There appears to be no stopping the vehicle boom in traffic-choked Bengaluru. The vehicle population has crossed 72.58 lakh, out which over 50 lakh are two-wheelers and 14 lakh are cars, according to the Transport Department data until December 2017.
“Going by data of previous years, every day, on an average, 1,900 new vehicles of all categories get registered in the city. It is just matter of a few months before the vehicle population crosses 75 lakh,” said an official.
Compared to this, the city had 41.56 lakh vehicles as on March 2012.
The number of two-wheeler registrations has seen a huge spike. The city had 28.67 lakh two-wheelers as on March 2012. As on December 2017, this number had crossed 50.30 lakh.
‘Growth alarming’
Experts say the growth in vehicle registration is alarming.
Prof. Ashish Verma from the Indian Institute of Science said, “Creating any amount of road infrastructure is not sufficient and remain unsustainable if the vehicle population continues to go grow at this rate. The government should take measures to curb the ownership of vehicles and their usage. In many cities in China and other countries, government have introduced several measures to curb the registration of new vehicles, like a cap on the number of registrations per year.”
He suggested some other measures, such as increasing the life time tax and more riders on vehicle finances schemes. “Private vehicle usage can also brought down by restricting vehicles in the CBD areas and prioritising public transport,” he added.
But the challenges on the ground remain. Transport Department officials pointed out that the city does not have enough public transport for people to rely on for daily commute. “Out of 72 lakh vehicles, the BMTC hardly has 6,000 buses and the Namma Metro network covers only 42 kilometres. The city has to go a long way in building a mass transport system,” they said.
Different agencies have taken up a several initiatives such as 'Bus Day', 'Open street Day' and the recently added 'Less Traffic Day' to promote public transport. But their impact has been highly debatable.
Transport Minister H.M. Revanna admitted that the statistics are alarming. “The roads in the city are not in a position to take the load. Crawling bumper-to-bumper traffic on major roads has become an everyday affair," he said. However, he said there is no provision in the rules to restrict registration of new vehicles and the central government has to modify the rules after consulting State governments.
