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“Good transportation as well as good roads are necessary to promote sustainable tourism.” ―
"Wherever possible, reduce the use of petrol and diesel. Use the Metro, use electric buses and public transport more, promote carpooling." … Hon.Modiji, PM of India
I personally hate driving & I can afford a driver but I love road trips though they consume lots of time… Me.
Hon PM Sir,
Here are a few questions for the readers other than PM Sir, to start my sharing (and to set the tempo); have you noticed something while you read newspapers (if anybody reads) in the month of May, which is our official school holiday time & peak for tourism season? Do you know how many Indians lost their lives in road accidents in the year 2025? How many of you have last travelled by railway or State Transport bus or say private bus, on overnight journey? How many of you have tried to book a railway ticket to Mumbai or Nagpur (question is for Pune people)? What is the best part & worst part on road trips with private vehicles in India, in your opinion? Well, I can keep firing questions with more speed than Bumrah & with stamina like R Ashwin (Plz google) but the sharing is not supposed to be about only questions but some answers also or else it’s just critics which I am not, so be it! Ok, you must have thought this is about holiday trips then you are right partially as the sharing is about trips (read as travels) but it’s about road as well rail journey & more specifically about our public transport & it’s about appeal by our Hon Prime Minister Modiji to use public transport for commuting & it’s about accidents on the roads also!
Ok, first about the quotes, yes, roads are like mirror of a city & right from the people on these roads to the cleanliness & condition of the roads, one look at them & you can tell the kind of life this city offers & Ozan is very right in her quote to mention this aspect of the roads. Speaking about Akita, her words speak about the importance of good road conditions & the infrastructure along, for tourism’s (road trips) growth in any city or country. Then our Modiji’s words, which are appeal to our Aam Janta / public which is like an antidote for ever rising prices of fuel & lastly, my own words about driving or road trips! And now coming to the questions & speaking for myself, I do read newspapers & that is an important aspect of my daily routine & in the month of May, every single day there was news of road accidents & deaths of travellers & more importantly most of these accident’s victims are from private vehicles, is my observation. In our country approximately one & half lakh people die in road accidents every year & year 2025 was not an exception to the same & probably a double of that get permanently injured, making the total victim figure nearly five lakh per year. I last travelled by railway nearly five years back, from Mumbai to Jabalpur in MP, overnight journey it was. I don’t remember travelling by ST Bus (Lal Dabba, popular name of ST) or any bus in the last ten years. I have tried booking a ticket for Pune Nagpur of railway "N" number of times & always ending unsuccessfully to get a confirmed ticket! Best part of travelling on Indian roads is, you can stop anywhere you want, get down for pee or eat your lunch or just take selfie & worst part is, you have to stop for pee anywhere only because there are no clean toilets on any road which you can use if the toilets are in existence in the first place! Guys, this is not some prank or joke but please do write me back your replies to the above questions as it matters a lot for the subject of sharing!
Seriously, I am hundred percent sure, that ninety percent readers if they write me back or doesn’t, their answers will be matching to mine & about the rest ten percent, well every law has an exception, so be it! First of all, thanks to the Hon PM, whether it be fuel crisis or anything, he appealed for use of public transport which has opened Box of Pandora (like this sharing) & first question is, where is the public transport in this country? With all due respect to the railways which is probably is the largest railway network & carrying maximum numbers of people every day but that’s credit of nearly one fifty plus crore our population & eighty percent out of that can’t afford private transportation & still I will give due credit to our country’s railway management as to work with so less infrastructure for so many people, is not a joke! But the question remains, will you call railways an effective public transport & for that first we have to define the term public transport, right? And when I say effective public transport then four ways are there to do so; one is roads, two is railway, three is (was) waterway or boat & fourth is air. And out of this most people are forced (you read right, forced) to use the last option which is the costliest because the first three are ineffective is my subject of sharing! Just two/ three decades back air travel was meant only for super riches or business’s top management class & many will say thanks to our country’s leadership (present & past) now even so-called middle-class families can also fly! But are they doing it by will, is the question, because take a simple case of travel from Pune -Nagpur, this distance is approximately 800 km & by even average speed of 60 km per hour the journey should take 13 hours, which it takes nearly 15 hours by road. But the same journey by railway takes nearly 14 hours. Now, in vacation seasons such as the month of May there are hardly four to five State transport buses & out of that two only are AC coaches. Even if we calculate 50 passengers per bus then it becomes just three hundred passengers per day, & this is the cheapest option of travel from Pune to Nagpur, with average ticket per person is say Rs 1200. So, for a family of four it's Rs 5000, one-way trip. Now, sleeper class non-AC railway sleeper coach ticket is Rs 1500 per head, so a family trip one way spending is nearly Rs 6000. There is no water way (thankfully) to Nagpur from Pune, means, boat option is not there, so let’s look at the air travel option. In peak season air tickets, even if booked months earlier, are Rs 4000 per person, which means for a family of four one-way spending is Rs 16,000 & then you have to reach air-port minimum two hours early, that’s ok.
