Some questions that the government should answer are:
1.) Have they done any study to see how much pollution is caused by bad roads? Poorly maintained and zero road infrastructure results in cars crawling at 10kmph in 1st or 2nd gears all the time. How much would pollution reduce if government could provide roads that could result in speeds of at least 60kmph?
2.) While they keep penalising car companies with Euro IV and V norms, the delays in implementation of these norms happens because the government owned and controlled oil companies are not ready with fuels that are compliant with these strict norms.
3.) How many Taxi's, Auto's, buses and trucks have a valid PUC? Most of the time the RTO's just take money and pass these vehicles. Taxi drivers go on strike and the government caves into them immediately. For some reason, taxi drivers have made it seem like stringent PUC checks are harassment of poor people by the government. These idiots forget that a polluting taxi affects the driver and his family as much as it affects the Mercedes owner. Ditto for corrupt RTO officers.
4.) I fail to understand why the government cannot use free solar power to reduce pollution. India is blessed with abundant solar power. Public transit buses, taxi's, billboards, road lights, traffic lights all can be switched to solar power.
5.) Why can't the government use waterways where avaliable? Why can't there be a ferry from Borivli to Nariman Point for example that can take cars also? Imagine the reduction in traffic on our roads if each ferry has a capacity of taking 50 cars. What about cost effective hovercrafts?
In India we try to find simplistic solutions to everything. The government will not provide us with roads even after taking all kinds of tolls but talk about congestion toll and odd and even number cars being allowed on our roads each day. They will not give any training to would be drivers and issue licences by taking bribes and then fine and imprision drivers for rash driving. In India, the government has no responsiblity. Everything is shoved into the faces of honest tax paying citizens. They will build poorly designed roads with no signboards and then blame drivers for the high casualities on our roads. They will start construction work on the roads overnight with no properly visible warning sign and when there is an accident they will conviniantly blame it on drunk and/or rash driving. |