The budgets have rightly focused on infrastructure development, which is an important choke point for economic development. It is expected that for budget 2024-25, we will reach allocations of nearly Rs 3 trillion each for rail and road sectors, two of the critical connectivity infrastructure.
Line ministries and the PMO/Niti Ayog oversight must also be commended for the focus on execution of projects. The Gati Shakti National Master Plan is potentially a significant initiative in speeding up project approvals and execution by enabling inter ministerial coordination.
However, there are important focus areas that need more attention. We describe six areas below which need a lot more attention and investments than they are getting.
1. Road Safety: With annual fatalities of over 150,000 and rising, our road safety record is abysmal. Budgets need to spend a lot more on safety integrated road design, construction management, roadside furniture and signages, traffic management and post accident support facilities. The safety focus is applicable not only for new construction, but also existing roads.
2. Railway Safety: While railways have improved their safety record over the years, an accident becomes very consequential due to the potential severity. Preventing accidents is an important target. A fast rollout of Kavach and stepped up maintenance of safety critical equipment needs attention.
3. Metro Multimodal Integration: Metro rail is becoming an important mode of transport in the major cities, with nearly 1,000 kilometres being opened, and another 1,000 kms under construction in over 20 cities. But an important challenge is multimodal integration. Focus on feeder buses, streamlined integration with railways, and parking for personal vehicles are very important. Only these will increase ridership and bring about multimodal shifts as planned.
4. Streamlining Operations At Railway Nodes: While there is focus on the station redevelopment scheme from a customer perspective, a focus on ‘nodes’ across the railway system to streamline operations is critical. Even if maximum speeds increase, the average speeds are not going up. Or the average speeds of a few priority trains goes up at the cost of the average speeds of many other trains going down.
This can be corrected only by upgrading infrastructure by going back to basics. Doubling of most single line routes needs to be taken up, in the same missionary mode as electrification. Conflicting movements need to be minimised with construction of bye-passes and flyovers rather liberally.
More lines in stations need facing platforms including main lines, so that overtakes of freight trains are handled with minimum slowing down of passenger trains. High speed turnouts need to be invested in for better entry and exit of loop lines.
5. Passenger Train Cleanliness: With more and more trains being introduced, there is a distinct drop in cleanliness during train travel. This is critical, especially the cleanliness of toilets (may be even design improvements are called for), and provision of water. The train staff are often not visible, leaving irate passengers helpless.
6. Urban Goods Movement: Normally urban transportation means urban passenger transportation for policy making. But urban good movement needs attention too for streamlined supply chains, which are so essential for a good urban quality of life.
Allowing more flexibility for different freight vehicle movements, by identifying and widening roads, parking, innovative vehicle designs including electrification are the possible investment areas. A structure of officers to focus on urban goods movement needs to be created in municipal administrations.
In conclusion, lack of investment in the above areas will set ‘limits to growth,’ if the focus is only on visible greenfield investments.
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