 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Tegender Pawan, the former deputy mayor of Shimla, a directly elected post which is quite uncommon in Indian cities. Yeah. For the first time in the history of Fehmachal, first and last, so we are in the archives. They never wanted that to happen again and they went to the act immediately after election. So I hope you are not going to, you are not going to be the archives permanently. Only that history is going to be the archives. Absolutely. Tegender, since you know a lot about urban affairs, currently we have the issue of fair hike of the metro. Now could you tell us what, how you view the metro as a part of public transport in the city and whether such fair hikes, what implications it has for the city as a whole? Well let me just try to build the, a wider, wider debate on. Not just fair hike because I remember when I was in Shimla and it was before the, before I got elected. So there was this fair hike for the buses and we really protested for that. But we did not have the idea how important it is for the overall transport and mobility in the city. And it was only when I became the deputy mayor that I realized and it was quite strange and shocking for me that of the total, the commute that happens in the city, 47% were public transport. And of course Shimla is a highly pedestrianized place. We had some 43% pedestrians and maybe 9%, that comes to 100%, 9% private cars. And that really energizes us for a city-wide mobility plan. So well that is a separate thing. So when I look at the fair hike in Delhi, I think we also ought to know how is the mobility taking place in Delhi. Though I do not have those figures, but I am pretty sure in Delhi also a fairly large number. And in fact this was pointed out by when three of us were in the panel, Sheila Dixit was there. She had just lost by that time. And the mayor of Bogota was there. You know, I mean all those things that have happened in the conference. It was done by the Dosh Bank, London School of Economics and I was the third panelist. And the mayor of Bogota really indicating Sheila Dixit, why did she get rid of the BRT? I mean though it was not that successful, but then focusing on the public transport. Why public transport is so important? And I believe one of the important form of public transport in Delhi happens to be the metros. And a large section of people really commute in metros. Even to a fairly large extent, you are working people, middle class, lower middle class. And I do not have the percentage, but I think it is somewhere around 20 or 25%, 30% maybe there. So once you increase the hike, I mean you increase the fare, it automatically throws a good section of the people who move in a metro to some other form. Maybe they will be forced to buy scooters or they will be moving in some other form, but not your public transport. Which means A, you will find more people on the roads, again which means more congestion on the roads. And B, the entire issue of air quality, I mean because once people shift from your metros to some other form of transport, even maybe private which is in a form public, then your entire air quality is also jeopardized. Living out for the time being, we will come back to the issue of air quality, living that out for the time being. For the economic development of the city, it is important that the working people are able to travel, otherwise you really do not have the city. After all, the city is an economic place, it is working in offices, working in commercial places, even in industries of certain kinds. So the city needs public transport if it has to survive as an economic entity. You talked about the public and private transport, Delhi as you probably may be aware has about 50% of the cars of the country, new cars coming in, 50% come to Delhi. Is it possible to grow a city like this on the basis of private cars? Absolutely unsustainable I would say, absolutely unsustainable and since last three or four days I have been cycling in Delhi. So all I can say about that, I really want to substantiate your statement for that, if you bicycle on the road you will find what Mike Davy writes in Planet of Slums, the encroachment of the middle class on the poor and that is what we have, what we are witnessing even in the infrastructure development that is happening. So roads are being widened, the roads are being widened for the cars because you say 50% of the cars are in Delhi and but the spaces of the pedestrians and the cyclists has been robbed, I would say robbed. The service roads used to be for the cyclists have been completely robbed. The footpaths have disappeared. Footpaths completely missing, I mean this is the general understanding that the footpaths have been encroached by these treatment, it's not like that, I didn't find that by the way, maybe at some places it is so, but the footpaths have been encroached by these roads because the roads are widened, once you widen the road you induce the people to buy more cars. So let the roads be constricted so that people get jammed for maybe more time and then even there, I mean that churning has to take place, some other mode of transport has to be made. London people use public transport even if they are rich because it takes three hours otherwise to do the places of work. So essentially to penalize the private cars, instead of incentivizing them by giving them cheap loans, building fuel, widening the roads and so on. And in fact I remember our discussion taking place with the chief minister and that was Himachal Pradesh because when we got elected it was BJP that was in power and so we had this discussion and we were asking why do you really induce the people and provide these cheap loans, why do not you incrementize people if they buy a bicycle and commute from their home to the office in bicycle because Shimla you can understand it is a mountain terrain though I used to move on a bicycle. But then for other cities like in Himachal