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Having recently relocated back to India after many years in a beautiful
Mediterranean Island, and having tracked so many of India's success
stories on the Internet, I was quite keen to see first hand what this hype
about the Golden Quad was all about - hence was one of the reasons
for the 1400 km round road trip to Goa and back over the New Year a
few months ago.
It was indeed quite heartening to see that India has finally woken up to
realise what the country needs is good roads and connectivity,
with thanks due to Mr.Vajpayee for making it happen. What was
disheartening to see is the pace of implementation or the lack of it, and
the way it is being carried out. The famous Indian " Chalta Hai" attitude
is all too evident all along.
John F.Kennedy had once famously said that it was roads which built
America and more recently it has been mentioned, that a country's
development or progress can be measured by the quality of its roads.
Mr.Vajpayee certainly realised this but I'm not quite sure if the country
as a whole does. This is where I think the Times of India recently did
an excellent job in enlightening the public with campaigns such as
firstly, ' Refresh Bangalore' and later, 'India Poised' which will hopefully
make the concerned powers-that-be, sit up and take notice.
My drive was approximately 700 kms each way and by world or developed
country standards should have been completed in a maximum of eight-nine
hours. Instead it took me sixteen hours each way (including pit stops) but
then of course this is Chalta Hai India ! I could perhaps have done it in one
or two hours less but then I didn't want to break the back of my poor Honda
City any more than I already had, what with all the potholes dotting the
landscape of certain parts of the road! While restricting my comments only
to the much hyped GQ stretches this is what I saw.
The entire strech (NH4) from Bangalore to Hubli where I diverted onto NH 63
is only partially complete, a recent NHAI ad claiming completion by end 2006
notwithstanding. I do not see the incomplete stretches being ready to roll in
a month of Sundays - there is a long way to go, and my guess is three years
more at the minimum. There was virtually no work going on except perhaps for
an occasional road layer or two. Entire bridges are only half complete. On one
of these there was a board announcing "Awaiting approval from Commissioner
of Railway Safety". And when will that come?
One still has to pass through all the towns and cities on the way with no
bypasses in sight, defeating the very purpose of having expressways. The
contractor and NHAI of course would have a million excuses - land acquisition
problems being a favourite. Perhaps the actual excuse should be - this is India,
Incredible India!
Out of the completed stretches the one from Bangalore to Nelamangala was
tolerable but only just so, with a million intersections and junctions and slow
moving lorry traffic clogging up the stretch. (This country must have the most
underpowered trucks in the world not able to even negotiate the slightest
gradient!). The access-controlled Nelamangala - Tumkur stretch ( with toll
Plazas either end ) was much better though still a far cry from a world class
expressway.
The stretch from Tumkur to Chitradurga was an absolute delight - truly world
class, and something that said that If India really wanted to do it, it could.
The road surface was fantastic with an extremely good ride quality. The road
markings and signposting was simply superb. This stretch had excellent
expressway features like entry/exit ramps, foot overbridges and underpasses.
Chitradurga is where the delightful experience ended.
With no bypass to the city built yet, one has to bump, rattle and roll along till
you hit the stretches at the other end that are being built. Here is where the
nightmare begins. Some stretches have been opened to traffic and some not,
four lanes turn into two all of a sudden, back into one lane, into four again and
then a into dirt track which needs a dune buggy to navigate, back into four lane,
two lane, one and a half lane - whatever. And incredible as it may sound speed
humps pop up (and that too on a freeway for God's sake! ) with no warning,
sending the vehicle and its occupants flying in all directions! This goes on all
the way to Hubli.
The signposting is miserable and if you are not careful you can end up, down from
100 km/hr to zero - in a ditch, in a flash of a second! The few signboards that are
there are indeed laughable. They were probably hand painted by a school kid, full
of spelling errors, and stuck into the ground with bamboo poles! Incredible India
Indeed! There are millions being spent on this road project and no money has
been spent on proper warning signs or signboards (which obviously can't cost
much). There was one signboard which said "Diversion" and pointed the wrong
way - into a deep excavation! Had this been in the US the concerned authorities
would certainly have been sued.
The contractor is a JV between an Indian business group (Essar) and a Malaysian
company and they proudly display their name on their homemade sign posts!
I am convinced the Malaysian partner certainly did not build roads in his country
in this fashion since Malaysian roads are something to write home about. So who
is overseeing this shoddy work or are there more Satyendra Dubeys required?
This is again Chalta Hai at work. If some poor driver just ended up in the ditch and
broke his bones or got killed, who cares? My experience of seeing roads being
built in the West is altogether different. First they build the diversions and make
them 100% motorable with excellent signposting and warning signs visible in day
or at night, and its only then that the main work is started. Once complete the
diversions disappear as though nothing ever existed.
Driving back in the night on these "fancy" GQ stretches being built, is another
nightmare which needs to be described, but which I will perhaps reserve for another
occasion.
India Poised, did someone say? | 
9th January 2007, 16:51
with you !! I did the stretch from Nayudupet to Ichchapuram (NH5) throughout as part of my kolkata trip and it was truely awesome...Bypasses are excellent designed and maintained and hence u can do the distances very fast...
