Home Blog Page 73

WalkTransit: An Inexpensive Idea For Urban Mobility

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • WalkTransit could well be an extensive, safe and innovative public transport system for every neighbourhood in the cities.

The idea of a pod taxi has been doing the rounds in India. This was initially mooted by the Ministry of Road Transport for a network of driverless vehicles to connect New Delhi with Manesar or Gurugram, in Haryana, and has been picked up also by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) covering six lines in the city.

Developed by Metrino Personal Rapid Transit, the system involves “small, fully automatic, driverless vehicles called pods” that would travel suspended under an overhead network which itself would be laid over the median of a highway stretch.

The pods can seat a maximum of five people at a time for individual trips at an average speed of 50 km per hour. The company claims the cost of construction is 50 times lesser than for an underground metro – or about Rs 50 crore per kilometre – with a maximum carrying capacity of 6,000 passengers per direction per hour compared to 3,000 for buses and 40,000 for the metro.

At this cost, it would still amount to Rs 2,500 crore (almost $410 million) for a 50 km coverage in any Indian city. Cheaper than a metro, but could we better this?

WalkTransit: Travelators as inexpensive public transport

Imagine we had something similar to the Metrino, an overhead system running above the road medians which could perform much the same task of transporting people at an order-of-magnitude lesser cost of construction – say, Rs 10 crore per kilometre. And this system could deliver not one but multiple benefits.

Too good to be true?

We are talking of a moving walkway or travelator – a “WalkTransit”.

Far, far less expensive to build, no complicated “yet-to-prove” technologies, no urban land to procure, comfortable and aesthetic to encourage people to use it, highly safe, and one that integrates very well with existing transportation infrastructure.

How good would this be?

A short history

From an engineering perspective, the concept is very old – the first travelator was installed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, followed by one at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900.

The Beeler Organization, a New York consulting company, proposed a continuous transit system for Atlanta in 1924 that involved a linear induction motor. In 1954, Jersey City in the United States of America deployed the first commercial moving walkway inside a railway station, and the first one inside an airport was installed in Dallas in 1958.

These were short distance, slow, travelators that can still be seen at many airports around the world.

In the 1970s, Gabriel Bouladon and Paul Zuppiger of Dunlop developed the Speedaway, a high-speed prototype that was demonstrated at the Battelle Institute in Geneva. Their design achieved a maximum speed of 15 km per hour and also had a unique differential embarking/disembarking section – a wide walkway, moving at a speed of about 4 km per hour and a narrower, high speed, transport section that could achieve the maximum stated speeds.

The Speedaway never achieved commercial production, and many other attempts followed – the TRAX developed by Dassault in the 1980s and installed at the Paris Invalides metro station; the Loderway Moving Walkway installed at the Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia in the 1990s; and the experimental high-speed installed at the Montparnasse-Bienvenue metro station in Paris in 2002.

The last of these travelled at a maximum speed of 6 km per hour (although it could travel faster at 12 km per hour but found that people were losing their balance at that speed).

A different design heuristic for Indian cities

Keeping in view the possible constraints (usage by senior citizens and children; maximum use in local neighborhood areas and not for long-distance commuting; and as a compelling and competitive complementary alternative, but not a substitute, to existing metro, city bus and private vehicles that would likely need some enticement in the form of cost, comfort and a pleasant traveling experience) this old idea of travelators could be improved upon to provide Indian urban areas with an inexpensive transport.

This could even be the magic bullet for Prime Minister Modi’s oft-discussed smart city transit planning.

The urban WalkTransit could be broad and, as with airport travelators, have an immobile section on one-half for individuals who wish to stand rather than walk with handrail support, and the other moving half for people who wish to walk on it and thus get some exercise. The whole thing could be enclosed in an air conditioned tubular or oblong glass structure to provide passengers with a pleasant and non-polluting experience.

The “stations” could be much smaller and sparse with covered escalators and elevators to both sides of the road.

The important thing to note is that travelator designs in Europe that attempted at a fast public transit have generally failed for reasons of complexity and safety.

Many of them had a railway station design heuristic that sought to separate much slower moving traffic for people wanting to get off at a station and a faster moving one for those continuing their journey. This likely added unnecessary complexity.

For Indian cities, the simpler airport design where walkways run for about 100 m and then terminate on hard ground (for those wanting to get off to get to nearby gates) and resumption of the walkway about 10 m further on for those continuing to more distant gates seems appropriate. This could be adopted with a bus stop design heuristic, where the hard ground termination – or travelator stations – could happen every few hundred meters (with visual and audio announcements) and leading, on both sides, to escalators/elevators that take passengers down to each side of the street.

These stations, in turn, could be integrated with bus stops and metro stations to maximise public transit efficiency and use for longer distance commuting.

What would such a system cost?

If the Metrino is expected to cost Rs 50 crore per kilometre with its advanced driverless transportation systems for safety, monitoring and intelligent management, the simple airport-style travelator as an urban transit alternative could possibly be one-tenth per kilometre.

The re-design along the lines described above may double the cost per kilometre, say, Rs 10 per km, which would still be an extraordinarily inexpensive solution to move 10,000 people per hour in any neighbourhood area that otherwise would require relatively expensive metro, bus or taxi services.

As a comparison, an air conditioned bus, such as a Volvo that is now a common sight in the big Indian cities, costs about Rs 1 crore each and can transport about 80 people when full, including standees (most of them run at 50 per cent capacity). Meaning you would need 100 such buses costing Rs 100 crore to transport the number of people a travelator could for a fraction of the cost.

Of course, the buses go longer distances but have the impact on traffic congestion, the cost of fossil fuel and pollution from emissions – all of which could be an advantage when you consider that a travelator would run on electricity and will likely cost much less per person.

Benefits

There are many benefits from seeking to build an extensive WalkTransit system in India’s cities and towns:

Cost

At Rs 10 per kilometre, WalkTransit infrastructure could cover 100 km for just Rs 1,000 crore. Any public transit system can’t beat that number. This would seek to serve neighbourhoods and, therefore, de-congest main streets.

Volume

At least 10,000 people per hour in both directions at any locality.

Ticketless

Municipalities could make this system free to use and recoup the much lower cost of maintenance in other ways. Ticketless travel would encourage greater use.

Revenue possibilities

Municipalities could earn incomes from kiosk rentals at stations and vinyl wrap advertising on the glass enclosure that would be visible on the outside while shielding those on the inside from sunlight, while also allowing them to look outside. WalkTransit stations could have small local businesses such as cafes, newspaper vendors, mobile stores and florists.

Changing public behaviour

By making the system free and providing air conditioned comfort with reasonable speeds (up to 5 km per hour), it could encourage more people to use it and, thereby, also be prompted to walk on the travelator. Such walking would contribute to better public health and help halt the increasing instances of chronic disease owing to sedentary lifestyles. If a WalkTransit system felt pleasant to use, people might actually use them and make gradual behavioural changes for their own health benefit.

