Bhopal Notes-3: Crunch time for BRTS

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The Bhopal BRTS is increasingly coming in for criticism. In Bhopal Notes-2 I had written about a seemingly concerted effort by various departments, authorities and those who manage and run it to kill the System. Apparently, there no redemption is in sight. There has been no reaction from any of the authorities indicating that they are keen to salvage it. The System seems to be running in its own lackadaisical way – limping along with no perceptible improvement.

Apparently, the authorities concerned, too, are slowly giving up on it even as pressure is building up on them to allow school buses, mini buses, other sundry buses, fire-brigade and army vehicles to be allowed on the corridor. The crux of the suggestions that are being poured forth is that all heavy vehicles should be shoved on to the corridor, leaving the mixed lanes for cars and three and two wheelers. The argument goes that there is no logic in keeping 20-odd kilometres of corridor largely empty of buses when the mixed lanes experience frequent jams for want of adequate space. Admittedly, the number of four, three and two wheelers, taken together, is far greater than the number of buses plying in the corridor. On the other hand, buses that should be in the corridor are stabled on account of various administrative reasons

Recently two former chief secretaries have come out with their comments. While Sharad Chandra Beohar (a batch-mate of mine) has rejected the system outright saying it was wrong to have established the BRTS when all over the world the System has failed, Kripa Shankar Sharma has, inter alia, said that the System is failing because of absence of feeder services and concomitant infrastructure.

I do not know where Beohar got his information from. It is not quite correct to say all over the world the BRTS has failed. Actually, as far as I know it has been a success even in the backward regions of South America, South-East Asia, China, leave alone the advanced nations of the West. In fact, many advanced countries would like to have the System running in their respective countries. Failures, if at all, have been in India – Delhi and Bhopal are the shining examples. Ahmedabad, however, is a runaway success celebrating its fourth year. The reasons for the failure are basically the ‘cultural factors’. Up in the North of the country we do not want to change from our wayward ways and we do not try to curb our proclivity to disobey laws, rules and instructions. This seems to have got into our DNA. As a result, given the absence of even a modicum of governance, chaos results and then everyone passes on the blame to the changes that have been wrought – in this case the BRTS.

It would be interesting to ascertain from those who are condemning the BRTS as the cause of frequent jams how many of them have ever paid heed to the ‘rules of the roads’ and displayed the ‘etiquettes” while using public road-space? One can see two wheelers or even four wheelers desperately trying to get past the next vehicle throwing all the rules to winds as if there is no tomorrow. And, even 70 years after independence we have not been able to teach the truck or heavy vehicle drivers not to take to the fast lane and stick to it for all their worth regardless of the pace at which they crawl. What have our driving schools and licensing authorities or traffic policemen been up to? One can venture to opine that most of the jams are the makings of our unruly, disorderly and impatient ways that have largely gone unchecked.

If we went by what Beohar and others suggest there is likelihood of more frequent jams in the narrow corridor. Besides, in that event it would cease to be BRTS as “rapidity”, the essence of the System, would be lost. In that case the corridor could as well be done away with. Ambulances and fire fighting vans one can understand but certainly not the sundry buses, minibuses and other heavy vehicles. In fact, other buses and minibuses have no business to be plying on the BRTS routes. It is because of these buses the System has been losing money. They may run on them but they should be prohibited from picking up or dropping passengers on the mixed lanes. This has evidently not been thought of till now. With Magics and other smaller vehicles running all over there is hardly any need for multiple bus systems.

Although we had heard at the planning stage terms like “mobility plan” of the city which, perhaps, meant preparing a comprehensive plan for commuters’ mobility. But that doesn’t seem to have happened as while the BRTS was readied, no plan for feeder services was put in place. While the former is not being fed, it is instead being poached on by sundry systems. This is where Kripa Shankar Sharma is right. In planning the entire thing a top-down approach was adopted whereas what was necessary was to start from the bottom and plan for feeders to make BRTS vibrant and viable. At the very first instance necessary infrastructure should have been put in place in the shape of junctions, parking lots etc. to feed the BRTS low-floor and AC buses.

