Indian Roads Thread

gunjur · Post by **gunjur** » 21 Jun 2012 12:27

In the last decade, two enabling factors have begun to transform the logistics landscape in India. Better roads have reduced transit times. Technology is starting to play a role too

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 21 Jun 2012 18:12

see gov can get from pandus much more than speeding tickets.. controlled driving at stop signs and turn right without stop signs in maasa account for sizable ticket money packet too.

e.g I did not completely come to a stop on a no-sign stop place.. still the cop gave me a ticket in the sense, I am cutting into the T join with a default stop. so, there is no limit here in that sense to collect money.

i feel, with a burgeoning middle income population in desh, this is big bucks on constraining the mad driving crowd.. and now, all it takes is dedicated cop system.

replacing the current cops with next gen cops with tech, also brings in another change.. the cop attitude towards normal people - where earlier were treated like criminals.

stop signs are respected in desh? if not big bucks for pandus. billion $$$ just by capturing some no stop videos.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 21 Jun 2012 22:31

From the article posted earlier. What do people think of this guys attitude.
IME guys with big attitudes tend to fall on their butts in India due to lack of staying power. Still will be interesting to see what happens. Pricing 10% higher is not a good start.

http://forbesindia.com/article/big-bet/ ... or/32672/1

Llistosella remains unfazed. He’s betting on his team to deliver because he’s taken a personal punt on all of them. “Everybody has to confess and get down to his knees and say that I know nothing. Nothing at all and that I am an idiot. I am willing to learn. Yes. If someone is blabbering, someone is pretentious that I know everything about commercial vehicles…thank you very much, you can go.”

The team at Bharat Benz is convinced there are only four things that matter to a trucker: Price, fuel efficiency, network and resale value. Of this, three are in their control and the proposition is fairly straight forward. What they put out will be only 9 percent more expensive than competition; to make up though, fuel efficiency will be 10 percent higher; and the service network is in place. As for resale value, that is a variable only the market can dictate.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 21 Jun 2012 23:46

Nice picture of the scene near IGI Airport in New Delhi, with the airport express line on the left and Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway on the right.

Via SSC India

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 22 Jun 2012 00:43

Nice. People are getting much much better at following lanes!

Is that a HOV lane I see.

saip · Post by **saip** » 22 Jun 2012 01:05

Sachin wrote:
SaiK wrote:
In one case it seems a driver got so irritated when the cops pulled him up for over-speeding. He had fixed a detector but the device did not warn him in advance. In a fit of rage, he pulls out the device and slams it on the road. In that particular state, fixing such a device was also illegal. So our "Rage Boy" driver gets two charges. Over speeding plus fixing the device.

He should have gotten one more ticket -- for littering

saip · Post by **saip** » 22 Jun 2012 01:15

In the photograph above, what is that thing on the left? Did it go underground after that?

Quite a few cars are riding two lanes. Recently I took a taxi from HYD airport around 11 pm. There was no traffic at that time but my taxi guy was driving in both lanes keeping the lane divider right in the center as if he is going to take off. I kept asking him why he does that and he has no answer except give me a smile as if I am some crazy guy to tell him to drive in the lane. I thought may be that is how he was taught to drive.

AdityaM · Post by **AdityaM** » 22 Jun 2012 01:34

Theo_Fidel wrote:Nice. People are getting much much better at following lanes!
Is that a HOV lane I see.

look closely, people are driving on the lane marking itself!
No concept of HOV in india. Right most road is a slip road servicing local establishments

In the photograph above, what is that thing on the left? Did it go underground after that?

Airport Metro goes underground

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 22 Jun 2012 01:34

Some drivers really do mistake the dotted line as markers for them to center their cars. They think it is more useful to center their vehicles rather than between two lanes.

The strategy gives them more leeway as the line just has to be between the two tires, and not necessarily at the center.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 22 Jun 2012 01:48

There's no point in nitpicking about keeping in lane. Constant lane changing will remain as long as traffic remains very heterogeneous with vehicles of different sizes and acceleration/speed potential. No amount of legislation and driver training will address that; only some degree of separation of fast and slow traffic will. Better to let the auto market mature into the compact/midsize/luxury car range so that the vehicles are more homogeneous, and therefore travelling at similar speeds and within lanes.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Jun 2012 02:57

"on the lane detection" mandatory noise beeps on the cars can help keep drivers straight on the lane.. this would be also helpful in maasa when we drive long distance and suddenly you doze for a sec.

by doing that, cops can pull over people to test if the lane change beepers are working correct on suspect cars.. and issue tickets.. more money for the gov.

some rudimentary form of sensors that is now present in mercedes.

