[sustran] FW: CSE views on Delhi CNG public transport saga

[Paul Barter]

-----Original Message-----
From: webadmin at cseindia.org [mailto:webadmin at cseindia.org]
Sent: Tuesday, 1 May 2001 4:57
To: CSE-LIST at listserv.cseindia.org
Subject: What's new at CSE, India

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What's new at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, 
India. 

THE DAY THE GOVERNMENT FAILED

Governance collapsed on April 1, 2001 as Delhi was abandoned to chaos 
following the failure of the public transport system to switch to CNG in 
accordance with the Supreme Court's orders. Even as politicians and 
officials indulged in a slugging match the citizen suffered for the mess 
they had created. Read more click the link below

http://www.cseindia.org/html/dte/dte20010430/dte_srep2.htm

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A message from the Chairperson, Anil Agarwal:

SINHA'S TRICK

WHILE  all those orders of the Supreme Court (SC) directed towards the 
corporate sector - public or private - have largely resulted in action, 
orders to the government - state or central - have usually resulted in 
total chaos. In April 1999, when the SC gave the auto industry just about 
two months to move its engines to Euro I and about 11 months to move to 
Euro II, the industry met the deadlines. Similarly, the petroleum 
industry has repeatedly improved petrol and diesel quality as per SC 
orders. The little improvement that we already see in air quality in 
Delhi is partly because of this. In 1998, diesel contained as much as 
10,000 parts per million (ppm) of sulphur but today it is down to 500 
ppm. The key problem is that both the state and Central government had no 
political will to implement the SC order on CNG.  

Dealing with the order, made 31 months ago, was quite an easy task if 
only a few key steps were taken. Firstly, as the matter involves the 
Delhi government and the Petroleum, Surface Transport and Environment 
ministries of the Central government, a coordination committee should 
have been set up to ensure smooth implementation. Both Sheila Dikshit, 
chief minister of the Delhi, and prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee 
should have worked together to ensure that such a mechanism was 
established. But each agency worked out of sync with the other. 

Secondly, as the management of the process of conversion required 
technical competence on auto emissions, technology and health effects and 
as generalist bureaucrats have no understanding of these matters, a 
technical team should have been put in place to advise the government. In 
the absence of this advice, the Delhi government has remained 
consistently confused and has allowed every vested interest to take it 
for a ride. Both Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor and transport minister Pervez 
Hashmi have repeatedly made statements questioning the viability of CNG 
on the basis of some paper or the other sent to them by various interest 
groups including anonymous sources. If such expertise was not available 
within India, the Delhi government could have even obtained the services 
of some foreign experts - just as it commissioned a British consultant to 
prepare a study on industrial relocation with foreign aid. Even 
environment minister T R Baalu could have set up such a technical 
committee but did nothing of the sort. As a result, there has been 
confusion galore. Delhi government's positions have been exactly the same 
as those of auto majors who do not wish to see a changeover to CNG. While 
Hashmi and Dikshit have repeatedly harped on CNG technology being 
experimental in their public statements. On the other hand, on the day 
Sheila Dikshit was in court, the government lawyer accepted that CNG 
technology is not experimental and the government was committed to the 
task. 

Delhi government's confusion gave a clear signal that it was not serious 
about the Court's order. Allowing thousands of diesel buses to come on to 
the roads even weeks before the Supreme Court deadline shows that the 
government never wanted to implement the order and fervently hoped that 
the threat of a crisis, which it did everything in its ability to 
precipitate, would force the Court to back down. Unfortunately, for the 
Delhi government, the Court 
did not.

The third critical issue was finance. It was clear from the start that 
this transformation would need investments to be made by very small bus, 
taxi and auto operators. Three steps could have been taken to help these 
operators. Firstly, every effort should have been made to bring in as 
many manufacturers and conversion agents in India and abroad so that 
there was effective competition. But no advertisement was taken out in 
international newspapers and rules were set in a way that companies could 
not follow easily, thus ensuring that many companies could not 
participate. The result is market monopoly and high prices. 

Hashmi keeps harping that such a big effort to convert to CNG has not 
been made elsewhere. But he did not try to turn this to the city's 
advantage. The government could have easily pooled all the orders of the 
Delhi Transport Corporation and private transporters and then made the 
companies compete thus ensuring quality and low cost. But by letting the 
one-two bus and auto operators negotiate separately with the companies, 
Hashmi left them to the mercy of the wolves in the market. Not 
surprisingly, there have even been public allegations that this was 
deliberately manipulated for pecuniary reasons. A few years ago, several 
European city authorities, across different countries, pooled their 
orders to buy zero-emission buses for use in historic city centres to 
avoid pollution and got a big discount. If cities across nations can pool 
their order why couldn't we do it in one city? Poor transport operators 
could have been helped even further. Though Delhi is the richest state of 
India, it has a diesel price lower than other metros. An additional sales 
tax of Re 1 in 1999 and 2000 would have fetched about  Rs. 300 crore. 
This sum is so large that the government could have even given away some 
3,000 retrofitted buses free. It is clear that neither the Delhi 
government nor the Central government had any respect for the court order 
nor any desire to implement it. 

The government had no respect for the Supreme Court's order or the desire 
to implement it

- Anil Agarwal

(This article is also available online at
http://www.cseindia.org/html/dte/dte20010430/dte_edit.htm)

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