Indian Roads Thread

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 26 Jan 2017 22:10

Nice. Great feat of civil engg. Some places need more steel nets or walls to protect from rockfalls

disha · Post by **disha** » 27 Jan 2017 11:41

tandav wrote:For contrast here is the Karakoram highway part of CPEC built by China.

Point being?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 Jan 2017 13:08

higher investment per km, more focus .... something that we started seeing on border roads front in fag end of UPA2 and after 2014 GE. plans were always there but funded & tracked more.

tandav · Post by **tandav** » 28 Jan 2017 19:55

My point was to buttress the fact that in wartime it appears that it is easier to cutoff the Indian road shown with a few well placed cruise missile strikes in Arunachal Pradesh than the Karakorum highway in POK which is built broader and provides better protection from the elements even if the Karakorum highway temporarily blocked allows visible heavy preplaced machinery to conduct repairs fast.

In fact the entire national highway that links Guwahati Assam to Nagaland / Arunachal Pradesh the last I visited circa 2009 was nothing more than 1.5 lanes of potholed moonscape under constant repair due to unstable mountains that were constantly collapsing specially after the heavy rains that are inclement in those areas. We are fighting the Arunachal/NE front with very little east west connectivity whereas the Chinese have a massive east west transfer capability via a road roughly following the Brahmaputra valley. For us to move men and equipment east west the path requires ansfer 200 KM south and then up another valley 200 km north to cover perhaps 50-100 KM of east west.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 28 Jan 2017 20:58

A missile will take out a highway better than a dirt road. Easier to locate. Roads have to be improved for peace time purposes. All those fears about Chinese highways and railways is imaginary. Both sides will take them out in the first few hours of war. This is not 1962 era.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 29 Jan 2017 20:37

Supratik wrote:A missile will take out a highway better than a dirt road. Easier to locate. Roads have to be improved for peace time purposes. All those fears about Chinese highways and railways is imaginary. Both sides will take them out in the first few hours of war. This is not 1962 era.

It is in peacetime you build the infrastructure to support local presence. Without good local presence the Army will face additinal problems. India urgently needs to build the infrastructure in remote areas.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 26 Feb 2017 05:16

DL application to be made online and centralized

asgkhan · Post by **asgkhan** » 28 Feb 2017 11:36

http://www.financialexpress.com/india-n ... ts/569280/

Speed breakers, the purpose of which is to force riders to apply brakes on rushing motor vehicles, have apparently become reasons for loss of lives on roads across India. A data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways shows that speed breakers account for an average 10 deaths a day in the country, according to The Indian Express report. In a shocking revelation, the data also shows that in 2015, there were 11,000 speedbreaker-related accidents across the country resulting in 3,409 deaths. In 2014, speedbreakers account for an average 30 accidents and 10 fatalities every day. The most number of speedbreaker-related deaths occurred in Uttar Pradesh. UP is followed by two southern states- Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. In Uttar Pradesh, 990 and 1,753 people lost lives in 2015 and 2014 respectively. Notably, In 2015, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh accounted for 6,073 — 55 per cent of the total — such accidents.
“To put these numbers in perspective, 990 was about a fifth the number of murder cases reported in the state in 2015. UP topped all states in the number of murders that year, accounting for nearly 15 per cent of the total 32,127 murder cases in the country, according to National Crime Records Bureau data. Deaths on account of speedbreakers in Jammu and Kashmir in 2015 and 2014 — 15 and 17 respectively — amounted to nearly half the number of soldiers killed in the state in each of those years: 33 soldiers in 2015 and 32 in 2014,” the Indian Express report says. However, the numbers of both accidents and deaths came down sharply in UP in 2015 in comparison to 2014 — from 3,192 to 1,753, and from 1,654 to 990 respectively, the report says. Bihar is also witnessing the same trend. But West Bengal, Gujarat and Karnataka witnessed the opposite trend.

