Economy of Trallution

Before you start scratching your head to wonder what Trallution means I would like to make it clear that I have termed combination of Traffic-Pollution as Trallution. Hit the Delhi-Gurgaon Express Way between 8am to 11am and 6pm to 9pm and your patience will be tested like anything. Sometimes it takes 2 hours during wee hours to travel from Dhaula Kuan to Sohna Road says Rajesh, a driver operating under Uber. Inaugurated in 2008, the Delhi Gurgaon expressway costed around 10 billion to the tax payers and within 7 years after its inauguration it has started costing more in terms of money, time and health. It sees traffic of 10 lakhs vehicles per day and set to get more every year. It means more traffic, more congestion, more jams, more time & money wastage. Of all the most critical concern is pollution which has made our Supreme Court act as an savior. Note, I said 'act'. 
You all must be thinking why I am writing all this on EcoSamyak. Well, it has got lot to do with economy. I'll explain it in latter part of this article.
So where were we? Aah..... the court. By court I mean not only Supreme Court but other courts and all governing bodies which have authority of passing order.

Where was the court when the Expressway was being made without taking future into consideration? Should not a study was required before survey and land acquisition to evaluate the traffic in upcoming years? And if any survey was done I would like to meet that gentleman who conducted? Or couldn’t have Supreme Court taken suo moto action and direct all highway projects to be made only after rationally evaluating amount of traffic expected to come in future? We must accept that our policies lag and we take decisions in panic. Decisions made in panic are often the decisions made without carefully thinking. Take for example the Supreme Court's decision to ban sale of diesel vehicles with engine capacity of above 2000cc. If reducing pollution was the goal then why not to ban old diesel vehicles that emits more poisonous gas than new ones. There are many small things which we don’t even think could increase road jams and accidents but they actually do. For example, in India the prime location for any establishment is just beside the highway which promotes more entry and exit points on highways leading to thousands of accidents while crossing roads. Entry and exit points slow down ongoing traffic on both adjoining roads which increases relatively during peak hours.

Now let me explain how economy is involved in all this pollution and traffic mess. After, the courts order to ban sale of diesel vehicles above 2000CC in Delhi, many car brands got affected. If we go by percentage, most affected are the luxury car makers like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, etc. These brands mainly operate in large metro cities. After ban, they experienced significant decline in their sale as they saw, Delhi, their major chunk of sale being taken away. Other brands like Mahindra and Tata has decided to downsize the engine capacity of their respective SUVs like Scorpio and Safari Storme. This was all about the major players, now come to the smaller ones.

Piyush Rai, a diesel Indigo owner of Lucknow was disappointed after Ola denied registering his vehicle under it. Such is the fear of Supreme Court’s Delhi verdict that Ola has decided to operate only petrol and CNG vehicles in Lucknow. I don’t know if the same is with other tier-2 cities. This means that not only the diesel vehicle owners of Delhi NCR but of other cities are also affected. Many MNC employees working in Delhi NCR went through serious hardship due to ban. Thousands of productive working hours were lost due to this hardship which in turn, although for a short time, affected the economy of service sector (which is largest contributor to GDP of India). I am not saying that eco-friendly initiatives should not be implemented. But alternatives should also be provided. The court should have directed Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to stretch their operating time and to provide metro feeder buses at every thirty minutes during night. If such was the directives of court many people would have appreciated the ban. Now let’s come to another reality. Although people may have experienced serious hardship due to ban, the truth is pollution is becoming a very serious issue. Carbon monoxide is an odorless toxic gas. People don’t even realize as they inhale it while stuck in traffic jam. So what other options do we have? Obviously, to have an eco friendly alternatives for urban commutation. Lithium, an electric cab operator of Bangalore has good advantage to harness such opportunity.  Mahindra, which produces electric car e2o is also seeing it as an opportunity to increase the sale of its eco friendly car. Tesla Motors launched Model 3 in April in India and got 180000 pre-orders. At higher end we have Model 3. At lower end we have Mahindra e2o which slowly and steadily gaining recognition amongst buyers. So needless to say that electric cars have good future in Indian market. If we really want to address pollution and traffic, we should also focus on public transport. Delhi Transport Corporation, which is running low on its fleet(4705 to be precise) struggles to cope with around forty five lakhs commuters daily and particularly during odd even nightmare it becomes worse. So it is needless to say that the deficit in quantity should be compensated by adding electric busses. And who will be benefitted most in terms of economy if Delhi Govt. decides to do so? Well, anyone from Tata to Volvo.

At last I would say that time has come that we should take effective steps to cure problem of Trallution taking future into consideration and keeping in mind that it won’t hurt common people much.