
‘Don’t use a car for work’: Why it’s still important to own a car
“You have to have a certain degree of comfort and it is a very important thing for the people,” said the woman, who declined to give her name.
“You need to be able to work and not feel that stress.”
She said her husband would buy her a car in case he needed it at a later date.
“But we don’t have a car.
It’s very expensive,” she said.
I was surprised to see the number of women using cars to commute to work, said Pranav Kumar, a journalist who blogs about Delhi’s urban planning.
“If you work in the morning, there’s a lot of people walking and cycling,” he said.
While commuting, he said he also often used to drive. “
Now I can see people walking in the mornings and I know that they are going to work,” he added.
While commuting, he said he also often used to drive.
“I do it as a way to escape traffic,” he explained.
The majority of women in Delhi, a city of about 1.4 million people, are working and they use public transport regularly.
About 40 per cent of women surveyed by the Indian Council for Social Research said they were employed and 30 per cent had taken out loans to purchase a car, up from 24 per cent in 2015, according to a 2015 survey.
Kumar said it is difficult to know if these trends are just because of the high cost of petrol and diesel, or are a result of the government’s “road map” to increase the use of public transport.
In April, the government announced that a “road safety plan” would be put in place for the capital, including making Delhi’s streets safer for pedestrians, cyclists and cars.
But the plan has not been implemented yet, Kumar said.
According to Kumar, he is not alone in his concerns.
“The fact that more and more women are using cars is not a new phenomenon.
But now the trend is being driven by government, by the car manufacturers and by the government, who are not helping women,” he told Al Jazeera.