<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csudhir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csudhir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csudhir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csudhir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csudhir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Csudhir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Comments--Analysis/A-bus-to-nowhere/articleshow/4424172.cms">http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Comments--Analysis/A-bus-to-nowhere/articleshow/4424172.cms</a></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>A bus to nowhere</b></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">20 Apr 2009, 1242 hrs IST, </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>K C Sivaramakrishnan </b></span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">THE largesse from the JNNURM is in good flow. Since January this year, the ministry of urban development has sanctioned Rs 4,726 crore for procurement of 14,240 buses in 59 cities. Out of this 4,494 are standard buses 1,170 are mini-buses and the rest are low-floor and other variations of urban buses. The central assistance is Rs 1,630 crore. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">This slew of sanctions labelled as Part II of NURM is certainly music for the ears of the automobile industry. Unlike Part I of NURM which is contingent upon many organisational and financial reforms as well as significant changes in the processes of decision-making at the city level, Part II is a more honest and quicker way of reaching funds to the cities. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">However, no money from the government can be free of strings. In this case also the ministry has issued as many as 30 guidelines. Most of them are universally advocated prescriptions like priority for public transport, passenger-friendly buses, better route administration, dedicated metropolitan transport funds, etc. There is also a set of specifications for urban buses. The norms and costs may need scrutiny but it is good the government recognises that benches and a metal roof stuck on a truck chassis is not to be regarded as a passenger bus. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">For the past several years urban transport has been nobody’s baby. Though the so-called rules of business allocation conferred this subject on the urban development ministry in 1990, turf questions continued to be agitated between the railways, transport and urban development ministries. Urban transport was interpreted as principally railbased systems which only the ministry of railways would design and build. Buses were dismissed as a state subject and if PSUs were not doing the needful, privatisation was the obvious response. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">After launching of the Delhi Metro project, the urban development ministry finally emerged as the guardian of this portfolio. In the past few years, it has also broadened its perception that mobility, more than technology choice, is the key. Today in India, city space for mobility has become a highly contested issue. However cogent and well reasoned the case for public transport, in real practice it is the private vehicle that has proliferated, thanks as much to the uncalled for subsidies for automobile production and use as well as consistent lobbying practices of the auto industry, perfected over the years in the US and west. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">In May 2008, the ministry also sponsored a study on transport policies and strategies, by the well known transport consultants Wilber Smith and Associates. The study predicts, in all city categories, a declining share of public transport from 16% in 2007 to 15% in 2011, 11% in 2021 and 9% in 2031. In the mega cities the decline is even worse from 46% in 2007 to 31% in 2021. The study also concludes that the average journey speed would decline from 17 KMPH to nine over the same period. Congestion will be the order of the day. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The question thus arises, will there be space in our cities for these 14,000 additional buses? Given the congestion, will the buses be able to move anywhere? </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">The transport research wing of the ministry of transport informs that as on March 31, 2004, the total number of cars in the 23 metropolitan cities is 35.68 lakh as compared to 33.29 lakh in the previous year. Two-wheelers went up from 140 lakh to 149 lakh. In keeping with its high consumption profile Delhi added 96,241 cars to the previous year’s total of 11.92 lakh and about 1.57 lakh scooters. That translates to about 263 cars and 433 twowheelers per day. These are figures for 2004. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">While the ministry’s guidelines exhort priority for public transport, no overt action has been suggested for restraining private auto growth, apart from some suggestions on parking. Besides, projects sanctioned under NURM for the road sector till now are mainly for expansion of roads, new roads, flyovers, road over bridges, etc. Mercifully some of the projects, such as those for Pune, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, etc, include support for BRTS schemes. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Everyone loves a flyover, the contractors and private car drivers in particular. Unfortunately, the thrill of flying over reality which lasts only for a few seconds, carries a high cost. Logjams at both ends of many flyovers is now a part of the daily scene in Delhi, providing ample proof to a variation of Parkinson’s Law “private vehicle use will increase to fill all available and additional road space”. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Somewhere in the ministry’s guidelines, there is also the exhortation that the state government and urban local bodies should waive or reimburse all its taxes on urban buses. Distortions in motor vehicle taxation abound in the country. In 10 states taxes on private motor vehicles are a one time levy. Mercifully this is life time of the vehicle rather than the owner. The tax rates themselves are absurdly low. After several years, Delhi recently revised its tax rates to 2% for vehicle costing up to Rs 4 lakh and 4% for those above. This is not even an apology for a demand management measure. In Singapore, which incidentally is the Mecca for urban transport planners, but only for visits and not practice, a licence to purchase a vehicle costs nearly as much as the vehicle itself. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">To add insult to injury, most of the states also levy a tax on passenger buses. Gujarat rates are Rs 840 per year on buses with more than nine passengers, Rs 72 for every additional seat and Rs 36 for every standing passenger. Maharashtra charges Rs 71 per passenger plus 17.5% of the fare collected. Delhi collects Rs 1,915 up to 18 passengers and Rs 280 for every additional passenger. The sum total of revenues realised by all the states through passenger tax is no more than Rs 1,656 crore for the year 2003-04. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Compared to the outlays provided by the government for the transport sector this is not much. Yet if the incidence of this taxation is calculated on per passenger per km basis, it is likely that in many cases the incidence on a bus passenger in a city is more than on a private car passenger. There is a little for the states to lose by waiving this tax. It will at least end the travesty of taxing the bus passenger and subsidising the private car user. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">It remains to be seen whether the various other guidelines suggested by the ministry of urban development will be adopted by the states. If the implementation of the reform agenda of Part I of the NURM is an indication, the chances are the ministry is fast and generous in making the funds available but short and shy in ensuring compliance with what has been agreed. For an outlay of Rs 4,726 crore for 14,000 buses, the average cost of a bus must be about Rs 32 lakh. Is the candle worth the cost? Perhaps it is. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">With a few thousand buses on many city roads, the citizens will at least have a visual satisfaction. Stuck as we are in the city’s logjam, stuck we shall remain. But we will have a choice of being stuck in our brand new bus on the one hand or on our mobikes, in SUVs, mid-size cars, Marutis or that latest suitor on the block, the Nanos. Very much more will be needed to make our new bus move. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Last year’s dispute about the Delhi BRTS was the first serious contestation in the country for a city’s road space between the bus and the car. The present additions to the bus fleet will carry this contest to other cities. Hopefully the majority of the public, dependent on public transport will become more assertive and demand that a city’s road space cannot be pre-empted by the car-using elite. Hopefully again, this may prompt the ministry to give up gradualism and be more assertive. </span></p> <p style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">(The author is a former secretary, urban development and chairman, Centre for Policy Research) <span style=""> </span></span></p>