1. BANK
LOAN
POLICIES
&
ACCIDENTS
DR.
SHRINIWAS
KASHALIKAR

2. The accidents on the roads are mainly,
if not exclusively, (apart from many
other causes), due to excessive number
of vehicles on the roads.
This excessive number is due to
increase in demand of small vehicles
and two wheelers. This is due to 1)
inadequate production and promotion
of vehicles of mass transport such as
buses, 2) Artificial creation of felt status
need 3) Aggressive marketing 4)
excessive production and supply of
private cars, auto-rickshaws and two
wheelers and 5) Easily available low
interest (easily affordable for a certain
class of people) loans for purchase of
private cars, rickshaws and two
wheelers.

3. Ideally the government should have
proper policies, rules and regulations for
rectification of this aberration, in terms
of excessive production. In addition, the
government should also make it
mandatory for the banks to give
substantially lower interest loans for
the purchase of buses as compared to
and in preference to private cars,
rickshaws and two wheelers.
But even if government fails to do so,
the banks can volunteer and take
initiative and lead; to provide
substantially lower interest loans for
purchases of buses as compared to and
in preference to the loans for cars,
rickshaws and two wheelers.
This can have some rectifying influence
in terms of preferential purchase of

4. buses and running public undertakings
and businesses of mass (bus) transport.
The persons in the money lending
sectors such as banks, and especially
those in decision making position, have
to realize that their concern for the
prevention or reduction in the number
and severity of road accidents can be
effectively expressed to the satisfaction
of their conscience, through such a bank
policy and its implementation. This is
because even though, this measure
obviously can not prevent the road
accidents completely, it would certainly
tackle one of the major causes of road
accidents, viz. easy financing and
thereby unabated increase in the number
of vehicles on the roads. This would
surely reduce the number and severity
of accidents.

5. This point certainly does not undermine
the importance of the individual
precautions. But it is important to
realize that this measure is not merely
complementary to all the precautions
the car owners, drivers, pedestrians and
the traffic police should take, but its
impact, like that of any accurate
decision, is far more effective,
widespread and on massive scale than
any individual or institutional
precautions, taken in isolation.