The year began on a revolutionary note with unfolding world’s cheapest
car by India! Set to roll on
roads by September, the car has upset
ecologists and urban planners. Will Indian roads digest harrowing
traffic boosting manifolds with its advent ?EVERY AFTERNOON, Sandrick Rebello, a municipal worker, and his
wife pick up their two children from school and are forced to squeeze
them on to his Hero Honda motorcycle in the Indian state of Goa. The
vehicle speeds through the mind-numbing maze of buses, cars, rickshaws,
motorcycles and pedestrians, through the narrow streets of Margao city,
in south Goa to reach their destination in neighbouring coastal village
of Benaulim.
Once it reaches
the interior roads of the seaside village, Rebello’s vehicle zips past
dogs, pigs, cows and cats, which pose danger to the control that
Rebello exercises over the vehicle.
The
four-legged animals are not the only one that he has to keep an eye,
but the numerous potholes, and of course, the traffic police (you can
only carry another person on a motorcycle according to the traffic
rules).
But he has no choice;
his income is not sufficient for his family of six (including his aged
parents) to buy a car. The cheapest car in India, till the Nano made
its entry, was the Maruti Suzuki car worth
rs 2.50 lakhs.
But
there is a light at the end of the tunnel in the coming days. The good
news for those who wish to buy a car is coming from Tata Motors, which
unveiled its Rs one-lakh car (US$2500) at the 9th
new Delhi Auto
Exposition on January 10. The commercial launch of the car is slated
for September 2008.
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