Be that as it may, the Bhopal BRTS is heading for a crunch situation. As the pressure builds for practically doing away with the corridor there does not appear to be any political will to save it for the sake of common man. Soon it will be “to be or not to be” moment when the authorities will have to decide either way. However, while doing so they will have to keep, inter alia, the following salient points in mind:

1.    The corridor has been built for more than 70% of the commuters who do not have the means to use personal transport but have as much right to speedy transit through the city. This is in keeping with the National Transport Policy of “moving people, not moving vehicles”. Globally BRTS is considered the most cost-effective way for providing high quality public transport.

2.    The intention behind the System was to nudge more and more people from use of personal vehicles towards speedy and decent public transport on account of not only the country’s rising rate  of emission of greenhouse gases but also to reduce the import bill for petrol and diesel.

3.    All over the world there is a perceptible move for use of public transport, green vehicles like bicycles, etc. shunning private transport in view of the rising incidence of violent and extreme weather mostly attributed to the progressive global warming largely because of burning of fossil fuels. We too have suffered from them with loss many lives and valuable property.

4.    In the current context, giving up on the corridor would be highly retrograde step and may even bring forth innuendoes against the people of the state and its governing establishment. 

Bhopal notes - 2

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Collapse of BRTS

One of the AC buses that have gone off the roads

We have a BRTS corridor that took seven years in building sacrificing thousands of massive shady and benign trees and now we have hardly any buses plying in the corridor. Did we create the wide spread of barricaded asphalt to keep it unoccupied forcing various other vehicles to jostle around in the remaining limited space that was left for them?

The low-floor and even air-conditioned buses acquired at great public expenses are currently off the roads – sitting on their numerous wheels.  The wheels that should have been rolling are all static putting the commuters in a jam in this beastly heat when the temperature hovers around the 40s and once even topping 45⁰ C. Is it incompetence or lack of political will or sheer greed? One does not know what it is.

 One feels so jealous of Jaipur – a town probably of the same size as ours, which not only completed its BRTS corridor a few years ago having buses running on it, it now has a metro built in record time of four years currently doing its 9 kilometre beat. Obviously, politicians of all shades, the bureaucracy and the Jaipur municipality are all far more competent than the bunch we have here. They want their capital to progress and prosper; here they only talk and talk doing nothing.

Our buses that were supposed to be sophisticated with GPS and electronic route-markers are said to be running at losses. The companies that had contracted to run them are not able to ply them anymore. They have not paid even the royalty that was due to the Bhopal City Link Limited (BCLL); it is perhaps the other way round – BCLL, the special purpose vehicle that runs the BRTS failed to recover the due royalty. It is now being said that the company running the AC buses suffered a loss of a hundred thousand every month on each one of them.

Reports have also appeared of the RTO issuing permits in ever increasing numbers for running of more minibuses, Tata Magic and Piaggio Ape` taking away more and more passengers from the BRTS buses. The complaint seems to be that there is no level playing field for the low-floor buses as more numbers of smaller vehicles are being pumped into the roads offering numerous options to the commuters. Ideally speaking, the minibuses should have been banned on the routes of low-floor buses. Minibuses, at best, could be used for feeder services for low-floor routes. That did not happen and the BRTS system was starved of traffic. It is entirely the fault of the administration and its various agencies. The government appears to be watching the situation as a mute witness. It has created a situation where more money is made all round on a recurring basis – what if the publicly funded system collapses. After all, it was the government’s fault that it allowed corruption in its own once-efficient Road Transport Corporation so much that it collapsed under its weight.

So, the upshot is that crores of rupees provided under the project for creating BRTS and acquiring sophisticated buses have gone down the drain. The people can only helplessly watch the buses rust and decay wherever they are stabled. The administration, apparently for no reason, sacrificed thousands of magnificent trees for the project only to get vast expanses of asphalt radiating the scorching summer heat with no greenery to mitigate its stinging effect. What is more, people of the city suffered years of inconveniences with dug up roads that narrowed down passages creating jams. It is eventually you and I who have lost on all counts. Hundreds of crores of tax-payers’ money were transferred by the Centre, only these were played around with and not gainfully spent. The people of the city were all along shortchanged by the powers-that-be. Above all, the primary aim behind creation of BRTS – that of nudging people towards use of public transport in order to lower the carbon emissions – has been defeated in this town.

It is the government and the municipal corporation all together that seem to have killed the System as all the milking that was to be done out of it has been done and it has no use for those ‘milkmen’ anymore. I wonder whether it is a calculated move as, according to information, the experts feel that a light metro in not justified for want of adequate traffic in this city that already has BRTS. Strategy seems to be to kill the BRTS to justify the light metro. Apparently, new ‘milkmen’ have arrived on the scene to milk the light metro and they are hell-bent on having it commissioned regardless of its utility. 

