Delhi, the capital of our country is probably the fastest emerging one of all the metropolitans and has largest infrastructure as well. Transportation is not a problem in our city as we have a good network of buses for commuting in the city and providing a helping hand is the Delhi Metro which accounts for more than 50% of daily commuting population.
But inspite of the appreciable efforts made by the central government in changing the state of our city by introducing Metro and investing in infrastructure, the congestion scenario remains the same. We still get caught in traffic jams stretching up to several kilometers and sometimes curse the system for the situation.
image credit- flickr
In fact Delhi has the widest roads amongst all the cities across the country but we still face the same sort of congestion at many places. We also see people commuting on the roads in big cars as the drivers themselves with their other family members having separate cars.
It is certainly a subject of debate as it not only accounts for wastage of fuel but also for increased traffic and congestion on the roads. Such cars which choke the roads could also be used for more than one person thereby reducing the running cost as well as the number of cars.
Now the catch is that Delhi government is considering a proposal for imposing Congestion Tax on vehicles arriving into the center of the city and the idea comes from a couple of European cities including London where this imposition is already in practice and has been successful enough. This way more and more car owner which drive their own vehicles will be encouraged to use public transport.
The official word emerging from the Delhi’s Principal Secretary and Transport Commissioner RK Verma who say, “There is congestion and we are looking at various things to reduce it. We are studying in detail the plans for congestion charges which are at a conceptual stage,” he added. Government officials said that the special team has proposed different options to introduce the congestion charges in the city based on the principle of “those who congest must pay”
We do hope the government as well as the citizens to come to a feasible alternative and do not wish to see any protests against this imposition. It also known as a fact that with this tax implementation the freedom of door step convenience of a every car owner will be lost so we look forward for getting a word from the government in context with the same soon.
