Traffic hazards, fare evaders and role of government

You sure might have you heard about experiments at global level by different governments in public transport that wanted penalty raised for repeat offenders but we have our own good politicians working in this direction despite the fact that we have too few of his kind in this country that feel for environment and willing to do something seriously in this direction.

Yes I am talking about Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejariwal who has done some very bad jobs on different fronts but the one on he did for keeping the pollution under control is worth giving him credit for.  He thinks public transport should increase fine on people caught repeating pollution related rules and he is right because the way people of NCR especially Delhi city break the rules they deserve it.

But then first thing first, if people are culprit of breaking the rules the governments of different states of India not doing any better too. I mean what they have done to improve the traffic problems that force people to break the law after all they have to reach to their work places and earn their wages too.

They blame local people for evading fare in local trains and buses but they have rules in place and if someone is caught doing that he has to pay a heavy fine for his adventure. The problem is more than half the amount thus charged goes to government employees’ pockets responsible for checking these evaders and charging them instead of going to government.

I feel if they run a few trains and few buses carrying people free of cost to their destination in place of hiring these while elephants which is a burden on government exchequer collecting far lesser amount than they are paid as their salaries and perks and earning from backdoor even more than what they earn as their salaries.

I’m not a fare evader because I would rather pay the cost once every quarter of a year because that saves me money than a huge fine but the cost of public transport is ridiculous even higher than driving my own car to work but parking makes the difference. I am not on very good money at all so that plus increasing cost of living and fuel’s cost not coming down in line with the international oil prices etc is really killing me. Finally the increased public transport prices are a joke if they want to attract more people to stop using private vehicles.

Maybe our over talkative politicians should use the public transport for a change instead of zipping past the busy traffic with escorted vehicles honking sirens and hooters or should work a day at community legal center. They might then realize that the people who ‘take the taxpayer for a ride’ often suffer from myriad problems the least of which is their often insurmountable infringement fines running into the hundreds of thousands.

Tougher fines do nothing but entrench disadvantage or may be an indirect advantage to government employees responsible for collecting them and part of it going to their “Bosses in power”.  We have seen enough proof of involvement of government employees and politicians in illegal activities in last few weeks.

Image source https://pixabay.com/en/bus-public-transport-vehicle-277191/