Government officials say even these high numbers may be an underestimation, as accidents caused due to speedbreakers get clubbed under the broader category of road accidents in many cases. There is no overarching set of norms on speedbreaker construction, and the Indian Roads Congress (IRC), the apex body of highway engineers set up by the government, in its guidelines on “the provision of speedbreaker for control of vehicular speeds on minor roads”, concedes there is “no particular design” suitable for all types of vehicles using a road. For example, a speedbreaker designed for trucks can be dangerous for motorcyclists, and one designed for motorcyclists could be ineffective for trucks. The IRC’s design recommendation, therefore, is basically a compromise to suit average Indian road traffic conditions. Based on field investigations and research, it has suggested that speedbreakers be provided a rounded (of 17-metre radius) hump of 3.7 metres width and 0.10 metres height for the preferred advisory crossing speed of 25 km/h for general traffic. This must be changed in areas that see a higher proportion of heavier vehicles, it says. The IRC has also recommended that signs should be put up warning drivers of an approaching speedbreaker, and that speedbreakers should be painted with alternating black and white bands or with luminous strips, or be embedded with cat’s eyes — reflective road safety devices — to give additional visual warning at night.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 Feb 2017 12:57

>>Based on field investigations and research, it has suggested that speedbreakers be provided a rounded (of 17-metre radius) hump of 3.7 metres width and 0.10 metres height for the preferred advisory crossing speed of 25 km/h for general traffic

all of this is grossly and completely violated at will by the contractors - making it like above costs money. smaller the road higher the probability a ugly sharp half-pipe shape is in place with 100s of scratch lines where cars have suffered. most are never marked with paint or the paint wears off and is never repainted. water accumulates as the speedbreaker stops the rain water and a ugly deep holes appear on both sides.

only cycles are immune to these beasts.

SC needs to take note of this and give a imperial firman from dilli that all speedbreakers except in front of schools and public offices be removed , and those that remain be broken and remade to the specified shape and size.

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 28 Feb 2017 14:47

In BLR on many important main roads, the speed brakes design have been improved. However it is in the bylanes where design guidelines are violated and ad-hoc speed breakers come overnight.

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 17 Mar 2017 22:00

India Needs China’s Expressways

Here is how long it takes to travel between the two most important cities within the world's two most populated countries, respectively: To go from Beijing to Shanghai via road, as per Google Maps, it takes around12.5 hours for a distance of 1213 km (via G15/25; tolled). To go from Delhi to Mumbai, it takes around 22.5 hours for a distance of 1414 km (via NH48; tolled). For 200 km more in India, 10 more hours are required. Average speeds in the Chinese example are around 100 km per hour, and in the Indian one around 60 km per hour. The everyday damage that poor roads do to India, from higher housing prices within congested cities to fewer well-paying jobs in manufacturing, exports etc., is gargantuan.

Play around with various city combinations for India and China in Google Maps, and the aboveshall almost certainly repeat itself. Indeed, while I am not sure about Google Maps' legend/key, the software (a screenshot is at the top of this article) blankets eastern China, where most of its population lives, with umpteen thick yellow lines but in India we see very few of those - Mumbai to Pune, Delhi to Lucknow, Hyderabad's Ring Road etc. These, I suspect, roughly correspond to that mythical creature for most Indian eyes: controlled-access, fast-speed, dual carriageway, multi-laned "expressways". These roads are not your mother's slow national highways (with many intersections) or your grandmother's super-slow-and-unsafe state "highways" (often just two-laned or worse).

Why are good highways (and where needed, bridges/sea-links) important? Visualize a simple example of an engineer in Mumbai or Chennai earning Rs 10 lakh(about $15,000) a year. She works downtown, and lives just five km away in a residential neighbourhood. For this "convenience" and given her large family, she pays half her salary in rent. If only she could live in the suburbs or that upcoming "twin city", she could instead pay just a quarter of her salary in rent and save or consume the additional quarter. However, the catch is that her one-way commute would triple from her current 30 minutes - that is, to one-and-a-half hours. Adding two hours of daily two-way commute for an additional Rs 20,000 a month may not be worth it.

