The Hindu : New Delhi News : Capital expertise to clear Kabul pollution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 11, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

Capital expertise to clear Kabul pollution

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Five-member team to visit Afghanistan

NEW DELHI: A five-member delegation of transport officials and experts, led by Delhi Transport Minister, Haroon Yusuf, would be paying a four-day visit to Afghanistan during which it would study the transport and pollution related problems there and suggest ways and means of overcoming them.

Mr. Yusuf said the visit is the outcome of an interaction he had with the visiting Afghanistan Transport Minister, Enayatullah Qasemi, when he visited India along with the Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, in February this year.

"The Afghanistan Transport Minister was greatly impressed and had evinced keen interest in the public transport system of Delhi and had demanded that we do something to improve things in Kabul,'' said Mr Yusuf, adding that the delegation would visit Afghanistan from May 14.

Stating that it was an honour that Delhi had been chosen from among 28 States and seven Union Territories of India as a model city with respect to transport, the Minister said the fact that it is the only city in the world to have its entire public transport system running on environment-friendly fuel, compressed natural gas, made it the "chosen one''.

During the visit, Mr Yusuf would be accompanied by the Transport Commissioner, Managing Director of Delhi Transport Corporation, and two technical experts. He said while the Afghanistan officials had also witnessed the Metro system in Delhi and were very impressed with it, that is not on the cards right now.

"As of now we are focussing on basic transport in Kabul, which is facing a big problem of pollution,'' he said. The Delhi officials would guide their counterparts on what needs to be done to improve the transport and pollution problem as had been done in the case of Delhi.

Incidentally, the transport system in Kabul is not in a very good shape for a number of reasons. Though high-speed foreign vehicles have made a presence following the exit of the Taliban regime and installation of the Karzai administration, the roads remain chaotic. The primary cause being that while the system of movement is British in which the vehicles run on the left lanes and the oncoming traffic approaches from the right, with most of the vehicles on the roads being of American make and consequently left-hand drives, it creates a very dangerous situation on road which do not have dividers.

For overtaking another vehicle, a motorist has to while sitting on the left side, peep from the right to see if there in a vehicle coming upfront. And since in doing so, the vehicle needs to jut out, it exposes the passengers to grave risk.

Mr Yusuf said after studying the various aspects of transportation in Kabul the delegation would suggest some solutions. And the advice would take into account the peculiar conditions of South Asia.

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