World Transport Policy &...

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World Transport Policy & Practice

Contents Volume 3, Number 3, 1997

2 Abstracts & keywords

3 Editorial

4 The Urban Transportation Crisis in Developing Countries:Alternative Policies for an Equitable SpaceEduardo Alcantara Vasconcellos

11 Map of Calcutta

12 Sustainable Transport Solutions for CalcuttaJohn Whitelegg

15 Calcutta in Pollution PerspectiveDipankar Chakraborti

24 Transport predicament in CalcuttaDr. Dilip K. Halder

31 The Left Alliance and the Unitended City:Is a civilised transition possible?Jai Sen

38 Uncoordinated public transport: Calcutta styleDebasish Bhattacharyya

42 The underground railway system in CalcuttaJayanta Basu

©1997 Eco-Logica Ltd ISSN 1352-7614

Editor

John Whitelegg, Professor of Environmental Studies, Liverpool John Moores University,Clarence Street, Liverpool, L3 5UG, U.K.

Editorial Board

Eric Britton, Managing Director, EcoPlan International, The Centre for Technology & SystemsStudies, 10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France.

Paul Tranter, Senior Lecturer, School of Geography and Oceanography, University College,Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia.

John Howe, Professor of Transportation Engineering and Head of Infrastructural Engineeringand Physical Planning, International Institute for Infrastructural, Hydraulic andEnvironmental Engineering, Delft, The Netherlands.

Mikel Murga, Leber Planificacion e Ingenieria S.A., Apartado 79, 48930-Las Arenas, Bizkaia,Spain.

Publisher

Eco-Logica Ltd., 53 Derwent Road, Lancaster, LA1 3ES, U.K.Telephone +44 1524 63175 Fax +44 1524 848340E-mail: Editorial [email protected] Subscriptions [email protected]

Production Team

Pascal Desmond (Subscriptions, Administration), Mark Johnston (Production). Please contactPascal Desmond for sample copies, orders and subscriptions, reprints and copyright permissions.

World Transport Policy & Practice3/3 [1997]

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World Transport Policy & Practice3/3 [1997]

Abstracts

The Urban Transportation Crisis inDeveloping Countries: AlternativePolicies for an Equitable Space

Eduardo Alcantara VasconcellosKEYWORDS: Urban transport, Planning,Developing countriesPlanners in developing countries havetended to use transport modelling techniquesdesigned by and developed for cities in thewest. Besides being unsuitable, they areinappropriate to the everyday needs ofpeople in developing countries. Plannersmust reassess their approach, rid themselvesof their assumptions and begin by asking anew set of questions.

Sustainable Transport Solutions forCalcutta

John WhiteleggKEYWORDS: Sustainability, People,Economic growthLike many cities in developing countries,Calcutta has a very small ecological footprint- it is relatively self-sufficient. However,Calcuttans can see, and wish to attain, therelative comfort of western lifestyles. Inaddition, they can see through thesustainability rhetoric of westerngovernments who, while demanding thatdeveloping countries should become moresustainable, are doing little to initiate andimplement sustainability themselves.Indeed, western consultants are pushinginappropriate and unsustainable transportinfrastructure on Calcutta. In the meantime,Calcutta and Calcuttans will suffer.

Calcutta in Pollution Perspective

Dipankar ChakrabortiKEYWORDS: Pollution, Health.Calcutta suffers from chronic pollution. It ispervasive, temporally, spatially anddemocratically. Every Calcuttan is affectedand, as a result, many suffer ill health. Thereis no easy solution, but the main cause,povery, is identified.

Transport predicament in Calcutta

Dilip HalderKEYWORDS: Congestion, Land use,Pollution, Travel DemandUrban transport in Calcutta is in crisis.Because of uncontrolled land usedevelopment, associated transport activityand an unrelenting increase in private motorvehicles, there is severe congestion anddeteriorating public transport. In addition,air and noise pollution are insufferable.

The Left Alliance and the UnintendedCity: Is a civilised transition possible?

Jai SenKEYWORDS: Poverty, Rickshaws,Government, Society.Attempts have been made to ban hand-pulledrickshaws in Calcutta in the past. Hand-pulled rickshaws are one of the last vestigesof feudalism and imperialism. The lives andlivelihoods of those who pull the rickshawsare not normally considered because somepoliticians believe that “the poor must suffera little for the good of the larger community”.

Unco-ordinated public transport:Calcutta style

Debasish BhattacharyyaKEYWORDS: Public TransportCalcutta's public transport has developed ina very haphazard manner, with a mixture ofpublic and private providers. The privateoperators are beyond any regulation. It istotally unco-ordinated and insufficient forthe needs of the city. Levels of investmentare low, the infrastructure is in poorcondition and it is in urgent need ofintegration.

The underground railway system inCalcutta

Jayanta BasuKEYWORDS: Investment, Metro, IntegratedtransportCalcutta's underground railway hastremendous unexploited potential as part ofan integrated transport system. However it isjust one of many competing providers, isgrossly underutilised and makes anoperational loss. A variety of solutions arerequired to improve its fortunes.

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Editorial

all over the city; the polluted water; theshadowy sky and the tainted horizon wouldsuddenly freeze - as though the entire city waspresenting a living proof of its environmentaldeterioration for the pages of eternity. Andthen I would slowly walk outside the city, andon the huge gate I would hang a placard. In afew words the signboards will welcome thevisitors and will tell them the pitiful truth, howthe beloved city of Calcutta had slowly crawledinto the dreary arms of death, due to unworthynegligence from her guardians. It would alsopresent a lesson for the future propagandist ofwhat could happen to a megalopolis such asthis when her environment is ignored andwhen development takes place in anunplanned manner. If I were granted my wish,finally I would zap the city into a life sizemuseum.” Dipankar Chakraborti.

“IF AN ANGEL descends on earth or a shootingstar asks me my wish, I would ask for a singlething from the inner core of my heart: Grant methe power to collect all the Calcutta peopletogether and shift them to a better livingenvironment in a wink and give me the powerto build a fortress around this 100 squarekilometre city in a jiffy. From then oneverything in this city will stand still: its airwhich is visible; the slums where one out ofevery two Calcuttans live in subhuman livingconditions; the rotten garbage which you haveto breathe; the bellowing tails of black smokefrom the exhaust of cars and buses; the risingsmoke from the numerous chimneys of theindustries and household chullas; the jam inthe streets where thousands of shabby cars areemitting pollutants; the breathing airparalysing every unit of life; the hazy, dusty air

THIS is a special issue of World TransportPolicy & Practice on Calcutta. Calcutta(23.34N 88.22E), capital of British ImperialIndia from 1772 to 1912, is the capital of thestate of West Bengal and one of the mostdensely populated cities in the world. It is amegacity. The city sits on the East bank of theriver Hooghly and is 150 kilometres inlandfrom the Bay of Bengal. The city of CalcuttaMunicipal Corporation has an area of 104 km2,although the metropolitan area extends toabout 1,300 km2.

Calcutta has a rich cultural endowment,with a variety of museums, galleries, theatresand cinemas. The city is noted for its artisticdiversity and musical heritage, in particular theAll-Bengal Music Conference. The Corporationmaintains more than 200 parks, squares, andopen spaces. In addition, Calcutta boasts oneof the oldest cricket grounds in the world. Thatsuch cultural wealth exists in Calcutta is noaccident: the city’s economy is primarilymercantile and many national institutions,such as the Indian Chamber of Commerce andthe All India Institute of Hygiene and PublicHealth, are based there. Furthermore, there arethree universities in the city.

Calcutta port handles approximately 10% ofIndia’s imports and exports; and with Haldiaport further downstream, accounts for the bulkof India’s foreign exchange. During Britishcontrol, the Ganges plain and the whole ofnorthern India became a hinterland for the portand the city.

Calcutta’s international airport at Dum Dumhas the dubious distinction of being close to thearsenal where the British manufactured the rathernotorious (and thankfully, proscribed) Dumdumbullets which inflicted terrible wounds.

The city is known throughout the world forits myriad of problems. One of these has beenthe increase in population which arose, inparticular, after the partition of Bengal atindependence in 1947. Part of Bengal formedEast Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and the othersection became the Indian state of West Bengal.Calcutta lost the trade of a significant part of itshinterland and, simultaneously, millions ofrefugees from East Pakistan flocked to Calcutta,aggravating existing social tensions andworsening the already serious overcrowding.People continue to migrate to Calcutta fromBihar, Orissa and eastern Uttar Pradesh in thehope of finding employment.

In this special issue we begin with an articlefrom Brazil, by Vasconcellos, which identifiesthe transport planning problems that afflictcities throughout developing countries. Wefollow with Whitelegg discussingsustainability, and what it means, for Calcutta.Chakraborti furnishes us with a frighteningessay on the inhumanity of the pollution towhich Calcuttans are subjected.

Halder provides an assessment of Calcutta’smany transport problems. Sen enlightens uson the attempts to remove hand-pulledrickshaws from Calcutta, and the alternativesprovided for the rickshaw pullers. Whilereading Sen’s contribution, it is worth keepingin mind Chakraborti’s profile of Calcutta’spollution. Bhattacharya relates the sad state ofCalcutta’s public transport provision, whileBasu concentrates on the underground railwaysaga.

There are solutions to Calcutta’s transportproblems. These are people-based, people-oriented and people-centred.

John Whitelegg, EditorWorld Transport Policy & Practice3/3 [1997]

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Introduction

Transport infrastructure and services indeveloping countries have been providedwith the support of methodologies andassumptions originae in industrializingcountries in the 1950s. These methodologiesare used to propose transport solutions forhypothetical future conditions, based onforecast social and economic variables. Inaddition, they adopt market and efficiencyparadigms and target mobility as a primeobjective.

The actual results of these modellingprocedures and their assumptions in thedeveloping world have been widelydisappointing. Used as supposedly neutraltechniques, they have served as instrumentsof power for technocrats working mostlywithin weakly democratized environments.Resources have been abundantly used tocreate large transportation infrastructureswith poor results, often supportingautomobile use by a minority whileneglecting the transportation needs of themajority. Local transportation technologiesand all kinds of non-motorizedtransportation means have been permanentlyneglected or rejected (Banjo and Dimitriou,1990).

Traditional approaches have beencriticized as adequate tools to be used indeveloping countries by several independentresearchers (Dimitriou, 1992). The WorldBank, who played an essential role inexporting the traditional methodologies tothe developing world, has also beensuggesting alternative approaches (WorldBank, 1986 and 1996). The continued use oftraditional techniques is therefore inadequateand new approaches and methods areneeded, to overcome present drawbacks andensure more equitable, socially andenvironmentally sound transportationpolicies. Technical drawbacks of themodelling procedures are extensively treatedin the literature (Dimitriou, 1992), and willnot be repeated here. I intend to discussinstead how traditional procedures andassumptions have shaped inadequate

transportation and traffic systems in thedeveloping world, and how alternativeapproaches could replace or complementconventional ones.

The Urban Transportation Crisis inDeveloping Countries

The urban transportation crisis can beidentified first by the urban developmentprocess and the increasing commodificationof social relations. While pre-automotivecities allowed unlimited consumption ofspace by any person, modern cities began tospread and occupy larger areas, requiringmotorized transportation be physicallyaccessible and economically affordable. Inaddition, as in the Brazilian case, changes inthe nature of social relations have increasedthe share of commodified activities,especially for higher income groups (e.g.,private education, private medical care andleisure). Thus activities once located withinwalking distances from the household(neighborhood drugstores, soccer fields) arenow located faraway (regional supermarkets,sport clubs), and dependance on motorizedtransport means is inevitable. Consequently,the deep economic and social differencesthat are constantly being generated translateinto deep differences with respect to accessto transportation and activities in urbanspaces, and it remains to be asked whetherthere is any possibility of restoring equity(Hagerstrand, 1987). In addition, indeveloping countries unemployment levelscan be high and the informal job market canplay a major role, posing two burdens ontransportation policies. First, there is a widevariation in the origin-destination pattern, aspeople are constantly finding, losing andchanging work activities. Second, programsdesigned to meet the needs only of formalemployees can end up excluding a large partof the population, as with the Brazilian“vale-transporte” (transport bonus).

The main transportation and trafficproblems faced by developing countries canbe related to several categories of issues. Allrelate to each other in some way butanalyzing them separately can permit a

The Urban Transportation Crisis in DevelopingCountries: Alternative Policies for an EquitableSpace

Eduardo Alcantara VasconcellosAssociação Nacional de Transportes Públicos - ANTPRua Augusta 1626, 01304-902, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Eduardo Alcantara Vasconcellos:The Urban Transportation Crisis inDeveloping Countries: AlternativePolicies for an Equitable Space

World Transport Policy & Practice3/3 [1997] 4 - 10

Keywords

Urban transport,Planning, Developingcountries

Abstract

Planners in developingcountries have tendedto use transportmodelling techniquesdesigned by anddeveloped for cities inthe west. Besides beingunsuitable, they areinappropriate to theeveryday needs ofpeople in developingcountries. Plannersmust reassess theirapproach, ridthemselves of theirassumptions and beginby asking a new set ofquestions.

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clearer understanding of the problems inquestion.

The political issue derives from failure ofthe political system, which does not ensuredemocratic representation of the conflictinginterests of social groups and classes in theformulation and implementation oftransportation and traffic policies. Besideshaving highly centralized states, wheredecisions are taken by a limited elite, mostdeveloping countries still suffer from a lackof adequate means of political representation.They are not institutionalized democracies,but fragile democracies, with a deep bias intheir decision-making processes (O’Donnell,1989). As in the Brazilian case, besides beingcontrolled by economic and political elites,the decision making process favors themiddle classes, who have direct and indirectmeans of influencing policy outcomes. Themain channel for this influence is providedby the technocracy and the bureaucracy, whoare the middle class in power. The workingclass in general and public transportationusers in particular are often kept out of thedecision-making process. With traffic, thepolitical issue derives from the peculiarnature of traffic conflicts, in the face ofdifferent needs and interests, and the socialand political characteristics of developingcountries. A large mix of non-motorized andmotorized modes, coupled to the use ofavailable space by street vendors and leisureactivities, render traffic conflicts unusuallycritical. As traffic roles and their associatedneeds change in time and space, demandsplaced on traffic authorities concerningaccessibility, fluidity, safety andenvironmental quality vary considerably. It istherefore impossible for the state to resolveall conflicting demands simultaneously andplanners have to define priorities. Social andpolitical conditions further complicate theissue. Deep class divisions, translated intosocial, cultural, economic and politicaldifferences between people, have profoundconsequences for the access to transportationmodes and for the use of the street.Citizenship, as political consciousness aboutcollective behavior, is weakly developed:there is a loose apprehension of rights andduties, which is weakened still further by thebias of formal justice in societiescharacterized by deep class differences: gravetraffic offences are seldom punished. Driversand pedestrians often develop informal waysof dividing space, that either ignore orinterpret differently formal traffic laws. Inaddition, class differences translate intoassumed differences in the right to occupy

space. While people in the role of driversactually think that they have priority accessto space, people in the role of pedestrians orpublic transportation passengers actuallythink that they do not have the same rights(Vasconcellos, 1996). In developing countriespedestrians are “second class citizens”. Thishas an important social meaning, for mostwalking trips are made by low-incomepeople, as independent or combined trips.Another important issue is that since roles,needs and interests change in time andspace, no single issue can be called upon toinfluence traffic policies, and there are nostrong, permanent and explicit socialmovements mobilized around traffic. Thuscongestion, as the most visible trafficproblem, appears as the dominant problem,further supporting automobile-orientedpolicies.

Institutional issues relate to the powerto command and control transportation andtraffic policies, and to the level ofdecentralization that would ensure the bestresults. In addition to the lack of properagencies, technical personnel are rare andpoorly trained. Agencies overlap in theirjurisdiction, and conflicts over mutualproblems are frequent. The problem isespecially serious in metropolitan areas(Barat, 1985), where coordinated efforts areessential to ensure the implementation oflarge-scale transportation systems. Excessivecentralization at national or regional levelsalso hinders local authorities from having therequired autonomy to formulate andimplement transportation policies.

Social issues relate to several inequitiesin transportation and traffic conditions. Thefirst kind of inequity is unequal accessibilityto transportation. This inequity can bebroken down into several components: accesstime to transit (including waiting andtransfer times), in-vehicle time, and access tothe final destination. For all components,public transportation users face worseconditions than car users. The secondinequity relates to comfort. Internalconditions in public transportation vehiclesare usually inadequate, and averagepassenger density is sufficiently high tocause discomfort and tension. The thirdmajor inequity relates to activity. With longerdistances to be traveled, and poortransportation services, most of thepopulation have to increase their time andspace budgets to cope with essential trips.Thus, in addition to the physical andpsychological burdens, low-incomeindividuals suffer a reduction in their social



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lives, since most travel is confined to work-related and basic educational purposes.

Most inequity problems derive fromdifferent approaches to the supply of bothtransportation infrastructure and means. Onthe one hand, while the state providesinfrastructure (streets and highways) withpublic resources, on the other hand theprovision of motorized means of circulationis often left to the market: middle-incomeand upper-income strata purchaseautomobiles while lower-income citizenshave to rely on private bus supply. Thus,while middle and upper-income groups canconsume street systems efficiently (from theirown point of view) with their automobiles,most people cannot do so unless affordableand convenient public transportation isprovided, along with preferential trafficmanagement measures. In other words, theassumption that streets are a means forcollective consumption and should be paidfor by everybody is a myth. Similarly,criticisms of public transportation subsidiesare therefore unjustified in view ofexternalities caused by private transportationand the large subsidies provided to ensure itsefficient use.

Technical issues relate to thecommitment to applying traditionaltechniques borrowed from developedcountries without proper adjustment to ThirdWorld conditions (Willumsen, 1990), and tothe myth of traffic management as a neutraltechnique. The rationale of the transportationplanning process is conservative, in that it isused to propose ways of accommodatingpresent trends in the future, withoutquestioning the forces that shape them. Thelack of reliable data, coupled with high ratesof demographic, social and economicchanges, lead to forecasting activities thatgenerate absurd results (May, 1991).Moreover, it is virtually impossible to verifyforecasting exercises and it is always possibleto explain any deviation from forecast figuresby recourse to a set of “unexpected” socialand economic changes. Thus, the use of thesemodels characterized a “black-box” ethics,where only a few experts could decide whichdata to include and how to handle them. Ithas served to generate (and propagate) anunequal and unfair distribution ofaccessibility, further enhancing automobiledominance. This sort of procedure is possibleowing both to the image of technology as asymbol of modernity and to the close natureof the political system, which keeps outsideinterference at very low levels. In addition,traffic management entails the use of

technical tools that avoid social and politicalconsiderations, and the pursuit of a form ofdistribution of the circulation space thatsupposedly benefits “everybody”. It ends upproviding a circulation space where theneeds of the weakest roles (pedestrians,cyclists, bus passengers) are severelyimpaired to allow efficient conditions forautomobile use.

Technological issues relate to thecommitment to an automotive developmentmodel that militates against non-motorizedand public transportation systems.Traditional transportation means have beenconstantly neglected and even banned (Banjoand Dimitriou, 1990) and railroads have beendismantled (Barat, 1985). This commitmenthas strategic reasons (development policies),economic reasons (relevance of theautomotive industry) and sociologicalreasons. In the latter case, it relates to thepolitical and economic importance of middleclasses for capitalist modernization. As themain fuel for modernization is socialmobility, the middle classes, who have thebest historical conditions to benefit from theprocess, pursue this mobility fiercely.Considering prevailing transportation supplyand urban patterns they see the automobileas one of the main tools for their efficientsocial reproduction, and the result is asymbiosis between the middle class andautomobile (Vasconcellos, 1997a and 1997b).Thus automobile-oriented transportation andtraffic policies are generated, and space isadapted to cope with the increasing use ofcars, in a way that neglects the basic needs ofpedestrians and public transportation users.

