The modern thinking Indian

Be careful what you wish for ! Delhi and North India were bereft of rain during the first month of the rainy season. A bit about why Delhi is special. This is a city that is supposed to become a world class city, a city that will host the Commonwealth Games. It is the city that is the capital of a hot emerging economy, the city where people from over the world get their first glimpse of Delhi.
On 27/7/2009, the first major rainfall (major means this was 4 hours of rainfall, not 12 hours or something like that) brought this city to its knees. The news channels are full of roads being flooded, all the major intersections suffering heavy jams (including many areas of the New Delhi area that normally do not suffer traffic jams). Gridlock was the word, with many cases where people did not move beyond 100 meters in 2 hours.
What are the major causes of such a situation:
1. The Delhi drains need to be de-silted and the storm water system needs to be active. However, every year, the MCD makes tall promises and falls flat on its face. Same this year, roads were flooded in the first major rain; and huge amounts of money were supposedly spent on this desilting work.
2. No traffic management. When rains start, either the power to traffic lights go off, or they cannot handle the rain; further, traffic policemen are no longer to be seen. With Delhi traffic already known to be aggressive (stupid is another word), me-first causes huge jams at any place where more than 2 roads are commented
3. When such jams happen, there is no quick action to make things better. This is when the worst of governance can be seen. It was only after news channels started doing heavy criticism of the municipal and police response that they started swinging into action
4. Places such as low lying roads or under-passes where water causes flooding are supposedly provided by pumps, but when you need them, they do not take action
There were people interviewed on TV, and a lot of them commented on how there was no action by the Government, and where were the leaders ? Well, the leaders are waiting for the day to be over, and the public to forget that something like this happened.

Labels: Delhi, Governance, Municipal Corporation, Rain, Responsibility, Traffic, Transport

Drinking and driving is a universal problem, with different countries having different ways of checking / controlling this habit. A sizable percentage of accidents are known to happen after drinking and driving, and countries have different levels of enforcement about this habit. So, for example, if you take the case of countries such as Singapore or the US, drinking and driving is not cool. You can get into severe problems if detected. It is not unknown to have to spend a night in the slammer and have points deducted from the driving license if caught drinking and driving.
The same rules apply in India, and in the recent past, the Mumbai Police has been enforcing some of these rules to a stronger degree; they have actually got magistrates to jail some of the offenders and got licenses suspended for a period of time. However, this is just Mumbai. Other parts of the country have very little policing of drunk driving (or other road related laws), and there does not seem to be much effort ongoing in that direction either. In a lot of cases, people go outside to bars or restaurants to drink, and then drive home from there even if they have had too much to drink. There is very little custom of arranging for a non-drinking person to drive one home, or to take a taxi to go home.
Now, a High Court has jumped into the gap and made suggestions regarding setting up of safe drinking and driving options (link to article):

The Delhi High Court wants strict checking of drunk customers heading home, just outside the bar/pubs in the capital, in order to prevent instances of drunken driving, leading to mishaps. After going through a report by excise department and traffic police that said almost 90% of customers frequenting bars drive home themselves, Justice J R Midha on Monday asked the Delhi Police to get cracking on drunk drivers.
"When your own report gives such a figure, it is the duty of police to enforce checks and it is in larger public interest to introduce a condition in pubs/bars serving alcohol shall have replacement drivers and shall serve liquor to a customer (self driven) only after the guest pays to book a replacement driver,'' it observed, asking the police to get cracking. On its part the police protested, arguing that both the concepts replacement drivers and checking at pubs could not be implemented instantly as these are policy decisions. Appearing for the police, counsel Mukta Gupta said, "Unless backed by a judicial order, cops can't be posted at each and every pub or bar. We are prosecuting drunk drivers and the accident rate has therefore come down."

Drunk driving cannot be cured only through enforcement (although enforcement would play a big part); the way to move ahead is to accept that people will go out and drink. A campaign that encourages the safety measures along with providing alternatives such as taxis and safe drivers would go a long way in ensuring that the deaths and injuries due to drunk driving reduce.

