Increasing the price of petrol is the best way to solve growing traffic and pollution problems.To what extent do you agree or disagree?What other measures do you think might be effective?Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from

To overcome increasing traffic and pollution problems, some people suggest that we should hike price of petrol. Up to certain extent I disagree with above statement because there are many other factors which also responsible for these problems.

To begin with, by increasing fuel price, state can directly force the citizens to opt for an alternative transportation medium. As this hike directly results in the burden on monthly budget, government can prevent unnecessary usage of personal vehicles. For instance, in India state and central governments enforce certain taxes on petrol in order to control its personal usage.

On the other hand, cheaper petrol price is not the only parameter responsible for the traffic issues. Over population, increasing per person income, weaker public transportation system and other factors are also liable for these critical issues. In many developing countries, people do not have any other alternatives and therefore have to use their personal vehicles even though petrol price is considerably high. Same way populous nations can not get effective results from the price hike because these countries do not have enough space to accommodate all the vehicles. For instance, in India even though price of fuel is way higher than other developing countries, still all the metro cities face traffic and pollution problems because of the urban migration.

Further, petrol is not the only factor responsible for the pollution. Industrialization and deforestation are the major factor for air pollution. Today, every nation faces life threatening problems because of the green house effect. Besides, to satisfy requirements of growing population, every nation uses fossil fuel instead of renewable energy sources. To illustrate, India and China combine emit almost 20% of the total carbon to maintain their industrial growth and to fulfill the basic requirements of citizens.

In conclusion, instead of increasing petrol price, we should focus on the renewable energy sources so that we can overcome pollution problem. Same way, by improving public transportation and implementing effective, transparent and proper methodology, we can reduce usage of private vehicles in order to overcome traffic problems.