New Delhi, January 10
It may come as a dampener for Ratan Tata and his dream car Nano, but Nobel Prize winner IPCC chief R.K. Pachauri today gave a clear thumbs down to the very thought behind the one-lakh concept.

In the past as well, Pachauri and CSE director Sunita Narain have been quite vocal about the lack of good public transport facilities in the country and the increasing number of private vehicles on Indian roads.

This is why for Pachauri while the new car may comply with all requisite environment norms, the climate change issue has gone much beyond that. He termed the new car and other cars in the category as “complete failure of the country’s transport policy, indicating of times ahead when Indian roads will be flooded with small cars”.

“Where are we going to find roads to accommodate all these cars,” Pachauri questioned at a media briefing that was actually meant to unveil a forthcoming TERI event on the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit but was largely dominated by Tata’s new car. Pachauri clarified he had nothing against the car, but what he was apprehensive about was its usage.

“I have nothing against the car. What I am against is its usage. If our roads are going to be flooded by a few million of these cars what are we going to do? To my mind this represents bankruptcy of the policy as far as public transportation is concerned,” he said, adding that each new car would impose a fresh social burden on people.

“Let us not fool the public. Did with the advent of Maruti demand for two-wheelers go down? The small car will not be a substitute for a two or a three-wheeler, it will be an add-on. It will not be a substitute, but only add to congestion on roads,” he said.

Clarifying further he said every new car on the road would use road space. “Who will pay for the utilisation of that road space? Every car going on the road also imposes a social cost on the user. More importantly is it really the kind of transport option that we want to provide to a county of over a billion people?”