Does Delhi Need a Cap on Car Ownership?

By MALAVIKA VYAWAHARE

NY Times

September 10, 2012

Is it time for India to take lessons from China about pollution and congestion?

The municipal government of Guangzhou, one of China’s biggest auto manufacturing centers, plans to halve the number of new cars on the streets, The New York Times reported, by introducing “license plate auctions and lotteries.”

The move comes as the city struggles to address traffic congestion issues and curb pollution – issues that also bedevil India’s biggest cities, particularly its capital. Despite the current slowdown, India is still one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and, according to a World Economic Forum study released this year, also has the world’s worst air pollution.

The problem is particularly acute in Delhi, where an average of 1,335 vehicles were added to Delhi’s roads every day during 2010 and 2011. Infrastructure improvements have not kept pace with the influx of vehicles, mostly cars and motorcycles, and the city faces a capacity crisis in less than a decade, an expert says.

“The capacity of roads in Delhi will be exceeded by 2021 on most major roads and junctions,” Geetam Tiwari, a professor of transport planning at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi who is also associated with the city’s contentious Bus Rapid Transport pilot project, told India Ink.

So far, the Delhi government has been mulling measures to discourage private vehicle use and promote other methods of transportation, like B.R.T., rather than direct limits on ownership.

“Increasing vehicular population is a major challenge facing the city, and we will have to take tough decisions to deal with it,” a senior Delhi official said in an interview with The Jagran Post last week.

The “tough decisions” so far include making parking more expensive, levying congestion charges on certain routes during peak hours and upgrading the public transportation system, all of which are being gradually implemented in Delhi. The government is also considering a proposal to levy parking charges in residential areas, unlikely to be a popular idea among car owners, who are the city’s wealthiest and most influential people. The B.R.T. project, for example, has spawned vociferous opposition, especially among the car-owning population. A recent court order, in response to their complaints, allows other vehicles to use the bus-only corridor, negating its benefit for those not using private cars.

Some cities in India, however, are already experimenting with rules to check car ownership.

Aizawl, the capital of the northeastern state of Mizoram, has linked the granting of licenses to parking availability. Vehicle owners have to show that they own garages before their vehicles can be registered. But as a consequence, “a number of vehicles have been left unregistered due to the inspectors’ inability to verify that the garages exist,” the local news media reported.

In Jaipur in the western state of Rajasthan, the state government was directed by the high court to register only those vehicles whose owners submit an affidavit that they have a parking space for the vehicle. The order came into force on May 1 and local transport officials have not encountered the same difficulties as their peers in Aizawl, for a simple reason. “We were asked to get the affidavits from the vehicle owners. The high court did not direct us to crosscheck the affidavit,” officials told the The Daily Bhaskar.

Vehicle ownership levels remain fairly low in Delhi at 85 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with a developed country like Britain, which has 760 vehicles per 1,000 people. But owning one remains a goal for many. “Rising appetites for personal mobility are buttressed by the association of car ownership with high social status,” a report on changes in bus transportation pointed out.

Growth in car sales remains a strong point in India’s economy. In a mid-term review of the Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016, the government outlines plans to make India a “destination of choice in the design and manufacture of automobiles.” According to the review, vehicle production in the country increased from 9.7 million units in 2006 to 20 million in 2011.

India’s courts have occasionally addressed questions about the addition of more cars to India’s roads. Dismissing the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s plea this year to limit the cycle rickshaws on Delhi roads, a Supreme Court judge said the government was not prepared to put limits on cars. “In your so-called vision, you must have thought that by scrapping rickshaws there will be enough space for cars and other vehicles on the roads,” The Hindu quoted him as saying.

Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director of the Center for Science and Environment and head of the transport planning program, said the government should focus on influencing commuting choices and encouraging people to use cars less and public transportation more.

“A quota system should be a last resort,” Ms. Roychowdhury said. “But that is something Delhi would have to consider if the current government policies do not solve the transport problems soon.”

http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/does-delhi-need-a-cap-on-car-ownership/?src=rechp

Load sheddings set to return

The Economic Times
15 Sep, 2007

MUMBAI: After a brief respite during the monsoon season, Maharashtra is set to experience load shedding again. The shortfall this time is pegged at 3,500 MW. Last year the state faced a record power deficit of 5,700 MW that forced many part of the state to face load-shedding up to 16 hours a day. From September-end, the state will face a shortage of 3,500 MW of power, state energy minister Dilip Valse Patil told mediapersons at Dabhol. Mr Valse Patil chaired a meet on reviving the ill-fated Dabhol power project, now renamed Ratnagiri Gas and Power Project (RGPPL). Mr Valse Patil expressed hope that the power shortage would be tackled by resorting to measures like single-phasing, feeder separation and load management.

