Indian Urban Development and Public Policy Discussion

[Theo_Fidel]

Their kids grow up assuming that the luxury is their birthright. When they grow up, they still have a fine house, but no capability to generate the income needed to keep it up. So they do whatever business, put up a shingle on the wall outside the house, and try to make ends meet. No serious maintenance is done on the house or street. They cannot afford to rent office space in the business district, so must do the business out of the house.

I know just the type. No offence but Lawrence school was filled with them from Malluland.
Knew one kid, Sumit by name, went to the "States', for 3 week holiday.
Came back with full blown American accent and was now Sonny! Had a walkman which
he would 'allow' people to listen to for favors.

I could also tell you stories about Suchindra Bali would make your make your toes curl.
Yes the same one who runs about all respectable now. Holy Cow!

This is definitely a huge problem. Part of it is that back then a good living was a lottery.
You had less than 1% chance of pulling it of. The chance of your kid pulling it off as well was really really small.

Chennai has solved this the following way.The kids sell the property to flat developer who crams 20
apartments into the plot. The kids take 4 apartments with everything else free.

This is a disaster of a solution. On the other hand the super dense crush density makes things like
a metro system viable.

Still, I don't know about Malloo land but in Nagercoil the property/water tax rates are going up severely.

In Chennai my dads property tax rate is Rs 6000 + Rs2300 for water. If you put a tea kaddai it is now commercial
and your rates quadruple! And trust me it is all computerized now and my dad has called in the inspectors on these
yahoo's. Got at least one filthy auto repair kaddai kaputted!

Even in Nagercoil, my cousin pays Rs1800 for his modest home in taxes. Before utilities.

This forces these brats to make a decision quickly. Even if it is a bad one like above.

How does Malluland cope. Won't the taxes clear out the losers double quick.

[enqyoob]

How does Malluland cope

1. flats, Soviet-Union ishtyle. Same.
2. Commie guvrmand just had the bright idea of re-assessing property values, so tax bills are probably about to hit.

[Vasu]

Slum free housing is impossible without having a work permit culture. With the immense amount of corruption within each Municipal body, there are simply no means of regulating who is eligible for a free flat or who is renting out their free accommodation. The SRS projects in Mumbai are an eye-opener. In areas known locally as chota-Bangladesh (Bainganwadi, Govandi) and chota-Pakistan (Shivajinagar to Mankhurd dump), folks who were moved to such projects ended up returning to the original areas and building more slums with their newfound wealth (yup, they sold their new flats). The number of cases of fraud were also in the thousands with folks registering multiple electricity meters to avail more flats than they were entitled to!). Basic issues that need to be addressed before these grand plans are rolled out to benefit certain politicians and the builder lobby.

Yep, and somehow I don't see anybody in power prioritizing this issue before starting out with the new projects.

I don't quite understand the work permit culture you are talking about. Do you mean something similar to what China has for its migrants?

[Suraj]

What a highway can do

Even as the country reels from the extended rains and the imminent Commonwealth Games, there are unmistakable signs in Delhi’s environs of an unprecedented transformation. To see and feel this, try driving to the Delhi-Noida toll bridge (the “DND”), and go past Noida on the expressway to Greater Noida.

It isn’t perfect, and there are many details that could be handled better, from the assets built to how we use them. These include unfinished verges with construction debris near the Ashram crossing, cambers without proper drainage that get flooded in some stretches of the expressway, motorcyclists sheltering from the rain under the flyovers/overpasses spilling on to the expressway, pedestrians with no place to cross, trucks at night without even reflectors, trucks that are parked without hazard lights, tractors, and occasional cattle. Most dangerous are the undisciplined drivers who act as if they are puttering along at 30 km per hour while going at the 100 km speed limit or more, or who drive on the wrong side against oncoming traffic. And the resurfacing of the road in parts leaves much to be desired…

The transformation under way
Ignore this cavilling and carping, however, and it is bliss. One can cover 30 km from the DND toll plaza to Greater Noida in 20 minutes legally, although within New Delhi, it may take as long or even longer to travel just a few kilometres. I was amazed recently driving from Shantiniketan to Greater Noida in 40 minutes. It was like driving in California — quite different from the contentious driving that is customary on our roads.

The sheer ease and convenience apart, another, arguably greater, benefit is the gain in productivity. It is this potential for productivity that, if we can wring from ourselves, is one part of the equation in our pursuit of an improved quality of life. It is especially important because of our vast numbers, including the much-bruited potential demographic dividend, which is not new. As Babur put it in the 16th century*: “…if they fix their eyes on a place in which to settle …as the population of Hindustan is unlimited, it swarms in.” Little has changed, and much needs to be built from the ground up, starting with sanitation and water, not to mention energy, communications, and transportation systems.

But just consider: the limited instance of the drive on the expressway reveals a productivity gain of three to four times at 20 minutes for covering 30 km, compared with covering only 7-10 km in the same time (or taking three to four times longer for 30 km). That’s a gain of 300-400 per cent!

There’s another noticeable change: a willingness of everyone to work very much harder at whatever they do. All levels of people, from entrepreneur-managers to electricians, plumbers, gardeners, and day labourers, work so hard that a major change seems to be afoot. I am familiar with the hardworking farmer and rural wage earner, having grown up on a farm myself. I have also experienced the recalcitrance of some public sector employees and private sector unions, as well as the productive, hard-charging PSU, government, and private sector employees. Yet, in the work attitudes of boomtown Greater Noida, I see impressive energy and application.

The failings
Let me not gloss over the weaknesses. There are big failures in delivery capability, and these arise from two critical lacunae:

a) SOPs, systems and procedures
A major failing appears to be the lack of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) even for simple construction jobs, like painting metal: the ramrod, sequential steps of first scrape, then clean, apply primer, apply the first coat of paint and dry off; then apply the second coat… People simply don’t follow sound work practices — systems and procedures that, when applied, yield consistent good results. This is partly an endogenous failing, arising from lack of appropriate education/training and discipline. It is also partly attributable to the lack of organised systems and procedures.

b) Infrastructure
An equally critical exogenous failing of the environment is reliable infrastructure, whether in the form of energy (power/electricity), communications, transportation excepting a one-off good stretch of highway, or water and sanitation. Take any single area, say energy. The extent of wasted manpower because of lack of adequate electricity supply is beyond imagination.

