Vehicles on Pune roads to hit 19-lakh mark soon
Times of India: The city’s vehicular population is likely to hit the 19 lakh mark next month. In the last nine months alone, there has been an addition of over one lakh vehicles, which comes to around 370 vehicles a day on average.
Statistics provided by the Regional Transport office (RTO) show that till December 2009, the number of registered vehicles was 18,91,929. This does not include the vehicles in neighbouring Pimpri-Chinchwad which has over 6 lakh vehicles.
In Pune, over 74 per cent of the total vehicles are two-wheelers. Cars and jeeps account for about 14 per cent of the total vehicles.
Once considered a city of bicycles, Pune is now definitely a city of motorised two-wheelers. Of the more then 18.9 lakh vehicles in the city, 14,10,821 are two-wheelers. In the first nine months, from April to December 2009, a total of 72,984 two-wheelers were registered. As against this, 20,940 cars and jeeps were registered.
Incidentally, while there has been a marginal drop in the registration of new cars and jeeps, there has been an increase in the number of two-wheelers registered. In 2008 (between April and December), the number
of cars registered was 21,702, while the number of two-wheelers registered was 71,836. Transport officials said that normally the registration of new cars shows a decline in December.
Of the vehicles in the city, the current number of cars and jeeps is 2,80,371. In addition, there are 2,00,737 vehicles which include taxicabs, autorickshaws, trucks, tractors and school buses.
Laxman Darade, deputy regional transport officer (deputy RTO) said that there has been no fall in the number of people going in for new vehicles. “The impact of recession is not visible on the number of new vehicles getting registered every month,” he said. Already, the revenue by way of taxes has increased by over Rs 2 crore in the first nine months of 2009, as compared to the corresponding period from April to December 2008. In the first nine months of 2009-10, the revenue has reached Rs 174.73 crore, as against Rs 172 crore in 2008.
“We have not counted vehicles in the Pimpri-Chinchwad region. The statistical work to calculate vehicular population in PCMC is under way. We will soon get those figures,” said a transport official.
Civic activists pressing for improvement of public transport think that the addition of more vehicles will only add more pressure on the city’s infrastructure. “The number of public transport vehicles is far less than what is required. This is one of the reasons why people are going on buying personal vehicles,” said Maj Gen S C N Jatar (retd) of the Nagrik Chetna Manch.
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