Indian Roads Thread

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deejay
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

Rahul M wrote:
Bade wrote:On my trip to Tawang, saw many women of all age groups by the roadside working on road construction activity including cutting stones for the embankments. Pretty hardy lot in Arunachal.
most from bihar.
I hope good quality roads get made in the NE this time around. BRO is notoriously corrupt organization if you go by roads in North Bengal and Sikkim at least in the past. I don't know if there has been any improvements.
not really.
Rahul M, is right most labour across all BRO projects are from Bihar. I saw them working even in Laddakh area.

Also, BRO makes roads in some of the most challenging areas. Its easy to call them corrupt. Funny, people fault other Indians without once sparing a thought on what it took to build roads there.

Corruption for a large part has/had become all encompassing and I am sure BRO would have been affected too. But does that imply that BRO is corrupt across. Unfortunately, the exposure to BRO's work is limited to making comments on corruption.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

Well there are challenging roads built in various parts of the world. Doesn't mean they are in the horrible state they were in during my visits. Technology has improved which makes it possible to built proper roads in these areas.

BTW, the corruption part is from news reports. I didn't make it up.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

Supratik wrote:Well there are challenging roads built in various parts of the world. Doesn't mean they are in the horrible state they were in during my visits. Technology has improved which makes it possible to built proper roads in these areas.
Quality of roads are a function of level of road construction approved. I have spent considerable time biking / hiking / trkking in areas BRO built / builds road. Can't see the qualitative difference you have mentioned.

As far as challenging roads across the worlds - there are two places to compare in terms of altitude, weather, soil conditions, traffic and economic ability to spend on road repair - Himalayas and Andes. Which one's are you saying are better.

Take a hike - I mean literally on the Srinagar - Leh highway. Tell me then about other challenging roads and what annual budgets they have for maintaining quality.
Supratik wrote:BTW, the corruption part is from news reports. I didn't make it up.
At least link one odd News reports if you have labeled BRO corrupt.

Here are few links from my perspective (please read the comments)

https://www.facebook.com/broinfo/
http://www.indeed.co.in/cmp/Border-Road ... country=IN

Further link which explain the challenges:

http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/standp ... le-2082514
...
Nearly 30 months ago--in September 2012--I had an occasion to travel the entire 350 km distance both ways while making a documentary on 50 years of the 1962 war that India lost to China in this theatre. I have been travelling in Arunachal Pradesh, arguably the most scenic of the seven North East states since 1986. It has always stood apart from its neighbours. Not just because it is remote or only sparsely populated but also because it is by far the most peaceful state in the region. There is no violence here, beyond the routine, or any indigenous insurgent group creating law and order problems. In 2012 however, for the first time in my travels to the state since 1986 I witnessed rage on the roads of Arunachal Pradesh.

​The anger at the abysmal condition of the only road that connects the frontier town of Tawang to the foothills of Assam has boiled over. Bearing the brunt of the resentment ​was ​the hard working staff of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), entrusted with widening and improving the roads.

​That year (2012), enraged residents, no longer able to bear the hardship, attacked BRO officials, destroyed their vehicles and pushed heavy tippers and bulldozers down the steep valleys.​ I was shocked. ​I had heard from friends in the military about the worsening road condition. Even so, I wasn't prepared for the hardship that one encountered in travelling up the hills from Bhalukpong all the way to Tawang. There ​were ​stretches​ of 20-25 km​ that ​took three hours or more.

​Why did this happen? ​

​Around 2007, in a belated realisation, India's highest decision-makers​ on security (the Cabinet Committee on Security or CCS)​ opted to build up and improve infrastructure here, especially on the roads leading up to the China border, overturning the earlier policy of keeping the area underdeveloped lest the Chinese​-- if they launched an offensive once again​--used it!

Elaborate plans were made but five years down the line​ (2012)​ it ​was ​evident that making plans is one thing and implementing them on the ground is quite another. And this for a country that built a 250-kilometre "Garland Road" in Afghanistan in record time under the shadow of the Taliban.

With the Indian Army deploying one more Mountain Division (approximately 20,000 soldiers) in this sector, building infrastructure had become all the more critical.

But the BRO, despite its best efforts, has been unable to cope for a variety of reasons. The challenges of weather and terrain apart (it rains heavily four months a year; most areas are snow-bound for another three), one of the major hassles that the BRO faces here is the acute shortage of skilled labourers.

Officers say they are facing a 70% shortfall in manpower in this sector alone. The locals keep away and the labourers from Jharkhand and Bihar, who made up the majority of the workforce earlier, no longer find it attractive to travel the distance since there is plenty of work available back home now. Then there were the usual environmental hurdles, state laws overriding national security imperatives. The result: missed deadlines and work half done. The BRO was supposed to build 73 strategic roads along the India-China border. Of these 61 strategic roads with a total length of 3,410 km were to be completed by 2012. According to the latest statistic provided to the Parliamentary Committee only 19 roads of 625 km length have been completed!

