[sustran] India's blind love for cars (The Hindu)

[Sarath Guttikunda]

The Hindu, January 6th, 2012
*India's blind love for cars
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http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/article2780985.ece?homepage=true

*The energy and environmental effects of too many automobiles have not been
addressed.*
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The Auto Expo reminds us that it is hard to imagine an urban middle-class
nuclear family without a car. It establishes their middle class identity,
and demarcates them from the press of the masses in crowded trains and
buses. Cars seem safe, comfortable and — what holds the key to the
middle-class psyche — dignified.

The Hamara Bajaj family of four miraculously perched on a scooter would
earlier evoke an indulgent smile; now, in an age of double-income families
and car loans, it is a horror to be avoided for its risks and its sheer
gracelessness. A family with an entry-level car like Nano or Alto, like
Hamara Bajaj in the pre-reform days, is indisputably middle-class in the
eyes of society.

Cars are about both physical and social mobility; but there is also a caste
system within the world of cars that is becoming intricate by the day. So,
even within a small car segment, there are players who promote style and
the ‘sensuous experience' of driving over the convenience of having a car.

These subjective features, or ‘auto aesthetics' if you like, become more
dominant as one goes up the price ladder. Hence, designers are crucial to
the industry for their ability to lure the consumer. Helping them out on
the showroom or exhibition floor are glassy models that wrap themselves
around cars in impossible body angles.

So, post-reform India has also been The Great Automobile Experience — not
just for the consumer forever looking to upgrade his ‘auto caste', but for
society at large. It has redefined the sharing of urban spaces: Those with
cars control the public space, with the backing of the state. Yet, after
two decades of our love affair with cars, society and government have been
unmindful of its effects on the environment and energy consumption.
ROAD TO NOWHERE

Let's begin with social attitudes. It is remarkable how our main city roads
are cluttered with cars right through the day, yet people driving cars
complain about the worsening traffic, as though an extraterrestrial hand or
some inherent tendency towards chaos were the cause. And, those sweating it
out in buses cannot wait to buy their Nano or Alto on easy instalments!

Some thousand new cars hit the roads of Bangalore or Delhi each day, yet
the government or society isn't alarmed. Roads are widened, and trees,
pavements, shops, houses and pedestrian paths make way for cars — and more
cars. This seems like the normal thing to do, and is, in fact, regarded as
a sign of good governance. When this space runs out, and it does very soon,
there are flyovers and elevated expressways.

Then, driving becomes pleasure, a cruise where no cows or slum-dwellers
(who are below the expressway) can intervene. Distance is measured in
minutes, not kilometres. So, when the road is great, you could be just “30
minutes away from the city centre”, even if you are 30 km away. This
promise of a silken smooth drive raises valuations of properties in distant
suburbs. It also means that for some people, the cost of fuel does not
matter much. If this is what “urban infrastructure” is all about, we are on
a road to nowhere.
COMATOSE GOVERNMENT

The government is unperturbed, even as cars are rendering our cities
dysfunctional by the day. Politicians and bureaucrats are sanguine about
the emergence of India as an auto production and export hub. They wear a
satisfied look, of presiding over a country that has ‘arrived', when they
visit auto factories and expos. The Draft Approach Paper to the Twelfth
Plan affirms this sense of unconcern. Its chapters on energy and transport
merely talk about creating a mass rapid transit system in cities, without
even a whisper on the distortions caused by the auto boom. Programmes like
the JNNURM and Rajiv Awas Yojana have nothing critical to say about urban
infrastructure as it is currently conceived. It's obvious that no one wants
to take on the auto lobby. It has become a barometer of industrial
activity; such is its grip on the minds of policymakers.

At a broader level, the document seems to generally look upon rapid
urbanisation as an inevitable and desirable consequence of high growth (in
itself, a problematic notion), without saying anything on how urbanisation
can deepen our energy problems. It could have observed that by promoting
expressways and cars, the government and banks are encouraging energy
inefficiency, not just through higher direct consumption of petrol and,
worse still, diesel, but also through needless use of primary energy to
make steel, cement and tar for flyovers, and longer and wider roads.

India's supposed ‘right to grow', consume energy, and spew carbon compounds
seems a specious argument in the context of the transport sector. Transport
accounts for approximately 11 per cent of our energy use, but this is
likely to increase rapidly if we are to continue with our present ways.
ANOTHER APPROACH

How do we break out of the present combination of shoddy thinking and
dubious intent? A cosmetic approach of insisting on fuel-efficient vehicles
is to evade the basic problem — too many cars on the road. That buses and
trains are more energy-efficient is a no-brainer. But to ensure that they —
along with the much-maligned and energy-efficient auto-rickshaw — get a
lion's share of the road space, there must be policies in place to limit
use of cars. Cars should be heavily taxed, more so diesel ones. Banks
should go easy on car loans as part of long-term energy and environment
management. Business and central districts in a city should ramp up their
parking rates, as in places like London.

And, we should ensure that our cities don't grow too large. The ideal city
is one where we can cycle from one place to another, like some of the
prettier European towns. The aesthetics of such an existence would outdo
that conjured up for us by auto design gurus. By the way, how come the
cyclist does not figure in our energy and transport planning?

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*Dr. Sarath Guttikunda*
Founder and Analyst, UrbanEmissions.Info (New Delhi, India)
Affiliate Associate Research Professor, Desert Research Institute (Reno,
USA)
*Tel +91-9891315946  |  http://www.urbanemissions.info*
*http://www.dri.edu/sarath-guttikunda*