Besides our road networks are also poor. Most European countries have excellent public transport systems and even the rich people use public transport to reach their respective destinations instead of getting into traffic jams and other related hassles of parking and security. One day when waiting to catch a subway train in New York, I was surprised to see billionaire arms and oil merchant, Adnan Khashoggi waiting to catch one of the subway train. Improve the public transport and then you'll see most people travelling by the public transport.

Ravi Dubey: With rising fuel prices everyday, it has made the commuters of the city to think more than twice before using their vehicles. Moreover, the traffic system of Bhopal is more fuel consuming compared to metro cities like Delhi or Chandigarh.

Improvement of traffic system will not only save fuel but also save time and life of Bhopalites. For example if the traffic signals in Bhopal are synchronized this will help commuters a great deal. Vehicle users have to stand still at each traffic signal if they are to go to main railway station from Habibganj crossing. At least seven traffic signals fall on the way and one has to stop his vehicle at each signal.

Similarly, Bhopal has now developed in such a manner that it demands at least 10 flyovers so that it's easier for the commuters to head their destinations without any hiccups. This will not only make driving easier but also save fuel as there will be less stoppages in between.

Sushmita Shrivastava: Yes, efficient public transport can substantially bring down fuel consumption. The most powerful weapon you can use to reduce fuel consumption may be use of public transport. Encouraging use and expanding public transportation should be a part of our national strategy to address increasing price of petro products. Public transportation is one of the most important tools to minimize carbon output, help the environment and assist the nation in achieving a sustainable transportation system.

Increasing use of public transportation could be crucial in reducing emissions from the transportation sector. Public transportation use should be at the top of the list of ways for households to become greener. Switching to public transport gives a person the opportunity to immediately become part of the solution to help reduce consumption of fuel.

Due to increases in vehicle miles travelled, the problem of pollution from vehicle emissions is accelerating. Greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle sources have gone up in India. While it is good public policy to require more fuel efficient automobiles, increasing the use of public transport can have a more immediate impact on our nation's transportation fuel consumption.

Vivek Maheshweri: It won't Help.

An efficient public transport system will not help in easing the prices of petroleum products. Biggest reason is that the government itself is the biggest consumer of petroleum products in India and as we know the functioning of the government we can not expect any cut in government consumption. When, therefore, the biggest consumer is not willing to reduce the consumption, how we can expect any significant change?

In India private transport is not a necessity merely, it is a status symbol too. Best example is the capital of the country which has fairly good public transport system, still it has more cars than all the cars of Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai put together. So to reduce the private consumption of petroleum products we have to change the social thinking.

In pricing of petroleum products, government duties and taxes have a share of 52%. It clearly shows that the prices of petroleum products are high due to high government taxes. Till taxes are high, how the prices can come down?

If, however we have such a system and public starts using such a system then it will lessen the burden of high prices on the pockets of individuals. But the biggest beneficiary will be government as it will save foreign exchange, used for the import of crude oil.

Jaskaran Singh Dhami: Idealistically speaking the answer can be 'yes' but realistic analysis of the facts will make one shake his or her head sideways meaning 'No'.

First of all, it will be the utopianism in the extreme to expect that public transport system in India can ever be worthy of being labeled as 'efficient'. (Does it sound like 'pessimism' in the extreme?) Yes, it may become efficient in some big cities and perhaps is already quite efficient but the number of such cities is miniscule. Moreover, in big cities big people, I mean rich people dwell and they can't leave the comfort of their luxurious private cars. They consider it below their dignity to make use of public transport system. So even in cities where there are chances of making public transport system efficient there is no scope for reduction in fuel consumption.

Public transport system is by and large used by the poor people. They have to make use of it whether it is efficient or inefficient. There has been a steep hike in fuel prices recently but it has not thinned the ant swarms of cars and other private automobiles on the spilling over roads. An infinitesimal number of people may switch over to travelling in public transport but it will not result in any significant reduction in fuel consumption.