Economic issues relate first to the fiscalcrisis of the state, which hinders support forefficient public transportation systems anddistributive social policies. Largetransportation infrastructures, which rely onpublic investments, are becoming lessfeasible, and subsidies to special groups aresubjected to mounting opposition. Second,this same crisis helps keep most of thepopulation in poverty, which preventspeople from having access to convenientpublic transportation. Third, inefficient andnegligent operation of public transportationservices - especially by large public operatorssubject to weak public controls - generatepersistent economic deficits.

Operational issues relate both to theirregular provision of transportation services,and to the erratic quality of traffic conditions.Private provision of public transportation ispermanently subject to instability, owingboth to a market-driven approach to the



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business and to a never-ending conflictbetween fare levels and expected revenues(Figueroa, 1991). Public supply is alsoirregular, in the face of continuing economicdeficits, operational deficiencies andincreasing demand, especially by low incomesectors. Traffic management is highly skewedtowards automobile traffic fluidity, so thatscant attention is paid to the circulationneeds of pedestrian and transit users, whorequire specific priority treatment.

Finally, environmental issues concernthe steady degradation of the quality of urbanlife, represented by high traffic accidentrates, increasingly intolerable air pollution(Faiz, 1993), and disruption of residentialand living spaces by undue motorized traffic.All effects are related to the adaptation ofspace for the automobile, within a context ofdeep social, political and economicdifferences among social classes and groups.The most striking proof of this irresponsibleadaptation is the increase in the number oftraffic accidents and the nature of theaccidents themselves. In developingcountries, accident rates are several timeshigher than those found in developedcountries (TRRL, 1991) and pedestrians arethe most jeopardized (Hill and Jacobs, 1981;Guitink and Flora, 1995). Thus safetyproblems derive primarily from theorganization of a new, unsafe builtenvironment, rather than from particularcauses such as “individual behavior.”

Alternative Assumptions

Alternative assumptions underlyingtransportation and traffic policies indeveloping countries may now be proposed.

First, accountability refers to the rightto participate in policy decisions and toevaluate the results. Planners are politicalbeings, committed to perceptions of realityand political beliefs, however naive the ideaof neutrality that prevails in their discourse.Transportation and traffic policies are not anisolated field of “technical expertise”divested of political interests and influences,and therefore capable of promoting neutralsolutions for the general “well being.” Theobject of policy is not the “community,”perceived as a set of equal people seeking thesame collective “well being”, but socialclasses and groups with specific needs andinterests, often conflicting and sometimescontradictory. Hence, transportation andtraffic policies are intervention techniques ofboth a technical and political nature, whichmust use technical tools to negotiatepolitically the distribution of accessibilityamong these classes and groups. Neutrality istherefore a myth and solutions will alwaysentail judgments and preferences, throughinvolving distribution of benefits andhandicaps. As stressed by Healey (1977),“high energy methodologies,” of whichtransportation models are a prime example,are antithetical to participatory processes andshould be put under public control. Thosewho have the power over the informationsurrounding the decision process should beaccountable. Thus, accountability requires anethical and formal obligation to open up thedecision-making process to society. Thisdoes not mean a trend towards“assemblyism,” but refers instead to theorganization of open and fluid channels forcommunication and control, operated bydemocratically selected groups and agents,such as labor unions or neighborhood andprofessional organizations. It also entails theproper decentralization of tasks, to ensurepolicies are formulated as close as possible totheir targeted groups. Moreover, an opendecision-making process does not mean thattechnical skills and knowledge are uselessand that politicians should take care ofeverything. The political nature of policiesdoes not diminish the importance of plannersand their technical skills and it should not beused as an excuse for not doing the job, orinsisting on looking for an idealized neutralparticipation. In fact, this political dimension

Table 1: Issues in developing countries urban transport crisis

Issue Content

political highly centralized states; fragile democracies; uneven distribution ofpower; coalition between technocracy and middle classes; unevenright to use road space

institutional disco-ordination between agencies; lack of proper human andtechnical resources

social unequal accessibility; comfort inequity; activity inequity

technical use of techniques borrowed from developed countries; irresponsibleforecasting exercises; conservative planning in support of privatetransport

technological commitment to automotive transport; neglect of non-motorized means

economic fiscal crisis of the state hindering social policies; persistent poverty;negligent operation of public transportation; over-investment in roadsfor private transport

operational irregular provision of public transportation; poor trafffic conditions;priority to private automobiles in traffic management

environmental high traffic accident rates; increasing pollution; disruption ofresidential areas



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enhances the importance of transportation-related policies, especially in highlystratified societies as those of developingcountries. The broadening of social analysisin transportation “renders indefensible theconfusion of technical and politicalprocesses” (Healey, 1977). Transportationand traffic planners have to be able to workwith both fields of knowledge, enhancing theneed for an alternative, diversified universitytraining.

The second assumption is socialprogressiveness. It proposes that thecentral task is to detect and fill existingaccessibility and equity gaps (Moseley,1977), rather than adapting space toaccommodate present tendencies in thefuture. This argues for an alternative strategyof priority financing of improvements intransportation (and living) conditions forlow-income groups, rather than middleclasses. Thus the assumption argues againstthe possibility and convenience of accurateforecasting of the relationships among landuse, social and economic conditions, andtransport demand, as a support toconservative proposals. Forecastingtechniques are not assumed to be conclusiveinstruments, used to justify vital decisions.Instead, the new assumption requiresplanners to be more modest and to use short-term forecasting simply as a way ofidentifying approximate trends and“ceilings” to the amplitude of the analysis. Italso requires the use of simplified modelsadapted to local conditions (Willumsen,1990). The new assumption also questionsstrict use of the words “transport planning”as representing a willingness to control thefuture, focusing instead on definingtransportation policies (Proud’homme, 1990).In short, forecasting exercises are to bereplaced by detection of inequalities andinefficiencies in present transportation andtraffic systems, and designing solutions todecrease or eliminate them in the present,rather than generate proposals for thehypothetical future.

Thus, instead of asking how presenttrends can be accommodated in the future,the planner should concentrate on somefundamental initial questions: How was thepresent built environment organized? Whocan use it and under what conditions? Theanswers to these questions have to rely onthe analysis of household travel patterns, as acomplement to individual ones. Mobility indeveloping countries cannot be reduced toisolated statistics about individual trips, butshould instead consider a “household

survival strategy” (Henry and Figueroa,1985). Social reproduction, and the relatedtransport needs, are defined in the householdcontext, besides being constrained byexogenous factors such as transportationsupply and the location of activities. Thustravel and distance budgets (Goodwin, 1981;Hagerstrand, 1987) are essential for bothunderstanding social reproduction in thelight of prevailing conditions and identifyingconstraints on the equitable appropriation ofspace.

Equity relates to the targeting oftransportation and traffic policies to ensurean equitable appropriation of space, from thestandpoint of accessibility, safety andenvironmental protection. This involvessubmitting the prevailing efficiencyparadigm to equity requirements (Healey,1977). Such submission does not meanneglecting efficiency, but considering itdifferently: instead of asking what is the mostefficient way of ensuring the highestmobility, the question is what is the mostefficient way of ensuring the equitableappropriation of space. The first concern -equitable access - relates to the collectivenature of the street system and to theprovision of public transportation services.With the former, the challenge is to makestreets a public asset. On one side, the mythof streets as a means for collectiveconsumption has to be challenged, bysubmitting all investments in transportationinfrastructure to equity evaluations. On theother side, the use of the streets should bereorganized according to priorities given tothe most numerous and vulnerable roles,which in developing countries areindisputably the pedestrian, the cyclist andthe public transportation passenger. Thisneed not entail eliminating privatetransportation, but will require submitting itto others’ needs and interests. With the latter,the right to public transportation should beseen as the right to participate in the social,economic, political and cultural activitiesthat are essential to living. Thus theprevailing market paradigm must be replacedby a social paradigm, in which transportationis an essential tool for ensuring the right toaccess and the achievement of broader socialgoals. This may entail the subsidization ofpublic transportation services, whenevernecessary to ensure equitable access,provided they reach the targeted groups andare not used to support inefficiency.

The second equity concern relates to safecirculation as a right. As automobile-adaptedbuilt environments in developing countries



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Table 2: Alternative Assumptions and Questions

Objective Current question

Accountability What are the mostadequate instrumentsto support transport andtraffic policies?

Social responsiveness How may current transportdemand tendencies beaccommodated in thefuture?

Equity What is the most efficientway of providing thehigher mobility?

Sustainability What are the technologicalalternatives to ensure thehighest mobility?

Content

Ensuring the right to participatein policy decisions and toevaluate results

Identifying and filling existingaccessibility gaps

Targeting of policies to ensureequitable accessibility, safety andenvironmental conditions

Reorganizing spaceand transport technology

are natural producers of accidents, the crudeviews of accidents as “fatalities” or“inevitable costs of development” must befirmly rejected. The same rejection applies tothe blind importing of assumptions fromindustrialized countries, as theoverweighting of human factors as causes ofaccidents. Thus the central task is toreorganize the built environment to ensure asafe traffic for the most numerous andvulnerable roles. Finally, the right toenvironmental quality may also be pursuedaccording to the same objectives, to ensureacceptable levels of noise and air pollution,and controlled urban changes. This impliesthat efficiency must be subjected to safetyand environmental needs.

This leads to the forth assumption,sustainability, as the only assumptionfocused on the future. In practical terms, itmeans that instead of searching for themodes of highest efficiency regardless oftheir environmental impacts, it is necessaryto ask what is the most environmentallysound and sustainable way of ensuring anequitable appropriation of space. Thisassumption does not neglect efficiency:instead of dealing with limited technicalefficiency, it embodies the broader notion ofsocial efficiency, by representing the levels oftechnical efficiency within which broadsocial and democratically determinedobjectives are being achieved. Central to thisobjective is the change in urban development

patterns to reduce both average distances anddependence on motorized transportation,coupled to the adoption of effective measuresto ensure priority circulation and efficientoperation to both public and non-motorizedtransportation.

The equity and sustainability assumptionscan then be translated into a final singlequestion: What are the most efficient,environmentally sound and sustainable waysof ensuring an equitable appropriation ofspace? This question implicitly carries apositive answer to Hagerstrand’s (1987)question about the possibility of restoringequality, and represents the main challengefor transportation and traffic planners indeveloping countries.

Answering this basic question has a veryimportant political meaning in thedeveloping world. It indicates that it is notsufficient to search for efficient,environmentally sound and sustainablemeans of transportation if equity is notachieved. It is better to have an equitable andenvironmentally unfriendly space than anenvironmentally friendly but inequitablespace. While the former can in the short termlead to a change of course to ensuresustainability - as political power is moredemocratically distributed - the latter can be“frozen” in an unequal situation with fewopportunities for change. This is the currentsituation in some developing countries thathave been pursuing automobile emission



Proposed questions

What are the most democraticways of using the most adequateinstruments to support transportand traffic policies?

How is the built environmentorganized? Who can use it andunder which conditions? Whatare the main differences inaccess to transport and space?How can we eliminate orminimize these differences?

What is the most efficient wayof ensuring the most equitableappropriation of space?

What are the most efficient,environmentally friendly andsustainable means of ensuringthe equitable appropriationof space?

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controls as a priority, while keeping most ofthe people subject to poor transportationconditions. Planners in developing countriesshould be aware of not falling into the trapslaid by biased approaches, and shouldinstead promote policies inside a broaderequity framework.

Conclusions

The results of traditional transportationplanning techniques in developing countrieshave been widely disappointing. Usedaccording to a “black-box” ethics withinweakly democratized environments, andsupported by unreliable forecastingtechniques, they have been generatingtransportation systems that propagate anunfair distribution of accessibility. Privatetransportation has often benefited from thisstate of affairs, while public transportationmeans have been neglected, subject topermanent crisis. Economic restructuringand the fiscal crisis of the state haveprevented still further the organization of anadequate supply of public transportation formost of the population.

The urban transportation crisis in thedeveloping countries requires a radicalchange in the transportation planningprocess. The assumptions that havesupported traditional procedures have to be

replaced by others that are capable ofsupporting new, socially andenvironmentally sound transportationpolicies. Recent trends toward privatizationand deregulation further stress the need toclarify assumptions. Thus, the transportationdecision-making process has to beaccountable, and decentralized as close aspossible to the targeted users. Planners andengineers have to be able to work with boththe technical and political aspects oftransportation and traffic policies, instead oflooking for an idealized neutral participation.Conservative proposals based on unreliableforecasting exercises have to be replaced bythe targeting of immediate measures to fillequity gaps. Central to the objective is theanalysis of household time and spacebudgets, to identify constraints on theequitable appropriation of space. The mythof roads as a means for collectiveconsumption has to be challenged bysubmitting investments to equity evaluations,and by redefining the use of streets in favorof the most numerous and vulnerable roles.Traffic safety and environmental quality haveto be seen as rights, and the prevailingautomobile-adapted built environment has tobe profoundly modified. Finally, urbandevelopment patterns have to be graduallychanged, to decrease both average distancesand dependence on motorized transportation.



Banjo, G.A. and Dimitriou, H.T. (eds.)(1990), Transport planning for Thirdworld cities. Routledge, USA.

Barat, J., (1985), “Integrated MetropolitanTransport - reconciling efficiency, equityand environmental improvement” inThird World Planning Review 7(3), 242-261.

Dimitriou, H.T. (1992) Urban transportplanning - a developmental approach.Routledge, London.

Faiz, A., (1993), “Automotive emission indeveloping countries - relativeimplication for global warming,acidification and urban air quality” inTransportation Research A 27(3), 167-186.

Figueroa, O., (1991), “La crise de courtterme des transports en commun:l’experience de San Jose du Costa Rica”in Recherche Transports Securite 31, 47-56.

Goodwin, P.B., (1981), “The usefulness oftravel budgets” in TransportationResearch A 15, 97-106.

Guitink, P. and Flora, J., (1995), “Nonmotorized transportation intransportation systems: back to thefuture?” TRB 74th Annual meeting,Washington, January 1995.

Hagerstrand, T., (1987), “Human

interaction and spatial mobility:retrospect and prospect” in Nijkamp, P.and Reichman, S. (eds.), TransportationPlanning in a changing world. GOWER/European Science Foundation,Netherlands.

Healey, P., (1977), “The sociology of urbantransport planning - a socio-politicalperspective”, in Hensher, D. (ed.) Urbantransport economics, 199-227.

Henry, E. and Figueiroa, O. (eds.), (1985),Transporte y servicios urbanos enAmerica Latina. INRETS/CIUDAD,Quito.

Hill B.L. and Jacobs, G.D., (1981), “Theapplication of road safetycountermeasures in developingcountries” in Traffic Engineering andControl 22(8/9), 464-468.

May, A.D., (1991), “Integrated transportstrategies:a new approach to urbantransport policy in the UK”, TransportReviews 11(3), 213-247.

Moseley, M.J., Harman, R.G., Coles, O.B.and Spencer, M.B., (1977), RuralTransport and Accessibility. Universityof East Anglia, UK.

O’Donnell, G., (1988), “Democraciadelegativa?” Novos Estudos CEBRAP 31,25-40.

Proud’homme, R., (1990), “Urban

Transport in developing countries: newperspectives and new policies”, inProud’homme, R. (ed.), Transporturbains dans le pays en developpement,nouvelles perspectives, nouvellespolitiques, Paradigme, France, 13-28.

Transport and Road Research Laboratory,(1991), Towards safer roads indeveloping countries. TRRL, Crowthorne,U.K.

Vasconcellos, E. A., (1996), “Reassessingtraffic accidents in developing countries”in Transport Policy 2(4) pp 263-269.

____ (1997a), “The demand for cars indeveloping countries” in TransportationResearch A 31(3), pp 245-258.

____ (1997b), “The making of the middleclass city: transportation policy in SaoPaulo” in Environment and Planning A29, pp. 293-310.

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World Bank, (1986), Urban Transport - aWorld Bank Policy Study. World Bank,Washington.

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References

[11]

Figure: Calcutta,showing principaltransport infra-structure. Theshaded urban areais home to nearly12 million people.

How rahHow rah

CalcuttaCalcutta

Budge Budg e

Dum DumInternational

Airport

North B arrackpore

Serampore

Hoogly RiverHoogly River

Water feature

Urban area

Road

Rail

M etro

Airport

8 KM

I N D I A

Calcu tta

Bayof

Bengal

Bayof

Bengal

[12]

Abstract

Like many cities in developing countries,Calcutta has a very small ecological footprint- it is relatively self-sufficient. However,Calcuttans can see, and wish to attain, therelative comfort of western lifestyles. Inaddition, they can see through thesustainability rhetoric of westerngovernments who, while demanding thatdeveloping countries should become moresustainable, are doing little to initiate andimplement sustainability themselves.Indeed, western consultants are pushinginappropriate and unsustainable transportinfrastructure on Calcutta. In the meantime,Calcutta and Calcuttans will suffer.

Introduction

Cities in developing countries represent afundamental paradox in the discussion aboutsustainability. They experience appallinglevels of air and noise pollution, poorsanitation and drinking water quality,inadequate housing provision and underinvestment in most aspects of socialinfrastructure, including health care andeducation. At the same time, countries suchas India are experiencing high levels ofeconomic growth and motorisation which inits turn imposes an environmental burden onvulnerable cities. Compared with western,particularly North American and Australiancities, cities in developing countries have asmall ecological footprint (Wackernagel andRees, 1996). Their per capita requirementsfor food, energy and materials is small andtheir need to monopolise land elsewhere inthe world for these purposes (and carbonabsorption) even smaller. Cities indeveloping countries are very good atconserving resources and managing withinenvironmental limits and they do this in away that is not simply a result of poverty.

Calcutta is a well documented example ofa city in crisis. This crisis is now deepening

under the onslaught of over half a millionvehicles and their associated noise, pollutionand space requirements. The debate in thedeveloped world surrounding sustainabilityhas failed to address the needs and problemsof this city. It has failed to recognise theglobal importance of motorisation in India,which is far more important than smallreductions in traffic levels in Europe. It hasfailed to translate global concerns aboutatmosphere and climate into policies that aremeaningful in a country and a city that isconcerned with survival as a top priority,and it has failed to inform the globalmultinational enterprises who are nowfeeding the car-hungry Indian middle classeswith new models and the roads to drive themon.

Calcutta is a globally important test bed ofthe relevance and importance of sustainabledevelopment. Testing is now under way andthe concept has already started to show thesigns of irretrievable destruction.

Sustainable development andsustainable transport

The developing world meets many of thecriteria for sustainable transport andsustainable development. Most transport isstill accomplished by human and animalpower, car ownership levels are low, fossilfuel dependence is low, and in large citiespopulation densities are such thataccessibility indices register values thatwould make many cities in North Americaand Europe very jealous. Most people inmost cities in developing countries live veryclose to most things they need to do andproduce very small amounts of greenhousegases. This does not excuse or condone thegrinding poverty of hundreds of millions ofurban residents in developing countries butit should make the developed world moreconscious of its own profligacy and moresensitive to the needs of societies whoseecological footprint is so tiny.

Sustainable Transport Solutions for Calcutta

John WhiteleggEditor, World Transport Policy & Practice

Keywords

Sustainability, People,Economic growth

John Whitelegg: SustainableTransport Solutions for Calcutta


[13]

Most developing countries areexperiencing a seriously deterioratingsituation in terms of growing levels ofmotorisation, rapidly increasingconcentrations of pollution and increases inhealth problems related to traffic andpollution. Road traffic accidents are alsoincreasing rapidly in Calcutta, Delhi,Bangkok and African cities. In an importantsense developing countries are moving fromrelative sustainability to rampant non-sustainability and are doing so at the behestof their own middle classes anxious to reapthe rewards of affluence, and as aconsequence of the activities of the WorldBank, motor vehicle manufacturers andeconomic deregulation. The investmentopportunities, rising demand forinfrastructure and voracious appetite forfossil fuels generate increases in standardmeasures of economic activity but alsoproduce greater economic inequalities andthe impoverishment of millions of those atthe lowest levels of income and security.