...
If you have your ability to judge openly at the right place you will see that the problems are not some corrupt officials but dynamics unique to the area and India. BRO is no saint and neither it claims sainthood but it sure is not the incompetent and corrupt organisation you claim based on news reports you haven't linked in 02 posts.

Images from http://www.bro.gov.in/pgcat.asp?projectid=9&lang=1

Image

One of ours lifting 'dozers 8)
Image

Existing bridges :eek: Image

Construction of the new bridge Image

Cutting new roads
Image
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

As I have mentioned my experiences are limited to the places I have visited. May be they are good in other areas where I have not visited. The locals told me they do repair and recarpet and then it goes away soon and do it all over again. They said BRO makes better roads in Nepal and possibly Bhutan (IIRC) than in their areas. I think Rahul mentioned roads are bad in Arunachal as well. Maybe they do a better job in the priority areas like J&K and HP which I haven't visited. I hope Modi gives a big push to build durable border roads in these areas where there are big deficiencies. In many cases these are the only means of transport for the locals.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by manjgu »

in aurnachal the work force is mainly of locals..whilst in Ladhak there is a fair % of people from bihar and jharkand. Bade.. i agree the roads. embankments take years to stabilize but the road consturction process itself is super slow is what i meant..they make rodi by hand where a stone crusher can do the work super quick... focus seems to be on generating long term employment rather than strategic needs !
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Rahul M »

deejay, my point about BRO is not based on newspaper reports. it's very specific about one particular project (vartak), a senior officer of which was arrested with ungodly amounts of wealth from his home. and he was certainly not alone in that.

I do not want to paint them all with the same brush, BRO as an organisation works under much duress, top level mismanagement and individual honest people try to make the best of a bad situation. but they certainly can do better, as evidenced by how army engineers perform in the same theatre. they usually have a harsher timeline and they still manage to stick to it, while delivering a quality a magnitude better than that BRO manages to accomplish.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

manjgu wrote:in aurnachal the work force is mainly of locals..whilst in Ladhak there is a fair % of people from bihar and jharkand. Bade.. i agree the roads. embankments take years to stabilize but the road consturction process itself is super slow is what i meant..they make rodi by hand where a stone crusher can do the work super quick... focus seems to be on generating long term employment rather than strategic needs !
In Arunachal road construction was started on the following axes after a paper submitted in 1996 by a particular think tank. Detailed plans were made and it was in 2000 that work started in earnest. The roads work stated in the following axes over a period of 02-03 years from different starting nodes.
>Along - Inkiong - Tuting - Geling and Tuting - Singha
>Along - Manigong & Along - Menchuka
>Roing - Anini - Manini and Anini - Malinye
>Hayuliang - Metliang - Maliang - Chaklagaon (Changlagaon)
>Ziro - Daporijo - Taliha - Nacho - Limiking - TCC- Taksing

Pls note that these axes are what I am aware of, there may have been more which I am not aware of. All the roads were first cuts and not pucca roads which were to be constructed later. At that time the following roads existed
>Tezpur - Bomdilla - Tawang
> Roing - Hayuliang - Walong

IAF was tasked to carry bulldozers, crushers and other material to multiple points on each axis for BRO. At places it was really tough to place a bulldozer which we would carry underslung. Over these places bulldozers reached after the labour had cut the area plain and suitable by hand for helicopter to get the dozer. At other places, lack of maneuvering area or unstable soil meant that dozer even if available could not work and the labour used their shovels and hand drills.

Most of the labour in Arunachal was not local but Bihari and Jharkhandi. Arunachalis are few and follow a tribal way of life. Mostly, men go south to Burma around August / September to sell harvested wild weed. 8) Women are the only souls visible with an occasional 'Gaon Budha' (Village Elder). Many tribes are hunters and will not do daily labour but if you make friends with them they will treat you to smoked meat delicacies of mountain rats, bear, deer, etc.

A lot of work would get washed off in a torrential downpour, quite often taking with it men and material. Disease and poor living conditions were other challenges. A single night of rainfall saw a 400 ton metal bridge washed off without a trace in the Bramhaputra.

While I saw action on this front till 2002 but work continued for another 02 years at least. The idea was to make a pucca road once the mountains stabilized. I do know that most of the work, if not all came to a standstill for a long period. Last year I visited the IAF bases in that area and learnt that over the last few years, the work has resumed and hopefully better roads will be a reality in the area.

The Bomdilla - Tawang road can be better if better scaling is approved. This cannot be done by BRO but needs political authority.

