My short trip to India this week…What you see is what you believe!
I landed at Mumbai airport (from Dubai) at 11.30PM on 4th July and rushed to the immigration counter to get immigration/passport check done quickly (as sometimes it happens notoriously late because of long queue). Surprisingly, in India Singapore Airlines’ plane was given preference to Air India (on which I was) of using the runway strip for landing and we were made stranded in the air for another 20 minutes!
I expected a long queue before I reach the immigration desk. But to my surprise the queue wasn’t long enough. Since global markets are in bearish mode, so I turned negative and thought “Oh, so now not many people are coming to India for business trip, that’s why there isn’t any long queue”. However, then I realized that this time the immigration process is happening in a very smooth way and more counters are there against very few earlier, thanks to the airport renovation process. So number of travelers remains the same as before, the process becomes smoothened. So my bearish fallacy of less people coming to India for business trip was counter-acted by smooth immigration process.
I was out of the airport at 12 (midnight) and my great (poor) friends waiting outside the airport for 2 long hours (as flight was delayed). The arrival area is getting made and they were braving Mumbai rainfall under a temporary shade. It was 1 o clock after we finished our nostalgic meeting at the airport (pulling each others’ leg)!! We decided to go to a nearby 4 Star Hotel (Mirador) for food…and we went to its 24 hour dining place and saw quite a few table occupied mostly by business people having some official discussion. In the toilet 2-3 colleagues of a company were discussing on some project...they were quite smart enough not to name their company or project-otherwise I would have complained for not maintaining the confidentiality…it gave an impression of India Inc’s business as usual...though a very narrow observation to put a general comment…but still…what you see is what you believe.
The other day I had a 6.40 flight from Mumbai to Nagpur by Indian (Airlines). I was at Mumbai airport domestic departure Terminal B (designated for Indian and Kingfisher) at 6AM. There was atleast 10 working counters of Indian (supposedly least favored-full fare airline with least expected warmth) and all counters were queued by at least 12-15 persons each…by the time I left the counter while the length of queue remained the same, however people changed! The same story was for Kingfisher’s 8-10 counters.
I thought it’s an overnight journey between Mumbai and Nagpur (by train) so early morning flight would be mostly empty…and I was completely wrong…to my surprise it was almost full…mostly by business travelers- with business suits, ties, cufflinks etc. People are ready to pay 4-5k and not travel by train overnight…
I landed at Nagpur airport at 8 AM…it was largely different from the airport I saw 2 years before (May 2006)…much better now with good infrastructure and everything functioning properly. At 8 AM the airport was hustling and bustling. While waiting for my acquaintance to pick me up, I observed the 3 lane road for temporary pick and drop continuously busy with moving cars. 3-4 flights landed in 20 minutes of my wait, with reasonably good load factor. I could see flood of people moving out after every landing.
I also went to Shirdi from Mumbai during the trip by road via Nashik. At 5AM cabbie came to pick us up…quite hectic tour it was for me. I asked cabbie, is the road good, he said yes. I thought just to make me happy at this odd hour he said so. We drove and came out of Mumbai on NH 3 and to my surprise the road was really smooth and well maintained (with proper white markings even in rainy season). At many places some road work was being done by private players like Unity Infra, Sadhbhav Engg etc.
While returning to Mumbai, near Igatpuri (2 hours from Mumbai) there was a big Wind Mill project with some 40-50 wind mills.
Though these are very limited set of micro observations that too on a very limited geographical expanse of India, but atleast it given an indication that its not all dark in India. Things are improving and what has been promised are being delivered, though at a slower than expected speed. I visit Mumbai and Delhi 1-2 times each year and observe many changes…new buildings, fancier cars, changing lifestyles, good roads (though not so in Mumbai city), new multinational companies. I saw a Porsche showroom on Pedder Road, Mumbai-which wasn’t there last year.
We expect a lot hence get disappointed. We expect Mumbai will become Singapore or Shanghai soon and let our Sensex go to 21000 before it was warranted. If we keep our expectation within a rational limit, we will see India getting better at a gradual pace. It will take time for Mumbai to become one of the top 2 developed cities of India, right now its Singapore and Dubai (where Indians are in multitude)!!! So, all in all, its business as usual-any correction or slowdown, if any, is in our expectation-rightly so!
