India Developing, but still a long way to go

[IndoCarib]

Chennai metro U/C

 

[patentneer]

Sourcing locally should always be a priority, unless local manufacturers are not capable of producing coaches up to the standards required. I see no evidence that is the case.

Of course, as mentioned by another member, Reliance received financing from Chinese banks for this project. If true, then maybe Reliance didn't have a choice. Still, I think the Indian government should have demanded local products regardless.

^^

The govt. don't specify jack.

'Govt.', or a few select mgmt. group, is a toy in the hands of big biz., mediated by consulting firms, specially the top 5-10.

So it's not the govt., but the mgmt. consultant who gets a cut/paste of the ... say Euro chunnel project. Or Burj Dubai. Or Hong Kong Airport or Singapore land reclamation ans casino. This is why 'national' projects liek Olympics, Commonwealth, defence projects, Joint Defence Exercises are so important to mgmt. firms because said things are mostly a loot of public money.

The consultants pitch said cut/paste projects with slight local modifications and pitch the projects to their buddy politicos. Public sentiment is hijacked and the OEM starts pays for a media spin, bribe and favours campaign. Contractors jump in. Once the idea gains traction, public projects turn into a money spinner.

Otherwise, Indian PPP projects have my approval because pvt. co.'s are brutal and better at managing critics and the NIMBY crowd, often motivated re: vested interest/opposition party.

 

[TheGujju]

Hyderabad metro is being built by L&T in PPP mode.

If one reads between the lines, PPP is what the govt. calls old school Thatcherism, or simply put - Privatisation.

Further, India knows trains and rails. IR has built an eco-system of schools, institutes, research and design and factories.

India's huge goods train system, most passenger trains and the majority of related systems like loco engines are Indian made, much with foreign collaboration. India has no problem learning and collaborating with Global majors so it follows that over the past 3-5 decades they have built up a metro rail knowledge base, contractor, HR databses and related eco-systems like design and training colleges.

So not only does Hyderabad historically have high standards by itself, it's 'private' metro is being built by India's top 10 reputable construction house L&T. L&T will naturally leverage Global and local resources together to maximise optimality.

I just hope L&T puts in 2double entry/exit, side open exit and platforms. Simple enough. All public train and metro systems in India should be retrofitted with double entry/exit platforms, escalators and travelators for the long platforms.

Therefore I think it will be among the best.

Hmmm.. Well it is true that most rail equipment in India is actually made in India. That in itself is not the reason for Hyd metro to become top notch. Our rail infra is not exactly known to be top quality you know . In fact most rail equipment and engines manufactured in India is crappy at best me thinks. It will be hard for this project to beat even Delhi Metro, let alone stand out internationally. L&T is perhaps a big plus point for this project. That is one construction firm that has earned my eternal respect. Let us wait and see what happens.

 

[HariPrasad]

Delhi

When I see the photos of Bridges in Other cities and Surat, I see a difference. In surat Bridges are painted after construction. You won't see them like what you see in this picture.

 

[punjabiboy]

Crescent Lake Homes, Chennai
Tata Housing Project ..More information checkout website for latest update construction progress

 

[punjabiboy]

The Promont, Bengaluru
Tata Housing Project ..More information checkout website for latest update construction progress

 

[punjabiboy]

India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO)

The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) Project is a multi-institutional effort aimed at building a world-class underground laboratory with a rock cover of approx.1200 m for non-accelerator based high energy and nuclear physics research in India.

The project includes
(a) construction of an underground laboratory and associated surface facilities at Pottipuram in Bodi West hills of Theni District of Tamil Nadu,
(b) construction of a Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector for studding neutrinos, consisting of 50000 tons of magnetized iron plates arranged in stacks with gaps in between where Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) would be inserted as active detectors, the total number of 2m X 2m RPCs being around 29000, and
(c) setting up of National Centre for High Energy Physics at Madurai, for the operation and maintenance of the underground laboratory, human resource development and detector R&D along with its applications. The underground laboratory, consisting of a large cavern of size 132m X 26m X 20m and several smaller caverns, will be accessed by a 2100 m long and 7.5 m wide tunnel.

INO

 

[Brahmos_2]

Kochi

 

[Abingdonboy]

I'm only aware of Western financing for certain infrastructure projects in China. Not sure what Western/Japanese infrastructure companies you are talking about. Could you provide some examples of these companies building infrastructure in China?

Nice!

Why didn't the Indian government demand that private firms source only from domestic factories as a pre-condition for winning the contract?

