A lot has changed in India
Observations during my recent visit
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I used to go to India every year back before COVID-19 but somehow have not been able to go that frequently after that. This time I visited India after more than 2 years. I just visited for 2 weeks but it was a great experience of what has changed in India (And what has not).
What has changed?
I live in Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan so the nearest International Airpot is in New Delhi. After landing in Delhi, I took a cab from Delhi to Jaipur instead of a flight due to the timing and extra luggage issues. There is a new Delhi-Mumbai expressway that has been built and Jaipur is on the way. I was surprised at how good the highway was. Before the highway, it used to take around 5 hours to reach Jaipur but now it took less than 4 hours. They are also building a pass directly to Jaipur that will reduce that time to 3 hours. This was a mind-blowing development. I was talking to the driver and he told me that Delhi to Mumbai will take just 12 hours. Even trains used to take 18 hours back in the day. After poking more, the driver told me a lot of other highways are being built which would cut the time taken by a lot. If you compare, one of the reasons America is successful is due to its amazing highways and connectivity. I feel the same is happening in India. This kind of connectivity will boost everything from trade to travel and to many other things. I can’t wait to see how to push the economy further.
One of the days, I asked my brother if I needed to buy a deodorant and he said I would order and I was like sure it would come the next day. My brother came to me after 6 minutes and gave me the deodorant. I couldn’t believe it. I was amazed by how fast it just came. Even if I wanted to buy it myself it would’ve taken me at least 20 minutes to get out of the house go to a shop, buy, and come back. This was just magical. It was not only this incident. Blinkit practically delivers most things that fast. My faster delivery was 4 min 30 seconds. It was just wow. I have never seen this fast delivery anywhere ever. Although I am not sure how profitable this business is, amazingly, it works.
Restaurants. The world revolves around food and the same goes for India. The immense growth in coffee shops and restaurants is quite a feat. A lot of new restaurants with all kinds of food have been opened. You can see people working in coffee shops and hanging out. This says a lot about how the purchasing power of individuals has increased recently. A lot of people eat outside or order from outside.
Apps Apps Apps. One of my friends who recently moved from the US to India showed me his phone and there’s an app for everything. There’s an app for the community, an app for very specific kinds of food, an app for permitting say Amazon delivery guy to get in, etc, etc. I feel India has overtaken the West in terms of digital transformation for daily use. Everything has an app plus it’s all very fast. Everyone has internet access.
Payments. Of course, we all know about UPI and how it’s processing billions of transactions and making payments easy. Everyone used an app based on UPI and made the payments.
One thing I saw when I was coming back was Digiyatra. I couldn’t experience that but the contactless flying experience looked cool.
What has not changed?
Pollution. I feel the pollution is still crazy. Once you land you can smell it. It’s understandable that given the population it will be crazy but I think this is something that needs to be tackled. I know a lot of EV effort is being taken to tackle that problem but I feel it will take quite a lot of time.
People. Even though a lot has advanced, I still feel people's mindsets are the same as they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up there. I am one of them. But breaking lines, not following basic civic etiquettes, etc is still there. It’s changing but again it takes time so I am positive about that change.
Overall I am quite bullish on India and think it’s going in the right direction. Only time will tell the future but I am excited. You can also read a lot of good insights on this Noahpinion for more detailed stuff.
Nicely summarised !!!