But say our lady is in luck. Consider that a new peripheral expressway opens, or the existing bypass is widened and railed off - then a few miraculous things happen. First, increased speed means that the commute may just be twice as long now instead of thrice which may make the new trade-off worth it (one instead of two hours "wasted") freeing disposable income, increasing national investments and consumption when repeated and aggregated. Second, the company itself - or one of its competitors may decide to relocate to a location with lower rent and pass on some of the savings as higher pay. Third, along with more commercial development, more residential real estate with increased choice regarding price points and square footage is also created and the virtuous cycle continues.

While some urban planners and environmentalists see suburbanisation as sacrilege and want to focus on "walkable cities", the reality is that most people's revealed preferences (if not stated ones) are for bigger houses, all else being equal. What looks great for a tourist is not what works best for a resident, no matter how monotonous suburbia - whether in the form of standalone houses or apartment complexes - seems to outside commentators and experts.

Before cars and trains were invented, cities were even denser - and now that we are on the brink of driver-less or self-driving cars, it is only logical to expect even more spread out urban areas. This is because such cars would be much cheaper to use (either directly if you currently hire a Uber or taxi, or indirectly if you currently drive yourself given your cost of time.) With such cars only a decade or so away, even three hours of two-way commute may be acceptable to some (they may simply use it to catch up on some work or entertainment). Hence, rents would fall even further as a fraction of income (for the same size of homes.)

Now, the Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP)/National Democratic Alliance(NDA) government at the centre has always been relatively better at physical infrastructure; it is a bit of a cliche that "strongman" governments are better at imagining broad highways and interconnected rivers. However, all cliches contain a kernel of truth in them.

The Modi-Gadkari duo today is replicating what Vajpayee-Khanduri achieved with the Golden Quadrilateral. But we are still way behind China, which in turn has overtaken America, when it comes to its expressway network. Depending on how you count it - the official websites maybe slightly outdated - India has, give or take, around 1,000 to1,500 odd km of controlled access expressways (though even that seems to be an optimistic figure - see the third para in this piece)

Hence, not even one-tenth of a per cent of India's approximately five million kilometres road network is something that one would actually visualize as a decent "highway" or motorway by global standards. Two-lane and four-lane pucca roads, while a massive upgrade over earlier single-lane half-pucca roads, still do not cut it in terms of safety or efficiency given the booming sales of four-wheelers.

China's and America's overall networks are also around 5 million kilometres long but their expressway networks are more than 100,000 km - hence, two to three per cent of their roads are expressways. While China's speed of execution has been remarkable, America is still ahead on a per capita basis.

More worryingly, unlike our ambitions when it comes to say renewable energy or the digital economy, our expressway ambitions are modest. Our total expressway length is stated to reach around 20,000 km by 2022 whereas China is aiming yet higher. At one level, this is understandable. While the government tries to underplay costs, a good expressway in India will cost US$2 million per lane per kilometre, including (very expensive) land acquisition and all the bells and whistles. This could be reduced a bit through models such as land pooling and cutting some corners, but we might as well create an asset that would last us for decades instead of being perennially behind the curve.

A very rough cost for 100,000 km of expressways even at six-lanes is $1.2 trillion - about half of India's GDP (real costs could be slightly lower since most highways won't be completely greenfield developments. Still no small amount, for sure.) Moreover while China may occasionally over-invest in a few highways or bridges to "nowhere", India (starting from a much lower base now and with a population that continues to grow) is far from that frontier.

Some innovative financing mechanisms are now being discussed. With the toll-operate-transfer (TOT) model being seriously considered by the government, existing highways built under the engineer-procure-construct (EPC) mode by the government can be monetized by selling toll rights to long-term investors for a fixed number of years. This will allow private and foreign capital such as pension funds, insurance companies, and university endowments to effectively finance India's expressway construction without increasing India's fiscal deficit or crowding out domestic capital excessively.

