[GrammarNazi]

News : Rs.90,000 Crore for Underground Ring Road in Mumbai

MUMBAI: The Centre is planning to construct a tunnel ring road in the city that can be linked to the proposed Ahmedabad-Mumbai highway.

The cost of the tunnel ring road project, as per initial estimates, is around Rs 90,000 crore.

"To improve connectivity and at the same time ensure that the scenic beauty of the city is not disturbed while creating bridges and roads, we are considering building a tunnel road that would go up to the proposed Ahmedabad-Mumbai highway," Union Road and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said here over the weekend.

Politically, I'm usually very liberal & rarely comment. But I'm confused if this is good news or bad.

Will spending Rs.9,00,00,00,00,000/- be worth the effort for an underground Ring Road?

[GrammarNazi]

Well, some initial number crunching (with some assumptions) got me thinking & worried. This is what I calculated :

The TOTAL Population of Mumbai & Surrounding cities, as per 2007 estimate, would be (Source) ~2.1 Crore. IMO At most, presently it'd be ~2.4 to 2.5 crore. Could be even this may not include everyone, so my conservative assumption would be ~3 crore people including everyone of every financial class.

Personally, I'd consider it safe to assume that in that Metropolitian area (Including Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Pune etc), 1 in 10 people (People, NOT families), could afford a car. Maybe 1 in 5 could afford any vehicle.

Thats about 30 Lakh cars or totally 60 Lakh vehicles that, put together, would burden the exchequer quite a hefty bit.

If we were to consider just cars, this project would cost Rs.3 Lakh PER CAR.
If we were to consider all vehicles, it'd cost Rs.1,50,000 per vehicle.

An Underground Ring Road in a city where they can't manage monsoon floods. Not convincing.

Getting priorities right is important, so would it be prudent to choose & spend this kind of money on roads? Can't they instead develop a public transport system thats even greener for the environment? We all are witness to how bad the pollution is in Delhi.

Moreover in a state that faces drought even though it has the most number of dams, I don't think even 60% will be spent honestly?

Else, this would cost Rs.30,000/- to every citizen of that area.
~12,000/- can keep a person above poverty line.
2/3 of entire Maharashtra's population (12 x 2/3 = 8cr) could be kept above poverty line with this much money.

Please feel free to correct me. I desperately hope I'm missing something.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Street Experiences Section. Thanks for sharing!

[condor]

That is one unique idea .. Got to see how it shapes up.

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Else, this would cost Rs.30,000/- to every citizen of that area.
~12,000/- can keep a person above poverty line.

30000 Rs -one-time
vs
12000 Rs each time ..

Which one ?

[hellmet]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

"...ensure that the scenic beauty of the city is not disturbed while creating bridges and roads...

Seriously, what scenic beauty?

Is there a builder/developer (lobbyist) that's pushing for this stupidity?

This initiative should die down soon and remain on paper (like various other govt. planned schemes). An underground ring-road of trains, in fact, would need much lesser space, cost a lot lesser and also be more useful to the general public than a multi-lane highway filled with tail-pipes..

To put to scale, Hyderabad's Metro Rail project only costs 14000 Crore (only?). 90K Crore can easily build 6-7 metro rails in various cities of this nation that desperately need public transport.

FAIL.

[SmartCat]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Else, this would cost Rs.30,000/- to every citizen of that area.
~12,000/- can keep a person above poverty line.
2/3 of entire Maharashtra's population (12 x 2/3 = 8cr) could be kept above poverty line with this much money.

Please feel free to correct me. I desperately hope I'm missing something.

You can't keep people out of poverty line by giving them money. If money is given to population with no economic value addition, it will result in hyperinflation. If poverty removal was that easy, RBI would have just printed billions of Rupees and deposited Rs. 10 Lacs each into everybody's bank account.

Spending on infrastructure is China's model of reducing poverty. Because when you spend Rs. 90,000 crores on huge infrastructure projects, you get -

1) Employment for skilled and unskilled people
2) Increase in demand for cement, steel etc
3) Increase in sales of construction machinery

Now this is worth it only if the infrastructure built helps in making the city a better place. Infrastructure development like this needs to show measurable results - like reduction in average commute time by XX minutes. This will then help reduce fuel costs of average Mumbaiker and also increase their work productivity.

[mallumowgli]

Originally Posted by smartcat

You can't keep people out of poverty line by giving them money. If money is given to population with no economic value addition, it will result in hyperinflation.

True - a bit like the story of the Hoover dam, which, as the story goes, was built to tide over the great depression. But the point is whether an underground ring road falls into the overall scheme of things so far as India's infrastructural requirement goes?

You put 90,000 crore in one project, with our fiscal deficit, you are surely short of money in so many other projects

What happened to dedicated freight corridors?
Or the plan of connecting ports with the hinterland?
Or as hellmet says, can we use the money better in building metro rail project in other 6 cities?
In short, what is the opportunity cost?

[PVPal]

This reads like an attempt to flinch a large amount of public money. Many generations would be required to pay this amount back.

A simple calculation will show: It would need ~ 8.22 lakh trips a day at a toll of 100 rs a trip for the next 30 years to just get the capex back. Forget the opex and servicing the debt.

With 24 lakh odd vehicles in mumbai, it would take 36 % of our vehicles to take this road everyday for the next 30 years.