In Bangladesh, John Howe (Howe, 1996)has shown how the heavy investment inroads has contributed to landlessness andpoverty. He concludes “it is difficult tounderstand why one of the poorest countriesof the world tries to support and relentlesslyenhance a road density far in excess of itsneighbours when measured against theresources available for the task.”

Bangladesh is exhibiting strong tendenciesin the direction of non-sustainability, largelyled by the transport sector. In Tanzania,Sieber (1997) has shown how non-motorisedtransport investments can substantiallyalleviate rural poverty and enhanceagricultural production. In a detailed studyof the Makete district he shows howinvestment in donkeys and bicycles arelikely to produce the greatest level ofbenefits. These investments are muchcheaper than that required by roads andmotorised transport and yet the bias of largescale investment, development and overseasaid is still in favour of roads and vehicles.

Sustainable transport in developingcountries is suffering dramatically from thedepredations of increased vehiclemanufacturing capacity, vehicle ownershipand use and pollution. This can be seen veryclearly in Calcutta where recent events havebrought the city to the brink of an irreversibledecline in the potential for sustainability(Whitelegg, 1996).

Calcutta brings into very sharp focus allthe issues associated with sustainabledevelopment and sustainable transport.Imagine sharing your living space with adiesel generator, 24 hours a day and veryclose to you. The resultant noise and airpollution levels would be off the end of thescale and beyond anything to be experiencedin a European or North American city. Thispollution is the daily reality in Calcutta.This city of 14 million inhabitants has greaterthan 500,000 vehicles but these vehicles emitclouds of poisonous black smoke, grindaround heavily congested streets andconstantly block the trams and the buses.Calcutta is essentially a pedestrian city and ahighly accessible city. The vast majority ofthe population walk everywhere and wherethey do not walk they use the ubiquitouscycle rickshaws and Calcutta’s unique hand-pulled rickshaws. Within walking distancesthere are hundreds of shops, businesses andschools. Calcutta is the ultimate expressionof a city that is accessibility-rich andmobility-poor. The problem is that thephysical conditions for those moving aroundon foot or by human powered vehicles areappalling.

Calcutta is a beautiful city. It has largeareas of parkland, green space, water, a richarchitectural heritage and an efficient tramand metro system. The metro system isabout 16 km in length and runs north-souththrough the city. The tram system is 70 kmin length with about 28 km on segregatedtrack. There is a “circular railway” and anextensive bus system but every part of thissystem is suffering from underfunding,breakdown, zero integration andunacceptable overcrowding. The tram andmetro system each carry only about 200,000passengers per day and have a capacity of 10times that number. The buses are vastlyovercrowded, with passengers clinging on tothe outside, and they insist on stopping inthe middle of the road, exposing passengersand boarders to traffic danger. The tworailway stations in Calcutta (Sealdah andHowrah) handle two million passengersbetween them each day and neither areserved by the metro and tram system, thoughthe tram system used to serve Howrah.

Calcutta’s tram system is under threat. USconsultants have persuaded the StateGovernment of West Bengal that it is anoutmoded system, causes congestion andshould be removed from central areas.Japanese consultants have persuaded the



[14]

same government that 6 new concreteflyovers should be built to increase highwaycapacity at a cost of just under £50 million.There is no money for routine maintenanceof trams or upgrading the metro. Trams andmetro could be integrated very easily. Thereis no common ticketing system and there areno buses feeding directly into the metro line.Trams could be connected into the tworailway stations and have available up to 2million new passengers each day. There isno concept of assisting those who walk andcycle or use rickshaws. The pedestrianenvironment is highly dangerous and morethan 1,000 pedestrians are killed each year inCalcutta. The pedestrian pavements areseriously damaged, filled with rubbish and inplaces filled with people who only have thepavement for their homes.

Calcutta now faces serious choices. Underpressure from the developed world as well asits own internal growth imperative it ismoving to abandon large sections of publictransport and encourage motorisation. Theflyovers will be built next year and will makelife much more difficult for all those wholive near them (more than 250,000 people)and all those who want to use trams, walk orcycle. The State Government has bannedcycle rickshaws, rickshaw pullers and hand-pulled carts in the central areas. This willcause untold misery to the lives of well over100,000 people for whom these activities aretheir only source of income. Car factories arebeing built throughout India and carownership is growing at over 25% per

annum. In the summer of 1996 Ford openedtheir first factory to make the Escort, andDaewoo opened a car plant.

Conclusion

The developed world has now embarked onthe mass motorisation of the developingworld in a way that closely mirrors in itsirresponsibility the activities of the tobaccoand pharmaceutical / biotechnologymultinationals. The citizens of Calcutta willsuffer as a result of this change in theirfortunes and those supporting sustainablepolicies will only be taken seriously if theyhave the moral and practical authority thatcan come from serious traffic reduction andserious sustainability progress in their owncountries. Why should the Indian or WestBengal government have the slightest interestor respect for sustainability arguments whenour comfort and economic success has beenbuilt on burning fossil fuels and massmotorisation? Time is now running out anda solution to Calcutta’s problems depends ona solution to our problems. Globalsustainability depends inexorably ondeveloping countries moving in the directionof sustainable development. That movementdepends on the extent to which thedeveloped world can reduce its ownmaterials, energy and water consumption andoffer a more equitable global economicsystem on which sustainability can flourish.At the moment the signs of this happeningare not encouraging.

HOWE, J. (1996) “Road infrastructure investment inBangladesh: environment under threat?” WorldTransport Policy and Practice 2,3 pp. 28-33.

SIEBER, N. (1997) “Appropriate Transport andRural Development. Economic effects of anintegrated rural transport project in Tanzania.”World Transport Policy and Practice 3,1 pp. 15-24.

References

WACKERNAGEL, M. & REES, W. (1996) Our ecologicalfootprint. Reducing human impact on the Earth.New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC,Canada

WHITELEGG, J. (1996) “Sustainable TransportSolutions in Calcutta. Concern for Calcutta andCalcutta 36.” Available by e-mail from:[email protected]



[15]

Abstract

Calcutta suffers from chronic pollution. It ispervasive, temporally, spatially anddemocratically. Every Calcuttan is affectedand, as a result, many suffer ill health. Thereis no easy solution, but the main cause,poverty, is identified.

Introduction

Calcutta city is a metropolis with richcultural heritage and a long glorious traditionof political and social struggles. Located inWest Bengal, its influence cuts across thestate boundary. In a sense the entire easternregion of the country with a population ofmore than 200 million constitutes itshinterland. Calcutta is a vast melting potwhere people from different states of culture,discipline and heritage meet and work sideby side.

present status of the city in pollutionperspective? What is the significance ofpollutant pollution? The following pageswill describe the present environmentalsituation of Calcutta and a discussion as tohow we can combat the situation.

A thorough study of the data in Table 1clearly indicates the population pressure inCalcutta. In fact almost 9% of West Bengal’spopulation during day time is in Calcuttacity in an area of about 100 km2 which is justa dot compared to West Bengal’s total area(Figure 1). This is the unique feature ofCalcutta city. Another feature of Calcuttawhich is not comparable to other cities allover the world is the population density persquare km. Out of 100 municipal wards ofCore-Calcutta there are 4 wards where thepopulation is about 1.0 lakh (100,000) perkm2 and 20 wards with a population of about70,000 per km2. At present in CalcuttaMunicipal Corporation (CMC) area (1,350km2) the population is 11.86 million and hasopen space 690 km2. But in AD 2011, thepopulation of CMC will be 18 millions andopen space under present land use strategieswill reduce to 300 km2. Should this happenit will be a great disaster from anenvironmental point of view.

Big trees and open space help to maintainthe healthy environment and oxygen balanceof the urban area. Moreover, for an ideal citythe road area compared to the city should bearound 25%. A comparative study of Calcuttawith other cities is shown in Table 2.

Calcutta City in Pollution Perspective

Keywords

Pollution, Health.

Dipankar Chakraborti: CalcuttaCity in Pollution Perspective


Dipankar ChakrabortiDirector, School of Environmental Studies,Jadavpur University, Calcutta - 700-032, India

This city in the early part of this century,was called the, “City of Palaces” or “City ofGardens”. However, the same city in themiddle part of the century was called, “Thedirtiest city in the world”. With time the cityreceived all sorts of contempt and ridicules -“The city of garbage”, “The city of darkness”,“The city of slum”, “The dead city”. Finally,the last ornament was added by the Germanwriter Günter Grass in 1988. He writes“Calcutta city appears to me as if blood droppingfrom Kali’s tongue. A city that can swallow thewhole country the whole world”.

The questions come … what are thereasons for such deterioration of the city;whom should we blame; and what is the

Table 1: Some characteristic features of Calcutta city and surroundings:

West Bengal area ............................................. 88,752 km2

Populatyion of West Bengal ............................. 68 millionCore Calcutta CMC area .................................. 104 km2

Population of core-Calcutta .............................. 3.3 million (night time)............................... about 6 million (day time)

Total urban area of West Bengal ..................... 2,600 km2

Total urban population ...................................... 15 million (approx.)Calcutta Urban Agglomeration Area ................ 852 km2

Calcutta Urban Agglomeration Population....... 9.2 millionCalcutta Metropolitan Area ............................... 1,350 km2

Calcutta Metropolitan Population ..................... 11.86 million

The Calcutta city of 100 km2 was originallybuilt for only one million people, but now inthe same city we are accommodating morethan 6 million during the day. This resultsin constraints in all spheres of life. Lookingat some of the services like hospitals, railwaystations, transport, etc., we can easily

Table 2: A comparison of space

Open space Road No of treesper head area per sq km

Calcutta 20 Calcutta 6% Calcutta 21London 250 Delhi 20% Ideal 100Moscow 450 Bombay 16%

West 25-30%

[16]

enough, the alarming condition of Calcuttawas perceived even 86 years ago. TheCalcutta Improvement Act of 1911, whichcame into force on 2 January 1912, clearlymentions the necessity for improvement ofthe city by opening up congested areas,laying out or altering streets, providing openspace for purposes of ventilation. Again in1935 the First Chief Engineer of the CalcuttaImprovement Trust mentioned the samething. The pity is that even 50 years afterIndependence we could not do what was feltto be done immediately 86 years before.Furthermore, knowing full well that Calcuttahas substantially less open space, wecontinue to encroach unabated on manygardens and parks, and construction in theseopen spaces is advancing. It seems thatecology does not bother the town plannersand engineers.

Trend of Calcutta’s air pollutionduring winter from 1985 to 1994

From a health perspective, air pollution isregarded as an important factor in Indiancities. It is generally agreed that Calcutta’scity air is heavy and difficult to breathe. Theclimate of Calcutta has an important impacton the city’s air pollution. During themonsoon season (July to October) the air iscomparatively clean due to heavy rainfall(but city water quality becomes worse) andduring summer (April-June) high winds blowaway the pollutants, thus air pollution is notsevere. Air quality is worse during wintermonths, i.e. November to February.Inversion occurs during these months andthe pollutants cannot disperse. Conditionsfor Calcuttans during winter is not unlikethat of fish in polluted water.

Following his visit to Calcutta during thewinter of 1994, Patrice Riemes, Departmentof Human Geography, at the University ofAmsterdam, Holland wrote to the Director ofthe School of Environmental Studies,Jadavpur University: “You may not besurprised to know that for 6 weeks aftercoming back from Calcutta, I am still spittingblack when clearing my throat. For the lasttwo weeks this has become only a few greyishstreaks, but before, real chunks of blackslime used to come out. Another boost to theCalcutta pollution legend.”

We have studied Calcutta’s air pollutionduring winter from 1985. We have observedthat from 1985 there is an increasing trend ofair pollutants. Some data are given in thefollowing Table.



Figure 1: Population understand this.The World Bank in its recent report had

mentioned, “India is among the poorest ofpoor nations in Asia” with per capita incomeof US $ 290 a year (Japan US $ 33,950). It isonly just above Nepal, Bhutan andBangladesh.

India has 17% of the world population,with just 2.3% of the world’s land resourceand 1.7% of the world’s forest. Roughly 40%of India’s population is affected bymalnutrition. Among major Indian cities,Calcutta’s status is one of the worst.

Calcutta grew in an unplanned manner.About Calcutta, it is said “Site selected, sighterected”. This is even true today. Interesting

[17]

Table 3: Calcutta's air pollution

Year Nitrogen Sulfur Suspend. ParticulateDioxide (NOx) Dioxide (SO2) Matter (SPM)

1985 159 µg/m3 69.3 µg/m3 757 µg/m3

1994 182 µg/m3 110.0 µg/m3 1395 µg/m3

Since these air pollutants are related to theincreasing number of motor cars, we havefound that from 1985 to 1994 the number ofcars within the city has doubled (no. of carsin Calcutta city up to August 1993 was525,482). Therefore, the number of carspassing through the street junctions hasalmost doubled. Table 4 shows the numberof cars in the city during 1985 and 1994passing through strategic junctions perminute.

Table 4: Cars passing through key junctionsYear Shambazar Dalhousie Moulali Gariahat Jadavpur

1985 15 41 - 24 121994 34 56 60 49 23

We have made a comparative study on threeavailable data of air pollutants of Delhi fromJanuary 7, 1994 - February 7, 1994 with thatof Calcutta. The results show that Calcuttaduring winter is more than three times morepolluted than Delhi with respect to measuredpollutants. The 1990 data of New York cityis also given below.

Table 5: Pollution in three citiesJanuary 7, 1994 to February 7, 1994

Calcutta Delhi New YorkSO

2108 µg/m3 26 µg/m3 40 µg/m3

NOx

183 µg/m3 49 µg/m3 -SPM 1352 µg/m3 421 µg/m3 54 µg/m3

One of Calcutta’s big problems is very highconcentrations of Suspended ParticulateMatter in the air. The WHO recommendedmaximum value is 90 µg/m3. In winter, we

have observed an average value of about 1300µg/m3 and it goes as high as 3,000 µg/m3. Toestimate the impact on city residents, wedeveloped an experiment where air wassucked through a filter at the rate we inhaleair while at rest (7 litres/minute).

Figure 3 illustrates the change in theappearance of the filter after 2 hours ofinhalation and this indicates why we find ahigh rise in respiratory problems among toCalcuttans during winter. Asthma amongchildren is very common now and even someschool going children use air masks in anattempt to improve the quality of air whichthey inhale.

Researchers in the U.K. (The Guardian,Feb. 17, 1994) showed that an increase in airpollution is related to higher incidence ofasthma, and in London it has almost doubledin last 10 years.

In an editorial, “No hiding place, dirty airthreatens the nation’s children”, The Times(London, Feb. 17, 1994) writes: “Children areparticularly vulnerable. Those under threebreathe in twice as much air for each poundof their body weight as adults. Their airwaysare narrower and their lungs still immature.Pollution can affect them permanently.”

Benzene Soluble Organic Matter, Poly-nuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbon andOrganolead in Calcutta city air duringwinter

Higher Benzene Soluable Organic Matter(BSOM) in city air means that the air is morepolluted. Automobiles and coal burning arethe main sources for higher BSOM levels.The BSOM concentration in city airincreased by more than 30% over what weobserved in 1987.



Figure 2: A school goingchild with air mask

Figure 3 (opp.): SPM inCalcutta city (the left handside shows the unexposedfilter and right hand sideafter SPM collected for sixhours)

[18]

Table 6: BSOM in Calcutta air

1987 ...................... 82 µg/m3

1992 .................... 105 µg/m3

1994 .................... 125 µg/m3

In BSOM there lie a group of compoundsknown as Polynuclear AromaticHydrocarbons (PAH) and some, such asBenz(a)pyrene, are suspected carcinogens.The School of Environmental Studies hasanalysed 16 PAHs in Calcutta city air for 4years in the last 10 years. Like Benzene, thehigher Benz(a)pyrene in city air is due toexcessive coal burning. The amount ofBenz(a)pyrene in Calcutta city air iscompared with other cities in the world.

Table 8: A comparison of lead concentrationsCalcutta Berlin Brussels Kanpur Bombay

Lead (µg/m3) 6.6 1.40 2.32 5.35 0.463

Table 9: A comparison or organolead concentrationsCalcutta Frankfurt Belgium London LosAngeles

Organolead (1993) (1980) (1981) (1980) (1977)

(ng/m3) 443 45 166 94 100

Coal Chulla and Benzene in Calcuttacity air

Benzene, Toluene and Xylene are threeVolatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) presentin urban air mainly due to the use of petroland diesel in automobiles. Of these threecompounds, Benzene is a suspectedcarcinogen. The limit of Benzene in air forhealth safety should not exceed around 10mg/m3. The School of EnvironmentalStudies has measured Benzene, Toluene andXylene in Calcutta city air during the winterfor the last 3 years.

During winter (1994-1995), someonebreathing Calcutta’s air at main streetcrossings for 12 hours, is inhaling theBenzene equivalent of smoking at least 100cigarettes each day. London, in comparison,is equivalent to 15 cigarettes per day.

Calcutta city is unique from a pollutionperspective. While in most western citiesconcentrations of Benzene in urban air is lessthan Toluene and Xylene, in Calcutta city theBenzene level is more than Toluene andXylene. The main reason for such deviationis due to use of a coal chulla. In Calcuttamore than 80% of the families still use coalfor energy and Benzene emission is highestout of these three from coal combustion.Thus, excessive Benzene in Calcutta is due tocoal burning. Most of the Calcuttans get upfrom bed in the morning after inhaling smokefrom the coal chulla and in many houses thesmoke crawls from kitchen to bedroom. Inslum areas during morning and eveningwhen they fire the coal chulla the whole areais covered with smoke and this becomesunbearable during winter months.

When a coal stove burns, theconcentration of Benzene may be 5497 µg/m3

(average of 8 results) near the chulla. Acomparative study of ambient Benzeneconcentrations in a few cities of the world isgiven below

Table 10: Benzene concentrations around the worldCalcutta London Boston Los Angeles

1500 µg/m3 40 µg/m3 60 µg/m3 140 µg/m3

(* Average value during 1994 - 1995 winter)



Table 7: Benz(a)pyrene in city air (µg/m3)Calcutta London Brussels New Jersey Paris

30-120 2-14 3.9-12.0 0.69-1.06 4.6 - 15.0

We have made a calculation on the basis ofbenz(a)pyrene intake by hawkers sitting foreight hours near strategic junctions and theprobability of developing cancer. Thiscalculation suggests that if the hawker sits for8 hours each day for 15 years, he is runningthe risk of getting cancer, whereas the samerisk for a London hawker is about 50 years.Evidence from epidemiological studiessuggests that an increase of 1 µg/m3 ofbenz(a)pyrene corresponds to an increase of5% in the lung cancer death rate.

The concentration of Lead in the urbanenvironment is due to the use ofTetraalkyllead in petrol. The ill effect ofLead is well documented. Children, inparticular, are susceptible to Lead pollution.Tetraalkylleads are more poisonous thanmany other Lead compounds. The levels ofLead and Organolead in Calcutta city aremuch higher during winter as compared tosome important cities.

Figure 4: A fruit seller in themain city crossing.Pollutants pollution ismeaningless to those whereto earn bread is the problem.

