VIEWPOINT
AMITABH SHUKLA
For me, the black bitumen on
roads, unbroken stretches and the vast expanse unfolding in the countryside and
the hills, send the adrenalin pumping.
Driving and travelling is not
only a stress buster but also makes you learn so many things about nature,
about people, about the aspirations they have and quality of life they lead,
about food, economy and what not. Being in Chandigarh
is of help due to its geographical advantage. It lies on the footsteps of the
Shivalik range and the great Indian plain ends here. The joint capital of Punjab
and Haryana is on the edge of the vast expanse of the Indo-Gangetic belt, the
mainstay of Indian agriculture since the age of civilisation. So you have best
of both the geographical worlds — the hills and the plains in front of you, a
diversity which is rare in any part of the world and coaxes you to see it in
all its myriad charm.
I may be a travel junkie when not
working and may be driving for the most part only for the fun of it and can
select the road to drive, but for a majority of the people in the country, the
use of road is an everyday necessity. You cannot have a quality life anywhere
in the country without quality roads. Whether you go to schools or for work on
cycles, whether you go to the local mandi to offload your produce in a bullock
cart or a horse cart or whether you drive a tractor or one of the fast moving
cars. The first contact of a person with the effectiveness of a Government is
obviously the road.
But take the National Highway No
1 as an example — the all important road which connects Delhi to the two
prosperous States of Punjab and Haryana and also which takes you to Himachal
Pradesh on one side and Jammu & Kashmir on the other. I don’t think there
would be any decision maker in the national Capital and the four northern
States who has not used this road in more than last four years. The stretch
between Panipat and Jalandhar should have been converted into six-lanes three
years ago. Despite the top politicians and the bureaucrats travelling via this
road, it was left to the Supreme Court to issue directions to the
concessionaire to complete the project by the end of this financial year on March 31, 2015 .
This project should now be used
as a showcase how not to build new road projects. It should be used as a case
study to give contracts for other road projects so that they do not get into
legal wrangles and cost over runs. Hopefully, the project would be complete on
the given deadline this time and the lessons learnt by the officials and all
those associated with the road network in the country.
What perplexes me the most is the
fact that the National Highways in most of the places are perpetually under
construction. They are being six-laned at most places like the stretch from
Panipat to Jalandhar. When I visited Jaipur from Delhi
sometime go, construction and expansion of the road was on. When the new
millennium dawned, 14 years ago and I went to Jaipur, the NHAI was four-laning
the road then. I wondered whether construction and widening would be a
permanent feature of the roads of the country. Not long back, these roads were
four-laned, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and gave a new
thrust to road infrastructure in the country. Now it is being six-laned. Half a
decade from now, the need would be felt for eight-lane roads and maybe 15-20
years from now, the volume of traffic would force the authorities to have
20-lane roads.
I don’t understand what prevents
the authorities from constructing 12-lane roads straight away in the important
stretches keeping in view the traffic scenario of 2025. It does not require
rocket science technology to know that the number of vehicles on roads keep
increasing everyday and they need space to move. I am sure after the six-lane
of NH-8 which goes to Jaipur and Mumbai is complete, there would again be a
need to make eight-laned and then 10-laned. There would be construction
activity going on all the time and we would hardly find a 200-250 km of expressway free from any
construction or broadening activity.
The Ambala-Zirakpur (Chandigarh )
stretch was four-laned only recently and already a need is being felt to widen
it with multi-storied housing complexes coming in the vicinity of the Chandigarh
and accompanying vehicles clogging the road. What has worsened the situation is
the fact that whenever a new stretch of road comes up, there is heightened
economic activity around it. Housing colonies are built, shops, eateries and
small scale establishments come up and even the rural population shifts towards
the road to take benefit of the new economic activity.
In the last few years, I have
only seen hectic construction on NH-1 from Delhi
to Amritsar and the NH from Delhi
to Jaipur and Delhi to Lucknow
via Moradabad and Bareilly .
The shifting of economic activity in and around the roads would lead to a
situation where only a few stretches alongside the highway would be left for
paddy or mustard fields as the remaining space would be gobbled up by some
commercial activity or one earmarked for the purpose.
Coming back to the joy of
travelling on the road, nothing can beat the hilarious banner of “child bear”
being sold openly on the roadside. When you go there and find a liquor shop you
know the reason. Obviously the semi-literate painter had never heard or seen an
English dictionary in his lifetime and was told to paint “chilled beer” by the
owner, another semi-literate or illiterate person who did not know the correct
spelling himself.
Trucks, however, rule the roost
when it comes to innovative slogans. Most appeared like works of fledgling
litterateurs who could not get their works published and, had rather taken to
writing slogans on trucks as a career! Himmat hai to aage nikal, warna bardasht
kar (if you are brave enough, overtake me, otherwise tolerate me), warned one
with his frightening slogan. I was brave enough and overtook the truck without
any fuss. The driver merely brought out an extended palm from the window of his
huge vehicle and facilitated the overtake without seriously taking the slogan
written on his truck.
Imagination ran wild in some of
the slogans. Recently on a trip to Shimla, I thought the owner of one of the
trucks or its driver was using abusive language when the slogan at the back
said, Teri Ma ki. But, in equally bold letters followed Jai Ho. So the entire
slogan was Teri Ma ki jai ho. I had never come across such a slogan anywhere.
Another slogan said, Amiro ki
zindagi biscuit aur cake par, driver ki zindagi clutch aur brake par. There
were hundreds more. Tata phir milenge and buri nazar wale tera muh kala seemed
to be written on a maximum number of them and sort of a national slogan of the
big Indian beast that were the trucks with number plates identifying vehicles
from far and wide including Orissa, West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab to
Gujarat, Maharashtra and Kerala.
One fuel station on NH-1 was
giving a bathing soap free for every 100
litres of diesel and the limit was 400 litres . Half a dozen trucks
and their drivers lazing around early morning in the vicinity of the fuel
station indicated that the marketing strategy indeed worked. At another, if a
driver wanted to use a clean toilet, you had to fill in fuel first. Fill the
tank, get a slip and then show it to the guard in front of the toilet to ease
yourself. Business on roads is quite innovative. (December 22, 2014 )
Your writing is very powerful, it has inspired me a lot. I am really keen to know your thought about the current oil and gas situation. Can you please write something about how O&G sector can make a difference in the growth of our nation.
ReplyDelete