Roads in Nepal:
Biratnagar - Illam axis excellent
Janakpur - Kathmandu axis not so good

My info is accurate till Sep 2014 for Nepal as that was the last when I drove there. I believe roads towards China (In the high mountains) are not good irrespective of who makes / maintains them. Traffic in Nepal is far less (obviously) when compared to India, specially heavy truck traffic.

@Supratik, when you label organisations as corrupt please be sure.

@RahulM: Not just in BRO but senior officers have been caught seeped in corruption while working with IA, IAF (I think one of ex Chief is in trouble), IN, CG, IAS, IFS, BSF, etc, etc. The list is an indication of the extent to which every institution saw the rise of corrupt people to the top levels in a specific period. If NHAI is investigated, the skeletons of shady deals will fill mutiple expressways of today. IRCON will not come out unscathed either.

BRO does have army engineers with it. In fact they are doing a lot of work for BRO at all places. All the BRO engineers I interacted with were IA engineers.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

This is going nowhere. So my last post. I didn't accuse BRO of being corrupt. I said there have been newsreports of corruption over the years. I am not going to waste my valuable time to find reports for you. you can find them yourselves. I am reporting what i personally saw and what locals told me. From experience within municipal limits of kolkata during left rule, roads being rebuild by contractors repeatedly is a sign of corruption or at least inefficiency. Just becoz there is corruption in other organizations doesn't mean BRO is a holy cow or it is OK with its current level of delivery. I hope the Modi-led govt does a better job. End of story.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

-deleted due formatting issues -
Last edited by deejay on 09 Apr 2016 19:25, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

Supratik wrote:This is going nowhere. So my last post. I didn't accuse BRO of being corrupt. I said there have been newsreports of corruption over the years. I am not going to waste my valuable time to find reports for you. you can find them yourselves. I am reporting what i personally saw and what locals told me. From experience within municipal limits of kolkata during left rule, roads being rebuild by contractors repeatedly is a sign of corruption or at least inefficiency. Just becoz there is corruption in other organizations doesn't mean BRO is a holy cow or it is OK with its current level of delivery. I hope the Modi-led govt does a better job. End of story.
Really?
Supratik wrote:I hope good quality roads get made in the NE this time around. BRO is notoriously corrupt organization if you go by roads in North Bengal and Sikkim at least in the past. I don't know if there has been any improvements.
Call some names and run because you have no time to prove your accusations. There is name for folks like you.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

Please go ahead if it makes you feel happy. I stand by what I saw, discussed and read.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

Supratik wrote:Please go ahead if it makes you feel happy. I stand by what I saw, discussed and read.
Fantastic! First you call an entire organisation corrupt. Then you claim you never called the entire organisation as corrupt. When proved otherwise, you can't even see the folly in calling an entire organisation corrupt.

It does shown how well informed your posts are.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

Boss if you think bullying me is going to change my statement you have to be born a few times more. When one says an organization is corrupt it doesn't mean everyone is corrupt in that org unless you are trying to be an English language professor.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

Supratik wrote:Boss if you think bullying me is going to change my statement you have to be born a few times more. When one says an organization is corrupt it doesn't mean everyone is corrupt in that org unless you are trying to be an English language professor.
You call others names and if some points you out you call that bullying. Is your ego getting in the way of your judgement Sir? Say anything and get away then.

Call BRO corrupt, call me bully, what's next?

Anyways, last from me on this.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Rahul M »

>> @RahulM: .......
BRO does have army engineers with it. In fact they are doing a lot of work for BRO at all places. All the BRO engineers I interacted with were IA engineers.

and I have interacted with them. but I was referring specifically to projects undertaken directly by the army and not delegated to BRO/GREF.
barring some exceptions around towns like tawang/bomdila/ the div HQ, BRO projects were sadly as a rule shoddy and not built to last. for example virtually none had the culvert built for draining the incessant rainwater coming down from slopes, which is a standard on roads built directly by army. lack of this simple feature means a guarantee that the newly constructed tarmac would be washed away within the year by the water cascading down the mountain sides.

p.s. as you say, locals are not particularly enthused about working as labour (though that is changing) and the huge amount of central funds flowing into the state means many can afford not to work, as long as it lasts.

========
deejay & supratik, please stop responding to each other.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by deejay »

^^^ I agree, I will keep my counsel.

On the Tawang road: It really is a bad road. Has been bad as far as I recall and we joked how lucky we were to get a helicopter ride for our detachments ex-Tawang. Very occasionally, a crew change was required mid way and the replacement crew would have to catch an IA convoy up the road.

The culvert part is not something I had paid attention to and I agree it could be a problem. However, there are other problems which were mentioned in the DNA link I had posted earlier.

