Transportation

System

GEOGRAPHY

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Transportation System
 An efficient transport system is a pre-requisite for sustained economic development.

 It is not only the key infrastructural input for the growth process but also plays a
significant role in promoting national integration, which is particularly important in a
large country like India.

 The transport system also plays an important role of promoting the development
of the backward regions and integrating them with the mainstream economy

 by opening them to trade and investment.

 India has a well-developed transport network-comprising rail, road, coastal shipping,

air transport, etc.

Roadway Transportation
India has an extensive system of roads that plays a vital role, as far as the national
economic growth of the country is concerned.

Facts

 World’s second largest road network – 4.87 million km.

 The length of the National Highways is 97,135 kms.

 NHs account for 2% in terms of total roads, but carry 40% of the traffic.

 65% of freight & 80% passenger traffic is carried through roads.

 Implementation Authorities – NHAI, State PWDs etc.,

 BRO, newly formed NHIDCL for projects at border and other strategic locations.

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Project implementation modes for highways in India

 Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) – Toll

 BOT – Annuity

 Hybrid Annuity Model

 Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) – Public funded.

Benefits of Roadway Transportation

 Roads play a very important role in the transportation of goods and passengers for
short and medium distances.

 It helps farmers to move their perishable agricultural products quicker to markets

and mandis. Thus, encourage farmers to switch to more commercially viable
agricultural products.

 Road transport system establishes easy contact between farms, fields, factories
and markets, thus leading to better linkage between consumer and producer.

 Mobility is one of the most fundamental and important characteristics of economic

activity as it satisfies the basic need of going from one location to the other, a need
shared by passengers, freight and information.

 Road transport provides a better mobility that leads to economic development.

 It is suitable for transportation of both perishable and non-perishable goods,

controlling the price level in the economy.

 It is a relatively cheaper mode of transport as compared to other modes.

 It is a flexible mode of transport as loading and unloading is possible at any

destination. It provides a door-to-door service.

 It helps people to travel and carry goods from one place to another, in places which
are not connected by other means of transport like hilly areas.

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Classification of Roads

 National Highways

 These roads are of prime importance for the country and connect large cities
and big industrial centers.

 Development and maintenance is the responsibility of the central

government.

2) State Highways

 These roads connect all the important centers of industry, trade and
commerce of the states and the national highways.

 Development and maintenance is the responsibility of the state government.

3) District Roads

 These roads connect different parts of the district, important industrial

centers and market centers and usually lead to local railway stations.

 Development and maintenance is the responsibility of the local government.

4) Rural Roads

 These are roads found in the villages and are usually of two types; pukka
(metal) and kacha (nonmetal).

 Development and maintenance is the responsibility of the local government.

Major National Highways in India

The few important national highways along with their routes are discussed below:

 NH1 - Delhi - Ambala - Jalandhar - Ludhiana - Amritsar - Wagah Border.

 NH1A - Jalandhar - Jammu - Udhampur - Banihal - Srinagar - Baramula - Uri.

 NH1D - Srinagar - Kargil - Leh.

 NH2 - Delhi - Agra - Allahabad - Kolkata.

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 NH3 - Agra - Gwalior - Indore - Dhule - Nasik-Mumbai.

 NH4 - Thane - Pune - Bangalore - Chennai. (Mumbai - Pune-1st 6 lane express

highway)

 NH 5 - Baharagora - Cuttack - Bhuvaneshwar - Vishakhapatnam - Chennai.

 NH6 - Hazira - Surat - Dhule - Nagpur - Raipur - Baharagora - Kolkata.

 NH7 - Varanasi - Nagpur - Hyderabad - Bangalore- Kanyakumari (Longest

Highway)

 NH8 - Delhi - Jaipur - Ajmer – Udaipur - Ahmedabad - Vadodara - Surat - Mumbai.

 NH 24 - Delhi - Moradabad - Bareilly - Lucknow

 NH 47A - Kundannur - Willington Island in Kochi (Shortest NH - 6 km)

Different Projects

Initiated by National Highways Development Project (NHDP)

 National Highways Development Project (NHDP)

NHDP is being implemented by NHAI. NHDP Phases are:

Phase I: Golden Quadrilateral.

Phase II: North-South and East-West corridors.

Phase III: Upgrade 12,109 km of national highways on a Build, Operate and

Transfer (BOT) basis.

Phase IV: Convert existing single lane highways into two lanes.

Phase V: Upgrade four lane highways to six lanes.

Phase VI: Expressways.