I expected a long queue before I reach the immigration desk. But to my surprise the queue wasn’t long enough. Since global markets are in bearish mode, so I turned negative and thought “Oh, so now not many people are coming to India for business trip, that’s why there isn’t any long queue”. However, then I realized that this time the immigration process is happening in a very smooth way and more counters are there against very few earlier, thanks to the airport renovation process. So number of travelers remains the same as before, the process becomes smoothened. So my bearish fallacy of less people coming to India for business trip was counter-acted by smooth immigration process.
I was out of the airport at 12 (midnight) and my great (poor) friends waiting outside the airport for 2 long hours (as flight was delayed). The arrival area is getting made and they were braving Mumbai rainfall under a temporary shade. It was 1 o clock after we finished our nostalgic meeting at the airport (pulling each others’ leg)!! We decided to go to a nearby 4 Star Hotel (Mirador) for food…and we went to its 24 hour dining place and saw quite a few table occupied mostly by business people having some official discussion. In the toilet 2-3 colleagues of a company were discussing on some project...they were quite smart enough not to name their company or project-otherwise I would have complained for not maintaining the confidentiality…it gave an impression of India Inc’s business as usual...though a very narrow observation to put a general comment…but still…what you see is what you believe.
The other day I had a 6.40 flight from Mumbai to Nagpur by Indian (Airlines). I was at Mumbai airport domestic departure Terminal B (designated for Indian and Kingfisher) at 6AM. There was atleast 10 working counters of Indian (supposedly least favored-full fare airline with least expected warmth) and all counters were queued by at least 12-15 persons each…by the time I left the counter while the length of queue remained the same, however people changed! The same story was for Kingfisher’s 8-10 counters.
I thought it’s an overnight journey between Mumbai and Nagpur (by train) so early morning flight would be mostly empty…and I was completely wrong…to my surprise it was almost full…mostly by business travelers- with business suits, ties, cufflinks etc. People are ready to pay 4-5k and not travel by train overnight…
I landed at Nagpur airport at 8 AM…it was largely different from the airport I saw 2 years before (May 2006)…much better now with good infrastructure and everything functioning properly. At 8 AM the airport was hustling and bustling. While waiting for my acquaintance to pick me up, I observed the 3 lane road for temporary pick and drop continuously busy with moving cars. 3-4 flights landed in 20 minutes of my wait, with reasonably good load factor. I could see flood of people moving out after every landing.
I also went to Shirdi from Mumbai during the trip by road via Nashik. At 5AM cabbie came to pick us up…quite hectic tour it was for me. I asked cabbie, is the road good, he said yes. I thought just to make me happy at this odd hour he said so. We drove and came out of Mumbai on NH 3 and to my surprise the road was really smooth and well maintained (with proper white markings even in rainy season). At many places some road work was being done by private players like Unity Infra, Sadhbhav Engg etc.
While returning to Mumbai, near Igatpuri (2 hours from Mumbai) there was a big Wind Mill project with some 40-50 wind mills.
Though these are very limited set of micro observations that too on a very limited geographical expanse of India, but atleast it given an indication that its not all dark in India. Things are improving and what has been promised are being delivered, though at a slower than expected speed. I visit Mumbai and Delhi 1-2 times each year and observe many changes…new buildings, fancier cars, changing lifestyles, good roads (though not so in Mumbai city), new multinational companies. I saw a Porsche showroom on Pedder Road, Mumbai-which wasn’t there last year.
We expect a lot hence get disappointed. We expect Mumbai will become Singapore or Shanghai soon and let our Sensex go to 21000 before it was warranted. If we keep our expectation within a rational limit, we will see India getting better at a gradual pace. It will take time for Mumbai to become one of the top 2 developed cities of India, right now its Singapore and Dubai (where Indians are in multitude)!!! So, all in all, its business as usual-any correction or slowdown, if any, is in our expectation-rightly so!
posted by Vikas Maheshwari, CFA at 6:57 PM
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