Self-powered for auxiliary use

Solar panels on top of the glass enclosure could power local requirements such as LED lighting, audio-visual displays and CCTV. Power for the motors to run the travelator could come from the grid.

Higher involvement in local community and commerce

Numerous studies have shown that more involved communities tend to be safer and better overall. WalkTransit could encourage more local people to use the system instead of “app taxis”, afford slower vistas of the surrounding areas from a height, ability to have leisurely conversations with “co-passengers” and help local commerce.

Superior solution to expand across smaller cities

WalkTransit offers an incredibly inexpensive solution for smaller Tier 1 and 2 cities that have inefficient bus services and cannot afford metros.

Push to Make in India

Finally, this could propel “Make in India” forward. The technology is stable and known, no transfer of technology required, and only companies manufacturing domestically could be qualified to tender.

Re-defining public transportation for the cities

The most important benefit is likely in the long term and largely inestimable. Indian cities have become notoriously difficult for people to walk in and navigate owing to the poor quality of sidewalks, chaotic traffic, high rate of accidents and extreme pollution. People have stopped walking, and only a few do so in parks. More and more people now use motorised personal transport, which only adds to the congestion. The other big benefit is its low power consumption and zero pollution.

Medellin’s example

Can we re-define public transport that could be embraced by other cities around the world for its innovative thinking? The question is worth asking because of the possibilities that it holds.

In 2013, Medellin in Columbia, one of the world’s most violent cities, was voted the most “innovative city of the year” by the Wall Street Journal. It beat New York City and Tel Aviv for first place. There were many reasons for conferring the honour upon that place – among them mobility, buildings and spaces, and participatory citizen budgeting.

But one of the most talked about changes to its cityscape was the deployment of a large outdoor escalator system in 2011 that connected poverty-stricken slum neighbourhoods along the hillsides to the prosperous valley floor and integrated an otherwise separated city.

Slum-dwellers could access job opportunities that were out of bounds because of distance.

Other out-of-the-box transport systems in that city included a free, public bicycle system and a much-acclaimed bus rapid transit system. The much-preferred and oft-touted word in India today is “inclusiveness” and what better example of this than Medellin’s?

WalkTransit could well be an extensive, safe and innovative public transport system for every neighbourhood in the cities. It represents an opportunity for the Indian government to think radically and set in motion a disruptive, collaborative, public-private partnership involving licensed operators for specific areas in each city, government-owned infrastructure that operators would use, technology companies to provide intelligent systems, ticketless use to encourage users to give up or leverage traditional transit, coupons tied to mobile apps which, say, monitor health while using the travelators and offer lower health premiums or doctor consultations, an efficient and effective transit authority, and much more.

We are only limited by the scale of our imagination.

Bengaluru Shows The Way In How NOT To Manage Vehicle And Pedestrian Traffic

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • If you want to see what not to do about traffic management, Bengaluru should be first on your travel plan.

If you want a good example of bad traffic and road management, look no further than global IT city Bengaluru. In most of the newly-developed IT hotspots of the city, roads, speed-breakers, traffic signals, bus stops and pedestrian crossings follow few design principles or the specifications of the law. Thus, what passes off as traffic management impedes vehicular and human traffic flows, often endangering lives.

It is thus good news that a compensation of Rs 22 lakh has been awarded by the Karnataka State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission for a badly designed speed-breaker in BTM Layout (somewhere to the south-east of the city) that caused the death of a software professional in February 2008. The fine has been imposed collectively on the traffic police, the BBMP (the city municipal corporation), and the state’s urban development department (UDD), none of whom (predictably) accepts responsibility for the death of Surya Prakash, who was riding a bike home around midnight when he skidded at speed-bump and met with a fatal accident.

According to a report in The Economic Times, while the traffic police and the UDD denied it was their job to manage speed-bumps, the BBMP claimed that Surya Prakash was killed because of a skid near the bump and not on the bump itself. This is questionable, since skids happen because the rider sees the bump a bit too late, and braking suddenly can result in skidding.

Bengaluru roads are killers by bad design, and in 2014 the traffic police reported 729 deaths – roughly two daily. While over 90 per cent of these accidents have been attributed to rash or reckless driving, it raises the question: isn’t this what traffic rules are about? Rash driving is not just about poor driving or riding skills (which means the Regional Transport Office isn’t doing its job), but also poor traffic policing and non-enforcement of road rules, among other things.

Consider the many transgressions on the road.

It is common to see cars, mini-trucks and two-wheelers ply on the wrong side of the road – they come in the direct that is opposite to the flow of one-way traffic – and it happens because they don’t want to drive a bit further before a U-turn.

Many speed bumps are built to excessive heights (the rules say they should not exceed 0.1 metres; read the guidelines here and here), thus hitting car undercarriages often, causing damage to vehicles. If car owners took the BBMP to court just like Surya Prakash’s father did, the municipal authorities would not be so careless. Some of the speed-bumps do not even sport visible black-and-white bands or signages to warn riders or drivers of the bumps ahead. This is one reason why Surya Prakash may have failed to see the badly-built BBMP bump nine years ago.

Public buses are incentivised to pick up as many passengers as possible, which means they wait longer than needed at busy bus stops to collect passengers. Multiple buses halting at the same stop means some of them are double-parked illegally (though temporarily), restricting available lanes for moving traffic. Thus, despite road spaces being adequate, buses constrict flows artificially.

On many side roads, speed bumps and artificial vertical barriers are erected illegally by citizens themselves, apparently to prevent too many vehicles from using these roads. But there is no action against such lawless restrictions on traffic movement. When the law recedes, citizens take the law into their own hands.

Drains are desilted to allow rainwater to flow into them and not form pools on roads, but the debris and muck is left on the side of the drain for so long that half of it falls back into the drain before being removed. Surely, the people desilting drains are not in talking terms with those who have to move the muck. Whether you clear the drains or not, the muck constricts road spaces.

Pedestrian skywalks in busy office areas like the Outer Ring Road-Sarjapur area, where lakhs of people come to work every day, have been an after-thought rather than a part of road-building schemes. Citizens thus must dash across roads brimming with cars and buses, risking life and limb.

When public pressure builds up, road dividers are suddenly cut by the traffic police to allow cars and bikes to make U-turns without going the regular distance. Thus, at many places, you have bikes and cars trying to bisect high-traffic trunk roads at right angles – an unthinkable situation in any modern country with any degree of road sense.

If you want to see what not to do about traffic management, Bengaluru should be first on your travel plan.

Note: The above rant may be loaded against Bengaluru, but these are based on actual observations. Some other cities could be worse, and I invite readers to send me gorier stories of traffic mismanagement for future reference.

Also Read: Reclaiming The Pavement For The Pedestrian: Ten Ways To Implement This

Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.