Phase VII: Improvements to city road networks.

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2) Golden Quadrilateral Highway Network

 Golden Quadrilateral is a network of highways connecting India’s four top

metropolitan cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, thereby,
forming a quadrilateral.

 The overall length of the quadrilateral is 5,846 km consisting of four/six

lane express highways.

3) N-S and E-W corridor

 The North-South–East-West Corridor (NS-EW) is the largest ongoing

highway project in India.

 It will connect Srinagar with Kanyakumari and Porbandar with Silchar.

 The meeting point of the two corridors is at Jhansi.

New Initiatives
 Bharat Mala

5500 km to develop roads along the international borders and coastal areas.

 Special Scheme

6000 km roads facilitating connectivity to religious/tourist places and

providing connectivity to backward regions.

 District Connectivity

Development of National Highways providing connectivity to district

headquarters.

 Setu Bharatam

All the level crossings and narrow/weak bridges to be replaced by

Railway Over / Under Bridges and new constructions.

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Major Policies Initiative

The Government has progressively taken many policy decisions in the sector,
designed to facilitate the execution of work and make it speedier, more efficient and
transparent.

Some of the major initiatives of 2015 are as follows:

 The Exit Policy framework permits concessionaires/developers to divest 100

percent equity and exit all operational BOT projects two years after completion
of construction. This would help unlock equity from completed projects making it
potentially available for invest- ment into new infrastructure projects across the
country.

 Fund Infusion to Salvage Languishing Projects: This initiative authorizes the

National High- ways Authority of India (NHAI) to intervene in projects that are in
the advanced stage of completion but are stuck due to lack of funds. NHAI has
been authorized to provide funds to such projects from within its overall
budget/corpus on a loan basis at a pre-determined rate of return.

 Rationalized compensation to concessionaires for languishing NH projects in

BOT mode for delays not attributable to concessionaires:

 A New mode of delivery under Public -Private Partnership (PPP) mode,

namely Hybrid Annu- ity Model, is being promoted for awarding road projects for
implementation under which 40% of project cost is being provided by the
Government to the concessionaire. Remaining 60% is to be arranged in form of
debt and equity to be compensated over 15 years as bi-annual annuities. The
private party does not have to bear the traffic risk.

 National Highways Authority of India is raising funds through public issue of

tax free, se- cured, redeemable non-convertible bonds with Face Value of Rs
1,000 each for an amount of Rs 1,000 crore with an option to retain over
subscription of upto additional Rs 9,000 crore, aggregating upto a total of Rs
10,000 crore.

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Railway Transportation System

 The Indian railway system is the second largest system in the world under the
single management.

 Railways virtually forms the life-line of the country, catering to its needs for large
scale movement of traffic, both freight and passenger, thereby contributing to
economic growth as well as promoting national integration.

 It is a multi – gauge system operating on three gauges – the broad, the metre and
the narrow

List of the Major Railways Zones in India

Railway Zone Zonal HQ Division

 Mumbai

 Nagpur

Central Railway Mumbai  Bhusawal

 Pune


 Howrah-I

 Howrah-II

 Sealdah
Eastern Railway 
 Asansol


 Danapur

 Mugalsarai

East Central Railway

 Dhanbad

 Sonpur

 Khurda Road
East Coast Railway Bhubaneshwar 
 Sambhalpur

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Railway Zone Zonal HQ Division


 Jhansi

 Agra

 Izzatnagar

 Lucknow
North Eastern Railway Gorakhpur
 Varanasi
 DLW



Maligaon Guwahati  Rangiya

 Lumding

 Tinsukhia



North Western Railway
 Bikaner

 Ajmer

 Chennai


Southern Railway Chennai  Palghat



 Secunderabad


Secunderabad 
 Vijaywada


 Kharagpur


South Eastern Railway Garden Reach, Kolkata

 Ranchi

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Railway Zone Zonal HQ Division


South East Central Railway  Nagpur

 Raipur

 Bangalore

 Mysore
South Western Railway

 RWF/YNK

 BCT


 Ahmedabad
Western Railway Mumbai CST  Ratlam

 Rajkot

 Bhavnagar


West Central Railway  Bhopal





Effect of Railways on the Indian Economy

 The construction and expansion of the railways have been proved to be beneficial
for the economic and inclusive growth of the economy. It provides a better linkage
between pro- ducer, retailer and consumer.

 It has played a significant role in the development of cotton textile industry, jute
industry as it provides free flow of raw materials with proper penetration to market
areas.

