In the coming days, if Covid-19 and pollution prevention are taken, then these steps will benefit

In order to prevent corona virus infection, the emphasis is on following the most physical distance rules. In such a situation, there was a strong fear that one of the important changes that will come in our lives will be about transportation. Most people would like to avoid using congested public transport, avoiding unnecessary travel. At the same time, private vehicles will also be purchased as needed in such families, where till now it has been considered as non-essential. For this reason it was expected that automobiles would be important in the areas that would have the fastest recovery after lockdown.

Statistics of this matter have also started coming. Vehicle sales in the capital Delhi have increased four-fold in the last four months, which is not unexpected. It was not surprising to see a four-fold increase in sales over the time of lockdown, but two more figures that verify the estimates are that despite the economic loss caused by Corona, sales for August this year were up from last year. It has been more than the month of August and 22,232 trains were registered in September despite having 15 days of Pitrupaksha. All these vehicles have been purchased for personal use.

Considering the current state of the economy, these news stories are encouraging, but in terms of urban development and environment, the story turns upside down. The capital Delhi is prone to smog on cold days every year. Apart from the smoke of the straw from the surrounding states, the dust from the tires of the vehicles plying on the roads of Delhi are important reasons. To deal with this, for the last two years, the Delhi government has been implementing odd-even to reduce the use of vehicles immediately.

Despite all the exercises, the situation is going to be more serious this year. The first reason for this is that the effect of corona is expected to be more in the winter. Secondly, the capacity of public transport is quite limited in terms of following physical distance rules. Third, the pollution-related health problem can complicate the situation with the corona, which means there will also be a need to reduce pollution. Fourthly, the government’s financial condition is not good, ie it will be difficult to hire buses and the condition of the fifth DTC is already bad. Overall, the use of private vehicles in Delhi will increase even more this winter and this will be a situation in which there will be a well on one side and a moat on the other side.

Prohibition on purchase of vehicles is not possible, but they can be used to reduce their usage. The steps that can be taken in this regard need to be thought through immediately. For one time there is not too much crowd, for this the offices will have to be organized by changing the time. As far as possible, the tendency to work from home ie work from home should be encouraged. Besides, apart from making the means of public transport easy and inexpensive, emphasis should be laid on the construction and maintenance of cycle tracks, so that people can use the bicycle more and more for short distances. As much as the cycling system is available in many other cities including the capitals of developed countries, we have relatively poor system, so people do not use it even for short distances.