Quality of Life in India

Today I was thinking about the quality of life in India when we had two major electricity blackouts in last two days. We pay heavy taxes, dream for a better life but how India is fairing, Let’s see what my analysis says -

Education – Most of the time, the education in govt. schools and colleges are not up to the mark. After paying heavy taxes, we pay heavy fees to private schools for our kid’s education. And these Schools too are out of control, school can charge you for any special fund. E.g. Building fund, Future funds, Growth fund etc…But you have no choice, for quality education, you will have to spend higher amount on these private schools/colleges. I truly think, India has an urgent need of revising education system.

Medical – There is nothing to hide about govt. hospitals in India. Govt. hospitals are toothless with few or no doctors, no/outdated equipment’s with highly unhygienic environment. So what will you do? Pay from your own pocket and go to a private nursing home or hospital where most part hospital and Doctors will be ready to rob you...Legally :)

Judiciary System – Indian judiciary system is a mock. If you have power and influence you will get the results in your favor otherwise… Just pick up any day Newspaper and you will get News which will tell you the horrible stories about Indian judicial system. 

Water - Water is life but in most Metro’s in India, clean and drinking water is becoming a distant dream. Daily, people spent hours to arrange for drinking water, in villages people walk 30mins to 1 hour to get a bucket of drinking water. Govt. provide water for 1-2 hours daily and it is up to the individual to accumulate the water within this time frame else you are doomed for the day. Alternatively you can arrange for your own water by digging the land and it’s your luck is in your side, you can find ground water easily:). Ground water has gone down from most part of India. PAY from your own pocket to arrange for clean and drinking water.

Traffic – I have written a whole article on Traffic just look for tag “Life in Metro”.

Sanitation – Just look around you and you will realize what I mean. India is a big dump yard and everyone is free to dump anything anywhere. Govt. Officials, officially create open dump yards road side. You have open sewage system, polybags can be found everywhere, and biological waste can be seen roadsides.

Corruption – This is the root cause of most of other issues in India. Most people are corrupt, some willingly some due to conditions. No one likes to give bribes but this has to change from top and not bottom. Bottom will automatically be correctly if it comes from top.

Electricity – You are lucky if you are residing in the part of India where you get 10 or more hours of uninterrupted electricity. Most people in India either install their own power generators or power backup invertors for continue supply of electricity. Again you pay from your own pocket to producing your own electricity.

Roads & Infrastructure – Potholes everywhere. It is a dream to have smooth drive in India and people take it as surprise if you have smooth drives. Insufficient public transport system.  Should people in India start building their own roads?

Safety & Security – What is security and safety? Ask a lady walking down a busy street at 7PM New Delhi. Open any day, any Newspaper, and it won’t take you even a minute to realize security and safety of Indian citizens.  If you are in trouble and dial “100” number (Emergency Number in India), you are in pure luck if someone pick up your call and even if they pick up your call, there is no guarantee, and you will be responded well.

Social Security – There is no personal and physical security so doesn’t even think about social security.

So basically, after paying heavy taxes you will not get back much from govt. You are your own; continue donating your hard earned money for our MPs/MLA’s luxuries. On the other side manage your own education, healthcare, safety, worry about your water & produce your own electricity, manage your own traffic, clean your own cities, “Infect you have TRUE freedom and democracy to thrive”.

PS: This is pretty negative article and you might be thinking I’ve written only bad about India and Indian. But these are facts and we’ve to accept is boldly and do something about it to bring changes into the society and in govt. system. Sure there are many good things about “Incredible India” which I will cover some other day.

Chaotic Roads - Traffic in India

I am sure there are numerous posts on this subject by Indians but are we doing anything about traffic problem?

First time I had visited Delhi and NCR region in Mar 2004 and did not realize traffic problem but when I returned back to this city in Year 2010 after my US stay, I could see how Delhi and surrounding region has become traffic chaos. Perhaps Delhi and NCR region has the best infrastructure in India but the problem is still the worst. Traffic problem in NCR cannot be contributed alone to infrastructure but it is due to bad or no traffic law enforcement (Specially Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon region), bad traffic management and encroachment of public space. Here are my views on traffic situation in India.

