There are 600 million vehicles in the world
6 million of those are in India
There are 10 lakh f...
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There are 600 million vehicles in the world
6 million of those are in India
There are 10 lakh fatalities in road accidents in the world
1 Lakh of those fatalities occur in India alone
India has 1% of the vehicles in the world and 10% of the fatalities !
For example there are 250 million vehicles in the USA and just 50,000 fatalities in road accidents
UK has 35 million vehicles and 3500 fatalities due to road accidents
India has 6 million vehicles and 100,000 fatalities due to road accidents !
This is the condition of our road infrastructure
If we bring in the Tata Nano the cheapest car and assume it gets a 5 % market share it will directly lead to 5000 more deaths every year !
This is more than the deaths due to terrorism !
So if an enemy of India wanted to attack India, all they have to do is develop a car like the Nano, reduce traffic in our cities to a crawl, and kill 5000 Indians a year !
Here is another stunner.
Each car occupies 30 sq ft on average (assuming small cars). So 6 million cars means 180 million sq ft. A city like Bangalore with 2 million or more cars has the cars occupying 2000 acres ! So 2000 or more acres in each city is occupied by its cars ! SO if you assume one acre costs ten crore in each city then 2000 acres cost 20000 crores ! So each car occupies a land area of 60000 rupees ! (at 2000 Rs a sq ft). And you thought petrol costs were the only cost of owning a car ! The value of good public transport suddenly becomes skyhigh !
Can u imagine if we calculated the wasted time due to slow moving traffic? All these high powered cars moving at snails pace. Such a waste of fuel.
So What is the solution?
Underground railway in all cities. This should have been started ten years ago. Now huge tolls and taxes will have to be levied in cities to control traffic resulting in serious damage to the profitablity of auto companies
But where were the auto companies when they saw the infrastructure in the cites crumbling? Did they not see that their business would be the first to be affected? They should have set up high powered committees to study the situation and forced the politcians to do something. Now they are the sufferers for their lack of vision
Today there is no alternative. We should put all our resources into underground railway in all cities immediately and expedite the construction of satellite cities (run by private enterpreneurs- no more municipal corporations).
Satellite cites as in my earlier blog should be created in 5 directions from all major cities and high speed links to these satellite cities should be built. This will decongest the main cities and give them life
Also another solution is to create parking buildings all over the city in each public area and shopping area. After creating this infrastructure parking cars on roads should be banned in all these areas. This will reduce congestion on roads.
Who will build these car parking buildings? Private enterpreneurs ! Why? Because a parking building costs one third that of an office building and once the govt offers tax benefits and allows them to charge Rs 10 per car per hour this will become an excellent business ! This will force everyone to think twice before taking out their cars. This will reduce traffic congestion and make our roads easier to drive on.
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Dsampath
Yes indeed our infrastructure plan (if there is one) is pathetic. We have so many smart ppl and yet we mess up things so badly
Santosh
unless things change they will get worse
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Shaswat Sur
Interesting stuff ! Everything will improve in quality and speed as we keep doing it and entrust it to private enterpreneurs. Underground rail should have become a huge business by now as it should be put in most cities. We should be the world leaders in underground railway since we have the biggest cities anywhere in the world
Santosh
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Kamalji
The heavy tolls and taxes concept is not required - it is inevitable. This is the only way they will be able to reduce trafffic and increase funds for the huge infrastructural work required in the future. This will also render a body blow to the auto industry
But where were all the Industry tycoons of the auto industry when Indias infrastructure was crumbling? Why were the babus allowed to create a catastrophie of this magnitude? Now we have to only do a massive patch up job
Santosh
the future action we take will have to be big, swift and clinical
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Egalitarian
Flyovers are being built all over but the benefits are marginal. Underground railways should become our core competence as we build them in every city. Heavy tolls are almost a certainity to pay for all the work that is now required to make our traffic bearable. We have scientists and Engineers in plenty but why do we have this kind of infrastructure? Our people in government do not work with a passion and hence everything has to be privatised. We cannot repeat the mistakes of the past and we will have to compensate for what has been done in the past with innovative solutions
Or else India will not survive its own prosperity
Santosh
will the Indian civilisation survive the coming 50 years?
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shaswat sur
sorry ive been too busy to blog lately. My apologies. It is definitely not the fault of the Tatas and like good businessmen they have seen opportunities and grabbed them. With the Nano India has hit the world stage ! But the car will be a disaster for India thanx to our pathetic roadways infrastructure and our miserable lack of planning and foresight over the years.
Will read your post and comment
Santosh
how can a country will such pathetic planning survive? That too with a billion people (another example of pathetic planning)
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karan diwan
how nicely put ! Increasing fertlity of a country with too many people ! Indeed unless we reduce traffic congestion both pollution and lack of progress will kill us
Santosh
once progress slows to a crawl jobs will not increase and the country will go into chaos
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dear samuel
staggering
spell binding
great analysis
how true you are ..
but problem is nt with nano but with our
infrastructure plan.
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bhiku matre
I donno how we are going to survive yaar. With out inefficiency we were ok wen we were poor. now with the number of vehicles increasing and the requirements of everything increasing we may be in serious trouble
Santosh
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PBS
Indeed prices will rise to the level they have to like water ! If someone raises prices too much the competition will come running in to take advantage ! Prices can be raised if the extra money is used fully to develop infrastructure and not corrupted by our politicians. Then the country will benefit and we will be able to live better in future at least
Santosh
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maddss123
Ive been checking and the two wheelers have about 30% of the casualities. So the nano would still create chaos on the roads just due to the sheer numbers
Santosh
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