ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ ಗಳು

Road to Prosperity - UP offers investment opportunities in Transport Sector.

That's the caption to the half page ad by the Transport Commissioner, UP, in today's leading newspapers (page 15, TOI).

Salient points (as appearing in the ad), and my comments are as below:

After casting my vote early in the morning yesterday, while I drove around and was doing some shopping, I was curiously trying to spot the ink on those index fingers. My empirical observations told me that less than 50% of people had taken the trouble of visiting a polling booth. Morning newspapers are saying that Bangalore city areas saw only 44% voter turnout, and I am not surprised.

With three cornered (four, if you add BSP) contests everywhere, it is safe to assume that winning candidate will at best get 35-40% of the votes polled. 40% (winning percentage) of 44% (voting percentage) = around 18%. So, the winning candidates can realistically claim to have support of only 18% of Bangalore's citizens.

Resservation for Kannadigas in IT jobs is an agenda for the JDS party as well as KRV. In a recent discussion in CNN-IBN, Kannadigas expressed it should be whereas outsiders said it as a ridiculous agenda.

One person said that Kannadigas has to come upto the mark and get the job and the education level in Karnataka has to improve!!

Spotted a news clip in Pune newspaper (ToI) this week that said - PCMC (Pimpri Chinchwad, a Pune suburb) is planning to make sanctioning of building plans an online process. So:

"At present, builders are required to submit the papers and the necessary documents pertaining to building plans to the PCMC. The civic body has now developed a software to scrutinise the papers once they are submitted on-line ... The software will help in checking all aspects of the building plans and confirm whether they comply with the building bylaws, TDR and FSI restrictions, etc."

Over an year ago, I was driving not so fast not so slow, near the hard median of a road, when I spotted a bold biker riding on the 'wrong' side. Right around then, an impatient cab (Sumo) following behind decided to pass me from the left, the overtaking action putting him on a collision course with the wrong-way biker. The biker sensed trouble and tried to 'filter' through us. But in between his confused maneuvers, the bike slipped, fell, and I found the man and machine directly ahead of me. Hard median to my right, heavy-metal Sumo on my left, I didn't have much to do or think, I braked hard, real hard, and stopped just short of the fallen human and machine waiting to be crushed.

The SEC/ NIC/ BBMP combo, entrusted with the job of preparation and maintenance of the electoral rolls and issual of the EPID cards, has once again proved itself unequal to the task. The resulting inaccuracy levels of the order of over 50% across the state, is causing serious subversion of the democratic process.

Unlike international practices, public transport, mainly bus services in India being a low-income country, have generally been governed by low fares at low levels of service. One type of low-quality service was acceptable to all then & even now, except for the better off cities (such as Bangalore, Mumbai & Delhi), public transport is generally based on these principles. As a result, there had been leakages – keeping fares low to assist poor travelers & low-income groups involves a leakage of benefits to better off passengers. The lower the fare, for a given level of service, the higher is the leakage. Conversely, for a given fare, increasing the level of service will also increase leakage. Most public bus operators in the country are thus, deep in the red, with increasing subsidies.

There are multiple threads popping on BRTS here and elsewhere, thanks to the situation at Delhi and Pune. Here is one more, but focused only on gathering statstics required to support or counter the BRTS decisions. What would be realistic ridership targets for a BRTS at Bangalore, Pune or Delhi - basically, size of target market? What is the current profile of road space usage? What is the average commute distance in these cities (Delhi, Bangalore, Pune, Ahmedabad)?