Labels: Court, Drinking, Driving, Drunk, Education, Law, Penalty, Punishment, Traffic, Transport

For some time now, the Mumbai police has been waging an intense campaign against drunk driving, including the use of jail time (anywhere from 1 day to multiple days) as part of the measures against drunk driving. This had surprised many people since observing traffic laws (including road safety laws such as not drinking and driving) is a common problem that India faces, and not too many states had done serious prosecution of such cases (contrast this with the measures taken in states such as Singapore and the United States where you better not be caught drinking and driving). The high number of cases of accidents and fatalities where drunk driving is a factor are incredible; it is absolutely necessary that such campaigns continue.
Here is a case in Mumbai where the police prosecuted a drunk motorcyclist as well as the pillion rider for the crime of drunk driving and got them sent to simple custody for a period of 7 days. This punishment is the longest period of punishment for the crime of drunk driving so far in Mumbai, and the terms of the punishment were also enhanced due to a fine as well as the driving license of the motorcyclist being suspended for a period of 6 months (link to article):

A Girgaum metropolitan court on Monday sentenced a pillion rider to seven days' imprisonment for abetting drunk driving. This is the longest sentence awarded in such cases so far. "The biker too got the same punishment. Both were in an inebriated state,'' an official said. The drunken duo, Abdul Karim and Kadir Shaikh, was also asked to pay a fine of Rs 2,000. The driving licence of Karim, who was riding the bike, has been suspended for six months by the court. The two will now have to cool their heels in the Byculla jail for a week.
Tests showed 245 mg of liquor in Karim's blood and 83 mg of liquor in Shaikh's blood. Shaikh was booked under Section 188 of the Motor Vehicles Act,'' a policeman said. "We argued in court that Shaikh had not stopped Karim from riding the bike despite being aware that the latter was drunk and could cause an accident,'' sub-inspector P K Naik of Tardeo traffic division said. Abetting drunk driving attracts the same punishment as the offence of drunk driving (Section 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act). No lawyer represented the duo in court.

Drunk driving not is a menace to society because of the danger to others, but also threatens the drunk drivers themselves; who can forget the cases in Delhi where many young adults have been needlessly killed when their cars (being driven by drunk people) have crashed at high speeds. The nation can ill afford these losses.

Labels: Court, Crime, Driving, Punishment, Social Issue, Traffic

India has a variety of problems relating to traffic management, such as overall bad conditions of road, not enough road capacity in cities, a variety of slow-moving and fast moving vehicles on the roads, and so on. One of the worst, observable by almost every person on the road, is the lack of following of traffic rules and laws. People feel that traffic rules are guides that can be followed or not depending on one's wishes, and this attitude is reinforced by a very lax enforcement of traffic laws by policemen who catch drivers violating all rules.
People almost never stop before the zebra crossing, jump red lights with gusto, do not think twice about going the wrong side of the road if they can save a few minutes, speed limits are a formality, but by far the worst such transgressions are those where a person drinks and drives.
Drinking and driving is seen as one of worst offense that a person can commit on the road, since drinking (above the legal alcohol level) means that a person is no longer in full control of their senses, and as a result, is driving a powerful and heavy machine that can easily maim or kill. In countries where drinking and driving is penalized, a person caught easily loses their license to drive for some time, may have to spend a night in jail, and is on probation for some time after that. In India, incidents such as Salman Khan driving over people, Sanjeev Nanda driving over people when drunk happen; and these are the celebrity ones, there are many more that happen on a normal basis.
So far, the law was only on the books, but for the past some months, the Mumbai police seems to have taken this far more seriously. They have been catching drunk drivers, sending them to cool off a day in jail (recently they jailed the very first lady who has been caught like this for a day). Sample this incident which shows the crackdown, as well as the general attitude of people:

Keyur Parikh must have never imagined that the traffic police were actually tracking his movements, after a court suspended his driving licence in July for a period of six months for drunk driving. On Monday, the police caught 28-year-old Parikh outside Heera Panna mall, a stone's throw away from his upmarket Tardeo residence, for driving without a valid licence. Parikh then started dropping names and threatened to summon his lawyer, hoping to get off scot-free. But the cops ignored his arguments and hauled him to the Girgaum court. It turned out that he had been booked for four other parking offences as well in the past.
"Nearly 9,000 motor driving licences have been suspended by the court since June last year. We had a hunch that some of these motorists might still be driving despite their licences being suspended. A list of 10-15 such drivers was prepared and we tracked their movements from their residence to their place of work. Our officers were armed with their vehicle registration numbers and photographs. Parikh walked into our trap on Monday,'' said deputy commissioner (traffic) Harish Baijal.

This is another part of the whole problem. How many people have not heard of cases where people receive traffic citations by normal post, and tear it up without paying, since they are confident that the traffic system of generating these citations are not computerized, and that there is no major problem if they don't follow up. I recently heard that the Delhi police head was talking about such a system; and the fact that so many years after computerization, availability of hand-held system, police still cannot check real-time whether a car in front of them (and its driver) have other citations against them.
However, one should be happy when things start working. In this case, I have been hearing of this drive for many months now, so this is not a campaign that starts, runs for some time, and then stops. It is only when people believe that they are in danger of getting caught, and they cannot escape either by paying a bribe or dropping some high names that there is some progress. Of course, educating drivers is also necessary, but without some enforcement, it mostly does not work.

