CHOKING ROADS AND LUNGS

New Delhi, May 28: Wrong policies have led to an explosion of private vehicles in Indian cities, crippling traffic, wasting fuel and worsening air pollution, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has said.

One-third of all motor vehicles in India ply in metropolitan areas which account for only 11 per cent of the population, the CSE has said in a comprehensive report that analyses traffic, public transport and air pollution trends in Asia.

The report said India has seen a steep growth in the number of cars, jeeps, taxis and two-wheelers in recent years. The number of four-wheelers alone has increased from four million to nearly 10 million over the past decade.

It said Indian policies penalise public transport with higher taxes than those charged on personal vehicles. Citing an example, the report said the annual road tax paid by buses is higher than the one-time road tax paid by cars and two-wheelers.

While cities are struggling to address traffic congestion through new roads and flyovers, the report said the root of the problem lay in the failure of the public transport system. “Roads and flyovers are not real solutions,” it said. “The answer lies in massive investments in modern, convenient mass transport systems for the rich and the poor,” the CSE report said.

The report has quoted Sudarsanam Padam, former director of the Central Institute of Road Transport in Pune, as saying traffic congestion on Indian roads leads to a loss of Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 4,000 crore.

The high density of traffic in cities has caused average speeds in cities to plummet during congestion. The average speed drops to 10 kmph in Delhi, 7 kmph in Calcutta and 13 kmph in Bangalore’s business districts.

The CSE report quoted a police official as saying that at the current pace of the growth in private traffic, the average speed on Bangalore’s roads could drop to 5 kmph within the next 15 years.

Delhi accounts for 17 per cent of all cars in the country.

The report said bus fleets in most cities are plagued by low fleet utilisation. Calcutta has between 1,100 and 1,200 buses but the fleet utilisation there dropped from 73 per cent in 1991 to 66 per cent in 2001.

The CSE warned that Calcutta’s tramway system is “the only example of a zero-emission public transport system in the country that is being allowed to degenerate”.

Although the tramway has a 68-km double track and a fleet of 239 operational trams, only 170 operate on 29 routes. In some parts of the city, the tram lines have been dug up to make way for cars.

Instead of letting different modes of public transport ? the Metro, trams and buses ? compete, the authorities in Calcutta should integrate them and leverage them to cap motorisation, the report said.

Experience from several countries has shown that parking policies can turn people towards alternative modes of transport, but Indian authorities have failed to recognise this. “Near-free parking is an added incentive for uncontrolled use of cars and scooters,” the CSE report said.