City transport authorities give no attention to KSPCB's action plans

By Kapil Kajal

To curb air pollution in Bengaluru, the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) came up with a 44-action plan. However, the ground reality shows that numerous issues are yet to be addressed.

Experts say that the vehicular density in the city needs to be addressed and the involvement of the department responsible for tackling the public and private transportation, and traffic is needed at the most but the behaviour and steps taken by the departments towards curbing the air pollution suggest otherwise.

Out of the 44 actions, the time target for implementation of 10 actions which were assigned to the state transport department, police department (Traffic), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) are already over.

The state’s transport department was given the responsibility to restrict the use of two-stroke vehicles in a phased manner by March to which the KSPCB action plan admitted that all the auto-rickshaws plying in Bengaluru city are converted into Bi-fuel mode (LPG + Petrol). However, there are more than 25,000 two-stroke autos running in the city currently, according to data from the Auto Rickshaw Taxi Driver’s Union (ARTDU).

Sampath C, the secretary of ARTDU, stated that every auto owner can’t afford to switch to four-stroke autos as they are expensive but if the government wants the auto drivers to switch, they must provide enough subsidy for it.

Likewise, the state transport department had to check the calibration of emission monitoring equipment housed in Emission Testing Centers once in six months to know the status of equipment by December 2019, but it wasn’t carried out. Similarly, the installation of remote sensor-based Pollution Under Control system and initiate steps for retrofitting of particulate filters in diesel vehicles by March, and that remains incomplete as well.

BMTC yet to procure e-buses

The BMTC was told to phase out all BS-III vehicles and to increase the BS–IV fleet size by June 2019 while also being asked to induct 1,500 electric buses by March. At present, the BMTC is operating 3,000 BS-III buses and not even a single electric bus has been introduced in the city.

The BMTC informed that it has a practice of scrapping the buses, which have covered 8.5 lakh kilometres or 11 years of operation, whichever is earlier, while last time a BS-III bus procured was in 2011 and all the BS-III norm buses will be scrapped in a phased manner as and when they are eligible for scrapping.

Dr H Lokeshwari, Chief Scientific Officer, KSPCB, said that the KSPCB has given directions to the BMTC a lot of time to procure CNG buses but BMTC only wants e-buses and they are not even procuring the e-buses.

No regulation of traffic

The Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) was to carry out surveys to identify vulnerable roads with respect to congestion so as to regulate the traffic to which BTP identified seven roads: Tumkur Road, Bellary Road, Kanakapura Road, Mysore Road, Hosur Road, Old Madras Road and Bannerghatta Road. However, even after identifying the roads, no action has been taken to regulate the traffic on those roads as a long queue of vehicles can be seen every time on the roads.

The KSRTC has been told to construct satellite bus stands at all national highways leading to Bengaluru like Hosur Road, Old Madras Road, Magadi Road, Nelamangala, Kanakapura Road as well as near Yelahanka on Bellary Hyderabad Road by December 2020, but till now the identification of lands to construct satellite bus stand is not done.

Environmentalist Sandeep Anirudhan stated that the 44-point action plan didn’t work at all and the pollution levels in Bangalore is increasing, and that shows that either the KSPCB chose impractical suggestions or the concerned departments haven’t worked on those plans at all.

(Author is Bengaluru - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)