Success, it has been said, depends on many things. In fact, it depends on just a few, but crucial things. The trick lies in being able to spot those few things.
India is neither very talented nor a retard in this respect. Indeed, in the first 10 or 15 years after Independence, its score was above average. But from the start of the Indira Gandhi brand of politics, it has begun to do worse.
One important reason for this is the creation by Indira Gandhi of separate ministerial fiefdoms as a way of buying political support. However, that sort of politics has entailed an economic cost because it obstructs a unified approach to problems. Each minister develops a vested interest in keeping things separate.
Nowhere is this more true than in the transport sector. The Railways have a ministry of their own and are the slowest to accept change because of their monopoly status. Surface transport - shipping, ports and roads is run by another ministry in a haphazard way. Aviation also has a ministry of its own and India's aviation business is amongst the worst in the world.
Given India's massive need for modernising its transport industry, an integrated approach is required. But given the political imperatives of coalitions, it is futile to expect that such an approach will come about via the creation of a single ministry of transport.
So what is the next best solution? In what I would regard as an absolute classic*, John Moon and Richard Alexander Roerhle of the Transport Division of UNESCAP in Bangkok may have provided an answer.
I say "may" because their paper is devoted to Asian rather than Indian issues. But the message is highly relevant because the problems - whether at the Asian level or at the Indian (different ministries) level - are identical, namely, the failure to approach transport as a series of separate but interlinked networks, which can be one-way (ATMs, TV) or two-way (railways, Internet).
The challenge, they say, is to meld - mesh and weld - these different networks together in a such a way that inter-modalism, or the seamless movement of goods and people comes at the lowest cost in every possible way.
The central feature of any network is the existence of links and nodes and the efficiency of the whole system depends on these links and nodes perform. "Any inefficiencies in, or missing links or nodes can affect the overall efficiency of the network.." The key to making the whole transport system work efficiently lies in "linking together of two formerly unconnected or weakly connected sub-networks."
This is where the Metcalfe's Law - which states that the value of networks is directly proportional to the square of the number of users - becomes critical. This is because a relatively small investment in interconnecting two networks can quickly create a much more valuable network. Our operating system prevents this from happening quickly.
Like with most things, it is not only benefits, of course. There are risks as well, not least to the incomes of locally influential groups who enjoy rents that arise from poor networking.
There are systemic risks as well, not least is the control of important links and nodes by influential groups. "In the most extreme case, lobbying groups may de-facto achieve increasing control over or `capture' the decision-making process of political representatives."
There is also the risk arising from what is called a path-dependent process that involves high lock-in costs. Integration can also lead to increased vulnerability of the whole network.
The paper is too long to be adequately summarised here. Suffice it to say everyone interested in transport issues should read it, especially Rail Bhavan, which, as the biggest network, is the least integrated - and, moreover, resists attempts to integrate.
Towards an Asian Integrated Transport Network UN-ESCAP, Monograph Series on Managing Globalisation, No. 1, http://www.unescap.org/ttdw/Publications/TPTS_pubs/pub_2399/pub_2399_fulltext.pdf