WRECKING BHOPAL BRTS

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WRECKING BHOPAL BRTS

Bhopal BRTS corridor

The state government is reported to be considering a proposal of the Regional Transport Officer to allow school buses into the BRTS corridor on the plea that it is these buses which cause traffic jams – a feature in the city which has become virtually a regular affair.

Earlier, the BRTS in Indore was virtually reduced to a mixed traffic corridor as private cars were allowed into it. The matter had gone up to the local bench of the High Court which, too, gave its clearance. The inevitable result was reducing to nought of a well-conceived government plan to not only reduce the number of cars on the roads and thus make available to other commuters space for cycling or walking but also to reduce vehicular emissions. Two other advantages foreseen were, one, of providing the common man a faster and cheaper mode of motorised transport and, two, reduce consumption of polluting fuel oils bringing down their imports and helping in reducing the almost perpetual current account deficit.

By introducing four-wheelers into the corridor the local authorities at Indore killed the very concept which had been adopted the world over for promoting public transport. It was implemented with great success in Ahmedabad where the BRTS reportedly “wowed the world”. Not only the Asian countries contemplating introduction of the system made it to Ahmedabad to study its successful version, it also won the World Sustainable Transport Award in 2009 awarded by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policies, the organisation that spawned BRTS. New York was given the same award a year earlier and last year it was Buenos Aires, putting Ahmedabad in an illustrious league of cities.

If one looks at the whole question legally, there is indeed no bar on allowing vehicles other than BRTS buses into the earmarked corridor. Even the write-up of Devendra Tiwari, Additional CEO of Bhopal City Link that runs the BRTS admits that other buses could also be let into the corridor thus integrating the entire public transport system of the city. But the question is whether the objectives of the BRTS would be fulfilled if that were to be done. Wouldn’t the corridor be choked with buses, whether those of the city services or of schools, holding up the BRTS coaches thus defeating its very objective?, Besides idling of bus engines would increase the emissions. Perhaps it is too early to cry foul and tinker with the corridor. True, even after two years there are not enough buses in the system and hence the corridor does look empty. Perhaps, the company that runs the services is, ill-advisedly, extending the bus routes. One thought, saturating the corridor with adequate number of buses would not have provoked the kind of proposals that are under consideration. While the buses are being spread out thinly all over this expanding city, the corridor itself does give the impression of being empty and that the frequency of buses is not quite adequate making the system somewhat unpopular.

In many ways the corridor was not properly planned. It has taken almost five years in building and yet it is not ready till today. One wonders whether the detailed project report was adhered to and works on it started in good time. The route through the older part of the city is still not ready as its widening and removal of encroachments from it are still to be carried out. Besides, a vital flyover and an important railway over-bridge are yet to be completed. Then the feeder services with parking lots at important junctions are nowhere in sight. One doubts whether feeder services were really thought of at the initial stage and were ever integrated with the plan of running buses in the corridor.

Then, most importantly, proper traffic management was never enforced. It was a given that on creation of the corridor the mixed traffic lanes would have thinner slices of roads and the burgeoning vehicle population of two and four wheelers would choke up the passages unless properly managed. The planners knew that the local motorised commuters are an undisciplined and impatient lot, each trying to get ahead of the vehicle in front breaking all traffic rules. Management of traffic and disciplining the traffic is something which has not been paid attention to till today. Only the

A Bhopal traffic jam

other day there was a report that BRTS corridor was swamped by vehicles of politicians and their supporters who had gone to the collectorate to file nominations for the municipal elections. Politicians too are an undisciplined lot; they far too often have their SUVs parked in the corridor and the traffic police have no guts to haul them up. If they were to do so, probably, the Inspector General himself would be hauled up by the politicians in power. That is why the traffic police are very alert in so far as VIP movements are concerned but they are indifferent to management of critical areas that are prone to regular jams.

