Driving us all crazy: India’s enthusiasm for the car takes its toll on the nation’s capital
Simon Harding
25th November 2009
“I once lived near this family”, said my Indian friend, struggling to make himself heard above the cacophony of revving engines, bleating horns and loud exclamations of frustration given in rapid fire Hindi, “and they had five cars, one each for the parents and the two children. And one for the dogs. Once a day, they'd send their driver out to take the dogs for a drive”. Sitting in a small open-sided auto stuck fast in the Saturday evening traffic, the idea of actually wanting to own a car and drive it around this sprawling city seemed a little strange. Here in Delhi, the highway-code is little more than a set of suggestions: undertaking, speeding and straddling two lanes are common practices. The previous evening my auto driver had missed the slip road to my neighbourhood. Undeterred and unwilling to drive a few extra kilometres to the next exit, he stopped on the busy fly-over, waited for the briefest lull in the traffic, did a full U-turn in the darkness and backtracked up the hard shoulder against the oncoming traffic, which tooted us mercilessly.
Things don't improve when the traffic grinds to a halt. Jams happen all the time. Not ordered stop-start European jams, but jumbled every-man-for-himself scrambles, in which every inch of tarmac is fought over and won with all the speed and ferocity of a battle on some Flanders quagmire. Despite the travails of driving in Delhi, the car remains a status symbol of the highest order, a marker of wealth and conspicuous consumption. With a growing middle class and a global motor industry starting to take notice, India has become one of the world's hottest spots for auto manufacturers to do business. But the road ahead is far from straight and narrow.
India's car market is accelerating at breakneck speed. It has registered strong growth in the last nine consecutive months, bucking the global downward trend in the auto industry. Although currently a small player when compared to the US and EU, India's car production and consumption are growing at rates of which Western countries can only dream. From 2m cars sold in 2008, the market is expected to triple to 6m by 2019 as more and more Indians purchase their first vehicles, eager to turn upward social mobility into speedy, safe around-town mobility. Such first time buyers will dominate the market until 2020, claims a study by Deloitte. According to the Indian Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations, the average car buying household in 2009 had an annual income of Rs.206,556 (GBP 2,680) and most likely already had a TV, mobile phone, motorbike or scooter and a washing machine. A shiny hatch-back completes this happy picture of a prosperous middle class family.
But hang on! How can a family of four or five people living on Rs. 206,556 a year afford a car? With that income you'd be lucky to get your hands on a rusty old Nova back in the UK! The answer is that India's auto industry is different. As we sat in the jam, our auto was surrounded, not by family saloons and 4x4s, but by tiny hatchbacks. Maruti Suzuki Altos, Tata Indicas, small Hyundais and tiny Toyotas boxed us in; their little 800cc engines worked hard by their drivers in an attempt to sound bullish and aggressive. 80% of the Indian car market is made up of these small Indian-manufactured cars with modest performances, simple mechanics, basic interiors and price tags to match. The much-hyped Tata Nano, which offers punters four seats, 600ccs, 65mph and 66mpg all for Rs.100,000 (GBP1,286), is perhaps the best example of the Indian car industry's efforts to tap the widest possible section of the middle class market. But Tata is by no means alone.
With stagnating sales at home and in their traditional American and European markets, Japanese auto manufacturers are becoming increasingly interested in India. Recently, Nissan made closures and brutal cuts in many of its overseas operations, only to name Chennai as the new production hub for its as-yet-unnamed mini car to be launched in May 2010 in a joint venture with Indian manufacturer Bajaj Auto, whose motorcycle parts will go into the thrifty new motor. As well as catering for domestic demand, the plant will export many of the 400,000 vehicles set to roll off the production line annually to over 100 countries. Toyota is also planning to launch a new mini car specially designed for the Indian market. Honda, Suzuki and Hyundai have all recently announced that their surprising growth figures (given Japan's deep recession) are down to the Indian market. But it's not just the Japanese; US auto makers are set to get in on the act too. General Motors is pressing ahead with a new plant in Talegaon near Pune and Ford is working on a cheap car for the newly flush Indian consumer.
