Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems To what extent do you agree or disagree What other measures do you think might be effective

Presently, many countries are facing heavy problems of road traffic and pollution. These problems aggravate mainly because there are too many vehicles on the road. Every vehicle either consumes petrol or diesel. Combustion of these fuels in excessive amounts releases gases which play a major role in destroying the environment. An alternative to such problems could be an increase in the prices of petrol and diesel by the government.

This alternative looks very impressive on the face of it but on a wider perspective, it is a very weak alternative. A major reason is that the price of fuel and the prices of various products are inter-related. Therefore, an increase in price of fuel leads to an increase in price of various products as well. Increase in prices hits the poor people hardest and damages the middle class as well.

On the other hand, an increase in the price of fuel will not make any difference to the rich class as they have enough money to spend even if the prices increase. They will continue using their cars. This will not get an end to the problems of traffic and pollution. Instead a price rise will invite riots and strikes which will further worsen the situation rather than improving it.

An alternative to address the problems of traffic and pollution could be to make the public transport more available and accessible to all the sections of the society. A better public transport means an increase in the number of well maintained buses and trains running through the nation. The more people make use of public transport, the lesser cars will be on road and lesser pollution would exist.

Another alternative could be to introduce a substitute to petrol and diesel. This substitute should be renewable, environment friendly and combustible in order to provide the required energy to locomotives without harming nature. In order to efficiently solve the problems of increasing traffic and pollution, we need to implement a combination of public transport and fuel substitute alternatives.