and experts have been advocating a dedicated bus corridor as has been used in many cities around the world, but have always ignored advice about adapting the corridor to local conditions. The result has been there for all to see; the difficulty is that there needs to be encouragement for having more buses and other mass public transport on the road. So now the bus corridor conditions have been sought to be changed for the extensions:

The changed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) design, designated Pilot B, that's now being proposed between Moolchand and Delhi Gate, is in effect only a thinly veiled version of the existing pattern of traffic flow on all roads in the Capital. Under Pilot B, which will be implemented between Moolchand and Delhi Gate, it is being proposed that buses would ply on the extreme left, next to the footpath and cycle track. There will be no concrete medians segregating the bus lane from the MV lanes, which will now have three lanes for other traffic. The road space for buses will be painted.
‘‘What the government is doing is reverting back to the existing system. So how is it then a corridor for buses? Maintaining discipline on the corridor will be next to impossible, considering the fact that even on a corridor with concrete dividers, vehicles go over them to enter the bus lanes,'' said an official.

And the Government is currently proposing that the existing corridor between Moolchand and Ambedkar Nagar remains as it is, in a chaotic condition. Everything that the Government has done so far has been unable to solve the traffic problems (in fact, any reduction in traffic happens only when people start avoiding the corridor). Does this actually mean that the Delhi Government has given up the concept of a BRT kind of system ?

Labels: Governance, Law, Reform, Responsibility, Road, Traffic

Drunk driving is a problem the world over. There are many countries that have tackled this in a very effective manner, through a combination of education and enforcement. It is a given that in countries such as Singapore, and in many parts of the Unites States, if you are detected driving drunk, then you are in for some jail time, with the possibility of your license getting affected in many countries around the world. Such practices have helped in making people more careful about driving when drunk, and reduced the levels of accidents as well.
However, in India, neither the level of education, nor of enforcement is prevalent. Drunk driving is very prevalent in our society, and a lot of that can be blamed on our belief that laws are not applicable on us individually. The other major reason driving this belief is the lax enforcement of laws and hence people would never have seen anybody convicted for drunk driving. However, in small ways, this is set to change. Mumbai has seen a major drive against drunk driving, and even Delhi police from time to time act against drunk drivers. Here is what Chennai police did:

Even before the Union government has accepted the recommendations of Parliament’s standing committee to act tough with drunken drivers, Chennai police has decided to get tougher. It is seriously thinking of producing such drivers in courts of law and get them imprisonment. The city traffic police has definitely has booked nearly 5,000 persons for drunken driving in four months. In 2007, they had booked 9,860 persons for drunken driving.
Drunken driving has been one of the major causes of road accidents. To make roads safer in the night, the traffic police has decided to keep traffic signals operational round the clock in some major points in the city. "For the first time, we are going to have round the clock traffic regulation in places like EVR Salai, Anna Salai, 100 feet road and Madhya Kailash junction. We will be monitoring the traffic here during late night hours and violators will be punished severely," Sunil Kumar said. He said drunken driving happen across the city and there were no specific points where they book more cases. "You get to book such cases everywhere in the city. The more we check, the more cases we book," he said.

In the end, education is important, but enforcement is all the more important. How many people have relatives in the US ? It would be good to ask them about drinking and driving, and you will find that people over there are terrified of doing that; there is a good chance that you will get to spend the night in jail and pushed before a judge in the morning. This applies even to important people and celebrities.

Labels: Law, Punishment, Responsibility, Road, Traffic

The Times of India is really playing this story to the hilt. Refer this article:

The BRT corridor has gone bust. Yes, that's the resounding message from two days of chaotic trials on the Ambedkar Nagar-Moolchand stretch. What else can explain the decision of a panicky government to let in taxis and autos into the corridor dedicated to buses! If the BRT architects are willing to jettison lane segregation, then the corridor - on which about Rs 100 crore has already been spent - is as good as dead.

