Even as the BJP-led government in Goa unveiled plans for a mammoth flyover-cum-bridge - the third across the river Mandovi at a cost of Rs 470 crore - questions have been raised about the need and necessity for such a huge investment. Gerard D’Souza reports
“Constructions like these are icons of the past. One day school students will be brought here to see these structures, just as tourists go to see the Taj Mahal. I would rather if the government had used this money to build toilets in municipal schools,” Rediff.com founder Ajit Balakrishnan said, pointing to a picture of the Bandra Worli sea-link.
He was speaking here in Goa at the 2013 edition of the D D Kosambi ‘Festival of Ideas’ on the subject ‘Preparing for the Information Age.’
In the lecture, Balakrishnan predicted that the ‘concrete infrastructure that supports our lives today will soon be dissolved by technology.’
“The factory was an invention of the industrial revolution, where all the infrastructure is in one place to make it efficient. Todays schools, hospitals and courts, bridges and roads are all in factory like settings that require large concrete infrastructure. Today the whole concept is being questioned,” Balakrishnan said.
Barely has a year passed since Balakrishnan delivered his lecture at the Kala Academy. It does not seem to have made any difference to the way the government thinks and acts.
In a world where classrooms and board rooms are increasingly going online, with court rooms expected to follow suit, and companies increasingly allowing employees to work from home, is it worth investing Rs 470-crore in a bridge? Another Taj Mahal of tomorrow?
But then, there is one aspect Balakrishnan obviously did not factor in. And that is - mega projects mean mega contracts, which in turn means an opportunity for mega spin-offs for politicians.
The Bandra Worli sea-link is an excellent example.
The daily traffic volume on this six-kilometre, predominantly cable-stayed bridge, has dropped by over 11% and keeps falling. From 45,952 vehicles in 2011-12 to 40,808 in 2012-13. Over four years from 2009 to 2013, the daily vehicle count has dropped by over 16%.
Built at a cost of Rs 1634 crore, the sea link has proven to be a dud with lesser and lesser traffic going on it each day. Planners have, however, blamed this on the high toll. But then, the toll figure must have been calculated at the time of planning itself. And high tolls for such privately built-and-operated projects have already become a highly contentious issue. Most people believe the whole process is a scam.
But that’s not the only problem.
“The problem in Goa is, roads become wider but the bottlenecks remain as it is. It’s actually useless making roads wider,” Gilbert Mendes a daily traveller to and from the city of Panaji said.
“Bangalore is a prime example,” adds another commuter Abhijeet Arondekar, both taking part in an animated discussion that ensued over social networking sites after the announcement of the third Mandovi bridge.
Widening roads, creating flyovers add to the problem
Both both Bangalore and Mumbai have splurged on flyovers, yet their traffic remains as bad as ever. In either city, travelling a distance of 15 to 20 kilometres, on an average, takes more than an hour.
The Goa government itself has acknowledged this, with Sanjit Rodrigues the managing director of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, pitching for ‘NoMoZos’ (Non Motorized Zones ) in Panaji to demarcate a central business district for the capital city.
“You have seen what has happened to Panaji, which earlier had broad footpaths. You reduced the footpaths to allow for parking and now what has resulted is double parking while the traffic problem remains the same,” Rodrigues said at a presentation delivered at the Central Library building.
Interestingly, Rodrigues was arguing against the use of cars and pitching for a system of efficient public transport for Panaji where people could park their cars at the entrance of the city and use public transport for commuting within.
“Because if there’s anything that traffic engineers have discovered in the last few decades it’s that you can’t build your way out of congestion. It’s the roads themselves that cause traffic,” author Adam Mann argued in a article in Wired.com.
A study in the US found that the amount of new roads built led to a proportional increase in traffic.
“If a city had increased its road capacity by 10 percent between 1980 and 1990, then the amount of driving in that city went up by 10 percent. If the amount of roads in the same city then went up by 11 percent between 1990 and 2000, the total number of miles driven also went up by 11 percent. It’s like the two figures were moving in perfect lockstep, changing at the same exact rate,” the study found.
“Making driving easier also means that people take more trips in the car than they otherwise would,” the study found.
However not everyone agrees that the new bridge is not needed.
“The Konkan railway was opposed tooth and nail. We heard the same criticism for the senior citizen pension when it was being introduced. Today it is a roaring success and well received by the elderly. It takes time for some people to visualise the usefulness of things. They will understand only when things actually start working for them,” Mayuresh Khaunte has argued.
Others have questioned the government’s logic going ahead with the building of a bridge when the Zuari bridge and other bridges are a more pressing need in the state.
Farmer’s rights activist Sidharth Karapurkar questioned the need for the third Mandovi bridge when people in Talpona in rural Canacona have been deprived of a much needed one for decades.
“Right now, a bridge across Talpona is a dire necessity, but we hear the government is bulldozing its way with the controversial Shiroda-Rachol bridge. Similarly, when a second bridge across River Zuari is a necessity given the short life span of the existing one, the government has accorded priority to a third bridge over Mandovi,” he said accusing the government of giving the rural citizens of the state short shrift. The issue now is - will more bridges solve the problem, or create additional problems ? Or, should the funds be spent elsewhere to create better public transport, sanitation, etc.
The contentious bridge
The third Mandovi bridge, that is set to come up in the middle of the two existing bridges, is being built by Larsen and Toubro. It will be a four lane, cable-stayed bridge, with two flyovers on both sides, for a cost of Rs 406 crore, while the total cost of the project is expected to be Rs 470 crore.
The 2.2 kilometer long bridge would cover 600 metres of Mandovi river basin. The bridge would be 15 metres above the existing twin bridges over Mandovi River and would be illuminated with LED lights at night.
The first flyover will start near Pundalik Nagar junction at Porvorim and end near the Merces junction. Another flyover arising from the Merces-Old Goa bypass road will join the Mandovi bridge for traffic from Ponda to go towards Margao. Construction is expected to start after the monsoons and will complete in 24 months, if all goes according to plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment