India's infrastructure

As we had often come back to discussing economic benefits/impact of sports I thought it was about time for an economic discussion forum.
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gbelday
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by gbelday »

Thanks Jay/Suresh. I haven't been to India in 5 years (going for 5 weeks in Dec/Jan) and am really looking forward to seeing these changes. On my last trip 5 years ago, I was pretty impressed by the Ahmedabad/Baroda highway but that's about it. Everything else in Gujarat was pretty bad back then. Once you get off the highways and get into smaller towns, it's awful (garbage heaps, open drains, potholed roads etc). Things may have changed now but I would say the infrastructure in Gujarat is very bad compared to other cities in South (Hyderabad for example).
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by jayakris »

Yes, you will see a lot of changesin 5 years in India. But probably not like you expect. Most probably you will see a lot of things which remain the same, first disappointing you - if you thought that Mumbai or Chennai or Bangalore would suddenly look like even Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta or Monterei-MEX. No, they will all look waaaay behind world standards in most things. But, then you look around and you will start seeing more and more things that you thought were even possible 5 or 10 years back.... Then after 2-3 weeks, you will start getting used to what is truly third-world and stop noticing that, and your eyes will start seeing lots and lots of new/good changes. It is a work in progress. In 20 years, may be we will only be 20 years behind the modern world even in poorer Asia, unlike 40 years now :) ... We have caught up by about 10 years in the last 15 years...

Jay
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by sameerph »

jayakris wrote:I don't find any of the national highways (even stretches of the golden quadrilateral I drove on, like Delhi-Jaipur) really world-standard for what they are supposed to be. Pretty poor, actually. There are some gems here and there not on the NH system though. I thoroughly enjoyed driving along Karnataka state highway (89?) from Madikkeri to Mysore, which was one of the nicest drives I have ever had in India. Felt simply like driving through switzerland, really. The road is absolutely top-notch in every way... Some of the state roads built by foreign firms are pretty good. There are a few built by the malaysian firm Patibel in Kerala, which are really great. The Main Central Road from Chengannur to Thiruvananthapuram (125 km) is a beauty. Same with Ambalappuzha-Changanassery road etc, in Kerala. But the national highways in Kerala are amazingly bad.

Mumbai - Pune expressway is pretty good by Indian standards. You can constantly drive at 100-120 Kmph .
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by jayakris »

Sure. Mumbai-Pune is world-class. I didn't mention it only because it is accepted so by everybody. I have not driven it, but seeing all the photographs, it does look like a world-standard facitity.. Jay
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by Atithee »

Interesting theory. I do notice that Indian kids in the US are much taller than those in India. I always thought it was due to nutrition alone. This research points to a completely unexpected reason.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/th ... epage=true
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by Sandeep »

Was away from the forum for some time and didn't notice this thread. A real jewel in Indian infrastructure story is Hyderabad ring road. Whoever has time must visit it. IMO, it betters even the USA road network.

Here is a wiki article on it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Ring_Road,_Hyderabad and some pictures here http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthrea ... 82&page=19

I thought it was a pretty god initiative to de congest the city. And it has worked wonders so far
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by jayakris »

Thanks for posting that Sandeep. It looks really good. But I am not sure I like the median design between the two directions. This is done all over India, but I think it is still quite unsafe to have that half foot vertical rise (that too with the ugly black-white painting that hurts the eye) just a couple of feet from the edge of the faster inside lane. I would prefer simple barriers with the angled rise that "reflects" the stray vehicle back on to the road than having that kind of median where flower plants are grown. There *will* be sleepy drivers who will hit that thing and go airborne - and the accidents will be worse when it goes into the opposing direction. I wish they would quit doing that median design in India. One other problem in many Indian highways (probably here too) is that headlights that come from the other direction seriously affects the drivers' night vision (especially with the dusty haze going with it), and it is even worse when it is coming intermittently through the gaps in the vegetation in the median. Just a simple 4 feet barrier in the middle would have been much better. Have the beautification stuff on either side of the highway, not in the middle. And one less thing to dig up the pavement for, as no plant-irrigation water lines will need to be sent to the median areas.

I would like too see a night time picture, and see how well they have done the reflective lane markings. That is often done quite poorly in India, which is a pity, as it is not that super-expensive to do compared to all the money spent on building these highways.

Jay
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by PKBasu »

This seems to be a public sector project, completed with Japanese financing. That may be one of the few remaining viable ways to get things done in India, after the catastrophic depredations of a decade of UPA rule. Most of the Hyderabad-based developers are in serious trouble, especially Lanco (now desperately trying to sell its half -done overseas projects) and GMR. Given their support for tennis, GVK is hopefully in better shape. Basically, anybody who went into the power sector is toast -- as Lanco did.
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by Ggipunjab »

you are very right, We cannot say India's infrastructure is too old. In so many states we all enjoy the roads..

So many civil engineers are now in the India and they are working well..


I know there is also need of a lot of work to do but our govt. is slow..
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by bhagatghavri »

In 21century, after the freedom of 67 year, It is very bad for india's infrastructure especially in small cities.
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by prasen9 »

This is a good thing that Modi has done. Bullet trains between Ahmedabad and Mumbai
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by Sin Hombre »

prasen9 wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 11:34 pm This is a good thing that Modi has done. Bullet trains between Ahmedabad and Mumbai
A lot of criticism in the media; has anyone on here dug into the numbers to see if it makes sense?
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by prasen9 »

I think the loan is at pretty good terms. Of course, I have not seen the exact details, but, it seems the criticism is that we do not have money for hospitals, etc. at least in the ones I read. True. But, I think this project is going to have commercial benefits. Infrastructure improvements has a good return with respect to economic development. I would like to hear the other side, of course.
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by jayakris »

Would this really have economic benefits? How so, really? I'm just not a big believer in trains. Particularly so, if it's high speed rail... Are we willing to charge ticket rates at 8 or 10 times what an ac chair car on a regular Indian train costs? If we can charge that much and have enough people to buy the tickets, may be it can work out -- but I think there won't be even 1/5th of the number of people that needs to travel (just my guess). And then airfare would be cheaper (though air travel actually may take a bit longer). Anyway, other than to say that we also have high-speed rail, this was not of much benefit. And it's a lot of money.

Let's first improve our regular trains and stations first. There is no bigger national embarrassment than Indian Railways. Yikes.
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Re: India's infrastructure

Post by suresh »

States like TN have been neglected by the railways. Conversion to broad gauge from metre gauge is a recent occurrence. Then, there are places connected by single line, electrification is not complete and there are parts of the state that are not connected by train. With this as a backdrop, the bullet train doesn't even make sense.
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