When the Government of Delhi started thinking of becoming serious about the scheme to implement a dedicated corridor for buses, there were mixed opinions. The concept of creating a special corridor for buses so that they can move smoothly and carry a large number of passengers sounded good; after all, many countries have such corridors and they seem to have worked. Then the Government said that the corridor will go upto Old Delhi and there were some worries - anybody who has traveled to Old Delhi areas such as Daryanganj, Chandni Chowk and the Red Fort would wonder about where would they find space on the road to create a dedicated corridor. But this was supposed to be the second leg, and the first leg would be from the comparatively wider section from Ambedkar Nagar to Moolchand, a section of road that is an important road for that region and is somewhat wide.
Okay, maybe this should work. However, there are certain things that such a project should follow, and just copying a concept from somewhere else would not work:
1. Need to explain such a radical plan to the people affected, and get some buy-in
2. Proper execution of the project including step by step work to minimize inconvenience to people
3. Enforcement of discipline
4. Proper feedback and rectification of problems
None of these are outlandish demands, all valid points for any project execution. Now let us see how the Government went about these:
1. Explanations: It was explained as to what the plan is through some media reports. There was no attempt to hold some public explanations, question and answer sessions, or other issues. Education of people is NIL - so bus drivers drive as they normally do without caring to stop at the required places, cars and other vehicles do not know which lane to go into. It is easy to blame bad driving, but a project needs to cater to the current situation, and not try to blame people for not behaving ideally.
2. Proper execution ? Could not be more problematic. Sections of the road would be blocked off when there was no work ongoing, dividers and material would be lying here and there, and unfortunately, these resulted in accidents that killed motorists.
3. Enforcement of discipline. Drivers in Delhi are known for their rash driving and inability to follow traffic rules. Generally, the enforcement of traffic rules is lax, and the same seemed to happen over here. People ignore traffic marshals who have no power and no time to spend enforcing rules, and jump from one lane to another since the dividers allow them to do so, and there is no fear of any fines.
4. Feedback: The traffic police had already been against this proposal, but they were not listened to. The media and other such services have been criticizing the bad execution, lack of education and bad planning, and yet the only reaction has been to criticize the critics as elitists who move in cars and do not know about buses. Maybe this was a socialist campaign to get more people into public transport, but that happens through inducements, not through scaring car users so much that they move into the bus system.
So far, the trial run has been a disaster, and the pointed out culprits are bad drivers, Blueline buses, bad lane changers, improper discipline, lazy traffic policemen, and everybody else. It is not that the Delhi Government and the whole of babudom has been arrogant in trying to implement a solution picked from elsewhere without trying to customize it to local requirements, without ensuring that discipline is enforced and the users are all educated. One can only hope that the situation gets better, but currently the situation is likely to remain in panic mode.

Labels: Congress, Governance, Responsibility, Road, Traffic

Delhi has faced traffic problems for quite some time. At some point, the Government, no doubt impressed by the discipline of multi-lane traffic that it sees in some cities around the world, decided to adopt the idea proposed by some IIT professors, and announced a grand plan to split roads so that a dedicated bus corridor could be built. For people who are familiar with this route, the proposal was to create a corridor through one of the most heavy traffic routes, from Ambedkar Nagar to the Red Fort. This was a plan that was, after some hesitation, accepted by the Delhi Government of Sheila Dixit, no doubt enthused by the prospect of creating a revolutionary new traffic scheme in Delhi.
For such a radical scheme, one would expect that the Traffic Police would have been very enthusiastic, however, the Traffic Police have always been against this entire proposal. What the planners were trying to create was to separate the traffic into 3 lanes, one dedicated for buses, one cycle and slow moving lane, and one lane for normal traffic (cars, etc). Ignoring the fact that the road gets narrow in parts, and that the amount of traffic would over-whelm such narrow lanes, the Government has faced intense criticism, and yet had turned a closed ear to all such criticism.
The whole construction phase had been marred by shoddy project management; with improper markings, constructions material left here and there, no staff to warn users, etc. People have been killed on this stretch due to material left on the road.
And yet the Government wanted to enhance the plan to make 6 new corridors, and after initially announcing that there would be a wait to see the experience of the first corridor, the Government announced that it would no longer wait, and start work instead. It is only now that there is a level of worry setting in as to how this new corridor would work, and an inquiry by a Parliamentary panel is bound to increase the worry:

With a stubborn government going ahead with the Bus Rapid Transport system, disregarding growing unrest against the project, a parliamentary panel has stepped in to put tough questions to patrons of the controversial plan.
This acquires significance because the BRT-obsessed planners cannot shrug off the Marxist MP's comment as elitist and pro-rich, their standard refrain in response to calls for a fresh scrutiny of the project which has wreaked havoc on busy south Delhi arteries. Yechury also refused to buy the line of BRT managers and the Delhi government that the huge inconvenience to people because of traffic disruptions was the price the city had to pay for a better public transport system.
The BRT advocates have, invoking the class warfare narrative of the 60s, made light of the problems facing users of private vehicles on the BRT corridor, saying these could, in fact, help decongest city roads by prodding people to switch to public transport.

