Traffic Congestion & Vehicular Pollution Need To Be Addressed

Technologies have emerged to address the latter issue, carmakers such as Tesla have taken the lead in all-electric cars and global carmakers are catching up with Porsche and Jaguar showcasing their own all-electric concepts in the recent past although the BMW i3 has been around as well. Most other global carmakers, mainly Toyota and Volkswagen have gone down the hybrid route. We can debate the pro's and con's of either technology, but the fact is that other than the new Toyota Camry and Prius and the Honda Accord with the occasional supercar like the BMW i8 there are no full-hybrids in India. As for electrics, Tesla has said they will sell their next model in India but we have an electric version of the Verito and the Reva E2O from Mahindra, both cars while interesting and notionally subsidised by the government's 'FAME' scheme are not viable in terms of cost unless they're used as commercial vehicles and a limited range and lack of fast-charging infrastructure fatally flaws that as well.

Indeed, the lack of progress on the drivetrain front has meant that even basic technologies such as 'Start-Stop' is limited in the mass-market in India limited to the Ciaz and Ertiga and with Hero's 'iSmart' motorcycles. These technologies are expensive and India remains a price-sensitive market with the government more concerned about making money from car sales than thinking of future technologies. The FAME scheme does give subsidies but they hardly make a dent and because imports can't access these subsidies, truly revolutionary cars which might need to be brought in small batches initially can't make it to Indian shores. Indeed, not only should the government look at expanding the FAME program with higher subsidies but it should apply limited subsidies to imported hybrid and electric vehicles as well. Now, while one could argue that subsidies alter market realities, they are vital in fostering technological growth. Today clean solar power is being generated at almost the same price per kilowatt-hour as polluting coal-based thermal power. Would that have been possible without the subsidies of a decade ago? The government should think of these subsidies not as a discount but a way to encourage carmakers to bring these technologies to India. India is too large a potential market to be flooded with imports, but the market needs to be seeded with imports.

Another way of reducing pollution is to mandate stricter fuel and emission norms. India's emission norms are already very strict but as events at a carmaker proved a few years ago, the system can be beaten. While carmakers will have to make their vehicles 'Bharat Stage-VI' compliant by 2018, the lack of testing fuels is condemning that process to a slow start. But is the government and other regulatory bodies missing the woods for the trees?

Much of the pollution crisis in northern India is to do with particulate matter, known as PM2.5 and PM10. Much of that is related to the dust in our cities due to poor municipal cleaning. Vehicles do pollute, but as higher fuel standards have been brought in, particulate matter pollution from well-maintained vehicles is minimal. The 'Dieselgate' crisis that hit Volkswagen for example had nothing to do with particulate pollution but with Carbon Monoxide (CO) and Nitrous Oxides (NOx) pollution; the latter is a serious problem in Europe due to high vehicle concentrations and the dominance of diesel cars.

A lot of vehicular pollution in India is related more with poor maintenance and unfit vehicles on the roads. While vehicles in India technically need fitness certificates, mainly in the form of a pollution certificate to run, these are almost never checked in major cities let alone elsewhere. Poorly maintained vehicles operate on our roads all the time, and while the National Green Tribunal's move to ban diesel vehicles over ten-years old is very heavy handed and lacks any nuance whatsoever, possibly they had little choice. But the fact is that a well-maintained ten-year old BMW diesel 5-series is likely to be much less polluting than a ten-year old diesel hatchback which has led a tough life.

Instead of very strict implementation of the policies currently in place which will prevent old, polluting vehicles from being on the roads and looking at smart subsidies for clean vehicles, the government has looked at crazy schemes. Like it or not, the 'Odd-Even' scheme had only limited success and that too primarily with dealing with traffic congestion. We need more thought on dealing with this problem and the government, both central, state-level and municipal as well as other authorities should plan out credible solutions. I will explore some solutions to vehicular congestion in the second part of this series.

Kushan Mitra is the managing editor of The Pioneer and a member of the NDTV Car and Bike Awards Marketing and Communications jury for 2017