I love to drive and given a choice would take a road trip anywhere. Memories from a trip to Nashik and Hatgad made me think about how our roads mirror our society. Let me circle back a bit. In June 2019, I had driven to Nashik, before the rains set in on a day trip. Leaving Mumbai early in the morning helps avoid traffic, allowing you to quickly travel from Bandra to Thane. The road to Nashik, including the Nashik expressway, was smooth and a pleasure to drive. The toll booth at Bhiwandi has been removed, but the infrastructure remains, slowing down traffic. The return journey is where you encounter India at Bhiwandi junction. Nashik to Bhiwandi toll junction (100 kms distance in less than 2 hours). Bhiwandi to Bandra, you just pray. There's a flyover in the making for the longest time, and it looks like it will never get completed. The aforementioned toll naka causes significant jams as trucks are stopped by cops when they turn left for Kalyan causing the Mumbai traffic to come to a virtual halt.
Pre Covid, one approaches the Mulund tollgate with trepidation as the traffic is backed up for more than 2 kms. You have to cross a narrow bridge (2 lanes) to get to the toll booth. Right before the bridge, there is usually some construction next to the road. Authorities have designated one lane for travel to Mumbai and the other for traffic from Mumbai to Thane. Essentially 4 lanes become 3, then 2 and then 1 till just before the toll booth. Immediately after the toll booth, the road expands back into four lanes.So no one thinks of widening the bridge, especially now that there's no Octroi (and the squeeze was to ensure everyone paid Octroi).
Made a trip last month in October 2019 to Nashik after the rains and was greeted with potholes on the Nashik expressway. At Igatpuri ghat, which is supposed to be one way, cars often go in the wrong direction at full speed to avoid a lengthy detour. So why not go the wrong way, especially since there's no punishment. It is fairly common for bikes, cars and even trucks to go the wrong way on the Igatpuri Ghat section as there's no police. On the Igatpuri Ghat, you will have overloaded trucks and trailers trying to overtake each other and hold up traffic. It is only in India that trucks drive in the first lane all the time. Clearly we do not have rules for traffic and even when we do, who will enforce them?
The October trip to Nashik was an even better eye-opener. Some potholes were patched up but not all. Those that were patched up were uneven, sometimes making it worse than the earlier potholes. We construct a poor-quality expressway prone to potholes due to bad supervision or contracting. We then repair it to profit from the low quality, and leave some potholes unfixed for future contracts and more earnings. No wonder everyone wants to invest in infrastructure given the annuity streams.
One you drive from Nashik towards Hatgad, the road is delightfully good at many places, but atrociously bad at regular intervals, which is like playing hide and seek with your lives if you want to go anything above 20 Kms/hour speed. You encounter a toll booth that redirects you from the highway, but you don't have to pay the toll—only commercial vehicles do. So we have a toll booth with 3 employees in a shift doing nothing but waiting for some vehicles to pass through. There is a straight road which is blocked, so vehicles can oblige the employees and the infrastructure company to collect tolls. Why not keep lanes for cars and motorcycles to drive through?
Hatgad is located on the border of Maharashtra and Gujarat. We drove to Saputara in Gujarat where we received a yellow receipt and paid ₹30 as an entry tax for Saputara, not for the entire state of Gujarat. For comparison, Goa charges ₹500 as entry tax. There are no warnings or notices and the chap essentially operates from a makeshift tent. You grin, pay up and move on, but where does the money really go? Local transport vehicles are overloaded and I am told you pay less if you travel on a bus roof top or hang outside a moving tempo.
So why is it a microcosm of India? We like to have good infrastructure, but break all the rules using it (indiscipline, poor policing and absence of rules). We criticise everyone, but never once think we could be in the wrong, when we take a disallowed shortcut. We are okay to twist, bend the law to our own convenience as long as we are not seen blatantly breaking it. Short term good or success is more important than sustainable growth and harmony. We think we can commit small wrongdoings and face only minor consequences, like a car scratch or a bribe. This is a no-win situation and could make the idea of India as a progressive country take a beating and I frankly can't think of a way to remedy this situation. I get really annoyed when it happens, and I know I'm not alone. But can I really make a difference?
Thoughts/Ideas are welcome, but perhaps we need to find a more institutionalised way of dealing with these issues.
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