Although connecting a very specific part of the city, the Worli sea link sees less than 41,000 cars a day. Compare this to 8.22 Lakhs.

Tall ask I dare say, one that many generations would have to pay for.

[ghodlur]

Totally unviable. Hell they couldn't get the under ground metro project assessed and approved how would they even attempt anything as this. Instead spend the money on improving the existing infrastructure, better roads, working signals, CCTV's, even for that matter clearer signage system. This could improve the driving conditions at least.

Also what does Mr Gadkari mean by aligning the Surat Mumbai highway? Is it misaligned right now?

The project as said will die off without a whimper. Just thinking the amount of digging that will go into this itself gives me goose bumps.

[GrammarNazi]

Originally Posted by condor

...Which one ?

30k is what it'll cost per person in that area (Mumbai, Pune, Thane etc) if they spend 90k crore.
12k is what can apparently keep a person "above poverty line" (Rs.32 x 365 days = 11680 : ~12000)

Originally Posted by hellmet

...Is there a builder/developer (lobbyist) that's pushing for this stupidity?

Could most definitely be. Theres NO reason to further congest our over-crowded cities!

...This initiative should die down soon and remain on paper (like various other govt. planned schemes). An underground ring-road of trains, in fact, would need much lesser space, cost a lot lesser and also be more useful to the general public than a multi-lane highway filled with tail-pipes...

The same question bugs me when I see how Bangalore's Metro construction would cost us 40,000 crores for just 114km. (Edit : And thts not including cost of Phase III !)

Government (especially Mr.Nitin Gadkare) seems seriously off the mark. I remember last time too he mooted some unreal proposal to plant 200crore trees (NOT Rupees, trees!) along all the 1lakh km of highways (viz 20,000trees per km viz 1 tree every 5cms!!).

This time they further go on to say, "Funds aren't an issue... but we'll try to make it cheaper...", asif staging an "under-promise & over-deliver" strategy !

Originally Posted by smartcat

You can't keep people out of poverty line by giving them money. ... If poverty removal was that easy, RBI would have just printed billions of Rupees and deposited Rs. 10 Lacs each into everybody's bank account....

Nope, its NOT the same as printing money.

Govt distributing money collected from us as Tax to the marginalised IS, to quite an extent, a viable & useful option and is even followed through direct transfer to bank accounts.

[condor]

GrammarNazi : 30k is what it'll cost per person in that area (Mumbai, Pune, Thane etc) if they spend 90k crore.
12k is what can apparently keep a person "above poverty line" (Rs.32 x 365 days = 11680 : ~12000)

That is still 30000 for one time spend over the life of the tunnel road - VS - one year's worth of keeping above poverty line.

GrammarNazi : Government (especially Mr.Nitin Gadkare) seems seriously off the mark. I remember last time too he mooted some unreal proposal to plant 200crore trees (NOT Rupees, trees!) along all the 1lakh km of highways (viz 20,000trees per km viz 1 tree every 5cms!!).

I think you are as seriously off the mark as you mention Gadkari. I suggest you go back & re-visit that particular set of calculations, and you will see how wrong you are with ref to the distance between trees.

[GrammarNazi]

Originally Posted by condor

That is still 30000 for one time spend over the life of the tunnel road - VS - one year's worth of keeping above poverty line...

Its been just 12 years and Mumbai-Pune Expressway has started showing signs of aging. This being underground would face serious expenses on maintenance.

Ofcourse this would have a long usage period. But so would improved public transport, and my main concern is how much would go down the drain due to corruption, and the opportunity cost we lose instead. (If not in terms of money, in terms of preventable farmer suicides.)

I think you are as seriously off the mark as you mention Gadkari. I suggest you go back & re-visit that particular set of calculations, and you will see how wrong you are with ref to the distance between trees.

Pray tell me how that'd be an error. And by how much.

1 lakh km of India's highways is being proposed to be lined with 200 crore trees.

Even if I were to assume 3 rows of trees on left & 1 on the right (median), the calculation would come to 1 tree every 20cms.

*1 Lakh km (distance as reported by The Hindu newspaper) is assuming you consider one side of the highway, totally 1 lakh running kms. Even if you assume its ~2L kms (as per 2006), and assuming somehow an additional 1 lakh by now, totalling 3L kms. They'd be planting 1 tree every 60cms, which still does NOT make much sense. lol Unless they plan to plant forests enroute.

[theMAG]

The thought is appreciated- a change from constructing hopovers across traffic signals long since obsolete since 20 years. However, the commercial model - for funding and maintaining such an ambitious project would likely be the Achilles Heel. Hope it really does work out though!

[maddy42]

Mr Gadkari has talked about alot of his plans but nothing concrete has come of it yet. I just hope this 90000 crore plan doesn go through. Instead all the bottlenecks around our highway should be dealt with.

If someone can improve drastically the Mumbai local train experience he would get the nobel prize.

Bangalore has an option to go with local trains but the local politicos would rather spend on the metro to nowhere.

Maddy

[condor]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Pray tell me how that'd be an error. And by how much.

You are completely off the mark - that much !!

Please do your research on that particular news rather than trying to show calculations. Of course, I could give the details too, but I suggest you dont depend on me