Car-free Sunday

A week after the Hyundai Elantra knocked my car out of circulation, it was another Sunday. On a day like this, you become aware of how severely car-dependent you are, because India's (more particularly, Tamil Nadu's) policymakers have all but abandoned expansion of bus systems. Trains don't really present an alternative except for long distance commuting. That leaves us with autorickshaws.

Chennai's unregulated autorickshaw business is well-known. It is one of the costliest cities when it comes to hiring such intermediate transport. The fares approximate to between Rs.12 and Rs.15 a kilometre, arguably the highest in the country. The Governments led by both Ms.Jayalalithaa and Mr.Karunanidhi have over the last decade all but abandoned the need to regulate such feeder transport systems.

There is thus no functioning law governing autorickshaws. If you have lived here long enough, you know where you can bargain more effectively and save a few rupees. Trying to hail a crusing autorickshaw in most neighbourhoods is simply useless because the drivers recognise a monopoly principle for stand autorickshaws. Only after your negotiation with the local stand autorickshaws can you hire one that is cruising (and may hence make a more reasonable fare demand).

One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the long shadow of political parties on the transport sector. Let me explain: the major Dravidian parties saw early enough that given their inability to generate employment in most other sectors, urban transport was a means of providing a livelihood to the party faithful.

Thus, autorickshaw permits are secured by the middle rung city political leaders (and sometimes by those associated with leading film personalities) and the autorickshaws are handed over to people from the lowest strata to operate. Given the lack of education and any system of oversight, a high degree of lumpenisation exists in the sector. In fact, in the early 1990s, autorickshaws became the symbols of lumpen-led attacks on political and other opponents. The autorickshaws also demonstrate their affiliations on the vehicles in the form of flags, stickers of party colours, photos of the leaders and so on, all in violation of the Motor Vehicles Act rules. At the same time, few of them have functioning brake lights, headlights, windscreen wipers and indicators, as required under the MV Act.

Is it this vested interest the reason for not expanding the city's bus system, which has grown at the rate of about 100 buses a year for a decade, to serve a metropolis that has expanded in residential population terms by about a million and half people, and in area by a radius of 20 km in that period?

The robust economic growth of the country has accelerated the demand for transport in Chennai, but the Governments have preferred to encourage private vehicle ownership over provision of public alternatives. Private participation in Chennai's transport system is seen as politically unacceptable, although the families of Dravidian politicians own powerful private television networks both in India and abroad.

More on this later. Meanwhile, my car-free Sunday cost me and family Rs.200 by way of autorickshaw and bus fares.