Infrastructure
and Road Development: A different perspective
This Union budget has been received with mixed reviews and
varied criticism… As is every budget more or less. There’s talk of a boost to
the infrastructure and highest ever spend on infra included in this year’s
budget. I completely agree that a lot of this covers a broad range and not just
the roads. For a crazy automobile lover (read fanatic) like me, however, this
means yet another ray of hope to get some decent roads.
I would sincerely want to appeal to any important or relevant
person that’s listening, “Have you ever seen the condition of most of our
roads? The quality of our best roads is below that of any average country road
in Europe or any developed country. The quality of roads is so abysmal that
even with my modest Honda Civic, I need to take extreme care while deciding to
take it for any tour. The biggest fear is that of scraping its underbelly. Are
there really any rules of making a speed-bump or a speed breaker? I don’t know
if there are any, and the people who make the ghastly speed breakers most
certainly don’t.”
I’m not even talking about the potholes yet. Some of the
better roads in our state, like the Mumbai-Pune road, continuing onward till
Kolhapur and then finally leading into Karnataka, are also dotted with such
mind numbing and car-scraping jumbo bumps. Imagine someone who’s bought a
recently launched 2017 Nissan GT-R
or a Ford Mustang GT enthusiastically
taking it for a drive on this road and then scraping its mouth (Lower part of
its front bumper) in approach and its underbelly to such idiotic monstrous
bumps.
Earlier, I used to wonder why the best automotive
masterpieces were never seen anywhere in India? The only answer is this. We
don’t deserve them. Honestly, we don’t deserve such cars as the deservingly
overhyped Porsche 911 R or a Bugatti Chiron. No wonder I don’t see many of such
cars here despite there being at least 1000 such people present who can afford
to buy it on the very 1st day of its launch. My complaint to the
relevant authorities is very simple: Why can’t there be any standard whatsoever
in making any kind of speed bumps on any road?
Ok. This is about only the luxury cars or supercars, you may
say. But then there’s another astonishing logic about our roads which concerns
almost every moving vehicle on our roads. Use of paver blocks in repairing a
damaged road (or worse, in making a new road). This is one thing which makes me
go mad. It makes the blood in my veins rush at the speed of a racing 919
Hybrid. I have a genuine question: Whose brilliant idea was it to use the paver
blocks (which even suggested clearly by their name are to be used for making
pavements) for repairing damaged roads? I did some research and some of the
reasoning that I could find, given by our genius authorities, is something like
this: They’re the fastest way to repair a busy damaged road. They’re effective
in bearing the load (lol). They being made of concrete and with interlocking
pattern are effective in holding together. All of these are completely false
and/or unreasonable. If you guys are saying they’re the fastest way to repair a
busy damaged road, what about the constant inconvenience we’re all faced with
almost all the delayed construction projects? Where does your concern go when
you take more than 7 years to build a small bridge over a railway line which is
supposed to be done in a few months? Shame on the people who give such
illogical reasons and shame on us who tolerate all such nonsense. These paver
blocks are clearly to make more money repairing the same road multiple times,
which shouldn’t have been damaged so soon in the 1st place, had good
quality material been used in making it.
Another such funny observation which I’ve made is that of the
great NH17 (Mumbai-Goa Highway). The patch from Vadkhal till around
Mahad/Poladpur has always frustrated almost all of us. I’ve travelled on that
road for last 10 years and invariably seen the making of a 4-lane road there.
Every time, there are countless diversions with bulldozers and cranes doing
something. I wonder what they’ve been doing for so long, since I’m yet to get
even a single kilometer of a decent 4-lane divided road in the last 10 years.
Reasons are unknown to me but no reason would or should be justifiable for such
a long delay. We simply accept the bullshit, curse the unknown culprits and
move on. We’ve sort of given up on any hopes to see fast development in our
country.
Our cities are also a great example of how planning shouldn’t
be. Unauthorized constructions are allowed 1st and then after years
of inconvenience and waiting for a non-corrupt officer we get some cleaning
which shows us the real width of roads we should’ve got years ago. Isn’t it
funny? For ensuring good, fast locomotion; we already have all that it takes.
It’s just carelessness mixed with protection of vested interests that leaves us
taxpayers with infrastructure that we don’t deserve.
For an avid fan of speedy and sporty vehicles like me, it’s
immensely frustrating to see our great country lack what many other lesser
developed countries already have. There are countless examples of countries
which have developed their roads within a much shorter period of time.
Companies like Porsche (my all time favourite by the way), Ferrari, Lamborghini
etc. still have reservations launching their latest and most technologically advanced
vehicles in India. Is there a dearth of enough customers? Definitely not. What’s
stopping them (and in turn us) from having powerful and most modern automobiles
plying on our roads is this very reason. The pathetic state of our roads.
There are many other points worth mentioning such as the
benefits of a better road network which we would have given the government and concerned
authorities do what’s easily possible; such as faster transportation of goods,
faster reach for emergency services, decreased road accidents etc. But who’ll
care about it when bad roads are feeding corrupt officials and rich
infrastructure vendors?
I just hope that if and when I’ll be able to afford a Porsche
918 Spyder or a Rolls Royce Phantom, there would be roads on which I’d be able
to drive it. The sad part is the likelihood of me buying such a car is equally
improbable as the realization of my dream about our roads!!!
-
Sarang Tilak
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