I often travel to parts of Haryana and Punjab as part of my sales job and the experiences that i have been having in the past two years have been quite memorable. In 2006, the flyover from gurgaon to dhaula kuan was under construction and the traffic had to go from the only narrow roads available through mahipalpur. It was a task in itself to travel from delhi to gurgaon or vice verse. If one lived in gurgaon and had to catch a flight at the Indira Gandhi National Airport, one must leave at least two hours in advance. Sometime in 2007, the flyover was complete and it was opened to public. When the flyover opened, I had shifted to Mumbai already and hence I got a flavour of this wonderful highway only after my return to Gurgaon in late 2007. The journey from Gurgaon to Dhaula Kuan in Delhi was reduced from 2 hours to mere 30 minutes (or less) now. I had to catch a flight and from my house in Sector 45 in Gurgaon, I reached Airport in just 20 minutes and my joy knew no bounds. The journey to Delhi also became much easier. Today I can reach the new delhi railway station in about 30-40 minutes in early morning from gurgaon and that it mostly because of the wonderful highway built in air.
I normally travel to Haryana by a taxi and till recently it was a pain to cross Panipat. The place has very narrow roads with shops on both sides of the roads. The shops accentuate the traffic and the auto-rickshaws and state buses completely bring the road to a halt. Going from Gurgaon to Karnal via Delhi, Sonepat and Panipat meant at least 5-6 hours. Then the flyover over Panipat was completed sometime in 2008 and the journey has become at least a couple of hours less. Barring the internal traffic of Delhi, the journey from Gurgaon to Karnal is today reduced to 4 hours and sometimes even 3.5 hours.
These roads have just not eased travel for personal purposes, but mostly they ave helped the various businesses grow because of the faster transportation of goods. Punjab and Haryana anyways fare better than rest of the northern (and other Indian) states in terms of per capita income and the general health of trade and business. But these roads have helped Punjab and Haryana get connected with Delhi on a more regular basis and has increased trading and other businesses tremendously.
The roads of Punjab are also one of the good roads one sees. Especially those connecting villages to the main cities. Even the journey through a state bus is more comfortable than a car journey from Gaya to Patna in Bihar. Somewhere, the poor condition of Bihar has also to do with the bad roads. The mode of transport is so poor that most of the journeys are at least 12 hours long with narrow roads and narrower bridges in the way. As if the width of the roads was not a problem big enough that the condition of the road surface is also equally bad. The connectivity to the nearest Metropolitan Kolkata is an a dilapidated state and one hardly finds four lanes or six lanes flyovers and highways in the way. UP is no different, though I have heard that some roads have become really nice in recent past, especially the ones between Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Lucknow and Agra.
The development of good roads with defined lanes and sufficient flyovers to avoid congestion is a key to fast economic progress and Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat are a testimony to that. Hilly areas have been struggling mostly because of this, though the condition of roads in Himachal and Jammu has improved a bit while Uttaranchal shares the fate of UP. Kashmir though is lucky to have most of its roads made by BRO (Border Roads Organisations) which has made some of the finest roads near North Kashmir and Leh-Ladakh. The NHAI has also launched various projects and the half-way-through Golden quadrilateral is a dream come true for India. I sincerely wish that the overly politicised areas of UP and Bihar where caste comes before education and one's district is more important than one's source of income, only the good connectivity of wide-laned roads can bring the waves of change, first on an economic level and later on a social level. The state government must focus on building good rural roads and connecting them to the district towns on well connected and well maintained pucca road. There is also a need to make river bridges over Ganga and Kosi and this time wider ones with six or eight lanes. The one that was completed in Bhagalpur has improved the connectivity of the nearby villages and small towns to Bhagalpur immensely. But then it took 10-15 years to be completed and such speed of action is not desirable.
The NHAI and BRO are the organisations that are know for faster and efficient execution of plans, but it is the state road construction bodies which need to break the shackles of bureaucracy and start functioning like a real estate developer focusing mostly on better rural roads and flyover over major state highways. Well, I am hopeful that such thoughts must have crossed the people seated at the decisive positions and they will act promptly to show India a path of fast paced progress.
