chaotic moments

TATA’s have done it …

Airplanes – Trucks – SUVs – Indica – Nano …

I wouldn’t be entirely wrong if I said that Tata’s were responsible in bringing passenger air services in India … and this year they have created another benchmark by bringing in Nano … in fact they are one of the bests (if not the best) in whatever field they are in … whether it is manufacturing or services (telecom/ IT/ Consulting/ …) they have provided India (read the mass of India – middle class) as affordable means of accessing what is known as luxury in a lot of aspects … especially in telecom and auto …

I think Nano is full of small innovation (let me call it Nano-vations) which will lead to new set of standards … a car meant for a small family who can have safer transportation … considering today its extremely unsafe to travel on scooter with a kid in front and wife hold younger one behind … we call female riders – crazy – I think its much safer for them now … at least they won’t tumble down and their scarf won’t get stuck in the rear wheel … with the growing affordability of the middle class – it’s a truly remarkable product …

Now, some of our environmentalists are claiming that bringing such inexpensive medium to the roads would create a havoc and chaos … there are too many cars anyway … and with nano on road, another million would be there in 2 yrs time frame … what would happen to pollution levels … global warming is anyway rising and nano has added fuel to the fire …

But I think little differently … I think innovation is child of necessity … there was a necessity to safe-inexpensive mode of private transportation – and you got that … so if you need to reduce the traffic to the road … you need to improve on the alternatives … look at Delhi and Kolkata – they have brought in Metro as alternate means of mass transport … people actually use them and avoid their own vehicles … this proves that if we have a proper (safe secure and affordable) and multiple means of mass transit … people would actually prefer to use them rather than own vehicles … after all buying is one thing … running costs petrol!!!

What we need today is a differentiated strategies to deal with it … differentiated based on the tier of the city (Metros (Delhi/Mumbai) / Rapid rising cities (B’lore/Pune/Hyd) / tier 2 and 3 cities (Indore/ Nagpur/ Bhuvaneshwar/ NCR) … ) … smaller than that wouldn’t make too much of a difference anyway …

Most of them need to have:

a) Proper roads – with dividers and street lights (which lights during night)

b) Road based transport – aka buses – run in PPP mode which should run based on ‘time factor’ and not the number of passengers factor … (Mumbai’s BEST is the best). Most of the bigger cities do have it but a person like me would want to travel in those overly crowded – unreliable in terms of time it reaches the destinations … and of course the kind of public who gets in … not that I hate them for any personal reason but the overall experience is not so great (neither is expected) … which triggers the need of multiple level of buses (like B’lore started with AC – Volvos … a nice initiative – but needs more buses and to be deployed in more routes with more frequency)

c) Rail based – Metro / Local (in case the distance is larger) – we have well laid out railway network – what we need is a good system (again Mumbai Local is an example but needs a lot of improvement there) … for instance I found that Delhi and NCR region are connected with EMU (locals) to some extent and similarly in Kolkata and Chennai too – but needs little more facilitated … Delhi’s and Kolkata’s Metro Rails are the best examples of how successful these modes can be … (debate can be there for type of Metro!)

d) Autos/ Taxis – should have proper stands – can be availed by hailing (Kolkata and Mumbai has this service and is fairly good) … Delhi has – but not properly regulated – and that is why people do not prefer to a great extent … though Radio Taxis have brought in some relief … still a log way to go … similarly three wheel auto rickshaws … needs a little more regularization and strict monitoring … (Mumbai autos are relatively better)

I think I am asking for too many things from the gov … as of course it takes time to develop such infrastructure … and by the time one gov decides to go for an alternative the other gov (post elections) uproots the entire plan and restarts again … and this process continues and we remain where we are … left hassled …

# posted by chaos @ 6:16 PM