[19]

Calcutta City Dweller

The vast majority of the people in Calcuttacity are poor or middle class. Although wehave elegant mansions, beautifulmonuments, underground metro, etc., wecannot hide a great majority of our people -beggars with pot bellies and begging bowls,pavement dwellers in huts made of plasticsheets and bamboo stick of 1.0 m x 2.0 marea and 0.75 m in height, shanty huts,rickshaw pullers carrying other humans ontheir rickety shoulders, rag pickers with theirdirty sacks, and scavengers fighting amongthemselves for a metal scrap on the garbagedump. The city of Calcutta can be dividedaccording to living status of the people inthis respect:

Table 11: From rich to poor

< 1% Elite8-9% upper middle class (PCPME Rs. 700+)40% poor lower middle class (PCPME Rs. 185 - 255)50% very poor and slum dwellers (PCPME Rs. 0 - 185)3 lakhs people sleep on footpaths.PCPME = Per Capita Per Month Expenditure

Within core Calcutta there is not a single wardwithout a slum. About 50% of city people livein slums and close to 70% of slum people livebelow poverty level. The city of Calcutta isoften referred to as the slum city of the worldand most probably it is so because of thesubhuman living conditions in the slum andpavement of the city.

In recent years thousands of pavementdwellers are crowding the city streets, parksand vacant places. Poverty and hunger drovethem from the villages and they are using thecity pavements and parks as public latrines.

The growth of slum population is muchhigher than the overall growth of the country.In the course of time these people who arenot getting nourished food and educationwill be our major population. The urbanquality of life is defined in terms of thephysical quality of life index (PQLI). ThePQLI has been defined in terms of longevity,child mortality, shelter, sanitation,educational facility, power, health, etc. ThePQLI of Calcutta city people is of the lowestvalue as the majority of people do not getthese facilities. In West Bengal there areabout 40,000 villages and nearly about 150towns. All these villages and towns wereneglected for the last 200 years. Whateverattention given was only for Calcutta city andwe are now paying the cost of that.Thousands of people rushed to Calcutta inthe last 100 years and are still rushing toCalcutta - the only hope they have for

survival. If this continues the day is not faroff when all Calcutta and its metropolitanarea will be a big slum.

Industries within Calcutta city

Within just 100 km2 of core Calcutta, thereare 11,516 small and big factories registeredwith Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Inaddition to that there are unregisteredfactories. There is not a single ward wherethere are no factories. There is not a singleward where some people are not complainingabout their miserable condition due tofactory activities. The problem is even worseon the opposite bank of the Hooghly river inHowrah district. Because of this highconcentration of factories, the area is knownas the “Sheffield” of West Bengal.Furthermore, after western countries decidedto reduce smelting operations, more andmore Lead factories are growing in thecountryside. The problem will furtheraggravate if the Government of India agreesto accept the industrial wastes of westerncountries, e.g. battery waste for Leadrecovery from Australia is not yet decided,but if it is agreed the consequence will beserious in terms of pollution and health.

We want industrial growth but not at thecost of peaceful and healthy life. Weshould follow the proper land use patternfor sustainable industrial growth.



Figure 5: Poor lady collected coal from the citygarbage and will use it as fuel to prepare food in theevening (in front of the Writers Building)

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Of these factories a few hundred are using ormanufacturing toxic chemicals. Due tonegligence at these factories, environmentalhazards often occur and people are seriouslyaffected. In P.N. Mitra Lane, Behala, afactory producing Paris Green(Copperacetoarsenite) discharged theArsenic-rich effluent without treatment. As aresult the aquifer got contaminated withArsenic which 10,000 people unknowinglycontinued to drink. Many people in the areaare suffering from Arsenical skin lesions. Afew died from Arsenic related diseases. Atpresent the people of that area have got apiped water supply but due to leaching andflow of Arsenic from the contaminatedaquifer, the tube wells of some nearby areashave become contaminated. Again, in thePicnic Garden area of Calcutta (68 Ward)there are 27 Lead factories producing Leadingots and Lead alloys.

About 200,000 people live in thesurrounding areas. The concentration ofLead in the soil, in dust on leaves and roaddust is very high (5,000-20,000 µg/g). Evenon dining tables the concentration of Lead indust exceeds 5,000 mg/g. The School ofEnvironmental Studies studied the area andfound that Lead is not the only contaminant.Other than Lead the area is highlycontaminated with Arsenic, Nickel,Chromium, Mercury. In the Tiljala area thereare many tanneries and these factories aredischarging the Chromium-rich effluentwithout pretreatment. Occasionally highconcentrations of Chromium from tube wellwater were reported from the nearbyresidential areas. About 250 small acidchemical processing (HCl, HNO3 and H2SO4)

units are situated in Ward 14 of the CMCarea. The people of the locality havecomplained many times to local authoritiesabout the acid smell and pungent odours ofother gases. The problem becomes acuteduring winter when, due to inversion, theacid fumes cannot easily disperse.

Calcutta’s Garbage

Calcutta is producing an average of 2,600tones of solid waste per day from its 600collecting points within the core area. Is2,600 tones of garbage very high compared tothe city population? According to thestatistics of a modern city, for 1 millioninhabitants the solid waste output should bearound 1,800 tones per day. So Calcutta isproducing much less than what it shouldhave. Although the quantities of garbage ofLondon and New York are much highercompared to the city population of Calcutta,still Calcutta is called the ’city of garbage’.The reason is not the quantity. The obviousreason, the collection and transportation ofgarbage is far below the optimum level.There are deficiencies both in personnelmanagement and in the management andmaintenance of equipment, which pushes upthe cost of waste disposal and also createsbacklogs. About 10-20% of refuse is nevercollected and sometimes the garbage pile canremain stagnant for days. Under Calcutta’shumid meteorological conditions, a mostunhygienic situation is created.

Calcutta’s Transport and VehicularPollution

Transport is a headache for the authorities inCalcutta and the biggest inconvenience to thepeople of the city. The transport system inCalcutta is unique as it consists of buses,local trains, metro, trams, taxis, auto-rickshaws, ferry services, side-by-side withbicycle rickshaws and rickshaws pulled byhuman beings. Despite these varied modesof transport the entire system is under severestrain. Every day 6.6 million commuterstravel in different conveyances but thecapacity of the transport network is 2.8-3.0million. The percentage of overloadingduring peak hours is 250-300% of thecapacity of buses trams and trains.

Present statistics show that about 50% ofthe total passenger cars in India are plying inonly five cities, viz. Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta,Bangalore and Madras. Table 12 indicates(1991) that Delhi registered the maximumnumber of vehicles.



Is it due lead?

• Shyam Kumar Shom, aged 14 months, of Picnic Garden, isreceiving regular blood transfusions. His doctor recommended thathis father bring him to the School of Environmental Studies toascertain the Lead concentration in the child’s blood. Mr. Shom isneither suffering from Leukemia nor Thallasemia.

• Two young women from Rajarhat, Kalipark, Dum Dum complainedto the School of Environmental Studies that they had miscarriages.They live very close to a Lead factory. Seven days a week they candetect the sweet smoke from the Lead works which crawls throughtheir window. They inhale Lead smoke 7 days a week.

• The milkman at a cow and buffalo dairy near Picnic Garden Leadfactory briefed the School of Environmental Studies that all oftheir cows and buffaloes always gave birth to premature, defectivecalves.

• Shombhu Shau of Picnic Garden complained that his poultrybusiness flopped as all the eggs were premature and without anyshell.

POSITIONAL ONLY

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Table 12: Car registrationsName of the cities Number of VehiclesDelhi 1 598 000Bombay 576 400Calcutta (August, 1993) 525 482Madras 415 100Bangalore 391 500

The total number of vehicles registered inCalcutta municipal city during 1992 is about0.5 million. The growth of the number ofregistered vehicles has been approximately 2times the increase in total registeredvehicular population during 1983-1993. Thegrowth of vehicles in Calcutta during theaforesaid period has been:

• two wheelers ........... 300%• four wheelers .......... 25%• taxis ......................... 200%• & goods carriages .... 300%

It is evident that the number of registeredtwo wheelers constitute approximately 40%of total registered vehicles in Calcutta andmore than 80% of the cars in West Bengal areplying in Calcutta alone. Although thenumber of cars in Calcutta is much lesscompared to any western city, the cardensity, (849 vehicles per kilometre of roadlength in 1989) is much higher than in Delhiand Bombay.

In a modern city the expected emission ofair pollutants per million of inhabitants maybe around 850 tonnes per day. In Calcuttathis value is around 1100 tons for 3.3 millionof people (night time population), of whichthe auto exhaust contribution was about 400tonnes per day (1991). Thus, compared tomost cities of the world Calcutta’s emissionload is much lower (for example, in NewYork city the total emission was around16,000 tons per day during 1970 with apopulation of 7.5 millions and area of 512km2.

From an environment perspective Calcuttais unique in all spheres and transport is notan exception. Problems are very muchlocalised in the inner city. Only a fewkilometres away from the downtown thesurrounding area would definitely appear asa big village. This difference betweenCalcutta city and its suburbs is in all aspectsof life and the main reason is that peoplewant to stay as close as possible to the citybecause of the concentration of facilitiesthere. Thus Calcutta city has become ahuman ocean. The pressure on Calcutta citywill not subside until its hinterlands aredeveloped with good metal roads and fasttransport communications.



Figure 7: Worker working in one of 250 acid factors - thousands live alongside.

Figure 6: Picnic Garden’s Lead factories. Twenty seven Lead factories in the Ward of68 of the CMC. About 200,000 people live surrounding these factories.

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In Calcutta the transportationinfrastructure is old, worn and has outlivedits life. The tramway tracks and rolling stockare more than a century old. The completeinfrastructure of public transport is in a poorstate of health. The new venture ’Metro’ isrunning at a loss and suffers from manyproblems.

During last 10 years two newtransportation corridors were included inCalcutta - the E.M. Bypass and the SecondHooghly Bridge. Apart from them a numberof road widening programmes and flyovershave been completed.

Nevertheless, the general feeling of everyCalcuttan is disgust. The reasons are manyand include:• knowing that roads in Calcutta account for

less than 6% of the city area,• hawkers occupy the footpaths with and

without permission,• increasingly callous traffic management,• lack of parking facilities,• new bus and minibus routes are

introduced without proper termini(private bus stops are anywhere on theroad sides),

• hardly any traffic lights,• traffic rules are there but most of the

drivers do not obey them,• road conditions are miserable,• most vehicles plying on the streets are in

various states of disrepair (80% would faila basic vehicle safety test),

• traffic jams are a common phenomenonand thousands of cars remain gridlockedfor hours,

• overloaded goods vehicles run everywherewithin the city and cause significanttraffic problems beyond the core, and

• almost 90% of the motor cars emit blacksmoke.

Water Quality of Calcutta City

The problem of water pollution in Calcuttacan be analysed from two viewpoints. Thefirst is the problem related to water supplyand the other is related to sanitation. InCalcutta, different diseases related topollution of water are very common amongthe city dwellers, during summer andmonsoon enteric diseases create panicthroughout the populace. The followingtable shows the percentage of people gettingdrinking water and approximate percentageof people under proper sanitation in fourmajor cities of India.

Table 13: Provision of water & sanitation

Population % of Population % of Peoplein million getting drinking under proper

water sanitation system

Bombay 9.9 95 95Calcutta 10.1 88 50Delhi 7.9 98 90Madras 4.1 95 84

The actual problem of polluted drinkingwater in Calcutta is different. The maincause of this is not the source but thedistribution system. This is the most criticalproblem in Calcutta’s community watersupply system. Calcutta has thousands ofkilometres of pipeline in the drinking waterdistribution system. But the portion ofnewly laid or renovated pipeline in thissystem is little and the major network haslong outlived its natural life and is in a badstate of repair. Moreover, the water systemsuffers when the public utility services (suchas telephone, electricity supply, MetroRailway, etc.) repair their operations.Bursting of pipelines along with major andminor leakage are common features inCalcutta’s system and there lies the mainproblem of drinking water contamination.Contamination of the drinking water occurswhen the water supply is stopped at source,leading to a drop in pressure and leaching ofcontaminated water into the pipeline fromoutside. The risk of pollution peaks duringmonsoon flooding when there is greaterlikelihood of contaminated water enteringthe system through standposts and otherentry points. Every year during monsoon thecity is flooded 15 to 20 times. The All IndiaInstitute of Hygiene and Public Healthcarried out a bacterial experiment on samplescollected from all over the city and hasreported that almost 35% of the sampleswere contaminated with faecal Coliformbacteria.

The School of Environmental Studiescarried out a study of tap water quality in100 wards over 12 months. Twenty percentof this water was unsuitable for drinkingpurpose from a bacteriological point of viewand 25%of the samples contained highamounts of Chlorine and even in some watersamples the free Chlorine was up to 2.0 ppm,when the maximum permissible limit is 0.2ppm. The School of Environmental Studieshas also found the Arsenic concentration inwater from some shallow tube wells in placeslike Jadavpur, Bansdroni to be above themaximum permissible limit of 0.05 mg perlitre.

Some of the factories within Calcutta are

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also contaminating the drinking waterthrough untreated effluent discharge, asArsenic in tube well water in P.N. MitraLane and Chromium in Tuljala area testify.

Conclusion

Calcutta city in pollution perspective isdifferent from most other cities around theworld. Methods adopted by other countriesto reduce their urban pollution may not workin our system. Our major pollution problemis not the pollutant pollution but it issocioeconomic pollution. Furthermore,India’s huge population (heading towardsone billion) is the pivot of all our majorproblems. A simple example will probablymake it clear. In one of our studies onBenz(a)pyrene (a suspected carcinogen) inCalcutta air and its effect on health, weestimated that people selling goods sitting onfootpath for 8 hours a day and inhaling theBenz(a)pyrene (30-120 µg/m3) may beaffected by cancer after about 15 years. If we

inform the hawkers, will they stop sellingtheir goods? It is their livelihood. I thinkhunger here is more important than cancer.The World Bank believes that “India isamong the poorest of poor nations in Asia”.Most of our population live in poverty andsuffer grossly from inadequate access toresources, such as health services, education,infrastructure, land and credit. Malnutritionis another big problem. At present in India,63% of the children below six years of ageare malnourished and enjoy the dubiousdistinction of being second only toBangladesh in terms of number. Thus, ourenvironment is one of the greatestdevelopment challenges in the world today.The reason is not the complexity of theenvironmental issue but the complexlinkages between growth, population,poverty and environment. Forenvironmental development in India, weneed grassroots development. The chance ofa cancer patient being cured by applyingsuperficial ointment is bleak.

of Behala, Calcutta due to Industrial Pollution.” inEnvironmental Pollution 80 (1) pp. 57-65.

Chattopadhya, G., Chatterjee, S. and Chakraborti, D., (1996),“Determination of Benzene, Toluene and Xylene in ambient airinside three major steel plant airsheds and surroundingresidential areas.” in Environmental Technology 17 pp. 477-488.

Chattopadhya, G., Samanta, G., Chatterjee, S. and Chakraborti, D.,(1996), “Determination of Benzene, Toluene and Xylene inambient air of Calcutta for three years during winter.” inEnvironmental Technology (at press).

Das, D., Chatterjee, A., Samanta, G. and Chakraborti, D., (1993),“Preliminary Estimation of Tetraalkyllead Compounds (TAL) inCalcutta City Air” in Chem. Environ. Res. 1 (3), pp. 279-287.

Guha Mazumder, D.N., Das Gupta, J., Chakraborty, A.K.,Chatterjee, A., Das, D. and Chakraborti, D., (1992), “ChronicArsenicosis in South Calcutta,West Bengal” in Bulletin of WorldHealth Organisation 70 (4) pp. 481-485.

Samanta, G., Chatterjee, A., Das, D., Chowdhury, P., Chanda, C.R.and Chakraborti D., (1995), “Calcutta Pollution: Part V. Leadand other heavy metal contamination in residential area from afactory producing Lead ingots and Lead alloys.” inEnvironmental Technology 16, pp. 223-231.

Samanta, G. and Chakraborti, D., (1996), “Flow Injection HydrideGeneration Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (FIHGAAS) andSpectrophotometric Methods for Determination of Lead inEnvironmental Samples” in Environmental Technology (atpress).

References

Chakraborti, D., (1990), “Calcutta’s Environment” in S.Chowdhury (ed.), Calcutta, The Living city, Volume II. OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford.

Chakraborti, D., (1993), “Calcutta Environmental Profile: AirPollution” in K. C. Sivaramakrishnan (ed.), Managing UrbanEnvironment in India: Towards An Agenda for Action, VolumeIII, Industry, Energy, Transport and Air. Times ResearchFoundation.

Chakraborti, D., Ghosh, D. and Niyogi, S., (1987) “CalcuttaPollutants: Part I - Appraisal of some heavy metals in Calcuttacity sewage and sludge in use for fisheries and agriculture.” inInt. J. Env. Analytical Chemistry 30, pp. 243-253.

Chakraborti, D., Van Vaeek, L. and Ven Espen, P., (1988) “CalcuttaPollutants: Part II - Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbon MetalConcentration on Air Particulates During Winter 1984.” in Int. J.Env. Analytical Chemistry 32 (1), pp. 109-120.

Chakraborti, D. and Raeymackers, B., (1988) “Calcutta Pollutants:Part III - Toxic Metals in Dust and Characterisation of IndividualAerosol Particles” in Int. J. Env. Analytical Chemistry 32 (1),pp. 121-134.

Chakraborti, D., Das, D., Chatterjee, A., Jin, Z. and Jiang, S.G.,(1993), “Calcutta Pollution: Part IV. Direct Determination ofSome Heavy Metals in Urban Air Particulates by ElectrothermalAtomic Absorption Spectrometry Using Zeeman BackgroundCorrection After Simple Acid Decomposition: Application toCalcutta Air Particulates.” in Environmental Technology 13, pp.95-100.

Chatterjee, A., Das, D., Chakraborti, D., (1993), “A Study ofGround Water Contamination by Arsenic in the Residential Area

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Abstract

Urban transport in Calcutta is in crisis.Because of uncontrolled land usedevelopment, associated transport activityand an unrelenting increase in private motorvehicles, there is severe congestion anddeteriorating public transport. In addition,air and noise pollution are insufferable.

Introduction

Calcutta, a primate city of India and the firstcapital of British India, crossed threehundred years some six years back countingits age from August 24, 1690, the date ofarrival of Job Charnock at Sutanati.Vicissitude of the city’s life today attractsworld attention as one of the most crisisstricken metropolises arousing a genuineconcern about its survival in those whoreally care for the city. The most spectacularmanifestation of the crisis could be found inthe urban predicaments and particularly inthose which are associated with urbantransport. Road congestion and pollutionboth from the common source of transporthave assumed alarming proportions floutingall remedial measures to date.

Maybe the root cause of the crisis wasnever identified or, even if it was, adequatecare was not taken. This paper attempts topinpoint the basic cause of congestion on theroads by highlighting the population densityof Calcutta Metro Region which intensifies inthe Metro Core, the built up area, and reachesits peak in the Central Business District(CBD), and suggests some immediate andlong term measures. The paper also suggestssome measures to be adopted to combat airand noise pollution.

Travel Demand

Urban transport being the problem area,naturally the discussion may begin with thedifficulties associated with demand for and

supply of commuter services in the city atpresent and in future. To provide forcommuter services what is primarily neededis the estimate of future travel demand.Projecting travel demand in a metropolitanarea is indeed a challenging task to theplanners. The main difficulty lies in theabsence of a universally applicable modeland the wide range of accurate cross-sectionand time series data which are not available,particularly in developing countries. Calcuttais no exception to that. Notwithstandingthese limitations I make use of the projectedtravel demand for Calcutta city availablefrom official sources in order to highlight theseriousness of the problem facing the city. InTable 1 projected travel demand of Calcuttaalong with four other metropolitan cities inIndia are presented.

The figures in Table 1 are in terms ofpassenger kilometres (km). Another officialsource (A Perspective Plan for Calcutta to2011) offers that “about 11.23 millionpassenger trips had been performed on anaverage weekday in 1988-89 via buses, tramsminibuses, suburban railways, taxis andauto-rickshaws within Calcutta. By 2011 thenumber of passenger trips would be at leastdouble reaching almost to 23 or 24 millions.”