Traffic jams and road accidents are very common News in India and any one hardly bother about minor accidents. You roam around in India and it will be hard to find even one car without a single scratch if it is a month old. Let’s understand what type of problems are seen in India due to high traffic

• Pollution, this is a huge problem, we should start thinking what we are leaving behind for next generation. All developed nations are working towards reducing pollution, are Indians doing sufficient contribution? 
• Loss of precious time – We lose our precious time in traffic, and every Indian is facing this problem. When we start driving from home to our destination, we add few extra hours considering we’ll find traffic jams. 100 Kms of distance is covered in 3 to 4 Hours.
• Loss of invaluable fuel – Many countries economy is dependent on fuel; Indian Government spends most of its money in importing fuels. Fuel is limited and we are losing it in daily traffic jams.
• Loss of money, when you lose time and fuel, you are losing your hard earned money
• Road rages – Due to high frustration of Indian road traffic system, road rages are common now a day. Especially in NCR region, you will find this News every other day.
• Loss of life – High unmanaged traffic leads to accidents and daily thousands of people die in road accidents. Sit back and think for a second, is there anything precious than your own life to be wasted in road accidents?
• Emergency Condition to reach Hospitals, Airport, Railway station etc.
• Loss of property – Road accident leads to loss of somebody’s property.

So what are the reasons we have huge traffic jams, highest road accidents in India. I’m listing down some of the reasons but this list can go on and on

• No or little law enforcement.
• Poor infrastructure
• Wrong side driving
• No lane driving.
• Aged Vehicles and Overloading of vehicles (Goods & Passenger)
• In some areas public transport is very poor
• No or non-functional traffic signals.
• Roadside encroachment. (I was surprised to see Monday market, Tuesday market etc. in Delhi roads. Each day you will find one or two roads are completely blocked by these markets in your neighborhood. To me it makes no sense to put a market and block the road completely)
• Drunk Driving
• Road side parking
• No proper driving license system. Many of the drivers don’t even bother to take driving license.
• Poor trafficking system with unequipped traffic officers.
• Road sharing by all speed vehicles (Bicycle, pedestrians, motor bike, cars, rickshaw) – all share the same road, which leads to chaos and attracts accidents.

What can be done to improve this situation?

-       

• Introduce driving rules as compulsory subject in schooling.
• Re-Issue all driving license in the country only after individual pass written driving rules exam. ( I know it is very big task but we need to start somewhere)
• Divide all traffic laws into 3 categories Fatal, Major and Minor and impose heavy fines in each of this category. E.g. A rule is “not to drive on wrong side” and if anyone breaks this rule impose heavy fine say 10000/- and provide a percentage of fine to duty officer. It will ensure both the parties are careful and alerted.
• India has huge pedestrian and cycle population so clear footpaths should be must.
• Ensure functional signaling system.
• Lanes should be divided into speed category. 10-30Km/Hr, 30-50 Km/Hr and 50-80Km/Hour and lane driving should be followed very strictly.
• No bus/auto stoppage on crossing roads. This creates a huge traffic jam problem when the bus is stopped and other side traffic is green.
• Roadside stoppage should be avoided.
• If vehicle is not in good condition and it breaks down in the middle of road, it should attract a huge fine along with towing charges.
• No repair work should start in the middle of road, rather it should be towed to the side and then look into the problem in vehicle.
• Overloading of vehicle should be punishable act and should attract huge fine. It put people in danger.
• Equipped traffic officers with latest technology to track and monitor traffic and vehicles.
• Introduce Multilevel parking system. (Not the one recently MCD opened in few New Delhi areas), these multilevel parking should be in good numbers and approachable from public transport system.
• Have a separate area for hawkers.
• It must be compulsory to allocate parking space (in good percentage) within the premises while building a new commercial property. Similarly it must be compulsory in housing societies. There are many housing society in Delhi and NCR which do not have car parking space and owners park their cars on streets. (This rule can be looked into area wise)

This list can grow exponentially; contact me if you have authority to improve traffic in India and interest to know how to improve traffic system in India. I’ve tons of ideas with minimum infrastructure cost.

Some traffic statistics

• India has the highest road accidents – In road accidents (2009), 14 people die every hour in India. Do simple calculation and you will note there are around 123K deaths per year. These many life could be saved. (http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,5519345,00.html)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
• According to International Road federation (IRF), every year India lose $20Bn dollars in Road accidents (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-19/india/31076588_1_road-accidents-national-road-safety-traffic-management-board-bill) – This is not small amount. It can build massive infrastructure in India.

We need to wake up and need a countrywide awareness program to implement improvement in Indian traffic system before it is too late. It will take years to change the driving culture and train Indian to drive in a civilized manner.