On the face of it, Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily’s Metro ride on Wednesday appears to be a good attempt to make people, particularly ministers and bureaucrats, aware of importance of fuel and how to conserve energy. He walked to the nearest Metro Station from his Tughlak Lane residence to take Metro for Shastri Bhavan. Moily has announced that he would make it a weekly habit of taking Metro and shunning official car to reach his office.
Unless other Ministers in the government and the
bureaucrats emulate Moily by taking to public transport even once a week to
reach place of work, this exercise of the Petroleum Minister would prove
nothing more than a publicity stunt. I am told majority of Moily’s colleagues
in the Union Council of Ministers are uncomfortable with the example set by the
Petroleum Minister. Ministers and Bureaucrats are not ready to follow suit and
take Metro or Bus ride to reach office even once a week.
The Government is not serious about launching campaign
to conserve energy and reduce consumption of fossil fuel. The Government should
issue an appeal to ask people including those in power to select one day in a
week to take public transport.
In the past there has been campaign by general public
to pool in transport. For instance if from an area, four people go to same
destination for work, they can use one car in rotation instead of four cars.
But people in Delhi are different from people in Calcutta or Mumbai. In Mumbai,
one can see many senior executives in private sectors drawing more than one
lakh rupees a month using local train to commute. Most of the executives use
cars to reach nearest station and take local to reach office.
In sharp contrast, Delhi people don’t like to take bus
or metro if they have cars. A friend commented that left to themselves most of
Delhites would take their cars right at the dining table of restaurants if that
facility is made available to them. It is a common sight to see that many
healthy people in Delhi take lift even to climb down one or two floors.
The second most important thing is for the government
to take a policy decision to curb or put a cap on consumption of petrol for all
Ministers and Bureaucrats. It is common to abuse official cars by the rulers
for private purposes. It is a common sight again in Delhi to see government
cars parked at up markets like Connaught Place, South Extension and Greater
Kailash. The government should after due calculations allow limited quantity of
fuel be it Minister or Officer. In case of consumption in excess of the cap the user should bear the cost. Also, there is
blatant abuse of buying more fuel than actually required. Say, for instance, if
a particular model of car gives 10 km a liter, government vehicles show that
the car runs only 6 km a liter, huge theft of petrol and diesel.
Ministers should also avoid using government planes, be
it of Indian Air Force, Border Security Force or other units where commercial
flights are available. Except for Prime Minister and President, all Ministers
should use commercial flight that would save millions of liters of petrol.
The tragedy is no leader who can inspire people. There
is lack of credibility. Ministers lead a life style that matches opulent class
of the society and the bureaucrats are not far behind though their known source
of income does not allow them to lead a five star life style, officers are in
the habit of abusing government perks or take benefits from private industrial
and business houses.
~R K Sinha
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