We can roughly say on the basis of thefirst official estimate that over 20 years(ranging from 1981 to 2001) the percentageincrease of the projected travel demand isless than double by 33% and according to theother estimate in terms of number of trips itis more than double in about 22 years(ranging from 1988-89 to 2011) which againis at a later period of time and over a longerrun. Adjusting these two figures it may bepredicted that by 2011 travel demand inCalcutta will be doubled. The latter estimatefurther states that a trip-length of about 10km per commuter will be maintained on anaverage. This is more or less consistent withthe global trend as it has been claimed thatthe world motor vehicle population willdouble between 1990 and 2020 (Faiz et al.,1993).

Transport predicament in Calcutta

Dilip K Halder: Transportpredicament in Calcutta


Keywords

Congestion, Land use,Pollution, TravelDemand

Dilip K. HalderProfessor of Transport Economics and Co-ordinator of the Centre for TransportStudies, Jadavpur University, Calcutta - 700 032, India.

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Congestion

Naturally the pressure on the availabletransport facilities will increase further ifthey are not doubled in the meantime. As oftoday the scope for increasing facilities onthe existing space is limited. The roadnetwork in the city is 6% of the built-up area,comparing quite unfavourably with two othermetropolitan areas in India - Bombay andDelhi - who maintain 16% and 23%respectively. These percentages are also farbelow the desired percentage, which is saidto be about 25% of the built-up area. Withthis handicap of space the possibility ofincreasing the number of registered vehiclesto cope with the increased demand has beenreduced. It has reflected itself in the declineof the rate of growth of registered vehiclesper 1,000 persons in recent years.

It may be seen in Table 2 that the numberof registered vehicles per 1,000 people hasdropped from 132.60 in 1988-89 to 117.19 in

1995-96. Indirectly, this indicatesovercrowding in the vehicles and frustrationamong intending commuters. Side by sidewith overcrowding the indirect indication ofcongestion on roads is also evident from thedrop in speed of motorised vehicles. Duringpeak hours speed regularly drops to 5 kph(kilometres per hour). In a paper recentlypresented by Calcutta’s DeputyCommissioner of Police (Traffic), the totalnumber of reported road accidents in 1992numbered 472 while speed was recorded at 6kph. It went up to 494 in 1993 when speedwas 7 kph, and it went up to 507 when speedrose to 11 kph. If it is true, even partially, itis a good enough proof that the existing roadnetwork cannot bear any more load, and if ithas to, it would result in a very high socialcost.

Population density

This load will continue to increase if thepopulation density in the Central BusinessDistrict is intensified as a result of the inflowof people into the city from the hinterland.This is what is happening in Calcutta andmany other metropolitan cities in India. Thisphenomenon has been neatly captured in anempirical exercise (Chakraborti, 1990) bymaking use of the census data.

Two interesting indices were calculatedby making use of the population statistics ofthe last two decades (i.e. 1971-81). They arethe Index of Crowding and the Index ofSpread Effect. Those indices were calculatedfor six metropolitan cities in India namely,Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Bangoloreand Hyderabad.

In order to appreciate the implications ofthese two indices - Crowding and SpreadEffect - they should be read together. It maybe be noted that in Calcutta and Bombaycrowding indices (calculated as a ratio of thepopulation of metro city and population ofhinterland towns) are much higher thanthose of Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad andMadras. But correspondingly, the indices ofspread effect calculated as a ratio of theannual rate of population growth ofhinterland towns and the annual rate ofgrowth of metro city run proportionately inreverse order. In other words, if the ratios ofthe indices of spread effect are divided by thecorresponding indices of crowding, thequotient corresponding to the highestcrowding will score the lowest value and that



Table 3: Index of Crowding and Index of Spread EffectCity City population 1981 (M) City population growth (%)

HInterland population 1981 (M) Hinterland population growth (%)Order of crowding Order of spread effect

Calcutta 9.19 1.38 6.66 2.69 3.04 1.13Bombay 8.23 1.27 6.52 3.26 5.09 1.56Delhi 5.71 2.07 2.76 4.59 5.83 1.27Madras 4.28 0.97 4.41 3.04 2.93 0.96Bangalore 2.91 1.13 2.58 5.82 3.40 0.58Hyderabad 2.53 0.64 3.95 3.42 5.08 1.49Notes : Index of Crowding = city population / hinterland population

Index of Spread Effect = annual rate of population growth of hinterland / annual rate of population growth of city

Table 1: The projected travel demand in five metropolitan cities

City Passenger PTPD (in millions of km.) Percent Increase

1981 2001Calcutta 111.8 182.0 63Bombay 112.2 204.1 82Delhi 95.9 225.1 135Madras 47.2 82.2 74Bangalore 18.4 54.8 198(PTPD = Projected Travel Per Day). Source: Report of the National Commission on Urbanisation August 1988.

Table 2: Registered Vehicles in Calcutta

Year Total Number Per 1000 Persons

1950-51 49,693 18.401960-61 74,337 25.371970-71 92,043 29.311980-81 172,323 59.961988-89 424,372 132.601995-96 560,000 (approx) 117.19

Source: A Perspective Plan, 1990

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of the lowest will score the highest value. Itimplies that the spatial distribution ofpopulation is skewed in favour ofmetropolitan cities and the degree ofskewness corresponds to the populationdensity. This phenomenon is due largely toland use pattern and spatial distribution offacilities, particularly transport facilities. Themetropolitan cities being the main activitycentres, all facilities are concentrated there.People living in the hinterland withouthaving adequate employment opportunitiesand linkage facilities with the cities throngon the city surface and add to the existingcrowding. Calcutta with the highest crowdingindex records and the lowest demographicrate of growth bears testimony to that.

The skewness discernible between themetropolitan cities and their hinterlands isalso present within the metropolitan areas forthe same imbalance in the spatialdistribution of activities and facilities. Theskewness in Calcutta City has been borne outgraphically by the Transport Planning andTraffic Engineering Directorate of theGovernment of West Bengal making use ofthe population census data of 1971 and 1981on inner metropolitan regions (Figure 1).

Bhavan (located in the CBD) is the mostdensely populated area and the peak densityzone which extended geographically by onekilometre is about 177% above the averagemetro core density. The density of this peakincreased by about 14% between 1971 and1981. It may be noted that the size of thepopulation in Calcutta Metropolitan District(CMD) will be around 17 million in 2011. Ifthis prediction proves correct, ceterisparibus, then everything will come to astandstill.

Pollution: Air

Before turning to other things, which shouldnot remain the same if the imminent crisis isto be averted, let us take up the other urbanpredicament which has also assumedalarming proportions in Calcutta. That ispollution. Calcutta has been bracketed withthe most polluted cities in the in the world(Whitelegg, 1996) and transport is the mainculprit in this regard. In both air and noisepollution Calcutta has crossed thepermissible limit. It is, however, true that thetransport sector alone consumes 25% of theworld’s primary energy resource and emits22% of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Both are on anupward trend in almost all the countries inthe world - developed and developing -resulting in a 50% increase in the use ofenergy between 1973 and 1990 (OECD, 1991).In a recent estimate (Grubler, 1993) it hasbeen worked out that if the present GDPgrowth trends continue then by 2020developing countries will own one third ofthe world’s car fleet which at present is 14%of the world’s car fleet strength. Indeveloping countries, approximately 50% ofcars are concentrated in the capital cities andin most of these cities oil consumption hasrisen by 50% since 1980 as against 10% indeveloped countries (World Bank 1992). Itcan therefore be easily inferred that airpollution in the urban areas of thesecountries has already reached alarminglevels. To assess the emissions by vehiculartraffic in Calcutta a survey was conducted(Public Health, Calcutta 1993) on eightimportant road-crossings. The levels ofCarbon Monoxide (CO) at those crossingshave been presented in Table 4.

Looking at the table the common reactionwill be that the air quality of Calcutta hasdeteriorated to such a level that it wouldsoon cross the permissible limit, if it has notyet crossed it. This will be due mainly to



Table 4: Levels of Carbon Monixide at important Road Crossings in Calcutta

Location Average CO Maximum CO

Gariahat 8.92 18.0Bank of India (Bipin Behari Ganguli St.) 6.80 17.0Howrah Bridge 7.00 16.0Khidderpore 7.63 12.0Mouali 7.73 26.0College Street 6.92 17.0Syambazar 7.23 18.0Jadavpur 9.07 16.0

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Calcutta (1990)

Distance from Calcutta CBD (km)(Distance originates from Rajbhavan)

Figure 1:

There was already aheavy concentration ofpeople in the centralarea of Calcutta. Itfurther increasedduring 1971-81 andonwards. Within themetro core the averagepopulation densitywhich was 12,350persons per squarekilometre in 1971increased to 15,320persons per squarekilometre by 1981. Thearea encircled by aradius of about sevenkilometres from Raj

Den

sity

(100

0 pe

rson

s/km

2)

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vehicular emissions whose decadal growthrate has worked out to be 297% between1980 and 1990 (Halder, 1995).

Pollution: Noise

Noise pollution also is very severe inCalcutta. “The worst contributor to this noiseproblem is the traffic. We now live in anatmosphere of noise generated by blastinghorns, rumbling tyres and screeching brakes.The noise coming from the vehicle is thecumulative effect of noises from a variety ofsources.” (Mitra et al., 1992).

Traffic volume (which has doubledbetween 1985 and 1994), poor roadcondition, overaged vehicles and universaluse of horns contribute to above 90 dB (A) onaverage during day time. The maximumpermissible limits of the sound level (Table5) are never administered. These limits aresupposed to be lowered by 3 dB (A) everyfive years up to 2005.

Not only sound limits of automotivevehicles were ignored by the operators, thesound limits specified for the four zonaldivisions of the city also could not beadministered. The Central Pollution ControlBoard (CPCB) divided the city into fourzones - industrial, commercial, residentialand silence - and recommended permissiblesound levels during day and night (Table 6).

The results of study on traffic noise levelbased on a twenty-four hour surveyconducted at twenty-four selected roadtransections of Calcutta by West Bengal

Pollution Control Board revealed that, amongthe various noise sources, vehicular noisewas the major noise generating source inresidential, commercial and silence zonesand no significant improvement in terms oflowering the ambient noise level could beachieved (Table 7) though quite a goodnumber of measures were suggested earlier.

This validates some of the earlierapprehensions about the effectiveness of themeasures adopted. One such apprehensionwas that in “Calcutta has many unplannedcommercial and residential zones. Thepermissible levels fixed by the CPCB on thebasis of international regulations cannot beapplied in this unruly metropolis where theground floor of a residential building isrented out for commercial purposes.”(Majumder, 1992).

Summing Up

The two dreadful urban predicaments -congestion and pollution - are in sum due toexcess travel demand and predominance ofoil driven vehicles in the modal mix of thecity transport system. The phrase excessdemand has been used here in a spatial orgeographical sense and not in an economicsense, because the existence of traveldemand may be quite consistent with thelevel of economic activity of the city as it isdirectly proportional to that. But it may betoo high for the surface modes to satisfy thisdemand as their supply is limited by the roador line capacity. Clearly the aggregate traveldemand generated mainly by economiccompulsions of commuters far exceed thesupply provision which is feasible on thecity space, particularly during peak hours.Only the grade separated rapid transitsystems, overhead or underground, thoughnot foolproof, may give some relief to thecaptive commuters. But the high capitalrequirement and displacement costs act asthe main deterrents to their construction in aheavily built-up and densely populated citylike Calcutta. Even then the city has gone fora 16.45 km underground metro system (Fig.5), located at the middle of the city stretchingin a north-south direction. Introduction ofthis system endows the modal mix of the citywith the latest urban travel technology sideby side with a primitive mode - handpulledrickshaws.



Table 6: Recommended Sound Levels (dB (A))

Zones Day Night

Industrial (I) 75 65Commercial (C) 65 55Residential (R) 55 45Silence* (S) 50 40

*Silence zones are areas up to 100 metres around Hospitals, Educational Institutions, courts etc.

Table 5: Maximum Limits of Sound Level for Automotive Vehicles

Type of Vehicle Sound Level dB (A) in 1990

1. Motor Vehicles, Scooters, Three Wheelers 802. Passenger Cars 823. Commercial Passenger Vehicles up to 4 tons 854. Commercial Passenger Vehicles up to 12 tons 895. Commercial Passenger Vehicles exceeding 12 tons 91

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Hooghly stand testimony to this doubt. Theformer is literally inoperative and the latterhas failed to perform up to the expectation.The other systems namely, the metro (Figure2) and suburban rail, are overworked thoughnot financially viable. Lack of coordinationin planning, operation and management alsogo a long way in explaining the malady. Thebasic drawback remains in the misplacedemphasis on the effect rather than the causeof congestion.

Land use

The land use pattern of the city, determinedhistorically, has been intensified, as has beenstated earlier, by the inflow of people fromneighbouring towns and states mainly foreconomic and political reasons. Checkshould have been put on them much earlierin a systematic way. On the contrary freeentry and right of residence on the metrocore encouraged vertical expansion of thecity making it a paradise for real estatepromoters. As a result site rental increasedby leaps and bounds, along with pressure onthe existing civic amenities and otherfacilities, including transport. CalcuttaMunicipal Corporation (CMC) failed to exerteffective control on this expansion. The olddilapidated structures were demolished andplans for the construction of newmultistoried residential buildingssanctioned, housing several times morepeople than they initially accommodated.This is one of the main causes of congestion.As an immediate step to stop furtherintensification of land use what should bedone is:

• no plan for construction of more thanthree storied buildings should besanctioned in the CMD, and;

• immigration should be made less attractiveby increasing employment opportunitiesand extending essential facilities in theperipheral areas of the CMD and beyond.

Calcutta being basically an unplannedcity, its peculiar land use has gone a longway in determining the choice of mode thecommuter uses. For instance in the old partsof the city, in northern and central Calcutta,neighbourhoods are connected by narrowlanes and by-lanes, most of which are blind.As such, they cannot provide access to anyvehicle other than hand-pulled rickshaws.During heavy rain when all mechanisedvehicles become inoperative on inundated



Table 7: Recorded Noise Level (Leq in dB (A)) at Selected Sites in Specified ZonesDuring Winter 1990 and Winter 1995.

Serial No & Survey Site Noise level (Leq in dB (A))1990 1995

morning afternoon night morning afternoon night

1. New Alipore (P block) (R) 79 76 65 70 64 642. Jadavpur (8B stand) (C) - 78 67 78 78 693. Jodhpur Park (R) - 80 58 69 63 664. Ballygunge (Ekdalia Park) (R) 86 82 59 71 67 665. Gariahat (Market Area) (C) 83 87 60 77 81 756. Rashbehari (Shopping Area) (C) 88 86 - 76 78 817. Bhawanipore (Post Office) (R) 76 78 59 70 67 698. Victoria Memorial (Tomb) (RC) 78 78 57 68 66 699. Park Street (Shopping Area) (C) 80 81 70 79 81 7710. Park Circus Maidan (C) 86 81 62 81 76 7611. N.R.S.Hospital (Sealdah) (S) 82 83 70 64 68 6612. Sealdah Station (outside) (C) 70 70 64 69 76 7113. S.N. Banerjee Road (Taltola) (C) - - - 77 77 7114. Esplanade (Bus terminus) (C) 79 84 74 78 77 7415. High Court Gate (S) 72 69 - 66 70 6416. B.B.D. Bag (Shopping Area) (C) 80 81 - 85 73 7417. Barabazar (Shopping Area) (C) 80 82 - 75 76 7618. Calcutt University (College Street) (S) 89 76 - 64 65 5219. Girsih Park (Shopping Area) (C) 78 81 - 78 76 7820. Shyambazar (Shopping Area) (C) 82 79 75 80 78 7621. Dunlop (Shopping Area) (I) 84 90 78 82 81 7322. Ultadanga (Shopping Area) (I) - - 76 84 72 7623. Salt Lake (A Block) (R) - 76 67 72 70 6024. Rajabazar (R) - - - 71 77 62

Things to be changed

In the list of other things which should notremain the same to solve the present crisisand to forestall further deterioration the

programme of physicalchanges within theCMD, such as wideningthe roads, constructingeight or ten flyovers atmajor road junctions,and extending metros toother parts of the city,etc., will onlymarginally improve thesituation, if at all. Thesechanges will not only betoo costly but mayprove to be sociallyundesirable ifcomprehensive socialcost benefit analysis isdone. Two recentlycompleted projects -one, Suburban DispersalLine (SDL), popularlyknown as circular railand the other, the thirdbridge across the river

Belgachia

Dum Dum

Shymbazar

Sovabazar

Girish Park

M. G. Road

Central

Chandni ChowkEsplanade

Park Street

Maidan

Rabindra Sadan

Bhowanipur

Tollygunge

Rabindra Sarobar

Kalighat

Jatindas Park

Figure 2: Calcutta Metro

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roads, hand-pulled rickshaws come as thelast resort to helpless commuters. If you wantto move a serious patient to hospital or anexpectant mother to a nursing home late inthe night, it is the rickshaws which alone canbe persuaded to oblige more easily than anyother transport. Not only passengers, butquite a substantial proportion of freight inthe city is carried by hand-pulled rickshaws.

Besides land use, various other factorswhich normally influence the choice of modeand modal split also played their role ingiving wide diversity in the modal split ofthe multi-modal transportation system in thecity. Urban travel demand is diverse innature and to cater to this diversity a mix ofvarious modes is necessary. A person needsdifferent modes of transport for differentjourney purposes at different hours of a dayand for the same journey different peopleneed different modes in the same hour of theday.

The heterogeneity in the composition ofcommuters in terms of age, sex, income andjourney make all these differences. A multimodal transportation system is, therefore,indispensable in urban or metropolitan areas.

Modal split

The analysis of modal split (Table 8) of thedominant travel modes on the main transitcorridors of the city, leaving out the hand-pulled and cycle rickshaws and the privatecars, it may be noticed that about 3.80million passengers out of 11.23 million werecarried on an average weekday in 1991 byelectrified suburban railways, metro rail andtrams. These modes do not pollute locallyand hence are relatively eco-friendly. The



rest (about 7.43 million) were carried byother modes who use fossil fuel and aremainly responsible for air pollution. Thehand-pulled and the cycle rickshaws wereleft out from the modal split for the obviousreason that they neither ply on the maintransit corridors nor do they use fossil fuel.The private cars have been left out becausetheir share in total number of trips performedin the city is not substantial nor could theircontribution be considered congnisable.

Already adverse modal split, from thestandpoint of air pollution, has gone frombad to worse because of the natural urge tospeed. Greater damage will be done if, as isfeared, trams are withdrawn. It is believedthat the Government of West Bengal willclose down Calcutta Tramways Corporation(CTC) because of its financial crisis and roadoccupancy. By all indications thisapprehension is correct because CTC being atram operator runs buses to make up the losswhile Calcutta State Transport Corporation(CSTC) puerilely runs buses at a huge loss. Itwill be a degenerative step if the StateGovernment winds up CTC which run thebiggest eco-friendly urban transport mode.What the Government should have done is:

• gradually upgrade trams to thecontemporary standard;

• extend tram services to areas like Salt LakeCity and to areas which are less congestedand are not yet covered by the tramsystem, and;

• include the expansion scheme of the tramsystem in projects like Calcutta megacityprogramme.

It may be noted that the railway projectwhich was identified by CalcuttaMetropolitan Development Authority asessential in its report on “Developmentneed” has not been included in the Calcuttamegacity programme 1994.

Observations

What emerges out of this discussion is thatroad congestion is the result of populationdensity and concentration of activity on alimited space due to unplanned growth of thecity. The remedy lies in taking immediatesteps to stop further intensification of landuse by devising suitable legislative,administrative and fiscal measures.

