Rocking in the Free World

One of the first things that I was told when I informed people that I would be living and working in Gurgaon from April onwards was that I needed my own transport and that the transport vehicle should preferably be a car, given how the heat and the dust and later, the cold would be unbearable on a two wheeler.

Two months into living in Gurgaon, I realize that the feeling of wanting to buy a car has progressively increased over time.

My travel to office and back is more or less taken care of thanks to office transport, but it is for the evenings or the weekends that the need for personal transport makes itself strongly felt.

When I lived in Bangalore, I had my faithful cycle and a two wheeler that ensured that I could go from point A to point B with minimal hassle, and despite the traffic, a little music and a lot of patience tided me through most situations.

Now, Gurgaon has no public transport to boast of, save for the cycle rickshaws that run from early in the morning until about 9 at night and while they’re still alright to get around certain parts of the place, they aren’t ideal if you have to go meet friends late in the evening and such.

The Delhi metro is all set to begin operations from sometime this week and run from Gurgaon to Saket in South Delhi on the yellow line and with a supposedly decent frequency, they should take care of any problems people have faced waiting for the green or red Delhi Transport Corporation buses on the side of the Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road.

With Gurgaon having the second highest per-capita income in the country, preceded only by Chandigarh, it is ironic that nobody has exploited the opportunity to provide transportation for that target segment that can afford to pay decently but hasn’t picked up a car for various reasons (mine being parsimony and sloth, combined with the fact that I haven’t driven a car in many years now).

The average rate for a radio call taxi is INR 15 per kilometer. If someone were to privately introduce metered transport and charge INR 12 per kilometer and a corresponding increase after 10 PM, they’d stand to possibly have a thriving business and also entice a part of the home-bodies that would otherwise get back home to the office on weekdays and read.

Unless there are steep administrative hurdles that need to be overcome, I don’t see why a public transport (albeit non mass-transit) system can’t be setup here and even if it is no more than a small percentage of the volume of transport available in Delhi, it would still benefit all parties concerned immensely.