Nikhil_cric Posted May 16 Posted May 16 1 hour ago, crictime said: Carbon points should be tagged on every 1 km of travel by two-wheeler or petrol car. Just like how companies have to do something for the nature as part of responsibility towards a sustainable environment, some system should be in pace for personal petrol based vehicles. Many Indians do not think how much pollution they do when one km drive is done using a petrol motorbike or petrol car. There are Indians though who are sensible and care for the society and purchase EV. These people owning EV's are very few and are the real ones who care about their carbon footprint. The majority will be those who have used thousands of litres of petrol in their lifetime and polluted the air. The very same people will also say do not do pollution without even realizing how much they themselves have contradicted their own statements in day-to-day life. Metros in Mumbai have been a welcome change. But the projects are getting delayed. As the project gets behind schedule by two years, and people criticize, they will announce partial starting of metro on a specific date. Even they fail to start a partial startup. https://www.reddit.com/r/TransitIndia/s/LjdwYncgMr Understand the delays but the ridership is relatively high in Mumbai and that's extremely encouraging. I have more sympathy for two wheelers over cars because a lot of the congestion at least in Bangalore is because of single occupancy cars and even SUV's being used to commute. @Mariyam I don't think we have a choice when it comes to the automobile industry . In the next 25 years , India's urban population is expected to jump from 555 million to 950 million. Building infrastructure for cars will be extremely counterproductive imo. crictime 1
crictime Posted May 16 Posted May 16 1 minute ago, Nikhil_cric said: https://www.reddit.com/r/TransitIndia/s/LjdwYncgMr Understand the delays but the ridership is relatively high in Mumbai and that's extremely encouraging. I have more sympathy for two wheelers over cars because a lot of the congestion at least in Bangalore is because of single occupancy cars and even SUV's being used to commute. @Mariyam I don't think we have a choice when it comes to the automobile industry . In the next 25 years , India's urban population is expected to jump from 555 million to 950 million. Building infrastructure for cars will be extremely counterproductive imo. In peak hours Metros in Mumbai are jam packed. Even during non-peak hours there is hardly any place to seat even at first stop if someone is late to board it. Two-wheelers at least give better mileage than cars so it helps lessen the burden of crude import on the nation. Fuel based cars add more to the problem which government wants to avoid. Funnily though the outdated buses of public transport consume more fuel as they struggle to operate efficiently and the lack of proper maintenance releases dark black smoke for others to inhale. There are so many cars now that developers do not allot car parking for every house buyer. I have seen this with many prominent builders. The ones with more floor space get the car parking unit allotted. There are cases people living in areas where buildings do not have space to park cars, such people will park their cases 500 metres away. Cars have increased drastically. Almost all tenants who called me to rent my houses were enquiring about car parking. Around 12 years back when I rented my house this was definitely not the case.
Nikhil_cric Posted May 16 Posted May 16 23 minutes ago, crictime said: In peak hours Metros in Mumbai are jam packed. Even during non-peak hours there is hardly any place to seat even at first stop if someone is late to board it. Two-wheelers at least give better mileage than cars so it helps lessen the burden of crude import on the nation. Fuel based cars add more to the problem which government wants to avoid. Funnily though the outdated buses of public transport consume more fuel as they struggle to operate efficiently and the lack of proper maintenance releases dark black smoke for others to inhale. There are so many cars now that developers do not allot car parking for every house buyer. I have seen this with many prominent builders. The ones with more floor space get the car parking unit allotted. There are cases people living in areas where buildings do not have space to park cars, such people will park their cases 500 metres away. Cars have increased drastically. Almost all tenants who called me to rent my houses were enquiring about car parking. Around 12 years back when I rented my house this was definitely not the case. BEST used to be gold standard of public transport back in the day. I'm surprised that there aren't massive efforts to revive BEST bus service and expand the fleet. BMTC transports something like 4.8 million commuters daily in Bangalore and it doesn't even cover the newer areas of the city properly. crictime 1
rangeelaraja Posted May 16 Posted May 16 2 hours ago, Mariyam said: The automobile industry is a mass employer. And adds some much needed forex to the exchequer. That is why the automobile lobby have been able to push for mega road projects across cities and the nation as a whole. A sudden jump to mass transit would mean large scale loss of employment. No easy solutions here. @Mariyam The reality is to the contrary. Building metros, buses, rail networks, and their supporting infrastructure ALSO requires enormous labor including civil engineers, construction workers, electricians, signaling technicians, station staff, drivers, and maintenance crews.Countries like Japan, Germany, and France have thriving transit manufacturing sectors (rail cars, buses) that are export industries generating forex, not consuming it. India's own metro rail projects have created hundreds of thousands of jobs, both directly and in ancillary sectors. So there is no loss of employment..infact it is re-directed more efficiently. India imports ~85% of its crude oil. Every additional car on the road worsens the current account deficit and infact drains the forex..
