In his 2016 Budget speech, the Finance Minister said, “Passenger traffic on our roads has to be made more efficient for the benefit of the common man and the middle class.” This implies that road public transport in India, which is run by public bodies such as municipal corporations or State Road Transport Corporations (SRTCs), is not meeting those demands currently.
In many smaller cities, urban public transport is run by the SRTCs; in many cities with municipal corporations, transport wings such as NMMT, PMT, DTC, BMTC BEST do the job. Most of them do not run profitably and do not serve commuters well. There is vast difference in public transport needs in small cities and towns as against larger cities and metropolises. In the latter, peak traffic periods extend more than two hours; in Mumbai they touch four hours in the mornings and four hours in the evenings.
Use of personal cars is the main reason for road congestion and, thereby, inefficient operation of public transport. But the government is doing precisely what would add to road congestion: encouraging the use of personal cars.
Allowing private players to operate public transport services would simply mean that urban planning will be thrown to the winds; i.e., to the realty and automobile sectors. When public transport is opened up, the failure of private players to deliver will be cited to the very reasons mentioned above. By then, the damage would have been done and the entire public transport sector would have been destroyed.
Mere abolition of ‘Permit Raj’ will not mean better mobility will be ensured. What is needed is for the government to seek debate with civil society and current public service operators, and invest in needed infrastructure profusely to enable them to operate it more efficiently.
Governments must do everything that makes walking, cycling and use of public transport an easy task, and travelling by personal motorcars too expensive in terms of time, parking, and congestion tax.
For instance, introducing a comprehensive bus transit system where waiting times for trunk routes is less than a minute, and on feeder lines, less than five minutes. Private players could come into the sector by way of providing, say, rolling stock, but the overall permit raj in this sector has to prevail to maintain equitable services for mobility to all and safety on the roads too.
The author, an IIT Bombay graduate in civil and structural engineering, is a transportation analyst