To Control Its Future, India Must Control Its Energy Sources

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Continuing mismanagement has led to repeated crises in the coal sector and the coal scam was the culmination of it.However, the present government’s bid to explore all aspects of energy for the first time is a good sign.

The conviction of former coal secretary H C Gupta by a Central Bureau of Investigation special court in one of the coal allocations is a sign of a much larger problem in India’s energy economy – that of mismanagement. And this partly explains how India is trailing China on ensuring energy security.

Energy is at the heart of any country’s assurance of economic security. Former United States president Barack Obama put it pithily when he declared ‘a nation that can’t control its energy sources can’t control its future’, spelling out a compelling reason for the need to get back to discovering the juice to power plants, cars and homes from within America instead of mining for oil in the deserts of Middle East.

Energy is the plumbing that underlies any economy. Below the flashing lights of banks of computer terminals, the smart cities, the digital economy is the energy lifeline. Roughly, for a 1 per cent growth of gross domestic product (GDP) for an economy, the rate of growth of energy supply has to be 1 per cent too. It has begun to climb down only now as energy efficiency of economies has begun to improve, both in usage of conventional fuels and larger use of renewable energy.

Even as Obama has pulled the US away from its oil fountain in the Middle East and geriatric Europe has decided it does not need so much of energy, coal or oil, the world’s two most populated countries – China and India – need more of those. Because of their common geological poverty, these two countries never had oil; but they have coal and lots of it. As the two fastest growing mass of people in the twenty-first century, it is impossible for the leaders of these two mega economies to let someone else control their supply of energy and control their future. So they are not going to give up on coal soon.

But that realisation has taken time to sink in. And it is this delay that has led to repeated crisis in India’s primary source of domestic energy – coal. The coal scam of which Gupta is one of the victims or perpetrators, depending on one’s point of view, was the culmination of this crisis.

As India became an independent country in 1947, the role of energy as a part of the nation’s security (whether as coal or oil) wasn’t up for debate among its battery of lawyer-politicians. Jawaharlal Nehru abhorred the energy race as a manifestation of the worst instinct of capitalism. Opening India’s first oil field at Ankleshwar in Gujarat, he demanded to know why a barrel of oil transported to London cost less than when sent to Mumbai. Nobody could give him an answer. Instead, independent India had inherited its first price control order for any sector – coal. The British government passed the Colliery Control Order in 1944 to keep prices of the mineral from shooting up and upsetting its cost of financing the Second World War. India would give up on the price control only in 1996.

By then price control had wreaked massive damage. In 1973, the year of nationalisation of coal mining, the official price of a tonne of coal was Rs 42. Fifty years earlier, it was Rs 7. The black market rate had moved up to Rs 100. While prices were kept stagnant, costs for the sector rose. One of the first laws passed by independent India’s government was the Coal Mine Workers’ Provident Fund Act. Price control on the product and raising the cost of hiring workers did magic for the sector – investments plummeted.

Since successive governments had no clear idea of how to secure energy security, with each decade India found itself drawn closer to the global energy battles. The two oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, the Gulf crisis of 1993 leading to the protracted disturbances in the Middle East and the rise of environment evangelists from Europe made themselves felt on India’s energy economy one after another. India would have to wait till the sixth Five Year Plan written in 1980-85 to get its first act on energy. Energy as a subject figured for the first time in the Plan document as the headline of a chapter. “The vital importance of energy, the growing problems of energy supply and the possibilities of inter-fuel substitution require that the policy and plans for individual energy producing sectors should (now) be part of an overall energy strategy,” then deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Pranab Mukherjee noted in the first sentence of the chapter. (India’s Coal Story)

While in the closed economy model the policy planners messed up the production and allocation of coal, there were hardly any improvements made post liberalisation, except for opening up mining in a limited way to the private sector. That led the way for the coal scam. Essentially we have waged a ruinous war for almost 70 years between the government of the day and business over who would have the right to extract coal. It has even now not been fully settled which is why the government has prevaricated on whether to allow commercial coal miners to extract the mineral. The war has kept each government distracted about the larger necessity of ensuring energy security. As the table shows, each period of coal crisis has dragged down the growth rate of GDP and pushed up inflation.

The distraction has been costly. The economy has suffered high inflation that has kept interest rates high for everyone – it has allowed politicians to play favourites in offering cheaper alternatives and downstream users of coal like power, steel and cement have lost out on a long-term policy that could have got them coal at cheaper cost to improve efficiency for the economy.

These users are therefore keener to source coal from abroad, which means using the sea route. But this too has its share of problems. Unlike China, India has not been able to use its state-owned companies to get an advantageous price from countries like Indonesia, Australia or even Mozambique. Tata Power and Adani Power have learned to cost the risks of fluctuations in the price of imported coal when they have to sell power in a regulated domestic market. Since China has been able to handle the risks, it is in a position to provide a far better price of fuel for its companies.

Those risks are now likely to shoot up. The Middle Kingdom is stretching out to secure oil and gas supplies through its trans-continental pipelines on both flanks of India, through Myanmar and Pakistan. On carting coal to the mainland, China has a geographical Achilles Heel in the straits of Malacca. It is a thin waterway that could get blocked by an unhelpful neighbour when military tensions rise. To overcome that problem, China is investing in Gwadar Port in Pakistan to open an alternative line of supply. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor has a clear strategic meaning when read from the standpoint of energy security.

India’s energy security will correspondingly require a larger canvas to become effective. One step involves securing a committed line of gas supply from the United Arab Emirates or Turkmenistan. The alternatives from domestic sources are not easy. ONGC on Friday declared natural gas production is not profitable for the company, anymore. To its credit this government has begun to examine all aspects of energy for the first time in India. But the options have not eased up.

Renewable energy, despite India’s commitment to produce 175 GW by 2022, is realistically somewhat distant. Solar, for instance, even after assuming a 20 per cent CAGR, will only reach 100 GW even by 2030. As of now, within the present domestic installed capacity of 319 GW of electricity generation, 192 GW is coal fired. The share of renewable energy is 50 GW or 15.6 per cent of total. Gupta and other relics of coal era will take time to clear up. We need to keep a sharp eye on the larger picture.

 

Nagpur Is Now The Electric Vehicles Capital Of India; Here’s What Your City Can Learn From It

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Nagpur is about to see massive infrastructure overhaul for electric vehicles.This gives it the opportunity to lead the way as India’s electric vehicles capital.

On Friday (26 May), Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis launched India’s first ‘electric mass transit project’ in Nagpur, the winter capital of Maharashtra. As part of the project, the city will see a massive overhaul of infrastructure for electric vehicles. Two-hundred electric cabs manufactured by Mahindra will be added to the city’s fleet, operated by Ola, of which 63 are already on the road. Kinetic Green Energy supplied 100 Kinetic Safars, the company’s flagship e-rickshaw model.