Mariyam Posted May 17 Posted May 17 13 hours ago, rangeelaraja said: @Mariyam The reality is to the contrary. Building metros, buses, rail networks, and their supporting infrastructure ALSO requires enormous labor including civil engineers, construction workers, electricians, signaling technicians, station staff, drivers, and maintenance crews.Countries like Japan, Germany, and France have thriving transit manufacturing sectors (rail cars, buses) that are export industries generating forex, not consuming it. India's own metro rail projects have created hundreds of thousands of jobs, both directly and in ancillary sectors. So there is no loss of employment..infact it is re-directed more efficiently. India imports ~85% of its crude oil. Every additional car on the road worsens the current account deficit and infact drains the forex.. Auto + Auto ancillary industry employs semi skilled and skilled labour. These are not the guys who would work on infra projects which mainly requires unskilled or very lightly skilled labour. When any any automobile company has shut down in India, most of the work force which didn't join competition has found employment in non destructive testing (for aviation and ships) and general ship building. Most auto industry in India is private and a growing portion of the sales are for the export market. It brings in a lot of FII. Infra projects and mainly run by various arms of the GoI on loans obtained from various development banks. Every additional car doesn't have to be a petrol vehicle. The shift is towards the EV. Anyways, rail/metro infra is a parallel industry. If the services offered are really that good, people will stop buying the cars. The market can decide.
crictime Posted May 17 Posted May 17 (edited) 13 hours ago, Nikhil_cric said: BEST used to be gold standard of public transport back in the day. I'm surprised that there aren't massive efforts to revive BEST bus service and expand the fleet. BMTC transports something like 4.8 million commuters daily in Bangalore and it doesn't even cover the newer areas of the city properly. The public bus transport frequency is so poor frequently that people often have to quarrel with the station master. After all a delay by a minute leads to late punch and salaray deductions for many after defined number of late punches. The sarkar is immune to the problems of the common man, they do not understand why people are fed up of the various government run services. The government has failed to solve daily commuting needs of those using public services. No wonder there is rise in UBER, OLA trips because people are fed up of this mess and shell out extra money when UBER and OLA charge more knowing that the government is incapable of providing public transport and they can get away with whatever rise they charge for trip. This also increases pollution because instead of 35 passengers sharing a public bus to travel, everyone now uses UBER, OLA and increases pollution. Not just the frequency, the connectivity is also very poorly planned. Even there are no buses for more than one and a half hour between some heavily used routes. The ground reality is very different to what is told to the citizens on a public broadcast. No wonder public keeps venting out frustration every now and then and nobody takes any speeches seriously now. The other thing is there are hawkers on routes for public transport who block these routes and result in traffic. The system get a nice cash from every illegal hawker and guess in whose pockets this money goes every month from each hawker. The shop keepers who buy shop for 1.5 to 3 crores are also struggling. Imagine the shopkeeper who has bought property valued in crores and paid taxes, a hawker comes and sits out side the shop. The shop keeper sell one product for say 1000 INR, whereas the hawker can sell it at 600 INR because he does not has investment nor direct and indirect costs. All the hawker has to give is few thousand to someone. The corrupt systems also causes traffic congestion and more pollution in this way as well as also hurts the genuine businessmen and tax payers. Edited May 17 by crictime Nikhil_cric and Mariyam 2
Mariyam Posted May 17 Posted May 17 @Nikhil_cric The obvious solution is decentralization. No matter what infra is built in our metros, infra will be always playing catch up to the needs of the commuters. The only *real* solution is have multiple Surat or Nashik sized/level cities across the nation instead of a few metros and Tier 1 cities. Kind of like what Germany did and what China is doing. crictime 1