 Railways have been very helpful in the development of Indian agriculture. Now
farmers can send their agricultural goods to distant places and can fetch good
incomes.

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 New industrials hubs have emerged as higher mobility of raw materials reduced the
con- centration of industries mainly around raw material centres . As Kanpur is
known for cotton garments whereas the raw materials are present in Maharashtra
and Gujarat.

 Railways are playing significant role in running country’s administration and

safeguarding its freedom and integrity, as it provides easy movement of police,
troops, defence equipments etc

Problems and Issues in the Development of the

Indian Railway System

 Problem of acquiring land.

 Indian Railways has suffered from chronic and significant under-investment as a

result of which the network expansion and modernization has not happened at the
requisite pace leading to an erosion of the share in national freight and passenger
traffic.

 Cleanliness, punctuality of services, safety, quality of terminals, capacity of trains,

quality of food, security of passengers and ease of booking tickets are issues that
need urgent attention.

 The high density networks of the Indian Railways are facing acute capacity
constraints coupled with a low passenger fares thereby leading to increases in
freight tariffs to cross subsidize passenger revenues.

 Investments in safety have also suffered on account of low internal generation of re

- sources.

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Environmental side effects

 The laying of new tracks requires clearance of forests which affects the biodiversity
and forest dwellers both.

 Due to presence of railway tracks in elephant corridors, many accidents happen,

resulting in the deaths of elephants

 For the establishment of railway tracks in hilly areas dynamite is used to destroy
hills, which causes air pollution as well as leading to frequent landslides.

Water Transportation System

 Waterways provide the cheapest-means for transportation of commodities in bulk

because there is no fixed cost associated with them.

 Costly construction of routes is not required.

Inland Waterways

 India has about 14,500 km of navigable waterways which comprise rivers, canals,
backwaters, creeks, etc.

 However, there is a number of conditionality attached to the river transport, viz:

 The rivers must have enough water flowing in them all year round.

 The rivers must be free from waterfall or rapids;

 The rivers must have stabilized courses;

 The rivers must not have fluctuating regimes;

 The rivers must flow in the right direction; i.e., the direction of dominant
trade flows.

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Impediments to the Growth of the Indian Water

Transport System

 Insufficient depths throughout the stretch of navigable waters.

 Excessive siltation in major rivers from erosion of uplands and deforestation.

 Navigation being relegated to the fourth position due to priorities to drinking water,
irrigation and power (hydel) sectors that results in reduced draft.

 Non-availability of low draft high technology vessels.

 Non-availability of adequate navigational aids resulting in restricted sailing over

long periods.

 Non-availability of permanent terminals with adequate infrastructure for loading/

unloading, storage etc.

 Non-availability of bulk commodities along the waterfront.

 Non-availability of return cargo on most of the routes.

Advantages of Indian Water Transportation

 Low capital cost

 Cost of development of inland waterway has been estimated to be a mere

5-10 percent of the cost of developing of an equivalent 4-lane highway or
railway.

 Low maintenance cost

 Cost of maintenance of inland waterway is placed at 20 percent of that of

roads.

 Low fuel cost

Inland Water Transport is a highly fuel-efficient mode of transport. This fact is borne
out by the estimate that one liter of fuel can move24 tonnes/km of freight by road, 85
by rail and 105 by IWT.

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Cost-effective transport mode

 It h as also been estimated that diversion of one billion tonne-km of cargo to

the IWT mode will reduce transport fuel costs by 5 million USD and the
overall transport costs by 9 million USD.

Need for Infrastructure building

 An analysis of the need for building essential infrastructure like mecha-

nized handling at terminals and night navigation facilities reveals how these
can translate into reduction of cost of transportation per tonne-km (TKM)
over short haul as well as long haul carriage by IWT.

 It was observed that the TKM cost of movement would come down
from the present Rs.3.55 to Rs.1.44 for a short haul of 100 km and from
Rs. 0.95 to 0.39 for a long haul of 2000 km.

Seaports in India

The coastline of India is dotted with 12 Major Ports and about 200 Non-major Ports.

 Kandla

It is a tidal port located at the eastern end of Gulf of Kuchchh.

 Mumbai

It is situated on Salsette Island on the western coast.

It is a natural harbor and the largest port of India handling about 1/5th of India’s for-
eign trade.

Jawaharlal Nehru port

It has been built at Nhava Sheva Island across the Elephanta caves, about 10 km from
Mumbai.

