A highway of corruption.

The Indian government cheats the people in numerous inventive ways. There is the alphabet soup of scams - 2G, Coalgate, CWG, Adarsh, mining and many that have not been discovered as yet. One of the biggest scams is to call a narrow, broken and dangerous track a " National Highway ", give it a number and charge toll on it. Not just once but every 30 or so kilometers. Some stretches on these roads have been widened and resurfaced but alternate with long segments of broken surface or where work is still going on. Most of these so called highways have just 4 lanes, have very poor signs and not one has facilities for emergencies such as break downs or accidents. Truck drivers blatantly drive the wrong way to save on diesel, villagers drive tractors overladen with produce, blocking both lanes, and cows meander across at will. Our ministers who frequently travel abroad on fictitious business on taxpayer money are either blind or choose not to see that ordinary roads in other countries are better than our National Highways. Why? Because road building is financed by the most corrupt method, called PPP or Public Private Partnership which is a partnership between politicians, civil servants and private companies to loot the public. The government asks for tenders to improve a particular stretch of road. Companies favored by the scoundrels are awarded contracts by quoting ridiculously low rates. Once contracts have been signed these companies then ask for the price to be revised upwards and start charging high rates of toll even as the work is going on, causing huge traffic jams. Once the scams became public private fellows have virtually stopped applying for projects. In 2012-13 the ministry could award just 1322 kms of road building projects as opposed to a target of 9500 kms. This year's target has been lowered from 7500 kms at the start of the year to a pathetic 2128 kms. To protect their hides the crooks blame each other resulting in Rs 170 billion worth of litigation. To resolve the mess the Congress is setting up a regulator. Will it help us, the citizens? No. The ministry will just ignore any advise from the regulator that does not facilitate bribes. Where the government is a thief then private fellows will join the party. The toll operator in Gurgaon is apparently cheating the government by under-reporting the numbers of cars passing through. If one thief cheats another does it balance the budget?