Businesses use the festival of lights to contact and communicate with clients in an ‘un-business like’ ambience through sharing gifts and presents with them. In a sense, this culture of gifting opens up massive opportunities for businesses themselves, particularly for consumer goods and white goods sector. Therefore, be it families or businesses, everyone needs to move around Delhi to not just share sweets and goodies, but also soak in the general mood of happiness and well-being all around.
But there is a huge downside to this culture of gift-exchange. The same gifting leads to massive traffic snarls and logjams literally bringing the whole city to a halt. Riding on the festive mood, as people flock to market places and shopping complexes, major arterial roads as well as local lanes connected with those markets get chock-a-bloc with traffic.
· 4 to 5 million vehicles plyevery day within Delhi
· More than 1 million vehicles enter the city from NCR alone during the festive season
According to Chrome DM, in the three days leading up to the day of Diwali, the traffic congestion in the city rises by no less than an average 46% with the percentage numbers even further shooting up in key market areas. However, as Diwali fever subsides, on the day after the big day, the traffic eases considerably as confirmed by Chrome DM’s survey. However, on the very day after Diwali, the volume of traffic comes down by as much as 37 to 40 percent which reaches its pre-Diwali figures in about a week or so, as shown by Chrome DM’s survey results.
The excessive numbers of vehicles on the road on account of gifting and shopping during Diwali have also led to the excessive emissions during Diwali. Last year, the city had seen emissionsrise 137 percent in terms of pm 2.5 levels. Therefore this is an extraordinary situation, and extraordinary situations require extraordinary measures.As a result, Chrome DM has decided to postpone the corporate gifting exercise by three more days after the sound and light festival ends. Let’s hope this step in its own ways, no matter how small, will help the city welcome a cleaner, safer and less traffic-laden Delhi.
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