Burying the Metro

Burying the Metro

V Ravichandar, CMD Feedback Consulting likes the Metro ought of sight

V Ravichandar
Posted On Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 07:59:26 PM
Last week I had a call from a media person asking for views on the Bangalore Metro. I got his interest by saying “It ought to have been buried”. To his quizzical follow through question whether I was anti-development, I added “by taking it underground in the first place”. The conversation brought back memories of whether one ought to raise a ‘bury the Metro’ banner back in 2005. I wish some of us had persisted with the plea to bury it by going public. Technical challenges and costs were cited by the powers that be for the decisions taken. One fails to see how it is possible to go underground in Majestic but not elsewhere. Further it is par for the course to say that we need money for water, sanitation, healthcare, education, etc. But as a former PM famously said less than 15 paise to the government rupee ever reaches the beneficiaries. Lastly, it is a huge challenge to get citizen attention about the future impact of current decisions. We saw it in the two airport issue in keeping HAL open. One of the Wall Street analysts, Meredith Whitney was derided (and ignored) by all when she sounded the doomsday scenario about the financial sector. Now she makes the TIME most 100 influential lists.

The moment you say underground, they say it is too expensive. Reminds you of the old adage ‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance’! So let us deconstruct the costs involved. If the bulk of the Metro was designed to go underground, the incremental costs would be around Rs. 4,000 crores instead of the Rs. 7,000 estimated initially for a predominantly over ground solution. Reckoning a 30-35 year loan period we are looking at a Rs. 150-200 crores / year impact on the State budget for the Metro. For the future gains it provides in terms of leaving the over ground free for bus / mono rail solutions and open spaces (Think Lalbagh, Think Laxman Rao boulevard) this does not seem expensive at all. In infrastructure projects one must take a 75 to 100 year view while measuring return on investment. I am sure Hyder Ali’s staff officers would have tried talking him out of his favourite mango orchard on grounds of finance and alternative use of land to say ‘not possible’. If he had listened to them we would not be enjoying the fruits of Lalbagh today!

So where are the visionary leaders who can take an inspired call which builds assets for now and stays relevant over the long term? Kengal Hanumanthaiya was criticized severely when he embarked on the Vidhana Soudha. It was considered too expensive at Rs. 1.84 crores in the 50’s – today it costs well over that amount to maintain it annually. One can’t help but wonder that between Hyder Ali and Hanumanthaiya they ensured that the tourist traffic would more than pay for their sagacity many times over! But I am not sure they would have bargained that their successors would be so myopic in their vision. Maybe there is a need along with our votes to give our leaders large doses of Vitamin V (‘Vision’) which our former far sighted leaders had. It reminds you of Abe Lincoln’s famous quote when some disgruntled officers complained about his best performing general, Ulysses Grant – “Find out what he is having and order it for the other officers”!

So the Metro is history and cast in concrete on our ever reducing roads. Then what is the take away from this tale? Think long term? Fat chance that will change given the times we live in. But we surely can use the logic of expensive proposition that worked to have the Metro over ground to actually bury the proposed high speed rail link (HSRL) to the airport. This solution incidentally is from the same folks that designed the metro solution which fails the common sense test. Should we be using scarce State resources for catering to the elite air travelers? Maybe the money is better used in providing drinking water, sanitation and what have you.