Passenger Road Transport in India: Major Challenges in Reducing Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions and Ways Ahead

The shift of the Indian economy to a higher trajectory of growth over the last two decades has been primarily associated with urbanisation and rapid motorisation both as a cause and as an effect. Motorised passenger transport is now being considered as a fulcrum for inclusive growth in India. Thus putting a cap on its growth may be difficult. Given the key challenge to decouple the economic and social development from the inherent growth in energy consumption and CO2 emissions, the paper takes cue from the Bellagio Declaration 2009 and essentially argues for an integrated and multi-pronged Avoid-Shift-Improve approach to steer passenger road transport growth in India towards a sustainable low carbon path.