A nicely written by rather lengthy article (read 7 pages) in NY Times details how India is building its roads slowly. The British concentrated on building the Rail network in India (which I must admit, they did very well – seeing the extremely vast system that is present today – read the wiki page). The last time, roads were buit in such a grand scale was ages ago – when Sher Shah Suri built the Grand Trunk Road (GT Road). The previous goverment in India, led by Vajpayee of the BJP party had kick started this project of building a vast highway network. This project was to connect the 4 large metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras), and Kolkata (Calcutta) by 4-lane and 6-lane super highways. Governments have changed, but thankfully, most of the projects are still going on. This was mainly because Vajpayee had established an autonomous body to oversee this project. I personally have been some stretches of this road network – and I should say, it is a pleasure to drive on these roads.
I do not totally agree to some of the points made in the article, but then it is written by an observer/reporter who spent one month in India and wrote the article. I would excuse and forgive him, for the reason, that, he only wrote what he observed.
Read the full article here.