Sudeep D'Souza

One of the principles in Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints goes like “The speed of your system is only as fast as the slowest process that you have in your system”. And this simple truth has enabled many large organizations achieve fantastic productivity. I would now like to apply this theory to my pet topic of late and that is to the Roads of Hyderabad. Let us consider the system to be the road network. In this network the speed at which the traffic will flow will depend on the speed of the traffic at the narrowest portion of the road. So if someone asks a question how many vehicles will move in an hour from Point A to Point B, its fairly simple, find out what is the size of the narrowest portion of the road between point A and point B and calculate how many vehicles can get through there in an hour and you have your answer. The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad has been doing a spate of road widening activities of late – matter of fact I think they have gone berserk

Something that I learnt yesterday was an eye opener for me. A home loan agent was talking to me about how there is a great deal of difference in the registration charges when one goes to buy a new house that is being constructed by a builder and a house on resale. Let me walk you through this with an example. Lets say you are interested in buying a house that costs about Rs. 22 lakhs and you plan to take a home loan of Rs. 20 lakhs. In the case of the new house the Rs. 20 lakhs is shown to you in the form of a sale agreement for just the shell and a construction agreement for completing the house. and this is usually done in the ratio of 30 - 40 % for the sale agreement and 60-70 % for the construction agreement (in our case it works out to 7 lakhs for the sale and 13 lakhs for the construction). Now the registration is done on the value of the sale agreement and hence the cost of registration drastically drops. On the other hand when you buy a house on resale there is only one loan

There have been a few comments that have been posted on my last couple of articles on How do we ease traffic ? and Why do we have clogged up roads ? . My line of thought for solving this problem of high density of traffic and low density of roads that our city has is that we need to have a good public transportation system that consists of not one but a whole array of existing and new transportation systems that work in a well coordinated and synchronized manner instead of trying to compete with each other. I admit we have got ourselves into a mess in terms of bad city planning, lack of regard for zoning laws, frivolous FSI, rampant bribery in the roads and buildings divisions and arbitrary decisions being made trying to solve the problems that exist. Due to all these things we have a transportation issue on our hands which would not have existed (hopefully) if all the above had not taken place. What I am stating is that we are only making a bigger mess by taking short term decision

Update : The last that I have heard of this place is that it has closed down. Pity, as this was one place you could expect some quality conti food at a reasonable cost. Sizzlers, Steaks, Russian Salad... Do these dishes make your mouth water? If the answer to this question is " Yes " then I know just the place that you can have this food to your hearts content right here in Hyderabad. On Road No. 12 Banjara Hills right next to Pizza Hut is a hole in the wall kind of a place - it has about 4 tables on the mezzanine floor and 2 tables and the kitchen on the ground floor - the sizzlers and the russian salad are really good. You would have to put up with the fumes while your food is being cooked but its worth it. There is an option to order take-away too but I am not sure what would a sizzler taste like when eaten 10 min after it has been sizzling so my advise would be to have it at the restraunt itself. Happy Eating.

As a follow up to my last article on how road widening and building bridges are very short term solution I would like to answer some interesting thoughts that an anonomous comment has raised. The first fact that was raised is "Each year, Hyderabad city is adding about 2 lakh vehicles." - well you can't dispute fact. But lets ask ourselves why are there so many vehicles being added And then the comment goes on to list as to why is there such an increase in vehicles and that is - "This increase is not merely because there is no public transportation system. It is to a significant extent because of credit markets." "Hyderabad is being redesigned for the enjoyment and profiteering of some 1 per cent or less of the urban population. And nobody objects to this because most people imagine that they will somehow be within that one per cent if not today, well then very soon, they think they will get there. " We have moved along from a socialist economy of