Add the bases for learning and functioning competently, and there’s education (including training) and health care as a support function. Proper education and training — and discipline — are absolutely essential for learning and developing sound work processes, and for applying them. There was an impression many years ago that incompetence or recalcitrance in delivery resulted from the inadequate capacity of individuals. In the last several years, it is evident that we have good people, but they have very poor training, systems and organisation, and equally poor infrastructure. You could call it a lack of leadership and discipline at all levels.

What we need
We need two sets of fixes. The first is for our inherent failings: the lack of SOPs and the need to learn to work to inexorable checklists and timelines. It is imperative to learn the discipline of project management at all levels — starting from the top, not the bottom! This is a sweeping change that entails shifting from feudal criteria to respect for professional competence and processes.

The second fix required is a supportive environment: good infrastructure and the appurtenances of good policies. Going by the figures, we will build more roads, power plants and factories in the next few years than in the last 60. But the net gain to society will depend on their quality. If they are shoddy, the gains will be much less. Assets that are not integrated into coherent systems will be less beneficial than if they are integrated to deliver results, e.g. isolated housing without a web of transportation and communication links near where people work; isolated good stretches of highway. It is imperative that we design and execute the infrastructure to support our productivity. This is an area of weakness we must address and execute more comprehensively.

[Suraj]

India's number of slum dwellers surges as economy draws people to cities

The number of Indians living in slums rose by a quarter in the last decade to 93 million people, more than the population of Germany, as a surging urban economy draws in villagers and strains city infrastructure.

As many as 93.06 million people will live in urban areas by 2011 in India, the world’s second most populous nation, a government committee set up by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation said in a report today. It estimated the country’s slum population has risen 23 percent from 75.26 million in 2001.

Cities such as Mumbai, Agra and New Delhi, the capital, are growing as more villagers among India’s 1.2 billion population migrate in search of better paying jobs. They often end up in squatter settlements that lack basic facilities including drinking water and sanitation.

India’s cities could generate 70 percent of net new jobs created up to 2030, by when they will produce around 70 percent of gross domestic product and have driven a near fourfold increase in per capita incomes across the nation, McKinsey & Co. said in an April report.

India’s urban population grew from 290 million in 2001 to 340 million in 2008, and is projected to soar further to 590 million by 2030, it said. The nation’s economy has grown an average 8.5 percent annually during the past five years.

Although urban India has attracted investment on the back of strong growth, its cities are still failing to deliver basic standards of living for their residents after years of chronic underinvestment, McKinsey said.

India needs to invest $1.2 trillion in urban infrastructure over the next 20 years, equivalent to $134 per capita per year, almost eight times the level of spending today, it said.

[Suraj]

Mumbai floor space index being bumped from 1.25 to 4. Should result in massive Hong Kong-style vertical building:
Mumbai set to get zoning relief

Mumbai’s realty sector, which is slowly recovering from the financial slowdown, is set to receive a major boost. At least 100 million sq ft of additional floor space, valued at '1 lakh crore ($23 billion), will be available immediately for the redevelopment of 19,000 old and dilapidated buildings, slums, fishermen colonies and other structures situated in the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ).

This will be possible following a proposed relaxation in norms by the ministry of environment and forests in the revised draft CRZ notification released on Monday. The state government is expected to grant a floor space index (FSI) of up to 4 for the proposed reconstruction from the current 1.25-2. Redevelopment has been stalled due to stringent CRZ norms.

Maharashtra minister of state for housing Sachin Ahir told Business Standard, “We welcome the central government’s move. We are happy that the ministry of environment and forests has accepted our argument that a fixed set of CRZ norms should not be applied to Mumbai, especially in view of limitations on development in the island city.” He felt the proposed redevelopment would also create more open spaces.

[Haresh]

Theo_Fidel,

I have just started reading this thread and your comment "I know just the type. No offence but Lawrence school was filled with them from Malluland."

Strange thing is I know a guy who went to Lawrence, his father was that famous actor "Pran" His name was Arvind Sikand.
He has a PhD and the only place he can ever get a job is working in these Indian Bollywood/movie type magazine's in London.
A complete waste of an education, he couldn't make it in the mainstream because nobody really gives a $hit if your dad is Pran, in London. Still he thinks he is very special and behaves as if everything is his birthright. Not entrepranaurial, not really a go getter, just lives off his fathers name.

[Haresh]

A very unpleasant video

http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/ ... m#comments

http://current.com/shows/vanguard/blog/ ... m#comments

What the $UCK is the Delhi/national govt doing????

Is anyone seriously going to tell me that a series of pit latrines cannot be built by army engineers right along the banks of the Yammuna??

I saw the full documentary, I was shocked, surely the govt/authorities can institute some sort of Urban Employment Garuantee type scheme and just mobalise the poor to build their own latrines.

HOLY $HIT!!!!!

[Raja Bose]

Some casual impressions on visit to Delhi after 5 years:

1) Air Travel:

The T3 Terminal at IGI Airport is simply beautiful and definitely a major leap in terms of traveler friendly amenities and finally Delhi gets an International terminal to be proud of - puts quite a few well known airports in other countries to shame and is the best looking terminal I have seen in a long time. Most of the systems are in place but some have yet to be activated such as the transfer desk. Some design flaws for example, the sleeping rooms being inside the secure area yet passengers not being allowed into the secured area more than 3 hours before their flight - a big problem for people flying in to T3 at night and having to wait for their morning domestic connection. Another example, the security check is after the emigration counters but if you forget to get a cabin baggage tag for your carry-on, you cannot go in for the security check. Yet, you cannot also go back out to the airline counter to get the tags since that is beyond the emigration counters hence, you can be stuck in no man's land! Only found one solitary Kingfisher guy with Kingfisher baggage tags to deal with such a contingency.

