Kalka-Shimla-Kalka Motor Rail Journey: An Inexpensive Heritage Rail Experience to Try Out In India!

It was some 35 years ago, I had the first opportunity to travel by the narrow gauge rail line connecting Kalka and Shimla. 

Kalka is a small town in the Pachkula District of Haryana State of India and is about 28 km from Chandigarh- a pre-engineered city of India which functions as the capital of both  Haryana and Punjab States. Shimla is a mountain resort city and is the capital of Himachal Pradesh State. 

Kalka Railway Station in the early Morning Nov-2013

Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge rail line is about 100 km long and is a world heritage declared by the UNESCO. This rail line ascends continuously from an altitude of 656 M at Kalka to reach the 2200 M elevation of Shimla. To reach this 2.2 km height above mean sea level, one has to travel about 96 km through the narrow gauge rail passing through 100 odd tunnels, 900 curves and about 800 bridges.

The Rail Motor at Kalka just before the departure!

One of the best travel delight on this heritage rail line is the unique facility for the rail motor car journey. While decades ago I used the narrow guage rail line for my travel from Shimla to Kalka, I could not enjoy the rail motor car journey at that time. I have been waiting for an opportunity for that and I got it a few months ago when I had to visit Chandigarh to attend my friend's son's marriage.

Rail Motor at Barog Railway Station

The motor car trip was indeed a remarkable experience and was much simpler than I thought. While there are other narrow gauge trains, I was more particular about this rail motor car experience. 

The Rail Motor Car Locomotive Diesel Engine!

It is a single rail coach self propelled by a diesel locomotive engine with 14 cushioned seats considered as first class. It is not air conditioned and for that matter a/c is not essential for this part of the country as most of the time it is cold rather than hot. 

It is the brake of the Rail Motor and not the steering!

One can book the tickets in advance  using any one of the travel portals like yatra, makemytrip or irctc. The rail car that starts from Kalka to go to Shimla is named 72451/Kalka-Shimla Rail Motor and departs at 5-10 a.m and reaches Shimla at about 9.50 a.m. 

View of Simla from Simla Railway Station

In the evening, the same rail car departs from Shimla as 72452/Shimla-Kalka Rail Motor and departs at 4.25 p.m and reaches Kalka at about 9.35 p.m. 

View through the glass window of the Rail Motor Car!

The average speed of this rail motor car is about 30 Km/hr, but the car actually travels much faster. For example, when I traveled by it from Shimla to Kalka, it reached Kalka one hour before its scheduled arrival time! 

Experience the Rail Motor Speed by viewing this video!

Barog railway station about midway is the place where passengers can alight for about 15 minutes for refreshing. 

Tourist Places Information Board at Simla Railway Station!

The fare for a person in this rail motor car is Rs.292/- one way from Kalka-Simla or Simla-Kalka. It is quite affordable for a tourist. The timings are too convenient for any one who visits Chandigarh to spend a day in Shimla. But the taxi fare from Chandigarh to Kalka and Kalka to Chandigarh in the early morning and late evening could be more than three times the rail motor fare!

A View of the Himalayan Life from the Outskirts of Simla!

Simla is in reality very easy to access by rail or by road. The highway connecting Simla to Chandigarh runs almost parallel to the rail line at many places.

The sign board at Simla Railway Station declaring its Heritage!

Unlike other hill stations of India, one important aspect of the Kalka Simla route is its relative safety. The rail line and road are considerably safe as accidents are comparatively much less. Road and rail disruptions during snow fall or land slides are also much lower as compared to other hill station areas of India.

So, if you haven't yet gone to this place, plan your trip soon. And don't miss the rail motor journey!  

Indian Roads: Forgotten Fundamentals !

Indian cities and villages are getting developed in an unprecedented manner for quite some time. The agencies involved, the money spend and the methodologies adopted  are all unprecedented.

The governments collect road tax from all who purchase new vehicles. In olden days, road taxes used to be collected on an yearly basis. Now it is being collected in one lot for the entire useful life time of the vehicle at the time of purchase of a new vehicle. The road tax component has become a major part of the cost of a new vehicle now in India.  

But yet governments (central, state and local) do not seem to have enough money to keep the roads well maintained. Apparently the system of allocation of tax money for road construction and maintenance is not so transparent. 

Roads are a clear sign of development of any well administered and governed country. Even some of the good old maharajahs of the erstwhile princely states of India too used to maintain their roads properly. One can see those centuries-old remnants of Indian roads at some places even now. Fortunately, the Indian administrators have not yet applied their brains to reconstruct at least a few of those in their own haphazard manner!

There used to be a few agencies in the past who used to be the whole sole custodians of the roads of India. They are still in existence. They are the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) and the PWDs of the respective states. But apparently they all work in an invisible manner for reasons better known to them and their political bosses. Decades ago, the roads used to have some sign-cum-display boards giving some hints to the public about the officer or engineer responsible for the up keep of a particular section of the road. Now such boards are hardly visible. When they do not do their work properly, it could easily bring the people ire and they now do not want such a thing to happen! 

Now-a-days, there are additional agencies. The National Highway Authority and other works departments of the cities are all examples.