Nikhil_cric Posted May 17 Posted May 17 6 minutes ago, Mariyam said: @Nikhil_cric The obvious solution is decentralization. No matter what infra is built in our metros, infra will be always playing catch up to the needs of the commuters. The only *real* solution is have multiple Surat or Nashik sized/level cities across the nation instead of a few metros and Tier 1 cities. Kind of like what Germany did and what China is doing. And China has paid the price for that. I admire them for a lot of their policies but it's brought nothing but debt and ghost towns . They acknowledged it last year and their new strategy prioritises infill development over Greenfield development. They are taking on urban renewal projects and making their existing cities denser etc
crictime Posted May 17 Posted May 17 (edited) The root cause of all problems in India is corruption and sadly there is no end to it. Many times in past decades I have heard "We will turn Mumbai into Singapore". Still we get to hear this in speeches. This churan still sells, has to best of what is served to the 'aam janta'. Edited May 17 by crictime Lord 1
mishra Posted May 19 Posted May 19 There should be conscious attempt for people to switch on to motorbikes. Make it cool. Create dedicated lanes in city. Indian climate is very good for motorbikes. randomGuy 1
diga Posted May 19 Posted May 19 6 minutes ago, mishra said: There should be conscious attempt for people to switch on to motorbikes. Make it cool. Create dedicated lanes in city. Indian climate is very good for motorbikes. Only if they follow rules and lane discipline
Chaos Posted May 19 Posted May 19 On 5/16/2026 at 1:15 PM, Nikhil_cric said: https://www.reddit.com/r/TransitIndia/s/LjdwYncgMr Understand the delays but the ridership is relatively high in Mumbai and that's extremely encouraging. I have more sympathy for two wheelers over cars because a lot of the congestion at least in Bangalore is because of single occupancy cars and even SUV's being used to commute. @Mariyam I don't think we have a choice when it comes to the automobile industry . In the next 25 years , India's urban population is expected to jump from 555 million to 950 million. Building infrastructure for cars will be extremely counterproductive imo. Lets build infrastructure for bicycles and kids only lane for their 3 tyre bicycles to go to school Nikhil_cric 1
mishra Posted May 19 Posted May 19 On 5/17/2026 at 10:27 AM, crictime said: The root cause of all problems in India is corruption and sadly there is no end to it. Many times in past decades I have heard "We will turn Mumbai into Singapore". Still we get to hear this in speeches. This churan still sells, has to best of what is served to the 'aam janta'. What is average salary in Sigapore vs average Salary in Mumbai. Chooran chaatane ki aadat hai to kyaa karoge. Saying that, I was really impressed with Mumbai infra when I returned to city after 20+ years. Only place which has turned **** is Juhu beach crictime 1
rangeelaraja Posted May 19 Posted May 19 On 5/17/2026 at 4:24 AM, Mariyam said: Auto + Auto ancillary industry employs semi skilled and skilled labour. These are not the guys who would work on infra projects which mainly requires unskilled or very lightly skilled labour. When any any automobile company has shut down in India, most of the work force which didn't join competition has found employment in non destructive testing (for aviation and ships) and general ship building. Most auto industry in India is private and a growing portion of the sales are for the export market. It brings in a lot of FII. Infra projects and mainly run by various arms of the GoI on loans obtained from various development banks. Every additional car doesn't have to be a petrol vehicle. The shift is towards the EV. Anyways, rail/metro infra is a parallel industry. If the services offered are really that good, people will stop buying the cars. The market can decide. @Mariyam : Shifting to EVs is not going to solve the problem ( even though the current EV penetration is low ). India imports lithium, cobalt, nickel...etc largely from China. EVs will shift the import dependency on China. A full EV transition also requires massive public infrastructure to support this which is again public/GoI expenditure, not private auto industry investment. And it still does'nt solve for the fact that with most Indian cities woefully lacking urban planning, parking would still be a nightmare if car sales explode. Ofcourse the market will decide - but there has to be a level playing field. The auto industry has had it very easy. Roads are entirely publicly funded through tolls - so the auto industry gets its core infrastructure for free, they also get SEZ benefits, PLI schemes, and tax incentives worth thousands of crores. In first world cities like Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong where transit has received serious investment car ownership and usage dropped dramatically. With such high oil import dependency and poor urban planning - that should have been our goal, with the auto industry incentivized only for exports not for domestic sales.
