Balanced development?
18 April, 2007 – We have 33,241 vehicles in the country, a large number considering that we had 22,504 in 2001 which was a boom compared with the previous decade. It is difficult to believe that there is an entire generation of Bhutanese people today who saw the first motor vehicles come into the country in the early 1960s. It is even more difficult to believe that people along the Phuentsholing-Thimphu highway tried to feed the first jeep some water when it stopped.
Today the RSTA has licensed about 41,000 Bhutanese citizens to drive. RSTA earned Nu.106 million in 2005-2006, up from Nu.86 million the previous year. The government earned millions more in tax revenue.But is this a yardstick for economic success? Going by Bhutan’s known philosophies, “no”, because economic success cannot be measured purely in figures. And it does not signify overall development success which we measure by the wholesome principles of GNH.
We also need to look at vehicle numbers in the context that we do not have many roads. Out of 4,544 kilometres of roads, just 2,485 kilometres are paved and 1,556 are national highways. Considering that most of the vehicles are in Thimphu and Phuentsholing, it means that traffic is even more congested.
Bhutan is known today as perhaps the only country without traffic lights, a situation that many countries envy. Traffic lights symbolise necessity more than progress. But that is a sophisticated problem, mostly a concern in the developed world. The developing world has a greater problem, called the traffic jam.
Traffic jams symbolise pollution, wasted hours, and high stress. Apart from long delays and waiting time on the roads, uncontrolled motor vehicles means air pollution, both in the fumes and the chemical poisoning of air. This is a clichéd argument that everyone agrees with and nobody cares.
Another cliché, a sad one, is the toll on human health and lives. According to the available statistics 16 people died and 185 were injured in 482 accidents last year in Bhutan. It is not a shocking number by world standards but it signifies a growing trend for us.
Our main problem, however, is not the vehicle numbers or the lack of roads or even the current level of pollution. It is the absence of a plan to deal with all of them and the invisible social costs.
The road-vehicle-people ratio in Bhutan is controlled, not by need and capacity, but by profits and, to an extent, status. If our planners cannot balance the pressure of banks to provide loans or of business houses to increase profits today it will not be done by politicians in future.
And then we lose control altogether, not just of cars and policy, but of the balanced development that GNH is supposed to have inspired.
Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true
Source: Kuensel Editorial