Stemit Engagement Challenge S4-W3 | My daily transportations : Inflation beats income.

Hello and welcome to my blog. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying on 4 of the Steemit Engagement Challenge. Today I choose to write a task set by Steem Emterprenurst community which is about My daily Transportation.

Daily Transportation Expenses - Includes fuel costs, public transportation costs, and car ownership costs such as maintenance and insurance. Contestants are expected to detail the transportation costs in detail (daily, weekly or monthly) and convert them to STEEM.

Transportation facilities availed by people are meant to reach work on time. The nature of work may vary from individual to individual. Some are doing the job and have to be on time, some are doing Business, some have to reach school on time while others have to explore adventures of nature etc. The point is that whatever job we have to perform we have to be on time and we have to reach by using transport unless the destination falls within the walking distance.

Whether one avails public or private transport, it depends upon the avenues available to the people. One who can afford personal transport will avail and one who cannot afford they use public transport.

My new car

Owing to inflation, I think our incomes are not growing at the same pace as expenses. I remember when I was a school going kid, our school had no personal transport and I used to travel a distance of 25km in the bus and that cost me 5 Rs while the same transport these days costs about 15 Rs on one side and 30 Rs to and fro.

I use my transport for travelling. As of now, I have two cars I use one of them frequently because of fuel economy while the other one is used by my father and I use them occasionally because that car is not too economical for fuel.

The blue colour car that I used frequently was bought by me in 2019 for 8 Lakh INR ( 46000 Steem) and the yearly insurance cost is 18000 INR ( 1000Steem). On average, it consumes fuel worth 8000 INR per month ( 500 Steem ) and Maintainance is not required per month however after three months I have to subject this car to maintainance that costs about 10000 INR ( 600 Steem). As I do not drive the car myself I have kept a driver for driving my car to whom I pay 10000 Indian rupees monthly ( 600 Steem). Leaving aside the cost of the car and dividing the insurance and maintainance into 12 parts, i have to bear expenses of 1450 Steem monthly for one car.

The other car is used occasionally by me and is maintained by my father, so I won't discuss those expenses. However, it is understood that that would cost more.

Air pollution - What is the level of air pollution in your City or Country? Also? explain how the government has handled air pollution and how you can reduce air pollution.

The level of air pollution in our country is determined by the air quality index. The air quality index of my city Srinagar is 61 today as can be seen in the screenshot below. According to the grading of air quality index, 61 is a poor score.

source
The following majors are being taken by our government to improve air quality in our country:

• Mandatory Permission for establishing any industry that's liable to cause air pollution or any other pollution. Before permission for there establishment it is mandatory to meet all the requirements set by government. Norms the establishment of every industry that must be fulfilled for permitting the establishment.

• Pollution under control (PUC) certificate is mandatory for petrol/diesel driven vehicles. This step is taken by the government to regulate the quality of vehicles and abundant the vehicles that generate more pollutants. Any non-compliance by vehicle owners is punishable with a fine.

• Government is imposing heavy taxes on fuels like petrol /diesel that are liable to generate more pollutants. The revenue that is generated out of these taxes is used for the betterment of the public including the share that is being used for control of air pollution.

• Government is providing subsidies for electric vehicles. It's being done to boost the use of vehicles that do not cause air pollution.

• The smoke generated out of industrial establishments that generate heavy amount of all the pollutants through the air are being taken away with the help of smoke towers.

• Every year 21 March is celebrated as a national plantation day on which emphasis is laid on the importance of plantation by the government through seminars, campaigns etc. On this day millions of plants are planted throughout our country which is anticipated to act as green mufflers and purify the air.

• Deforestation is highly discouraged by fines and imprisonment of people who are caught smuggling forest trees.

Electric vehicles as a mode of transportation - Your opinion and expectations of electric vehicles as a future mode of transportation.

As has been mentioned that our government is subsidizing electric vehicles to promote their use and discourage the use of petrol and diesel-driven vehicles. There is no denial of the fact that fossil fuel driven vehicles are the greatest source of pollution in our country and therefore electric vehicles would serve as best alternative to curb further deterioration of air quality.

In my opinion, adoption of electric vehicles at mass level would be a great step to curb the air pollution nation as automobiles are the major source of pollution in India but I know that the adoption is hinderd by certain challenges that we need to address.

Pexels
As a developing nation, several challenges are there that hinder adoption of electric vehicles as a primary mode of transport throughout the nation. They are :

• POOR CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE: In India, we have more than 700 districts but we have only 300 charging stations. On the contrary, we have about 70000 fossil fuel refilling stations i.e petrol and diesel pumps. By comparing the two statistics we can understand the lack of charging infrastructure.

• Higher cost of electric vehicles is one more challenge for Indian citizens. If we talk of fuel driven vehicles on average one can get a decent car at 7-lakh INR. On the other hand, Tesla 3 would cost 70Lakh Indian rupees. So electric vehicles are not affordable for more than 90% of the Indian population at current rates.

• Technology poses one more hurdle for adoption of electric vehicles. It is said that the current technology used in electric vehicles would allow a vehicle to run for an average of 120 kms. The question arises whether we would get a charging station at a 120kms distance. Moreover the battery used in electric vehicles is made up of lithium-ion. Our nation doesn't have to adequate lithium reserves. It would make us dependent on other nations for importing their technology. So there is a need to shift towards an alternative technology.

• As of now, we lack skilled workers to engineer electric cars. So we need to work on manpower too.

• Disruption of the already existing automobile industry linked to fossil fuel driven vehicles would create an unemployment crisis in India which would further exacerbate the unemployment crisis. It doesn't mean that we will stop working in this direction but the solution is that there should be gradual transition from fossil fuel driven vehicles so that the existing automobile industries also get time to shift their productivity.

My expectation from the electronic vehicles sector is that they are able to counter the above mentioned
and provide us a viable and affordable alternative for sustainable development of the environment.

Conclusion

Inflation is growing enormously when compared to our income sources. Petrol , diesel or coal driven vehicles are difficult to manage bechae of higher cost of fuel and also pose threat to the environment by chasing air pollution. Electric vehicles would provide a better alternative to counter the challenge of air position but they have their own challenge too.