Delhi's odd-even car formula bad news for women
Only odd or even numbered cars and two-wheelers on Delhi streets in a particular day is the kind of decision which sounds fascinating, and looks good on papers. A little thought on the implementation and repercussion part of it makes it look like a decision made in haste with little understanding of how and why people commute the way they do.
The problem of pollution needs to be tackled with an urgency. But is creating another mess the right way to do it? The general impression that people defending the rule are trying to give is that commuting in private vehicles, especially cars, is an "elite" or lifestyle choice. This might be true for a few, but doesn’t necessarily apply on the entire population, a major chunk of which commutes everyday to work. On many of them, this choice is forced by pathetic public transport connectivity and poor services. Some of these are women.
According to Census data on non-agricultural workers, a staggering 4.5 million people in the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi commute to work daily. Among them, more than six lakh are female workers.
The first reactions of disgust I heard about the decision to enforce the odd-even formula were from my female colleagues living far away from office. I am sure this echoed across offices which have women working late at night, or travelling long distances from areas with poor public transport connectivity. To them, commuting in their own cars is a matter of safety. Yes, buying a car requires a certain degree of financial stability, but in a city which has a poor reputation as far as women's safety is concerned, female workers often prioritise on using their own cars because of the lack of robust public transport services. Delhi is still better, many of the workers commute from Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon where the condition is worse.
The Census data highlights some clear trends in the use of four wheelers in the city:
1. Only ten per cent male commuters travel in four wheelers, as against 14 per cent female workers. Compare this with the national average of about three per cent for men and two per cent for women.
2. For women workers, four wheelers are the third most popular transport choice, while for men it is the fifth most popular.
3. Only about five per cent of women who work within one kilometre prefer them as against 40 per cent of those commuting 31-50km. This debunks the claim that using your own car is a status or a lifestyle choice. It also brings focus on women travelling across states for work.
I take the metro to work. I can do that because of the location advantage that I have, living in a well-connected locality where accessibility to public transport isn’t an issue. I don’t have to worry about waiting for an auto on a secluded spot with no last mile connectivity. At many places where even the nearest bus stop or metro station is a few kilometres away, people don’t have that advantage.
Daily commute isn’t only about choosing the more convenient option, it is also about selecting the safer one. In the current situation, commuting to work in a private vehicle is also about the assurance of being safe. The bid to implement the idea of keeping some vehicles off the city’s roads without providing a proper alternative is not only a half-baked measure, it is simply foolish.