Security at T3 also seems to be beefed up in terms of visible (such as MP5K wielding CISF men in uniform) and the not-so-visible. In comparison US airport security looks amateurish at best.

Transportation options such as pre-paid taxis are available but the taxi row needs to be policed properly. Currently, you will be given a taxi row number but there will be no taxi there since all of them get picked out way before a taxi reaches your row! T3 parking is pretty good with information boards on empty slots available etc. - exit roads definitely need improvement in terms of traffic lights and merge zones.

The domestic T1 terminal has also improved a lot - very pleasant experience along the same lines.

2) Road Travel:

A ton of new flyovers - as a result of which the trip to/from airport is definitely the smoothest I have seen till date. Unfortunately for these highway style roads, road signage in terms of positioning, quantity and quality is really bad - what good is a road sign telling you where a fork is going if the sign is located 100m down the fork itself?! Road signage on local roads has definitely improved a lot at least in South Delhi. The tons of new flyovers unfortunately have also resulted in some weird diversions especially for residential areas located on the ORR. Road ride quality for the new flyovers is good with lanes clearly marked out but that is not enough till drivers change their driving habits - two cars crammed into the same lane, trucks driving without lights, aggressive tail gating and driving in the wrong direction. Honking has definitely gone down several magnitudes - pleasantly surprising to those who lived in Delhi before and haven't been in it for a few years.

Tata Marco Polo buses all over the place and hence, finally one can see buses where people don't hang off them since they have: (a) doors (b) doors which can actually close. Took a #764 Marco Polo bus to IAF Palam - pretty posh experience as compared to the old Blue line I used to take before.

The Metro system despite operational hiccups is still chugging along as expected and seems to be used quite extensively. Definitely a good investment.

3) Tourist spots: Tourist spots such as the Qutub Minar which used to be run down in sarkari style before have been cleaned up and provide a pretty good first impression to any traveler (barring a few details). Didn't find as many touts or beggars as before - probably a clean up drive prior to CWG?

[JwalaMukhi]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home ... 242945.cms

"Shopping malls are vulgar display of wealth and a vulgar wastage of energy and space," minister of state for urban development Saugata Roy said at a seminar, agreeing with environmentalist R K Pachauri who also described the malls as "energy guzzlers".

Translation: Please give us more bribe money. There is lot more potential for bribes to be taken in this venture, how come our ministry has been sleeping?

Accusing owners of shopping malls of not making any special effort for energy conservation or water conservation, the minister said, "Apart from the psychological impact they create on the poorer sections of society, the energy that they guzzle is terrible."

Translation: Yes sir, please give us the bribe money so others cannot see that wealth invested back in India. We will park all the ill-gotten wealth in some swiss alps, so our kith and kin can spend the money in places far far away from India, and possibly from the eyes of the poorer sections of the society (from whom we robbed) so it does not create psychological impact on them. Once a while we will wear Nehru cap and kurta made out of pure khadi and appear poor to identify as being one amongst you and beg for your votes. A deal the poorer section can't possibly pass up. Yay, can Jairam Ramesh of environmental ministry be far behind in seizing this opportunity to extract bribes through permit raj.

[Vasu]

come on man, this is more your bitterness at the government talking than actually reading between the lines.

Or you're a huge fan of malls.

Since this thread has been bumped up, I see Suraj posted a newsitem from September that Mumbai's FSI is being raised to 4. Still don't see that happening anytime soon though. The Worli Sea Link has been been given clearance to move upto Haji Ali now, lets see how that turns out. What I am waiting for is the Nhava-Sewri Bridge, but it might never happen considering what it could do to the property rates!

[Bade]

Delhi-Mumbai corridor to spawn 7 ‘smart’ cities

Tags:India`s Shanghai dream|Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor
NEW DELHI: India`s Shanghai dream has shifted base, from Mumbai to the futuristic cities that are being planned along the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). Masterplans are ready for seven brand new cities spanning six states in what will be the biggest urban development project since Chandigarh was built in 1953.

The blueprints are inspired by industrial hubs in China and South Korea and have the potential of revolutionizing the country`s urban landscape with the introduction of what modern town planners call ``smart city`` concepts.

Their key features are compact, vertical developments, an efficient public transportation system, the use of digital technology to create smart grids for better management of civic infrastructure, recycling of sewage water for industrial use, green spaces, cycle tracks and easy accessibility to goods, services and activities designed to foster a sense of community.

Plans are also in place to integrate these cities through new airports, new rail links and arteries of ten-lane highways. The creation of a new urban vision was not the original intention, though. The DMIC was an economic and commercial initiative of the government, intended to boost manufacturing through the development of industrial centres along the western leg of the Mumbai-Delhi-Kolkata dedicated railway freight corridor.

"As we went along and looked at the international experience, we realized that we needed to go beyond that," said Amitabh Kant, CEO and managing director of the DMIC Development Corporation. "We needed to create new generation cities in which people can live, work and play. We needed cities with outstanding infrastructure and quality of life."

Experts from the US, UK, Singapore and the Netherlands were called in and what emerged could radically change the approach towards urbanization in a country that is considered a ``reluctant urbaniser`` compared to other Asian countries.

A total of 24 such new generation cities are being planned for phased development across UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The first phase will see seven of them opening their doors by 2018-19. The processes of acquiring land, getting government clearances and generating investment have already started.

The estimated cost of building the new cities varies from Rs 30,000 crore to Rs 75,000 crore at current prices, depending on their size. The central and state governments will carry the burden of financing trunk infrastructure while a public-private partnership model is being tried out for the first time to build houses, schools, hospitals and other facilities.

The masterplans for the cities are unique in that an effort has been made to look at the future by putting in infrastructure ahead of the demand. "We have planned for 2040," said Kant.