Table 8: Modal Split of Passenger Trip on an Average Day in CMD (1991)

SL No. & Modes of Travel Trips in Million

1. Suburban Rail (including circular railway) 2.152. Metro Rail 0.103. Private Bus 4.874. Calcutta State Transport Corporation Buses 0.785. Tramways 0.556. Mini Bus 0.907. Chartered Bus 0.248. Taxi 0.699. Auto Rickshaw (within the city) 0.40

10. Auto Rickshaw (in and out of city) 0.0411. Ferries 0.1812. Suburban Buses 0.33

TOTAL 11.23Source:Rail India Technical & Economic Services (RITES)

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Given that transport demand is derivedfrom the level of activities in a society, iffurther increases in the level of activity in themetro core is effectively discouraged by wellorchestrated action involving all the relevantpublic institutions like CMC, ImprovementTrust and Departments such as Transport andUrban Development, etc., significantimprovement may be expected. In a sense thesolution to the problem of the urbantransport sector should be sought in othersectors of the urban economy.

On the other hand to reduce the pressureon the CMD, areas outside the CMD shouldbe adequately developed so as to reduce theirdependence on the CMD substantially.



All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health,(1993), “Air Quality Monitoring in and aroundCalcutta”.

Chakraborti, S.C., (1990), “The Growth of Calcuttain the Twentieth Century”, in Chowdhury, S.(ed.), Calcutta: The living city, Oxford UniversityPress, Calcutta.

Faiz, A., Weaver, C., Sinha, K., Walsh M. andCarbojo, J., (1992), Air Pollution from MotorVehicles, World Bank.

Government of India, (1988), Report of theNational Commission on Urbanisation.

Grubler, A., (1993), “The Transportation sector:Growing Demand and Emissions”, in Pacific andAsian Journal of Energy Vol. 18, no. 5.

Halder D., (1996), “City Transport: BanishingRickshaws no cure” in The Statesman, Calcutta(October 29).

Halder D., (1995), “Energy Consumption and Air

Pollution by Urban Transport Modes”, IndiaJournal of Transport Management, (a SpecialIssue on Urban Public Transport) Vol. 19, no. 2.

International Energy Agency, (1991), Fuelefficiency of Passenger Cars, OECD, Paris.

Mazumder, D., (1992) “A Deafening Riot ofDecibels - Dirty City III” The Statesman, Calcutta(February 3).

Mitra, D. K. and Hazra, I., (1992), “City within anoise Wrap” in The Saturday Statesman,Calcutta (February 1).

State Planning Board Government of West Bengal,(1990), A Perspective Plan for Calcutta to 2011,Calcutta.

Whitelegg, J., Sustainable Transport solutions forCalcutta - A Report, School of the BuiltEnvironment, Liverpool John Moores University,U. K. (Available only by e-mail [email protected]).

References

Without doing that, short-term patchworksolutions which make expensive physicalchanges that the country’s economy cannotafford will make the CMD more attractiveand create an unhealthy spatial imbalance inthe metropolitan region.

Turning to pollution, transport being themain source, modal choice should be turnedin favour of fuel efficient andenvironmentally friendly modes like trams,bicycles, improved versions of the manuallyoperated rickshaws, etc. A skilfulcombination of carrot and stick should beevolved to popularise pollution-free modesto serve the common interest.

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Abstract

Attempts have been made to ban hand-pulledrickshaws in Calcutta in the past. Hand-pulled rickshaws are one of the last vestigesof feudalism and imperialism. The lives andlivelihoods of those who pull the rickshawsare not normally considered because somepoliticians believe that “the poor must suffera little for the good of the larger community”.

Introduction

The recent debate in Calcutta - within thestate government, the ruling Left Alliance,and the media - about the future of hand-pulled rickshaws and cycle rickshaws hasbeen instructive and welcome. This is not anew debate but it is good to see that this timethere are some prominent people (such asBuddhadeb Bhattacharya, Home Minister)who, briefly, appeared unwilling to take asimple-minded approach to traffic planningand city “modernisation”. They haveconfronted some of the awkward realitiesthat are contained in our social existence, ofwhich rickshaws and rickshaw-pulling areexamples. It is good to see Ministers talkingquite openly about such issues; and itillustrates a new openness within the Left,where it was most unusual to discuss suchissues in public.

Given that we like to believe that we areliving in and building a democratic society,then this is a very important public debate -one which is of far greater significance thanmight appear to be the case at first sight. Incollective terms, the debate implicitlyinvolves the lives, livelihoods, and futures ofa huge population, straddling urban andrural areas in Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, UttarPradesh, and Bangladesh who are among thepoorest and most exploited sections ofsociety. It is crucial also to recognise that theapparent standoff between BuddhadebBhattacharya and Subhas Chakraborty is,fundamentally, between more civilised anddemocratic planning and a moreauthoritarian (“I will clear them from thestreets”) approach. The agenda at hand isthus much more than just “rickshaws or no

rickshaws”. Indeed, precisely becauserickshaws and their pullers are a potentsymbol and reminder of a feudal past (and ofa continuing and prevailing present), it isvital that the issue is understood not just byitself but as a part of the wider andcontinuing struggle to fight feudalism.Furthermore, it is important that the debateis sustained and disseminated widely, andthat a socially just and forward-lookingresolution is found, and that apparently“modern” but equally authoritarian, neo-feudal, “planning” is not permitted.

At the time of writing, one of the morerecent developments in a fast-developingsituation, is that the two Ministers inquestion have buried the hatchet, and thatMr. Bhattacharya has apparently come roundto agree with Mr. Chakraborty that“rickshaws must be quickly cleared from thecity, for the good of the city”; and, it has beenreported, that he apparently agrees that “thepoor must suffer a little for the good of thelarger community”. There may be morebetween the lines than was reported, butnevertheless it has to be said: how familiarand how sad it is to read this - quite asidefrom how patently anti-Marxist this refrainis. This position is grotesque, especiallycoming as it does from a government ofparties who claim to be of the Left.

Though the debate largely focussed on thefuture of hand-pulled rickshaws in Calcutta(and only to an extent, on the future of therickshaw pullers; there is a vital difference),we must also remind ourselves that the WestBengal State Government’s proposals may bemuch wider. In what was perhaps theopening salvo, R. K. Prasannan, TransportSecretary, announced that the governmenthad decided that “the city will no longer havehand-pulled and cycle rickshaws, pull carts,school vans and other cycle-vans by the endof this year ... The decision to remove allmanual modes of transport has beenfinalised” (The Telegraph, August 8, 1996).The number of people who stand to lose theirlivelihoods, and importantly also the range ofservices lost to the rest of Calcutta, is in factfar larger than simply those involved in the

The Left Alliance and the Unintended City:Is a civilised transition possible?

Jai SenArchitect, writer and environmentalist, Calcutta.

Keywords

Poverty, Rickshaws,Government, Society.

Jai Sen: The Left Alliance and theUnintended City: Is a civilisedtransition possible?


Jai Sen is anindependent researcherworking on thedynamics of the conceptof ‘housing rights’ inIndia. An architect andurban designer bytraining and firstprofession, he workedas a researcher andcampaigner from 1977-1991 with Unnayan(‘development’, in thesense of self-realisation,in Bengali), a civilorganisation based inCalcutta that works insupport of the strugglesof the unintended andlabouring poor to buildtheir lives and homes.His main work has beenin the area of housingrights and of the rightsof the rickshaw-pullersof Calcutta.

Jai Sen51-B Palm AvenueBallygunge, CALCUTTA700 019, IndiaTfx: 91-33/240 5698Alt ph: 91-33/240 0457Alt fx: 91-33/474 8172

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rickshaw trade alone. The hand-pulledrickshaw and the rickshaw-puller have cometo symbolise this larger question - the futureof what I call “the unintended city”, the cityof the poor. The question before us is: is acivilised and democratic transition possible;and is the Left Alliance, whose constituentshave historically associated themselves withthe poor, and with the struggle fordemocracy, willing to address this question?

A drive for the removal of hawkers wasannounced simultaneously - or moreaccurately, what Mr. Chakraborty hasdescribed as “encroachers” (“hawkers” beingthose who move around hawking their wares,while those commonly called “hawkers” areusually encroachers on public land such asfootpaths (Statesman, August 18, 1996)).After much deliberation CITU came out indefence of the rights of “poor hawkers” tohawk, but not what it calls “businessmen”(The Telegraph, October 2, 1996). It isimportant to recognise this distinction, andthat established hawkers (though part of the“informal sector”) constitute a very differentclass and section from rickshaw pullers.Although in simple physical planning terms,their occupation of public space may seem tobe related to road and traffic congestion, ineconomic and political terms this is verydifferent. It is no accident that elaborateplans such as the commercial development ofVivekananda Park in south Calcutta (TheTelegraph, September 27 and 28, 1996) to“rehabilitate hawkers who will be removed”materialised within a month, while plans forthe rehabilitation of rickshaw-pullersremained at the level of conjecture and“meetings”. It is typical of officialdom togroup the two questions together - under thebureaucratic rubric of “law and order”,“traffic congestion”, etc. In addition, despitehis otherwise useful distinction in relation tohawking, Mr. Chakraborty himself seemsquite happy to lump encroachers andrickshaw pullers together. It is disappointingthat no opinion on the Left in West Bengal,other than Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, hasbeen voiced to make distinctions and tomove towards clearer and more strategicthinking, planning, and action - somethingthat has often been the hallmark of the Left.

The unintended city

Rickshaws, and rickshaw pullers, are just onefragment of what planners, social scientists,and international bureaucracy tend to call“the informal sector”, but which I prefer toterm “the unintended city: a society that has

grown within and beside the intended cityand society (Sen, 1975).

The existence of this “city” is neitherplanned nor intended, either by rulingsections and their planners or, in anycollective or deliberate sense, by its ownmembers; nor is it intended by the richersections that it should disappear - for it is intheir interests that “the poor should alwaysbe with us” to provide cheap labour. Thoughthe debate in question has taken place in andabout Calcutta, this larger reality is equallytrue of all cities and towns everywhere; andincreasingly so, as the contradictions ofmodern and post-modern developmentmanifest themselves. For example, theincreasing number of street children in urbanareas of the South, and the increasinghomelessness in cities of the North, are justtwo manifestations.

Citizens of the unintended city are nodifferent from the middle classes, in thatmost of them come from the hinterland of thecity, but the twin forces of rejection andaffinity - rejection in the form ofdiscrimination, exclusion, and exploitationby the urban centre, and the affinity of strongancestral tradition and of familiar primordialassociation such as language and caste - leadsthese citizens to live a reality that straddleswhat are called “urban” and “rural” areas.This has led to a continual and gradual,mostly unintended, evolution of a “new”society, different from either theconventionally or normatively “rural” or“urban”, a synthesis of the ordinary thingsthat this mass of ordinary people is doingover generations in their myriad struggles tosurvive and to prosper in a relentlesslyhostile environment. This hybrid society hasspecific and inherent value especially for thepoor, since it allows them to develop withintheir own capacities and potentialities, tomeet the demands of evolving life both in thecity and in their rural homes; and as a result,new, hybrid values are slowly being evolvedwhich offer them flexibility and security,both of which are vital in an evolvingsituation.

So far in history, there has been little orno genuine attempt on the part of thedominant society to accept the urban poorand disadvantaged as a part of the city, hereor anywhere else: to accept them as equaland integral citizens; to develop also the cityaccording to their needs as a society differentfrom the “dominant urban” and where theirdisadvantage might be reduced; and to findways of planning and decision-making inwhich they can take equal part. At best, they



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are tolerated, and planning is done for them,according to what the dominant centre thinksis best for them. Usually, it is quite theopposite, where “planning” means what thedominant centre thinks is best for itself, andwhere such people are not only exploited fortheir labour but their lifestyles are alsofrowned upon and their livelihoods declaredillegal - and then even this “illegality” is thenexploited. In those rare instances wherethings have been different and where changehas taken place, it has usually come about asa result of resistance and struggle - not out oflargesse.

Rickshaws and rickshaw pulling are aclassic case in point. By the early 1980s,there were some 50-60,000 hand-pulledrickshaws plying in Calcutta, but the numberof licenses that were issued by the CalcuttaMunicipal Corporation (and the ceiling onlicenses, under existing law) was only 6,000.This ceiling remains the case, even today. Acertain number of licenses were also issuedat that time by surrounding municipalitiessuch as Rajpur, but this still left somethinglike 40,000 rickshaws which were in use atthat time, that were “unlicensed”. Since eachvehicle provided employment to an average2.2 pullers per day, this meant that nearly alakh (100,000) of pullers were then beingforced to work “illegally”.

The research which produced thesefigures, done by Unnayan, a civilorganisation based in Calcutta, revealed aninteresting background:• the ceiling on licenses of 6,000 had been

set as far back as 1939. This figure has notbeen revised upwards since then, despitethe tremendous growth in the city’spopulation and the inevitable consequenttremendous increase in demand forservices, despite official reportsrecommending increases and despite theevident reality of a huge number of“unlicensed” vehicles - which were nearly90 percent of the total on the streets by theearly 1980s;

• this situation was far from being one ofbenign neglect. The standard andmandatory rule for all “unlicensed”rickshaws and their equally unlicensedpullers, was (and remains) regular bribesto both Corporation officials and thepolice, adding up to a dirty grey economyrunning into crores (tens of millions) ofrupees, each year; and

• large numbers of these unlicensedvehicles were in fact owned by membersof the police force. In this situation, it isonly quite likely that many of these

“unlicensed” vehicles on the streets wereones that had earlier been seized by thepolice, on the grounds of illegality, andwere then being “recycled”. So it was aneatly tied-up economy, where the pullerswere exploited by both the owners of thevehicles and by the administrators of thecity.However, this is not to suggest that it is

only policemen who own fleets of rickshaws.Unnayan’s research showed that the majorityof rickshaws, both licensed and particularlythe unlicensed, were owned in small andmedium fleets (of between 2 and 20 vehicles)by individual owners, i.e. by “small owners”;and there were only a few “large owners”,having fleets of hundreds of vehicles. Unlikethe cycle rickshaw trade, where this was atleast partly the case, very few hand pullersowned the vehicles they pulled, let alonefleets. In short, it was a highly exploitativeand feudal trade right up to the early 1980s.Dominique Lapierre portrayed part of thisfeudal reality in City of Joy.

There is little to suggest much haschanged since the early 1980s - except in theimportant dimension of numbers, where boththe number of vehicles and pullers has gonesubstantially down. This reduction has takenplace not “by itself” but on account of acombination of factors since then. On the onehand, there has been a fairly sustained - ifalso sporadic - process of seizures ofunlicensed vehicles by the police, and anapparently much stricter process of issuing oflicenses by the Corporation, both for vehiclesand pullers. On the other hand, the steep risein the cost of living over this period that thepullers have equally faced, as well as theconstantly rising level of pay-off that has hadto be made to the police (because of thedropping numbers of vehicles and inflation)has meant that rickshaw fares have risen verysharply during this time - and that theirusage has accordingly dropped. It is a war ofattrition, with a certain inevitability about it.The government’s move suggests that it isfinding the process too slow, and thereforewants to accelerate it.

The previous round: Are there anylessons?

The currently “drive for modernisation”proposal, and the debate that has taken place,is nothing new. The last time, the same LeftAlliance government introduced a ban on“unlicensed” rickshaws in the city and,simultaneously, ushered in auto-rickshaws.Much publicity was given to constables being



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given special rewards for seizing unlicensedrickshaws; long lines of chained vehiclesstarted appearing in front of the city’s policestations, followed by huge stockpiles of theirbroken carcasses in dumps in the north andsouth of the city. Unlike this time round,when there has been so little oppositionexcept for a few letters in the papers (andBihar politicians Laloo Prasad Yadav andGeorge Fernandes speaking out in support ofBihari pullers), the 1981 drive was opposedand strongly criticised by different sectionsof civil society in the city, and briefly also bythe Congress party. The principal critic wasUnnayan, which entirely by coincidence hadjust completed and published its detailedstudy of the hand-pulled and cycle rickshawtrades in the city. Unnayan found the plan toban to be outrageous, violating the mostfundamental of the pullers’ human rights andalso making no planning sense at all. On thebasis of its findings, it argued that thebanning of so-called “unlicensed” rickshawsin the city would on the one hand suddenlydeprive the city of a range of importantservices (short-distance passenger travel,freight carriage in dense inner-city areas, aswell as specialty services such as emergencytransport for the aged and the ill especiallyamong the majority of the city that is low-income, and safe personalised transport forschool children). On the other hand, since noemployment alternatives were proposed forthe pullers, the drive would throw nearly alakh of pullers out of work, as well as asignificant further number who wereemployed in rickshaw assembly andservicing work.

On that occasion, there was no knownpublic opposition or debate within the LeftAlliance. It is in fact one of the tragedies andcontradictions of the Left being in power inBengal that the drive was, for instance, notopposed by the Calcutta Rickshaw PullersUnion, formed by the legendary unionistMohammed Ali. This union had been builtamong the highly unorganised pullers duringthe fifties, when workers in this highlyfeudal trade came to be organised for the firsttime, and to command some respect from thebureaucracy as well as from owners of thevehicles. But in the 1980s, when Unnayanapproached it for its views on the drive beingundertaken, it found the union to beparalysed on the question, seemingly onaccount of its links with one of the rulingparties. Finding no constructive response toits arguments from within unions and fromwithin the Left (and indeed, from one of thestate’s civil liberty organisations, who

decided that the matter was “a trade unionmatter, not a question of human rights” - asign of those times), Unnayan took its pointsto the public. Through booklets, newspaperarticles, and with the help of an arrestingfilm, “Man versus Man” (made by film-makerShashi Anand based on its study), Unnayanwas able to raise a fair debate in the city -indeed to such an extent that the ChiefMinister himself came out in public and saiddarkly that “some people are misleading thepublic” on the issue.

When Unnayan’s campaign came to thenotice of trade unionist George Fernandes,and the question was taken up by him - inpart because a substantial proportion of thecity’s pullers are from Muzaffarpur in Bihar,which was then his constituency - that theCalcutta Rickshaw Chalak Panchayat wasformed. It was only after the matter wastaken by the new union to mass meetings ofrickshaw pullers in Mohammed Ali Park (incentral Calcutta) among other places, leadingto gheraos of police stations and theCorporation’s licensing office, that the 1981drive died down.

On its part, Unnayan went further thanmerely opposing the drive. It proposed thatwhile the feudal practice and trade ofrickshaw pulling should certainly be doneaway with, mandatory policy prerequisiteshad to be• the provision of alternative employment

opportunities for the pullers, and• the replacement of the most essential

services that would be lost.To achieve this most economically,

Unnayan proposed the mass introduction ofwhat it called a “city rickshaw” along withtransport and traffic planning in the city thattook such transport services into account.

The city rickshaw was not simply afanciful idea. With the help of volunteerdesigners and engineers, Unnayan took theinitiative of designing a suitable vehicle andbuilding and testing some prototypes,including making it available to a rickshawdrivers’ co-operative in Kasba for fieldtesting, where it proved very popular.Basically a cycle rickshaw and just as easilybuildable, the city rickshaw was however aradical improvement. Smaller, and with atighter turning circle (essential for denseinner city traffic), lower (therefore far morestable), equipped with gears and drum-brakesfor easier driving, and fitted withindependent suspension for a far morecomfortable ride for passengers, the cityrickshaw could have been a very appropriatereplacement for the hand-pulled rickshaw on



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both the policy counts listed above. Theprototypes designed and tested could also beeasily converted into an effective freight-carrying vehicle, which is an equallyessential characteristic of a vehicle in ourcontext.

However, the government of West Bengalwas not interested. Though many individualswithin government departments expressedmuch interest, including in the StatePlanning Board and the Small IndustriesDepartment, none of the government bodiesthat Unnayan approached were willing toprovide the small grant that it requested forthe research and development work that hadto be done to make the idea a reality. To thecontrary, in a previously unexpected step,but one which must have been prepared, thestate government suddenly announced theintroduction - and licensing - of auto-rickshaws in the city, even while the hand-pulled rickshaw drive was on. Indicating thatUnnayan’s campaign had at least had someeffect, the Chief Minister went so far as to sayin public that “the public should not beworried about the loss of services caused bythe banning of hand-pulled rickshaws; thegovernment is introducing auto-rickshaws,and they will carry your kiddies to school”.