But when all these agencies are required to work together to achieve some road maintenance or construction tasks to the satisfaction of the users, it seems that such a thing is never possible for them now. Co-ordination of work and synchronization of their respective works now seems impossible. Thanks to the progress of the democratic systems of governance. In olden days, the national boundaries used to the no-mans' lands. Now the city boundaries, the state boundaries are all no-mans' lands in India. When the Indian democracy works truly as a federal system (authorities and responsibilities vested with many), the misfortunes of the people enhance many fold. Transparency and accountability also seem to be with none!

Every one has some excuse for not delivering what the people want. If the people's monies are pilfered, that was simply the result of the chaos that inherently developed within the complex system of governance. The illogical watch dog agencies added further complications to the already weak governance and administration in India in general. The roads too got affected adversely in this mess, just as many others.

The conventional democratic system of India run by seasoned political professionals and family politicians are proving their ineffectiveness in providing a proper administration and management of the public wealth of the country. The people of India are slowly realizing the folly of depending on these people for effective leadership and public service administration. 

As it stands today, the Indian roads are not a safe bet for any one to travel. Any thing can happen. But it could be a thrill for the adventure minded to travel in the Indian roads now. 

You try to travel some hundreds of kilometers in the Indian roads using the confidence given by Google maps and your new foreign designed Car or SUV, you would soon realize and repent over your foolishness, unless you are really a brave adventurist.

You speed off in a national high way which you felt as really of international standard when you started off. Before you could cover just about 5-10 km you have to come to a halt and be in the line to pay off handsomely to the private toll tax collectors. Paying for the good facility that the private investor had been allowed to create as an alternative to the public road facility may not be felt as a big problem. That is the way it happens in the capitalist countries like the USA. That is considered as an alternate way for faster economic growth. But remember, it is an alternative and not the sole and only choice!

In India, this aspect is seriously ignored. The toll roads created here and there are the only choice and not an alternative for those who are willing to pay some money extra for some better facility.  In India, the elected representatives of the people seem to forget about the common people and allowed a situation wherein the toll highways are the only alternative for travel in some stretches of the national highways. The existing road that had been there for decades have been handed over to the private investor in patches of few kilometers who in turn re-carpet it slightly better and collect huge sums from every one for decades. In some places, the private investor invested a few crores and recovered his whole invested money within months besides ensuring a potential for collecting thousands of crores of rupees in future with the tacit approval of the people's representatives of the democratic governments!

There is no common policy to determine the toll taxes either. It is simply as per the whimsical formulas of the concerned authorities. In some places, there are stretches of toll highways having lengths to the order of 200-300 km taking toll tax of just Rs.50 or Rs.80 for a motor car while there are also stretches of highways with lengths of just 15-20 km taking the same amounts. I remember paying nearly Rs.2000/- for my own car journey through the National Highways from Raipur-Nagpur-Hyderabad-Bangalore-Chennai-Vizag-Raipur. That was a couple of years ago, when the roads were just getting renovated. The toll could be much more now. Imagine the tolls the heavy truckers have to shell out ! Toll tax may not be a bad idea per se. But there has to be some transparency and justifiable policies which are digestible to the people at large!

A visionary leader of modern India very rightly declared the need for good roads in India and tried to propagate some thing called the 'golden triangle' concept of national highways. It was indeed a remarkable vision. But even after a decade it is an unfinished agenda. That is the efficiency of the existing subordinate bureaucracy and technocracy of the Indian federation to convert a leader's vision to action! Apparently, the Indian political leadership lacks the ability to create dynamism to the existing bureaucratic executive system for any appreciable actions recognized by the people as something good. I am not ignoring the good works that keep happening here and there in India. But on the whole, there are much things desired getting seriously affected  and the system lethargy is too visible for the common citizens to just ignore!

In many cities, some of the elected governments were so daring that they give permissions to roads running right through some populated cities to be converted as toll roads. They had even forced the citizens living in one part of the city going to the other part and returning to pay every time. Some of the democratic people's representatives of India were so daring that they simply did not care for the people's ire.

It is another thing that the people of India used their democratic power to over throw such fellows. But the fellows have any way made great fortunes in this game!

The Indian roads in some cities have fantastic road signs with glittering letters erected across the roads at some remarkable heights. It is indeed a glittering view for the visitors, but not for the drivers who want to take some lead from those for the right directions. On the other hand, on the highways of India, you do not find any such sign boards even where there is a junction or a crossing. Many drivers travelling in the nights on these high ways are bound to travel to some other direction covering scores of kilometers before they realize their mistakes!

The high ways in some parts of the country do not have any motels or resting places. Some corporate big wigs had made very good facilities in the past only to be dismantled later due to the un-supportive attitudes of the governments concerned or their greedy subordinate authorities. Another example of the people's representatives failing to deliver either for India's economic growth or infrastructural facilities or making the inherent administrative organizations to function under cohesive or transparent policies!