Fadnavis also inaugurated an electric charging station operated by Ola at the Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. Three more such charging stations are set to be installed in the future with a total of 53 charging points.

Electric vehicles, particularly electric rickshaws, have been a particular area of interest for the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari. The minister had pushed for an amendment to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2014 to allow e-rickshaws to ply on the streets of New Delhi after the High Court had banned them. He had even invited Chinese automobile manufacturers to set up joint ventures to manufacture them locally.

Nagpur, which is represented by Fadnavis in the Vidhan Sabha and Gadkari in the Lok Sabha, had earlier seen India’s first bio-fuel-powered buses, manufactured by Scania.

So, what are the lessons we can learn from Nagpur?

One, leveraging the private sector. The entire plan currently involves three players from the private sector: Ola, Mahindra and Kinetic Green. While the latter two are manufacturers, the former is an operator of services. By letting Ola own and operate charging points, electric vehicle owners now have the option to charge their cars if Ola decides to enable them as public charging platforms.

Two, charging stations are here. Along with this project, Fadnavis announced that Maharashtra has exempted all electric vehicles from road taxes and registration.

How should the government take this forward?

One, the city’s transport operator, Nagpur Mahanagar Parivahan Limited, needs to get electric buses on the roads. As I had suggested earlier, bus stations and depots need to set up public charging points. This will lead to a win-win situation for buses, auto rickshaws, cabs and privately owned cars. Further, it will create mild competition between different service providers, which will result in better quality of transport.

Two, encourage more private participation in setting up charging infrastructure. Ola has four stations, and surprisingly, there are no other charging points in the city. Even nearby Raipur in Chhattisgarh has one. With Mahindra and Kinetic being the key manufacturers of electric vehicles, they should be encouraged to set up charging stations. Further, malls, shopping areas and designated parking spaces should be encouraged to set up public charging points. Bengaluru’s leading electric cab company, Lithium Urban Technologies, only offers services to large corporate establishments that provide them with space to charge vehicles. This mild competition will enable more such companies to arrive on the scene.

Union Minister for Power Piyush Goyal had announced plans of India doing away with fuel-based vehicles entirely by 2030. NITI Aayog further suggested making electric vehicles mandatory in five cities (which didn’t include Nagpur). With Nagpur getting some of the basic steps operational, it won’t be long before Nagpur turns electric entirely.

Getting the private sector to enter the electric vehicles space is the perfect way to get things going. Let’s hope Nagpur leads the way as India’s electric vehicles capital.

This article is a part of a Digital Special Series on the Power Sector sponsored by Powergrid.

Srikanth’s interests include public transit, urban management and transportation infrastructure.

Electricity For All And The Mantra Of Source Agnosticism

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Notwithstanding results of highly limited and contextualised studies, India should take a source-agnostic view when it comes to filling gaps in electrification.

When the Narendra Modi government came to power, nearly 18,500 villages languished in darkness, untouched by electricity 134 years after Thomas Alva Edison started his first electricity distribution vendor and 67 years after India’s independence. The absence of this most ubiquitous resource, which city-dwellers take for granted, has over the years exacerbated the problems of illiteracy, disease, personal safety, and sheer destitution amongst the millions of inhabitants of the neglected villages.

Equitable access to resources has been a common theme for the various governmental initiatives over the last three years. With power, it started with the Prime Minister pledging from the ramparts of the Lal Qila in his 2015 Independence Day address that all of the remaining 18,452 villages would be electrified within 1,000 days. As of March 2017, ahead of the schedule, over three-fourths of this target has been met, and the complete electrification of all villages is on track to meet the 1,000-day deadline.

One of the key methods for electrification for some of these villages is off-grid solar. This involves providing small solar units for a village to light up common areas and households which are interested. Some of these villages are situated in extremely remote and hilly regions, and electrification by the grid isn’t logistically or economically feasible.

Most of these villages are located in the Northeastern states, deserts of Rajasthan, or in the Left wing extremism-hit districts in eastern India. Over 2,700 villages in the country are being electrified using this method.

Recently, a study titled Does basic energy access generate socioeconomic benefits? A field experiment with off-grid solar power in India was published in a journal Science Advances, authored by academics from universities in the United States of America and United Kingdom.

The paper details result of a year-long study conducted in villages of Barabanki district, Uttar Pradesh. The study was conducted between February 2014 and July 2015 to explore the impact of off-grid solar power on 1,281 rural households dividing them between groups using and not using off-grid solar power.

This project was supported by a rural solar power provider, Mera Gao Power (MGP). The study focused on 81 randomly chosen un-electrified habitats, dividing them between treatment (with the microgrids) and control (no microgrids) habitats.

Of the treatment group of 50 habitats, 21 adopted the microgrids. 117 households adopted the MGP service at some point in time during the study. MGP charged a nominal fee of Rs 100 per month for the facility, providing two light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and one mobile charging point against the microgrid. The power was provided to houses within 100 metres of a central pucca house in these villages. MGP provides electricity after 7 pm, the peak energy demand time – when families are together.

Based on these statistics, it is quite clear that the study had the following characteristics:

a. Localised to a couple of blocks in Barabanki
b. Dependent on MGP rules, business model, and efficiency
c. Focused on participating households, not necessarily the most backwards or needy ones
d. Limited by physical location of households
e. Covering a short duration of power availability at the hours which are usually dinner hours for families.

The study has brought out several conclusions. The notable positive conclusion was increased availability of power and savings from the amount spent on kerosene. The study also found no positive impact of off-grid solar power on socio-economic upliftment. Information on socio-economic variables such as savings, household expenditures, household business creation, time spent in productive work by women, use of lighting for study, etc., was collected before and during the period of the study.

Even though the paper cites several other similar studies – most importantly one conducted in Rwanda – that establish an inseparable causal link between off-grid solar electrification and socio-economic upliftment, it notes no improvement in socio-economic indicators in this case in Barabanki. The authors do note that “our findings do not imply that larger systems for generating off-grid solar power cannot produce broader socio-economic benefits.”

Agency and media reports in Indian outlets, however, extrapolated this study limited in time, access, capacity, and spread to infer that off-grid solar was irrelevant in its entirety.

The comments on no socio-economic upliftment have been differentially played up without accounting for the limiting study parameters. In fact, some of the conclusions were unexceptionable – if there is extra power for the dinner time, that’s not likely to increase female participation in employment.

Or if the extra power is available at the time when families are in their homes, there isn’t likely to be any extra sense of physical safety for women.

In contrast, the off-grid solar power access being provided by the government under the various rural electrification initiatives is far greater than what has been provided by the private company involved in this study.

For instance, the government’s off-grid solar kit will, in addition to LEDs and mobile charging points, provide households with fans and charging points for other appliances. Moreover, the government programs are targeting 24/7 constant and affordable supply of power, not conveniently chosen 1-hour evening power availability.