There are some quibbles of course - the investor will apparently be made responsible for maintenance (which they are likely to outsource to contractors) - it might in some cases be better for the government to simply seek pure financial equity. With the coming of investment infrastructure trusts (InvITs) and real estate investment trusts(REIT), each project can simply be listed and institutional investors can co-invest with retail ones. Of course, we should be open to a mix of all models, including the occasional government-to-government contracts (as is being discussed with UAE).

Another notable development is that the introduction of radio-frequency identification(RFID) chips on cars going forward should further help streamline toll collection. We then have the “perfect storm” to accelerate top-end highway development in India. Many in India have taken solace that we are "just" 10 to 12 years behind the Chinese growth story. But if we have just around 20,000 km of expressways by the middle of the next decade, then we are almost a generation behind. It is time to be more ambitious and get down to work fast.

The good news here is that Nitin Gadkari, probably India's best minister currently along with Piyush Goyal, is aware of the benefits of good highways. Gadkari says that he goes by John F Kennedy's quote:

“American roads are not good because America is rich. But America is rich because American roads are good.” He also noted recently that “I have Draupadi ki thali. There is no problem of funds. Resource and technology are not problems. Strong political will and appropriate vision for development is the most important strength to build infrastructure in the country.”
Here is hoping that the Indian public also pressures the Modi government to further invest in expressways, and makes sure that the speed of execution also increases. Along with the affordable housing push and other measures, mega expressway construction during a time of relatively flagging economic growth is likely to cement Prime Minister Modi's economic legacy.

https://swarajyamag.com/infrastructure/ ... xpressways

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 18 Mar 2017 13:49

For intra city commute, I believe the american and chipanda copy of american thought process of downtown centre serviced by freeways and loops running into and around a city are a terrible example for us to follow. While excellent intercity highways are of great importance, intra city travel must be focussed into public transport systems to decongest roads and reduce pollution. Excellent over+undergound metro rail and integrated surface transport by buses should be the aim. Not building bigger and bigger freeways from suburbs towards the city increasing vehicular population leading to known problems.

LokeshC · Post by **LokeshC** » 18 Mar 2017 13:52

What needs to happen IMVHO is a highly dense metro. Something like Tokyo is the way forward.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Mar 2017 14:16

Yes east asian megacities mimic our pop density. They range at low end from jakarta manila and ho chi minh city to tokyo and hk at high end to show whats possible

Pandas have tried to mimic america and ended up with 50 mile backups on some holiday travel days lol

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 18 Mar 2017 14:47

LokeshC wrote:What needs to happen IMVHO is a highly dense metro. Something like Tokyo is the way forward.

For that we would need large network of public transportation. The speed and magnitude at which we are building those won't be sufficient.
But one thing from the article is we need to build peripheral expressways like ORR. In Hyderabad for instance I know colleagues driving from other end of the city every day. And travel time is 40 45 mins for a distance of 35KM.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 19 Mar 2017 00:27

Greater Noida roads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk3avUuGfO8

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 19 Mar 2017 19:32

Singha wrote:Yes east asian megacities mimic our pop density. They range at low end from jakarta manila and ho chi minh city to tokyo and hk at high end to show whats possible

Pandas have tried to mimic america and ended up with 50 mile backups on some holiday travel days lol

Given their pollution from industries, all that vehicular pollution adds up within cities. Not good. Not to mention, given our yuuuge import bill, going public transport way saves us fuel costs.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 19 Mar 2017 19:34

Lets not ignore the fact, however, of what chipanda is building. Just look at the metro maps for Beijing and Shanghai. Compare to our Blr phases. Not to mention a tier1 city like London.