Compare the Mumbai metro's rolling stock (from China) and the rolling stock of the Delhi,Bangalore, Chennai etc metros (from Germany and other Western nations) and you'll get your answer.

No Indian pvt company is at the requisite level right now, maybe in a decade or so and the likes of Bombardier and Siemens are moving huge amounts of their capacity to India and this making India an exporter of such rolling stock to third parties.


No one is trying to claim India has emerged of is devloped- still a LONG way to go .

 

[Abingdonboy]

Bharat Earth Movers Ltd.(BEML) a purely Indian company manufacture metro coaches in India. This BEML coaches of Bangalore Metro.

IIRC this rolling stock is a Mistubishi product built under licence with ToT in India by BEML.


There is still no private or public entity in INdia designing and producing such high-quality metro rolling stock.


However as this is a VERY new segment for sure Indian firms will join the fray in due course.

 

[Brahmos_2]

Mumbai

 

[patentneer]

Compare the Mumbai metro's rolling stock (from China) and the rolling stock of the Delhi,Bangalore, Chennai etc metros (from Germany and other Western nations) and you'll get your answer.

No Indian pvt company is at the requisite level right now, maybe in a decade or so and the likes of Bombardier and Siemens are moving huge amounts of their capacity to India and this making India an exporter of such rolling stock to third parties.


No one is trying to claim India has emerged of is devloped- still a LONG way to go .

^^

I wonder when we can change the title to

• India Developing But NOT THAT LONG To Go !

Re: bogie building, if they can do this below in 2009, they can do metro bogies. Matter of time, policy opportunity, priorities, whatever:

I'm thinking howzzat re: ex-Prez.'s Kalam's 2020 deadline?

For eg., by 2020 India will have a dozen super-talls and fab. public transport in it's mega cities.

Ok, give it a few more yrs. It's really do-able you know. Sure there'll be isolated things, poverty and incidents and such; but one can say that of the whole world. Who'd have thought of Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and they are still lying about it.

 

[Abingdonboy]

[/U][/I][/B]
^^

I wonder when we can change the title to

• India Developing But NOT THAT LONG To Go !

I'm thinking howzzat re: ex-Prez.'s Kalam's 2020 deadline?

For eg., by 2020 India will have a dozen super-talls and fab. public transport in it's mega cities.

Ok, give it a few more yrs. It's really do-able you know. Sure there'll be isolated things, poverty and incidents and such; but one can say that of the whole world. Who'd have thought of Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and they are still lying about it.

I think it all depends on how you look at it. I don't think many people outside or even inside India will consider India developed by 2020. Maybe by 2030-45.

I think a huge factor is poverty, once levels are below 15-20% India can be proud of itself and can be consider itself developed to an extent. The way things are going ie a year on year 1% reduction in poverty levels in India which should accelerate in coming years- in most of our lifetimes we can see reasonably low levels of poverty in India.

India will only be developed when literacy rates, life expectancy and per capita incomes increase dramatically.


Like I said- 2030-45 is a more more attainable level. 2 decades of 5-6%+ economic growth will see things go this way.

And sir it's not about the headline grabbing infra projects like super talls and metro projects in the mega cities. But about village level power, decent road connectivity wherever you go in India, higher Internet users per 1000 Indians, more university enrolments, improved healthcare for all, great infrastructure in tier 2 and 3 cities etc etc. Delhi,Mumbai, Bangalore and a few others by 2020-25 will be a world class cities by many counts but what about the rest of India? No one can get left behind in new India and here must be trickle down effects.

 

[patentneer]

Yer Majesty, if you allow it, the cities are THE problem.

The countryside is actually quite prosperous but ill balanced. I have travelled to the poorest Eastern UP, Bihar Rajasthan and Uttaranchal. Shockingly ok and getting richer fast. Soft and hard schemes like Narmada canal (world beater and largest) and Uiidai (id card), land reform bill to replace colonial land grab bill from 2 centuries ago etc. induce better governance etc.

When colonial city 'land grab' slums turn into 100 storey super-falls; India's arrived. FOr 50 yrs. India was all about village, village, garibi hatao, canals, Gandhi ashrams and things have changed. For eg., the poorest of the poor got kicked out to the ghettos of the cities. Better for the rural areas, better for the poor; but a nightmare for the city folks.