Theo_Fidel · Post by **Theo_Fidel** » 22 Jun 2012 02:58

Hah! folks don't remember how bad it used to be. Even visibly it is a vast improvement and things are looking up but desh bakths think desh is always doomed....

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Jun 2012 03:05

think the other way.. desh bakths always think desh needs improvement. all constructive onlee.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Jun 2012 07:23

any change in this data after 2 years since this came out?

we are way back compared to top 5 here

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Jun 2012 09:15

yeah the airport exp line goes underground at mahipalpur upto the IGI T3. on the stretch mahipalpur to shivaji stadium there is a beautiful view of the delhi ridge area.
its a very Shakina std of train and stations clad in granite and all, no different from a good airport.

costlier yes - but if you want quality and upkeep nothing is cheap anywhere.

Shankas · Post by **Shankas** » 22 Jun 2012 19:06

Bade wrote:Some drivers really do mistake the dotted line as markers for them to center their cars. They think it is more useful to center their vehicles rather than between two lanes. The strategy gives them more leeway as the line just has to be between the two tires, and not necessarily at the center.

I have a simple solution for this. Let's redraw/realign the lines to suit us desis. There will be a single line in the middle of the lane.

Not trying to be funny, just thinking....we are different, let's march to our own band.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 22 Jun 2012 19:36

What I gather from talking to umpteen drivers I have used during various trips is they do not like strict following of lanes for their own reasons. They really look at the dotted lines in a multi lane situation (not 1+1) as a help to roughly keep distance from others but still with a lot of flexibility. No, I am not joking.

In Kerala there are hardly any 3+3 lane roads over long stretches except a few close to cities, so on a 1+1 lane road they still drive on both sides, making it even more dangerous. Crossing even the center line is done with little thought to the consequences.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Jun 2012 20:02

hah! kerala roads!.. have they become better now?

once, on a trip from CBE to Calicut, narrow path, rain, ditch and slush, two bus drivers opposite side would fight who will get the best part of the road.. ended up in getting down, rolling up the dhoties, and fist fights. Then passengers join in..

yes, you know what happened.. I along with many passengers scooted the scene about 1/4km away.. local gangs and others joined in. it could be CITU/marxists/and other commies.

had to wait for another bus to load us up.. saw the remains of two buses with shattered glasses and broken remains.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 22 Jun 2012 20:07

The roads have become quite good, as the state has tried to uplift all roads to similar levels, you will not see the shock&awe roads of TN that Baalu built with central dole.

But the drivers are still the same with same attitudes.

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 22 Jun 2012 20:12

Theo_Fidel wrote:From the article posted earlier. What do people think of this guys attitude.
IME guys with big attitudes tend to fall on their butts in India due to lack of staying power. Still will be interesting to see what happens. Pricing 10% higher is not a good start.

I think at Higher end of the Market reliabilty and running long hours fuel efficienctly the "BENZ" trademark will be ok, its competing with the "1613" will the 10% hurt more, especially fr Truckers who use thier trucks on the Plains, but 10% fuel effciency for a truck which runs 60,000 KM a year at 4-5KM per litre can work out to a savings upwards of 65K INR, so if reliable customers may not mind sheeling a lac to 1.5 lac more. And more Mercedes has given INR 600 crores to its Financing arm to finance these trucks , a lower say 2% for good trucing customers could do the trick.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 22 Jun 2012 20:21

Bade wrote:But the drivers are still the same with same attitudes.

my dad used to say something similar for TN.

time changes brings in new gov (normally dmk/admk)
but the stench from koovam river shall remain forever!

/OT

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 23 Jun 2012 00:52

Along Hyderabad Outer Ring Road:

I like the banked cloverleaves on solid embankments rather than the kind on suspended pillars like they have in the US. The latter just looks too busy and maze-like, while the one in Hyderabad (and similar ones elsewhere in Delhi and Bangalore near the airport) just look nicer.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 23 Jun 2012 09:12

I think it is not only necessary to build new infrastructure to bring an interstate to desh, but a massive plan must be undertaking to expand all existing roads... towns and cities re-planned, and rebuilt as we go further in the future. proper foundations must be laid so that we get to utilize optimally all space available.