Even if we make our public transport efficient we would need to bring about radical change in the mindset of people who consider it a status symbol to travel in their own glittering 'gaadees'. It is the dream of almost every unprivileged person to own his own 'waahan' one day. That's what I am daydreaming about while writing this piece for 'Open Forum' waiting for my bus to reach my office which is already behind schedule by half an hour and my boss must be fuming with anger and surely I have to face the music. (quite jarring of course). Efficient Public Transport System! Huh!!!

Sanjeev K Mehta: An efficient public transport system will not only bring down fuel consumption but will also solve the traffic problems as well. With an efficient public transport system we can reduce the number of vehicles plying on the roads thus we can save a considerable amount of fuel as well as can control the traffic to a great extent. People in big cities who are facing the problem of frequent traffic jams are unwilling to take their private vehicles out but in the absence of an efficient public transport system they are forced to do so. Efficient public transport system can contribute in many ways. Besides bringing down fuel consumption it helps control air pollution, noise pollution and other environmental disorders. If an effective and dedicated public transport system is introduced it is certainly going to achieve its goal.

Syed Zia Ul Hasan Naqvi: Fuel prices are soaring high up in the sky in its international market that's why increase in fuel prices is inexorable in our country also. Our country is not among the major oil producing nations hence the oil producing nations dictate prices of oil on us and we are compelled to increase the fuel prices.

As a matter of fact we don't have our control in fixing the oil prices, being dependent on other countries for oil. For balancing disturbed monthly budget which is due to hike in fuel prices the aalternative left for us is to use public transport system instead of using our own vehicles. But the existing public transport system is in its worst conditions, the busses are often overcrowded and there is neither an accurate time-table nor a proper bus route for connecting all parts of the cities. For using public transport systems it is essential we should have an efficient public transport.

Mostly in cities due to private vehicles we often see people stuck and helpless in rush. For saving money and avoiding heavy traffic on roads we should have an efficient public transport system. Impromptu it is not possible to have an efficient public transport in our country. For that stupendous efforts are required at the government level. We have many plans afoot but at snail's pace it is not possible.

SS Chitwadgi: To correlate "efficient public transport system to bringing down fuel consumption" would not be correct. Efficiency in public transport is most welcome but fuel consumption may not result in reduction of fuel. In fact, people may enjoy good transport system and they would prefer to use more and more public transport facilities.

Fuel consumption may increase but not reduce. Public now with, more fuel charges may prefer to use public transport instead of private transport.

The public transport system is the need of present day to reduce private fuel however experiences indicate that once private transport is brought in use people hardly accept public transport only. This correlation is not of much value.

Dharmendra Yadav: Of late the price of petrol has gone up steeply making the common man think about using his vehicle often. And the price of crude oil in the international market is always going up. It has touched $140 a barrel.

An efficient public transport system will attract people to travel by it. This will save their fuel cost. It will reduce congestion on the roads and therefore accidents.

In the present time, there is no alternative to use of fuel oil for transport vehicles. Hence the best way is to improve the public transport system to solve the problems of the people for reaching their destinations.

Still driving your own two or four-wheeler is a charm. People will continue to purchase two and four-wheelers. Now that Nano car costing Rs one lakh has come, many people are going to buy them and the consumption of petrol is only going to increase. Hence whether there is public transport system or not the consumption of petrol is going to increase anyhow.

Vaisakh Kurup: Today the world is like a village. We can go to any place in a few hours. We get every information happening around the world in seconds.

The two most prominent things that have propelled earth into becoming a global village are the great advancement made by the human race in the field of communication and transportation.

An efficient transport system will definitely bring down fuel consumption. Even though we have excellent transport vehicles yet the availability of fuel is limited. The engines of Euro IV norms use less fuel and cause less pollution. But they are popular abroad.

If the roads are smooth the fuel consumption would be less and gears of vehicles would not be changed often. If the roads are bumpy we would have to drive the vehicles in lower gears leading to greater consumption of fuel.

