environment – Page 10 – DECISION STATS

This is a rickshaw. As you can see , its a tri-cycle. It can carry lots of people

Cost of Rickshaw- 110 USD or 5000 rs.

Maintainance cost -5 USD per month or 220 rs /month.

You can hire it instead especially if you live in India.

Cost of hiring Rickshaw based on daily commute of 10 km (home-office/metro station-back)

=Rs 1500 per month or USD 35.

Cost to environment = zero

Running costs =zero or occasional bottle of H20.

Cost of Car – Min 6000 USD

or 100 USD pe r month for EMI

Maintainance cost -5 USD per month or 220 rs /month.

Running Costs- 75 USD per month or 3200 Rs

Cost of car based on daily commute of 10 km (home-office/metro station-back)

Cost to environment- yes.

You decide. Your money. Your environment.

In case the tricycle/rickshaw is not available- buy the bicycle.

At the end of 1947, as India’s Congress leaders sought to put the ghosts of colonialism and the torments of Partition with Pakistan behind them, a debate rose on economic policy. The first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru ,argued for and was successful in implementing a state led economic policy which focused on industrialization.

The alternatives were Free market capitalism , which was not in favor since it was less than 15 years to the ravages of the Depression and Gandhi’s philosophy of village led growth, including small co-operatives . India officially discarded the Nehruvian philosophy of socialism in the 1990’s with a step wise approach to free market reforms. Yet in today’s suddenly environmental conscious world of high oil prices,and debris of free market capitalism , it seems Gandhi’s economic policies of environmentally sustainable de centralized growth are as relevant as his political philosophy of non violence (an eye for an eye leads to a world of the blind).

If a 100 million Indian and Chinese cars bloomed tomorrow ,as some of the world’s industrialists would want, the smoke would cover the rest of the world.

That Dude, Gandhi was right. But he always was, wasn’t he.