Labels: Driving, Drunk, Law, Police, Punishment, Traffic, Transport

Rainfall in a city has typically always been welcomed. The sheer relief from heat, of water falling from the sky always brings out a better mood in people, makes children more excited, relieves water pressure to some extent (through recharging of ground water). There have always been problems related to some water-logging, some businesses getting disturbed, and so on. However, in recent years, people in Delhi have come to dread rain falling in the city.
Given the increasing crowd in the city, and the strain on civic facilities, it is even more urgent that the civic agencies work at their utmost to handle these problems. However, the problems that cities are facing seem to be increasing every year; and these problems are not unique to one city. They happen to be problems that happen everywhere.
Let us take these problems, related to the rain and the chaos they cause. There is a reliance on the normal drains, and storm drains to handle the drainage of water; however, for that it is required that these drains be desilted before the monsoon, as well as natural water bodies that carry away excess water should not be impeded. However, in many cities, rivers running through them have been blocked or built over to such an extent that they are incapable of handling the excess water. Similarly, drains are not desilted on time (as an example, in Delhi this year, only a small percentage of drains were desilted on time). So, water-logging turns out to be a very common problem. This happens every where, and every year, the municipal bodies announce an enquiry to determine the problems.
Next, what happens pretty often is that in cases of rain, traffic signals turn off. This is a major killer, since our traffic sense is fairly low (me first is the common tendency), and signals start getting jammed. Traffic blockages tend to pile up pretty fast, and take time to dissipate. If there is a problem that power to traffic signals gets cut off because of general safety issues, then traffic signals should have an alternate source of power.
Handling such issues requires the municipal agencies to be thinking in terms of solutions, but given how these issues happen every year, it seems unlikely that things will improve anytime soon. We will have more cases of people missing flights, trains, meetings, spending 4 hours in traffic, and so on. Any suggestions ?

Labels: Governance, Traffic

Driving during the night is prone to accidents. After all, this is a time when the human body expects to get its rest (even if you sleep during the day), there is less light(in fact, a lot less); the factors that cause accidents are far more. For some time now, authorities in Tamil Nadu have been finding that the rate of accidents during the night has been increasing, and a number of factors have caused this - the most important being the sheer lack of attention of drivers caused by sleepiness. So, one way to get around this is by providing them some facilities at this time:

Bleary-eyed truck drivers on their way to Chennai wake up to piping hot coffee and crunchy biscuits these days. Worried by the high number of road accidents on the highways leading to the city, the collector of the adjoining district of Kancheepuram has initiated a welfare programme aimed at heavy vehicle drivers.
Transport officials have been instructed to serve drivers undertaking perilous night drives with biscuits and coffee, besides handing out lessons on safe driving. Truck drivers cruising down NH 4 (Bangalore-Chennai Highway) at daybreak are therefore being stopped at various points and asked to step out, stretch their legs and help themselves to refreshments. "Between 4 am and 5 am, the time when accidents usually happen, we stop the trucks and ask the drivers to wash their faces. We then give them water to drink, biscuits to munch and coffee or tea as they prefer,

This is a very welcome step, and shows a level of responsibility among the officialdom that is not seen often. One can only hope that other places adopt this method, and that it does not slow down as time passes.

Labels: Bureaucracy, Policy, Responsibility, Security, Traffic, Transport

I really wonder sometimes about whether we should blame the ordinary citizen or the police when you see laws and rules being broken so easily in the country. I was witness to something that left me wondering about this question. We see traffic rules normally broken very casually on the roads (speed limit, usage of helmets and seat belts, drunk driving, red lights, etc); most rules are broken very easily. The sad part is that most of us are guilty at some point about breaking these rules and later blaming the police for being inactive and not enforcing the rules.
I had gone to an car accessories shop for some seat covers, and witnessed a number of vehicles parked there (hogging a lot of space in the market, but that is a different story), and employees of the shop busy fixing dark film on the windows of the cars. Now, once many years back, when the police had ruled that the dark films are not allowed on car windows, I had been ordered by my parents to be the one to remove the dark film It was a painful process, and I had always hesitated after that to fix dark films because of this reason.
Now, dark films look cool; they also aid in ensuring that the car does not get so heated up in summer. Unfortunately, the dark films also end up hiding the interior of cars; preventing a clear visibility of the inside. In some of the cases where a rape has been conducted inside a moving car in Delhi, the car has typically had dark film installed. It also prevents Delhi police from being efficient in inspecting vehicles fast when they have information about criminals and terrorists. Hence, the police have decided that dark films will only be allowed up to a certain percentage of opacity.
The cars on which I could see the dark films were being installed were seemingly way beyond the level allowed by the Delhi police. When I asked one of the owners of the shop about this, he showed me a car on which the allowed level was being installed (it was in a minority). On further enquiry, he told me that most people request films more than what was allowed, and if he won't do it, others will. So, he runs a business and installs what they want.
The query that I had was now: Who is the person who is breaking the rule ? Is it the car owner who will install whatever version of the dark film that he wants ; Is it the shop owner who agrees to install the non-compliant version of the dark films ; o is the police whose rules (and enforcement of the rules) has become so ineffective that people no longer care for those rules ?