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 24 Jun 2012 00:58

There is a need to introduce the concept of community service since we cannot follow Singapore's discipline model, its like the AP's 'Shram daan' program, and the desi civic sense needs a lot of intervention

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 24 Jun 2012 04:25

the very same desis out of India, are the best citizens of the world.. how come?

our checks and balances.. plus socialistic setup must cease to exists and catch on with capitalistic mindset.. that would also help public awareness of belonging and not end up in destroying public property, and people will ask for more infrastructure and facilities, in a more realistic ways.

now it appears they have no idea about anything.. they have to be given a comparison model to view their state and metrics alone can drive a beginning. may be the more desis fly abroad, the more they feel the needs and wants change.

again, we have additional problems too.. ie, population control. we have way too much people on roads.

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 24 Jun 2012 23:42

its exactly the same question Kalam saab once asked the Cisco chairman John Chambers in a virtual room full of desis, the context was while the same desis are high acheivers in products and patents in US, back in India they are ordinary souls

there is no one line answer there

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 25 Jun 2012 00:53

^ a one line answer is that majority of Indians do not cultivate "love for their mother land" and instead cultivate "love for themselves and their families". That is why an Indian behaves differently in massa airport, which changes with the air line he flys on, and when he lands in a Desi airport.

Jaspreet · Post by **Jaspreet** » 25 Jun 2012 01:23

[self-deleted]

hnair · Post by **hnair** » 25 Jun 2012 06:08

Looks like these TFTA countries need to breathe. And Indians are good at deep-breathing excersies. So maybe these Indian immigrants are giving back to the country they adopted, by proving you can unwind a bit, without breaking the criminal laws

(I have been to a few projects, trailer parks, districts and Broadwater Farm-types in TFTA worlds. I found them downright dangerous to walk through, compared to the lack of "civic sense" in Little Indias, China towns, Korean Streets or Japanese towns. But I digress..... We need more of looking at the mirror and

)

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 25 Jun 2012 10:30

Sachin wrote:Now with computerisation and network connectivity improving by leaps and bounds it would not be too much of a problem to start tracking offences by tagging them to the vehicle registration number or the driving license number.

Not really. I had to change address from old native to chennai. The idiots here asked me to get a NOC from old RTO office. Reason - too many fake licenses, so this RTO is avoiding his responsibility of checking validity and asking the applicant to get an NOC from old RTO instead, so any problems come up, this guy will point to the other guy. I asked him, if he cannot check the validity of a license, how is he going to authenticate the NOC itself against fakes...he just gave me a blank stare. This is the state of our govt departments. We code for the whole damn world, but our basic stuff is still run in ledgers (computerised ledgers these days) that's all.

habal · Post by **habal** » 25 Jun 2012 11:15

my father's old license had expired and moreover he had shifted residence and instead of getting NOC, he decided to appear for a new driving test. He failed in the first attempt (taking H) but passed in subsequent.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 25 Jun 2012 12:21

All, just made a good road trip from Bengaluru via Kanakapura, Chamrajnagar, Dimbum, Bannari, Sathyamangalam route. The roads are now in an excellent condition. The only problem is near Kollegal where there is a bad stretch for around 1km and in the couple of places the highway goes right through the middle of "one street towns". The route also is more scenic when compared to the four lane express highway. We also have a 27 hair pin bend ghat section at Dimbum (TN).

Gus wrote:Not really. I had to change address from old native to chennai. The idiots here asked me to get a NOC from old RTO office.

That is because each state RTO has its own database and systems in place. I was thinking of a future scenario when these also would get linked up. The NOC process though archaic is a "good to have" one. Because in many cases that would be a check point to see if the license holder or the vehicle was involved in any cases.

The CCTNS now being piloted in a few states also is a step in the right direction. Though not used for vehicle tracking alone, there are modules which help in tracking down vehicles etc.

SaiK wrote:plus socialistic setup must cease to exists and catch on with capitalistic mindset..