Hence all developing and underdeveloped countries need to bring forward efficient transport facilities to solve the problem of fuel consumption.

SM Fasiullah: Public transport system is the most successful and cheap way of transport available everywhere in the world. In India, may it be state transport corporation or central railway network - it has always been considered the best means of transport. Increasing population in India and the desire of every individual to keep his/her personal vehicle is really a matter of concern. These personal vehicles demand more and more fuel and have resulted in limitless consumption of fuel. The pollution caused due to these vehicles had done irreparable damage to our environment. Therefore the need is efficient public transport system which would surely prove helpful in bringing down fuel consumption. And, we all must opt for public transport. It shall both bring down fuel consumption and keep the environment pollution-free to a great extent.

Dr Balak Ram Kashyap: Efficient public transport system will naturally result in economy in the consumption of fuel. Without diminution in the consumption of fuel any transport system cannot be considered to be running on efficient lines. In order to be efficient the transport system should be so managed that there are no or minimum breakdown or hold ups. For this it will be essential to have a regular programme of servicing and maintenance since a defective machine consumes more fuel. In other words it consumes far more fuel per kilometre running as compared to a well maintained and efficiently run vehicle. Very old and worn out machines which are not economical to operate should be removed from the regular fleet. It will also be necessary to keep a watch on the consumption of fuel as also on pilferage or theft apart from its likely misuse. A locking system should be provided to the petrol tank to make pilferage of petrol more difficult. Some one responsible from the managerial cadre should conduct periodic surprise check to ensure that all is well with the system. Daily issue of petrol/diesel against a particular vehicle should be recorded and balance left in the tank at the close of the day should be checked to determine the actual consumption as per the kilometres covered.

While considering public transport system transport fleets of vehicles maintained by the various Govt Departments and Undertakings should also be considered. The above parameters should be made applicable in their cases too. In addition, here pool system should be resorted to avoiding the use of a vehicle for a single official as far as possible.

The number of trips should be restricted and effective check on misuse of vehicles which is substantial should be exercised.

Krishna Chander Mouli: Yes. Doubtlessly an efficient transport system can bring down fuel consumption. An efficient transport system enables smooth driving. There will neither be zoom over-taking by irresponsible drivers nor while driving the person on the wheel need to change gear and apply brakes every time. Frequent application of brakes, gear changing, unstable acceleration adds to more consumption of fuel as well as restricts the ideal average running of kilometres on road. But to our misery all said and done who is in any way going to bring efficiency into the transport system?

Roads are not lane-laid and even if there are, most of the persons at the wheel do not understand what is a lane and lane driving. The traffic police is a miserable failure who neither know how to regulate transport nor do they have any inclination to do so. They stand here and there as squatterers and are only seen when there are any prospects of collecting some greasing money. It is a very shameful and sad comment on them but traffic police man at least in Bhopal is not a serious type of person nor a professional. Many of them do not understand the new signal system. Almost all of them are very casual. Transport system is haywires right under their nose and they still stand unconcerned. Even the officials of the transport department do not regulate movement of vehicles in a smooth manner under the various provisions of the law. Both traffic police man and the transport officials are most of the time hand-in-glove and their major concern is only collecting greasing money.

Authorities responsible for road construction and their maintenance are not also less guilty. Every year just before rains roads are either constructed or repaired and they become unusable with craters here and there after one rain. Nobody is there to fix accountability for such a poor state of affairs of roads. Unless there is a coordination between the road constructon authorities, traffic authorities and transport officials efficient transport system is unthinkable. This ideal situation is however not going to emerge in the near future unless somebody takes it to his heart. Till then talking of efficient transport system is only utopian. Yet as has been very wisely said by one of our former scientist Presidents Dr APJ Abdul Kalam after by dreaming only we endeavour to achieve things.

