NEW DELHI: Even as cities reel under the growing burden of private vehicles, government data shows that nearly 90% of Indians don’t own a vehicle. This points to the need to scale up public transport, both to provide affordable travel options to such citizens and to prevent them from buying private vehicles and adding to the traffic chaos.
According to government estimates, there are 18.64 crore vehicles in the country, including two-wheelers. Of these, 18 lakh are buses, which include a large number of mini buses and those owned by schools and other educational institutions. Worryingly, only around 1.6 lakh buses are owned by state road transport undertakings (SRTUs), which serve as the main mode of mass road transport across states.
Records show that the share of buses in the total number of vehicles has decreased from 10% in 1951 to only 1% now. There is hardly any indication of this changing any time soon as two-wheelers have become the preferred replacement for public transport both in urban and rural areas.
A government official admitted that in all these years, little attention was given to improve road-based public transport and whatever was done was confined to the city bus sector.
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