5 Critical Problems Of Delhi That Should Hopefully Improve in 2018

2017 is done and dusted. The new year is here. 2018 certainly evokes a feeling of great joy and a hope to live out one’s dreams and aspirations with absolute devotion and merriment. Where India stands, one wishes to see more progress and development reach the country’s hinterland: often a space the city dweller explores when urban chaos becomes a bit too much and the idea of taking a break shifts focus from a multiplex or expansive food courts in plush shopping malls, to environs decked by vast open green spaces, several cows hurled together by thick robes amidst the smell of fresh cow dung and manure.

While one would hope efficient healthcare to reach more nook and corners of villages and rural areas, regardless of state, what about one of the most prominent Indian cities? Where India’s big, burly capital New Delhi stands what is it that the commoner who feels for Delhi expects to change in 2018?

RapidLeaks are glad to present some thoughts for starters:

1. Better handling of pollution

As if everyday work-related stress and lack of jobs across various sectors weren’t causing enough trouble already, Delhi caused real scare courtesy pollution as 2017 came to a close. The months of October (especially toward the end) and November were less about winters- a plush setting for romantics- and more about intolerable levels of smog, usually as common a phenomenon in Delhi as are rains during monsoons.

Critics, writers, social commentators riled Delhi’s horrendous air quality, perhaps only sparing it comparisons with a decayed dead body; the sheer unpleasantness of it, the remorse one feels at catching a glimpse of it. Even Sri Lankan cricketers protested by wearing strange-looking face masks in Delhi’s sprawling Feroz Shah Kotla. Still, nothing was done about it.

Whether it was someone’s baseless suggestion or a watershed idea of handling Delhi’s burgeoning pollution crisis, the idea that giant air purifiers would be used to clean out mushrooming clouds filled with smog- certainly appeared fresh and enticing, even if it seemed a tad bit uncanny in nature. But why wasn’t the idea executed in 2017? Were city’s administrative bodies waiting for the calendar to change overnight?

2. Better road sense and adherence to traffic rules

To be fair to other cities, where one finds a Mumbaikar or a Bangalorean abide by traffic rules, the common Delhiite swears to go against it. It’s almost an unsaid, unspoken rule that someone will suddenly burst out in your lane, honk incessantly, roll down the window of his muscular seven-seater (even if it houses no more than 2) and lash out that typical Delhi stare.

At all these times, you haven’t even sneezed, let alone throw a poor old verbal assault.

The roads- broad as they might be, experts actually hailing Delhi’s roads the broadest (in width) in the entirety of Asia- witness a common spectacle everyday. Why does one see multiple lanes for a single turn, either to the left or right as most who are to travel straight get caught up scratching their heads is something that even Delhiites can’t reveal. When it comes to stopping by at traffic signals, allowing traffic at the other end to free itself and move about- Delhi usually has a problem with that too. What to speak of bikers and those commuting by two-wheelers.

If it’s your lucky day where one doesn’t ram into your car, then you’ll find both cars and bikes leave several seconds before the green signal allows one to. Can this undergo some change for the better? Only 2018 can reveal?

3. Better civic-sense

Civic sense for the Delhiite usually results to lashing out at a fellow commuter, throwing angry stares, entering meaningless arguments, opening the fly of one’s trousers at possibly any street junction, whether or not a woman or child is around and painting walls with hot flowing bodily liquids.

In honesty, terse messages on the wall that read something like, “See.. A donkey is peeing here” don’t quite appeal to the conscience of Delhi’s peeing brigade. You’d be utterly mistaken to presume that it is only the uncouth, under-educated lot that warm Delhi’s walls. Often, drivers of most sophisticated luxury waggons step out and pride themselves in this absolutely unwanted contribution.

That is not all. You’ll be aghast to see that a part of the city that prides itself for being posh and darn fancy- such as Saket, in South Delhi- is swiftly becoming an open dumping ground for garbage. Often, right opposite to where one litters is a temple. This, by the way, is one of the world’s most religious countries, right? If not for anything else, at least 2018 would hope for the common Delhiite to abstain from throwing half eaten bananas, or banana leaves or cookie packets on main roads, avenues.

4. Women safety

What’s common between dreaded terrorist organisation Boko Haram and Delhi? Lack of women safety. Here’s the answer. While one commonly finds the African terror group kidnap young women and subject them to physical assaults, New Delhi doesn’t kidnap women but does pretty much anything possible to hurt their sentiments and dignity.

Whether you’re travelling in a bus, staring outrightly from the confines of your luxurious car to a fellow woman passenger at a signal or ogling at a ‘Pretty Young Thing’ buying popcorn and cola during a movie interval, women are objects for Delhi, not souls that deserve and command respect.

Several ad campaigns in public interest calling for upholding a woman’s dignity have been launched and failed. The plight of a woman travelling in the inner-city limits in Delhi is no different from Noida, Gurugram or Faridabad. The average gold-blinging, cuss word using, gum chewing dude doesn’t budge. 2018 is crying for some change. Massive change in this regard.

5. Traffic management

In June 2017, the number of registered cars in Delhi crossed the 1 crore mark. But what about the ones that aren’t registered? The sheer mind-boggling mess created by Delhi’s cars comes to life when you discover that cities that have thrice the number of cars that Delhi possesses- for instance, LA with 6,43,000 and New York with 7,771,000- witness better traffic management and usually administer smooth urban movement.

But traffic malaise in Delhi is not a new scenario. It is, in fact, an everyday way of life. Roads that aren’t marked for being one-way streets often turn out to be exactly that. You’ll find potholes larger than the size of Virat Kohli’s stats openly spewing in posh, developed areas.

What can one say about traffic signals? They tend to often not work as opposed to being regularly in operation. Why’s that such a common factor? What are traffic advisories and committees doing about it? Can we ever see lane-driving is sane driving not in the form of a poster but as regular habit?

Are the talks about building a new BRT transport system in South Delhi true? If that actually happens, we are looking at a doomsday scenario. 2018 offers so many key areas to make life smooth and durable for this city. But the point is, is anyone listening?