In the 1970s, an oil shock forced European nations to reimagine how their cities moved. The Netherlands built cycling networks that remain the envy of the world.
Norway began its long journey toward elective vehicle (EV) adoption — a journey that today sees nearly 96% of new car sales being electric. Those emergency decisions became the foundations of healthier, more productive cities half a century later. India now stands at a strikingly similar crossroads.
With Brent crude above $100 a barrel and the Strait of Hormuz in crisis, Prime Minister Modi addressed the nation in Hyderabad on May 10 with seven appeals: work from home, use public transport and carpooling, adopt EVs and railways, avoid foreign travel, cut gold purchases, reduce cooking oil and fertiliser use.
He framed these as acts of national duty, “Nation First.” While this is a welcome call, as someone who has spent years working on the streets of Indian cities trying to make them walkable, breathable, and safe for a child to cross, I must say plainly: citizens cannot be asked to use public transport that does not exist, or walk safely on footpaths that have never been built.
More than 50,000 pedestrians die on Indian roads every year and another 50,000 die due to accidents associated with two-wheelers. This is not a transport failure alone — it is a public health crisis, an urban planning failure, and a question of social equity, as per MoRTH Road Accidents in India Report 2023 and 2024.
Take Gurugram, Noida, or most Indian cities. How does a worker, a student, or a child get from A to B without a private vehicle? In most of our cities, the honest answer is: they cannot. Not safely. Not reliably. Not with dignity.
Delhi is our most transit-served city. The Metro handled 235.8 crore passenger journeys in 2025, an average of 64.6 lakh riders every single day, with a peak of 81.87 lakh on a single day in August 202, as per DMRC Annual Statement, March 2026.
Combined with DTC and cluster buses serving over 40 lakh passengers daily, Delhi’s public transport system moves well over one crore people each day. Yet bus ridership has fallen nearly 20% since 2019-20, even as the fleet grew, as per Delhi Economic Survey 2025–26.
The reason is straightforward: buses are slow, unsafe, and unreliable when they have to fight the same congested roads as private vehicles. If as the capital, Delhi, struggles to retain public transport users, the challenge everywhere else is orders of magnitude harder.
This is the context in which the PM’s appeal lands: a country that has over 87 lakh vehicles registered in Delhi alone, as per the Delhi Economic Survey 2025–26, where 50,000 pedestrians are killed on roads each year, and where most cities have no continuous footpath infrastructure at all.
Other nations did not wait for a crisis to move. Norway began its EV push in the 1990s; today, nearly 96% of new car sales are electric, as per the IEA Global EV Outlook 2025.
China sold 13.2 million electric vehicles in 2025 (53% of its new car market) powered by government fleet mandates and industrial policy that made EVs cheaper than petrol alternatives.
Singapore, through targeted incentives and a Vehicle Emissions Scheme that penalises polluters, has pushed EV sales to 40% of new registrations in 2025, with a goal of 100% zero-emission vehicles by 2040 (Ember ASEAN EV Report, Dec 2025). California has over 200,000 EV charging stations, now outnumbering petrol nozzles.
On clean air zones, London’s ultra-low emission zones (ULEZ), the world’s largest, covering all nine million Londoners, has cut roadside NO2 concentrations by 27% across the city and 54% in central London.
For the most deprived communities near busy roads, exposure to illegal pollution levels has fallen by an estimated 80%. Shenzhen electrified its entire 16,000-bus fleet and reduced carbon emissions by approximately 1.35 million tonnes per year.
Paris invested over €400 million in 1,000 km of cycling infrastructure and redesigned its streets around people, not cars.
India can replicate these models. But it requires treating sustainable mobility not as a behavioural appeal but as a budget line.
India loses approximately 3.14% of its GDP annually due road crashes. As a point of comparison, India currently spends about 1.7% of GDP on transport infrastructure but the overwhelming majority goes to roads and highways.
Urban public transport, walking infrastructure, cycling, and clean air zones receive a fraction of this. The PM’s appeal implicitly asks citizens to use systems that are chronically underfunded.
“Every Union Budget and every State Budget must carry a dedicated mobility allocation — for footpaths, bus fleet electrification, cycle tracks, and clean air zones. Sustainable mobility cannot remain a line item that gets cut when fiscal pressure rises.”
Every rupee invested in public transport returns multiple times in reduced congestion, lower oil import bills, fewer road deaths, and cleaner air. India imports crude oil worth over $123 billion a year. That is not merely a forex problem. It is a policy choice renewed every time we build a road without a footpath, cancel a bus route for lack of funds, or approve a city layout without pedestrian infrastructure.
1. Safe walking and cycling infrastructure as a national standard
Over 40% of urban trips in India are under 5 km, walkable or cyclable distances. Yet our streets offer no safe passage. Every city above 1 lakh population should be mandated to build continuous, shaded, lit footpaths and protected NMT corridors as a condition of central urban funding. Child-friendly crossings and road safety audits must become standard practice, not exceptions.
2. Electrify all city buses by 2030, prioritise mass transit over private EVs
An electric SUV carrying one person is still one vehicle on a congested road. An electric bus carrying sixty transforms a city. London operates nearly 2,000 electric buses within its fleet of 8,800 and is rapidly moving to a fully zero-emission network. India must accelerate e-bus procurement, introduce bus priority lanes, and transition intercity routes to electric — with dedicated allocations in both Union and State Budgets for fleet modernisation and depot charging infrastructure.
3. A national ZEV mandate, government fleet electrification, and Clean Air Zones
India should adopt a phased Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate beginning with government fleets. Public procurement creates manufacturing scale, builds domestic innovation, and signals the market. At the same time, Clean Air Zones around schools, hospitals, and dense residential areas, as London has done for nine million people, would protect the most vulnerable from vehicular pollution. Both should be funded through State and Central budgets, not left to cities to improvise.
1. Mandate safe, continuous walking and cycling infrastructure in every city as a non-negotiable urban standard.
2. Electrify all city buses by 2030 with dedicated Union and State Budget allocations for fleet procurement and depot infrastructure.
3. Transition intercity buses to EVs on a defined national timeline; shift freight and passengers to electrified railways.
4. Adopt a national Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate, starting with complete electrification of all government vehicle fleets.
5. Launch Clean Air Zones around schools and hospitals in ten major cities within two years — funded by state governments.
6. Redesign streets for people first: protected crossings, shaded footpaths, bus priority lanes as conditions for central urban grants.
7. Embed a child-friendly city test in all urban development decisions: can a child navigate this safely?
The Prime Minister has given us the framing: “Nation First.” A nation that breathes clean air, moves safely, and builds its cities for people rather than for cars is stronger, more sovereign, and far better to grow up in. That nation is built in budgets, not appeals.
This is India’s 1970s moment. Let us not squander it. Let us build.