Cities in India, mostly colonial or Mughal leftovers, have been properly run down to the core. Slummed, ghettoized, garbaged.
Not true of the countryside. Therefore, fix the cities and youève fixed India to a large extent because cities have a radiant effect on the not so bad countryside. Problem with cities was that while rural property is established property, city properties were primarily and even today, owned by colonial masters and their satraps. Even today, a disappropriately large land bank is occupied by defence forces. Why does every large Indian city have a huge cantonment in the middle of the city?

If the primary threat is from the the western frontier, why not move the colonial cantonments to the western parts of the cities to protect them, just in case invaders come marching in .

So there are far more immense issues within the cities maybe equal to the countryside. But as I said, 2020, or 7-10 yrs. is enough time to fix the cities and finally India has money to do things to Global standards like infra.

All the new airports are better then their Global peers. Metro mass transits are of Global standards. Aadhar id scheme for the poor is better then itès Global peers, itès on the cloud and mobile enabled.

Except for river-linking and Gujarat dam, most mega projects are either almost done or well on their way like highways, corridor projects, mega ports, defence and passenger aircraft projects (underway) and I still give then 7-10 yrs.

Did we all sit back and clap at the DMIC Corridor project being on track, on budget and on time to go live BEFORE 2020. Now that's a mega-project. Underway, DMIC is building 24 new cities from scratch and many are under progress already! All the steel plants, mega refineries and mega factories like cars, bikes will be established 2020. It's all gravy after that- Think an Indian Jumbo jet, hyperplane, moon elevator or colonization, precision controlled Himalaya melting to un-lock extra water for the peak population bulge at that time (contentious like hell), underwater highway to the Gulf.

Let's just say I'm an optimist, why not .

 

[TheGujju]

Yer Majesty, if you allow it, the cities are THE problem.

The countryside is actually quite prosperous but ill balanced. I have travelled to the poorest Eastern UP, Bihar Rajasthan and Uttaranchal. Shockingly ok and getting richer fast. Soft and hard schemes like Narmada canal (world beater and largest) and Uiidai (id card), land reform bill to replace colonial land grab bill from 2 centuries ago etc. induce better governance etc.

When colonial city 'land grab' slums turn into 100 storey super-falls; India's arrived. FOr 50 yrs. India was all about village, village, garibi hatao, canals, Gandhi ashrams and things have changed. For eg., the poorest of the poor got kicked out to the ghettos of the cities. Better for the rural areas, better for the poor; but a nightmare for the city folks.

Cities in India, mostly colonial or Mughal leftovers, have been properly run down to the core. Slummed, ghettoized, garbaged.
Not true of the countryside. Therefore, fix the cities and youève fixed India to a large extent because cities have a radiant effect on the not so bad countryside. Problem with cities was that while rural property is established property, city properties were primarily and even today, owned by colonial masters and their satraps. Even today, a disappropriately large land bank is occupied by defence forces. Why does every large Indian city have a huge cantonment in the middle of the city?

If the primary threat is from the the western frontier, why not move the colonial cantonments to the western parts of the cities to protect them, just in case invaders come marching in .

So there are far more immense issues within the cities maybe equal to the countryside. But as I said, 2020, or 7-10 yrs. is enough time to fix the cities and finally India has money to do things to Global standards like infra.

All the new airports are better then their Global peers. Metro mass transits are of Global standards. Aadhar id scheme for the poor is better then itès Global peers, itès on the cloud and mobile enabled.

Except for river-linking and Gujarat dam, most mega projects are either almost done or well on their way like highways, corridor projects, mega ports, defence and passenger aircraft projects (underway) and I still give then 7-10 yrs.

Did we all sit back and clap at the DMIC Corridor project being on track, on budget and on time to go live BEFORE 2020. Now that's a mega-project. Underway, DMIC is building 24 new cities from scratch and many are under progress already! All the steel plants, mega refineries and mega factories like cars, bikes will be established 2020. It's all gravy after that- Think an Indian Jumbo jet, hyperplane, moon elevator or colonization, precision controlled Himalaya melting to un-lock extra water for the peak population bulge at that time (contentious like hell), underwater highway to the Gulf.

Let's just say I'm an optimist, why not .

Well all this does sound a tad bit optimistic actually. Not saying for one bit that this is impossible, but surely the odds are stacked against us. If history is teaching us a lesson then it is surely a harsh one. When the odds are stacked against us, more often than not we falter. Will we falter here, only time will say but unlike you I am a pessimist . To each his own me thinks, but yes the India that you are narrating is a dream I would love to watch come true. 2020 is still a long time away and many things can happen in just 6-7 years. I guess this is a wait and watch game.