If you travel in the Indian highways making good use of the good horse power of your modern vehicle and the road surface you thought as apparently good and wide, there is a likely danger of you suddenly driving your vehicle in to some thing you never ever imagined to exist there. It could be a ditch or a sudden disappearance of the good road even! Indian road engineers apparently do not visit the road construction sites when the sites are far away from the usual travel routes of their political bosses. Such areas are purely left to the supervisors of the contractors. And why should the latter spend some extra money to place the necessary road signs at appropriate places to give warning to the drivers? The Indian law enforcers may chase the driver and the owner of the vehicle when a road accident takes place and are too efficient to put them in their lock-ups. But I have not yet come across the news of a case when some road contractor or road engineer of the government getting arrested for lapses in the roads leading to accidents! On the other hand, there are umpteen cases in India, where the authorities chasing and arresting some remotely connected persons holding similar responsibilities when accidents take place in some factories, cinema halls, hospitals, and the like! Road and Railway authorities in India are the fortunate ones in this regard!

I have written just some fundamental aspects concerning governance and administration with regard to the creation and management of just one essential infrastructure of the country responsible for the overall economic growth and prosperity. Apparently, our administrators and political leaderships seem to forget some fundamental aspects. That is the fundamental of people first. If that is ignored, the people might some day rise to set things right.

This is what the conventional political players seem to forget. This is what the government servants seem to forget. When they forget people, they are bound to become arrogant. And when they keep showing their arrogance and disregard to the aam aadmi (common people) movements like the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would rise to make those arrogance to humility.

Am I telling some thing wrong ? 

Correct me if I am.

Uttarakhand Flood of 16th June 2013 : Would Good Engineering Practices Have Reduced the Losses ?

When the news of the heavy rains and the subsequent land slide calamities that rocked India, especially the north Indian states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh a couple of days ago, with the horror stories still pouring in, some memories of my experiences in those areas more than three decades ago flashed in my mind. Thousands are now believed to be either dead or missing in this worst natural disaster in the recent times. And this tragedy is likely to cause lingering pains to thousands of families across India crying and searching for their near and dear ones. 

As a quick response of responsibility, Google has started a special service for locating and reporting the details of the missing persons -you may click this Person Finder link for more details: 2013 Uttrakhand Floods. Against this backdrop I find it most unfortunate to observe the much publicized Prime Minister's National Relief Fund Donate Online website  a non-functional one with invalid server certificate,  today ! 

Now coming back to my memories. The period was late in the Nineteen Seventies when I was a post graduate chemical engineering student at Roorkee University, the successor of the first engineering college that started functioning any where in the British Commonwealth regions under the British empire way back in 1853 as Thomason College of Civil Engineering  which later got rechristened as the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Being passed my degree in chemical engineering from the only college that offered that stream of study in the south Indian state of Kerala in those days, the Government Engineering College, Trichur, there was no reason for me to go to the plains of north west India for further studies. I could have done that elsewhere much conveniently. But my decision to try Roorkee was in a way purposeful. Two years at Roorkee would give me enough opportunity to explore some of the mountainous Himalayan terrains of North India.

Those were some of the memorable days of my life. There were a few adventure loving friends. Mr Ujjagger Singh Kooner pursuing his ME in Mechanical Engineering and Mr Donn Treese from USA pursuing his masters in Architectural Engineering were my hostel mates in Jawahar Bhawan who used to be my adventure and sight seeing companions on many occasions. The Himalayan Explorer's Club of the University also provided much help for me to understand the problems of life in the mountain terrains of Tehri Garhwal  and adjoining regions situated then in undivided Uttar Pradesh State and now in Uttarakhand State. A week's training in ice craft and mountaineering in Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi was a good experience which I still cherish.

These Himalayan ranges are the sources of streams that make up the great north Indian rivers such as the Ganga (River Ganges)  and its main tributory the Yamuna that make the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar fertile. Being a nation of nearly a billion people following Hinduism, it not a surprise that the Himalayan ranges have many revered Hindu shrines and worship places where a devote Hindu would like to visit as a pilgrim. The Ganga water is holy and the source of the Ganga (Gangotri)  and Yamuna (Yamunotri) are holy places making them most desired locations in the Uttarakhand regions of the Himalayas for the religious tourists. Besides the entire routes to these places in the mountains offer awesome treat to nature lovers and adventurists alike. Visit of people to these places has been a regular affair for decades. While few hundred people visited these places every year a couple of decades before, perhaps millions visit now. Better roads and affordability of good vehicles and mushrooming of hundreds of guest houses along the valleys and hill slopes have made such a transformation.

During the time of my visit to these places in the late Seventies, the roads connecting Uttarkashi , Harsil, Rudraprayag  and Kedarnath were broken at many places due to land slides. I remember trekking for kilometers and taking some help from the Indian paramilitary personnel from ITBP, BSF, etc to cover some distances in the motor-able patches of the roads on their vehicles. I had seen the difficult work of the BRO in repairing the difficult mountain roads that had caved in due to landslides at many places. Travelling in those roads and trails running by the slopes of the mountains make one feel highly vulnerable to various kinds of potential dangers like falling stones, fall, etc., etc. If one gets physically incapacitated by any means, an evacuation to a safer place would not be easy if the roads become cut or isolated due to landslides or caving ins. . Helicopters of the military organizations would be the only solution in such a situation. I had faced such a situation of helplessness when I caught a mild fever while I was on trek beyond Uttarkashi. My stamina all of a sudden got drained out that I was incapable of trekking any more ! Fortunately, some friendly paramilitary men helped me by giving shelter, medicine and transport when it was needed the most !

