NOVEL NEXT Chapter 803: Broad-gauge Railway Network
For the next few weeks, Vijay received a bunch of great news, starting with the completion of kerosene street lamp development and the discovery of gold, iron, and copper mines throughout Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and Suvarna Dwipa.
Vijay frowned a little after knowing that each kerosene street lamp would cost 1500 Varaha to manufacture, because you have to understand that, not taking inflation into account, 1500 Varaha is equivalent to 3000 American dollars or 2.5 lakh rupees. It is an absolutely outrageous price, especially considering that with 2.5 lakhs someone would even be able to buy a secondhand Omini in good condition. However, Vijay did not think that Kartavya University wanted to scam the government since he could see a lot of copper, bronze, and fine metalwork used in the manufacturing of the street lamp. These materials are really not cheap, especially copper and bronze, whose price has gone up in recent years.
Vijay contemplated if approving the manufacturing and installation of such expensive street lamps in Bengaluru was necessary, but in the end, he chose to have them installed.
What money will be used to manufacture and maintain the street lamps could be made back through tourism that will be promoted due to the first street lamps in the empire, as well as with increased tax revenue, since with the street lamps the active areas of the people can be extended, thereby giving a chance to businesses to extend their business hours. Additionally, the safety on the streets would also increase. Overall, there are not many drawbacks.
Vijay quickly picked up the pen and wrote down his thoughts and ideas about how the kerosene street lamps will be operated and maintained by employing the businesses near the street lamp to take over the responsibility, and sent it to the chairman of Bengaluru Panchayati, Abhimanyu Desai.
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A few days later,
Abhimanyu, receiving the letter from His Majesty the Emperor, immediately summoned the members of the Panchayat and stated his orders.
"Each of you will go to the top metal fabrication companies in the empire and ask for a quote about how much each street lamp will cost. We will choose the company with the lowest price, most reliable quality, highest design quality for the motifs, and fastest delivery time. Task someone familiar with analytics to come up with a rating system so that it will be more fair and will not be affected by subjective judgments."
"Additionally, we will set up a department internally within the Panchayat in order to allocate the kerosene to the people who will be taking responsibility for the kerosene lamps." His words were unquestionable and firm. There was silence for a few moments, until an old man who was very well respected among the members of the Panchayat raised his doubts, "In that case, will the Panchayat not be responsible for maintaining the street lamp, Chairman?"
Abhimanyu shook his head, "No, His Majesty has asked us not to waste too many unnecessary human resources of the government, which are way more valuable than having them monitor some street lamps. Instead, His Majesty has suggested that we hand over the responsibility of operating and maintaining the street lamp to the shops or houses in close proximity to where the lamp will be located."
"All we have to do is to employ only one person who will be inspecting the kerosene lamps throughout the city in rotation, one area of the city at a time. Meaning, an area of the city will be visited at least once a month. While we're at it, we can also task permanently the post office or a local delivery service with the lowest cost to deliver kerosene to the homes or shops that will be taking responsibility. In my estimation, the lamp needs 10.5 litres of kerosene per week. However, in order to reward the person who will be maintaining the lamp, we can allocate 3.5 litres of extra kerosene. But we have to make sure that the people are properly lighting up the lamp throughout the night and are not holding back in order to steal some kerosene for themselves. In order to avoid this, in case the lamp runs out in the middle of the night, we can have the people surrounding the lamp send us the information, in which case the person who was previously responsible will be taken out and they will be appointed after confirmation."
The discussions continued on for a few more hours until all the minor details were polished out, after which the Panchayat immediately started to work.
Soon, in the incredulous eyes of the pedestrians, a few labourers wearing brown uniforms started to dig up the central area in major streets of Bengaluru.
A few women could be seen covering their mouths in shock, while a few men had their brows tightly knitted. The Bengalureans living in the city loved their city very much, especially the neat streets and orderly roads. Now suddenly, when some people started to dig up the road, how can they be calm?
"Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing!!" A burly, muscular middle-aged man who wore a tight sherwani which made his pecs pop out forcefully stopped the man digging up the concrete road. Without much effort, he only needed to hold back the two hands of the two people who were hitting the cement road with a steel spear. The middle-aged man seemed to be some sort of a wrestler; his strength was amazing. The labourers felt the resistance and looked back. They only saw a scary middle-aged man with a red face, with veins bulging in his neck.