Some of the ideas are truly innovative. For instance, each city will have underground utility corridors for parking, sewage disposal and communication lines to give it a neat look and leave enough space for facilities that are missing in most existing cities, like pavements, parks and cycle tracks.

The transportation axis is designed to discourage the use of private vehicles. The emphasis will be on dedicated bus and light rail corridors. The rule that the planners have tried to follow is that some form of public transport should be available within a 10-minute walk from home or office.

The city plan is polycentric with mixed land use so that residents can live, shop and relax close to their place of work.

[Vasu]

I wish Delhi/Bangalore/Chennai could take some of that burden of being the financial capital off Mumbai. It is happening in a few ways, though very slowly, but more high-end white collar jobs need to be created in these big cities to enable people to move without the loss of upward mobility in career and lifestyle.

Its good to hear about these smart cities coming up, but for people to move into them, they should be economic centers as well!

[Theo_Fidel]

I wish Delhi/Bangalore/Chennai could take some of that burden of being the financial capital off Mumbai. It is happening in a few ways, though very slowly, but more high-end white collar jobs need to be created in these big cities to enable people to move without the loss of upward mobility in career and lifestyle.

Its good to hear about these smart cities coming up, but for people to move into them, they should be economic centers as well!

Actually it has happened already.

At independence the population of Delhi, Madras and Bangalore was in the 500,00-700,000 each range. Mumbai alone was 4 Million. It was bigger than other cites, except maybe Calcutta put together. Today Mumbai has grown 5 time to about 20 million but other cities have grown 10-15 fold. In the case of Delhi it is 25 fold.

It is useful to remember just how economically dominant Mumbai used to be at one time.

[Vasu]

Point taken Theo, but at the time of independence, Delhi/Bangalore/Chennai were large cities in their own right, with their culture and economy, and were (and still are) the seats of the national/regional government. The rural migration that these cities have seen in the past 60 years is gargantuan.

I am just wondering aloud how long a brand new planned city will take to attain critical mass, how it will provide for white collar employment, and what sort planning has been done by the developers in that direction. Migration won't stop, but even then, it will happen where there are opportunities.

Mumbai still is the dominant economic power of the country, especially when it comes to the service sector, and within it, the BFSI sector. Speaking from my own perspective, what I see is that Delhi is mainly a trading ("dhandha") economy, while Bangalore and Chennai have become solid technology economies. When it comes to being involved with financing and banking, there's no option but to be in Mumbai.

[Vasu]

RIL arm, IL&FS to develop economic township in Haryana

Reliance Ventures (RVL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) will jointly develop a model economic township and other infrastructure facilities at Jhajjar in Haryana.

IL&FS will acquire a 45 per cent equity interest in the new company. RVL and Haryana government will hold 45 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

RIL in a press statement said, "This project is a spin off from Reliance Haryana SEZ, which is a joint venture between RVL and Haryana government."

This township is planned around the SEZ as well, and is within 30-40 km of Dwarka in NCR, which when connected by a good highway, would make it really accessible from Gurgaon and New Delhi as well.

[Theo_Fidel]

Vasu,

Mumbai has certain advantages WRT to finance and corporates by being on the West coast and having operated for a long period with Western type laws. It is not going to give these up easily. It is still the one city where if you pay your hafta things happen magically. The other cities you can pay your hafta and still nothing happens!

Any city to challenge Mumbai would have to be on the West Coast. Ahmedabad is too inland. Surat maybe. I've always felt that Gujarat lost an opportunity by putting Ghandinagar, your brand new city, inland of Ahmedabad. Somewhere closer to Bhavnagar or even on the southern Saurashtra area would have been better. Karanataka completely ignores its west coast. Cochin has desultorily tried to rebrand itself as a finacial city but being in the SRK pretty much shut that down.

I don't see a major challenge to Mumbai anytime soon, esp. with the complete make over it is getting with the redevelopment boom. My Dad estimates that in 30 years every single slum and pre-90's building in Mumbai will be torn down and re-developed! The land is simply too valuable.

[Vipul]

RIL arm, IL&FS to develop economic township in Haryana

Reliance Ventures (RVL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), and Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS) will jointly develop a model economic township and other infrastructure facilities at Jhajjar in Haryana.

IL&FS will acquire a 45 per cent equity interest in the new company. RVL and Haryana government will hold 45 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

RIL in a press statement said, "This project is a spin off from Reliance Haryana SEZ, which is a joint venture between RVL and Haryana government."

This township is planned around the SEZ as well, and is within 30-40 km of Dwarka in NCR, which when connected by a good highway, would make it really accessible from Gurgaon and New Delhi as well.

Was at the Gurgaon office of a prominent developer from Delhi.He was showing us the Master Plan and map for Gurgaon/Manesar across all the sectors.Looking at the size of RIL's SEZ there was like , in comparison to that DHL's (King of Gurgaon's) total land holding looked very small.Got a real hard idea of Reliance's domination in India.

[Vasu]

Yeah, all valid points Theo. Don't see the dominance of Mumbai fading anytime soon. What we need at a national level is a change in policies though. We've discussed the FSI's and the rent control acts etc here many times. Mumbai has been a victim of the politician-builder nexus of the worst kind.

Okay, i just wanted to share this thought - is Gujarat losing out on being a financial center because its a dry state? I mean, Ahmedabad can be a big economic center, it is in certain ways, but it surely will have trouble attracting the young bankers/lawyers/marketers etc who love their drinking?

[Vasu]

Parking meters in Chennai! The ones there encroached by hawkers already!

Parking meters planned on 50 roads

The Chennai Corporation is planning to install parking meters on at least 50 of the 83 roads that it had identified for regulating parking.

The roads, across its 10 zones, include a three-km-stretch of the service road at the Marina Beach, Link Road near Anna Salai and Langs Garden Road in Pudupet.

The decision on permitting parking on both sides of a road would be taken based on the width of the road and traffic flow during rush hour.

As of now, parking meters have been installed on North Mada Street, Mylapore; Pondy Bazaar in T.Nagar, and CSIR Road in Taramani.

