India’s Golden Quadrilateral (1)
Posted : December 5, 2005 at 4:05 pm [America/Los_Angeles]
The Indian government has begun a 15-year project to widen and pave some 40,000 miles of narrow, decrepit national highways, with the first leg, budgeted at $6.25 billion, to be largely complete by next year. It amounts to the most ambitious infrastructure project since independence in 1947 and the British building of the subcontinent’s railway network the century before.
…The effort echoes the United States’ construction of its national highway system in the 1920’s and 1950’s. “This is the American 1950’s happening in India now,” said Padma Chandrasekaran, a Madras resident marveling at the new ease of driving the 205 miles to Bangalore.
…In the 50 years after independence, the government built just 334 miles of four-lane roads.
…Nationalists also hope the highway will further unite a country that is home to 22 official languages, the world’s major religions, a host of separatist movements, and 35 union territories and states, many more populous than European nations.
…Having invested more than 10 times as much as India since the mid-1990’s, China now has 15 times the expressway length.
…Commerce along the American interstate system began with quirky roadside establishments. Over time it evolved toward deliberately homogenized chains - McDonald’s, Motel 6 - whose signs meant familiarity in unfamiliar terrain. Reliance has leapfrogged that process, making itself the Golden Arches of the Golden Quadrilateral. Its British-designed gas stations are identically bright and streamlined, with computerized billing and clean, airy dhabas, or restaurants.
…India’s middle class has grown to an estimated 250 million in the past decade, and the number of super-rich has grown sharply as well.
…India has become one of the world’s fastest-growing car markets, with about a million being sold each year.
…The country already has one of the world’s highest accident rates, with more than 80,000 traffic-related deaths a year. Few police officers patrol its roads, which ensures that pretty much anything goes, even at times on the fancy new highway.
…There are still only about eight million passenger vehicles on Indian roads, in a country of more than one billion people. By the late 1920’s, in comparison, the United States had 23 million registered car owners.
…Most Indians cannot afford the tolls along the Golden Quadrilateral, let alone the cars to drive on it. Gandhi, whose foot marches for social justice defined an era of Indian history, now has an expressway named for him. Its toll of $1.33 is more than about 300 million Indians earn in a day.
— Amy Waldman, “NYTimes: India Accelerating” (Part 1, 2 and 3)
I can only hope and pray that this effort is just the beginning of more “infrastructure” projects in India. The country needs it. More importantly, the countrymen are hungry for it. It’s time it got done.
- Anand
Category: Chindia