Main objective is to relieve the pressure on the Mumbai Port .

 Marmagao

It is a natural port located at the entrance of Zuvari estuary in Goa.

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 New Mangalore

It is locLated at the southern tip of Karnataka coast, north of Gurpur River.

 Kochi

A natural behaviour on the western coast of Kerala (in Vembanad Lake).

 Tuticorin

It s an artificial deep sea harbour in Tamil Nadu, north of Adam Bridge and east of Sri
Lanka.

 Chennai

It is the oldest artificial port on the eastern coast of India.

 Ennore

Recently developed to reduce pressure of traffic on Chennai Port.

It is located slightly north of Chennai on T.N. coast.

It is the country’s first corporate port.

 Vishakhapatnam

It is the deepest land-locked and protected port at the coast of Andhra Pradesh.

 Paradeep

It is a deep-water & all weather port on Orissa coast in Mahanadi delta region.

 Kolkata-Haldia

It is a river rine port located on the west bank of the Hooghly River.

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New Initiatives

 Sagarmala project

 Sagarmala will lead to large scale employment generation of skilled and semi-
skilled manpower.

 Industrial clusters and parks, large ports, maritime services, logistics services, and
other sectors of the economy will be directly and indirectly impacted by port-led
development under Sagarmala.

 It will result in sustainable development of the population living in the Coastal

Economic Zones (CEZ) by synergising and coordinating with State Governments
and line Ministries of Central Government through their existing schemes and
programmes such as those related to community and rural development, tribal
development and employment generation, fisheries, skill development, tourism
promotion etc. Today about 70 lakhs persons are dependent on fisheries for their
livelihood.

B. Jal Marg Vikas Project

 The Project’s objective is to provide an environment friendly, fuel efficientand cost-

effective alternative mode of transportation, especially for bulk goods, hazardous
goods, captive cargo and over dimensional cargo.

 The projects include construction of terminals, jetties, river training and

conservancy works, modern automated information system, navigation aids, etc.

Issues in Indian Water Ports

 Most major ports were originally designed to handle specific categories of cargo
which have declined in time while other types of cargoes gained importance.

 The ports have not been able to adjust to the categories of cargo which grew the
most.

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 There are thus several berths for traditional cargo, which are under-utilised, and
only a few for new cargo, which are overutilised.

 Equipment utilisation is very poor both because equipment is obsolete and poorly
maintained.

 Over staffing at Indian ports remains rampant and productivity indicators in respect
of cargo and equipment handling continue to be poor.

 Documentary procedures relating to cargo handling such as customs clearance

requirements are unduly complicated and time consuming.

 Electronic document processing is still to be introduced in all the ports.

 Port access facilities and arrangements for moving in-bound and out-bound cargo
are inadequate and unsatisfactory.

 Absence of inter-port and intra-port competition which have been conductive to

substantial productivity increases in other countries is absent in Indian due to poor
inland connectivity and a policy regime that protected domestic ports against
competitive pressures.

List of Ports in India

Name of the Port Coast State

Chennai

Ennore

JNPT Western Coast

Western Coast

Kochi Western Coast Kerala

West Bengal

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Name of the Port Coast State

Andhra Pradesh

Western Coast

Western Coast Goa

Mumbai Western Coast

Paradip

Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh

Airway Transportation System

 Aviation as an infrastructure segment has played vital role infacilitating the

growth of business and economy in India. A robust civil aviation set-up is key
to seamless flow of investment, trade and tourism, with significant multiplier
effects through the economy.

List of Important Airports in India

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Name of the state City name Name of the Airport

Andhra Pradesh Visakhapatnam

Assam Guwahati

Bihar Gaya

Delhi New Delhi

Goa

Sardar VallabhbhaPatel International Airport

Ahmedabad

Bengaluru

Kerala Kochi

Kerala

Kerala

Madhya Pradesh Bhopal

Mumbai

Nagpur

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Name of the state City name Name of the Airport

Manipur Imphal

Bhubaneswar

Punjab

Rajasthan

Chennai

Telangana

Uttar Pradesh Lucknow Chaudhary Charan Singh International

Airport
Uttar Pradesh Varanasi Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport

West Bengal Kolkata Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International

Airport
Bihar Patna Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Airport

Public Private Partnership in Transport Sector

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 Public Private Partnership means an arrangement between agovernment /

statutory entity / government owned entity on one side, and a private sector entity
on the other.

 This is an arrangement for the provision of public assets and/or public services,
through investments being made and/or management being undertaken by the
private sector entity.

