'Ratan Tata will be a hero if he made a bus like Nano'

DOWN TO EARTH: India has had enough of cars, says CSE Director Sunita Narain.

        

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Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. Is the Nano a miracle of modern manufacturing, which makes cheap cars available to millions, or is it in the Indian situation a potential nightmare that could create unacceptable pollution and urban congestion. That’s the key issue I shall discuss today with Director of the Centre for Science and Environment and a lady that many consider the conscience keeper of India, Sunita Narain.

Karan Thapar: Sunita Narain, when Ratan Tata launched the Nano, he made a tongue-in-cheek comment that it wouldn’t give you sleepless nights. Was he right or was he wrong?

Sunita Narain: The unfortunate thing is that too much gives me sleepless night because the fact is that it is not just the Nano but all the cars coming on the roads which should give all of us sleepless nights, not just me.

Karan Thapar: Let me put it like this: do you see the Nano and the potential increase in cars that it could herald as a miracle of manufacturing that brings cheap cars to millions or do you see it as a potential nightmare in the Indian situation because it could lead to uncontrolled pollution and urban congestion, unless it is very carefully managed.

Sunita Narain: Karan, this is always the Indian answer: both, very clearly both. It is phenomenal to have a car like Nano on the roads and I do believe that it is a technological miracle. It has broken all barriers of cost and affordability.

Remarkable, but in the Indian circumstance it is not just the Nano but all the cars which are going to ape the Nano and the number of cars on our roads. The question that we have to ask is: cars cost us the Earth, can we afford it? And that’s the question that I think the Indians are asking enough.

Karan Thapar: Okay, let’s break that up into two parts. Let’s begin by looking at the potential problem that increase in cars could create and later in part two look at the corrective measure necessary. Let’s start with pollution.

The October 8 issue of your magazine ‘Down to Earth’ says, “On a per passenger basis, a car leaves two times more particulate matter that poses a serious health challenge as compared to a two-wheeler, and four times more compared to a bus.” So is your starting position that any sharp increase in cars and vehicles on the road is something you would not like to see?

Sunita Narain: It’s important for us to understand that cars in India have to be seen differently than say cars in New York, Shanghai or in London because there’s a large number of cars there.

The question in India is that we are getting cars because we are getting richer but we are too poor to afford the regulation that we need for cars that they [other countries] can afford.