The BRT corridor project has showed how arrogant the Government can be, totally disregarding a large amount of expert opinion, and inflicting immense hardship on the city's commuters. Users have in the past, as for the metro project, taken such hardships in their stride, but not for the BRT project. The Government has not been able to convince the traveling public of the utility of this project, and one feels, not even tried.

Labels: Responsibility, Review, Road, Traffic

The Indian Railways has shown a major turnaround in the recent past, with having turned around from having huge losses to starting to show profit. Given the size of the Indian railways, the turnaround is a big plus for the finances of the Indian Government, and has lead to a tremendous positive news for the Railways Minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav, especially after his Government in Bihar and then the Government run by his wife dragged Bihar down into the depths of bad rule and non-development.
Because of the way that Indian Railways is designed in the country, (similar for most countries with some sort of rail systems, especially one that goes to every nook and corner of the country), rail tracks run throughout the breadth and width of the country. In India especially, given the history of the rail system development where the Railways is more than 150 years old, the Railways runs through a large variety of urban and rural areas. These intersect with major and minor roads.
These intersections are the areas where the majority of accidents happen. There are 3 types of crossings happen. The crossings where either the road traffic passes overhead or where the train track passes overhead. These are very safe, and there is no risk for road users. The next are the manned crossings where a railway employee will get notice of a train approaching, and accordingly lower the barriers when the train is about to cross. Here there are chances of accidents as most people are impatient, and will either try to run across or squeeze under the barrier. And then the most unsafe type of crossing is where there is no barrier and no employee to control traffic. The majority of accidents happen here.
These are the types of crossings that the Railways are being pressurised to man, and these are the ones that the Railways are resisting due to a claim of paucity of funds:

The fund crunch cited by the Railway Ministry to express its inability to man all unmanned level crossings drew a sarcastic response from the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
"On one hand you take a lot of credit for posting an impressive Rs 20,000 crore profit and on the other you say you do not have funds," remarked a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishanan and Justices R V Raveendran and Dalveer Bhandari. It is a matter of concern that 73% of accidents concerning railways take place at unmanned level crossings, the Bench said wanting the railway ministry to take some urgent measures.

The real reasons seems to be the Railways seem to have made a balance between the benefits of manning these crossings and the cost required. The Railways has very ambitious targets regarding building up of a freight corridor and getting more trains as well as prestigious bullet trains. And what is involved if they don't do something about these unmanned crossings ? Nothing much, the current level of fatalities that are happening will continue to happen. In this matter, as long as the Railways can suggest a measure, they should be allowed to do so, but to leave the matter as is is not a solution.

Labels: Court, Governance, India, Railways, Road, Security, Welfare

This is a mess that is entirely of its own making. Everybody knows that the transport situation in Delhi has been a problem, and given the way that the Capital's population is growing, things are only going to get worse unless some radical steps are taken. And the answer from Delhi's popular Chief Minister, Shiela Dixit over the years? The Government has systematically crippled the Delhi Transport Corporation, letting its bus service deteriorate and basically formulating policies that have let private operators take the lead in running buses on the street.
It is only for the past 1-2 months that this entire mess of Blueline buses has taken hold, but even before that, they and their predecessor, the Redline buses, were known as killer buses. The Government is supposed to be a regulator, and if you take a simple instance of speed governors on these private buses, a special drive had to be launched to make sure that these buses had speed governors installed. Is it not that these buses need to be periodically inspected for safety and for compliance with rules, or is it that the Government looks the other way while the inspectors make money from the bus owners in return for giving them a pass certificate.
Read more »

Labels: Congress, Corruption, Development, Governance, Police, Reform, Road, Traffic, Transport