Labels: Citizen, Governance, Law, Responsibility, Traffic, Transport

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

When we are driving on the roads of our wonderfully congested cities, there are so many things you see that make one angry. You are driving on a crowded road, inching along, and see two-wheelers and three-wheelers darting among traffic with nary a care in the world; you give them some criticism, strive to control your road rage and brake or swerve to avoid hitting them, and so on. All of us must have seen such things happen often enough that they are not worth writing about. More scary is the concept of a big bus screeching right next to you, or chasing another bus and you are driving in the vicinity, and it is worth it to waste a couple of minutes and let these buses go on the way.
But these pale in comparison to what I saw one day. I was flabber-gasted to say the least, and the road was crowded enough that I could not do anything about it. And what did I see ? It was a buy driving a small car, wearing a seat belt, and driving perfectly normally. And what was scary ? Well, this guy had no other co-passenger except for one - his infant. Now, one really does not expect people in this great country to have too much concern about a car seat or other such requirement for a baby, but in this case, the baby was sitting on this guy's lap, right between the steering wheel and the guy.
I took a double-take, I have not read all the various safety articles that are available regarding how to carry one's child safely in a car, but I was pretty sure that having your baby between you and steering wheel is not one of them. In an impact, and in the case of a baby, even a slow impact, has the effect of pushing the driver towards the steering column (and that is what the seat belt and air bag try to prevent) and most of the injuries in such cases is due to the steering column hitting the chest and the ribs. And this idiot was carrying around his baby on the most dangerous possible location in the car.
I was unsure what to do ? Traffic was such that it was impossible to reach this driver, but even if I could have stopped him, what could have I done ? What would you do ? Given that he had no idea of the danger or did not care, would he care to even listen with a bit of patience about the danger if I tried any education ?

Labels: Family, Law, Morality, Responsibility, Traffic, Transport

The level of anger in the general public seems to be growing. This is a trend that has been pointed out by studies and in many newspaper and magazine articles, with some of the ways that this is manifested is in terms of people being more ready to pick a fight, or unwilling to stand patiently in a queue when they are waiting for some service, or in terms of traffic. Traffic is one very clear area where the increased anger level is visible, with people unwilling to take jams patiently (manifested in people trying to take any route so as to avoid a jam), not following logic (a lot of jams in intersections happen when people want to be the first one through resulting in a gridlock, that when if they waited for even a minute to let other traffic pass through, jams would happen less), and displaying an incredible amount of anger very fast (there have been so many cases where people pick fights and actually cause physical harm to other people, where a single car in front of them that is being driven by a less experienced driver causes a lot of rage, and numerous other examples).
Well, in our society, we have to pay for our actions, and road rage is a very special example since we take actions when in road rage that we all will regret later. However, if the matter reaches a legal point, then the road rage is judged by the judicial system, and it can become very serious, just like this case where a person was sentenced to 4 years prison for an action committed when in the grip of road rage:

Four years after Balram Bansal drove his car into a marriage procession in a fit of rage, injuring four persons, a city court in a recent order sentenced him to a two-and-a-half-year rigorous imprisonment and imposed a fine Rs 10,000 on him.
Additional sessions judge Narottam Kaushal in the order said: ‘‘I hold that the accused drove into a barat (marriage procession) deliberately with a view to teach the participants a lesson as he had encountered a traffic jam due to it. In a fit of rage, he had caused injuries to several people.’ ‘‘This is a case where the convict has exhibited extreme impatience. His conduct epitomises road rage,’’ the judge observed in the order.

