India along with China is witnessing the unprecedented economic boom fuelled by their educated and aspiring middle class. The aspirations of middle class are adding to more chaos than prosperity. One of the major concern that is happening in India (Never been to China- So, no comments on the situation there) is the lack of traffic sense by motorists coupled with the lack of planning by government agencies.

With the recent boom in opportunities and the burgeoning middle class incomes, there are more people who can afford private transport which means more vehicles on road. This increase in number of vehicles is pushing the already bad infrastructure to its limits. India is a place where encroachments are the order of the day and are taken by the vigilance authorities with a pinch of a salt. Most of the second level politicians make money by encroaching upon government land and selling it up to innocent people.

Most of the encroachments are either next to road by expanding the building beyond the approved layout or on the river banks eating into the catchment areas. The area where I live, Nizampet road in Hyderabad is a classic example of poor planning and bad civic sense. This is one area in Hyderabad which benefitted (??) due to the economic boom. When I bought my apartment couple of years back, there is almost nothing beyond our apartment. But, now this place is famous for all sorts of mad construction activity with tippers and ready concrete mixers pushing others on the road to occupy space for themselves. The road in Nizampet is hardly 50 ft wide and both the oncoming and outgoing traffic flows through this narrow stretch. Driving in this narrow stretch is a night mare.

When the going is so tough for vehicles, the same road needs to be shared for people who want to walk. If any thought of walking comes to mind, it is better to kill the thought than to dare the traffic. People here care a damn about the pedestrians. There is hardly any space earmarked for pedestrians. We need to be very careful while walking as a wrong step will land us under the wheels of the vehicle which will zoom past us with hardly inches of space separation. The footpaths if they ever are provided are occupied by the push cart vendors who sell everything from vegetables to cheap Chinese toys for kids. This is sharing the road along with the traffic and walking to the side. The toughest task is to cross the road to reach to the other side. You need to pray to almighty at least for few seconds requesting god to make sure that a motorist who is in hurry will not kiss you with his vehicle. This adds a headache to the motorist too as the people who cross the road are unmindful of the traffic will make way for themselves and might be a big hindrance for smooth flow of traffic.

Why don’t our city planners have a dedicated footpath as in advanced countries and punish those who are occupying the space? The strange part is the areas where the rich and affluent lives. Places like Banjara and Jubilee hills are having a well laid out footpaths and the officials are very good in evicting the encroachments of the same as the people from politician class and the IAS officials live there.

We are the second most populous country and we will have more people walking. When the balance of urban to rural population is shifting towards the former with more people coming from villages to cities in search of better prospects, it is high time we start thinking about giving space to people who want to walk instead of ride.