The dangerous and polluted history ofauto-rickshaw service in the city over thesubsequent years has shown how ironic andweak that claim was, but far more significantare the facts that the Chief Minister failedcompletely at that time to address thequestion of his government throwing thepoorest of toilers out of work and therebybeing directly responsible for creating onlymore misery and more unemployment.Instead, the situation was used by thegovernment to invite Bajaj, the manufacturersof auto-rickshaws, to move into the city anddisplace the small assemblers who madehand-pulled rickshaws. Just as thousands ofimpoverished rickshaw pullers were put outof work, the situation was used by thegovernment as an opportunity to give heavilysubsidised employment to an entirelydifferent section: Hundreds of “educated-unemployed youth”, almost certainly aconvenient vote-bank, were given auto-rickshaws worth Rs 25-30,000 each in thename of bank loans that were later written off- against the cost of a hand-pulled rickshawof Rs 1,000. It is also not possible to avoidthe fact that those who were subsidised in1982-84 were Bengali, and those who wererendered unemployed were largely non-Bengali. This communal reality was onlyreflected in the response of the then state

Minister of Transport, when Unnayanapproached him in 1981 about the problemsbeing created by the drive: “But the rickshawpullers are only Biharis! And after all, thegovernment is only seizing rickshaws in orderto protect law and order”.

The situation that exists in Calcutta today,in 1996, is not very different. There arehowever two important exceptions. One, isthat for a brief while, someone importantwithin the government spoke up and evenspoke about the contribution of the pullers tothe city. For the moment, this voice seems tohave been quietened. Since there were noother changes in the situation, this hashappened for reasons that are not very clear -except that the government wanted topresent a unified face to the public, at anycost. What this writer has tried to show isthat it is of considerable importance - for acivilised society, and for the Left - that thisvoice be raised once again, and that it issupported loudly and clearly by civil societyand by all democratically-minded politicalparties. (The Congress party would in fact dowell to recall that one of the first points in its1994 Election Manifesto, was “Replace hand-pulled rickshaws by driver-owned cyclerickshaws … in the First 100 Days” (Pioneer,March 27, 1994). The history of this point isnot known.)

The second exception, or change since the1980s, is that following the first skirmish andthen the peace treaty, and contrary to hisearlier defiant stand of “NO RICKSHAWS”,Mr. Chakraborty has announced that the stategovernment has “begun discussions with twoautomobile companies, Bajaj Auto andTelco, to design and manufacture a smallerand simpler version of the auto-rickshaw,which can be handed over to the rickshaw-and handcart-pullers as an alternative modeof employment” (The Telegraph, September24, 1996). Taken at face value, this shouldalso be accepted as an advance since the1980s. But closer examination of what Mr.Chakraborty said reveals that the governmentwill also be holding “a meeting withrepresentatives of nationalised banks andstate co-operative banks … very soon”, andthat “a formula will be chalked out to makemoney available (sic) to rickshaw- andhandcart-pullers or any other interestedunemployed person, he said” (TheTelegraph, September 24, 1996). Aside fromseveral other problems with this proposal,this is the crunch line: the process ofsupposedly giving employment alternativesto “the poor pullers” is evidently being usedonce again as an entry door for “other



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interested persons”. History is only repeatingitself.

Some conclusions

It is important to realise that the anti-rickshaw drive now being given shape, hasnot suddenly materialised. There are clearlypeople, and sections, within government whoare determined to remove rickshaws,whatever it takes. Recently, The Guardian inBritain carried an article headlined “End ofthe road for rickshaws: Plans to moderniseCalcutta will rob 60,000 human engines oftheir jobs”. The article quoted AshimBurman, Commissioner of the CalcuttaMunicipal Corporation (who was credited as“shaking things up since taking over last yearas Calcutta’s city commissioner”), as saying:“Man pulled rickshaws have to be dispensedwith ... They add to congestion, and they arehumiliating” (The Guardian October 5,1995). The article also pointed out that “MrBurman is part of a wider effort toreinvigorate Calcutta … The Communistpoliticians who control the West Bengal stategovernment and its capital Calcutta havebegun to turn their backs on Marxistorthodoxy … Travelling widely in an effort toattract foreign investment, they have vowedthat Calcutta will one day outpace Bombay.”This part of the grand plan has yet to mature.

There was no mention of alternatives forthe pullers in The Guardian article, just as itwas not there in the state government’sattempt in 1982-84 to ban rickshaws. Thatthis question is now in the open, it needs tobe considered as at least some advance, asdoes the forthright position that Mr.Bhattacharya has taken - at one point - on thecontribution that rickshaw pullers make tothe city. If the criticism is that men pullingother human beings is inhuman, and that theoverall objective is to humanise society, thenthe questions to be asked are: How can thisbe done? Can the humanisation of societyreally be done by executive fiats from above,or does it not require that the pullersthemselves are a part of the process? Thatthey must be involved, and that whatevereducation it requires to achieve this, mustnecessarily be a part of this? In formal terms,the Left has historically emphasised thenecessity of the emancipation of theoppressed, and the successes of many of thecampaigns and struggles it has been involvedwith before and after independence, hascome from this strength. But where does theLeft Alliance government in West Bengalstand on these question?

Secondly, it is also very important that thepublic does not allow itself to behoodwinked and that in the name ofproviding employment alternatives to“rickshaw pullers and to other interestedsections”, that what happens is that vehiclesare introduced again, just as in 1983, and goto strategically-placed “other sections” whowould never have stooped to do somethingmanual like pulling a rickshaw. The stategovernment should be asked to categoricallylimit benefits of this scheme only to thosewho were previously rickshaw- or handcart-pullers, and to no one else. If the scheme isnot workable with these people, then thescheme should be closed - not simplytransferred to another group of people. Inaddition, the government should also beasked to keep in mind that if its scheme doesnot work, then how will the services lost bereplaced, and what other alternatives is itoffering to the disemployed pullers?

Thirdly, while it is good to see that thegovernment is this time talking oftechnological alternatives to the hand-pulledrickshaw, and that the cost of the alternativesis one of the considerations, there is muchreason to think that an engine-driven,“cheaper auto-rickshaw” is neither feasiblenor the required answer to the situation; andthat some variation of the idea of a human-driven “city rickshaw” proposed by Unnayanback in 1984 still deserves seriousconsideration. An engine-driven vehicle,especially if made by the likes of industriessuch as Bajaj and Telco, is unlikely to bemade available at a cost that the existinghand-pulled rickshaw pullers - and not otherunemployed sections - can afford to buy andrepay the loan on. On top of this, in analready dangerously polluted city such asCalcutta, it is essential to keep in mind thatmore engine-powered vehicles on the streetswill only add heavily to both noise and airpollution. A human-driven machine can, ifproperly organised as a scheme, overcomemost of these disadvantages. And a machinesuch as the one proposed by Unnayan is noless dignified than an engine-drivenmachine.

Fourthly, any such plan has two basic andinterrelated requirements. To begin, itrequires that detailed re-thinking be done interms of traffic and transport planning of thecity. This re-thinking must take into accountboth the kind of real transport needs that thedifferent classes and sections of the cityrequire, in the widely-varying localities thatexist (from dense central and north Calcutta,to the more suburban areas), as well as the



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amount and kinds of road-space that isavailable, and also the local availability ofhuman labour power. Some amount of futureplanning, attempting to predict requirementsand availabilities in the future is required. Itneeds to be recognised that there is conflictbetween slow and fast-moving vehicles - butequally, it needs to be recognised that theresolution to this is by no means that slow-moving vehicles should be removed. In someareas, and on some roads, it is the movementof faster-moving vehicles which should berestricted. Zone separation and routesegmentation (of fast- and slow-movingvehicles) are possible, and should be tried onan experimental basis in different areas untilthe right balance is achieved. If it can workin other cities in the world, there is no reasonwhy it should not work in Calcutta. It is aquestion only of there being available thenecessary political vision and will.

In addition, there is a need to thinkbeyond the level of planning “for” people,and to move to planning “with” people. Themeetings that have been taking place withthe non-governmental organisations of theintelligentsia is better than no meetings at all,but the government needs to move beyondlimiting its vision to only the middle-classesand to directly involve those who are bearingthe brunt of the changes it is proposing: thelabouring classes & the citizens of theunintended city. Recognising this so-farunintended, unrecognised world, involvingits members in the planning of their ownfutures and more generally the city, wouldconstitute one of the most powerful andmeaningful ways to change the presentsituation, and is a prerequisite for a civilisedtransition from where we are today. Even ifthe sleight of hand (that seems planned andhas the outward appearance of progress andmodernisation) simply to legislate out thelivelihoods and existence of some people,and to legislate in favour of others can be

blocked, it is no change from a backwardpast.

Finally, Calcutta has a very specialresponsibility in this field. It is most likelythe very last city in the world and hopefullyin history, to have hand-pulled rickshaws.Despite the inhumanity of man pulling man,and despite the feudality of the trade, the jinrikisha (“man-pulled vehicle” in Japanese - itwas arguably first introduced there about1869) has played a memorable role in thehistory and culture of humankind. Thestruggle of rickshaw pullers, perhapsprecisely because of the mesmerisingreminder that it offers of the real nature ofhuman relations in society, has figuredwidely in the literature of possibly all Asiancultures, certainly in all parts of India. Therickshaw, indeed, has only operated in Asia -in colonial Asia. It was introduced, itproliferated, and it operated as a reflection ofa time and of societies where humans becamecheaper to use as beasts of burden thananimals. We are now, thankfully, movingpast those times. In almost all other contexts,including within India, the rickshaw - andthe rickshaw-puller - was simply driven out,crushed out of existence - which, as I argueabove, is just as authoritarian as the societiesfrom which they emerged. In this situation,Calcutta needs to do two things: one, andbeyond doubt first of all, it needs to phaseout its own part in this past in as meaningfuland graceful fashion as possible - andequally, it needs to phase in the future in acivilised and democratic way. Two, andespecially given its penchant for the unusual,Calcutta should seriously considerestablishing - and taking some liberty withthe original language - a “Museum of theRikisha Jin and the Jin Rikisha”, as atestament to the struggle of the rickshaw-pullers of Asia, both in the past and thefuture.



References:Sen, J., (1975), “The Unintended City: An Essay on the City of the Poor.” Cathedral Relief Services, Calcutta.Thomas, T.H. and Unnayan, (1981), “Rickshaws in Calcutta.” Unnayan, Calcutta.

Acknowledgement: We are gratefulfor permission to reprint this article which appeared in asimilar form in Economic and Political Weekly, Bombay, November 9-16 1996.

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in power in West Bengal for the last 22 yearswith an absolute majority in the assemblywhere the opposition is virtuallynonexistent. Therefore, the local cultureswhich prevail over traditional values arebelieved to be the product of an unusuallystable government for an unusually longperiod. Calcutta is inhabited by far more poorpeople compared to other metropolises inIndia.

Public transport in the early days

Calcutta and Howrah have had electrictramways since 1902. In fact, the municipalarea of Calcutta was defined as the areaserved by the Calcutta Tramways Company(CTC). The network was, and still is, sointricate particularly in north and centralCalcutta that any place could be reached bytrams coupled with 10-12 minutes walking.The two cities, including their tramways,were connected by the famous cantileverHowrah bridge which still serves as the mainlinkage between the two cities. Bus service ofsignificance came into existence in 1948when the Calcutta State TransportCorporation (CSTC) was formed primarily forcreating jobs for East Bengal immigrants andthat gradually replaced private busesoperating in the city. After independence dueto expansion of the city and stalled growth ofCTC by the British owners a situation cameabout in 1960 where CSTC and CTC shared60% and 40% of commuters respectively.

Calcutta is well connected by broad gaugeelectrical multiple unit coaches in additionto long distance trains. The two railwaystations Howrah and Sealdah cater formillions of commuters who travel as much as100 km to work each day in the city.

Present public transport system

Inefficiency and corruption in state ownedorganisations have compelled private busoperators, once banned from city roads, to

Unco-ordinated public transport: Calcutta style

Debasish Bhattacharyya:Unco-ordinated Public Transport:Calcutta Style


Debasish BhattacharyyaIndian Institute of Chemical Biology, Jadavpore, Calcutta 32, India

Abstract

Calcutta's public transport has developed ina very haphazard manner, with a mixture ofpublic and private providers. The privateoperators are beyond any regulation. It istotally unco-ordinated and insufficient forthe needs of the city. Levels of investmentare low, the infrastructure is in poorcondition and it is in urgent need ofintegration.

Introduction

CALCUTTA, the gateway to eastern India, issituated on the eastern side of the RiverHooghly about 200 km north of the Bay ofBengal. On the opposite side of the riverstands the industrial town of Howrah, oftenreferred as the twin city. The city grew in anunplanned manner during the British periodwhen it was the capital of India. Since theturn of the century and the laying of railwaytracks on either side of the Hooghly, growthof the city concentrated in particular alongthe attractive river corridor. The condition ofthe city deteriorated due to the influx of ahuge number of refugees from East Pakistan(now Bangladesh) in 1947 when Indiaachieved political independence, andsubsequent in migration. At present Calcuttais the capital of the state of West Bengal.

History reveals that leftist ideology ispopular among Bengalis. Care is taken toharmonise policies with this sentiment,though often blind adherence to certainideologies has led to the total collapse ofmany systems, regardless of whether it is thetransport or education sector. It is importantto note that Calcutta experienced terriblecivil disturbances during the 1970s at thehands of ultra leftists and a kind of fearpsychosis has gripped its citizens since then.Subsequently, it was thought politically thatthe destruction of civic facilities and civilindiscipline are protests against theestablishment. Incidentally, the left has been

Keywords

Public Transport

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cater for the growing needs of commuters.This does not mean CSTC was dismantled,rather four more state transport corporationswere invited to compete in city roads. Theyare North Bengal STC, South Bengal STC,West Bengal Surface TC and newly built,highly controversial, CTC buses. The tramservice was effectively stopped when thestate government planned to phase out tramsand replace the service by diesel buses. Thetramway fleet was reduced from 384 (1990)to 318 (1995) and procurement of 300 CTCbuses was done in an unbelievably speedymanner in spite of worldwide criticism. Now,the combined strength of all the state ownedtransport fleets are woefully inadequate forthe city’s needs; an estimate puts the figure at15% low proportion of outshedding -sometimes as low as 50%, a high rate ofbreakdowns, irregularity of timings,replacement of magnificent double deckerbuses by mini/midi buses, issue of multipletickets per passenger etc., make it impossibleto quantify the efficiency of state transport.

It is evident, therefore, that theresponsibility of mass transport lies onprivate bus operators. They are nowsufficiently strong and organised and havethe ability to collapse the city bywithdrawing their service if necessary. Theyformulate rules according to their maximumbenefits and the city authority has no powerto tackle the nuisance caused by theiroperations. The government as a modelemployer has failed to protect the interest oftransport workers. The bus owners makeprofit by deceiving the passengers of theirlegal dues on one hand and exploiting theirworkers on the other; for example, a crewworks 16 hours at a stretch in high summerfor 15 days and then has his job terminated.These situations often tinted in politicalcolour make the matter worse. There areother cities in India, e.g. Bombay, Hyderabad,Trivandrum, Bangalore, etc., where citytransport is fully nationalised and fairlyefficient.

As mentioned earlier commuter trainsprovide an important linkage betweenCalcutta with its surroundings though thetrains become extremely crowded duringpeak hours. Train services in the Howrahdivision are comparatively better while theSealdah division, which serves the easternpart of the city, is badly affected by largescale fare dodging. There is no doubt that thework efficiency of commuters is considerablyreduced due to their tiresome train journeys.

Calcutta has had a plan for a circularrailway for at least half a century and finallyhas its truncated form - a non-electrifiedsingle line with infrequent service whichterminates abruptly at a nonresidential areathus preventing its proper use. However,compared to the run down conditions of thesurface railways, Calcutta has its world classmetro railway spanning across the city in asingle corridor. It is nicely connected withSealdah main line to the north, butcommuters from south of Sealdah have noscope to use this facility. Essentially the lackof a feeder network, infrequent service andlack of combined ticketing systems have keptthe metro much underutilised.

Calcutta has over 20,000 taxis, infamousfor passenger refusal, charging exorbitantly atthe slightest pretext, tampered meters, illegalferrying passengers from point to point, andabove all the most polluting vehicles everseen in any city in the world. Recentadditions are 10,000 auto-rickshaws whoseoperations are truly above and beyond allregulation. From the date of introductionthey refused to use meters or carrypassengers on shuttle service. It is theirunions associated with different politicalparties who distribute quotas of differentroutes and set passenger fares. Though builtfor three people, frequently they carry asmany 6 or 8 passengers within city limits.Accidents related to auto-rickshaws arecommon, yet people continue to use thempartly due to the belief that auto-rickshawsare fast and partly due to lack of propertransport facilities. In addition, taxis andauto-rickshaws are quite expensive inCalcutta.

Recent open market policy and variousincentives to automobile lobbies made itpossible to sell 30,000 cars per year inCalcutta alone. Since in India old cars areseldom condemned, an extrapolated figureindicates that by 2001 Calcutta will have aprivate car population of 800,000 vehicles.As expected they are the major source ofcongestion, air and noise pollution, roadaccidents and various illegal activities. Itappears that poorer countries of the world ingeneral have accepted private car ownershipas an index of their progress while thewestern world has rejected this notionfollowing their own experience over decades.

Among the non-motorised modes oftransport, the ferry services across the RiverHooghly at different points, though



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particularly at Howrah railway station, arevery popular. Hand-drawn rickshaws are stillused in Calcutta city proper. A governmentdecision to replace them by auto-rickshawshas been resisted by the citizens. The manualrickshaws provide tremendous benefits to thecity (see table 1). The logic that ‘a human

Why Calcutta lacks an advancedpublic transport system

It is curious to note that in spite of giganticvolumes of people depending on publictransport, Calcutta never had a wellcoordinated system. Major reasons for thedeficiency are:

• By the time the need for a coordinatedsystem was strongly felt, say for the last 25years, the left was in power. Theirstrength was rural based out ofcommendable land reform policies andthey systematically neglected urbandevelopments;

• The managements of state ownedtransport operators never thought aboutbetterment of their services becauseaccountability of their work was neverasked for. Many of them are completelyunaware of what is going on in other partsof the world. Loyalty to political parties isoften their way to success;

• Transport policy makers never use publictransport rather private vehicles areinvariably provided by their office;

• All transport operators whether private orpublic enjoy some kind of politicalpatronage which protects them againstmany misdeeds, even criminal activities;

• Actual transport users includingphysically weaker passengers have noright to voice their grievances andsuggestions;

• The Calcutta Traffic Police, an untrainedand demoralised assortment, is totallyincapable of handling any traffic offences;and

• Interchange of vehicles, one ticketingsystem, use of non-petroleum modes oftransport etc., are unknown to thecitizens.

What prevents the creation of anintegrated transport body

As outlined, Calcutta’s public transport isshared in small pieces by a large number ofprivate and public operators who do not co-operate with each other. Though the stateowned organisations survive largely onsubsidies, the private bus operators largelydepend on unethical activities. A dangeroustrend visible for the past few years is where



acting as a beast’ negates the city image doesnot seem to be correct because people inother professions also use such manuallabour, though often out of sight.Furthermore, the poverty prevalent in thecity could not be erased simply by removingthe rickshaws. Pedal rickshaws are notallowed to ply in the city because ofaccidents arising from their close interactionwith pedestrians in narrower streets.

