The first decade of the 21st century has wrought many changes in the State, markedly prosperity, if one goes by the substantial increase in the number of households that own a vehicle.
In Karnataka, while 37.8 per cent households owned a vehicle in 2001, 50.1 per cent possessed vehicles in 2011. In Bangalore Urban district, the numbers rose from 71.8 per cent to 84.7 per cent during this period.
On the other hand, the number of households owning a bicycle, the common man’s transport, has dropped, but only in Bangalore Urban, from 29.8 per cent to 22.9 even as the numbers increased in every other district in the State.
The number of households owning four-wheelers has almost doubled, from 9.2 per cent to 17.5 per cent and that of two-wheelers from 32.8 per cent to 44.3 per cent in Bangalore.
This sharp rise appears more in urban areas in the State, where the share of households owning bicycles has come down from 34.4 per cent in 2001 to 30 per cent in 2011. In rural areas, the numbers increased from 27.8 per cent to 36.5 per cent.
Interestingly, households in Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu and Yadgir, which did not patronise bicycles to a large extent in 2001 (10.5 p.c., 8.3 p.c. and 7.4 p.c. respectively), improved their share by 2011 and the percentage reached 16.4, 14.5 and 18.7 respectively. While bicycles were most favoured in Belgaum district in 2001 (47.3 per cent), it went up to 53.9 per cent in 2011. Mandya district joined the list in 2011 with 45.1 households owning bicycles. Except Bangalore Urban district, less than 20 per cent households in all other districts owned two-wheelers in 2001. The situation however improved in a decade with households in 15 other districts joining this list with Bangalore on the top of the list (44.3 per cent), followed by Bangalore Rural and Mysore districts (30.7 per cent each) and Shimoga (27.7 per cent).
Bangalore Urban and Kodagu were the only ones where more than 7.51 p.c. households owned four-wheelers in 2001. Economically prosperous Dakshina Kannada and Udupi joined this list in 2011.