However, he did not indicate the hours of load-shedding that will be enforced. But according to energy ministry officials plans are afoot to impose two hours of power cut in urban areas, while the rural areas will face power outages of four to six hours every day to begin with. The power generation in Maharashtra this year will be higher by 3,000 MW of which 2,150 mw would be from the Dabhol plant, 500 MW from Parli/Paras and 400 MW from other sources. However, the rise in demand for power is pegged at 1,000 MW, the minister added. The state will have to wait till January 2008 for power from RGPPL. The paucity of gas has restrained the state authorities to run Dabhol unit at full capacity. Adding to the woes is the state’s failure to kick off the capacity addition plan. Though it had signed agreements to hike power generation to 12,500 MW over the next five years with Rs 50,000 crore investments, nothing has come out of them.

Reliance Energy, Tata Power, Essar Power, GMR, CIPCO, Ispat, Jindal and Spectrum Power had signed agreements for building power projects in the state.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Load_sheddings_set_to_return/articleshow/2370675.cms

Provision for sub-stations in new layouts sought

Andhra Pradesh
Special Correspondent
The Hindu

HYDERABAD: The Energy Department has proposed to the civic bodies, including the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, not to give layout approval for housing colonies without allotment of land separately for construction of sub-stations.

The proposal was made by Energy Minister Mohd. Ali Shabbir at a recent meeting to review the progress of works connected with electricity supply in Hyderabad and other urban areas in the State. It was attended by officials from Revenue and Roads & Buildings departments, APIIC, the AP Transco, APCPDCL and Hyderabad Metro Water Supply & Sewerage Board.

The meeting decided to construct four 220-KV sub-stations, 7 132 –KV sub-stations and 13 33/11-KV sub-stations to improve quality and power supply in Greater Hyderabad area in the light of a steep increase in demand for power following faster industrialisation than expected. The Minister said talks would be held with authorities concerned to get lands at Imbliban, Moosarambagh, Lower Tank Bund, Old Gandhi Medical College, Hitex, Krishnanagar, Banjara Hills, Yakutpura, Ziaguda, Sindhi Colony, Hakimpet, Patigadda and Malakpet Race Course.

http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/08/stories/2007090861430400.htm

Can good economics clean up Mumbai's air?
Rediff News
August 22, 2007

Can good economics work to clean up the foul air Mumbai breathes? Last summer some of Mumbai's BEST buses began using cleaner diesel instead of regular diesel, which cuts down emissions of dirty air. The fuel is made by combining methanol and vegetable oil to make methyl ester commonly called bio-diesel. The buses use a blended fuel, adding one part of this to 19 parts of regular diesel. The bio-diesel supplied to BEST is cheaper compared to regular diesel by around Rs 2 a litre. Around 80 buses from the corporation's 3,400-strong fleet are being run on the blended fuel as a pilot project.

As part of another project conceived by The Energy and Resources Institute, around half of the 90-odd boat-owners at Mumbai's Gateway of India have begun using blended diesel in their boats. The boat-owners who ply rides to Mandwa and Alibag on the mainland, Elephanta island and the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, and ferry tourists around the harbour buy the cleaner fuel at slightly less (around 80 paise less) than regular diesel which costs around Rs 34 a litre.

An order of the Supreme Court got Delhi to clean up the air by running buses on CNG, but perhaps Mumbai could do it without intervention by the courts? Not so easy. The fuel-supplying company subsidises the price of the bio-diesel sold to the boat-owners and BEST by over a fourth of the actual cost (around Rs 45 a litre) to match the government-subsidised price of diesel. The subsidy is being offered as an incentive to get consumers to convert to the clean fuel, and the company says it cannot continue it for much longer. If blended diesel got more expensive than regular diesel, would the boat-owners and BEST continue to use it? They might not.

Tests conducted by TERI on the boat emissions show that using the 5 per cent blended fuel cuts significant levels of air pollution, so it is worth figuring a way to continue to use it. In fact, according to TERI, an increase in the proportion of bio-diesel to dirty diesel from 5 per cent to 20 per cent in the blended fuel will drastically reduce emissions. So the cleaner Mumbai's air gets, the more its residents may have to pay for it. BEST chief Uttam Khobragade says he will not buy the blended fuel if it is more expensive than regular diesel. With the price of vegetable oil soaring, the price of bio-fuels is unlikely to fall anytime soon.

This is probably the point at which public policy must intervene. City authorities must decide whether cleaning up the city's air is worth the extra cost, and pass the cost on to bus or boat passengers, or alternatively, the government should switch the subsidy it provides on regular diesel (by some estimates, this is currently as high as 11 per cent) to blended diesel to encourage its use. There are sound economic and environmental reasons why public transport should be subsidised, and even if one were to contest the need to subsidise tourists who take a boat ride at the Gateway, it makes little sense to subsidise a dirty fuel and penalise a clean one.

There is, of course, the option of using CNG, which is both a cleaner and cheaper fuel. Khobragade reckons it will cost about Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) to convert BEST buses to CNG, but the cash-strapped corporation cannot afford to pay for it. Instead, he has a plan. He has written to the government to defer the Rs 40 crore (Rs 400 million) in tax the corporation pays each year for the next 10 years.

Once this is done, BEST could raise Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) as a loan and use the tax saved to pay it off over the next decade.In which time it would have made savings by using a cheaper fuel in its buses, and possibly be able to pay the deferred tax to the government. That sounds like a plan, one that could be a big step towards cleaning up the city's air.