Even with the minimal access which the study is based on, the benefits are clear. There is an improvement in lighting as well as the reduction in usage of kerosene, which will improve the health of people and reduce subsidy burden.

Even for this limited positive impact, it would take more than a year to see perceptible improvements in lives of people – for instance, better health leading to reduced medical expenses over time.

With much greater access to off-grid solar power that is being guaranteed by the government, irreversible socio-economic benefits will accrue to the remotest regions of India.

Electrification is, of course, a necessary condition for such benefits, but the local governments have to ensure a lot more – access to physical infrastructures like roads, jobs, and financial access to tie in all the pieces together.

India’s size and the terrain is a big challenge for any infrastructure provision, and 100 per cent electrification is no exception.

However, precisely because of these geographical complexities, India should take a source-agnostic view when it comes to filling gaps in electrification, as long as the cost is not a constraining factor.

Solar micro-grids are and should remain, an essential intermediate step in the provision of power supplies to remote villages.

India should take substantial, incremental steps forward, rather than waiting for ad infinitum on the sidelines to take that one big leap. Solar micro-grids are good for the immediate purpose, and let great not be the enemy of good.

Aashish Chandorkar writes on public policy, politics, and current affairs. He is based in Pune. He tweets at @c_aashish.

Switching To Electric Cars By 2030: What India Needs To Do

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Electric vehicles are set to receive the biggest push for its adoption in India yet.

    The target of only electric cars on the road by 2030 is possible, but it will need more than just incentivising the use of electric vehicles.

India is looking at having an all-electric car fleet by 2030, said Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal at a meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry. The government is planning to push big on electric vehicles so that no petrol or diesel car is sold by 2030, he said at the annual session. Citing Maruti as an example, Goyal said the government had supported the car maker in its early stages, spurring the growth of a robust manufacturing sector. The Ministry of Heavy Industries and government think tank NITI Aayog are working on a policy to promote electric vehicles.

But is it possible? Certainly. Here is what needs to be done to achieve this target in the next 13 years.

Public Transport

Public transport, arguably the biggest beneficiary of an ‘electric-only’ shift, has a lot to offer. Its most significant advantage is that buses can be charged overnight at depots. The government is already trying to push electric buses under the FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles in India) scheme. Further, the Aayog has proposed to make some cities turn to electric entirely in the public transport sector. Since the Aayog’s plan also involves cabs and vehicles affiliated with ride-sharing companies such as Ola and Uber, the system needs to improve.

In addition, the cost of electric buses is generally quite high. In 2016, the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) planned to procure electric buses at Rs 2 crore each. On the other hand, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking in Mumbai found a novel way to procure expensive buses. It signed a deal with a private firm to supply 50 Volvo buses in lieu of advertising rights on the buses for 10 years. Of course, only six buses reached the depots; nevertheless, it is a good start for greater private participation in the sector.

Also Read: How Indian Cities Can Shift From Diesel To Electric Buses

Charging Stations

Plug In India, a content platform which promotes the use of electric vehicles (EVs), lists a total of 222 charging stations across the country, up from 194 in July 2016 and 206 in February this year. A large number of these stations actually come from service centres and showrooms of Mahindra & Mahindra, which manufactures the E2O electric car (formerly the Maini Reva).

This is where public transport can actually make a difference. Once they start operating electric vehicles, they can set up charging points for the public. With BEST opening up its depots for parking and BMTC operating multi-level parking lots at major bus stations across the city, this would be a boon. Further, several malls in major cities have charging points in their parking spaces.

In Bengaluru, certain localities such as HSR Layout, while lacking in bus termini, have a shopping complex operated by the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) with a large parking space. Again, this space can be leveraged to provide charging facilities. Given the crumbling finances of public sector transport bodies, this would also be an additional source of revenue.

The concept can even be extended. For instance, flyovers occupy a certain amount of space beneath them. Till recently, the government operated paid parking lots in these spaces in Mumbai. A high court order later stopped this practice. The court also stated that the government could hand over these spaces to private parties for ‘beautification’ to prevent the ‘destruction of the flyover’. Ideally, these spaces should be turned into paid parking lots with charging facilities.

Also Read: NITI Aayog’s Grand Plan To Revolutionise India’s Public Transport Network

What Next?

Bengaluru is home to India’s first and the largest electric-only cab service. Lithium Urban Technologies, operating with a fleet of over 200 Mahindra E2Os, was launched in 2015 to provide taxi services using electric vehicles. However, a lack of charging stations has made them cater only to large corporate clients who could set up charging stations on their campuses.

If bus stations, shopping complexes and malls had adequate charging infrastructure, maybe electric cabs could ply on routes with charging facilities for the general public. This would be the beginning.

Subsidies

Under the FAME scheme, hybrid vehicles are given a subsidy. In April this year, the government withdrew subsidy to vehicles classified as mild hybrids – vehicles equipped with a battery that is insufficient to power the motor but able to ‘assist’ the regular fuel-powered engine and thereby reduces fuel consumption. If the government wants to focus purely on electric vehicles, the subsidy must be on par with those of hybrids. Further, fuel-based vehicles need to be taxed for emissions. This will invite larger foreign players to invest in the Indian market.

Nissan’s electric car, the Leaf, has been popular in neighbouring Sri Lanka for close to four years. As of 2017, Nissan is still considering a pilot test run for the Leaf in India. In 2016, Nitin Gadkari even invited Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors to India, offering them land near ports to set up a manufacturing base.

India Needs An EV Revolution

India has shown that it’s willing to embrace new government initiatives. Goyal’s own ministry has demonstrated this with the large-scale adoption of LED bulbs under the Domestic Electric Lighting Programme (DELP). While electric vehicles are in no way comparable to bulbs, the model can definitely be replicated across sectors.

At the same time, simply incentivising a new technology will not help sustain the movement. It needs to be made a viable alternative to fuel-based vehicles. For that, a plan to tax fuel more and make it costlier, with the earnings rerouted to subsidise electric vehicles, might work. Also, the issue of charging stations still remains to be solved. Manufacturers will not invest if they don’t see a viable future for electric vehicles. This future is possible only if the availability of charging technology is improved. The demand-and-supply problem will take care of itself if the sector receives a little nudge in the right direction.

Also Read: Piyush Goyal’s Push For Electric Vehicles Can Transform Public Transport In India

Srikanth’s interests include public transit, urban management and transportation infrastructure.

Maharashtra Day: Eight Big Infrastructure Ideas That Can Smarten Up The State

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • Maharashtra Day is a day to celebrate the past glory and to take pride in a land of myriad achievements and rich history.It should also be a day for new beginnings, to shape a better future and for a resolute approach to deliver what it takes.

The state of Maharashtra completes 57 years in its present form today (1 May). At an estimated nominal Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) this year of $380 billion, roughly 14.5 per cent of country’s estimated Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Maharashtra continues to be the putative economic powerhouse of India.