While I visited these places, the travelers and visitors in these places were much less as compared to the situation now. But I can visualize the horror if you get stranded in any of these places. I remember getting stranded in a mountain village in Himachal Pradesh north east of Shimla  during a pleasant season when the road connection got suddenly broken on another occasion during that time when me and my American friend Donn ventured in to a personal adventure trip. We had to walk nearly 50 km taking two days to get the public transport to Shimla ! Fortunately, the weather was nice and we had my uncle who worked there in the Public Works Department as our guide. Imagine the horror in a situation when the weather is hostile and you are left to fetch for yourself !

But the world has moved much ahead in the last three decades. The roads of Uttarakhand has become a bit wider perhaps to accommodate more vehicles. But, regrettably nothing more to prevent those roads from getting damaged extensively due to floods, earthquakes or landslides has been implemented. There could have been alternate routes at many places to give the people some option when some long stretches of road become isolated. The building constructions along the river side and the slopes could have been with better and safe engineering designs. There could have been more helicopter landing pads. The unstable mountain slopes could have been strengthened with appropriate landslide prevention methods.

When we talk about landslide prevention methods, it is now common knowledge that there are many methods the engineering fraternity around the globe practice and implement. For example see this wikipedia article on landslide mitigation .

Of these, the most important in my opinion, is the provision of good water drainage systems for both surface water as well as sub soil water. In the roads in India, this one aspect is the most neglected one with improvisation doing the major role than well- thought- about engineering designs. An unstable soil surface , such as the sloppy terrains of Uttarakhand, would slide out when rain water seeps in and accumulate below the surface. There are many ways to stabilize those slopes along the roads and below the roads and to strengthen those roads from total damage as was seen this time. The towns in the valleys and ravines also could have been saved to a greater extent, had some authorities thought of such eventualities with the help of engineering experts well in advance.

Perhaps for reasons well known to them, the authorities found it convenient to keep these roads in a perpetual state of damage and damage mitigation state rather than adopting sound engineering practices to build safe and stabilized roads and infrastructure. I am not sure !

Landslides due to floods, earthquakes and rains are not something new to Uttarakhand. But hopefully, this kind of a tragedy could have been mitigated of its severity with the adoption of sound engineering practices.

Let us hope the authorities would consider it something important to implement in the future !

My heartfelt sympathies with all those affected families and persons!


[Please also take some time to come back and read my previous  blogs and blogs on other topics as well. You can reach to those by clicking the links in this page. I would be happy if you take some time to express your views using the comments facility down below. Please  use the same comment facility to interact with me for any doubts or clarifications that you might have. Here is the page link that gives the   list of all my blogs  where you can open all my blog titles.]

Infrastructure in India : Talking Much and Doing Nothing !

Perhaps Atal Bihari Bajpayee was one such Prime Minister of India who openly admitted to the poor state of infrastructure in India and launched the visionary 'Golden Triangle Highway Project of India' with much fanfare.

Prior to that the young PM Rajiv Gandhi initiated the dream project named the 'Ganga Action Plan' to clean the River Ganga from pollution.

Unfortunately and most regrettably, it appears that the country has failed miserably in fulfilling even the dream projects announced by the top most political authority. 

It appears to the common man that the political authorities are only interested in gaining some cheap popularity by announcing mega projects and not at all interested in seeing that what they announce gets materialized ever !

On the other hand, starting from a similar back ground a quarter century ago, the neighbouring country China has progressed enviously as far as infrastructural development is concerned. It has become the number one in the world in many things during this period and is progressing forward surpassing even the glorious developed nations of the past.

Just a couple of days ago, I wanted to visit Bhilai, the steel city very near to Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh state, which is just a bit over 600 kilometers away from my present city of residence, Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand.

The need was an urgent one and I had to spend hours together to formulate my plans to make the trip.

Both these cities, incidentally come under the steel corridor of India with the largest movement materials, both finished and unfinished. Both have airports and major railways stations. They are located on the so called trunk routes of India.

Yet there are no direct flights nor daily running trains with comfortable class of accommodation. The train journey takes hardly 8 hours provided there is a train with the accommodation and the reservation. Unfortunately there is none even after this country becoming an independent nation more than half a century ago. Incidentally the major railway infrastructure as existing are all developed by the British raj whom the Indians curse perpetually for their misrule !

So there was no choice for me except to make the travel to and fro by road which are prominently marked on the maps as national high ways.

If you search the google options you may find these two cities 'beautifully' connected by a number of roads most of them marked NH (the short name for National Highways !). Google may even suggest that you can perhaps make the trip by car within about 9 to 10 hours by travelling through a combination of NHs.