Widening of roads and four-laning of major highways like NH47 is now pretty much stuck up in Kerala. The four-laning is complete between Kochi and Thrissur. And now the local people wants the toll to be waived off. First it was the local folks right next to the high-way who demanded that they should get exempted. Then people further down the line started demanding the same. Now I guess it has gone to such a level that all folks wants exemption

. This is socialism at its best. Keep quiet till a good road comes up, and then when it is time to pay up act as "poor people" and "demand" that they be given free rides. Idiots coming from other states can pay the tolls.

Here the folks demanding free rides are now using a fig leaf of an argument. That there should be a non-tolled service roads next to the highway. That it seems was part of a clause in the contract. The company who took up the contract was on the process of completing the same. I guess that is done too, so the "socialists" would come up with some other idea now. We had a harthal in the panchayath where the toll road starts. This is because the police went ahead and threw away all the temporary huts which the protestors had built. The police did this to smoothen the vehicle movement at the toll booth.

Considering all this no contractor have taken up the contract for the work between Mannuthi and Walayar stretch of NH47. I cant blame any businessman for taking this decision. Guess land acquisition etc. is already completed. Perhaps we may need to wait for a day when all these "socialist" Mallus are pulled out of the Beverages Corp. out lets and press-ganged to work on the highway system

.

Mean while in TN the work is going on in full swing. Avanashi town is now completely bye-passed. By this year end I guess TN folks would ensure that the four laning is done till Walayar border.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 25 Jun 2012 13:25

Sachin wrote:That is because each state RTO has its own database and systems in place. I was thinking of a future scenario when these also would get linked up. The NOC process though archaic is a "good to have" one. Because in many cases that would be a check point to see if the license holder or the vehicle was involved in any cases.

dear saar, this was within the state itself. How can different RTOs within one state not have a centralized database that can be securely accessed and verified at each nodes..

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 25 Jun 2012 14:23

in other news the plastic smartcard DL's given out by BLR RTOs last few years were all useless in storing secure info.
they never verified if the info got programmed properly to be read back, and later it turns out it cannot be read back with the precribed device.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 25 Jun 2012 21:16

Gus wrote:dear saar, this was within the state itself. How can different RTOs within one state not have a centralized database that can be securely accessed and verified at each nodes..

Point taken. In that case the each office is working in a silo and no major advantage would be there for any one.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 26 Jun 2012 05:02

since when DL became smart? last 2009 at BLUR, Jayanagar RTO gave me a plastic.. after great deal of struggle to avoid bribe.. all I wanted was renew my license, and wanted a plastic too. I need to renew again, when I visit desh.. it is a big pain in handling these guys.. over the top, bindas! 500 bucks buksheesh is min to put a sticker.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 26 Jun 2012 05:17

I agree with hnair here. You can find plenty of this elsewhere - there are crazy Thai, Malay, Indonesian, Russian, Saudi, Chinese, Korean, HK and Taiwanese drivers around, several of those nationalities having similar anecdotal views of their own countries from my personal experience interacting with them.

The best way to improve road habits to improve road quality and traffic homogeneity. Well marked lanes and exits and a traffic composed primarily of vehicles of similar types = smooth traffic flow. Put a Bavarian autobahn driver in an autorickshaw and let him loose around Chandni Chowk in rush hour; he'll drive like a frightened squirrel and will outwardly look no different from a 'crazy Indian driver'.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 26 Jun 2012 08:35

actually many streets should ban vehicles.. just like brigade road in bangalore.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 26 Jun 2012 14:18

^vehicles are banned on brigade road only on Dec31 evening.

Ganga Expressway demise: India's infrastructure woes continue
Reuters, 26 Jun 2012 | 07:31 AM

The failure of the Ganga Expressway offers a snapshot of India's chronic infrastructure woes and a reality check on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent promise to speed up more than 200 key projects.

In a wheat field near the mighty Ganges river stands a cracked foundation stone surrounded by nibbling goats and farmers driving their cattle in the baking sun.

Unveiled more than four years ago, it's all that remains of an ambition to build India's longest expressway, an eight-lane, 1,050-km (650-mile) road that would have run through Uttar Pradesh and connected one of the country's most backward regions to the doorstep of the nation's capital.

Supporters of the Ganga Expressway project say it would have helped transform Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and one of its poorest, and the lives of its 200 million people by slashing travel times and letting industry and townships sprout.

