Road economics!

I’ve been thinking of writing a whitepaper on this, but guess will just give it a pass and post it on my blog here.

Last month, we had the general assembly elections in India wherein the nation saw, probably for the first time in years, a clean sweep by one party.  It was a first for me, for a fact, to see my friends fighting, bickering over political leaders, parties, and their philosophies. What a particular party would do, what the other wouldn’t, how capable one leader was, how corrupt the other party was and what not?!  Trust me, I wasn’t as apolitical as I am today before this times’ elections!!!

However, coming back to my study, the correlation between elections and economic development is based on one crucial factor – GOOD ROADS!  In India, new roads are laid primarily, only just before the elections. This, according to the politicians or whoever is contesting the elections (you never know these days!) help the citizens get reminded of them and thus they hope a secure vote bank from wherever they are contesting. So, here is how newly laid roads lead to economic development of the nation –

 Reaching office on time – New roads will reduce the time spent on roads by employees driving to work. As a result, they would be a lot more fresh than usual and thus, instead of spending half an hour at the coffee machine, another half in the restroom and checking facebook (just because of boredom), they might just reduce this time into half. A coffee might not be required as soon as they reach, letting them open mails and start working atleast half an hour earlier – thus boosting the efficiency and utilization.

 Reaching home on time –

a.       As is with reaching office, is with reaching home. Employees reaching home early will get more time to spend with their families helping them in being happier than earlier. Happy employees churn happier clients/customers thus increasing the profitability of their organizations making them pay more taxes to the government.

b.      More time and more energy on their hands will promote them and their families to step out of the house more than just the weekends.  This will in turn increase the spending in the economy boosting trade and production.  E.g. industrial production will increase as the demand increases.

      Faster transportation of goods – Goods would reach the market faster than what they take after six months of either side of elections thus ensuring a steady supply.  As the demand has already risen in our previous bullet, maintain a steady supply would be imperative for producers/manufacturers to ensure more sales. Competition in the market will also go up, thus developing a perfect mechanism of demand and supply, and market economics. 
         
          Saving more lives – Faster traffic will ensure that ambulances reach their destinations well on time saving lives of millions. An increase in number of patients will boost the healthcare industry as well and doctors and pharma industries will have more opportunities to milk their patients (as now they finally reach the hospitals on time!).  On a more morbid note, because it’s India, and because we don’t have any driving sense in any of our cities here, we could possibly have more number of accidents – eventually helping both the doctors as well as pharma industries! 

         Employment opportunities – A newly laid road in India might stay in that condition just for an average 2 months because of the traffic, and the way it is laid.  Otherwise, there are always contractors who are more than eager (or just waiting) to dig up a newly laid road.  New roads will boost employment opportunities as more and more people would be involved in laying, upkeep, and maintenance of these roads.  New industry hubs will be developed as distance wouldn’t be an issue any more increasing the employment opportunities again!  

     Macro-economic – Increased money in the economy will lead to increased residual income or savings with the people. At the same time, a northward movement of industry and availability of products people would be more than happy to spend more.  Inflation rates would come down helping GDP growth and reducing the fiscal deficit of the nation!!!  A detailed study on this would have allowed me to put up some charts as well :)

By now, you might have realized that I do spend a lot of time every day on the road to and from my office.  So, currently, I am enjoying the other side of the six months I mentioned above. Monsoons are here and I’m pretty sure, the roads are definitely going to be back as they were a few months back.  Let’s hope the much hyped, over-marketed yet successful Modi Sarkar doesn’t let this happen, someone responsible for the roads reads my blog post, and the roads continue the way they are!!!