Not related exactly to our discussion but a nice travelogue of a trip to Tawang by road

http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2 ... north-east
...
There are excuses for the poor condition of the road. A century ago this territory—a stretch of remote land parallel to Bhutan and stretching up to the borders of Tibet—was hardly considered a part of India. The British, before a treaty in 1914 in Shimla, had broadly decided to leave the hill tribes of land now called Arunachal Pradesh to themselves. Tawang, and its surroundings, were administered only loosely, by Buddhist monks from Tibet who levied taxes but did not bring modern government, let alone build infrastructure such as decent roads.

The terrain, too, is hard going. The farther up the road you move, the more unstable the land becomes. Rockslides and landslips are common. Waterfalls thunder from the valley sides. When the rains are strong, these carve new cuts and ravines into the hillside. Much of the valley at lower altitudes is thickly jungled, but higher up trees have been stripped away, encouraging erosion. Heavy monsoon rains bring annual havoc. So steep are the valley edges that the road has to wind back and forth on itself, coiled snakelike up the sides of the mountain.
...
Image
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

As of late 2014 the Tawang to Bhalukpong road condition was bad. Some stretches were just katcha road, stripped of any asphalt if any. In all I encountered a very small stretch like < 5km where it was in pristine condition with lane markers etc. So it can be done is all I could infer. I did see culverts in many places, maybe they are a new addition. But some of the embankments are being built to last with retaining walls built to hold it.

I did not take many pictures as there was heavy troop presence and convoys along the route, as my driver kept warning me not to take pictures close to cantonment areas or when those are in view.

Landslides are common even on the Meghalaya side. One can see many on the way to Cheerapunji. The western ghats in the south look more solid in comparison to build roads on than the lower Himalayas.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Rahul M »

landslides would always be there in any newly built road on a young mountain. it would take a couple of decades to stabilise but even then landslides wont stop completely.

the DNA article is good and does touch upon many points. some of those points could however be prevented by better management at BRO. the lack of labourers f.e was due to salary amount not revised regularly (army engineers OTOH paid double that amount to labourers and had no such trouble). much needed expensive equipment were left at HQ i.e tezpur gathering dust. there were many such stories I could go on about.

elsewhere in AP there are even stranger problems, in the neighbouring district a road being built by a pvt infra co' is limping along for years because locals insist that the co' buy the rocks etc debris at exorbitant prices. because of course, those were the product of their land being cleared ! if the co' dont agree they simply throw it down the slopes rather than let them use it.
Bade saar, if you think the bomdila tawang road is bad you should have tried going east from zero point towards seppa. :twisted:
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

Keep the stories coming...it is educational to read. Even with a retaining wall landslides can still occur, as one cannot shore up a whole mountainside. The geology is working against you all the time.

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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by srin »

My last encounter with BRO roads was during a Sikkim trip some years ago. One thing that surprised me was that from Bagdogra to Sikkim border the roads were atrocious, but from border to Gangtok, they were really nice. But the road to Nathu La was really scary. Mountains on one side and sheer drop on the other with no barriers and very narrow roads. And it gets foggy before 2 pm and makes visibility hell. I was watching some videos of the Leh-Manali road and it reminded me on that.

That makes me wonder - with all the issues of landslides and closure in winter due to snow - should we look into building lot more tunnels ? While it would be more expensive and also slow, but surely it would be paid back over years ?
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

Absolutely, tunnels is the way to go wherever possible, especially in snow bound areas.

I was looking at google maps for areas in Leh-Hanle side and the way to get to Hanle from Himachal by road is very circuitous due to snow bound mountains south west of Hanle. If they can build a road along the split in the Spiti river to connect to Chumur from highway 505, it would be useful to get faster to the lower south-east sector in J&K (Demchok area). A few tunnels would be definitely required though.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by M Joshi »

^ i think it's already happening. Rohtang pass tunnel is under construction & will be completed in 2 years time. This tunnel will save hours of journey up & down the pass. Last time I went on the other side of the Rohtang pass, there was a jam for 3 hours because a 407 truck's tyre was stuck in mud in an unpaved section of the downhill trail. Similar tunnels are planned on passes further on the Leh highway. More tunnels are required in Ladakh section, Sikkim & Arunachal in the next 4-5 years. These tunnels will be a huge boost to tourism as well.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Bade »

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Rohta ... 65efefc66b

This is what I meant, the area where Chinese have pushed the border up and denying us a easier way to connect Himachal to Hanle.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Javee »