In terms of percentage contribution, Maharashtra is to the Indian economy, what China is to the world economy.

Since the start of this decade, the nominal Maharashtra GSDP has been growing at substantially lower pace compared to the growth rates achieved in the previous decade. The 2013-14 growth was an anaemic 7.5 per cent. In the last three years, there has been a trend reversal with the growth rate moving to around 9.5 per cent in 2016-17. Yet, several smaller states like Haryana, Uttarakhand and Kerala now have higher per capita GSDP than Maharashtra. Larger states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat and Karnataka are nibbling at the toes.

Irrespective of all this, Maharashtra still retains its pre-eminent position as the home to the national financial services industry, which fuels the country’s economic system. However, as the popular financial services adage goes, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Likewise, Maharashtra faces new challenges of urbanisation, farm distress, job shortages and social distress, which is partly borne out of the other issues. The strength of the financial services industry can no longer be leveraged in solving these economic problems of the future.

Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur are currently witnessing massive investments in infrastructure revamp targeting rapid mass transport, airports, real estate and roads. Over the next couple of decades, there have to be new areas of growth, sectoral as well as geographical, so that these large cities are unencumbered. This will require an equivalent targeted investment in enabling infrastructure across the state, covering various constituent sectors of the economy.

Managing The Largest Urban Cluster In The World

If one travelled on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in the first half of the last decade, one had to ensure supply of food and water and a thorough inspection of the car. There wasn’t much civilisation on the expressway for long stretches, and it was not safe getting down on the roadside asking for help.

Travelling the same stretch today, there are houses everywhere, roadside shops are aplenty, and mobile connectivity works on most days even in the multiple tunnels which dot this road. Travel experience is not too different now between Pune and Nashik or Nashik and Thane.

Not too far in the future, perhaps in the next 10 years, the Mumbai-Pune-Nashik-Thane region will be home to the largest contiguous urbanised population in the world. It is not facetious to think of 50 million people living in this industrialised metropolitan region, jostling for space, and needing to traverse the city boundaries as we know them today, for jobs and daily living.

Managing such colossal urban challenge will require amenities, which will require space. Land in this region is at a premium, even by developed western world standards. Wide roads, a network of interconnecting ring roads around population centres, expressways, high-speed rail, metro rails and bullet trains will all be required at once to support this enormous urban explosion.

For the next decade, the state government should plan these amenities for this region thinking of interoperability and unification. Municipal standards and government service delivery should be standardised on common platforms.

There is a need for dedicated oversight and coordination for planning in this region, starting right now. The thinking itself has to be primed for scale first and foremost.

Nagpur – The Logistics Capital Of India

As the Goods and Services Tax (GST) comes into effect later this year, there is a huge logistics business opportunity waiting to be tapped. Even with all its design flaws, GST will drive geographical logistics consolidation in favour of central areas well connected to rest of the country. Nagpur is the natural candidate. There should be an immediate focus on creating a land bank for warehouses, multimodal transport hubs, dry port, and air connectivity in and around Nagpur.

In addition to Nagpur, areas in the Nanded-Chandrapur stretch can be secondary logistics hubs catering to the western and the eastern states respectively.

Maharashtra can be the biggest beneficiary of the incremental GDP growth that will eventually come out of the GST implementation after the initial bumps.

Connect East Approach

There’s a lot happening today to reduce the commuting issues between every city pair of Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur.

However, the next big road projects in Maharashtra should also focus on eastern periphery. A Nagpur-Kolhapur Expressway, touching Chandrapur, Nanded, Latur and Solapur will greatly help the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions to integrate better with the traditionally rich western half of the state.

This Eastern Expressway has to be supplemented by Nashik-Aurangabad-Nanded and Pune-Latur-Nanded connections to create an efficient interlocking grid. This road network will further boost logistics advantage of the state. It will also help evacuation of industrial produce to Eastern India as well agricultural produce to Western India.

Same sectors are also candidates for railway line push – currently, most Maharashtra cities have poor to average pair-wise railway connectivity.

Regain The Auto Capital Of India Tag

Pune used to be a significant automotive production centre until Gurgaon, Chennai and Sanand stole the city’s thunder attracting new investments from global auto players. Maharashtra, however, can regain the lost ground by becoming the leading hub for manufacturing batteries for electrical vehicles.

Very few countries have been able to design a car indigenously and sell it globally. China, despite being the largest car market, has not been able to create an auto brand of repute. It now plans to dominate the auto industry by becoming the battery production hub of the world as there is a global shift towards electrical vehicles.

Maharashtra can adopt the same approach.

This is a clean slate; the state already has significant industrial culture and cadence, and international presence. There needs to be a dedicated push in this space, attracting large Chinese and Japanese battery manufacturers to set up shop in the state. Electric batteries represent a sunrise sector and have utility much beyond auto as the solar power generation grows. Cornering this production market can guarantee the state jobs of the future.

Unlock Konkan’s Tourism Potential

The Konkan region is the coastal belt which extends from Thane to Sindhudurg, adjacent to the Arabian Sea. This region, nestled in the presence of Western Ghats to the east, has great beaches, rivers, and difficult to traverse land mass. That this region can be a big tourist destination is long known. But connectivity has been a nagging issue.

With the new airport in Goa coming up in the next few years, the adjoining areas of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg can be big gainers. This airport, being developed in north Goa, is virtually an airport for Maharashtra, and hence it presents a big opportunity. The Malvan to Shiroda stretch should be earmarked for developing new resorts, balancing the ecological concerns. The Mumbai-Goa National Highway already connects these regions to North Goa – the state government can impress upon the Centre to expedite the expansion of this highway to four or six lanes with a speedier land acquisition and project clearances.

With the central government stressing on waterways and coastal transportation, this sector can be further expanded to connect the Ratnagiri-Ganpatiphule stretch with Malvan. The land distance between these cities is no more than 200 km, but the terrain is difficult to drive on and create new roads on.

However, coastal transportation to Malvan can solve this problem.

Overhaul Agriculture Governance

The current Devendra Fadnavis government is working towards the goal of doubling farmer income by the year 2022. This process can get a big leg up by adopting in toto the NITI Aayog recommendations on how agriculture is governed and managed in the state. The new model law – Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitating) Act (APLM), 2017 should be implemented with full zeal and vigour.

The state needs to dismantle the control of local mandis working under the Agriculture Product Market Committees (APMCs) completely. Buyers should be allowed to tap the seller farmers directly without restrictions on quantity or frequency of buying. Private mandis – aggregators – should be encouraged and the e-National Agriculture Market reforms hastened. This will require supplementary investments in improving farm credit, farmer insurance, and supply chain networks.

Create A Water-Sufficient State

Irrigation has been a key theme for the Fadnavis government already. The Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan has been a resounding success. Maharashtra’s Farm Pond on Demand scheme has been selected in the top 10 Innovations under Prime Minister Awards 2017. This razor-sharp focus on irrigation has to get to a logical conclusion soon.

