Scheme to ration road space with car bans under fire in India - for not being tougher

The implementation of a fortnight-long rationing of road space in India's capital by banning cars on alternate days according to their number plates has met with a "positive" response according to the Dehli transport minister. But more than 500 people were fined in the scheme's first five hours whilst air pollution continued to be poor and complaints were made over a lack of public transport improvements, it was reported.

The minister, Gopal Rai, was reported as saying that people were following the scheme, but appealed to people to do more to change their behaviour - pinpointing women, exempted from the scheme to pick up children from school to help by taking other children in their neighbourhood. He said that pollution and traffic congestion would be reduced during the operation of the scheme.

But with the exemptions, and with promised new buses not due to arrive until next month, there were complaints in the media that particulate pollution had still exceeded permissible levels.

An Economic Times commentator questioned the assumptions that the scheme rests on in order to successfully combat pollution, including that only women pick up children, and that people will not drive after 8pm, or buy a second car if the scheme is only implemented for half a month every month. He said that more women would drive alone in their cars and that "the end result would not be less cars on the road". And Quartz India highlighted how a series of promised public transport improvements had failed to materialise.