This international frenzy will be greeted with much back-slapping and hot chai all round at the Government of India (GOI). The GOI's 'Automotive Mission Plan' aims to quadruple car sales to $145b p/a, double auto sector employment to 26m and drastically increase vehicle exports from the current $34b (5% GDP), all by 2016. Given the voracious appetite of the Indian public for the motor car, the level of interest amongst major manufacturers in the Indian market and the government's own generous tax policies on private vehicles, the Plan stands a good chance of success. So, a win-win situation? Sadly not.
Back in the auto, my friend and I had spent the best part of our night-out on the road. It had taken an hour to drive a few kilometres and we were coughing and bleary-eyed. The flip side of India's burgeoning love affair with the car was blindingly obvious.
According to Delhi's Centre for Science and Environment, around 1,000 private vehicles are registered in the city every day, double the rate in 1999. The explosion of cars has actually reversed the short-lived decrease in air pollution recorded after the conversion of all Delhi's public transport to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in 2000. Despite 'green' buses, taxis and autos, petrol and diesel guzzling private cars have upped the average RSPM (Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter) from 149mg per cubic metre in 2001 to 209mg today. Asthma and breathing difficulties are a major problem in a city in which few have access to affordable health care. Auto drivers, who spend as much as 12 hours a day on the road, cough, rasp and wipe the grime from their faces with dirty rags at every red light.
Aside from the air pollution, Delhi simply cannot keep pace with the number of new cars on the roads. There is just not enough room and the problem is getting worse: there is now half the road length per vehicle as ten years ago – little more than 6m. Nearly half the city's roads are running over their intended capacity. Speeds have plummeted and everyday life in the city is becoming more and more difficult as daily commutes become longer and longer.
No city is able to double its road network in a decade; no city should have to.
Whilst encouraging car ownership with such enthusiasm, the Central and Delhi governments have neglected public transport. Delhites are taking less bus journeys than ever before. There are currently only 8,000 buses serving a city of 15m people and they are largely controlled by shady owner cartels, which are more interested in extracting the largest rents possible from the drivers and conductors who hire the vehicles on a daily basis than providing a reliable public service with regular routes and timetables. They are dirty and dangerous. Many middle class Delhites do not even consider them a safe option.
Harsh tax regimes also clobber public transport. Buy a new Maruti Suzuki and you’ll pay a single tax payment upfront which covers the car for its 15 year lifespan. Buy a bus and you pay a hefty tax every single year. The more passengers you carry – the less fuel used per person - the more tax you'll pay: A strange message and a perverse incentive in a city looking to foster a clean, green image. Without some serious attention to the public transport system and some efforts to reduce the number of cars on the roads, Delhi may well grind to a smoggy halt in the coming years.
After an hour or so in the auto we reached our destination: a venue on the edge of town. We climbed out of the auto and weaved our way through the traffic piled up at the red light: a jumble of small white hatchbacks, each with the driver’s choice of deity or guru stuck to the dashboard to bring luck and safety to all aboard. The dream of social and spatial mobility, a global car industry out to make a killing and a government starry-eyed at the prospect of manufacturing jobs and foreign currency combine to make India the current hot spot of the automotive world. But in Delhi the car craze is lowering air quality to dangerous levels and causing nightmarish congestion. Public transport is decaying and is in need of urgent attention. Attention which it is unlikely to receive. “What a mess”, I say to my friend as we walk away from the fumes, “I'm glad we don't have to do that every day”. ”We don't”, he replied, “In a few days I'll have my license. Then we can drive”.
1. Congestion in Delhi: Scary Future of our Cities', Environmental (Control and Prevention) Authority, 5/2/09, available at: http://www.cseindia.org/AboutUs/press_releases/congestion.pdf