The difference in water availability between western Maharashtra and the Marathwada region is stark. The Mumbai-Pune belt has planned its water need and controlled the water usage reasonably well over the years. But Marathwada is almost always parched with unsustainable cropping patterns, further compounding the water problem.

The micro-irrigation programmes, which currently cover about 25 per cent of the villages of the state, have to reach the entire state swiftly. The stated aim of Chief Minister Fadnavis to move the state from flood irrigation to drip irrigation in the next 10 years is a commendable target to set.

These programmes need to reach a logical conclusion, and this is one big transformation theme already being attacked from different angles.

Create A Power-Sufficient State

When Bhiwandi implemented the power distribution reforms in 2006, bringing in private players, there was a lot of scepticism and political opposition. Today, the Bhiwandi Model is looked upon as the ideal model to emulate, and other states routinely learn from it. The model brings in distribution franchisees from the private sector and provides for state’s assistance in making the private player successful through enabling involvement.

Move 120 km south east from Bhiwandi – today as the country has minimised the gap between power generation and power demand – Pune still sees a day-long power cut every Thursday. It is a remnant and a sore reminder of the power shortage and rationing era.

These contradictions show that the one state which hasn’t learnt from its successes in the power sector is, unfortunately, Maharashtra itself!

Power availability is the key for industries and agriculture. The state needs to invest massively in segregating the feeders used for different purposes. There is central assistance for this programme, and the state should aim for 100 per cent segregation. There is also the need to overhaul the local city distribution networks – surplus power at source is of no use if consumers can’t use it.

However, the creaking urban power infrastructure leads to routine power cuts in cities. This problem has to be addressed – Pune can be the ideal place to start given the in-apposite ‘Dark Thursdays.’

Maharashtra should also aggressively invest in technology upgrade. Smart meters for cities and solar pumps and solar power setups should be encouraged and experimented with. The national UJALA programme to popularise LED bulbs shows that state can catalyse scale without subsidisation for consumables if only the programme is designed well.

Solar pumps are a fit case for this design extension.

Like the Chief Minister has set a no flood irrigation target, a similar ambitious no power cut target needs to be set and implemented in line with the national 2022, 24×7 power for all target.

Maharashtra Day is a day to celebrate the past glory and to take pride in a land of myriad achievements and rich history. It should also be a day for new beginnings, to shape a better future and for a resolute approach to deliver what it takes.

Aashish Chandorkar writes on public policy, politics, and current affairs. He is based in Pune. He tweets at @c_aashish.

The Road To Energy Security Goes Through Diplomacy

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • India has emerged as a leader in the Indian Ocean region on clean energy, changing its foreign policy outlook that places emphasis on green energy diplomacy.

In the ever-transient geopolitical landscape, energy cooperation has emerged as a key strategic factor that impacts multiple stakeholders across the various verticals of human interactions, be they economic, social, political, bureaucratic, legal, technological or environmental. And all this is besides energy being a commodity for most of the geo-economic calculations and geo-dynamics.

For instance, India’s stand in the Indian Ocean region has been strengthened with Australia and Bangladesh concluding bilateral talks over energy cooperation recently.

Renewable energy cooperation in the Indian Ocean region on bilateral as well as multi-lateral levels has placed green energy ties as one of the strategic vectors of India’s foreign policy, assuring the world of India being a responsive and responsible global power.

Energy strategies have been central to a country’s foreign policy in changing geopolitical aspiration and ambition, as energy strategising has multi-pronged and multi-layered implications. Therefore, the energy diplomacy of a country evolves to gain a strategic dimension along with a comprehensive character that focuses on so many inter-linked factors of strategy vis-a-vis – political, economic, technological and environmental.

Energy security now embraces a more inclusive multi-objective nature that goes beyond the traditional binary idea of security of demand and supply. The scope ranges from renewable sources of energy, i.e., bio, nuclear, solar, hydro, wind, geothermal and ocean energy, to ensuring efficient, affordable, accessible as well as the ethical use of energy resources, and prioritising the sustainable development of the region.

India has emerged as a leader in the Indian Ocean region on clean energy and has invested a fortune to achieve the synergy between maintaining an economic growth rate of over 7 per cent and its commitment to ensuring the environmentally sustainable development goals. India has also invested in re-green development, green energy harvesting, greener technologies, adopting global best practices and research and innovation of sustainable energy solutions.

This has changed India’s foreign policy outlook that places emphasis on green energy diplomacy. The commitment is evident from New Delhi’s recent move pledging to invest $9 billion in developing mainly the power and gas sectors of Bangladesh with an aim to strengthen Dhaka’s emerging industry base as well as help meet its inflating energy requirements. Another factor that points to energy security as an important aspect of the Indo-Bangladesh development partnership can be gathered from India’s promise to supply an additional 60MW to the existing 600MW of power to Bangladesh.

Numerous agreements were signed between the two nations. The first one is a general cooperation pact for peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The second one was signed between the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) of India and Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority (BAERA), which calls for the exchange of technical cooperation and sharing of information in the field of nuclear safety and radiation protection. The third agreement focuses on Indo-Bangla collaboration regarding nuclear power plants in Bangladesh. Power behemoth NTPC was among the blue-chip Indian companies that concluded investment proposals to supply electricity and enhance power generation in the eastern neighbour. Reliance Power signed an agreement worth $1billion with Bangladesh’s power, energy and mineral resources ministry for the first phase (750MW) of the 3000MW power project at a place called Meghnaghat in Bangladesh.

Adani Power Ltd also concluded an agreement to supply 1600MW of power from its plant in Jharkhand to Bangladesh, involving a cost of $2 billion. Thus, maintaining the status quo of cross-border power connectivity being the key bridge of friendship between the two countries. Lastly, an agreement was also signed between Bangladesh India Friendship Power Company Limited and EXIM Bank of India worth $1.6 billion for the construction of 1,320MW Maitree Power Project in Rampal, Bangladesh.

The BIMSTEC Grid Interconnection, an agreement on the BIMSTEC Trans-Power Exchange and Development Project, will work as a framework document and shall lay guidelines for cooperation in the implementation of grid interconnections for trade in electricity with a view towards promoting rational and optimal power transmission in the BIMSTEC region, comprising countries in South Asia and South East Asia such as Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

It will give impetus to the promotion of efficient, economical and secure operation of power systems through the development of regional electricity networks. This will also help optimise capital investment to increase power generation capacity across the region and power exchange through cross-border interconnections.

The BIMSTEC, an international organisation, formulated the “Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation in BIMSTEC” in the first BIMSTEC Energy Ministers’ Conference held in New Delhi on 4 October 2005.

This provides India with a new space for cooperation in the Indian Ocean region.