They were taken aback and suddenly dropped the spears in their hands, after which the middle-aged man let them go. They looked at each other with some panic. They were already hesitant when they were ordered to dig up the central part of the road in several places, but now, seeing as how people started to surround them and look at them with unkind gazes, they had no words in their mouths—it was stuck in their throats.
Fortunately, the next moment, their supervisor ran forward after splitting apart the people who were crowding up.
"Sir, sir, I am sorry for the misunderstanding. We are doing an infrastructure project initiated by the Bengaluru Panchayat. Here, take a look at this." The supervisor immediately wiped the sweat on his forehead and handed over a document to the middle-aged man as he was panting and out of breath. "This is the permit we obtained from the Panchayat."
The burly middle-aged man frowned and took a look at the document. His eyes widened because it was really a work order from the Bengaluru Panchayat. He could recognize the emblem of the elephants anytime. The middle-aged man stared back at the supervisor with an unkind gaze and let out an angry grunt, turned back, pushed apart the crowd, and left without saying anything. Seeing the middle-aged man leave, the surrounding people soon understood that what the supervisor was saying might actually be true. But in order to be sure, a few people took over the document for themselves and took a look at it, after which they slowly cursed under their breath and left.
Such misunderstandings did not happen only on one street in Bengaluru. In fact, it could be seen in all the streets where the digging was going on. It had become such a big issue that it was even mentioned in *Bharatham Daily* as well as other major newspapers in a prominent position. The article written about the construction was not friendly either, since the reason why the digging was going on was kept secret from everyone.
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Vijay was naturally unaware of what was going on back in the central areas of the capital. He was currently on the edge of the prosperous area near the city limits where it was yet to be fully urbanized.
Minister of Transportation Nirmal was standing right next to him.
The place where Vijay and Nirmal were standing was very deserted, without any tall buildings or houses in the line of sight in any direction, apart from the royal carriage which was a few feet away. But what was unusual was that four different gravel roads passed through the clearing in parallel. The gravel roads weren't even that wide—they were only wide enough for two carriages to pass through if they squeezed hard enough.
Vijay looked at the horizon where he couldn't see the end of the gravel path. Without turning his head, he voiced out, "So how far has the project been completed?"
Nirmal immediately responded, "The network of the purple lines has been completed, Your Majesty, while the Interstate network between political and economic capital in almost all states has been completed."
Vijay nodded. "What about the external outer state network? How far is it completed?"
"It has been partially completed, Your Majesty. We are almost done with 70% of the work. By the end of next year, we should be done with it, and by the end of 1665, we should be done with the rest of the interstate networks that are still pending. As for the Great Southern Canal Project, it should be completed by the end of next year as well."
Vijay silently did some calculations in his mind. The Purple Line network has a total mileage of 2000 kilometres. The state-connecting network in total should be an average of around 1500 kilometres, while the interstate lines added up will easily surpass 8000 kilometres. 'It's too much. Rails cannot be laid down all at once.' He rejected the idea of laying down the rails to all the lines immediately.
'In that case, let us install iteratively.'
"Naveen, I will send the specification of the rail system to the Ministry of Transportation. I will also allocate 500 million Varaha funds."
"I need you to lay down a track between Bengaluru–Chennai, Bengaluru–Hampi, Hampi–Mangalore, Bengaluru–Coimbatore, and finally Coimbatore–Kochi."
"That's five railway tracks. Start installing the rails as quickly as possible."
Naveen respectfully nodded, "As you wish, Your Majesty." A lot of people in the empire still have doubts about why the railway is being installed and why millions of people are still working on clearing out forests, building bridges, compacting the soil, and digging out tunnels in order to construct the road for the railway line. But still, trusting the foresight of His Majesty, no one has brought up the matter yet.
In fact, with a compensatory mentality of some people who think that Vijay is a god and can do no wrong, people began to point out examples of rails used in day-to-day life in order to prove the practicality of what His Majesty is thinking, like the rails being used in the transportation of minerals within the mines, used in the transportation of concrete or cement mixture while constructing a building and used in crude oil extraction sites in order to transport the crude oil barrels which weigh over 230 kilograms, as well as in the refineries. Even some of the intellectuals are among these sorts of people.
Anyway, Naveen did not have to consider all this. He only needed to do what His Majesty asked of him. The rest were not within his considerations.
To be continued...
P.S. I will attach an image in comments