VKumar · Post by **VKumar** » 19 Mar 2017 22:30

Punjab has converted NH to district roads to by pass SC ruling on not permitting sale of liquor within 500mts of NH

Kashi · Post by **Kashi** » 22 Mar 2017 05:50

Prasad wrote:Lets not ignore the fact, however, of what chipanda is building. Just look at the metro maps for Beijing and Shanghai. Compare to our Blr phases. Not to mention a tier1 city like London.

Absolutely. Beijing and Shanghai metros are huge. Building them is one aspect and then there's operating them like clockwork.

Take a look at Tokyo subway map

This is only the subway lines

There are other lines the criss cross the Kanto region carrying billions of passengers every year. To get an idea of the complexity of the network, have a look at this

The network is extremely dense and provides near-perfect point-point-connectivity. Plus, there are buses, taxis, Shinkansen and long(ish) distance trains.

This is what we need.

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 22 Mar 2017 09:28

Build whatever but please reach the Chinese or Japanese standards in the speed of construction. From SSC:

That's Wazirabad Cable-Stayed "signature bridge" in the national capital. See the progress. I am sure for the size of this bridge,
the Chinese would have completed it in a year.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthrea ... t139043789

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 22 Mar 2017 22:26

If you look at the image carefully, the progress is even less.
March 2016 was actually where the uppermost triangular stabilization rods were.
Is Kejri-bai's delhi govt releasing funds in a timely manner?

Land aquisition and timely release of funds is the major reason why projects are delayed.
Then the company tries to cut costs by employing cheap slow labour to do the work instead of employing expensive machinery

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 22 Mar 2017 23:21

Without restricting the horse cart, two/three wheelers, TATA slow moving trucks, Tractors on Indian highways., speeds cannot be increased.

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 02 Apr 2017 12:42

Nitin Gadkari‏Verified account @nitin_gadkari

Some pictures of Chenani-Nashri tunnel that will be inaugurated tomorrow by Hon'ble PM @narendramodi in Jammu & Kashmir

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 02 Apr 2017 14:32

^^ Looks good. I just hope that space for expansion is factored in when required in future!

rahulm · Post by **rahulm** » 02 Apr 2017 14:57

Motor Vehicles Act made more stringent: Five-fold increase in drunk driving fine, jail up to 10 years for causing death

arshyam · Post by **arshyam** » 02 Apr 2017 19:11

Zynda wrote:^^ Looks good. I just hope that space for expansion is factored in when required in future!

Looks like a 2-lane tunnel only. Will need another one as traffic increases.

Anyway, it's now open.

CHENANI/ J&K: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated the country's longest road tunnel that links Kashmir Valley with Jammu by an all-weather route and reduces the distance by 31 kms.

The 9-km long 'Chenani-Nashri Tunnel', built at the cost of Rs 2,500 crore, was dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister here in presence of Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

After the inauguration, Modi, along with Vohra and Mehbooba, ..

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

prahaar · Post by **prahaar** » 02 Apr 2017 20:53

The video on Minisry of Road Transport Youtube channel mentions the cost to be 3800 crores. The total implementation time of 5.5 years is impressive.

Baikul · Post by **Baikul** » 02 Apr 2017 21:51

IMO we will not have world class roads network to power our economy, until and unless we have a nationwide network of access controlled, 6 (on average, 3 each side) lane highways.

Of course terrain may be a limiting factor in some cases such as the hills, but otherwise no matter how many kilometers we build, 2 lane 'highways' where you can barely drive beyond 40 km/hr and have to share the road with assorted bullock carts, tractors and random folks walking about, will not cut it.

rahulm · Post by **rahulm** » 02 Apr 2017 22:51

In India, write off one lane to slow,moving traffic, cows (oops

), illegally parked vehicles and vegetable vendors.

In relation to the increased fines, it's a great initiative - on paper where it will most likely remain as a sterling achievement in triplicate due to lax compliance and ineffective enforcement.

pandyan · Post by **pandyan** » 09 Apr 2017 11:54

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... e-4605203/

Chhattisgarh: News anchor learns of husband’s death while reading live bulletin, finishes telecast
Chhattisgarh: Supreet Kaur had heard enough to know that she was reading out the news of her husband's death live on television.

