Bane of India

The severe problem which Indian Metro Cities are facing today is the lack of infrastructure. For any city to improve it needs the ROADS, the proper ones. When a city has expanded and people have need to travel from one part to another they need to do it fast as time is money.
If you consider Western countries, Europe started rebuilding itself after the collasal destruction of world war II. Germany became the forerunner in building high ways. As many places in Europe had lot of destruction, while rebuilding they gave importance to road and then built new buildings around the roads.
North America is a very young country. When the motor car manufacture exploded in volume in the 1950s the business man Ford and the then President Eisenhower had the vision to understand, that the people will need the roads to use these cars. They understood they wll buy these cars only if they have proper roads to travel in it. The beautiful highways were born across the country and grew along with the cities. Till today travelling by road is the cheapest way of transportation in these parts, compared to even trains.
Asian countries also have woken up to the reality and we see countries like Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, China giving importance to road building. From 1990s onwards there is a tremendous impetus in road building.
In the last few years it is amazing to see how China which is also very densly populated country like ours, having built such lovely four lane highways and broad roads within the big cities.
In India cars are beng manufactured and introduced in the market, in such huge volumes. Anything like this has not been seen in the recent past. But alas, where will these cars run. It is a night mare to travel by car in big cities like say Bangalore. Cars which are capable of running at high speeds pathetically move inch by inch in the innumerable circles, and small lanes , where drivers don't have an idea as to what is right of way. What a waste of time and energy. I wonder, there may be a day in the near future when the city will come to a stand still with all roads blocked by cars.
Where lies the solution. The beaurocrats and politicians who visit other countries , never learn anything . They are content with sight seeing.
The solution can be found in Thailand's Bangkok model. Bangkok is also a very thickly populted city. They have built road above the existing ones.
So just build roads above the existing roads. Go vertically up. I could see in some places in Bangkok three or four tiers of roads . But the people who want to travel have to pay a fee. Elevated highways are tolled and the speed limit is around 110 kms. These elevated roads run from one city to another with lot of exits in between. This way traffic can be eased and with the toll money collected the high ways can be maintained and fresh roads built.
One more way of raising the capital to build roads is to make the car manufacturer pay part of the taxes towards road building and using the money only for that purpose and not diverting the money to some thing else which our politicans and beaurocrats do all the time.
Every inch of road has to be manned and maintained and whole road transport should come under one ministry. The people who are in charge should be made responsible for the condition of the roads. Like Railways there can be two different sets, one maintainance and one construction. There can be different departments within the roadways people who are responsible for the electricity, telecom and water and sewage systems which are interconnected with the roads. They can co ordinate with the other departments and see to it that roads are not spoiled by indiscriminate digging, and see to it that the digging is properly closed after the work. They can over see, the diggings and laying of all the pipes is done before the construction of the road. So that there will not be any indiscriminate digging every now and then.
There should be different levels in the road transport department who have to repeatedly inspect the roads physically and repair any damages real fast. Traffic police can also come under this department like railway police and paid decent salaries so that they will be able to work with dignity and help the road users to follow the rules.