The existing meters in locations such as Pondy Bazaar are yet to realise their optimum potential because of the encroachment by hawkers.

Many of the vehicles are parked on the road beyond the yellow line that demarcates the parking area as a portion of the parking area has been encroached by hawkers.

B.Veerappan, supervisor of the parking facility in Pondy Bazaar, said that over 700 cars are parked every day on the stretch where eight parking meters have been installed. “There is lack of awareness among car users on how to operate the parking meter. We are not able to regulate motorcycles that are being parked in the area meant for cars. Parking meter attenders are being assaulted when they try to regulate vehicles,” he said.

[Haresh]

The Ugly Indian

http://www.theuglyindian.com/


http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Ug ... 18?sk=info

[Suraj]

Charles Correa warns of urban breakdown

[Suraj]

xposted frm Nukkad:

I came back from a short trip to delhi - focussed on covering as much of history as feasible in the time given and walkability from metro lines.
CENTRAL covered CP (every block inner and outer,full perimeter sweep), jantar mantar, emporiums on baba kharak singh marg, central cottage industry emporium
NORTH red fort, chandni chowk
EAST - purana quilla in great depth, humayun tomb, nizamuddin enclave
SOUTH qutub minar, lodhi gardens, dilli haat, safdarjung tomb, india gate
took around 1000+ photos. mostly there were few tourists around and couples seeking some privacy in the ruins.

some comments:
- over last few yrs the ghazibad, noida, east delhi has merged. my sis stays in vaishali which is current end of ghaziabad line..from there to CP is only 30 mins , vast new colonies and townhips have come up. mayawati paid a lot of focus to this region it seems. now akhilesh admin is focussed on projecting a pro-urbu and pro-farmer stance so already the greater noida line is go-slow. noida has currently 9 stations in a one line. in delhi-lucknow highway they have built over bridges for passengers to cross safely...in a couple of places middle of nowhere these even have powered escalator. huge malls near every metro stop usually.
- MASSIVE sized grid of roads and flyovers east of the yamuna, delhi proper always had them
- metro stations are FLAWLESSly contructed with high quality signs, escalators, fittings...every bit as "german" or "japanese" as the originals and better than Bangkok and singapore imho.
- ZERO paan, urine smells or splotches
- ORDERLY crowd even at smaller stations with no platform security people to enforce queues
- HIGH FREQ - no sooner a trains tail end clears the platform than after 2 mins a new train comes. 4 or 6 coaches, but platforms are sized for 8 coach trains
- HIGH QUALITY interiors of rakes. most trains seem to be from bombardier
- EFFICIENT smart card system and refills
- NOBODY was seen violating the ruke about photos, eating and drinking on train
- CISF runs the security at every stn incl in UP. tight and efficient as usual. Ak56 armed people are available if anything escalates beyond a sidearm issue.
- anil ambani runs a special line from T3 to CP railway station, thats even more chi chi...sliding glass doors on platforms for safety, front facing bucket seats, LCD panels, tourism gujarat stickers, faster speed and platforms built to airport standard. its costlier but understandable given the lower passenger load. airport staff use it extensively. it will grow in volume for sure.
a bus runs from T3 to T1 every 20 mins....the shivaji stadium stn on baba kharak singh marg is next to a very high end parking building run by DLF.
- T1 used by goair/spicejet and indigo is at par with bangkok std and better than the economy terminal of singapore(which was being worked on in 2010)..it is ofcourse smaller but std is better.
- KF has vanished from blr and delhi probably...no KF jet seen in blr both inbound and outbound legs

Lodhi gardens was the most soothing and restful place I have been to in quite some time. I also came across the most soothing pyt I have ever seen in many a moon there, with her pacific islander looking bf/hubby unfortunately.

overall a city that clearly deploys massive strike power and resources to make things work. the paving of roads, sidewalks, tolerances in construction, signages far better than blr in comparison.

also I didnt spot any of the "swift vdi" yahoos that plague blr. people drive fast but seem not to have a ego issue about speed. perhaps good roads have soothed their competitive urges.

the lassi was ofcourse the best - had my fill of matka lassi, malai lassi thick enough to support a spoon's weight, rabri falooda in chandni chowk area. skipped the jalebis.

overall in 4 days of hard riding, must have walked around 30km on foot...my feet have some blisters on the soles to show for it.

[Vasu]

If somehow the culture of the people living in NCR could be improved, that would be a wonderful place to live!!

This is the same place where women scamper into homes by sunset because thats when wolves set out.

[harbans]

You might think that the people wandering around are the cause of congestion. Not so. The 20 fat cats who have parked their cars are occupying more road space than the other 2000 people on that street.

From the railways thread on a pic that Theo ji had posted.

It's really not because of the 20 odd cars parked. It's because each side of this single road there is a township of a 150k where the distance between the front ends of 2 houses is about 1-1.5 meters, each house is 3-5 floors hosting multiple families. To make ends meet, catch buses, sell fruits, vegetables in thelas, or repair bicycles, run errands..these people have to converge on this single street. I posted this and referenced satellite pics to show why this congestion takes place. In Delhi you see this spillage in Bahadurgarg, Mahipalpur and dozens of places. To remove the congestion one has to slice 2-3 these kind of roads in the interiors of such villages each. One must try looking up a google satellite map of the congested areas one knows about, than blame it on parked vehicles. Developed countries have a much higher percentage of roads within a certain area servicing lesser people, than cities in India have been planned for. Congestion in India is a planning problem..not one of more cars or more people. The moment you look at it that way, one makes a fundamental flaw in analysis. And no solution will ever emerge from a fundamental flaw in analysis.

[Theo_Fidel]

Harbans,

That is a misreading of Urban planning. Cars and pedestrians are simply incompatible. You can never mix the two. Pedestrians must have first priority of access to urban neighborhoods. In dense Indian towns a car is merely a status symbol. In an ultra dense country like India towns are designed for walking. IMO cars should be banned from the city/town/village interior. Ultimately I’m sure they will be as they have been in most of the small old towns of Europe. Walking and some form of small electric vehicles will take their place.