Dr Visal A Khan: Efficiency of Public Transport system is a very difficult task in the country like India of defective short roads, huge traffic, blockages due to religious functions, political movements and various processions for public demands against Govt etc. Moreover the Banks are open for loans to purchase any type of vehicle, and even the poorest man has his own vehicle and is free to run it on whatever roads. Indian middle class man without much resources wish to expose himself as if he is rich by keeping a car on his door steps. He will easily avail bank loan for his pomp and show. He is bound to purchase petrol by dint of loans, but does not know the sources to pay back money of loans in future.

Over the past many decades, India's domestic oil production has remained essentially unchanged from year to year, while the country's demand for petroleum products has almost doubled. This has caused India's reliance on foreign oil to grow to the point where more than two-thirds of the country's petroleum supplies are now acquired from abroad. The foreign exchange cost of the imported petroleum is in access of $10 billion per year. While India's hydrocarbon resource base is estimated at 29 billion tons of oil and oil-equivalent gas (215 billion barrels), about two-thirds of its potential hydrocarbon producing areas remain either poorly explored or totally unexplored. Consequently, only 6.8 billion tons of reserves have been established through exploration.

Although metro cities of India have public transport system but public is reluctant to use system and prefer to use their own vehicle to reach the places of destination in time. Govt buses never care for time and they run slow due to blockages of roads of huge traffic. So there is no question of bringing down petrol consumption even in the presence of public Transport system. Govt. is puzzled how to increase efficiency of this system. All alternates failed and public transport system is utter failure.

RK Kutty: These days when different kinds of gimmickries are being introduced to politicize and reap dividends keeping an eye on the forthcoming assembly and Lok Sabha elections in early 2009, to realistically comment on this subject is not that easy. Still, one feels an efficient public transport system would bring down fuel consumption to a great extent. But, then the larger question is where such a public transport system is. Take the case of Bhopal city itself, although there are several modes of public transport system like Star bus, Mini-bus, etc. only a limited poor, economically backward or mostly the retired people who cannot ply or afford own two/four wheelers travel in these transport system.

In the early part of 70s and 80s there were mostly bicycles or tongas on the roads. Very limited four-wheelers were used mostly by ministers/bureaucrats or the upper echelons in the society.

But, due to globalization, there was sudden spurt in automobile industry. Small cars like Maruti-800 and then a variety of motorcycles appeared like swamps and flooded the roads. Even under age kids mostly school or college going, were provided with two-wheelers and that not only boosted up fuel consumption but also over-crowded our already narrow lanes/by-lanes, apart from increase in air pollution due to large scale emission of CO2 from these vehicles. In a way the sudden increase in crude oil price created an environment where most of these people are now feeling the pinch. Government must, therefore, introduce State controlled, efficient public transport city service that is people friendly, like in our metro cities, connecting important places of activities- specially offices of government/public sector or private sector are located.

Another most vital area where fuel consumption can be reduced is by drastically cutting the fleet of vehicles provided to our political/bureaucratic/administrative classes. It is an undisputed fact that scores of vehicles are plying mostly for private/personal works of these people. They should strictly instruct their own family members to economize consumption of fuel, looking to the crisis like situation.

SN Patra: Not only to reduce consumption of petrol/diesel but also to ease out traffic snarls, an efficient city transport system is the answer. But, feudalism deeply ingrained in us makes all attempts to reduce use a car for one person. Mind you that person employs a driver and prefers to provide the bucket seat to the driver and leave the other front bucket seat remain vacant. He would occupy the rear crampy seat as in our modern cars. He possesses a licence to drive motor cars but prefers to be serviced by an almost illiterate driver, for A. human labour is cheap. B. chaufer clad in white uniform with a peak cap is a status symbol.

If we make it mandatory for all four-wheelers, except hired cars, to be self-driven by the owner if he has a licence. Driving is a job of skill and that cannot be expected of illiterate ill-fed and more often idle drivers.