Author is a Senior Research Fellow at leading Think Tank, India Foundation, based in New Delhi. Also, he authored book Bharat Sutra: Reflections on Emergence of a Nation after 2014 general elections. His area of interest include Climate Security, Water Security, Transboundary Water Policy and International Relations especially Indian Ocean region with cultural similarities.

India Has Nearly As Many Vehicles As Households; Bus Karo! India Cannot Be Car Country Like US

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • India cannot be car country like the US. When you have four times the population living in a third of the land area, you cannot be.While people will always aspire to own cars or motorbikes, state policy must encourage public transport, buses and taxis, not cars and motorbikes.

India is motorising personal transport at a rate it simply cannot afford. In 2016-17, it produced nearly 20 million passenger vehicles – including cars and two-wheelers, but not three-wheelers – taking the country’s total registered non-commercial vehicle population to around 220 million.

The vehicles on the road (especially if you add three-wheelers and commercial vehicles) are now comparable to the total number of households in India (around 250 million). It implies, in theory, that every household has a vehicle, though averages will deceive because a few people and organisations may own multiple vehicles while millions of poor households may have nothing. But the implication is clear: since Indians rarely scrap vehicles before they are 10-15 years old, we are reaching saturation point in terms of our infrastructure’s ability to handle such volumes.

If our rapidly urbanising country is not to fall apart under traffic congestion and vehicular pollution, we have to reverse this trend, particularly in cars.

India’s car sales crossed the three million mark in 2016-17 despite the demand crunch of demonetisation. While this is a cause for celebration for the domestic automobile industry, it signals the total bankruptcy of public policy in human transportation.

India cannot be car country like the US. When you have four times the population living in a third of the land area, you cannot be. While people will always aspire to own cars or motorbikes, both for status and convenience, state policy must encourage public transport, buses and taxis, not cars and motorbikes.

Of late, there has been a tendency to tout metro railway projects as the answer to urban commuting woes, but here too the reality is different. The huge success of the first phase of the Delhi Metro, which was completed well before time and with minimal cost over-runs, has made some urbanised states believe that metros are the answer. They forget that Delhi is unique, where the central government deals with land and substantially bankrolls a high-cost metro. This situation does not exist in other states, whose metropolitan centres need to obtain substantial commercial funds for both land acquisition and construction in congested spaces. Delhi has lots of road spaces under which metros can be built; but can Mumbai or Kolkata do so with their more limited road spaces?

Experience from metro projects the world over suggests that not only do costs inflate hugely, but the required traffic to sustain a viable metro is far lower than estimated. Tariffs are never high enough to make metros viable in most cases.

Given this context, one cannot see metros as the panacea for urban mass transportation. They can, at best, be a part of the solution in some cities with enough land available. The focus needs to be on augmenting the fleet of public and private bus services, which are not only cheaper to acquire, but can also use urban roads more economically. Metros surely need to be built, but they may often not be viable. They should be built only in places where traffic may be extraordinarily dense and the cost of land is reasonable – not an easy combination to find. Put simply, metros may work better in connecting city centres with satellite towns than inside existing urban megalopolises. Buses must take up the job where metros terminate.

A sensible public transport policy must have two crucial legs: one is to disincentivise private ownership and daily use of cars and two-wheelers; and the other is to promote bus travel, by making many types of buses (basic, luxury, standees-only) available at frequent intervals, if needed with state subsidies. These subsidies can be financed by taxing cars much more heavily than they are now, and by introducing road usage fees and congestion surcharges, not to speak of higher yearly registration fees. The current system of one-time registration fees is too little, and offers no deterrence to widespread ownership and use of cars on urban roads.

Put another way, no public transport policy can work without disincentivising personal transport vehicles. Those who need cars should be encouraged to use app-based taxi services like Uber and Ola, not to speak of regular state-licensed radio and non-radio taxis. Taxis, by plying several trips during the day, reduce the overall volume of cars on roads.

Disincentivising ownership also means levying high parking fees and user charges for private cars plying on busy roads. If London has a congestion surcharge, why not Mumbai, Kolkata or Bengaluru? The remedy is not to build more roads and more parking lots – though these are also needed – but to favour public transport in the use of this infrastructure. The purpose of levying high charges on cars and two-wheelers is not necessarily to earn more revenues for the exchequer, but to cross-subsidise buses and, where reasonably viable, even metro projects.

Any policy must also start taxing two-wheelers. The current tendency is to treat two-wheelers as some kind of poor man’s vehicle, but given the huge growth in two-wheelers on city roads, two or three of them occupy as much road space as cars, especially when they are moving fast. Moreover, given the speeds at which they are driven, they are accident-prone, and impose costs on society that we do not even begin to calculate. Any increase in motorised transport taxes, including highway tolls, should not exclude two-wheelers.

A country of 1.3 billion people, and with rapidly congesting urban spaces, cannot privilege private vehicle usage.

Jagannathan is Editorial Director, Swarajya. He tweets at @TheJaggi.

We Have Signed Contracts For Rs 5 Lakh Crore For Infrastructure, Roads, Ports: Gadkari

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

With the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) having received a mandate from the budget to raise Rs 70,000 crore through infrastructure bonds and easy availability of low cost overseas loans for the AAA rated NHAI, the government’s road and highway building programme has enough cash to build the crucial infrastructure, Road Transport, Highway and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has said.

“We have signed the contracts worth Rs five lakh crore for infrastructure, roads, ports. It is a very remarkable contribution from our investors…we do not have any problem, we are receiving public, private investment, we are receiving good response for the Public-Private Partnership, Build-Operate-Transfer and hybrid annuity (models)”, Gadkari told ASSOCHAM.TV in an interview.

He said as many as 101 projects are ready for takeoff and funding the same would not be a problem. “For NHAI, triple AAA rating is there. We already have permission from the Finance Minister for raising Rs 70,000 crore infrastructure bonds…My toll income is Rs 10,000 crore per year. So, I can monetise for 15 years (and) I get Rs 2 lakh crore. There are 101 projects which are ready with where I am going to monetise, and I will get Rs 1.25 lakh crore. So money is not the problem”, the senior minister said.

Sharing a similar optimism for the port sector, Gadkari said “…we are getting Rs 3,000 crore in dollar loans with 2.25 per cent interest and we can raise Rs 50,000 crore without hedge with two per cent interest”.

He made these optimistic observations in response to a question by ASSOCHAM. TV as how realistic the plans for the entire transport sector were when the private sector, in particular, was facing a severe financial stress. The balance sheet stress is visible across different large contract firms in sectors such as roads, highways, ports and airports.

Gadkari said his ministry was working on a number of waterway projects for improving the inland connectivity within big metros like Mumbai and for inter-city connectivity. During his recent visit to Davos in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum annual meeting, the minister said, he received a good response from the global investors for an array of infrastructure projects including water sports and skiing.

1...727374Page 73 of 74

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

©