Hence, it would not be quite right to blame the BRT System. It was conceived for popularising public transport so that, inter alia, the pressure of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is eased up a bit in a bid to temper down warming of the earth’s atmosphere that is poised at a critical level threatening the very future of the planet. Precisely for that reason the advanced countries with better management of traffic, more disciplined commuters and more aware people have also opted for it. A report "Transportation in Transition: A Look at Changing Travel Patterns in America's Biggest Cities," said in 2013 that a study found reduced driving miles and rates of car commuting in America's most populous urbanized areas. The study also finds a greater use of public transit and biking in most cities. One of the most vital findings was that the proportion of workers commuting by private vehicle—either alone or in a carpool—declined in 99 out of 100 of America's most populous urbanized areas between 2000 and the 2007-2011 period averaged in U.S. Census data.

 If the Bhopal and Delhi BRTS have failed it is because both were not planned properly, both were not implemented properly and politicians did not have the will to intervene and set right matters as and when required. Particularly in Bhopal, the politicians are more prone to breach the discipline with its catastrophic cascading effects down to the common people. Besides, at the outset they had left it to an incompetent Municipal Corporation to build it that did not have adequate human resources either in numbers or in quality. It never occurred to the local government to take a leaf out of the book of Ahmedabad BRTS. Perhaps they just do not care.

If school or other city buses are allowed the use of the corridor, it would be the government and the municipal corporation that will have to be held responsible for wrecking the System after having spent enormous amounts of tax-payers’ money and causing inconvenience to the entire population of the city for the last 5 years.

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photos from the Internet

   

Indore High Court demolishes BRTS

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Indore BRTS corridor

The Indore Bench of the MP High Court by its judgment of October last effectively demolished the BRTS of the city by allowing the use of the corridor by four- wheelers. It, later, further modified its order by directing that while in the corridor no vehicle would be permitted to overtake another. Thus a facility built up at great cost to promote and popularise public transport for economic and environmental reasons was given a severe jolt by none other than the country’s judiciary. The administration has reportedly gone in appeal to the Apex Court.

As in Delhi, there was hue and cry in Indore on account of the restricted space made available for the mixed traffic after demarcation of road-space for the BRTS corridor. Not only there were frequent jams, there were also frequent accidents, often fatal. The commuters were increasingly becoming frustrated as their commutes took progressively longer time. The prolonged delay in construction, implementation and making available adequate number of buses also helped in stoking people’s rage and dissatisfaction with the whole concept. Eventually, a social activist filed a Public Interest Litigation petition in the Indore Bench of the MP High Court which yielded the decision under reference.

Though conceptually speaking, BRTS as a system of mass mobility is supposed to be flexible taking in its stride varied permutations and combinations, yet the decision of the Court did not seem to have helped in Indore. Even after the order of the court chaos, according to reports, reigned supreme in the corridor. From four wheelers to two wheelers to occasional bullock carts were seen using the corridor. Obviously, it is free-for-all and the traffic in Indore being what it is – unruly, undisciplined and rash – accidents have occurred with unmitigated frequency.

Introduction of any new system always has some teething troubles unless it is so well and meticulously planned that all its elements are tied together to a T to enable its faultless performance from day one. In our country if that has not been possible in most projects implemented by the central or state governments, the question of

Bhopal BRTS corridor

precision planning by the incompetent and inadequately provided municipal corporations wouldn’t arise. Both the BRTS systems in MP, for reasons best known to the government, were allowed to be implemented by the respective municipal corporations without any supervision and monitoring. This was a major lapse on the part of the government especially when very large sums of moneys were involved in creation of physical assets that are expected to yield in the future economic and environmental benefits apart from easing the daily travail of commuters of the state’s two major urban centres.

Not only creation of the corridor was mismanaged, no effort was ever made to manage the traffic. When the Indore corridor was commissioned effort should have been to manage, supervise and guide the commuters at least for some time if not for ever. Having seen them in action we all know how the Indore drivers behave. It is not their fault really as the traffic wing of the Police has left them to their own devices. They were never insisted upon to know the traffic rules and they were hardly ever checked as to whether they were observing the rules of the roads. Most of the drivers either do not know or ignore the rules of accessing a main road, negotiating a round-about or even going past a zebra crossing with people on it. Penalties for breaches are negligible and are generally determined by a populist political dispensation. The pivotal role of traffic management was somehow lost sight of and the traffic administration on the roads has been conspicuous by its absence both in Bhopal and Indore. No wonder there is a free-for-all.

