JUST after 1pm on July 31st 2012 lights blinked out across northern India. It was the world’s biggest-ever blackout, affecting more than 600m people. It was also a swingeing blow to a transport system that had struggled to cope at the best of times. Hundreds of trains came to a halt in open country and in the tunnels of Delhi’s underground railway. Some passengers had to wait for hours in shirt-drenching heat.
Five years on, India’s famously creaky transport infrastructure is starting to look strong. The power on which parts of it depend has also become far more reliable. The embarrassing system-wide collapses of 2012, and an earlier one in 2001, are now scarcely conceivable. A rush to expand the electricity supply has been so successful that analysts now warn of a looming excess of generating capacity.
On paper, India has long claimed some of the world’s most extensive road and rail networks. That belied reality: roads were twisting, bumpy, crowded and dangerous....Continue reading
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