Kolkata City Dialogue on Air Quality and Transportation Challenge: An Agenda For Action
A Briefing Note Serious concern over worsening air quality and traffic congestion in Kolkata Ongoing action must gather momentum, says CSE
A Briefing Note Serious concern over worsening air quality and traffic congestion in Kolkata Ongoing action must gather momentum, says CSE
It was a proud moment and a powerful statement when Dhaka rolled out a bedecked iconic cycle rickshaw on the opening day of the World Cup cricket. This is perhaps the only capital city in our region that can boast of zero emission areas with majority walking or on cycle rickshaws. Yet cars, only 10 per cent of all wheeled trips, bring this city to a grinding halt daily – traffic jams are as bad as we see in the worst of times in Delhi. Jam-struck on Dhaka’s roads, I understood, what warped fuel pricing can do to our cities of South Asia, and, wondered why our finance minister has not figured that out yet?
Footfalls: Obstacle Course to Livable Cities (.pdf) Choc-A-Block: Parking Measures to Address Mobility Crisis (.pdf) Avert the great guzzle: Fuel Economy Regulations: Setting the Principles Right (.pdf) Fuel adulteration report (.pdf)
Footfalls: Obstacle Course to Livable Cities Choc-A-Block: Parking Measures to Address Mobility Crisis Avert the great guzzle: Fuel Economy Regulations: Setting the Principles Right A report on the independent inspection of fuel quality at fuel dispensing stations, oil depots and tank lorries Safety of CNG Buses in Delhi: Findings and Recommendations The smokescreen of lies: Myths and facts about CNG Engines of the Devil
CSE's latest book in its Right to Clean Air Campaign series. We have more roads and flyovers than ever before to address our transportation worries. But our cities continue to be gridlocked, with traffic at a virtual standstill as private vehicles hugely outnumber our public transport options. It is time to set new terms of action, make our cities more walkable, review our pollution and congestion control strategies…
Our Moms and Grannies will rebel. They have just about upgraded their kitchens from smoky chulhas to clean lpg burners.
If it’s broken, don’t fix it. That’s the new motto of the government: forget it and build another. Do not sort out details. I am talking of what the government believes will form the spine of regulation in future. The flavour of the day is ‘authorities’: separate, independent institutions not bound by departmental morass, not tied down by procedures or personnel—the bane supposedly of any implementation or regulatory initiative. I think it is time to review this gelato of current governance.
I smelled the air of Bangalore last week. It was foul. I remembered how in the late 1990s, when Delhi’s air was dark and dirty, we had run an advertisement in the newspapers: “Roll down the window of your bullet-proof car, Mr Prime Minister, the security threat is not the gun it is the air of Delhi.” Since then Delhi introduced compressed natural gas, it increased the number of buses, it got better quality fuel. With all this, the air got less dirty and less toxic.
Why is it necessary to ban private diesel vehicles and reduce the use of diesel asmuch as possible ?