By Surya Khurana
For the last six to eight weeks, numerous cities across India have transformed into hazardous environments filled with toxic smoke. Whether it’s major metropolises such as Delhi and Mumbai or smaller towns like Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, Bhagpat in Uttar Pradesh, or Begusarai in Bihar, the air quality consistently falls into the ‘severe’ or ‘very poor’ categories. A recent IIT-Kanpur study has found that vehicular pollution has been contributing 25-38% to the air pollution in Delhi. While steps need to be taken to address all contributing factors, a renewed emphasis on the age-old solution of choosing buses over cars, can provide some relief.
A shift in behaviour toward more bus usage by owners of personal vehicles, for both intra and inter-city travel, will also bring many additional benefits such as a decrease in congestion, improvements in public infrastructure and taking India closer to its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2070. This can happen…