But having been in and out of the headlines for years, the project has all but crumbled under the weight of political wrangling, opposition from farmers whose fields would have suffered, and a court order in 2009 stalling construction on environmental grounds.

"It's one of those projects that can change the development map of a region," said Gopal Sarma of the consulting firm Bain & Company.

"At the same time, there is the whole issue of how do you deal with people who have held onto pieces of land for literally hundreds of years, and are not really looking at compensation but are looking to continue a way of life that they have had?"

The failure of the Ganga Expressway offers a snapshot of India's chronic infrastructure woes and a reality check on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent promise to speed up more than 200 key projects.

New Delhi has set an ambitious target to pump $1 trillion into an overhaul of infrastructure over the next five years, revamping roads, building airports and tackling endemic power blackouts. But, as the Ganga Expressway shows, such targets are all too often held hostage to harsh realities on the ground.

It's also symptomatic of how, for India's leaders, political expedience often trumps the need to revive investor sentiment and growth. In recent months, one party in the ruling coalition blocked a proposal to open the retail sector to foreign investment and the government has dithered on slashing costly state subsidies on fuel, fertilisers and food.

"It was a very ambitious project," said a former top state official who was closely involved in the expressway proposal, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The tragedy of the whole situation was that the politics came in.

"People don't know what is good for the state, good for the people, good for the country," the official added.

TREACHEROUS, MIND-NUMBING

Driving across Uttar Pradesh's existing highways can be by turns treacherous or mind-numbingly slow. Cars and trucks jostle with bicycles, bullock carts, cows and goats along what are often narrow and potholed roads, gumming up traffic and prompting drivers to veer dangerously across lanes to overtake.

With a creaking rail network, India relies heavily on such highways to transport goods. But their often-shoddy condition saps the competitiveness of companies and creates supply bottlenecks that have helped keep inflation uncomfortably high.

The average speed of trucks travelling on Indian roads is just 35 km (22 miles) per hour, less than half the 75 km (47 miles) in the United States, according to a report by global management consultancy McKinsey and Company.

The Ganga Expressway was supposed to help change all that. Conceived under Mayawati, a four-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh with prime ministerial ambitions, the stone was unveiled with much fanfare on her 52nd birthday in January 2008.

A contract to build the road was awarded to a unit of Jaiprakash Associates, a construction and infrastructure giant that also built India's Formula One track. Sameer Gaur, a top executive at the group who led the project, declined to comment for this article.

Under the state government's proposal, the company was to both fund and build the project. In return, it could charge toll fares and develop potentially lucrative real estate along the road - a version of the public-private-partnerships (PPP) that cash-strapped Indian governments have pushed in the sector.

But as is so often the case in India's troubled infrastructure story, one person's key development project is another person's land grab.

Farmers, egged on by what was at that time the state's main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP), said the project would rob small landholders of fertile land and their livelihoods.

Grumbling about inflation, power and water shortages, the farmers have scant faith in politicians and struggle to see how a massive highway running over their lands would benefit them.

"The government has done nothing for us except raise prices," said one, Dinesh Rai. "We are fooled by every party that comes in."

"What are we going to sell if we can't grow anything? What will we carry along an eight-lane road? Mud?" joked another, Jitender Kumar Yadav.

The SP, which booted Mayawati out of office in state elections in March, called the project a conspiracy and staged protests.

Ambika Chaudhary, the revenue minister in the new government, proudly told Reuters his activists, then in opposition, caused such a furore that Mayawati scrapped a planned trip to lay the foundation stone in 2008. Instead, she unveiled it at the state capital, Lucknow, and later had the stone transported to its current location.

"She did not dare to come to Ballia," Chaudhary said. "We protested like anything and the programme was cancelled."

BRAKES

Officially, the Ganga Expressway still exists on paper, but with SP in power in Uttar Pradesh, it is unlikely to be built, at least for years.

Across India, poor infrastructure has helped put the brakes on the once-stellar growth of Asia's third-largest economy, which has dropped to its slowest pace in nine years, and businesses are clamouring for more policy action.

Lacking the financial muscle that China has to bring its infrastructure up to speed, New Delhi has turned to the private sector to fund half of the $1 trillion target.