Table 1: Advantages of Manual Rickshaws• available around the clock• never refuse passengers• transport goods - safely and securely• ideal for patients and school going children• are pollution and crime free• use lanes and bylanes• avoid congestion• avoid creating congestion• locally made• provide employment to poor illiterate people• are the only mode which can operate in water logged streets of the city

Figure 1: Another example of the excellence that can be achieved by Calcutta Tramways. The area behind the carwas formerly a tram shed. It was demolished to accomodate buses at Belgatchia depot. Photo: D Bhattacharyya.

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large vehicles (e.g. double decker buses,trams, etc.) are either discontinued or theservice is shrunk and they are replaced by alarge number of small vehicles (e.g. auto-rickshaws, taxis, minibuses, etc.). Though itsatisfies the automobile lobbies andapparently creates employment, the



which they do not want. In fact, there are asmany as 15 different fare tables followed inCalcutta buses which are also different fromtrams, metro and commuter trains. Unlessuniformity in fares is first created, proper co-ordination among them cannot be achieved.

Conclusion

A huge wastage is associated with theunplanned nature of operation of publictransport in Calcutta. In many cases it issimply competition between different modesof transport (e.g. metro and buses, trams andauto-rickshaws, etc.) or bus routes, e.g. some50 bus routes operate along Chowringheecorridor where everybody is losing money.This is happening at a time when Calcuttahas approximately one third of the publicvehicles it requires. There is no restriction onthe entry of buses to the city centre wheremetro and trams have good access. There isno unit ticketing or transfer system inCalcutta which compels people to travel by asingle journey by paying once. This causesovercrowding on some routes while busesand trams which could be used by breakingjourneys remain empty. These are not at alldifficult to solve. Moreover in Calcutta thereis an overemphasis on private motorisedtransport and, as a result, the city has beenconverted to a gas chamber. Walking,cycling, metro, trams and commuter trainsare used at far below their capacities andpotential.

Politics is nasty everywhere, Calcutta isnot an exception. Yet the leftist governmentper se should not be blamed for the chaoticsituation of the city. It is strictly thegovernment officials who surrenderedthemselves for short sighted benefits relatedto their office. Equally culpable are theworker unions who neither take care of theirindustry nor of the workers. Unless citizensbecome conscious of their liabilities of betterliving there is hardly any scope forimprovement.

Figure 2: Tramways are the only viable mode of public transport which could satisfy growing needs of the citywith a clean environment. Built indigeneously, Coach No 683 was photographed after full renovation at CalcuttaTramways Nonapukur central workshop. Photo: Foreman, Belgatchia Depot

advantages are negated when air pollution,road accidents, congestion, noise and thehuge deficit in imported oil are considered.Moreover the potency of job creation bynonconventional modes of transport isalways ignored.

The fare structures of public transport inCalcutta are not only strange but highlyarbitrary. The CSTC pioneered the raising ofbus fares by a back door policy - they raisefares promising better facilities, but within ashort time the improvements disappear andthe increased fare remains. Some of the busfares are quite prohibitive and these servicesare neither profitable nor serviceable. Thesecompel poorer passengers to either hang onthe outside and travel for free, bribe theconductors or pay more for such reasons

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Abstract

Calcutta's underground railway hastremendous unexploited potential as part ofan integrated transport system. However it isjust one of many competing providers, isgrossly underutilised and makes anoperational loss. A variety of solutions arerequired to improve its fortunes.

Background

Calcutta, Job Charnock’s ‘chance directedand chance erected’ city is over threehundred years old. From an amalgamation ofthree tiny villages, Kalikata; Sutanuti andGobindopur, consisting of few hundreds ofpeople, Calcutta has grown enormously tobecome one of the top ten megacities of theworld. Hailed as the city that refuses nobody,its strategic location, coupled with politicalchaos in its hinterland, and its status as thecommercial capital of all of eastern and northeastern India has contributed to its growth.Sadly this ‘growth’ has restricted itself onlyin terms of population size and expansion ofboundaries, and that too as Kipling put itmost aptly, in a ‘chance directed and chanceerected’ manner, and not necessarily in termsof infrastructure development. This has putthe city under severe strain in all aspects ofbasic civic requirements and ‘transport’figures prominently in the list.

The factors contributing to a steadilydeteriorating transport scenario are too manythough amazingly low road space (about 4%)and continuously increasing traffic areconsidered the pick of them. Though theproblem assumes great significance on theonset of the 21st century, the strain started toshow far earlier. The father of the modernWest Bengal, Chief Minister Dr. BidhanChandra Roy, the great visionary that he was,could sense it as early as 1949. Heunderstood that one of the potentialsolutions to the problem was to create moreroad space, and as that was not all that easy

on the surface in view of the city’ssocioeconomic fabric and unplannedstructuring, he proposed to go below it. Justtwo years after independence, under hisinitiative, a team of French experts visitedthe city to assess the feasibility of building anunderground railway system. According toMr. A. K. Bandopadhyay, (Chief Traffic andTransport planner, Government of WestBengal) the French team ‘found constructionof an underground railway in Calcuttafeasible and they recommended two lines,one from Kalighat to Paikpara and the otherbetween Howrah and Sealdah Station’. ButDr. Roy’s effort did not bear any fruit andCalcutta had to wait almost another twodecades for relaunching of the concept.When CMPO prepared the traffic andtransportation plan for Calcutta in 1966, botha circular railway and an undergroundrailway were recommended. A detailedtechno-economical feasibility study of theunderground railway was carried out in theearly 1970s by an organisation named‘Metropolitan Transport Project (Railways)’which was set up by the Government ofIndia. Based on the substance of this report,an underground Metro Rail between DumDum junction and Tollygunge for a length of16.45 km was cleared in 1973. In 1979 theorganisation was renamed ‘Metro Railway’.The planning of the route of Metro Railwayhad been done on the basis of traffic surveyfigures provided by CMPO. Its 1971 figuresshowed that on an average week day, about21.5 lakhs (2.15 million) people moved in anorth-south direction while 10.1 lakhs (1.01million) people travelled in an east-westdirection.

Operation

Though the project implementation started in1973-74, it didn’t gather momentum until1977-78. The partial service betweenEsplanade and Bhowanipore, a stretch of3.40 km and 5 stations, was initiated on 24October 1984. Within another couple of yearsthe service mainly to the southern sector,

The underground railway system in Calcutta

Keywords

Investment, Metro,Integrated transport

Jayanta Basu: The undergroundrailway system in Calcutta


Jayanta BasuZoologist and Environmental Contributor, Calcutta.

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covering 9.79 km and 11 stations, wasopened. However, it took a long time toinitiate the service in the northern sector.Ultimately on 27 September, 1995, as per theadvertisement ‘Calcutta has her wings’,services were opened along the entire stretchof 16.45 km between Dum Dum andTollygunge, roughly two decades afterconstruction had started (see Table 1). Thisunusual delay not only magnified thecomplications and problems associated withconstructing such a system in an unplannedcity like Calcutta, but also escalated the costphenomenally from an initial estimate of 140crores (Rs 1,400 million / £ 25.5 million) tomore than 1,610 crores (Rs 16,100 million /£293 million).

Contribution and socioeconomic impact

Historically, Calcutta always has had a mixedfeeling about the Metro Railway. The project,aimed to solve Calcutta’s acute transportproblem, had ironically thrown the city’straffic system into absolute chaos for morethan two decades due to its ‘far behind theschedule completion’ and ‘cut and cover’method employed for construction. One ofthe main arterial connections of the citystretching from Tollygunge in South Calcuttato Shyambazar in North Calcutta via thecommercial hub of the city; i.e. Esplande,B.B.D. Bag and Central area; was hugelydisturbed. Not only did general commutersface problems, but businesses along theconstruction corridor were adversely affectedduring the period. Thus, the initial reactionwas of irritation. Then when theunderground railway became a reality andpeople started to taste the comfortable; cleanand fast journey across the city which wasuntil then unthinkable in Calcutta, the moodchanged into elation.

The fact that people can travel fromTollygunge to the city-centre within 15minutes and Dum Dum in just over half anhour, is a far cry from the experiencesCalcuttans had on the surface. In the peakoffice hours, surface transport crawls at about6 to 8 km per hour which is 4 to 5 timesslower than the Metro. The situationbecomes far worse during the monsoon dueto Calcutta’s famous waterlogging. However,recently at the joint initiative of StateTransport Minister, Mr. SubhashChakraborty; Municipal Commissioner, Mr.Ashim Burman and efficient City PoliceCommissioner, Mr. Dinesh Bajpayee, illegalencroachments on the roads and footpathshave been cleared and surface transportmodes have started to move faster. Theadvantage of comparative comfort in Metro isa bonus. According to many regular Metrocommuters, the underground journey notonly has ensured their timely arrival at work,but also significantly contributed to their joboutput. Previously the ‘war through Calcuttaroads’ took a high toll on them and they hadlittle energy left for their office work. Thus,Metro in a way has increased productivityand also helped in the better time utilisation.

Another big plus point of Metro Railway isits lack of local air pollution. It assumes moresignificance in a highly polluted city likeCalcutta. Ironically, the chief source of airpollution in Calcutta is ‘surface transportgenerated pollution’. A recent status reportby the Central Pollution Control Board noted

Table 1: Salient features of the Calcutta Metro as provided by the Metro Authority

Total Route Length ............................ 16.45 kmStations .............................................. 17 (15 underground, 1 on surface and 1 elevated)Coaches per train .............................. 8 coachesMaximum permissible speed ............. 55 km/hourAverage speed ................................... 30 km/hourVoltage ............................................... 750 Volts D.C.Method of current collection .............. Third railTravel time: Dum Dum-Tollygunge ... 33 minutesCoach capacity .................................. 278 standing, 48 sittingTrain capacity .................................... 2558 Passengers (approximately)Project cost ........................................ 1,610 crores (approximately)Environmental Control ....................... Forced ventilation with washed and cooled air.



Belgachia

Dum Dum

Shymbazar

Sovabazar

Girish Park

M. G. Road

Central

Chandni ChowkEsplanade

Park Street

Maidan

Rabindra Sadan

Bhowanipur

Tollygunge

Rabindra Sarobar

Kalighat

Jatindas Park

Figure 1: Calcutta Metro

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up to Garia becomes a reality. Incidentally,the areas along the Metro route have becomethe most densely inhabited zones in Calcuttaand there has been rapid expansion incommercial activity in these regions.

In this context it will be relevant to addthat a Metro culture has developed inCalcutta over the last few years. Traffic, beinghighly unruly on the surface, becomesdisciplined once it goes down to the Metrozone. Perhaps the clean and pleasantatmosphere, with bright advertisements /drawings (providing revenue to Metro Rail)being systematically displayed and an overallair of efficiency rubs off on generalcommuters.

Problems and Suggestions

The major problem with Metro Railway inCalcutta so far, is its gross underutilisation.According to the data provided by the Metroauthority, on average about 2 lakhs (200,000)people travel on Metro Railway on workingdays which is roughly 2 - 3 % of the entiretraffic load of the city. The figure does notattach credibility to any transport system andfar less so for a system, which cost 160 croresand whose running cost is more than 65crores (Rs 650 million / £ 11.8 million) perannum. As a matter of fact, per day earningof Metro Railway is about 5.5 lakhs (Rs550,000 /£ 10,000) and its operational loss is about240%. Incidentally, operational loss is farless in other railways despite the fact that themenace of ‘without ticket journeys’ is fargreater in those sectors. Thus, it seems thatthe so called success of Metro Railway isonly phenotypic and the scars are wideningbelow the surface. Now what factor(s) may beresponsible for this? To answer in a one-liner: total lack of integration among variousmodes of transport. The contention can beaptly established with the help of thebreakup of the passenger figures with respectto each stations. According to data provided,the greatest passenger load is at Dum Dum,being more than 36,000 per day. Esplande,Tollygunge, Shyambazar, Central,Chandnichak, Rabindra Sadan and Kalighatalso draw over 10,000 passengers a day;while the passenger load in Bhowanipore,Maidan and Belgachia are far less than that;being least in Bhowanipore, at about 4,500per day (See Table 2). Interestingly, many ofthe higher passenger drawing stations areclose to major east - west connections andexcepting the regular traffic plying on that

that Calcutta yields 188.24 tonnes of Carbonmonoxide; 43.88 tonnes of Hydrocarbons and3.25 tonnes of SPM (suspended particulatematter) daily, and the major responsibility forthis falls on surface transport.

The gradual evolution of Metro Railway asa mass transport and its impact on thesocioeconomic fabric of the society istremendous. Initially when it wasoperational as far as Esplande, only aparticular fragment of society, mainly middleclass officegoers, used to avail of it. It seemedthat the world above and below in Calcuttawere altogether different. But with theopening up of the entire stretch, partintegration with Suburban Railway and therealisation among common people about thevalue of time have changed all that. Now,Metro Railway traffic represents the actualCalcutta as people from all sections of societyavail of this modern day transport. Addingescalators has made it more accessible forelderly and widow/orphan.

Moreover Metro Railway has significantlyinfluenced settlement patterns and landpricing in Calcutta. These have shot upabruptly along the route of the Metro. Landprices in areas such as Tollygunge, whichwas significantly less before the initiation ofMetro Rail, has increased by 200 - 400 %over the last few years. Not only Tollygunge,even land prices in areas further south suchas Garia, Narendrapur and Rajpur haveincreased significantly due to respectiveMetro proximity. It is believed that the samewill increase further if the Metro extension



Table 2: Stationwise passenger breakup, 5 June 1997

Stations No. of Passengers bookedDum Dum 36,744Park Street 9,296Belgachia 6,345Maidan 6,828Shyambazar 12,895Rabindra Sadan 13,199Sovabazar 9,512Bhowanipore 4,581Girish Park 7,799Jatin Das Park 8,118Mahatma Gandhi Road 8,736Kalighat 12,424Central 12,222Rabindra Sarobar 9,325Chandni Chak 13,510Tollygunge 18,260Esplanade 21,873Total Passengers 211,667

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line feeding the Metro, even unplannedconnecting transport modes like share taxiand autos have generated extra passengers inall those Metro stations thus creating new jobopportunities.

The observation really emphasises theimportance of integrating surface transportmodes along with Metro, especially thoserunning perpendicular to Metro line. Thesemblances of planned integration onlyexists at Dum Dum where Metro; Suburbanand Circular Railways are running side byside, thus making it easier for the trafficcoming from city outskirts to shift from onemode of transport to another for theircomfortable and quick passage up to the citycore. Still, it is widely believed thatpassenger load and earning would be furtherincreased if certain Metro connectingSuburban trains start from Dum Dum stationitself, because now on peak office hours itbecomes highly difficult for Metro alightingpeople to catch hold of already filled uptrains.

Incidentally, the feeding and generalintegration of Metro and other surface modesof transport will be further successful if anintegration in the ticketing system can bedeveloped as happens in many othercomparable cities. Single ticket systems willautomatically relax the passenger and alsoincrease the overall revenue as the withoutticket syndrome of Suburban Railway will beautomatically diluted. Things will alsoimprove if Metro is extended to south Gariabecause the population density is very highin that area. A feasibility study is alreadyunderway.

Other basic problems of Metro Railway arethe management and maintenance, rather thelack of them, and noise pollution. Theunderground Railway had proposed to run inevery 2.5 minutes in its original brochure,but it now runs in every 12 minutes in peakoffice hours and about 15 - 20 minutes atother times. Out of a total 148 coaches, only112 ply (56 pairs of train per working day)regularly with an outshading of about 78%.This is quite low with respect to the shortdistance which Calcutta Metro has to ply. Asfor the maintenance part, the system whichwas previously believed to be highly efficientand rarely skipped a minute from thescheduled time, has lost a lot of itscredibility of late. Such things as technicalsnags, behind schedule running, incomplete

journeys and sudden train cancellation arequite common now, especially since theentire route was opened. A major fire brokeout on 9th October 1995, while problems of asmaller nature are quite frequent. Total staffstrength of Calcutta Metro is 3,370 which is30 staff per train. The statistic does not speakhighly off the maintenance and managementpart of Metro Railway.

As for noise pollution, Calcutta Metro isone of the noisiest in the world. Anindependent survey finding of the author(supported by the West Bengal PollutionControl Board authorities) indicate that theaverage noise level in Calcutta Metro isaround 90 - 100 decibels which is far above75 decibels, the highest permissible limit ofnoise pollution set by the West BengalPollution Control Board. The Supreme Courtand Green Bench of Calcutta High Court havetaken notice of this and remedial efforts areunderway. But, lack of proper noisepollution prevention equipment in the designcoupled with openable windows make ithighly difficult to control the problem.According to noted ear, nose and throatspecialist and ex-sheriff of Calcutta, Dr.Abirlal Mukherjee, prolonged exposure tothis kind of noise pollution may causeirreparable damage to regular Metrotravellers.

In this respect, another study is worthmentioning. During the construction phase ofMetro, it was reported that higher Carbonmonoxide levels inside the tunnel made thelabourers addicted to ‘sweetening poison.’Hopefully, the Metro authority has takennote of it.

Future Plans

Future proposals for Metro Railway mainlyincludes its extension. As alreadymentioned, a feasibility study about theextension of the system up to Garia isunderway. It is worth noting that during theoriginal planning of Calcutta Metro, a stretchof 97.5 km of underground Railway wassuggested. Excepting the Dum Dum -Tollygunge (extension up to Garia) line, twoother proposed Metro lines were (i) Salt Lake- Ramrajatala and (ii) Dakshineshwar - Joka,Behala. Even the crossings for east - westdirection (Salt Lake - Ramrajatala) were doneclose to Shyambazar and Central station bySenbo Engineering. Though building another



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Bandopadhyay, A. K., (1991) “Traffic andTransportation situation in Calcutta: Pattern ofits growth and outlook for the future” in CalcuttaUrban Future pp. 312-344 published byGovernment of West Bengal.

Basu, J., (1995) “Rumblings Beneath” pp. 84-85;Sunday, 1st October 1995.

Bhattacharya, M., (1991) “Municipal Calcutta andEvolutionary perspective” in Calcutta UrbanFuture pp. 8-21 published by Government ofWest Bengal.

Building the Metro Railway in Calcutta (1983).Chakraborty, A., (1996) “Railgari - Baspiorath

thekay Metro”, published by Pratikhan, 1996.Metro Railway Calcutta (1997).

Mr. S. Chakraborty, Minister of Transport; WestBengal Government.

Mr. A.K. Bal, CPRO; Metro RailwayMr. S. Sarkar, Ex CPRO; Metro Railway.Mr. D. Bajpayee, Commissioner of Police; Calcutta.Dr. A.L. Mukherjee, Ex-Sheriff of Calcutta.Prof. J. Whitelegg, Transport Specialist; Liverpool

John Moores UniversityMr. B. Mukherjee, Law officer; West Bengal

Pollution Control Board.Dr. S.K. Das, Prof. of Zoology; Ashutosh College.Mr. K. Sengupta, M.D.; Senbo EngineeringAll Metro Workers

References: Acknowledgements



Metro line seems to be a difficult propositionat present, thinking in that direction mayhave to be undertaken in the not too distantfuture in view of the continual expansion ofthe city’s eastern fringes.

Recently, the State Transport Minister Mr.Subhas Chakraborty floated a proposal aboutbuilding shopping complexes and carparking areas on the upper tier above Metrobox, in between the box and the surface. Thepreliminary study by Senbo Engineeringproposed to house about 4,000 - 5,000 shopsand 10,000 car parking spaces within thestretch from Tollygunge to Shyambazar.However, the project is still in an embryonicstate.

All said and done, Metro Railway isdefinitely an important and obligatoryaddition to the flagging Calcutta transportscenario though it has yet to realise its fullpotential. Lewis Carol, in a poem onceridiculed the lack of success of Railways byreferring to Railway’s share of traffic:

They sort it out with Thimbles;they sort it out with carethey pursued it with forks and hope;they threatened its life with a Railway sharethey charmed it with smiles and soap.

It is certain that if Calcutta Metro does notchange its track, nobody will be interested tobuy its share.

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