Tundla Junction

Finance minister P. Chidambaram has cut the excise duty on small cars as part of the National Budget announced earlier this week, and in the process taken the bold step of irking Sunita Narain, the director of the Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Sunita Narain, the upholder of global health and welfare, has been waging a fruitless campaign against the launch of the Nano, Tata’s cheap-as-dirt car, and her campaign has just been dealt a further blow by the finance minister’s complete disregard of her concerns.

“This is a very bold step,” say Sunita Narian experts, “Chidambaram doesn’t know who he is dealing with. He should exchange notes with Neville Isdell, the CEO of Coca-Cola,” referring to Sunita’s famous pesticide campaign which has brought the soft-drink gaint down to its knees twice in the last few years.

As part of the campaign, Sunita Narain’s CSE had earlier sent a letter to Chidambaram,
(http://www.cseindia.org/pdf/final_letter_chiddambaram.pdf), requesting him, amongst other things, to not reduce the existing taxes on cars, and to, in fact, increase the excise duty where linked to fuel efficiency. The letter quoted undeniable statistics in support of the argument – for instance, the fact that vehicle numbers in India have gone up a few hundred times since 1951. Argumentation experts are disappointed at the feeble premise, suggesting that her argument may have been more forceful if she had used 1251 as the benchmark, since vehicle numbers have grown more than a few million times since the days preceding the first battle of Panipat.

Amongst other arguments, the letter quotes current estimates that Bangaloreans lose 2.5 hours a day to reach their destination, and, as a corollary, that using bullocks instead of cars will help them reach faster. Economists endorse this argument, pointing out that taking CSE’s recommendations to their logical conclusion will mean that people will no longer need to travel 20 km to work, since there will be no work left once CSE has dealt with all the fuel guzzling companies on Hosur road. “Under CSE-utopia, national economy will be sustained by individuals employed in local CSE offices, which will only require people to travel bullock-able distances, thus reclaiming the lost 2.5 hours.” What these individuals will do in those 2.5 hours, of course, remains a mystery. Perhaps they will spend time searching for pesticide free water to drink.

Unsurprisingly, not all academicians are impressed with CSE’s arguments. In response to CSE’s claim that the share of household budget spent on transport is increasing faster than the share spent on food, noted sociologists helpfully suggest that Sunita should brush up on her Maslow. They argue that this is bound to happen when incomes rise, because then people actually have money to spend on things other than food. In other words, not only has the share spent on transport increased, but so has the share spent on healthcare, entertainment, furniture, holidays and other non-food categories. “Maybe CSE wants healthcare and furniture to be taxed as well,” they say.

It appears that CSE’s letter might not have reached Chidambaram- whether this is because of the archaic state of the Indian postal system or because of the archaic state of CSE’s communication infrastructure remains uncertain. “CSE should really train their staff on sophisticated technologies like email, gmail and hotmail, if they really wish to be taken seriously,” said Chidambaram sources. Other sources say that maybe Chidambaram was peeved because CSE mis-spelt his name in the pdf filename.

In the meantime, Sunita’s campaign seems to have all but gone up in smoke.