One of the judges of the Bench stated in a television interview that BRTS has failed wherever it was introduced in India. He asserted quite erroneously that it had failed even

Ahmedabad BRTS corridor

in Ahmedabad. Perhaps, he was misinformed as the Ahmedabad BRTS has fetched kudos even abroad and representatives of a few governments from Africa and South-East Asia came to look at this success story. Unfortunately what succeeds elsewhere does not generally succeed in India, much less in Madhya Pradesh. The reason seems to be that while there is a penchant to act in breach of rules the governance is awfully weak.

 What the High Court has done is to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Instead of prescribing stiffer management of traffic its decision has rendered a facility created at great cost to public exchequer utterly redundant forgetting that in the short term there was likelihood of inconveniences but in the long term BRTS would have been of great benefit to all its users in our ever-enlarging cities. Besides, the court also seems to have lost sight of the fact that in India the rationale of introducing BRTS was to nudge four and two-wheeler users towards public transport in order not only to curb the mounting import bill on oil but also curb the rising carbon emissions of the country. 

It is, therefore, necessary for the administration to enforce strict traffic management to ensure functioning of the BRTS just as it was conceived for the benefit of a vast section of the population that is dependent on public transport for easy mobility and speedy commutes. At the risk of repetition, one has to mention that strict traffic management in both, the mixed lanes and in the corridor is of the essence. The minority of road-users who use personal vehicles cannot be allowed to hog all the road-space to the detriment of the vast majority.

Photos: from the Internet

Bhopal BRTS - dismantle the corridor

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Of late, there have been reports that the Bhopal Municipal Corporation is going top operationalise the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) from the 1^st January 2013. A fiat seems to have been issued in this regard by the Municipal Commissioner and the officials concerned are reported to be working overtime to carry out the dictat. That the bus corridor and the roads for the normal traffic are far from ready does not seem to concern the Commissioner. His anxiety is to somehow commission the project. Perhaps there is pressure from above and if there indeed is any, one can understand the reasons. The completion of the project has been inordinately delayed. Approved in April 2006 the work on the project could not start before February 2009. Over the last four years or so the Municipal Corporation has missed as many as four deadlines for its completion.

The ambitious JN National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) under which the project is being implemented was launched in 2005. Since then BRTSs have been commissioned in New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Pune. While at many places these are under construction, in many others they are still in planning stage. The Bhopal System that is under-construction for around four years, however, does not quite hold out an example to others for emulation.

The initial mistake seems to have been to allot the project to the Municipal Corporation for implementation. The Corporation, as is evident, has less than modest capability. When it is not able to carry out its day to day civic functions to the satisfaction of the people, to expect it to competently and efficiently implement this massive project in time was futile. One can only wonder at the wisdom of the state government in handing over the project to the local body knowing full well its track record of all–round failure in rendering civic services. Jaipur and Ahmedabad created special purpose vehicles (SPV) for construction of their respective BRTSs and these were completed well in time. They are now in the stage of planning for further extensions.

Ahmedabad BRTS

Ahmedabad BRTS is reported to be so good that it has elicited inquiries from several foreign countries, especially from South-East Asia and Africa. It was developed by Gujarat Infrastructure Development Board which entrusted the designing work to the Centre of Environmental Planning & Technology University (CEPT). The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority and the Gujarat government established Ahmedabad Janmarg Ltd, a special purpose vehicle to execute the project. Incidentally, the CEPT has since been engaged by the MP government to suggest measures for effective conservation of the Upper Lake. Why it could not be engaged for designing the Bhopal BRTS is a question that needs to be answered by the government. 

The Bhopal Citizens’ Forum had requested the state Chief Secretary many months ago to constitute, in absence of a SPV, a fully empowered authority for planning and overseeing the implementation of the Project as also for effective deployment of both, financial and human resources. It was contended that such an empowered body would be able to take prompt decisions and clear obstacles in construction, wherever they occurred. This, however, was not agreed to and the Municipal Corporation is carrying out the work with its lees than adequate capability and acumen. The result is there for all to see. Many stretches of the road are still incomplete. Of the two flyovers to be constructed in the older portion of the town one is under construction, the other one is still in the design stage. Even the Habibganj railway over-bridge is nowhere near completion.

Unlike other BRT systems in the country the one in Bhopal is to pass through the old parts of the town where the roads are narrow and have no space for the six lanes that are necessary for it. What, therefore, is being done is to push back the walls of the government and semi-government properties as far as possible. In regard to the private properties nothing much, however, can be done and there are any number of them. Only time will tell whether taking the System right through the narrow and congested roads of the old city was wise or not.  