But time after time, big investments fall prey to red tape and battles over land, stalling projects for years. Firms complain bureaucracy and corruption delay the awarding of contracts, while debt to fund new ventures is scarce and the market in which to bid for them too aggressive.

As a result, New Delhi has consistently missed construction and funding targets for many sectors in recent years. Out of 583 projects worth more than 1.5 billion rupees each, 235 are delayed, according to the government's 2011-12 economic survey.

Roads are the worst hit, although the $8 billion Golden Quadrilateral project, that links big cities New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai with modern highways, has been mostly completed.

Examples abound of projects hit by similar woes to the Ganga road. The KMP Expressway, aimed at slashing congestion in the capital, was meant to be completed a year before the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Instead, land disputes and delays in obtaining clearances caused it to miss several deadlines and it is now scheduled to be finished next May.

Bain's Sarma estimates that India will only achieve about $650 billion of the $1 trillion target, and that number could fall further if the government fails to lift corporate sentiment with some key policy decisions over the next 3-6 months.

"We still are facing huge policy paralysis to get projects moving forward. Project pipelines are slow," he said.

Facing an avalanche of criticism over his government's handling of the economy, Singh has raised infrastructure targets and rolled out a system to track key projects.

A senior government adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the renewed push would help make individual ministries more accountable on performance, but added that he didn't "expect miracles".

For now, infrastructure players will likely wait and see whether Singh can deliver on his promise of a new impetus.

"(We're) not too optimistic, to be frank with you, because it is not the first time that such intentions have been made public," Vinayak Chatterjee, the chairman of Feedback Infrastructure Services, told Reuters Television.

"But I think there is a sense of fatigue with mere announcements of targets or mere announcements of new projects."

copyright @ Thomson-Reuters 2012

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 26 Jun 2012 14:18

^vehicles are banned on brigade road only on Dec31 evening.

Ganga Expressway demise: India's infrastructure woes continue
Reuters, 26 Jun 2012 | 07:31 AM

The failure of the Ganga Expressway offers a snapshot of India's chronic infrastructure woes and a reality check on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent promise to speed up more than 200 key projects.

In a wheat field near the mighty Ganges river stands a cracked foundation stone surrounded by nibbling goats and farmers driving their cattle in the baking sun.

Unveiled more than four years ago, it's all that remains of an ambition to build India's longest expressway, an eight-lane, 1,050-km (650-mile) road that would have run through Uttar Pradesh and connected one of the country's most backward regions to the doorstep of the nation's capital.

Supporters of the Ganga Expressway project say it would have helped transform Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and one of its poorest, and the lives of its 200 million people by slashing travel times and letting industry and townships sprout.

But having been in and out of the headlines for years, the project has all but crumbled under the weight of political wrangling, opposition from farmers whose fields would have suffered, and a court order in 2009 stalling construction on environmental grounds.

"It's one of those projects that can change the development map of a region," said Gopal Sarma of the consulting firm Bain & Company.

"At the same time, there is the whole issue of how do you deal with people who have held onto pieces of land for literally hundreds of years, and are not really looking at compensation but are looking to continue a way of life that they have had?"

The failure of the Ganga Expressway offers a snapshot of India's chronic infrastructure woes and a reality check on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's recent promise to speed up more than 200 key projects.

New Delhi has set an ambitious target to pump $1 trillion into an overhaul of infrastructure over the next five years, revamping roads, building airports and tackling endemic power blackouts. But, as the Ganga Expressway shows, such targets are all too often held hostage to harsh realities on the ground.

It's also symptomatic of how, for India's leaders, political expedience often trumps the need to revive investor sentiment and growth. In recent months, one party in the ruling coalition blocked a proposal to open the retail sector to foreign investment and the government has dithered on slashing costly state subsidies on fuel, fertilisers and food.

"It was a very ambitious project," said a former top state official who was closely involved in the expressway proposal, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity. "The tragedy of the whole situation was that the politics came in.

"People don't know what is good for the state, good for the people, good for the country," the official added.

TREACHEROUS, MIND-NUMBING

Driving across Uttar Pradesh's existing highways can be by turns treacherous or mind-numbingly slow. Cars and trucks jostle with bicycles, bullock carts, cows and goats along what are often narrow and potholed roads, gumming up traffic and prompting drivers to veer dangerously across lanes to overtake.