Himalayas are posing a huge problem that very few nations/companies have experience grappling it. Here are some facts on tunneling in Himalayas,
http://www.ctta.org/FileUpload/ita/2008 ... df/178.PDF
From the tunnelling perspective, the Himalayas arguably pose the most challenging ground conditions almost anywhere in the world. One of the prime reasons for this is that they are the youngest of the mountain chains. They are demonstrably rising faster than anywhere else. Their composition is also younger generally, and in consequence less well consolidated than older fold belts.
This is consistent with the fact that they constitute one of the most active of the plate margin zones, rising at a rate that is almost double that of the Andes, which, in turn is almost three times that of the Alps. Almost nowhere else, on a world scale, except around the Pacific Ring of Fire, is even on the same active 'stress' scale. As in-situ stress levels are to a large extent geologic age-dependent, the younger the mountain belts the more imbalanced is the stress state.
As a result, stress conditions (magnitude and variation) can be potentially more extreme and adverse on a Himalayan tunnelling project than even has been encountered in some of the worst sub-mountain tunnel drives, including the Olmos and Yacambu Tunnels of Peru and Venezuela respectively, which are landmark projects from the bursting and squeezing perspective. On a ranking scale, these Andean tunnels traversed much worse ground conditions and arguably met greater geotechnical challenges than were encountered anywhere along the 50km+ length of the Lötschberg and St Gotthard deep Alpine railway tunnel drives in Switzerland. One can thus postulate a tunnelling difficulty ranking scale for the mountain chains of the world as:

1.The Himalayas, arguably the most difficult and challenging;
2.The Andes;
3.The Alps, through to the least difficult of the main chains;
4.The Rockies and the Western Cordillera, with 5, 6, 7 corresponding to older mountain cores with the Canadian and Scandinavian Archean, Algonquin and Adirondack age mountain belts being almost totally benign stress-wise.

This is not to say that there are not adverse faults and challenging zones of poor ground in these old mountain range areas. The dominant difference relates to stress state. Based on 'active' stress state alone, therefore, similar length deep tunnel excavations under the Himalayas likely will pose significantly more challenges than an equal length, equal cover drive almost anywhere else in the world. These difficulties of tunnelling at depth through high mountainous terrain pose major challenges not just for TBM drives but also for application of traditional drill+blast and NATM methods. Dealing with adverse geology at any depth can be problematic and can lead to significant tunnelling delays if not adequately foreseen; but geological problem conditions, which might be tractable at shallow depth, with either TBMs or drill+blast approaches, when encountered at significant depth (>1000m) can prove disastrous depending on stress state, rock competence and prevailing groundwater inflows.
Mitigating delay problems associated with exceptionally bad ground at depth requires considerable foresight and advanced planning. The more challenging the ground, the greater the pre-planning required prior.
The fact that within the Himalayas, conditions can be expected to be as bad as has ever been encountered elsewhere, means that there has to be the ability, while tunnelling, to allow changes to be made of driving method and support approaches. This need to adopt flexible solutions is often seen as being at variance with the constraints imposed by the rigidity of design elements incorporated into the fabrication of a typical TBM. As a result, traditionally there has been a reluctance to use machines in these conditions, mainly due to the perceived extremely adverse consequences of entrapping or damaging the TBM. In some part, this is due to the perception that there is more difficulty dealing with adverse ground conditions in the confined working area of a TBM heading, in comparison to dealing with the same problem in the larger working space of a drill+blast or NATM heading.
http://www.tunneltalk.com/TunnelTech-Ma ... elling.php
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Vipul »

Government to give contracts for 25,000 km roads in FY17.
Encouraged with the good show in highways building during the just-concluded fiscal, the Roads Ministry has increased the target for awarding projects by 2.5 times to 25,000 km for the ongoing fiscal.The construction target has also been increased 2.5 times to 16,000 km for the fiscal, translating into building over 40 km of highways a day.

Last year, the Road Transport and Highways Ministry had awarded a record 10,000 km of projects and constructed 6,000 km of highways, which is 36% higher than the preceding fiscal. "Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has fixed 2.5 times increase in the target for award and construction of National Highways for the year 2016-17," a statement from the ministry said.
It was the NDA govt under the BJP earlier which did exemplary work in the road construction sector and now they are doing it again. Proves how much the Mickey Mouse Singh/Italian mafia Con Govt worked overtime in the intervening 10 years to take india backwards. The Bastar*s :x
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Post by Picklu »

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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Supratik »

It seems BBMP is considering diluting the provisions of tendersure roads in Bglore. The scope for making money digging and relaying roads every year is probably the reason.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by chetak »

Nitin Gadkari Verified account@nitin_gadkari

We are trying out 3D paintings used as virtual speed breakers to avoid unnecessary requirements of speed breakers

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10:37 PM - 25 Apr 2016
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Kakkaji »

Once a driver knows it is a virtual speed breaker, do you expect him to slow down the next time he drives on the same road? :-?
SaiK
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by SaiK »

and once the paint goes off?

if people are not disciplined and ordained, then no gov or paint can help. just decent zebra is good enough for decent drivers who follow the rules.