This is an example of how not to lose your temper when in road rage. If you are getting delayed when driving or face some other action that causes road rage, think about the following:
1. A sudden surge in anger can cause things to happen that you might regret later
2. It just is not worth it, after all, the incident that causes road rage would be either a delay of a few minutes or some scratches on your car, but not worth the consequences
3. Count to 20 if you feel the anger coming on
4. Have a magazine or something in the car and concentrate on that if you have to wait
5. Think about a near and dear one if you feel the anger coming on and that should help cool you down
6. Have a list of things always ready that you can think about when you have some free time, like when you are delayed

Labels: Anger, Law, Punishment, Responsibility, Traffic

We have seen in the past as to how the various state and national authorities in the past have always under-performed in terms of transport planning. So, we have the scene where the roads between big cities and their suburbs are extremely congested at most times, where any big plans to improve roads such as the Golden Quadrilateral project are seen as major improvement projects (instead of a normal expectation of having good raods), where the amount of money and time lost in inter-state commerce / transport of goods is a major economic drag (the cost in terms of fuel, tyres and general wear and tear on vehicles itself is a major cost), and where large sections of the rural population are cut off because of bad roads and poor connections.
So, it is very surprising when one sees news of such projects such as the plan to have a mono-rail connection between Mumbai and its suburbs; it is difficult to credit our planners with such foresight. However, if this is genuine and a part to have an integrated transport plan for the region, then it would be great:

The monorail, a light mass transit medium earlier considered for short routes within the city, including between the two airports, is now being proposed for an integrated transport system to link satellite townships around the city. The monorail proposal was discussed when commissioners and mayors of Navi Mumbai, Bhiwandi, Kalyan-Dombivli, Ulhasnagar, Mira-Bhayander and Thane held a meeting with Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad on Saturday.
The monorail is now being seen as a supplement to the road and rail transport facilities that already exist in suburban areas on the outer limits of the city region. Gaikwad said that in addition to transport, detailed plans would be drawn up for a proper sewerage system and public toilets in the emerging cities. "All of this will be taken up under the Nirmal MMR Abhiyan," he said. No costs have been mentioned as the projects are still at the discussion level.

The other major problem that we normally see in such critical projects is the delays that happen due to lack of political will to make sure that all the hindrances that are coming in the way of such projects such as land acquisition, governmental clearances, people resettlement, etc. We have already seen this in major projects such as the National Highways scheme, the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway, etc. On the other hand, we can already see the benefits of major transport projects such as the completed stretches of the Golden Quadrilateral, the Delhi Metro, the Konkan Railways, etc. All of them show major transport ease for travelers, reduced time and money, environmental benefits, etc.

Labels: Development, Governance, India, Reform, Responsibility, Traffic, Transport

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.
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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

Today is the day of the Gujjar called jam in Delhi, and watching it makes me mad with rage against thus useless incompetent government that we have. How can we have a government that is so spineless; this is a public forum so I am controlling my language, but I no longer believe that the Congress party is fit or has the ability to provide any form of governance.
There are widespread reports and visual information on the TV, with so many news channels, about various routes in Delhi getting blocked. These have been blocked for now atleast 4-5 hours with a massive number of commuters getting stuck everywhere. They are starting to burn buses, and break private vehicles for most of the routes to and fro from Delhi. So, for example, routes to Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad, Gurgaon, etc are blocked, and people are apprehensive with fear.
And what do we see ? We see these hooligans burning buses, standing in the middle of the road, and the useless inept police standing at the side. Police in many cases are letting buses burn, and are just warning people to avoid these troublesome scenes. Water cannons are used to put out the fires, and on the demonstrators, but that is the extent of police action, no more. No lathicharge, no action to control these thugs, no action to protect public and private property. Mostly, the police are adopting a watch and watch action, letting them maybe burn out. Channels are reporting that police have been told to take minimum action.
Is this the government and authorities to whom we trust to ensure safety? Yes, but one can see this absolutely useless government maybe trying not to take too much action against these thugs because they are a big community, and would not want to face political heat. This is not hard to believe, and a large number of people would easily accept that this .... government can take any action as long as it does not affect them politically.
This is the national capital, the center of a country that wants to be accepted as a rapidly advancing country, and it is an absolute shame that we buckle down to such crass mass action, instead of ensuring the maintenance of law and order, the primary responsibility of the government. What sort of message does this pass? If you are a big community, you can do what you want since the govt will be fearful of getting hurt politically. No matter that in this case, the aam admi definitely gets hurt, farmers produce rots because transport is blocked, people have to spend day and nights in this heat at bus and railway stations because transport is blocked. God help this country if we have such useless politicans. Shame on you Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi, is this the form of politics that you trying to advocate?

Labels: India, Law, Police, Security, Traffic

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