With a creaking rail network, India relies heavily on such highways to transport goods. But their often-shoddy condition saps the competitiveness of companies and creates supply bottlenecks that have helped keep inflation uncomfortably high.

The average speed of trucks travelling on Indian roads is just 35 km (22 miles) per hour, less than half the 75 km (47 miles) in the United States, according to a report by global management consultancy McKinsey and Company.

The Ganga Expressway was supposed to help change all that. Conceived under Mayawati, a four-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh with prime ministerial ambitions, the stone was unveiled with much fanfare on her 52nd birthday in January 2008.

A contract to build the road was awarded to a unit of Jaiprakash Associates, a construction and infrastructure giant that also built India's Formula One track. Sameer Gaur, a top executive at the group who led the project, declined to comment for this article.

Under the state government's proposal, the company was to both fund and build the project. In return, it could charge toll fares and develop potentially lucrative real estate along the road - a version of the public-private-partnerships (PPP) that cash-strapped Indian governments have pushed in the sector.

But as is so often the case in India's troubled infrastructure story, one person's key development project is another person's land grab.

Farmers, egged on by what was at that time the state's main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP), said the project would rob small landholders of fertile land and their livelihoods.

Grumbling about inflation, power and water shortages, the farmers have scant faith in politicians and struggle to see how a massive highway running over their lands would benefit them.

"The government has done nothing for us except raise prices," said one, Dinesh Rai. "We are fooled by every party that comes in."

"What are we going to sell if we can't grow anything? What will we carry along an eight-lane road? Mud?" joked another, Jitender Kumar Yadav.

The SP, which booted Mayawati out of office in state elections in March, called the project a conspiracy and staged protests.

Ambika Chaudhary, the revenue minister in the new government, proudly told Reuters his activists, then in opposition, caused such a furore that Mayawati scrapped a planned trip to lay the foundation stone in 2008. Instead, she unveiled it at the state capital, Lucknow, and later had the stone transported to its current location.

"She did not dare to come to Ballia," Chaudhary said. "We protested like anything and the programme was cancelled."

BRAKES

Officially, the Ganga Expressway still exists on paper, but with SP in power in Uttar Pradesh, it is unlikely to be built, at least for years.

Across India, poor infrastructure has helped put the brakes on the once-stellar growth of Asia's third-largest economy, which has dropped to its slowest pace in nine years, and businesses are clamouring for more policy action.

Lacking the financial muscle that China has to bring its infrastructure up to speed, New Delhi has turned to the private sector to fund half of the $1 trillion target.

But time after time, big investments fall prey to red tape and battles over land, stalling projects for years. Firms complain bureaucracy and corruption delay the awarding of contracts, while debt to fund new ventures is scarce and the market in which to bid for them too aggressive.

As a result, New Delhi has consistently missed construction and funding targets for many sectors in recent years. Out of 583 projects worth more than 1.5 billion rupees each, 235 are delayed, according to the government's 2011-12 economic survey.

Roads are the worst hit, although the $8 billion Golden Quadrilateral project, that links big cities New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai with modern highways, has been mostly completed.

Examples abound of projects hit by similar woes to the Ganga road. The KMP Expressway, aimed at slashing congestion in the capital, was meant to be completed a year before the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Instead, land disputes and delays in obtaining clearances caused it to miss several deadlines and it is now scheduled to be finished next May.

Bain's Sarma estimates that India will only achieve about $650 billion of the $1 trillion target, and that number could fall further if the government fails to lift corporate sentiment with some key policy decisions over the next 3-6 months.

"We still are facing huge policy paralysis to get projects moving forward. Project pipelines are slow," he said.

Facing an avalanche of criticism over his government's handling of the economy, Singh has raised infrastructure targets and rolled out a system to track key projects.

A senior government adviser, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the renewed push would help make individual ministries more accountable on performance, but added that he didn't "expect miracles".

For now, infrastructure players will likely wait and see whether Singh can deliver on his promise of a new impetus.

"(We're) not too optimistic, to be frank with you, because it is not the first time that such intentions have been made public," Vinayak Chatterjee, the chairman of Feedback Infrastructure Services, told Reuters Television.

"But I think there is a sense of fatigue with mere announcements of targets or mere announcements of new projects."

copyright @ Thomson-Reuters 2012