Guesstimates
1) Guesstimate the number of weddings in India in a year.
In case where people are involved, I always start with the country's population.
India's Current Population = 1.285 Billion
Assume that people are linearly distributed from 1 year to 80 years old. People usually tend to get
married at 20-30 years of age. I have taken this window targeting the rural landscape as well.
So, no.of people in 20-30 years of age will be = (10/80)* 1.285 Billion
=160 million
But as we already know that India has comparably large youth population and there is a tiny fraction
that gets married beyond 20-30 years of age. I would increase this figure to 180 million.
Since marriage is dependent on the female population and India professes to have an average sex ratio
of 900 in 1000 males.
Calculating by this approach (0.9/(1+0.9))*180 million = 85.2 million female population that gets
married
I have to assume that each person gets married only once and then after reaching the appropriate
answer introduce and error of 2% in the calculation since few people India go for second marriages.
Also, It will be safe to assume a linear distribution in age people get married since it is greater than 26 in
urban areas and less than 26 in rural areas.
So, the total marriages will be 85.2 / 10 = 8.52 million marriages.
Now adding an approximate error of 2% as mentioned above = 8.7 million marriages in an year.
2) Guesstimate the cost of painting the pillars of the metro lines in Delhi as of today. Also, every pillar consists
of an advertisement sized 4X4 feet on each side of the pillar. Thus, every team is required to find the
estimated net expenditure.
Solution-
This question is pretty straightforward. All you’re required to do is estimate the number of pillars,
assume values for the cost of painting and revenue earned per pillar. Please note that there are many
more parameters that could’ve been considered. We’ll limit it to the below assumptions for
simplicity’s sake.
The crucial step here is to estimate the number of pillars. We try to visualize how any metro line looks
like. It starts from a station and ends at another. There are turns, splits and intermediary stations. The
line itself may be underground, on-ground or above the ground. Let’s assign the number of pillars for
each of these situations, taking care to choose simple numbers (multiples of 2, 5 or 10):
• Since the underground/ground level stations will not have any pillars, we will assume the
number of pillars for them to be zero. The connections to the preceding and subsequent
stations, however, will be taken into account.
• The station itself, will have a greater number of pillars, owing to the extra strength required for
the stability of the station premises, therefore, we will assume 8 pillars for each station above
ground level.
• The number of pillars increases for every turn/split (like the one after Yamuna Bank) in the
tracks. We will assume the increase on the basis of the length of the track.
• For every 100m, there is a pillar. Therefore, there are 10 pillars in each km.
Basis the above assumptions, the length of the various Metro Lines, and subsequently, distance
between two stations is assumed to be as follows:
Data taken from official DMRC website
Though the data above has been taken from the official website, it is not necessary to do so. You may
assume whole numbers by general knowledge. For instance, you may already know that the blue line
is the longest followed by yellow. Assign say, 50 and 45 to each respectively.
Now, once the number of pillars are calculated, we can estimate the cost of painting the pillars as well
as the revenue. The following figures have been taken arbitrarily //not a recommended approach:
• Assume the cost of painting each pillar to be Rs 1200.
• Assume the revenue from each advertisement placed to be 2500.
The total expenditure, therefore, is Rs. (21,85,000).
