Gleb Taflevich

Roads are by far the most dominant mode of transportation in India today. They amount for almost 85 percent of the country’s passenger traffic. However, most roads in India are narrow and congested with poor surface quality, and 33 percent of India’s villages do not have access to all-weather roads. And the roads that do exist are often bottlenecked and provide poor movement. The majority of national highways are two lanes or less. A quarter of all India's highways are congested. Many roads are of poor quality and road maintenance remains underfunded. This leads to the deterioration of roads and high transport costs for users. Good physical connectivity in the urban and rural areas is essential for economic growth. India's growing economy has witnessed a rise in demand for transport infrastructure and services However, the sector has not been able to keep pace with rising demand and is unfortunately pulling the economy down. Indian Railways is one of the largest railways in the world. It carried some 17 million passengers and 2 million tons of freight a day in 2007 and is one of the world’s largest employers for what it does. But the railways also face restraints, and freight transportation costs by rail are much higher than in most countries as freight tariffs in India have been kept high to subsidize passenger traffic. As far as Aviation goes, India has 125 airports, 11 of which are international airports. Indian airports handled 96 million passengers and 1.5 million tons of cargo between 2006 and 2007. The dramatic increase in air traffic for both passengers and cargo in recent years has placed a heavy strain on the country's major airports. Passenger traffic is projected to cross 100 million and cargo to cross 3.3 million tons by year 2010. Air traffic has been growing rapidly leading to severe strain on infrastructure at major airports, especially in the Delhi and Mumbai airports which account for more than 40 percent of nation’s air traffic. India has 12 major and 187 minor and intermediate ports along its more than coastline which stetches out more than 7500 kilometers. These ports serve the country’s growing foreign trade in petroleum products, iron ore, and coal, as well as the increasing movement of containers. Indian ports handled cargo of 650 million tons between 2006 and 2007. Inland water transportation remains largely undeveloped despite India's 14,000 kilometers of navigable rivers and canals. This is primarily because port traffic has more than doubled during the 1990's. India's ports need to significantly ramp up their capacity and efficiency to meet this surging demand. India is the world's fastest growing Wireless market, with almost 800 Million mobile phone subscribers as of the year 2011. It is also the second largest telecommunication network in the world in terms of number of wireless connections after China. Since it is the fastest growing telecommunications industry in the world, it is projected that India will have over one billion mobile subscribers by 2013. Also by that time, projections suggest that India will overtake China by then ! The liberalization policies of the Indian government which had begun in 1991, assisted in opening up the economy to domestic and international competition. Emphasis on self-reliance had eventually led to an economic crisis, which did not help to improve working conditions for the majority of the Indian labor force. During this period, many skilled and unskilled workers among the population left to seek employment opportunities in other countries. Despite the benefits of economic liberalization, it has not quickly solved the problem of unemployment and other social and economic troubles. One of the main areas of employment for many of the poor has been the cotton textile industry .. Along with mills that use the most advanced technology to process raw cotton and form cotton fiber, there also have existed a large number of small-scale workshops and households that use traditional handlooms and rely on manual labor for the processing of cotton. India's market liberalization led to the foreclosure of much of the traditional handloom cotton industry and resulted in nearly 2.3 million workers losing their jobs. Many of these workers have remained unemployed. Managers of the modern mills attribute this to the older age of hand-loom workers and their inflexibility or inability to adjust to the mechanized cotton mills. However, as opposed to neighboring China, trade unions in India are very important. Every industry has a trade union that advocates the rights and employment opportunities of its members. Trade unions strive to obtain the best deal for their members in terms of wages, working conditions, and welfare packages. As much as 92 percent of the labor force in India is unionized. Some of the laborers of the cotton industry have gained employment in the textile industry, which with its labor force of 39 million is among the largest unionized industries. Nearly 70 percent of the population as a whole derives its livelihood from land resources. India has a few major industries. The Indian textile industry certaintly covers a wide array of activities. Its production ranges from raw materials such as cotton, jute, silk and wool to a high value-added products like fabrics and garments to consumers. The industry alsomakes use of different varieties of fibers. It provides direct employment to approximately 35 million people and contributes 4 per cent of GDP. It fetches 35 per cent of gross export earnings and contributes 14 per cent of the value-addition in the manufacturing sector. The chemical industry in India is one of the oldest domestic industries and it currently produces nearly 70,000 commercial products, from cosmetics and toiletries, to plastics and pesticides. The country is the 13th largest exporter of pesticides and disinfectants globally. The petrochemical, agrochemical, and pharmaceutical industries are some of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian economy. The estimated worth of chemical industry is $28 billion and it accounts for 12.5 per cent of the total industrial production of India and 16.2 per cent of the its total exports. India is one of the major food producing country in the world but accounts less than 1.5 per cent of international food trade. Which also means that a mass expansion could be very vital ! The estimated growth of this industry is 9-12% and on the basis of estimated GDP, the growth rate is 6-8%, during the tenth plan period. The industry employs 1.6 mn workers and it is projected to grow to 37 mn, direct and indirect, by 2025. The 4000 years Indian steel industry is growing. In 2005, the production of the finished steed recorded a growth of 4 per cent and reached 28.3 million tons. In the world scenario, Indian steel industry ranks 10th. The software industry in India symbolizes India's strength in the knowledge based economy. It has witnessed a phenomenal growth in last decade. The Compounded Annual Growth Rate is 42.3%.