Is Cess On Fuel Important For Swachh Bharat?

A man smoking in a sparsely populated city at midnight barely harms anybody. But, a man who smokes in densely packed school van imposes incomparably greater costs on the children who travel with him. This analogy is important to analyse the government's plan to impose taxes on fuel to make India cleaner.

A panel of chief ministers has recommended the Centre to impose a cess on fuel and accumulated waste produced by coal, aluminum and iron ore plants to fund its Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission). A look at how this may help reduce pollution levels in India:

• When the government imposes a cess on petrol or diesel, it taxes all trips within a certain geographical boundary equally, irrespective of the timing of a trip and the vehicular intensity on the road. Consider this: A car that rides through a road at 3 AM in the morning is unlikely to contribute to congestion. The pollutants the car emits do not impose great costs on people either. However, a car that runs through a busy road at peak hours is more likely to contribute to congestion. Charging commuters for using roads and highways at peak hours may help the government cut down congestion.

• Modern technologies such as transponders and magnetically encoded stickers allows tracking vehicles and charge them without using toll booths or coin baskets. Toll booths and baskets used to charge drivers often contribute to congestion.

• While levying taxes on road usage would encourage use of public transport, it would also lead to declining levels of congestion and pollution. When more people start using public transport, pollutants emission per person would also decline.

• With toll collection, people are more likely to share cars, even within a family. They are also more likely to adjust their trips to cut down traveling costs. This too would reduce congestion and pollution. 

• Transit Oriented Development model that allows high-density development across metro corridors is also likely to reduce pollution because more trips would be in metro trains in such areas. This would also lower trip length.