The Delhi-Hardwar highway is a fairly narrow highway in most sections, and with religious traffic, it can get very crowded nowadays. As part of National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) plans, there is a contract out to improve the highway; when I say improve, it essentially means widening the highway. This is a very good thing as it will decrease the time taken for travel, will reduce traffic congestion and avoid the jams that seem to pop up on the highway frequently. In addition, with the industrialization of the belt around Haridwar, it will help industry tremendously by reducing the time taken for transit of inputs and finished items.
So I was traveling along the highway, it was fairly congested, and was just thinking of the time that would be reduced in transit the next time. Seemed like a fairly win-win situation, and it may even be good for the environment, since the travel would be more effective, less fuel wastage, less need to replace tyres, and so on. And then I saw the casualty of the entire exercise, at least for the short term. The environment.
This was the first time that I had seen the clearance of the sides of a road passing through the countryside. For those who are unable to picturise it, think of a road with trees and foilage on either side, and then there are the farm lands. The land just next to the road belongs to the government in a number of places, and there are these big trees lining the road on both sides, providing shade on the road itself. In this furnace like situation that exists right now outside, the shaded portions are actually cooler. In many cases, the trees are local fruit bearing, and provide fruits during their seasons.
Anyhow, I digress. So what I saw was that the undergrowth below the trees was on fire all along the route. Maybe somebody can better explain, but my explanation was that first they clear all the undergrowth by burning it, and maybe killing the tree, and then remove the tree. This had already started happening. I was appalled to see this technique. We crib about global warming, we crib that it is the primary responsibility of the west, and then we contribute to it by this method of mass burning.
I was left wondering as to what would happen about the trees. It seemed fairly obvious that the new road would be a barren road, with not much vegetation on either side. Even if trees are planted on either side, and I am not sure, it will take ages to get back to the same condition as they were. I can only hope that when they plant trees, they plant the leafy local varieties that thrive in these regions.
Overall, I was pained to see the price of development, knowing it was inevitable, but even then..

Labels: Development, Environment, India, Road, Traffic, Transport

One of the ways to enforce traffic laws followed by a large number of countries is by making the fines for offences stiff, thus discouraging people from breaking such laws. So, as an example, if you are caught speeding in the US, you can pay a fine in the hundreds of dollars, and heaven can only help you if you are caught driving when drunk (you can face a night in the jail, a mark on your license or its suspension, and massive embarrassment). And you don't want to be in a country like Singapore if you are caught violating a traffic rule. India wants to join the club of countries where traffic offence related fines are so large that you will be scared to commit one. Read this report:

Your wallet will get much lighter if you are a reckless driver. The government hopes to put the brakes on indisciplined driving across the country by imposing stiff penalties. And for the purpose, it brought a Bill in Parliament on Tuesday that proposes to raise fines and penalties while providing a high compensation package for victims of road accidents.
This Act is now sought to be amended. Road transport minister T R Baalu has tabled the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2007, which proposes the following: While speeding could cost you Rs 400-Rs 1,000 (with a doubling of the fine for repeat violators), drunken driving could get your licence suspended for 3 months besides imprisonment of 6 months and a fine of Rs 2,000 for the first offence.
The proposed legislation also authorises state governments to compound the fines if required. With an increase in the number of hit-and-run accidents, the government plans to hike accident compensation to Rs 1 lakh for death
and Rs 50,000 for partial disability.

Sounds all good and noble, but I am somewhat cynical about whether this will work in the Indian case. There are a number of other measures that will need to be taken if this has to become a reality.
Right now, even with the traffic fines that we have, there is not much of enforcement. Even in major cities, incidents of drunken driving, using mobile while driving, not following traffic lights, and plan reckless driving are extremely common and are not fined. And as you move away from a metro, it becomes even more unlikely that such offences will ever be prosecuted.
Secondly, Indian traffic police are an extremely corrupt lot. How many of us would not have encountered an incident where when caught by a traffic constable, the traffic constable would have offered to take a smaller amount, but without a receipt. If you put stiffer punishments, then that just increases the capability of traffic cops to make money. This will reach a point where the rich will get away, while poorer offenders will get squeezed.
Nowadays, if you are caught, then a person invokes all sort of influences to get away scot-free; I am the son of this minister, or I am the son of this big babu, or my father is this rich guy, or I am this godlike cricketer, and so on. Unless we reach a stage whereby the traffic constable can fine a person without fear and without any worries about future retribution, traffic enforcement will be lax.
I am not suggesting that we do not take such measures, but just by saying that the fines will increase, and hence will result in better traffic (wihout taking measures to control the above tendencies) is a bit naiive.

