Where’ve all the cars gone?

Car registrations in the city have gone down by half, of bikes by one-fourth; vehicle sales nosedive

Where've all the cars gone?

Car registrations in the city have gone down by half, of bikes by one-fourth; vehicle sales nosedive

The economic slowdown is proving to be a boon for the congestion-ridden Delhi roads.

The registration of new cars in Delhi has gone down by almost 50 per cent. Only 4,658 cars were registered in December 2009 as compared to 9,216 in December 2007. In fact, Delhi has the most numbers of registered vehicles among the four Indian metros. According to estimates, the number of vehicles on Delhi roads exceeds the aggregate of registered vehicles in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata.

Rampant traffic congestion has raised concerns that if the number of vehicles keeps growing at the same rate there would be total chaos in the city. There have been demands to limit the registration of new vehicles.

According to Delhi transport department officials, it is not just cars that have registered a downward trend, registration of new two-wheelers have gone down by almost one-fourth in the past few months as well. Only 4,197 bikes and scooters were registered in December 2008, as compared to 16,231 in December 2007.

About 95 per cent of the 950 vehicles that are registered daily in the city are cars and bikes.

"Thousands of people are losing their jobs every day. Those who have been retained are facing pay-cuts. So, it is difficult to think of buying cars and any other vehicle at this point of time," said Sudhir Kumar, an IT professional from Noida, who owned a bike and had to postpone his plans to buy a new car.

While around 3.5 lakh vehicles were added to Delhi's roads in 2007, the figure stood at about 2 lakh in 2008. By December 2008, a total of 58.6 lakh vehicles were registered with the Transport Department including 37.2 lakh two-wheelers and 18 lakh cars. This nosedive in vehicle registration might ease off the jams choking the Capital's roads.u00a0

But experts say this is a temporary solution. Associate Director, Centre For Science and Environment, Anumita Roy Chaudhary, said: "It is a temporary respite. When the economy bounces back, people will again start buying vehicles. Therefore, the situation will continue to be the same until policies are framed in this regard. This is the right time for the government to invest in public transport."

According to the Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi has 21 per cent of its land area under roads, apparently the highest in the world and between the year 1996 and 2006 the road length in the city increased by 20 per cent with the number of cars increasing by 132 per cent.