City transport suffers from the gravest drawback of not granting a `stage-carriage' permit to private parties. The RTO people have, in some metros even permitted tacitly the `stage carriage' system (unofficially) for a price! Moreover, drivers of private buses, cars, three-wheelers work over time so as to earn enough salary. Owners of these vehicles exploit the drivers and have created powerful lobbies (of transporters). How many owner-drivers are on the road? Does it call for a survey?

We have said `bye!' to Sugam Sewa, the trailer bus system for city traffic. Bangalore is the only city that has this system (Janti Vahana). Automatically the rash speed is decreased because one engine drags the other bus coupled to it like the rail bogies.

In the Motor Vehicles Act and state rules there are loop holes galore. Readers may not know that very little powers are given to the police. The RTO and civil administrations are the biggest hurdles for free flow of traffic (accident free) as they are charged with generation of revenue both public and private in the ratio of 1:10.

Bank loans to buy cars should be exception rather than the general rule. Who buys a car funding the entire cost. People flaunt high-and cars on the strength of EMIs. You know Maruti was selling cars to people whose monthly income was Rs 4,000 from all sources and fixed the EMI at Rs 4,000. An Income Tax return should be made mandatory for raising loans from the banks etc and all purchase/sale (resale) transactions should be through cheques of the bank account disclosed in the IT return. It is not that these simple yet effective steps are not known to our government but they cannot implement for reasons beyond doubt.

Take the case of fitting a cheap equipment called Techograph -a speedometer which records the run of the vehicle for every twenty four hours. You may show the way by fitting techographs in the cars of VIPs, Govt officials and the police. This won't be done for, who wants his movements documented?

Effective city and inter-city transport system with a sound arterial support is the answer- the call of the day. Do we wake up?

Manisha Gupta: Bonds Today!

Relationships are not attractive and artificially scented crisp paper flowers that you can make within seconds and put up in your drawing room. They are soft, tender, inherently perfumed and beautiful real flowers that you nurture in the garden of your life. It takes ages to build them into genuine long lasting ones.

Relationships are neither about just wishing, calling & sending cards on Father's day, Valentine's day, grandparents day, this day that day. Nor are friendships just about sending, emailing or sms-ing readymade, cut-paste, "impressive" messages on friendship day or world friendship week etc. Nor are they just about exchanging friendship-bands or about sharing good food, good wine and good times. They're much much more.

Bonds are not about just calling up your mother from the U.S or the U.K on the second Sunday of every May to wish her happy Mother's day. Nor are they about landing in India once every few years to either solemnize or legalize as per Indian traditions, your already long live-in relationships, just to get all relatives to accept you and not debar you from their mental and social spaces. Neither is it about using everybody you know for your selfish motives, and never ever to someone else's advantage or even happiness.

With alarmingly increasing incidents of people killing their own family or relatives, comes forth the fact that relationships & family bonds are now already on a downhill running into the sea of terrible trouble that awaits Indian society. The once strong mountain our traditional norms is probably now weakened with repeated attempts of various negative forces within ourselves, with our cultural values having been washed down in the incessantly pouring rain of aping every other culture.

The west is on its way to learning everything from yoga to spirituality to vegetarianism, becoming more sensitive, while we Indians don't look back even once to what our ancient glorious past traditions taught us. We don't value our value systems anymore and so family systems and bonding have undergone a tremendous change in our society. We no more want to spend time & emotions in building long lasting deep relationships. We are living in an era of quick-fixes, fast foods and instant relief & gratifications. We decide to love or marry someone within no time, get married and then within no time file for divorce or quicker still, kill the spouse and marry another person who'd entered into our life. Such quick decision making powers and quicker disposal of lover or friend or relative sure makes us very "competent" to live in this fast paced world.

We are no more forgiving or sacrificing but would do anything for giving our selfish gains a boost and wouldn't mind sacrificing even the lives of our nearest & dearest ones for attaining any selfish motive. We've become very self-centred and forgotten the tenet of keeping oneself last. We begin and end at the "self".

That's what relationships and bonds have come to!