Labels: Community, Governance, India, Law, Police, Road, Traffic, Transport

This is a tale of 2 trips, not about the destination but the journey. The contrast is
between a trip on the Delhi-Jaipur highway and the Delhi-Hardwar highway. On 2 consecutive weekends, I went to a resort near Jaipur (called Shiva Oasis in Behror) and then to a relative's place in Roorkee (the last major stop on the Delhi-Hardwar road). The state of the highways could not be more of a contrast, and I was left to wondering that even though these are highways under the control of the National Highway Authority of India, are they symptomatic of the political administrations of these states. After thinking about this for some time, I realized that this connection is worth talking about on my blog.
The trip to Jaipur first went through the new under-construction Delhi-Gurgaon expressway. This is a delayed project, but now that large stretches of this expressway have been constructed, the experience is slowly coming to life for a large number of people. (One caveat: this highway is not meant for slow moving vehicles, cyclists, etc; so there is always a question of what good it means for poorer people. This expressway will have a dual goal, reducing the massive wear and tear and extra fuel costs for both commerical and personal vehicles, as well as making goods transport across states faster; making it easier for pedestrians is something that always seems to be a work in progress). Once you are past this highway, the wonder of the Delhi-Jaipur highway truly comes to life; even with a large number of vehicles traversing this route, the highway seems to be able to take such traffic easily. Even after passing through towns and cities such as Manesar, and others, the highway does not slow down significantly. And you can never compare this highway to a the scarred surface of a rough road, as the number of craters on this surface seems to be limited.
The Delhi-Hardwar circuit seems to be a much worse track. This is also an important circuit, given that this is the main route to the hill towns of Dehrarun and Mussorie from Delhi, as well as a major religious circuit. During religious festivals, the number of vehicles on this road are numerous. Some important towns exist on this highway such as Meerut (with a bypass), Modinagar, roorkee, and Muzzafarnagar (with a bypass). The distances of these two highways are not very different, but the time taken is very different. The Delhi-Jaipur highway would take less than 3 hours, while Delhi-Hardwar could easily take upto 5-6 hours, with a bone jarring ride in many stretches due to immense potholes. In addition, during the sugarcane season, there will be numerous tractor-trailers carrying overloaded loads of sugarcane, slowing down the whole traffic, and if one of these breaks down, the whole traffic soon comes to a grinding halt (in part because the road is very narrow in significant stretches).
Where do state governments come into this ? These highways are after all owned by the NHAI. The reason state governments are involved is because of the need to ensure that all other measures are taken to make these highways effective. In towns are allowed to build on both sides of the highways without control, soon the highway will be a criss-cross of local traffic; if slow moving vehicles such as these sugarcane transporters are allowed to move onto the highway, overall traffic will slow down; if towns such as Modinagar don't have an effective traffic management, it could take upto 1 hour to cross a town with not more than 10 kilometers. It is a state government that realizes the importance of good highways with fast movement of goods; this makes these good cheaper, reduces transportation costs in terms of fuel and wear and tear. One gets a strong feeling that the Rajasthan government gets this fact, while the UP government could not care less.

Labels: Development, Governance, India, Responsibility, Road, Traffic, Transport, Waste

Not having enough electricity, and criticizing the government for not providing a basic amenity such as electricity? Well, you are right to blame the government. In another sign that the government structure of babudom and its associated organs such as the electricity and power companies are not equipped to do things on time and in budget, a parliamentary panel has concluded that the country's hydroelectric projects have cost 388% to 2,532% more than initial estimates. Read this report:

In a scathing assessment of India’s attempts at building up its power-generation capacity, a parliamentary committee on energy has disclosed that the country’s hydroelectric projects have cost 388% to 2,532% more than originally estimated.
For instance, 35%, or 14,393 Megawatts (MW) of the 41,110MW of new capacity that was to be created in the five years from 2002 to 2007 was supposed to come from hydro projects. But only 7,886MW, or just over half of the planned additions, have come online.
The committee also blames the power ministry for the long delays. “The committee is surprised to note that, in spite of all the measures, there have been abnormal delays in the execution of some hydro projects...The committee is inclined to believe that proper assessment of certain foreseeable factors, such as (those relating to) geology and funds, is not done with due seriousness and recommends the ministry to take adequate steps in that direction.”
While the average lead time of a new hydroelectric power project is around five years, the projects have been hampered due to reasons as varied as delays in investment decisions, contractual problems, land acquisition problems, geological surprises and natural calamities, such as floods.

