WITH barely a third of Indians living in cities, urban transportation, especially inter-city mass transportation, has never really excited decision-makers. Most politicians, both at the centre and in the states, are focused on rural areas and ministers consequently allocate large chunks of money for projects in sectors like agriculture and irrigation, subsidies for fertilisers, free power to farmers, and now rural employment.

While Mumbai was fortunate enough to inherit an extensive – and relatively efficient – suburban railway network, built by the colonial rulers almost a century and a half ago, a majority of Indian cities are woefully equipped to handle mass transportation.

The rich, of course, have their own personal vehicles and top politicians and bureaucrats are also ferried around cities in chauffeured cars. The poor prefer to pitch a shack near their work place – which soon gets regularised – so they don’t have to travel far in most Indian cities.

But it is the middle-class that bears the brunt of the burden, with commuters travelling in over-crowded trains and buses, unsafe cycles, scooters, motor-cycles, or auto-rickshaws, and having to spend a huge amount of money and time on long-distance travel daily.

Mumbai’s two suburban railway systems handle over six million passengers daily and are among the most profitable sectors for the Indian Railways. Yet, the authorities fail to invest in upgrading services. Lack of funding means there are an inadequate number of over-bridges, forcing thousands of passengers to rush across railway tracks.

Every year, over 3,000 people get killed on the tracks in Mumbai, and except for feeble pleas on the public announcement systems, the authorities have not really got down to tackling this problem.

Other metros and cities don’t even have a decent mass transport system; Kolkata’s notoriously delayed metro has failed to improve the public transportation network. In Bangalore – which prides itself on being India’s high-tech capital and Silicon Valley – millions of commuters are at the mercy of an unreliable state-owned bus system.

Economic reforms and growing urbanisation saw the central government and some state governments pay lip service to public transportation. The Delhi Metro, the first modern rapid mass transit system built in post-Independence India, promised to change all that. Thanks to the efforts of one man, E. Sreedharan, the managing director of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), and his fierce resistance to political and bureaucratic interference, the Delhi Metro is today an outstanding showpiece for urban transportation.

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THE success of Delhi Metro has triggered off a spate of such projects across India, including in Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Other cities are also clamouring for metro rail projects.

The Planning Commission, a few years ago, had envisaged that 35 cities with a population of over one million-each, would need metro rail systems like the one in Delhi. However, considering the huge costs involved – it costs DMRC $45 million to roll out a kilometre of the line – the government scaled down the ambitious projections; only cities with a population of over three million are now likely to get such systems.

Work on the first phase of the Mumbai Metro – taken up as a public private partnership initiative – has already begun, but is proceeding at a painstakingly slow pace. The Maharashtra government now wants future metro projects in the city to be executed by a state-owned agency, not by private partners.

With half a dozen Indian cities planning to set up mass rapid transit systems, almost $15 billions are expected to be invested in them over the next few years. Metro systems are expensive and commuter fares are also relatively high, especially when compared to railway fares.

Indian Railways, which has over the years succeeding in snuffing out any challenges to its monopoly, tried its best to prevent the emergence of autonomous corporations to manage metros, on the lines of Delhi Metro. But its efforts failed; even the Maharashtra government refused to succumb to pressures and allowed the Mumbai Metro to opt for standard gauge tracks – as against broad gauge used by the railways – as they are the most popular around the world.

The second phase of the Delhi Metro – costing about $4.25 billion – is now proceeding apace. The government is keen that the project covering 120 km be completed before the start of the Commonwealth Games in the national capital in October 2010.

Despite the huge investments involved – and the relatively low fares that are charged – the DMRC has been making profits, thanks to the commercial exploitation of land along side the metro line. Shopping malls, office complexes and other facilities are being built along the route, and the corporation gets hefty rents for the units.

The Indian government now provides a viability gap funding (VGF) for public private partnership initiatives in building metros – offering 20 per cent of the cost by way of soft loans. Metro networks operate on the ground, at an elevation and underground as well. In crowded cities like Mumbai it will mostly be at an elevation, or even run underground.

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A SIGNIFICANT anti-metro lobby has also emerged in India of late. Many of those opposed to metros as mass rapid transit systems claim they are too expensive, take a lot of time to build and the fares are also steep.

One of the alternatives they propose is the bus rapid transport system (BRTS), which envisages separate and exclusive lanes for speedy movement of public buses. The BRTS has been successful in many Latin American countries, so its proponents argue that it could very well prove to be the answer to India’s urban transportation woes.

However, last week saw the disastrous take-off of yet another BRTS system in an Indian city — in Delhi. A 5.6-km-long corridor for exclusive movement of buses created chaotic conditions on Delhi’s roads, forcing the state government to freeze all such developments for the time being.

The BRTS might have been a success in a few Latin American and Asian cities, but on India’s roads it can end up as a nightmare, primarily because of lack of road discipline. In Pune, where it was introduced last year, it has been a massive failure, yet the authorities continue pouring money into it. The politician-contractor lobby is powerful in many Indian cities, and lobbies for projects such as the BRTS that are ostensibly aimed at benefiting the poor

In Mumbai, the civic authorities are still pushing ahead with plans for a 30-km-long BRTS corridor, but despite repeated claims of its imminent launch, it has failed to take-off. Despite the disastrous experience with Pune’s BRTS, many state governments – and even the central urban development ministry – are pitching for such systems.

Basically, a system like the BRTS cannot succeed in India, as it is impossible to prevent other road-users — including cyclists, two-wheeler riders, auto-rickshaws, and private cars, taxis and even trucks and private buses – from using the corridor, or parking their vehicles on it. In Pune, the authorities tried posting personnel to prevent other vehicles from using the exclusive route meant for public buses.

However, it has proven to be a failure, as it is impossible to monitor a 30-km stretch, even during the peak hours. As the other lanes on the busy roads are congested, vehicles inevitably try to use the BRTS corridors for speedier movement. But in the process, the public buses get delayed.

Some of the most prominent votaries of the BRTS are government and civic officials, many of who have managed to wangle junkets to South America and the Far East, ostensibly to study the functioning of the systems there.

Many ministers, secretaries, mayors and municipal commissioners — besides the odd NGO representative — have undertaken expensive trips at the cost of the tax-payer to distant lands in search of a remedy to the urban transportation ills of India. The average urban commuter, however, continues to suffer amidst all this confusion.