Believing google, I ventured to make the travel by an SUV and finished the up journey in about 16 hours. Trying a better combination of NH for the return journey using the prestigious NH-6, my luck was more miserable. It took me 22 hours ! Remember, the total time spend for taking some rest for each of the journey was not more than 2 hours ! Had the roads be of any reasonable standard, I could have accomplished my travel easily as suggested by Google ! But then Google doesnot maintain the Indian roads !

[Incidentally, this site Map my India is more practical. They had assessed the road conditions much more practically and predicted the time of travel at about 17 hours!]

These National Highways of India are only in the maps and physically they are just some barren spaces with some signs of paving by asphalt or concrete some time earlier for most of the stretches. These NHs of India pass through some regions which are geographically endowed with good natural beauty and not overcrowded. Perhaps these green regions actually showcase the natural abundance of India ! Had I been responsible for the administration of these highways, I would have seen that these highways are maintained properly always to make my fellow citizen take pride in the country. But thats' only a dream !

But I keep wondering. How can those fellows, who are entrusted with the upkeep of these National Highways which ought to be the symbols of pride for all Indians, can ever disregard their responsibilities to such an extent that they keep these highways a national disgrace ?

There are some more things I observed about these so-called national infrastructure roads called national highways which are obviously maintained so shabbily as national disgraces.

In most places, there are no sign boards. Even if they are there, they do not follow any standards. Especially of importance is the sign boards at the junctions of two or more roads. Sign boards to give proper direction to the motorists are practically absent. If you think that the GPRS navigation will help you, perhaps it could, provided the signals reach you properly. Again do not expect, the local people would be in a position to guide you always. If you take the wrong route, it could turn out to be hundreds of kilometers of extra travel. There are chances of you getting even totally lost for hours.

I noticed some sign boards that declare the same road differently with different NH numbering. Enough for a motorist who travel using the maps to get confused and lost !

If your car develops a snag, it could be the worst situation. There are no known help in the near vicinity. Neither are there any highway patrols who are entrusted to help the motorists. That is again the Indian way of managing things in this context.

I was feeling empathetic to those hundreds of drivers who drive their heavily loaded trucks through these routes, day in and day out, helping the rest of India with the supplies. Their vehicles are always at the risk of going out of balance in these poorly maintained national highways of India. They are also at the risk of untimely breakdowns due to the uneven road surfaces for such long stretches in hundreds of kilometers. Imagine the truck owners spending such huge sums for their vehicles whose life span gets shortened by a few years just because of these roads! Imagine the more fuel they spend on the roads for transporting the goods as the roads are not energy efficient !

The roads are no private property in India. The state and central governments are the sole custodians and managers of the roads. I need not to stress then who is to be blamed for this national shame.

A few decades ago, I remember the Indian roads in a much better condition than now. There were not toll tax collectors at every 15-20 kilometers as the road managers of India has made it to happen in some of the trunk routes now.

The road maintenance was entrusted to the Public Works Department (PWD) of either the state or the central governments. The roads prominently displayed the concerned PWD officer who was in charge of the particular section of the road concerned. At least the people could have known the fellow actually responsible for maintaining that part of the road. If you travel by road, you could see hundreds of workers keep working to maintain the roads. The PWD authorities kept surveying the road conditions regularly and kept doing things on a war footing that no part of the road is in such a shamefully shabby situation.

I do not know what has happened to the Indian PWD now. I do not have any idea about the authority or authorities who are responsible for maintaining the roads and NHs of India now.

The governments keep taxing the new vehicles substantially in the name of road tax. Then some short segments of  roads with heavy traffic are auctioned for maintenance by private players who are allowed to tax the vehicles for decades making much more money than they had spend in making and maintaining those roads. It is a disgrace that the authorities have allowed such privatisation of roads in some of the roads, that too in small patches that pass through the cities, just as the portion of NH-6 which passes through the city of Bhilai forcing even the local populace to pay on a daily basis to use these roads for routine commuting.

Regrettably, Indians have long forgotten to protest. Because they know that their protests no longer carry any weights. They also do not know with whom they should make their complaints or register their protests. The ruling political parties and the opposition political parties are all at par in understanding or not understanding the woes of the people. Neither they, nor those at important positions seem to be ignorant on fixing the responsibility for such sad state of affairs.

Then comes the so-called fourth estate of democracy, the media. In India, the major part of media space and time is devoted to reports of mudslinging and other mundane things not of any value to the people or the country. They prefer to do little research and provide any concrete suggestions. Media also fail miserably in highlighting the actual cause of failure of the governmental systems. They do not feel it comfortable to get to the root cause of the problems by actual pondering about an issue of national importance.

Had they been responsible, their space and time would have been filled with the stories of success, failures and other related matters concerning various developmental aspects of the country including such major issues such as about the roads and highways. There would have been regular media follow ups on such issues. Unfortunately the noted journalists of the country are paid for being in the company of noted politicians always to report and make commentaries on what they want to utter publicly, even when their private opinions could be just the opposite. I found people no more are interested in reading or listening to these stereotyped media reports. Unless the media takes up things responsibly, their days in the future might be numbered !

Are we a nation of wide mouth talkers with absolutely no regard to what we talk?

Are we a nation not interested in actions any more ?