 It is for a specified period of time, where there is well defined allocation of risk
between the private sector and the public entity and the private entity receives
performance linked payments that conform (or are benchmarked) to specified and
pre-determined performance standards, measurable by the public entity or its
representative.

Different Types of Public Private Partnership

 BOT-Toll (Build Operate Transfer – Toll) :

 Capital infusion is available from the public entity.

 A risk sharing model is predominant in this model

 BOOT (Build Operate Own Transfer):

 This engagement model is similar to the “Build Operate Transfer” model

except that the private entity has to transfer the facility back to the public sector

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 Joint Venture (JV):

 In a PPP arrangement commonly followed in our country (such as for airport

development), the private sector body is encouraged to form a joint venture
company (JVC) along with the participating public sector agency with the
latter holding only minority shares.

 The private sector body will be responsible for the design; construction and
management of the operations targeted for the PPP and will also bring in
most of the investment requirements.

 The public sector partner’s contribution will be by way of fixed assets at a

pre-determined value, whether it is land, buildings or facilities or it may
contribute to the shareholding capital.

 It may also provide assurances and guarantees required by the private

partner to raise funds and to ensure smooth construction and operation.

 Management Contract (MC):

 A management contract is a contractual arrangement for the management of

a part or whole of a public enterprise by the private sector.

 Management contracts allow private sector skills to be brought into service

design and delivery, operational control, labour management and equipment
procurement.

 However, the public sector retains the ownership of facility and equipment.

 The private sector is provided specified responsibilities concerning a service

and is gener- ally not asked to assume commercial risk.

 The private contractor is paid a fee to manage and operate services.

 Normally, payment of such fees is performance-based.

 Usually, the contract period is short, typically two to five years. But longer
period may be used for large and complex operational facilities such as a
port or airport.

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 BOT (Build Operate Transfer):

 The private business builds and operates the public facility for an agreed
period of time.

 Once the facility is operational as agreed, or at the end of the time period,
the private entity transfers the facility ownership to the public, here it may
be construed as Government.

 Under this category, the private partner is responsible to design, build,

operate (during the contracted period) and transfer back the facility to the
public sector.

 The private sector partner is expected to bring the finance for the project and
take the responsibility to construct and maintain it.

 The public sector will either pay a rent for using the facility or allow it to
collect revenue from the users.

 The national highway projects contracted out by NHAI under PPP mode is
an example.

 This model is a classic example for IT industry

 BOT – Annuity (Build Operate Transfer – Annuity):

 This model though is globally accepted one does not have the favour of the
Planning Commission of India.

 In case of annuity model, the cost of building the entity is paid to the private
entity or the developer annually after the starting commercial operations
of the facility.

 DBFOT (Design Build Finance Operate Transfer):

 These are other variations of PPP and as the nomenclatures highlight, the
private party assumes the entire responsibility for the design, construct,
finance, and operate or operate and maintain the project for the period of
concession

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 BOO (Build Own Operate):

 In a BOO project, ownership of the project usually remains with the Private
entity.

 The government grants the rights to design, finance, build, operate and
maintain the project to a private entity, which retains ownership of the
project.

 In BOO the private entity is usually not required to transfer the facility back
to the government

 BOOST (Build Operate Own Share Transfer):

 This model is very similar to the BOOT model, except that there exists an
arrangement or sharing the revenue to the private entity for a longer time
even after the rights of the private entity are transferred to the public entity.

 Hybrid Annuity Model

 Under this model, the government will provide 40 per cent of the project cost

 to the developer to start work while the remaining investment has to be

made by the developer.

 The main objective of the approval is to revive highway projects in the

country by making one more mode of delivery of highway projects.

 Under this, all major stakeholders in the PPP arrangement — the Authority,
Lender and the Developer, Concessionaire would have an increased
comfort level resulting in revival of the sector through renewed interest of
private developers/investors in highway projects and this will bring
relief thereby to citizens/travelers in the area of a respective project

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Advantages of Public Private Partnership Model

 Better quality since the concessionaire (private sector) is to maintain the road for
the period of concession.

 Early completion of the project, since the concessionaire could save interest and
earn early toll (in the case of BOT project) / additional annuity installments (in the
case of Annuity project).

 No costs overrun (price escalation).

 The Client (Government/NHAI) does not have the burden of maintaining the
highways.

 Involving the private sector leads to greater efficiency.

 The private sector has more flexible procurement and decision-making procedures
and therefore, it can speed up implementation efforts.

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