Bengaluru plans to raise awareness about public transport through a campaign that encourages people to leave their own vehicles home on alternate Sundays. The government of Karnataka is in talks with the traffic police and the pollution board to decide the specifics of a “Less Traffic Day”, The Times of India reported on Saturday.
Such a campaign is likely to come into action from February.
“We already have 64 lakh private vehicles on the road and would like to avoid a smog situation, as in Delhi, in Bengaluru,” Transport Minister HM Revanna was quoted as saying. “While we are not banning private vehicles on that [less traffic] day, we will try to create an awareness among Bengalureans to utilise public transport or hire yellow board vehicles to avoid pollution in the city.”
Officials of the state’s transport department, the traffic police and the Karnataka Pollution Control Board have already met once, and will have another round of talks to finalise the plan, Revanna said.
Bengaluru already observes a monthly campaign called “Bus Day”, in practice since 2010. On the fourth Sunday of every month, the use of buses is encouraged and the local bus transport service runs more buses than usual.
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