Is it possible to create roads, bridges and other major infrastructure only by issuing plans and policies and doing nothing for their implementation?

Will it be possible to implement any project in time when experienced people are in short supply to do such activities?

Would it be possible to develop people of the right experience and expertise when there are long spells of non-activity ?

Would it be possible to do all these things just by wishful thinking without actual planning and plan implementation ?

Incidentally, I read in the news papers that the Bihar government has realized that their projects are not getting shape because they do not have experienced engineers to make the project proposals properly, including the basic engineering.

Similarly the Jharkhand government has an acute shortage of experienced clerical staff to make the reports typed in order and maintain the files properly.

If that is so, the situation in other states would be no different.

What has happened to all our responsible departments like the PWD and their experienced engineers?

Who butchered those departments ? Who butchered the expertize of India that the independent India kept acquiring all those initial years ?

Any answers ?

Any suggestions ?

Would it be Ever Possible for Ranchi to be in the Tourist Map of India ?

It is almost going to be two years that I made Ranchi, the capital city of Jharkhand my temporary home after having spend just over three decades in the steel city of Bhilai near Raipur, the capital city of Chhattisgarh.

The major part of my life so far has been outside my home state, Kerala, the small south Indian state on the Malabar Coast of the Indian sub continent.

All these states have immense potential for developing tourism, the only mechanism by which human beings can be trained to reduce suspicion and animosity against each other.

My home state Kerala has done it in the last couple of decades. Keralites should be thankful to all those administrators, businessmen and individuals who contributed to make it possible. Kudos to the one who invented the phrase ' God's own country ' for Kerala as a tourism promotion caption for official Kerala Tourism.

Seeing the success of Kerala in Tourism, I remember the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh trying to do some thing serious for his state and his enthusiasm in getting the IAS officer responsible for managing Kerala Tourism in the formative years on deputation to his state.

Though Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have much potential for tourism, unlike Kerala they have got much constraints for making tourism a significant thing. The major  constraint is  their wider land area making the travel distances much greater between places as compared to Kerala and the lack of security on the roads due to the recent resurgence of various militant political groups at war with the government machinery. The other constraint would be perhaps the shortage of leadership both in the government and the private sector to make any significant momentum so that the activities could be raised above the threshold of initial inertia. 

However, Ranchi has a potential for rapid growth in tourism sector, provided the government is a bit more pro-active. The state government of Jharkhand of late has started acting, as can be seen from the official website of the Jharkhand tourism department,  but what they need to do initially should be more to attract people to the state. Both domestic and foreign tourists should feel comfortable to visit the state without hassles or fear.

Jharkhand's capital, Ranchi has the reputation of being known as a ' hill station' though there are no high hills or mountains in the near vicinity. This designation perhaps came from the fact that it is an elevated region with a mean elevation at 650 M from sea level as compared to the level of 300 M for the adjoining regions. Due to this there are a number of water falls within comfortable driving distances from Ranchi, making it to be known as the city of waterfalls.

I could visit  Hundroo Falls, Johnah Falls, Sita Falls, Dasham Falls, etc which are within a radius of about 30 km from Ranchi so far. Of these, Dasham Falls, Hundroo and Johnah are really impressive. The facilities that are created by the Jharkhand tourism department are very good. The authorities, of late has taken special attention to make good roads to these sites.

 A View of Hundru Falls Ranchi

A View of Jonha Falls Ranchi

A Distant View of Sita Falls Ranchi

A few months ago I got introduced to one Mr P K Choudhury, an enterprising business man from Ranchi, who has a vision to transform this city to tap its tourism potential to the fullest in the coming years. He has been successful to get some support from the state government. Mr Choudhury is an engineer by profession and he has now made his Wheels Travels of Ranchi  with the Jharkhand State Tourism Development Corporation in providing tourism packages to tourists who wish to enjoy exotic nature in and around Ranchi. [A small account of my first attempt to explore a few attractive tourism spots around Ranchi with the help of Mr Choudhury can be read online here. I have also provided some photographs taken during this trip and also the mobile phone number of Mr Choudhury here.]

I thought of writing this blog today due to a call made by Mr Choudhury yesterday. He wanted some suggestions for celebrating World Tourism Day 2012 in Ranchi on the 27th September together with the inaugural ceremony at the global level to be held at Maspalomas, Spain under the auspices of the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). The theme for this year's WTO deliberations incidentally is : Tourism & Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development. To be frank, I do not understand much about the link between tourism and sustainable energy, but I do feel that energy plays a key role in developing tourism. Because, the major cost in tourism is cost of travel and travel requires energy, that too petroleum based energy, for the time being.

Mr Choudhury should think of organizing a seminar in Ranchi Hotel where people could talk on this theme for half a day and spend the rest of the time on a monsoon trip to one or two waterfalls near ranchi when the streams are at their  full majesty . The bureaucrats from the government and other top officials from the corporates could be called in as delegates to the seminar as well as the short monsoon trip to the nearby falls. Alternatively he should think of organizing drawing and debate competitions for the school children taking the help from some of the reputed schools of Ranchi on this year's theme as mooted by UNWTO.

