INFRASTRUCTURE,CAPITALIST,PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Indian infrastructure, the word has big meaning for the Indian economy. But for the common people its means transportation. Transportation means roads and in broader sense it means public facility based transportation. Indian economy is occupied with villages more than cities. According to the2011 census of India, 68.84% of Indians (around 833.1million people) live in 640,867 different villages. The size of these villages varies considerably. 236,004 Indian villages have a population less than 500, while 3,976 villages have a population of 10,000+. Well I will not get into number game. Indian village’s connectivity is very poor and this is well known to my readers. But the growing urban population and shifting of population has created an intense pressure on the urban transportation. Urbanisation in India is proceeding rapidly, and planners foresee the population in urban areas rising from 28 per cent in 2001 or 285 million to 40 per cent or 600 million by 2021. Most cities have been growing without planning, and infrastructure lags way behind actual needs.

But this matter in not unknown to the Indian political system but then why there is still a BAT Man’s life being faced people while travelling. Well red tape or government delayed policy action would be termed as the devil. But the reality is far beyond what we can understand.

The current status of the urban transport facility is very pathetic and well designed by the capitalist society of the Indian economy. We have heard that metro rail projects are coming up in many cities which would provide relief on the public transportation. In real terms metro line requires an expenditure of over Rs 200 crore per km on elevated lines (an underground metro can cost up to Rs 600 crore per km).Hence a huge expenditure is well engraved on these projects. But does this metro rail would be of any help. Well it would never be able to reduce the burden since rate of projection of passengers grows by double with every passing year. Hence by the time the project gets completed the number of passengers gets increased which leads to insufficient system. Whereas the bus system requires much less amount compared to the metro rail projects.

The reason for taking up these projects is to fill the pockets of the political system. Big projects leads to inflow of capital which is only tax payers money being pocketed over the years through these projects. Well I would term it Recurring Source of Income. The Bus Rapid Transport system is another transportation system which has been implemented in Gujarat only and those who have visited the state are well aware about this system. Bus rapid transit (BRT, BRTS) is a high performance public transport bus service which aims to combine bus lanes with high-quality bus 'stations', vehicles, amenities and branding to achieve the performance and quality of alight rail or metro system, with the flexibility, cost and simplicity of a bus system. In 2009, it was decided to invest Rs200000 crore (US$33.8 billion) on metro rail projects in the following ten years. Well the amount itself speaks for the act of money laundering within the political system would happen. BRT system is hardly being implemented in other states since metro projects are Recurring Long Term Income.

Another one of the prime reason behind not developing the public transportation facility is that if public transportation system becomes excellent then how automobile numbers would grow in the coming decade. Automobile companies would die if public transport system becomes efficient enough to provide comfort to the public. For an economy like India it’s difficult to achieve quality public transportation facility.  Hence high quality impressive investment projects would be rolled out and capitalist would make millions to billions from these projects. Public transport is still struggling and there is no end of it. It’s an inter linked grid lock system where red tape is involved in depths. Well we are all habituated with the struggling public transportation system.