INDIA:The world's cheapest car was unveiled yesterday by India's Tata Motors, bringing automobile ownership close to millions of excited potential consumers who currently often carry entire families and mounds of baggage on motorbikes and scooters.
However, concerns were expressed about increased pollution and carbon emissions as well as extra traffic in India's congested cities.
The four-seater Nano was launched by company chairman Ratan Tata. It will cost about 100,000 Indian Rupees (€1,728) or about half the cost of the cheapest car available in India today. Taxes and insurance will raise its price by 20 per cent.
Reactions to the car's arrival were mixed in a country with pitted and overcrowded roads, mounting levels of pollution and amongst the world's highest accident rates - aaverage of eight people are killed daily in road crashes in Delhi alone.
Driving across India is nothing short of a nightmare, featuring hazards such as cows, camels and elephants squatting on dimly lit roads or ambling through traffic; unmarked speed ramps the size of small hillocks; and vehicles driven at breakneck speed, often by unlicensed and drunken drivers.
Environmentalist Sunita Narain, whose Centre for Science and Environment has led a campaign for cleaner air in New Delhi, said Tata's new car could "jam cities" and raise pollution.
The average vehicle speed in New Delhi, for instance, had dropped to 15km/h in 2002 from 27km/h in 1997.
"As congestion and vehicles slow down, emissions increase up to five times," the website ominously declared.
"If everyone buys the small car, where will they keep it? Where will they drive it?" said home minister R R Patil of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is the capital.
Jitu Mishra (26), an upwardly mobile Delhi physiotherapist, was, however, enthusiastic about the Nano.
"It looks good, is cheap and easy to drive and park on India's overcrowded roads," he said. It would not contribute in any major way to the chaos in Delhi or other cities and most Indians will welcome its arrival, he said optimistically.
Seven of the 10 people at yesterday's launch said they would definitely consider the Nano an option."Other than being highly affordable, it's economical to run and maintain," management consultant Poonam Sahgal said. It could even end up revolutionising the world's car markets as oil prices hover at around $100 per barrel.