Supreet Kaur, 28, began reading news from across Chhattisgarh at 10 am as usual on Saturday. About 15 minutes into the bulletin, she broke news about a car accident in Mahasamund that had left three dead. Kaur spoke to a local reporter who gave more details but no names. Soon she learnt that she was reading news live about her husband’s death. Kaur kept her composure and continued the bulletin on IBC 24 for at least 10 minute. She broke down once the cameras were off.

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 10 Apr 2017 20:26

]Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill 2016 passed in Lok Sabha, fines raised by 5 times

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE BILL:
1. The Bill amends the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 to address issues such as third party insurance, regulation of taxi aggregators, and road safety.

2. Under the Act, the liability of the third party insurer for motor vehicle accidents is unlimited. The Bill caps the maximum liability for third party insurance in case of a motor accident at Rs 10 lakh in case of death and at five lakh rupees in case of grievous injury.

3. The Bill provides for a Motor Vehicle Accident Fund which would provide compulsory insurance cover to all road users in India for certain types of accidents.

4. Improving delivery of services to the stakeholders using e-Governance is one of the major focuses of this Bill. This include enabling online learning licenses, increasing validity period for driving licenses, doing away with the requirements of educational qualifications for transport licenses are some of the features.

5. The Bill proposes offences committed by juveniles. Under this the Guardian/ owner shall be deemed to be guilty in cases of offences by the juveniles and juvenile to be tried under JJ Act. Also, registration of Motor Vehicle to be cancelled.

6. The Bill proposes that the State Government can specify a multiplier, not less than one and not greater than ten, to be applied to each fine under this Act and such modified fine.

7. To facilitate transport solutions for Divyang, the bottlenecks have been removed in respect of grant of driving licenses as well as alterations in the vehicles to make it fit for use of Divyang.

8. The process for testing and certification for automobiles is proposed to be regulated more effectively. The testing agencies issuing automobile approvals have been brought under the ambit of the Act.

9. The process for testing and certification for automobiles is proposed to be regulated more effectively. The testing agencies issuing automobile approvals have been brought under the ambit of the Act.

10. To bring harmony of the registration and licensing process, it is proposed to create National Register for Driving Licence and National Register for Vehicle registration through "Vahan" and "Sarathi" platforms.

Here is a summary of the old and new fine charges against violations/offence.

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 20 Apr 2017 21:46

This is big.

New Delhi: To give a boost to its ambitious Bharatmala plan, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government will bring all future road projects such as economic corridors and coastal roads under its aegis.

The total investment for this flagship programme is estimated at Rs10 trillion—the largest ever outlay for a government road construction scheme.

According to government officials working out the details of the scheme, the total road length to be developed as expressways under Bharatmala will be around 51,000km. In the first phase 29,000km will be developed with an outlay of Rs5.5 trillion.

Bharatmala will replace the National Highways Development Project (NHDP) which is expected to be completed this year, with only 10,000km of highway construction left under the scheme launched in 1998 by then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The decision to merge these road projects with Bharatmala was taken in a meeting earlier this month. Also, the marquee project would be vetted by the Public Investment Board (PIB) headed by expenditure secretary before the Union cabinet’s approval is sought.

“A cabinet note on details of the project will be soon circulated among the members of PIB by the ministry of road transport and highways,” said a government official requesting anonymity.

Apart from the expenditure secretary as its chairman, the PIB also comprises secretaries in the department of economic affairs, Niti Aayog, statistics and programme implementation, and ministry of environment, forests and climate change.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that projects such as Sagarmala and Bharatmala will prepare a strong base for infrastructure development, enabling a person to travel across the country on a single road.

The Sagarmala programme envisages construction of new ports to harness the country’s 7,517km coastline and set up of as many as 142 cargo terminals at major ports at an estimated cost of Rs93,000 crore.