Though Ranchi has a reasonably good airport , good railway stations and bus stations, the connectivity of Ranchi with the rest of India is not so good. Flights do operate between Kolkatta, Delhi and Mumbai, but the fares are exhorbitantly high for domestic tourists to take advantage. Besides, there are no same day connecting flights from Kolkatta or Delhi for the Ranchi travellers to cities like Trivandrum or Chennai or even the adjoining state capital, Raipur or to the central India's hub city , Nagpur.

Now take the example of the rail connectivity. To the south there is a daily train to Kerala running via Chennai. This train is practically useless for those who wish to use it for travel between Ranchi and Kerala. Firstly, all tickets on this train gets booked by those from East India to travel to reputed hospitals in Tamil Nadu, like the Christian Medical College, Vellore, near Chennai. This train runs practically empty between Chennai and Kerala as the Kerala travellers seldom get their reservations. The railway authorities should think of running daily trains from Jharkhand to Katpadi and make the Kerala train extend upto Trivandrum with enhanced quota of reservations to those travelling beyond Tamil Nadu. 

The roads are improving in Jharkhand. However, the interstate travel on road is still not a good proposition due to security concerns. The state government should encourage bus operators to operate more and more buses connecting Ranchi with cities like Raipur, Kolkatta, Patna, Bhubaneshwar, Rourkela, Bilaspur, Varanasi, Kanpur, Allahabad, etc. This should be done with the co-operation of the neighbouring states and it should be ensured that the police and other authorities unnecessarily create problems to the bus operators or the passengers. If needed, the state government should consider substantial road tax concessions to the operators till the traffic gains momentum. 

The state can think of setting up a police wing exclusively for security of passengers on road and helping travellers who might get entrapped on road due to vehicle breakdowns, etc. This is very much needed to enhance the confidence of tourists in the state considering the scenario as of now.

Somebody connected to the hotel industry in Ranchi told me recently that the occupancy rate in hotels in Ranchi are too low that they are not getting even the breakeven returns. This is mainly because of the number of rooms increasing many fold in recent years and the demands not rising accordingly. For tourism to flourish, the increase in good hotel rooms is a positive thing. However, getting use of those facilities is another thing. The tourism department needs to be more proactive. It is most unfortunate that a Google search on Ranchi tourism returns with little useful information. Besides, there are no good website which provides all the important information, guidance and tour package that a tourist, both domestic and foreign, looks for. 

There could be thousands of people from Ranchi and Jharkhand who are working either abroad or in other Indian cities. They should come forward and discuss about this issue of making their beautiful state a desirable destination not only for them but also for all others from the rest of India and the world.

May I request them to offer their valuable suggestions, so that people like Mr Choudhury and those in the state government could get proper directions to plan the policies and the actions ?

Those who have cherished memories of Ranchi or Jharkhand tour or travel may think of sharing those with their tips, guidance and information on important tourist spots for helping others.

Kerala tourism people may think of diverting some of their tourists to this part through properly designed packages.

Join hands to promote tourism- the only preferrable mechanism to propagate universal love and appreciation of nature and our accomplishments !

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ] 

Some Wishful Thoughts On Public Road Transport System of India !

India's has nearly 4.5 million kilometers of road of which nearly half is paved. With 0.66 km of road for every square kilometer of area on the average, the road density is comparable or a bit higher than that of USA and pretty more than China, Brazil, etc.

But when compared to the road density with respect to population, India's performance is pretty poor. It has just about 4 km of road for 1000 people and if the paved roads are only taken it reduces to still lower at 0.07 km of road per thousand people which is one of the lowest in the world. The developed nations on the other hand have a paved road density to the tune of 15-20 km per thousand people.

[For more insight you may read the wikipedia article on Indian Road Network ]

Some of the areas where India performed lower than other nations in the world are literacy, health, road transport. Had the country concentrated in building and maintaining roads right from the time it became a republic, it could have achieved much progress in per capita GDP than what is achieved now at about $ 3,500. In comparison, USA's per capita GDP stands higher than $47,000.

The statistics clearly indicates that India has a huge potential with regard to road transportation and per capita GDP.

From the view point of educated Indian citizens, both the road networks and the public road transport systems in India are both not some to be proud of.

Some states and regions have better public road transport systems as compared to the others. Both the central government and the state governments are equally responsible for the good and bad show in road networks and public road transport systems in this country.

Most regrettably, the state governments have done pretty little in the past years to develop interstate public road transport systems.

While many states have good internal bus services within the states the inter state administrative coordination is extremely poor in this context. Many cities located geographically closer and separated by a state border do not have good public road transport facilities connecting them.

For example consider the Nagpur which is in central India in the state of Maharashtra and the cities like Durg, Bhilai and Raipur which are in Chhattisgarh. All these cities lie on the Grand Trunk Road connecting Mumbai and Kolkatta which is now National Highway No.6. Most regrettably the state governments in the past decades did not encourage public transport systems to connect these cities causing the border area neglected in development and transforming in to a Naxallite infected region. The interstate bureaucratic and political rivalry or non cooperation is such that these states do not even allow railway systems also to connect these cross border cities ! The citizens conveniences are totally neglected here and it continues for the past many decades.