1. remove bribery setup, no bullying by cops - just decent ticket is enough with washed haath
2. redo mandatory written and test drive for all license issued during kangrez regime :mrgreen: .. well retest every 5 years
3. have a clean swacch model for roads. let people start owning the roads, and take right of ways
4. increase public transport and less dependence on road mobiles
5. capacity planning at smart/city infrastructure levels - move people from old to new wherever possible, and distribute the traffic load/or lessen traffic density.
Bade wrote:Keep the stories coming...it is educational to read. Even with a retaining wall landslides can still occur, as one cannot shore up a whole mountainside. The geology is working against you all the time.
even with no mountains, Earth can give up! of course, the vulnerability is more on the mountains. increase the width of roads, taper steep ridge side inclination to lesser than 45*.
kmkraoind
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by kmkraoind »

Caught on Camera: Car Crushed Between 2 Trucks In Telangana, 5 Dead

What a worst accident, and I think it may take weeks/months for me to erase this from my mind. At one point, it seems the 3-dimensional car has turned into a 2-dimensional thing. I think highway patrols should ask all lorries/trucks to use slower lane and fine them if they do not follow "slower lane" rule.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Karthik S »

Didn't know a car can get crushed like that. RIP. Looked like the truck was dragging the car. Number 1 rule in Indian roads: Stay away from trucks while driving. Either over take carefully, or let there be a good gap between you and the truck/bus. First problem is poor visibility and unpredictable lane changing habits of drivers.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Gus »

just yesterday i was on right lane, overtaking a truck on left lane and one mofo overtook me on a lane that was turning left. it was only a two lane road and the right turn lane was about to end and I had to hard brake to allow him to squeeze by.

for one micro second i was tempted to just let my car nudge his left backside as it came in front of me. he would have spinned and gone under the truck. i held back and braked, thinking of his family in the car with him..
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Gus »

Karthik S wrote:Didn't know a car can get crushed like that. RIP. Looked like the truck was dragging the car. Number 1 rule in Indian roads: Stay away from trucks while driving. Either over take carefully, or let there be a good gap between you and the truck/bus. First problem is poor visibility and unpredictable lane changing habits of drivers.
watch the video.

that is not overtaking like overtaking another vehicle in a straight lane.

car was actually cutting in front of the first truck which was turning right from the rightmost lane.

not sure why the truck was still moving instead of stopping at the junction - as clearly second truck was coming from the other side and first truck could not have cleared the junction even without the car stuck in front of the truck.

the second truck should also have slowed down seeing vehicles at junction.

this is the problem with such risky driving, mistakes add up to deadly fatality.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by kvraghav »

I think the Car was overtaking closely and clipped the front of the truck, turned and ended up tangentially in front of the truck. The truck turned right only to stop from hitting the car in the front and both ended up in the opposite lane.My brother had a similar accident where during overtaking, the rear of his car clipped the front of the bus. Thankfully the bus driver held straight and there was a divider.The car ended up just being dragged in the same lane and no one was hurt.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by M Joshi »

Cannot get the images out of mind since yesterday. I was diving on 6 lane NH1 yesterday & the slow driving trucks/tractors have a habit of being in the right most lane. They will get in the rightmost lane & drive without any hinderance to themselves. But the problem for fast moving cars get worse when there are slow moving vehicles simultaneously on the middle & left lane as well. It becomes a panic situation with cars piling up behind one another to overtake 3 slow moving vehicles blocking the whole highway & cars trying to squeeze in & changing lanes to overtake & moving in a zig zag manner. It's like playing Need for Speed, but in real life. There is kmkraoind ji said there is absolutely a need to fine slow moving vehicles which are in right most lane. Just because they want their driving to be easier they put hundreds of lives in danger which are overtaking them form left. IIRC in Delhi they've made it mandatory & some 6000+ challans were issued to large vehicles breaking this rule & I saw that all slow vehicles on left most lanes. It needs to be done nation wide on highways. I request fellow BRFites to write to NHAI/PMO on this. I will too.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Sachin »

M Joshi wrote:But the problem for fast moving cars get worse when there are slow moving vehicles simultaneously on the middle & left lane as well. It becomes a panic situation with cars piling up behind one another to overtake 3 slow moving vehicles blocking the whole highway & cars trying to squeeze in & changing lanes to overtake & moving in a zig zag manner.
A colleague of mine was telling us why he avoids the Krishnagiri->Bangalore tolled highway. "Now there would be one truck on the extreme left going at 20kmph, and another truck on its right trying to overtake it when going at 23kmph. And then there would be an Ape type diesel Auto rickshaw trying to over-take both these trucks when going at 30kmph" :roll:.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by prahaar »

I once asked a taxi driver, about why the trucks often use the right lane next to the divider. According to him, driving in the rightmost lane makes that a reasonably no-overtake zone and hence the driver can relax. Other vehicles overtaking from left are always against the traffic rules, which saves the trucker from any police action.
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by rahulm »

NaMo built great road infrastructure in Gujarat. Sadly, he did absolutely nothing to improve driver education, skills and enforcement.