These are very serious charges. Electricity is the life-blood of a country, and in India chronic shortage of electricty has hobbled agriculture, and industries from the big and small.
Project management for such large projects consists of good estimations, planning to build, and taking care of all the issues that may emerge to slow down the project. Only dedicated people who are responsible for their actions can be depended on to do this.
However, in our structure, with the ministries being led by politicians, and with the amount of corruption and political influence that happens in the execution of such projects, these sort of delays are to be expected (although we should never accept this sort of thing). For such delays, one can be sure that no one will be held responsible, and things will continue as they are.
Large private industries have learnt to depend on their own captive consumption, most small enterprises pay for generator use, and urban areas of all sizes depend on inverters and generators to fill the gap. Unless we bring in more privatisation with such projects being executed by private contractors who are awarded contracts fairly and without political influence, not much sign of salvation can be seen.
Thankfully, such private work has started to happen, notably in the area of road construction, and with the recent award of the ultra-large capacity power plants, things should improve.

Labels: Corruption, Development, Electricity, Governance, India, Reform, Road

Due to some relatives arriving for a family tragedy, I spent some time at Delhi airport, both domestic and international. Some experiences from the departure and arrival locations.
Let me start with the most positive experience. I had to pick some people up from the international terminal (Indira Gandhi International Airport). It seemed pretty smooth as silk if you are willing to pay up a bit. First park your vehicle in the car park (Rs. 120 if you want to park in the premium car parking), and then pay Rs. 60 for each entry intro the arrival lounge. Ideal, you wave to your visitors as they arrive and take them to the car parking. Only problem is that the premium car parking is pretty small. The regular parking is pretty decent as well.
Next is the departure from international. This is also fairly convenient, you drop your visitors at the gate. Trolleys are available without a problem, and as long as you don't stay too long there, the traffic police and the cranes do not disturb you. However, and this is where I have seen people behaving strangely, they actually stay there for extended farewells, even though space there is limited. I have seen a few even arguing with traffic police, something that I would not believe could happen in a lot of other countries.
Now comes the incredible domestic terminals. These are special, especially during peak times. First, on the route to the domestic terminal, you see a number of cars lined along the road, with a driver waiting for a call to pick them up. The route is not exactly very broad, and with these cars lined along the road, the traffic route into the terminal gets more choked. Makes me wonder, are these people so stingy that they cannot afford to pay the parking fee or are they so self-centered that they really do not care?
The parking in the domestic terminal is a mess. Given the number of flights, the number of vehicles using the parking has increased tremendously while space has remained same; and this is where things get frustating. Everybody in the Government was aware of the increase in flights, and yet a contract to modernise the airports took so much time; with so much politicking. As a result, discomfort to people using the airport has increased, and measures to improve things will take much more time.
Leaving people at the domestic terminal departure is still fine; but the arrival could do with a lot more improvement. Twice in succession it has happened that I am looking at the arrival billboard, and while the airline arrival is still not confirmed, the people that I came to pick came out. In addition, the arrival open area seems like a fish market, with so many people packed into a small area. They really need to increase the area available. The improvement from a few months back is that you have more stalls with things to eat and drink, something desparately needed if you are waiting in the heat.
Experiences inside the airport is another matter, with a separate story.

Labels: Airport, Development, Governance, India, Reform, Road, Traffic, Transport

It has now been a few days since the Delhi Police started its push towards punishing traffic violations. This is inspired (as so many things in India currently are) from the Court pushing for compounding fees for traffic violations, and hence the minimum fine being moved to Rs. 600. Now, if I look at such a move, it would be strictly a policy decision to be made by the Government in terms of fines and enforcement, but over the past decade or so, the Government typically only talks about doing something about fines, but nothing more. It is essentially then left to the court to step into the policy gap, and eventually decide policies.
Another thing that puzzles me is when the Traffic police were asked about this special drive, it emerged that the same number of policemen would be used as in the past. If the same number of policemen are being used for a special drive, then why cannot every day be a special day ? Why can't it happen that the incredibly massive number of traffic violations that happen everyday are reduced, and the brazen way in which people ignore rules as per their convenience are stopped?
We all know what I am talking about. People reach a stop light, and do 2 violations then and there. They cross the zebra crossing by some distance, putting pedestrians at great risk. In addition, as soon as they see that no one is crossing the traffic signal from the other side, they will zoom through. It seems so funny, I am reminded of the term 'creeping acquisition', the way that people reach the red line, and then slowly move ahead inch by inch while the light is red. In this way, they cover around 3-5 meters while the light is still red, and then they zoom away when the light changes.
There have been explicit instructions in the past few weeks about how coloured film is illegal, but at a very rough statistic (by looking at passing cars), I estimate that around 30% of cars still have films on the windows. Maybe people really feel that they are not going to get affected, or maybe being in Delhi, they feel that they can either use some sort of contact to get away or pay a bit of money and get away. The sad part is that they can actually do this and get away in reality. And using mobile phones, not wearing seat belts / helmets are rules violated pretty highly.
Many times I feel that the traffic police is really not serious. I remember once receiving a fine of Rs. 100 by post for crossing a red light (I don't remember that part, but I would say that, wouldn't I?), and then going to pay it at the police station. Once done, I was generally talking to people about this, and they were all surprised that I went ahead and paid the fine. Apparently nobody follows up, and hence people just tear the ticket that they receive via the post. This seemed so shocking to me, how can people just treat a ticket sent by a police authority in such a casual way, but apparently this is how the city of Delhi works.
What can be done? I believe that only a strict vigil can work, a time of zero tolerance. People have to learn that traffic laws are meant to be obeyed, not followed at a person's own discretion. After all, when one is travelling on the road, we are not only responsible for our own safety, but that of others on the road. At the same time, traffic policemen have to develop a perception of being incorruptible, and that seems equally difficult.