randomGuy Posted May 22 Author Posted May 22 On 5/19/2026 at 5:45 PM, mishra said: There should be conscious attempt for people to switch on to motorbikes. Make it cool. Create dedicated lanes in city. Indian climate is very good for motorbikes. One of my masi and her husband are 65/70 yo. Their daughter has asked them to keep 1 cr. aside for her son's (their grandson's) foreign education. He is in class 6 right now. This kind of disgusting obsession to study abroad has taken away several billions out of India compared to the remittances after the "education". People should as a national duty protect forex reserves, understanding that we are a net importer as a country.
crictime Posted May 23 Posted May 23 On 5/19/2026 at 6:39 PM, mishra said: What is average salary in Sigapore vs average Salary in Mumbai. Chooran chaatane ki aadat hai to kyaa karoge. Saying that, I was really impressed with Mumbai infra when I returned to city after 20+ years. Only place which has turned **** is Juhu beach My grandparents were in Singapore more than 60 years back. Never stayed personally in Singapore though. Having seen their currency notes and coins many decades back, all I know is their currency is more valued than ours. Their cost of living is high and average salary is also much better there. And the food hanging on rods and non-veg food of what not creatures kept in jars as well. I do not expect a Singapore in Mumbai, but what I can certainly say (and much appreciated) is that although the development of Mumbai has happened at slow pace, the times when machinery and ever growing number of personnel in construction sector with more experience in major projects, significant improvement an still happen with proper top level thought process an guidance of the experts. People all over India show similar traits - more belief in what is said in speeches than looking at the on ground reality as the tenure of government unfolds and ends up. As you rightly said people like churan and hence it sells. Governments are doing their bit in Maharashtra but nobody has ended corruption at all. Nobody is interested. The development is happening at snails pace as I see projects behind schedule by more than 2 years, contracts getting cancelled and what not. Corruption is root and major cause which delays and hampers quality of development. I do acknowledge the reality that no country in the world is corruption free, none is holier than thou, however, the amount of black money and corruption in India is increasing. No matter who comes and who goes, apparently corruptions is more prevalent here and it is there to stay for sure. Mumbai cannot be Singapore, even India as a whole cannot be Singapore with all its resources. the dynamics would just not allow it to happen. The population, the size, the civil sense, the corruption, the law and order is very distinct. What is feasible to achieve though is a well developed Mumbai in a significantly much better state; this has to be the objective. Juhu Beach is easily accessible than some of the other beaches in the Island city. People spit on roads at blink of an eyes. Throwing cigarette butts and used up beedis on roadside and beaches is another cheap habit. Plastics, glass bottles and garbage being thrown on beachess carelessly without any guilt does not helps. Civic sense is not ingrained in majority of the population. Needless to say, this is bound to happen.Just not Juhu, the litter can be seen in a lot of places. Garbage collectors have to do the work which should not even be there to do. You are right to state than Mumbai infra has been better than 20+ years. The first major and crucial project for Mumbai in my lifetime was the 52 flyovers by Shiv Sena (Under Balasaheb Thackeray). Previously a local train running on Western Railways line would have to stop at every station as every station had a east-to-west road crossing. The then newly built such east-to-west flyovers ensured that the trains now do not have to stop between every station. The commuting time is saved. The Congress and INC also took the development