Net result , you have the same bunch of yahoo's who think laws of dynamics & physics, somehow, don't apply to them, now on excellent roads. Gujarat has First world roads with legendary Indic driving skills. Now you can die at 100 kmph or more as against 60 kmph earlier. One can be re-born faster. I suppose this too is an improvement :)

People overtake on blind corners with absolutely no idea what's coming and then make frantic last adjustments (adaptive closed loop control system with overloaded front end) when they see coming their way, a lorry, overloaded, bursting and overflowing from all sides with bhoosa also trying to overtake, a TVS 50 (thankfully not a LUNA TFR shaan ki safari) - both doing 40 kmph. Wah, es akkal ke to kya kehene - Udhisht wahan chalaks

Traffic lights are well - ummm.. ahem..suggestions you see. Lekin udhar se koi nahi aa raha to kyon ruke. Hain jee? or any other rationalisation that makes sense only to the person rationalising.

I have a lovely lovely friend - an Armoured Corps guy, the likes of which BRF would append a few Shri's before his name and do hazaar sashtang namaskar if they ever met him. On roads and particularly the Mumbai - Pune MPE he drives like a crazed lunatic :(. His justification, "Yaar, hum tank commander the - dont' worry" He was a fantastic T72 commander in XX (not telling you) Amoured regiment and in his mind, therefore, he is entitled as a matter of right, to be exempt from the laws of physics.

Once, in Hyderabad, a XX unit fauji Suzuki rear ended me near the dreadful Panjagutta crossing. My scooter fell, as did I and with me, my female companion had a rather ungraceful and undignified fall , on al fours in full public view. Because, it was a fauji vehicle, I let the matter be and instead made small talk with the driver of the Suzuki - who at least was apologetic, unlike civilian drivers who despite being in the wrong -"hum kyon peeche hate?" . Whatever, happened to keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you? I know the driver education centre MIRC Ahmednagar teaches fauji drivers good driving skills. Humne dekha hai ji - guided tour pe. Sach

My female companion refused to talk to me after. I had to belo lots of papad to be in her good books again. Her lament - "Fauji dikha ki nahi to tu pighal jata hai. Mera bhi to soch. Usko sunaya kyon nahi"

In desh, people's sole obsession is to make sure no one should insert themselves into the gap in front of them. A huge amount of focus, dedication and commitment is expended in this endevaour. It becomes an existential undertaking.

Even the gobermint and the RTO the most sensible, have decided that in most cities only a 2 wheeler driver needs a helmet - you see, the pillion driver is exempt from the law of conversation of energy when his/her/it's head impacts the road. Using the same (ill)ogic, only people sitting in the front of the car need seat belts. The moment a car is sold in India, rear passengers are exempt from law of conversation of energy so why should they be required to wear seat belts. Hain?

Off course, some 2 wheeler drives have decided that they too are exempt from the law of conversation of energy.

Some other drivers have come to the solution most brilliant, that there is maximum safety in having their helmet swinging from their wrist when they drive and some others have determined that the helmet strap need not be attached - it's best to leave it flapping in the wind against ones face - a free carbon neutral face massage n'est-ce pas?

One fine day, it became personal. I was staying at a Goa base with a friend - perhaps, even more Shri and shashtang namaskar worthy then my T72 Commander. A fine Sunday morning. he persuaded me easily to go on an early morning drive along the beautiful back roads of Goa. Parriker (and he is doing a fantastic job as DefMin - bless him) built good roads, even built speed breakers bit heh heh - not painted and not signed. So long story short, at ~ 80 kpmh my friend, I and bike took to early morning flight with no wings and no prayers unless the "F@ck, F@cks' from both of us can be considered a call to the almighty.

The bike landed on my right foot, the rear axle bolt dug, bored and went through my skin and exposed and fractured my ankle bone and abraded the skins on multiple parts of my and his body. It was quite a traumatic scene. The subsequent mis-diagnosis at the MH is a story for another time and place.

It took me 6 months to get off the walking stick hobble. I was very lucky that the ankle fracture healed properl, otherwise I may have had a lifestyle hit.

My head also hit the ground - but, despite my friend's protestations and taunts questioning my manhood, I chose to wear a helmet (he had called me a coward and pessimist which I ignored), I think it saved me. I stayed in a Goa hotel for 3.5 months, recuperating, eating room service fish curry every day - which I suppose was the only saving grace.