Me and many of my colleagues used to travel the 265 km stretch of National Highway connecting Durg and Nagpur by car due to the pathetically low availability of public transport even after having a good road and railway system in existence from the British Raj. We used to curse the hopeless political and bureaucratic administrators responsible for this poor state of affairs. Even after three decades, things have not improved much in this sector !

I remember an incident in this connection which happened nearly two decades ago. I was travelling from Delhi to Raipur by Indian Airlines, the public monopoly on air travel at that time. There were some foreigners too in the flight which included a high power Malaysian delegation on a quick visit to Bhilai Steel Plant to finalize a big steel purchase deal. Due to some reason the flight got terminated at Nagpur some time in the evening at around 6.00 p.m. The Indian Airlines was notorious for such things.

Remember at that time there was no train or bus for us to travel from Nagpur to Durg which is about 50 km ahead of Raipur airport. The earliest train service was in the morning next day.

Some how the airline management by about 9.0 PM arranged a private bus for us to travel to Raipur side. The big deal was to get the Road Permit for the bus to cross the border between Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh (present Chhattisgarh was part of Madhya Pradesh state at that time). Finally by high levels talks between the airline management and the state authorities they got the permit and the Raipur bound air passengers were packed in the bus which was now 'deemed' as a 'terra-plane' !

We were all tired and soon were sleeping in the most uncomfortable way on the seats of the bus that was so arranged for our night travel. Some time midnight, I woke up to see that the bus was not moving, but stopped somewhere. Soon my co-passenger, a business man from Raipur also got up. It took us a few minutes to realize that the driver and his assistant were not on the bus. So we two got down and walked a bit in the night towards a place where there was some light. We traced our driver there. It was a police check post on the border and the police officer there, apparently drunk, was questioning the poor driver menacingly about his illegal activity of trying to cross the border on his bus with no regular permit for travel. The poor chap was trying to explain the permit that he had with him issued by a high authority such as the Nagpur collector and the officer was in no mood to listen !

Slowly all the passengers including the foreigners alighted and came to the check post station. We took up the issue with the officer. Perhaps seeing all the 'high profile' air travellers there the fellow finally agreed to allow us to travel on the condition that the driver would report to him ( perhaps to settle his cut of bribe money !) while he returns.

I remember the Malaysian delegation asking us about the type of authority that we have in India. Their simple doubt was if a lower official is not going to give regard to the order of a higher authority like in this case, how can they ensure a smooth movement of their consignment of steel from Bhilai ? We did not have an answer.

Perhaps the Malaysians had decided not to purchase steel from India. I do not know.

There are umpteen examples of this kind one can see in India. The borders of the states are manned by such unpolished policemen and state tax men that it is not advisable for any one to travel in the Indian roads, especially involving interstate border crossings.

Because the authorities do not encourage interstate bus travel, the only kind of travel that exist between these sections are trucks and few private car travellers taking the risk of travel. The state borders due to this neglect by the concerned state governments are therefore areas of the underworld or antisocial bastions.

In this context, I remember a private bus operator talking to me regarding the hurdles they have to face in getting interstate bus travel operator permits. On the other hand many state governments have shirked their responsibilities of running public sector state road transport corporations by closing those down because of their inability in managing those corporations properly under public rules and regulations.

Interstate bus travel is pretty good in the northern states bordering the National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi. Hence, in this part of the country, the border areas are quite developed. It is pretty easy for a common man to travel from Delhi to neighboring cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur, Agra, etc by good buses.

Those decision makers in other states are like the ones trying to kill the goose which laid golden eggs!

If India got better road networks and road transport facilities which takes care of both intra and inter state road travel both by public and private travel systems, its economy would boost like any thing and the present naxal menace that afflicts some states would vanish.

Instead of becoming desolate regions the state borders will flourish with economic activities.

The affluent Indians with their most modern cars would dare to venture out with their machines exploring their country instead of those simply idling in their urban homes as show pieces !

Road side motels and resorts would flourish providing employment opportunities and comforts to millions of Indians rather than closing down like those ambitiously started by business groups like the Reliance in the recent past.

Living in India would be pleasure and not a pain as it is now.

Indians would be proud of their homeland and would not curse their political leaders and faceless bureaucrats like they do now.

For all that to happen what they need is good leaders with what is called 'vision' at the key positions. Because it is the decisions that matters. Implementation is not at all difficult. But in this country decision to move a mountain takes more time than to actually doing the work of moving the mountain.

Decision making in India are marred by various kinds of 'influences'. Good decisions are difficult to get through as some one will oppose it or does not allow it to happen. It is as if Satan influencing their minds ! 

It appears that they have to wait for some more generations. Wait till such times that their governments both at the states and the centre are occupied by fresh and saner minds who have ideas and wisdom to tap the potentials of this country for the overall benefit of its citizens !

In any case people like me have to only wish for the good things to happen in this country which in the common analysis are not that difficult to achieve !

Just like this Public Road Transport system of India !

[Read more on this issue in this blog : Infrastructure in India : Talking Much and Doing Nothing ! ]

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ]