[sustran] FW: Opinion piece on motorisation in Indian cities

[Paul Barter]

This opinion piece is from the latest edition of "What's new at the Centre
for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, India." 

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A message from the Chairperson, Anil Agarwal:

INCOMPETENCE AT ITS BEST

DESPITE the growing mayhem in city after city and town after town, neither
the Central government nor any of the state governments has found a way to
deal with the problem even as urban India fast drives itself into an abyss.
As a result, it is courts and public-spirited citizens who are taking up the
cudgels to get the government to clean up its act. But how far can the
courts do anything, when our bureaucrats and politicians, who are supposed
to govern, are so corrupt and incompetent?

Let us take a look at the mayhem being created by the automobilisation of
our cities. It is well known that a spurt in automobiles leads to pollution,
urban sprawl and, if inadequate attention is paid to investments in road and
traffic infrastructure, severe congestion on the roads and more pollution.
Modern urban life in such a situation becomes hell and as it takes a lot of
time to get improved infrastructure in place, the rule of the devil stays
for a long time. Urban Indians, thus, have to face a remarkably poor quality
of life regardless of who rules - whether it is the Congress or the
Bharatiya Janata Party. 

Let us take a look at the impact of the dramatic growth of automobiles in
the capitally polluted city of Delhi - India's much vaunted capital. It has
been known for a long time that Delhi has a bigger stock of motor vehicles
than Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata combined. Though Delhi, fortunately, has a
much better road infrastructure than these other metros, with the rapid
growth of motorised vehicles, even this infrastructure is proving to be
inadequate and traffic congestion is increasing by leaps and bounds. If
motorisation is to continue at the same rate, Indian cities will have to go
the American way - huge investments will have to be made in flyovers a
nd expressways. 

In Delhi, there is even a proposal to build an elevated expressway on the
existing Ring Road which circles the city at a cost of several thousand
crore. But as everyone knows, these investments inevitably prove to be
inadequate over time - as Mr Peter of Peter's Principle fame would put it,
automobiles expand to fill the space available for them. 

This will be especially true in a country whose population and urban
population are both expanding rapidly, and where a large segment of the
urban population is extremely poor. Automobiles will, thus, not only keep on
demanding more and more space for themselves but also keep crowding out the
space of non-motorised commuters, that is, children and the poor especially.
Not surprisingly, over four people are killed on Delhi's roads every day, a
large fraction of which is children, pedestrians and cyclists.

Even a transport commissioner with the brain the size of a peanut, whether
one belongs to the much-vaunted IAS or not, will know that there is a simple
answer to this problem. Slow down the growth of private vehicles and
increase the growth of public transport. In Delhi, buses occupy less than
five per cent of the road space whereas they carry over 50 per cent of the
total commuter load. 

One simple tool that is in the hands of all transport officials is the road
tax.
A tool that is hardly used in India or used in a manner that will promote
pollution. Let us see how Delhi, with its rapidly growing and already high
overload of motorisation, fixes its road tax. 

A Maruti 800 will have to pay Rs 3,815 as road tax in Delhi whereas Mumbai
(which now charges road as a percentage of the price of the vehicle) will
charge Rs 10,382. Chennai, on other hand, will charge an individual owner Rs
8,210 and a company owner Rs 16,240. 
	
In other words, Delhi that should be valuing its road space more, is valuing
it dramatically less. More than that, all transport authorities, as they are
incapable of collecting taxes, are beginning to charge a one-time tax at the
point of sale which means that vehicles don't come in for annual road
worthiness tests, a must in all modern traffic management. Therefore road
transport authorities are not doing their work. 

Now lets see how these taxes are levied with respect to rich and poor
commuters. Unlike cars that pay a one-time tax, buses in Delhi pay an annual
tax of Rs.14,325. Buses ply 250 km a day and for 300 days a year which gives
a road tax of about 19 paise per km - a form of transport taken by poorer
commuters. 

But a car which, say, lasts a lifetime of 15 years and runs some 10,000 km a
year ends up paying 2.54 paise per km. Amazing, this is India's bureaucratic
socialism. 

>From the point of view of pollution, all countries charge higher and higher
road tax as the vehicles grow older. As a result, Japanese cannot afford to
keep a vehicle more than 5-6 years old and then threaten India's fledgling
auto industry with second hand car exports.

However in Indian metros the absurd takes place, the road tax goes down as
the age of the vehicle increases. In Mumbai, a new vehicle has to pay four
per cent of the price of the vehicle; a 1-2 year old 97.2 per cent of the
four per cent tax; and, and an over 17 year old only 27.7 per cent of the
original four per cent tax. 

This is contrary to any traffic management in any sensible country in the
world. Surely, how much more stupid can you get? 

Traffic management in India is contrary to that in any sensible country in
the world 

- Anil Agarwal

(This article is also available online at
http://www.cseindia.org/html/dte/dte20010531/dte_edit.htm

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