Answer the question based on the passage given below.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is getting nightmares because of the Nano, Tata’s soon - to - be - launched Rs. One lakh car. Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) says that it isn’t the Nano by itself but cars overall that give her nightmares. The villains in my nightmares are neither the Nano nor cars overall, but stupid government policies that subsidize and encourage pollution, adulteration and congestion.
Sanctimonious greens call the Nano disastrous because of its affordability - millions more will now clog roads and consume more fossil fuel. This is elitism parading as virtue. Elite greens own cars, but cannot stand the poorer masses becoming mobile, since the consequent congestion will eat into the time of the elite!
More logical would be a protest against big cars that use more space and fuel, or highly polluting old cars. Instead, green hypocrites aim at a new car with the lowest cost, best mileage and least emissions. The Nano will not burden us with too many cars. India has very few cars per person by world standards. London and New York have ultra-high car densities, yet have clearer air than Delhi. Our problem is too many bad policies, not too many cars.
We subsidize vehicles on a gargantuan scale invisible to lay folk. Roads and flyovers cost crores to build and maintain, yet road use is free (save on a few toll roads). Traffic police and lights are costly, yet are provided free. These invisible subsidies starve cities of funds to expand roads and public transport. Land in cities now costs lakhs per square metre. Yet parking is free in the suburbs, and often costs just Rs. 10 day per day in city centres. A single parking space of 23 square meters occupies land worth Rs. 40 lakhs. A car occupies more space than an office desk, yet the desk space pays full commercial rent while parking space costs just about Rs. 10 per day.
Daily parking charges range from $30 (Rs. 630) in Washington to $30 (Rs. 1260) in New York. CSE launched a sensible campaign to raise parking fees in Delhi to Rs. 120 per day, but was foiled. So, parking space now exceeds green space, a scathing comment on priorities.
The world price of crude oil has risen 13 fold since 1998 to over $139 per barrel, but Indian petrol prices have barely doubled. Left Front politicians, who once wanted to soak the rich, now want to subsidize them. Under-recoveries of oil companies’ total may be Rs. 2,00,000 crore, even after a recent price hike. This is far more than the cost of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (education for all) and the Employment Guarantee Scheme put together.
We sanctimoniously lecture rich countries to reduce their green house emissions, yet subsidize our own. Diesel is subsidized to be cheaper than petrol. So, Indian car makers produce the highest proportion of diesel cars in the world. Diesel fumes contain suspended particles that are highly toxic. This subsidy kills.
So does kerosene provided at throwaway prices, ostensibly to benefit poor villagers. One third of all kerosene is used to adulterate petrol and diesel. This causes horrendous pollution even in the greenest of cars.
What’s the way forward? We must abolish subsidies and raise taxes on vehicles and fuels to reflect their full social cost. The biggest but least visible subsidy is for parking, and we should start there.
Many car owners in the West take public transport to work since parking space downtown is costly and scarce. We should levy parking fees on an hourly, not daily, basis. Rs. 10 per hour could be a starting point in the metros.
In parts of Tokyo, you cannot own a car unless you own a private parking space. This is too extreme for India, but indicates the future path. If we charge owners the full social cost of parking, people will buy smaller and perhaps fewer vehicles, and fewer still will take them to work. That will slash congestion and pollution.
Cities should levy stiff annual taxes on vehicles, not a one-time tax, and use the revenue to constantly expand public transport and roads. This will create economic synergy: Private transport will finance public transport. London and New York have high density public transport as well as high car density.
Apart from underground rail, cities need elevated roads to ease congestion and pollution. Lata Mangeshkar helped kill a proposal for an elevated
road near her Mumbai flat: perhaps she felt her throat and singing would be affected. She did not care that the throats of poor people living on the pavements were far worse affected by fumes, and might get relief if some fumes were diverted to a higher level. What elitism!
Next, some medicine that will be really bitter, politically. The excise duty on all automotive vehicles should be raised to reflect their social costs. Fuel subsidies should be abolished. Price differentials between petrol, diesel and kerosene should be removed, ending incentives for adulteration. Diesel cars should bear a heavy additional cess to finance improved healthcare for those affected by their emission of harmful
particulate matter.
That is a long, politically difficult agenda. Only part of it will ever be achieved. Yet that is the way to go, rather than agitate the Nano.
