Executing ‘No Vehicles Day’ doesn’t seem to be a feasible concept to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC). The civic body has shown its incapability to put this concept into practice.

For the last five years the concept of following a No Vehicles Day has been hovering around; but each time some new limitations of the concept come to the forefront and it remains still born. Recently Mr.Aba Bagul, the Congress leader in the PMC invigorated the discussion on implementing such a concept in order to control the pollution level in the city of Pune.

The civic administration has sent a letter to all party leaders stating their inability in realizing any such concept in any part of the city. The letter says, “If any such scheme is implemented, the civic administration will invite unnecessary problems and above all it won’t be practicable to start any such concept on any part or any road in the city.”

The traffic police have also been in touch with the administration demanding implementation of such schemes if possible.

Public transport in the city has always been the target of criticism so far. Renowned environmentalists and social workers in Pune have always stressed upon the dire need of better quality of means of public transport so that people would prefer it to private vehicles. It is a bitter truth that use of private vehicles is increasing day by day. According to the environmentalists the PMC should take stringent steps to discourage the use of private vehicles. This could be done through charging extra vehicle taxes, parking charges and congestion charges following the footprints of the developed countries.

Aba Bagul in a recent press conference had said that in case No Vehicle Zone was a utopian concept something like a No Vehicle Day could definitely be observed once a week in some parts of the city . The civic body had to be convinced in this regard.

In a very ambitious proposal Mr. Bagul had said that while observing the No Vehicle Day in a particular part of the city, the PMC should ban all the private vehicles in that area. Only public transport and non motorized vehicles like a bicycle should be allowed to run on the roads.

Mr. T.C. Benjamin who is the Principal Secretary of the State Urban Development Department in his recent visit to the city had told about special land procured for the parking of private vehicles in Mumbai. Car owners park their vehicles there and go in the public vehicles. This has helped a lot in restricting the number of private vehicles in the city. Parking charges and congestion tax, too, have yielded good results.

Mr. Nitin Kareer, the then Municipal Commissioner had shown his willingness to consider Bagul’s proposal and declare the parts of the city like Bajirao Road and Laxmi Road as no vehicle zone. But the idea melted in thin air. Once again the topic has come on the anvil; but inability shown by the PMC to implement the idea in the city doesn’t seem to bear fruit.

-Yogesh Sapre