You can’t simply re-engineer walking based towns to car based towns without destroying the fabric of the social village. Cars destroy economic value in cities and are horribly inefficient. It may be a shock for you to know that less than 3% of passenger trips in Chennai are by cars. Another 7% are by 2 wheelers. Walking is 30%. Buses is 40%. Bicycles is 15%. Even the Chennai Auto’s account for less than 2% of daily passenger trips. The data simply does not back you up. Think about that next time you look at that image, less than 2% of the people in that market came in those cars.



I think you & I see very different things in that picture. You see dirt, poverty, congestion, lack of modernity, no gleaming sky scrapers and SDRE. I see a safe, organized, hyper crowded, poorly managed, poorly access controlled, weak signage, lack of standards and building quality. I see this as a engineering issue not a TFTA issue or a planning issue. There is good congestion and there is bad congestion, I mostly see good congestion here. Needs better engineering.

Yours attitude is this. It has failed everywhere in the world.


I do agree with you that the street congestion is due to everyone hustling for a living on the streets. In most of the advanced world the streets are mostly empty because everyone is either working or studying at a settled fixed spot. Eventually India too will get to that situation. But that is another story. And planning is not going to solve the livelihood issue. That is an economic issue.

[Theo_Fidel]

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commut ... ties/1194/

Cautionary U.S. Transportation Tales for India's Growing Cities

Gorton, who lives in New York City, has cautionary tales to share with India as it embarks on this path. This week he's wrapping up a trip to a number of Indian cities, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Ahmedabad. Along the way he’s been sharing his experience with car-dominated American cities, and also the story of New York’s recent transformation into a city that more heavily plans for and appeals to cyclists and pedestrians.

“It’s physically impossible to fit the automobile into a large dense city,” Gorton says. “Cities that have tried to do that – and there are many, many of them all over the world – have all ended up pretty unhappy at the end of the day. And the cities that are happiest are the ones that have taken steps to limit the automobile.”

He’s been meeting with city officials and locals to talk about how India’s cities can think differently about their transportation futures. As they grow, these cities should try to avoid merely ceding all of their public realms to cars, says Gorton. Though new roads are needed in these cities, they don’t solely have to accommodate cars at the expense of non-motorized street users. But some cities may already be moving in a developmental direction that skews roads toward a car-dominated transportation sphere.

“It’s amazing how much stuff is under construction here,” Gorton says via telephone. “And you can see that a lot of these cities, unless they really start changing their policies, are going to be absolutely swamped by car traffic. And it’s already happening, to some extent.”

India's roads are already traffic nightmares. Road rules are under-used if known at all, and the crowding and mix of users, which include everything from cars, trucks, and buses to pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycles, scooters, rickshaws, and cows, makes the streets chaotic and often dangerous. Red lights are a loose guide, and one-way streets are rarely that.

“It is mind-bogglingly unsafe,” Gorton says, especially for pedestrians. “There’s no such thing as a crosswalk. There’s no such thing as traffic stopping. Pedestrians run across the street and it’s their job to get out of the way of the cars, but it’s not the cars’ job to not hit them.”

“A car is, among other things, just a safety device because you’re walled in from the chaos around you.”

The car is also a status symbol, one showing success. Gorton blames Western influence for this. But he also says that in talking with people in these Indian cities that there is a strong aversion to experiencing more of the traffic and car-dominated problems many cities in the U.S. – and increasingly China – are facing.

“India’s just got so many more people and it’s so much more dense that as much as they want the car, that ‘American, everyone drives’ model is physically impossible,” says Gorton. “They’re aware that Chinese cities are now choking on traffic. And, really, Chinese cities are a much better analog for what’s going to happen in India.”

The fast pace of growth in China and the developmental path of its cities are strong lessons for India. Gorton says that what’s happening in China, and what has been happening at a slower pace in the U.S., is being watched carefully by policymakers and city leaders in India.

“They see what traffic does to their cities, they see how their city is getting less livable every year. And as much as they personally want a car, they don’t want their world to be this really congested traffic hell,” says Gorton. “Among a lot of the policymakers and elected officials and senior people in government, there really is this sense that they have to do something else.”

Gorton says he hopes his trip and talks will help India's cities to think more carefully about the policies shaping the transportation infrastructure that will rapidly come online in the next decade. He says that if they do, they can prevent the Indian cities of the future from becoming what Chinese cities are becoming today, and what U.S. cities have been struggling to shift away from.

[Bade]

^^^ More metro lines and mono-rail lines for all Indian cities and towns is the solution. Even buses did not seem to work with overcrowding and unruly driving habits of all who share the road.

[harbans]

I see a safe, organized, hyper crowded, poorly managed, poorly access controlled, weak signage, lack of standards and building quality. I see this as a engineering issue not a TFTA issue or a planning issue. There is good congestion and there is bad congestion, I mostly see good congestion here. Needs better engineering.

Cars and pedestrians are simply incompatible. You can never mix the two.

Theo, one word for what you wrote. If you really think that pic you posted is an example 'Good' congestion then..BS!

I never said Cars and pedestrians must share the same road. The pic that you post, possibly the ONLY 10-15m wide road where a 300k population have to share and where the people spill out, are the result of 20 odd parked cars or plain bad planning?

The bad planning is exactly what you are dishing out: Engineering vs a TFTA. God only knows what you mean. But surely it will give you a means of twisting the subject.

The kind of thinking that you espouse was what DDA type planners had when they designed Vasunt Kunj type apartments and DDA flats in NCR. They did not plan for Cars. No parking space. They are presently middle class slums.

No the pic you post is what one has to do, if one does not plan and you have a 200k population in 400 sq meters being serviced by a single road.