“The road ministry has already started its preparation of the project by outsourcing work of detailed project reports for various projects. The cabinet note for Bharatmala is likely to be circulated by year-end so that the project is government’s major announcement in the Union budget,” said a second government official who also didn’t wish to be identified.

As part of the radical rethinking on improving the transportation architecture, India will invest as much as Rs3.96 trillion in creating and upgrading infrastructure this financial year. The NDA government has evolved a new integrated infrastructure planning paradigm comprising roads, railways, waterways and civil aviation.

India has an ambitious highways construction goal of 41km per day. The current rate of construction is 22-23km per day.

“As per the discussions the road map is ready from the ministry of road transport. In case of projects to be implemented under the EPC (engineering-procurement-construction) model, the National Highway Authority of India will be given full autonomy irrespective of project cost. However, in case of projects under public private partnership (PPP), the projects after a certain amount will go to the ministry of road transport and highways for clearance,” said a third government official requesting anonymity.

The government had awarded 9,655km of highways construction contracts till February out of a target of 25,000km. It has also raised its construction target to 15,000km as against 6,000km constructed last year. Out of this 6,467km was constructed till February.

Queries emailed to the spokesperson for the ministry of road transport and highways on Monday remained unanswered.

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/6T8iab ... -ever.html

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Apr 2017 10:15

Govt should mandate that all flyovers big and small must be made from pillars cast in place and then "slices" of the roadway which are precast in yards and then slid one after another into place using a gantry type system. this is how metros are being built and bigger projects like silk board expway way.

far faster and cleaner than casting the while roadway in place using a dense mesh of rods from underneath which flyover contractors seem to prefer maybe they find it cheaper. its also much slower.

even worse are the earth filled structures at just the wrong place like the KR puram flyover infamous.

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 13 May 2017 11:46

Bengaluru to have underground tunnel roads, Bulgarian company to check feasibility
The tunnel roads are estimated to cost Rs 25,000 crore and has been proposed for a length of 83 km.

http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/be ... lity-61939

You can build metro system of similar length with same money. Given population of our cities, it's prudent to move towards mass public transport.

JohnTitor · Post by **JohnTitor** » 13 May 2017 12:19

I never understood why they didn't build an underground system there. It would have been more expensive than the existing metro but they could have made it a huge network like London underground

Vineetmehta_del · Post by **Vineetmehta_del** » 13 May 2017 20:19

NHAI is setting up a command and control centre in Delhi where all key personnel (members and CGMs)from one room can do video conferencing with the project directors on ground or regional offices. This will help them take decision (approvals) of any proposed changes or challenges on ground immediately. Currently it takes close to a year for the approvals to move on file.

They are also coming up with their own paramilitary force for guard toll plazas. Nice move.

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 14 May 2017 12:47

Watch this idiotic dude chasing a Porsche Cayenne at break neck speeds on a beautiful highway near Vijayawada. Both the vehicle drivers are idiots for going at 140-160 Kph speeds putting others at risk (forget themselves...they knew what they were getting in to).

Some of the comments posted by the driver:

While traveling to Vijayawada met this guy with Porsche cayenne. It got absolute power and following it was a bit fun.

Porsche can be the real Porsche, may be in autobahn. Here in India do you expect car to go above 180-200 for long, May be a few kms he can go before traffic catches you. So Porsche or Maruti..both are same. And the desperation of not been able to leave me behind should be that of Porsche and that is very evident at 5:30,where he is trying to overtake me in desperation.

I am not saying i can beat Porsche with my brezza. But the reality in this video is that,he(Porsche) couldn't make me disappear from his rear view mirror.

Karthik S · Post by **Karthik S** » 14 May 2017 12:53

^^ Ego taking over sense. In other country, both would have been pulled over.

KL Dubey · Post by **KL Dubey** » 25 May 2017 10:16

Dat be a good-azz road.