Labels: Corruption, Court, Governance, India, Law, Road, Traffic, Transport

Here I was stuck in another jam on the Delhi-Haridwar highway. And why had this jam happened ? A very simple explanation. This highway is a 2-3 lane highway with no central verge, and there is a lot of traffic on this highway. So, many times, traffic gets a bit slow. And so, what do clever people do ? Seeing that traffic on their side is slowing down, they simply move to the other side of the road (no divider) so that they can move ahead of the idiots who stayed on their side of the road. So, eventually, the road is completely filled with people
all wanting to move to Haridwar.
Of course, these clever people forgot that there are people who also want to go to Delhi, and they will need some space on the road as well. Now what happens, gridlock ! I once spent 5 hours in such gridlock, and was resigned to spend the whole night on the road, since it seemed to be that the gridlock will only get worse as more vehicles arrive. It took the effort of around 10 policemen plus around 15 local youths with sticks and raw language to get vehicles into a single file so that these vehicles could move. There was only one set of people who profited. Roadside vendors on the highway did good business and stayed open for much longer.
This may go away when the highway is widened, but I never can understand how people can do such things, and inconvenience everyone. In some parts of the highway, I have already seen dividers being built, and while building a divider on a narrow road reduces the overall speed of the highway, I can see no immediate way of getting around the jams that happen nowadays.
The same thing can be seen when one is waiting at a railway crossing. People crowd all the space in front of a crossing on both sides of the road, so that even when the rail gates open, it takes some time for the vehicles on both sides to manage to cross to the other side.
Now I have started seeing this inside the city as well. I saw this very recently in the road leading from Ghazipur to Noida. This is a narrow road, and there was some holdup at one end, so traffic was moving slowly. So these smart people started moving to the head of the line in the same way as outlined above, such
that eventually there was no way for vehicles from the other side to advance, and this seemed to be an incredible gridlock. I was at the tail end, but could this mess starting to happen, so I turned around and ran from there (spending 45 minutes in a jam did not seem exactly pleasurable).
Such incidents cause an immense amount of frustation, and I have seen road rage in people who see this happen. I see cars in front of me swerve in order to prevent such vehicles from moving to the front on the other side like this, and seen heated words. It causes even more frustation because you know that you are driving right, and yet see others muck up the whole traffic.
Why does such a thing happen ? Do these people realy not understanding of what they are doing, or do they not care ? It may be that they think in isolation and do not see themselves as really being part of the problem, instead they are just saving themselves in time. This brings me to a related point. Are such people really in such a hurry that they think themselves above all others and can do as they like ? I struggle to think of a solution; the only solution that I can think of is more driver education as well as more fines. Driver education sounds difficult, why would somebody who really does not care for even thinking right while driving even attempt to get more educated ? More fines is difficult to enforce on the highway given that I hardly ever see anybody even remotely looking like a traffic policeman on our highways.
The only possible solutions are:
1. Try and make these roads wider with more central dividers so that such driving can be curbed.
2. Be much more strict with respect to traffic violations, in effect turning cities into zero-violation zones. If people see transgressions being fined often enough, they will be more respectful of the law (which is not such a bad thing at all).
I personally don't think that #2 is going to happen, requires too much effort from the police, and that makes it very unlikely.

Labels: India, Law, Police, Road, Transport