Countries like Singapore are more congested than India, but very well planned. Pedestrian, car sections are very well laid out. Everything is planning..elimination of congestion as priority. At least have the humility of looking up satellite maps of villages trapped in cities and doing a bit of ground work before trying to falsify something right i am trying to bring an awareness about.

BTW your approach to this resembles the DDA type planners..trying to develop a model that does not allow for cars. Maybe you've been doing just that kind of work, i don't know..but they are just unable to see the bigger picture. I am sorry to say it, but your defense of congestion in India, that kills, maims, creates misery..is nothing short of insensitivity.

[Theo_Fidel]

Harbans,

Driving in Indian cities are a disaster. I agree that they were simply not planned for cars. Now this may have been cost issues WRT land acquisition, or starvation level development budgets (Very much so) or maybe our people are too poor to live like Singapore but I'll let all those thoughts pass. The cities and towns are already here. And yes I was marginally involved in planning some of these areas. Of course without a meaningful budget to do anything the cities sprang up far faster than planning could be implemented. And yes my parents very much live next to a village that was absorbed into a city and yes! I use a motorcycle and Bus in Chennai. A single 2 bedroom apartment in a rundown area of Singapore goes for $1 Million. Is this the type of planning you want for India. One where the vast majority is made homeless overnight. I know it may seem baffling to you but trust me Dilli and DDA complexes were indeed designed for cars and car access. Its another matter that people want to use the car parks as play grounds, public parks and for religious occasions. The rest of India can NOT afford even this sort of land allocation. You do understand that even in Singapore 60% of land area is allocated to road transport or ancillaries. You want to know what the number is in Chennai. 13%. Yes! Really. This is what our people can afford. You try parking your car in that land.

The question is what to do now. It is too late to bulldoze, the only option is to revert to a walkable city with full public transport and a ban on cars within most areas. So get out of your car and learn to walk. Its coming one way or another. This business of trying to do open heart surgery just so cars can get into our cities is hopeless and in crowded India pointless. The Socialists are right on this one. Cars are needless status symbols in India.

Can you show me how your car will carry at least 40% of passenger trips? Any answers... I thought not.

Whether you like it or not India will never look like TFTA west or even Singapore. I'm aiming more for something similar to Southern Italy or South Korea. Something like this we can do. Note the lack of fat cat cars.

[harbans]

Theo Ji, frankly people in India are so fed up..specially when people say:

Whether you like it or not India will never look like TFTA west or even Singapore.

And as you say, if at all you have been in planning and have that attitude, that India cannot. I must say i don't and won't reiterate that faith.

You do understand that even in Singapore 60% of land area is allocated to road transport or ancillaries. You want to know what the number is in Chennai. 13%. Yes! Really.

I know. And the reason is people speaking through and ideological prism when planning something like this:

So get out of your car and learn to walk.

Unfortunately when you plan and talk like that, it results in the city plans with 13% road space, where a dozen odd cars in a single road catering to 200k people will jam up the whole damn place.

This is not a question of whether India has money or not, this is a mindset problem where we have people who assume something is not going to happen, we are not good enough, this is not possible.

Same planning type folks in 2004, said India would reach 500 million mobile connections by 2030. It did somewhere in 2010.

Same planning type folks in 2000, assumed the Gurgaon-Jaipur highway would cater maximum X number of vehicles by 2010, whereas the number of vehicles was 4x by 2006.

The Socialists are right on this one. Cars are needless status symbols in India.

That line of thought has to be eliminated if India has to develop. I am sorry Theo, but you make sense no more. That kind of thinking and approach has done more damage to India's progress last 60 years than anything i can think of. We should have remained in the pre liberization era where waiting for a scooter took 7 years, and someone wearing a Levis jeans was considered hip, and anyone who could get a chance to escape your dream wanted to end up in TFTA lands. Sorry..India and Indians don't share your contorted vision. Your vision of development today can only contribute to misery. So let it be Theo..i want your type of thought processes eliminated/ barred from strategic thinking and planning anywhere. Your era has to be over if India has to step out. I really am sorry to say this..and it saddens me while doing so.

[harbans]

Also Theo Ji, the pics you posted noting the lack of 'fat cars'. I've been around South Korea, Singapore, Chile, Argentina, Alaska, China..almost every nation on earth, and i know exactly why these kind of streets don't have cars. Because they don't have a 200k village adjacent on either side of the road you show in the pic. But the density of car ownerships in every one of those nations with pics you show is higher than India or any Indian city. The problem as you clearly show is poor analysis and planning. You want people to follow an ideological imperative you have dreamt of in your mind, with little regard to reality of how people would like to grow, of their aspirations. Just stop peddling this nonsense.

[Theo_Fidel]

Harbans,

Though it may seem otherwise I'm actually coming the other way. It is car centric manner of thinking that pervades planning in India. Planning in India actually obsesses with the Corbu & Konigsberger model of development. Completely separated nodes in a city with separate functions. Have you wondered why you live in one place and then must commute 20 kms to get to work, it is because of this manner of planning, you know the Singapore model. It is thinking that cars should have priority in every city center and the people be damned. It is this silliness that will get cars banned eventually from most Indian urban areas. The fact is you can now drive a car through the ancient streets of Varanasi with no permits or speed limit. This is simply not sustainable. As long as we are talking Singapore try getting a car permit COE there. Then you will know what it means to own a car. Truth is car owners in India don't pay the true price of owning a car. The price everyone else pays for you.

I know the exhaustion you speak of. After a long day slogging through commuter traffic with a million people crawling on every sqft is truly enervating. You want wide open spaces with 100 kmph straight shot to your house. You can have that if you are willing to pay for and live out in the suburbs in a $1 million mansion. Inside the city land is too valuable for that. Notice I'm talking about city centers and urban areas where people densities in India are now in the 25,000 persons per sqft range. Do you know how Chennai ended up with 13% street area. That is how it was planned in the British era, before motor cars. The newer areas such as Annanagar has 40% street area but population density even there is now North of 20,000 persons per sqkm and the roads are simple non-functional. At densities like that you could give 90% of the land to street and it won't be enough.