Another mistake made in planning the system seems to have been in reckoning the width of the roads on two sides of the corridor on the basis of the traffic volumes of the middle of last decade. Since then the number of vehicles of all types on the roads has increased manifold. The up and down carriageways for the ordinary vehicular traffic are, therefore, going to be far too inadequate with the constant addition of private and commercial vehicles on the roads. In an interview the municipal officials admitted this fact. With their myopic vision what they have done, therefore, is to impose a permanent handicap on the city’s traffic on its busy arterial roads. 

The Municipal officials have now reportedly expressed their feeling that the BRTS (presumably with its bus corridor) is a Western concept which has been imposed on this country. Surely, at the time of planning they could have kept in mind the local conditions. While there are still not very many buses plying in the city, the corridor is going to remain under-utilised for many years, what with lack of feeder services and absence of parking spaces near the stops. The main purpose of the BRTS of nudging people from personalised transport to public transport is, therefore, going to remain unfulfilled for quite some years, given the snail’s pace at which the Municipal Corporation carries out its works.

In the circumstances, one tends to feel that for the sake of ensuring smoother traffic flows perhaps it would be worthwhile to do away with the corridor. Three plus three lanes right through the corridor for up and down traffic should be adequate provided its movement is strictly managed. In that event traffic police will have to become more proactive in training, controlling and monitoring the traffic and strictly dealing with traffic offenders. There are unlikely to be bottlenecks and buses and other vehicles are likely to move at a reasonable pace. Dismantling of the corridor would, surely, mean waste of the money already spent. The Municipal Corporation should have no qualms about it, having wasted lakhs on enlarging several rotaries and then again reducing their sizes. This has gone on for years. But the wastage that is feared may in fact yield savings by way eliminating wastage of fuel in vehicles moving on low gears or stuck in jams or because of frequent stoppages at bus stops where traffic lights are proposed to be put up for the passengers’ safe cross-over to the buses in the corridor. 

It is not yet too late. The question of doing away with the corridor could still be reconsidered. It seems it will be more beneficial than having a virtually empty corridor with up and down carriageways on its sides chock-a-block with vehicles.

BRTS - Is Bhopal getting into a mess?

Bhopal looks somewhat like New Delhi these days with roads dug up and wet earth lying along their sides. The main arteries are being worked on their flanks for widening them, in the process, denuding the roadsides of their green canopy. Thousands of trees have been sacrificed for the purpose – which, perhaps, many do not know – of facilitating introduction of the multi-crore Bus Rapid Transit System, BRTS for short. General public was, maybe still is, as ignorant about it as their representatives in the Municipal Corporation and the State Legislative Assembly.

This came out recently at a meeting hosted by a prominent newspaper house of the city that was arranged to discuss this very project with selected invitees.
The transport sector being a substantial contributor of greenhouse gases that are believed to have been the cause of global warming and the changing climate the Government of India adopted BRTS as a kind of a spearhead in its mission to renew urban India that is being increasingly cluttered and clogged up by millions of private two and four wheelers. The scheme essentially hopes to push people from using personal transport to public transport. The objective seemingly is to provide under the scheme unhindered passage to the buses of decent quality in dedicated bus lanes taking commuters to their destinations with relative ease and rapidity. In the process, hopefully, the commuters will save time and energy by commuting in modern, comfortable high-end buses. Not only the roads will be decongested, it will help in stabilising the country’s progressively increasing emissions and enlarging carbon footprint.

A system first conceived and tried in the Bogota, capital of Columbia, the country of Shakira, BRTS has been replicated elsewhere in the world as also in Delhi, Jaipur, Pune etc. A scheme that proved successful in the countries of the West, that have had from the inception of their cities broad roads to accommodate dedicated lanes for big, commodious buses, may not prove to be so in every expanding city, particularly, those which are of medieval vintage in South Asia. The lay of the land in every city is different. A system that proved successful in the West can be transplanted lock stock and barrel in our parts only with, inter alia, clear thinking and planning, coordinated approach, educated and aware users, effective governance – the factors that are generally absent in our system.

