As usual I left my home to office today morning. But unusually there was very less traffic. It seems many people left their cars at home. Why? Another fuel price hike. I hope you would have read my older post Contrast. This time its not only petrol. It seems we might see hikes in diesel and cooking gas too. Immediate response to this were harthal offerings, protests etc. Since only petrol prices are hiked, I guess I should be concerned too much because I drive a petrol run Ford Fiesta at my hometown and a Hyundai i10 at Bangalore
Lets think about this from different angles.
1. Expenditure - Time, Money. Let's hope this price hike makes people think twice before they drive their car out of the parking. Do i really require a car when I got to office, that too alone? Can I manage with my motorcycle? Can I manage with the public transport? Though its a bit difficult, it gives me some exercise which i miss most often. My experience : My car does not give me any additional respect. If I commute by car, it takes average 1 hour stressful driving for travelling 8 Kms. If I commute by my motorcycle, 20 mins, cool drive. Currently my car runs 20 kms per week and mostly on weekends only.
2. Environment - Pollution. In these times of global warming, it will be a big favor we do to our next generations if we can reduce our carbon footprints by selecting a motorcycle or a public transport. My excuse for choosing a two-wheeler is that my kid will be enjoying a less polluted environment when he grow up. Would you like your kid to dwell in a polluted enviroment? Then keep driving your pride, your fuel guzzling, environment killer. Otherwise we have to
cut-down the unnecessary driving habits ourselves before anyone else does.
3. Impact on the economy - Foreign currency. We all know India heavily depend on imports for its petroleum oil requirement. Hence this is the major expense of the economy and any upward fluctuation of the oil prices directly impact us in all ways. Fuel prices will go up, travel expenses go up, price index and commodities index go up. What do we do in a family when we find that our income and expenses does not meet? When our expenses are much more than our income? Sensible, reasonable people cut down the unnecessary expenditure. This normally solves the problem. So lets do it. If "India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters.. ", then India is also my family. Lets cut down our unnecessary expenses. Before asking anyone else to do it, let us start ourselves.
We can make this place better. Lets start today!!!