Cause: combination of good roads, poor driving skills (not driving to road conditions) and unsigned speed breakers.

How does one stick to the left hand side of the road when it's 'polluted' with cattle, pot holes, pedestrians walking in a trance, cycle going "khatak khatak", chillis drying on the road side (Vedanthangal to Pudducherry) or the greatest existential innovation (juggad) - the Mahindra APE Diesel - its vibrations will easily re-arrange ones teeth over a short ride distance. There is good reason why women seem quite happy to ride this contraption. This wonder of desi engineering should not be unleashed even on TSP.

People, through sheer determination grit and bloody mindedness have reduced parts of the MPE to a state highway. They occupy one lane of this Expressway and flag down buses and trucks and the police do nothing - "hamare gaon ke log hain na". and then, you have the intrepid, crossing a six lane expressway. A disaster to happen.

Vishwamitri flyover - Vishwamitri Road Vadodara - great infrastructure. right fork goes to manjalpur, left fork to Kothi Char rasta. Legible signage 'Ilaa". There is a sign attached to the flyover ramp in 12 point font, head high which gets obscured by vehicles. The sarkari genius who approved this had no concept of sign legibility guidelines and advance notice to motorists. Haan, pun rasto bahu saras che bhai. Majja aavi gayu" Gantry signs anybody?. Please.

Pune, FC Road used to be 2way. Its been a 1 way for many years. Did they change the gantry signs. No sir? Why for? At least up until a few months ago, the gantry signs point in the wrong direction of traffic confusing some hapless unfamiliar driver Diabolical RTO. Why worry? Have vada pav instead.

I find truck drivers to be more trustworthy - they often check their rear view mirrors whereas, the 'hero/heroine' (Craziness is equal opportunity) in the sedan thinks rear view mirrors are provided to improve the "get up" of the car and to comb ones hair.

There was a time when my dad could come back home from work at the NDA Khadawasla and remark that today he saw so and so driving on the wrong side of the road. It was a talking point. Now, its so common, if its mentioned people wonder what the fuss is about. Instead, here, have oily samosa from Kapoors and lamingtons and sugary cream roll from Austin bakery baba.

Proper infrastructure is a combination of good roads, sensible laws, appropriate driver education and right amount of danda (enforcement).

Respect elders and love children, yes? I don't see any respect on Sinhagad Road Pune or on any other road for that matter. Hapless Senior citizens and little children wait to cross the road, give up and bravely step into the endless stream of traffic - on a pedestrian crossing. Who stops? Where is the respect? Instead, these senior citizens and kids get mercilessly honked at as they try and cross the road. Respect. Hmmm.

Infants and small kids are subjected to incessant honking. What's happening to their eardrums from all this noise abuse? We love children? Hmm.

Kashi has found an innovative solution - use cattle as a road divider - traffic order and punya in 1 master stroke. That is , until one of these beasts abruptly decides to stand up, poop, pee and then and go whichever way it sees a plastic bag to eat and instantly changes traffic flow patterns. But saar, in Kashi, who dare moveth or question a cow even if a human dies?

Lane markings - that sir is decoration. To be captured in photos to project Indian soft power

Headlights.Why do cars sold in India have a low beam? Who uses low beam? Low beam is for wimps and losers.

Some have no beam - why use one's head lights when there is so much light from oncoming vehicles (as told to me). Gaadi chalaoo, Bijlee bachaoo

In Bangalore on Residency road, and other roads there and in other cities, during peak hours, I have often been hassled, honked and almost run over by 2 wheelers driving on footpaths with nary a care, thought or guilt.

Trouble is, none of this bad behaviour appears on a government balance sheet or statistic so nobody cares.

Repeat after me - all rules are contextual and the only context that is relevant is what's happening in my mind x 108. My world is real, yours is Maya - did you not know?

This madness will self resolve when self drive cars with auto lane assist, auto everything appear on our roads. Algorithms will talk to each other and conduct everything sanely and wisely. Then the incessant pointless honking will also stop, and the occupants can enjoy gota kadhi and thepla achaar. Mr Musk and Lord Googleswara will bring sanity. At it will be Made in India :) Until then, we are like this onlee.
Last edited by rahulm on 26 May 2016 16:03, edited 8 times in total.
Gus
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Re: Indian Roads Thread

Post by Gus »

i use low beam...and many a times i felt i should steer right in front of the oncoming vehicle with high beam and tell him "i am BLINDED..you IDIOT.."

then i remind myself..the other driver is only going to take out his road rage on some other poor chap

truckers on right lane is not the biggest crime out there..their behavior is a response to the mess we call traffic system. if you were a truck driver, you'll be doing the same.

that is a minor crime. in the scale of reckless behavior that causes fatal accidents, that would be at the bottom pile.
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