With respect to Gurgaon the silliness is to think that you can ever have a road wide enough or broad enough to deal with that sort of density. It is after all your ideal sort of planning right. Eight lane highway in either direction and even that is not enough. So we will need a 20 lane highway. I can guarantee even that will not be enough. Let me point out Gurgaon is completely unplanned with everyone doing per his marzi. Again your ideal planning. Take Faridabad that is actually planned or Chandigarh you don't see the same sort of economic dynamism. Where Government plans are implemented, things are cripplingly expensive and people can't move there or live there.

90% of Indian towns and cites were built at a time when there was no car. To think we can ignore that and build our way out is foolishness. You will come around too. After your 20 lane freeway fails.

[Supratik]

Theo, redevelopment of roads can be done through LA. Please visit Kochi and Trivandrum threads on SSC. So it is still not too late. BTW, road space is 8% in Kolkata. This is because the Left did no work for 25 of the 34 years. So you have ugly congested colonies in Kolkata.

[harbans]

Theo, make up your mind what you want to say..

It is car centric manner of thinking that pervades planning in India.

or

You do understand that even in Singapore 60% of land area is allocated to road transport or ancillaries. You want to know what the number is in Chennai. 13%. Yes! Really.

Can you really reconcile what you are saying?

Notice I'm talking about city centers and urban areas where people densities in India are now in the 25,000 persons per sqft range.

Imagine Theo a bunch of planners, one group saying we are giving too much weightage to roads, we must have China 70's style cycles on the streets that is good for India. Another that says lets plan good roads and parking spaces. Both groups are vocal, but then consensus demands a middle path kind of solution so popular. So instead of planning a township with a dozen 15 mtr wide roads say, they do a compromise formula where two 5 meter wide roads are planned. 10 years later we have congestion which is completely unnecessary.

Planning is not some consensus solution here. Either you plan for cars or you don't. You seem to think one can do away with cars as they are status symbol only. However the traffic and congestion on the roads proves you false outright.

Do you know how Chennai ended up with 13% street area. That is how it was planned in the British era

Theo who are you trying to kid here. Chennai's urbanized areas today must be of the magnitude of 20 times more than what was urbanized by the British 70 years ago. Do you really mean to say that planning today is running on master plans laid out by the British some 70 years ago?

With respect to Gurgaon the silliness is to think that you can ever have a road wide enough or broad enough to deal with that sort of density. It is after all your ideal sort of planning right.

Theo, i've been advocating multiple feeder routes Delhi-Gurgaon. Unfortunately planners like you did not visualize the massive jump in traffic volumes and account for the density increase when they should have a dozen years ago. Those who advocated it would have been dismissed as you say..

It is after all your ideal sort of planning right.

90% of Indian towns and cites were built at a time when there was no car. To think we can ignore that and build our way out is foolishness

What sort of statement is that? Is it even rational.. Do you know how small NYC or London, or Delhi or Chennai or Mumbai or Paris was when there were no cars? Do you have any idea how much towns have increased over the last 80 years? Have you compared roads in Lutyens Delhi designed when there were hardly any cars to urban areas designed in Delhi Post independence when cars were around in almost every country?

[Lalmohan]

the car's impact on planning is seen more in american cities - usually built new and with abundant land. strip malls, conurbation sprawls are facilitated by a car centric model

in european cities, cars have had to be force fed (with the exception of german cities which had the unfortunate opportunity to be rebuilt from scratch in the automotive era) into old patterns - most of it quite painfully. ring roads and through roads have been the major trunking developments

in india we seem to be obsessed with building flyovers that connect one congested road/junction with another

[harbans]

BTW, road space is 8% in Kolkata. This is because the Left did no work for 25 of the 34 years. So you have ugly congested colonies in Kolkata.

You are right Supratik, Cal is the worst in terms of road percentage. But it's not that they didn't work, rather that is irrelevant here. They didn't plan for it. When an area is developed they make master plans and allot areas for parks, offices, residential apartments, civic services, etc. While good thinking would always accommodate for growth, there is a school of thought that intrinsically thinks India cannot become developed. So they don't even plan for it. Theo belongs to that school. The left also thought and romanticized the 70's Chinese cycling their way to commune factories..that Indians would also do so and Cars were a status symbol only. That is the thinking that led to urban disasters today.

[Singha]

I agree that nothing much can be done about crowded existing areas other than restricting the entry of cars (build some huge multi storey parks on the periphery of such areas) and a smartcard based bus and rail network.

but in the new ring roads and layouts that are always forming around expanding cities people will need cars because civic infra will not be so dense or close. atleast these can be planned with "chinese" style wide roads and vacant areas kept to expand lanes or railways in future. Plus metro stations need to plan for high car parks in multiple storeys. the delhi metro stations in suburbs are having inadequate space for cars and is choked with bikes. I doubt the blr metro stations are planning anything better.

roads dont make money for the Govt - plot sales and commercial permits do, hence I guess the lack of enthu for keeping very wide roads.

[Supratik]

Redevelopment can be done simultaneously alongside building newer parts of the town that are less congested. What you need is political will, vision and lots of money.

[Singha]

on recent dilli trip, I spent a couple hours wandering around chandni chowk area upto fatehpuri masjid.

the only three buildings that looked in good repair were ironically among the oldest - a jain temple, a hindu temple and gurudwara sisganj!

of the rest 90% were too dangerous and old to be used per any reasonable standard you might think of - structural, fire, water, sanitation.... there are 1000s of these buildings in the area most are atleast 100 yrs old...some are 150+, the ones fronting the main road are probably better than the ones in the narrow lanes where hardly two people can pass each other. two of the oldest bank branches in india are here.

I suppose periodically a building catches fire or collapses, but people will not move out or allow redevelopment at any cost. and politically its a very powerful area with lots of votes and lots of business money + ROP concentration in one part....hence the total hands off policy.

and so the chariot flies on through the night...wheels wobbling and horses foaming but still on the rutted road...