projects. This was the time when BJP was virtually out of Maharashtra governments since decades. Even first Mumbai metro construction (Versova to Ghatkopar) on a very choked second most used road in Mumbai(industrial line near Marol, marol MIDC, Saki Naka, Chakala) happened somewhere between 2008 to 2015. The Bandra - Worli Sea-link was one of the ambitious project completed in India. It was all about INC, NCP, Shiv Sena. In recent years where BJP could form government on basis of alliance with Shiv Sena, they too have carried on the good work done in past by Shiv Sena, NCP, INC by developing more metro routes, construction of Atal Setu, Coastal road and the Metro Aqua Line which runs underground connecting South Mumbai to various wards of Mumbai and ending up at JVLR Junction. All parties have done their part and I appreciate their work very much. Now, what is required is: 1. Getting rid of illegals and deport them to the countries they come from and end up in Mumbai. 2. Demolition of illegal structures, be it shanties, illegal slums, illegal structures of any other category. 3. Some decentralization in commercial aspects. BKC has helped quite a lot in a way but Mumbai can do with few more such planned commercialized spaces. 3. Proper planning of the residential premises around the vastly improved public infrastructure. 4. Addition of local railways running parallel to the existing routes. This would mean increased frequency for public rail transport. 5. Better connectivity of Public Bus transport and increased frequency of buses which have very high demand. Nikhil_cric 1
rangeelaraja Posted May 23 Posted May 23 On 5/21/2026 at 10:55 PM, randomGuy said: People should as a national duty protect forex reserves, understanding that we are a net importer as a country. India has started to ramp up settling trade in bilateral currency. So the forex dependency will reduce with time. US itself is building a strategic bitcoin reserve ....and if countries start setting foreign trade and petro purchases in crypto currencies......forex reserves bragging will become a thing of the past. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/05/20/buckle-up-bitcoin-on-the-brink-as-white-house-confirms-imminent-price-game-changer/
randomGuy Posted May 23 Author Posted May 23 1 hour ago, rangeelaraja said: India has started to ramp up settling trade in bilateral currency. So the forex dependency will reduce with time. US itself is building a strategic bitcoin reserve ....and if countries start setting foreign trade and petro purchases in crypto currencies......forex reserves bragging will become a thing of the past. https://www.forbes.com/sites/digital-assets/2026/05/20/buckle-up-bitcoin-on-the-brink-as-white-house-confirms-imminent-price-game-changer/ What about when countries want to cash out of INR holdings? Crypto reserves don't solve fundamental trade deficit issue. We import more than we export..
rangeelaraja Posted May 23 Posted May 23 13 minutes ago, randomGuy said: What about when countries want to cash out of INR holdings? Crypto reserves don't solve fundamental trade deficit issue. We import more than we export.. You don't get into bilateral currency trade settlement agreements with countries unless its a long term mutually beneficial agreement with caveats for such needs. So if there is a need for a country to cash out of INR, its done through a bilateral conversation. China for decades was allowed by the US to rack up massive trade surpluses. And what was the agreement for China to offload the trade surplus $ ?? --- China recycled its large trade surplus with the United States was by purchasing U.S. Treasury securities and other dollar-denominated assets. This can be done with friendly countries.....have them purchase India govt bonds or invest in other INR denominated assets. Every arrangement is unique depending on how the 2 economies compliment each other. For example Russia can offload its INR holdings by investing in Indian oil refineries - state owned and private..
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