Wheeling, dealing Reform Of Urban Transport Essential But Utopian Suhit Sen <a href="http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=236316">http://www.thestatesman.net/page.news.php?clid=3&theme=&usrsess=1&id=236316</a> For once the Centre has been presented with a plan that can go a long way towards decongesting our cities, improving urban air quality and meeting the challenge of climate change. The question is will the Centre accept the recommendations made under the National Action Plan on Climate Change and move fast to implement them. Let's take a look at the recommendations, which, let us also remember are not particularly radical or novel. Advocacy groups like the Centre for Science and Environment have been pushing a similar policy frame for years. At the heart of the recommendations lies the realisation that the state must adopt a policy that increasingly discourages the use of private vehicles by imposing costs that approximate more closely the real public costs and "externalities" ~ mainly environmental and health costs ~ involved in operating a private vehicle, while making the use of public mass transit systems more attractive. This is essential given that in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai ~ the number of private vehicles is increasing four times faster than population, with the share of public transport falling from 69 per cent to 38 per cent between 1994 and 2007 in cities with 4 million people or more. Congestion charge In keeping with this realisation, a panel has suggested for now that congestion charges be imposed, parking fees be hiked to reflect the true cost of the use of space and remove hidden subsidies, corridors be dedicated to public-transport vehicles, the mass transport sector be made more competitive by reducing taxes and duties on them relative to those on private vehicles (in Delhi, for instance, private vehicles pay a lower road tax) and people be forced to prove that they have access to parking space before acquiring a vehicle. This is a good beginning, though many more recommendations can be added to the list ~ fiscal disincentives for sports utility vehicles and other gas-guzzlers, similar disincentives for private diesel vehicles along with more stringent emissions norms not just for vehicles but also for fuel (mainly to phase out low-grade diesel, which is absurdly polluting). Hopefully the final recommendations of the panel ~ the Mission on Sustainable Habitat ~ will be more comprehensive. What will it take to put in place a policy that will move people into mass transportation away from personal vehicles and bring clean fuels and engines on to the roads? Simple: an uphill struggle to cut the massive power of the automobile and oil industries and its lobbyists down to size. The world over, these two industries have persistently blocked all attempts to reduce dependence on hydrocarbons through the implementation of fiscal and other measures that penalise fuels and technologies responsible for greenhouse-gas emissions and help the development of technologies that are not or less dependent on fossil fuel ~ hybrids, hydrogen-based fuel cells and so on. Nowhere have the oil and automobile industries been as powerful as they have in the US, as a recent book by two staffers of The Economist unpicks in great detail. While Japanese companies ~ principally Toyota ~ have gone ahead with innovative emissions-control technologies, the US's big three automakers have been as dinosaur-like in their approach as the US federal government has been till date. For this they have been rewarded with repeated bailouts ~ the mother of which is in the pipeline. In India too, however, state policy has failed to encourage alternative technologies and mass rapid transport systems, by and large, though some take an inordinately rosy view of the country's ability to "leapfrog". The CNG story is just getting off the ground ~ of which more later ~ but, for instance, the Reva, an electrically powered car, has hardly made any impact on Indian cities. Part of the reason is poor marketing ~ but, equally, it has received no state support in the shape of fiscal breaks or the kind of patronage that Hindustan Motors continues to get in the shape of government orders. Small is not sexy, environment-friendly is even less so. Policy initiatives to encourage public transport or discourage emissions haven't gone down too well. The vehicle-owning class in Delhi has gone ballistic about the bus rapid transport corridor that the Delhi government has begun experimenting with. While it may be true that the project was not designed ideally, the point Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit made ~ don't throw the baby out with the bathwater ~ has received very little sympathy. A differential fiscal regime sought to be introduced by Ms Dikshit's government to control emissions was almost blocked by the automobile lobby. The Delhi administration still remains somewhat enlightened. Elsewhere the dinosaurs still stalk the earth. Take the West Bengal government. Kolkata is in an ironically enviable situation. Public transport, from intuitive and tendentious evidence, seems to have a bigger constituency in the city even among the kind of people who can afford private vehicles compared to other big cities, if only as a result of the state's steady deindustrialisation and relative poverty. The state government could have turned this into an opportunity ~ making a virtue of necessity, if you will ~ to aggressively push mass transport and emissions control. It hasn't, because it is a prisoner of corrupt, self-serving syndicates and unions it has promoted for three decades, which means public, mass transport remains mired in a huge mess. Despite being the first city to get metro services, Kolkata has not seen an expansion of the network largely because an inept government couldn't be bothered to push ahead. Recently mooted extensions are behind schedule, badly conceived or so ambitious in scope as to attract derision from citizens who still remember the fiasco of the disruptive construction that blighted the city for years. The circular railway is an expensive bauble that makes a very small impact on the city's transportation needs. No one who has an option would like to use the city's bus system because that, currently, is life-threatening. There has been no attempt to discipline the system so to make it a comfortable and safe commute, which, moreover, does not create mayhem on the roads. Public initiative The shuttle autorickshaw network connecting to the Metro line was an innovation that could have worked wonders ~ come to think of it, it still does, despite the odds ~ if, again, some policing had been in evidence. What is desperately needed is the simple enforcement of traffic and safety rules to begin with. Then, of course, is the question of clean fuel and technology for emissions control. The government brought forward a high court directive to phase out polluting two-stroke engines for both two-wheelers and three-wheelers and specified that autorickshaws would have to convert to LPG or CNG mode by the end of this year. Pressure from owners' syndicates and unions on the specious plea that livelihoods would be affected ~ specious because the scheme envisages generous support from the government, automakers and banks ~ has meant that the plan has gone into deep hibernation. Don't hold your breath for change, though you really should in India's most polluted city. Citizens, governments and advocacy groups must come together to propagate some simple ideas about transportation. First, owning and operating a car is all about mobility and "liberation" ~ US-style. This objective is defeated if private cars choke the roads so badly that the best you can do is 10-15 km/hr, depending on the city you are in. A comfortable mass transport network would help; citizens have to push for it. Second, pollution is a reality that affects everyone ~ again, a cross-class citizens' initiative is needed to force governments to take action. Third, climate change is not a figment of some extra-terrestrial green imagination. Without compromising development, emissions control has to be prioritised ~ and transportation is the easiest sector to start with. Any takers? The writer is Senior Editor, The Statesman