As became evident at this meeting, the bus corridor has been planned right through the middle of the town yet it is not quite clear until now how many of the numerous problems confronting the project are going to be overcome. For instance, how the corridor is going to negotiate the core of the old city with its narrow, encroached-upon roads with several priceless heritage structures. None really knows whether the corridor would bulldoze its way through or take the aerial route of flyovers. Then, there are rotaries – big and small – on dozens of junctions which had been enlarged and spruced up at considerable expense a couple of years back and then reduced in size again, spending more money, only recently. What is going to be the fate of statues erected in their middle, holy cows for many, is yet to be decided. Likewise, the Link Road No. 1, supposedly the pride of Bhopal, beautified at great cost only last year with green sides with fancy bus stops and central verge would need to be uprooted. Besides, there does not seem to be any clarity about the bus stops that are planned at the middle of the corridor which, apparently, will necessitate foot over-bridges at every stop. Power situation being what it is and unlikely to improve, escalators, if provided, are likely to get jammed because of disuse. Climbing up and climbing down the foot over-bridges is likely to discourage many from using the System. Then, since the System is going to run right through the middle of the town it is going to have numerous stoppages that will slow down the progress of the buses, virtually killing its “Rapid” attribute. And, one is not sure whether enough planning has gone into feeding the System from various far-flung areas by introduction of linkages with feeder services.

JNNURM was announced in 2005. All these years there seems to have been no planning and coordination in regard to implementation of the BRTS project. Public money was wasted on those very roads for their beautification and sprucing up several rotaries on them which would later make way for the BRTS. The Link Road No.1 alone saw an amount Rs. 7 crore needlessly spent on it. Or was it the case of the left hand not knowing what the right one was up to? It seems, the BRTS project was kept a well guarded secret and none knew about it. Strangely, for such a massive project affecting lakhs of citizens and at the cost of several crores of rupees the people were never consulted.

What is more, the city and its people have not been prepared for taking to buses in a big way for their commutes. Honestly speaking, the city has had no culture of public transport; there has been no effort to encourage it. The backbone of the city’s public transport – the ramshackle mini buses – that one sees on the roads is a phenomenon of not more than a couple of decades old. The way these are maintained and operated deters the middle classes – supposedly the ultimate users of the BRTS – from using them. In fact, the middle classes shun them. These despicable rattling moving metal boxes are largely responsible for driving people to acquire their own vehicles – new or used two or four wheelers.

A beginning was made by the city administration to introduce better buses taking a cue from Indore. Good looking, Tata Star buses were introduced a few years back under the aegis of Bhopal City Link Limited on several routes. As the buses started cutting into the incomes of the minibuses, soon the Service was reduced to a farce with many of the buses rendered out of commission by the goons of the vested interests. As the management threw up its arms, today the Service is not even a pale shadow of what it was with its buses in as bad a condition as the minibuses. Their services are infrequent, unpunctual and irregular. The management that operates the service has neither the capability nor the wherewithal to maintain and run the service. The local administration has stood by helplessly watching its decline. At Indore, however, the Service is not only running but is reported to be flourishing.
Given the city’s administrative culture one wonders whether the sacrifice of thousands of mature trees, expenditure of thousands of crores for the bus-corridor and the soon-to-be-procured high-end low-floor buses with dozens of foot over-bridges, perhaps, with escalators will eventually be worthwhile. Planning and coordination-wise, administratively and organisationally the city is so weak that its administration hardly ever inspires confidence. The BRTS is being managed by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation. None has ever asked whether it has the human resources with technical acumen to implement the project in a manner that in a couple of years’ time the roads are de-clogged and the BRTS takes commuters by hordes to their destinations freeing the rest of the roads from traffic snarls. From all evidences, it does not have any of that. It will be awfully sad if after commissioning of the corridor buses on it run virtually empty and the jams that one sees now continue – and progressively become worse.

I, for one, am very apprehensive. Crores have already been poured into the project with only destruction and denudation to show for them. An enormous mound of details is yet to be sorted out. People of Bhopal are going to have a long, hard time during which their patience is going to be tested by the torturously slow progress of the work. I think, for the citizens of Bhopal the moment of truth is here and now. They have to decide either to put pressure on the administration to speed up the work or just ask it to lay off. Or else there is going to be hell to pay in the shape of ... well, somewhat like what Delhi-ites are suffering now. With the Games, for the Delhi-ites there is light at the end of the tunnel; for us in Bhopal it is likely to be a long dark claustrophobic tunnel.