Highway or my way?
Governor Dr S S Sidhu has raised the right issue, asking the state government to allay the apprehensions in the minds of the people about widening of the national highways in Goa. Dr Sidhu was addressing the gathering at the Republic Day Parade at Campal on Wednesday morning. He said that people must realise that there is no room for taking a short-sighted view on the matter. The only question is whether it is the people, the government, or both that are being myopic in this matter.
Widening of our highways is an absolute imperative. It is not just the 300 young deaths on the roads every year, but the all-too-visible traffic jams nearly everywhere, thanks to ever-growing vehicular traffic and the reticence of the traffic authorities to take ameliorative measures. This is something that the protestors need to realise.
But people are deeply apprehensive of widened national highways that run through urban areas. The problem is not one of space. A six-lane highway can comfortably fit in a 35-metre width. Six lanes of 3.75 metres each require 22.5 metres. Add a three-metre median and two three-metre shoulders, and we have a grand total of 31.5 metres. As long as embankments required are constructed with retaining walls, a six-lane highway can easily fit in a 35-metre right-of-way.
But that is not the point. What the protestors say is that the new, wide highways should bypass existing urban areas, and not go through them, regardless of whether they can fit or not. Not only in advanced countries but even in other parts of India, the highways always bypass populated areas. They say that widening of the existing highways will only help the companies building them to make super-profits, by reducing their costs. Simultaneously, it will condemn Goans to pay steep tolls for the next 30 years, to drive on the very same roads that are now free.
Rattled by the protests, the government has been making promises that it does not know whether it will be able to keep. It has said, for example, that toll booths will be 40 km apart instead of the normal 20 km.
Has the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) agreed to this?
To start with, the government is not even sure whether it will agree to a right-of-way of just 35 metres. The NHAI has already rejected Kerala’s request for a 35-km right of way. If it agrees to allow it for Goa, isn’t there bound to be big trouble in Kerala?
Its proposal to double the distance between toll booths will drastically reduce the revenues of the companies building and operating the highways, and threaten the very viability of the public-private partnership (PPP). Unless the central government agrees to massively increase the viability gap funding for the project, any proposal to double the distance between toll booths could derail the PPP.
There are types and types of short-sightedness. If the protestors can be accused of having one form of this vision deficit, how many is the government suffering from? Making promises is easy; the politicians that run the government do it every five years. Keeping them is very hard; as the years between every two elections has shown us. Making proposals to the central government is easy. But a proposal made is not a concession wrested. Unless the state government has correspondence to concretely show that the centre has accepted its suggestions, it should not try to fool the people. A simple RTI application can unearth the truth nowadays.
Better that Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and Co urgently discuss matters with all those concerned, and arrive at solutions that will give us six-lane highways that are acceptable to all stakeholders, and as fast as possible.
