Vehicular bane

The vehicle sales of Bajaj Auto and Royal Enfield for November have gone up by 21 per cent year on year. Similarly, Hyundai Motor India, Ford India, Mahindra & Mahindra and some others have registered growth in sales by 10 per cent, 28 per cent and 21 per cent during the period. The auto industry is growing fast and is set to touch 12 per cent of GDP by 2026, as against 7 per cent in 2016. But, sadly the infrastructure has not been growing commensurate with the growth of vehicles.

The number of vehicles registered in Mumbai has reportedly crossed 30 lakh from 20 lakh five years ago. The vehicular density per km has gone up to 1,500 from 935 during the same period. The situation is going to be the worst in the next few years as 700 vehicles are added daily to the already over congested roads of Mumbai. Uncontrolled growth of vehicular population is a bane to society. It has led to high levels of pollution, increase in traffic jams and accidents. The position is more or less the same in other metros such as Delhi and big cities like Pune.

In order to curb the traffic snarls, the Singapore government has banned purchase of new cars, except through replacement of old ones, from February 2018. The Singapore government believes in public transport and hence, the existing rule of 0.25 per cent increase in public transport has been continued. It is high time our government decided to ban sale and purchase of new vehicles excepting for replacement of old ones. The ban may be imposed from the next financial year, subject to review after two to three years.

Ramanath Nakhate, Mumbai

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