Let’s see the challenges in road & railway travel in Pune Nagpur journey, as there are hardly any road State Transport buses which travel overnight so people either have to spare the whole day in travel or take refuge of private public transport. Here the rates can match air travel in holiday season, which means one way spending for a family can be nearly Rs.10,000, making it costlier option as well here the worst thing is, risk of night travel on roads even if you are ok with poorest road travel infrastructure such as eateries & horrible toilet conditions! These private buses rarely follow any safety norms, the drivers are young, inexperienced & reckless as well drunk also, no wonder maximum road accidents which happen at nights are of private buses, so most people avoid this option. And now railway booking, well, to my knowledge there are ten trains which go to Nagpur from Pune & even if the train carrying capacity by numbers of passengers is 60 person per coach with fourteen bogies, we are talking about just 8400 numbers! While the need is of nearly 25,000 persons per day as with my wild guess, nearly five lakh people stays in Pune region which are originally from Nagpur region & even if we are talking about fifty percent lot, see the numbers & this doesn’t include daily or regular commuting as well the trains which goes beyond Nagpur & such passengers! No wonder, any day of the year you check the railway booking chart for Nagpur from Pune, it's full! {*And this I am referring to only Nagpur city, as take example of Tadoba which is probably our country most popular wildlife destination & is only 90 km away from Nagpur, if you reach Nagpur by any means, there is no commuting public transport of right mode keeping in mind safari timings for tadoba, making business of taxis in most demand running to & fro between Nagpur -Tadoba, denting pockets of tourists & of nation too!}
This makes only two options available for people travelling Pune Nagpur i.e. buy air ticket at whatever rate its there & that too weird flight timing such as morning five am, so you have to wake up at two am or go to Nagpur by your private car & Hon PM sir this is my subject of sharing! And here again, most people who can’t afford driver either choose option of self-driving & they are not trained for such long drives as well to save day time, takes night driving, these are the people who meet their fate in the form of accident on the roads & whole blame goes to the system which can’t provide them safe public transport option, apart from spending on fuel, is my subject of sharing! These passengers are not travelling by private cars for fun, they just don’t have any option because of budget & because of unavailability of any other travelling means which you are referring as public transport, first accept this bitter fact Sir, is the reason I am writing to you as I gave example of connectivity between just two cities i.e. Pune & Nagpur but the scene is the same all around the country on the public transport front!
The solution is not in building more roads or expressways or starting a few Vande-Matram Trains of select routes but we must start a separate Ministry for Public Transport which will focus on creating more options of commuting with right infrastructure & pricing, for the Public (read as, masses)! This ministry will have all commuting means under its wing & responsibility of maintaining them for e.g. imagine a Central Road transport Service & taxi service which we don’t have in the first place! And for that start working on statistics of how much public transport we actually need & on which routes & form. Till that time under this ministry make units which will check existing infrastructure of public transport & take action on their poor conditions by following present responsible departments & at least for the first year ask your PMO office to take these unit’s reporting! PM Sir, I understand your security reasons but please ask your Senior Babus (officers) & ministers & MLAs, MPs to book tickets of our country’s public transport for themselves as a normal citizen & if they are lucky to get those tickets to travel without their Govt IDs’ & then ask them their experiences about our Public Transport, after that if you think my all-above words are just criticism then you can punish me whatever way you want! Sir, with current prices of diesel & petrol, nobody wants to use even a bike leave apart car (I am referring to common people), so you don’t have to appeal them for using public transport, just give them a right public transport option & see how they will bless you for ever, is all I will say to conclude my sharing, thanks a lot for giving me opportunity to express my views & will be happy if they are of some use, adios with this note!
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Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
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https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html
https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html
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