we have Seoul and other cities and for example Delhi or maybe any other city, why do not you incentivize and incrementize so if someone comes on the bicycle or maybe something of the sort that matrix can be evolved whereby you incentivize people who move by a public transport, b by cycles or whatever. Coming to the point that you earlier raised about the air quality, do you see a complete lack of understanding of a city when on the days that you are discussing the air quality, how poor it is and so on. At the same time you also double the metro fare. Absolutely I was actually coming to that and in fact there is this dialectics between the two I mean there is this complete unity in understanding because when we were discussing about the air quality and almost everyone even the experts from I mean this the field of science they make us believe I mean it is not just because something is burning far off maybe that is one of the pertinent reason. But also because what we call about inversion of temperature that happens in the winters here and also because of our own automobile I mean we are generating hell I mean that is what we have to understand. So what is the alternate? The alternate A has to be to ensure that we have lesser cars, lesser automobile on the roads and B we induce or create mechanisms because that has to be integrated. You cannot say that road is being run by say state government which is under ARP and the metro is being run by a central government or maybe a parasitl which is run by BJP as a citizen what is required for me I mean for me what I require is a complete integrated solution so I think that integration was completely missing so A when you want to dissuade people from moving the cars in the cities B also you ought to induce people to move in public transport especially your your metros and then in I mean it's it's ridiculous that you find enhancement of fares in fact the fare should have been reduced at the same time. At the time air quality was supposed to be the worst and we were heading less worldwide of poor air quality in cities. So in fact there at that time it should have been I mean the entire mechanism should have been reduction by 50% reduce the fare by 50% so that you induce people to move more in the metros and let me also tell you this entire logic I've been hearing that look metro will not be able to really generate profit or maybe because it's it's it's not being I mean there's a loan that has really come up to construct this metro but let me also tell you because I got this fellowship from Leipzig in Germany on urban mobility nowhere in the world except two cities nowhere I say two cities of Hong Kong and Singapore where the metro earns profit everywhere in the world it is being subsidized because you one should not forget the kind of carbon footprints that we are reducing carbon emissions that we reduce and of course I mean that is the wealth I'm that that is the wealth that one has one and also if you see the city as I said earlier as an economic unit yeah then of course social mobility and low cost going to schools colleges universities workplaces this is also what the city requires in order for it to function and let's not forget nobody talks of subsidy on the flyovers nobody talk talks about subsidies for why there is also yeah absolutely and that is all at public expense yeah but when you come to metro they talk about subsidies how the poor should really pay the cost while the rich who ride in cars are subsidizing the flyovers absolutely I fully agree with that and I think that is why we are also witnessing unfortunately the the democratic voices should have also come forward so unfortunately we did not find a manifestation of such voices happening on the streets because actually this should have been fought also on the streets and really put the the governments be the city government or the state or the central government whichever is running these institutions that look it is your business if you are not integrated for us the city is more important cities is a unit it's a functional unit so and that's how this I mean it should have traversed forward and hopefully it will I hope people understand yeah I hope and there's another catch maybe it is very difficult to bring that into discussion right now but I also find a larger macro design when you say subsidy for the flyovers for the guzzlers and all that stuff there's a catch because the World Bank in fact I am not very sure about how to how it happens in Delhi but in Himachal the World Bank is giving a very soft grant of more than 20,000 crores to widen the roads and mountains and let me tell you we don't require widened roads and mountains because the moment we widen the roads we make them more vulnerable the entire hill gets more vulnerable because you have to dump the muck and then every rainy season you have landslides all that stuff but why there's a catch World Bank invests money in third world or maybe developing developing world to ensure that the roads are widened to induce the people the rising middle class to buy cars the largest manufacturer of cars happens to be Germany but when you go to Germany and understand their mobility plan you get completely perplexed I mean it's a paradox there they are squeezing their roads so they're from eight lanes they're going to six lanes and the toll lanes are being handed over to the pedestrians and the cyclists so then I asked this mobility guy I said if then you are teaching something else but your cities cities or your country sustains on of course automobiles some something something very important then for whom are you manufacturing these cars for you and the funniest answer I got there was for you that was always what we used to say that don't follow what they say follow what they do thank thank you for being with us today it's all the time we have induced click do keep watching our YouTube channel our website and also look at us in the face in the Facebook page