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Mason Bhagwan Das Harijan lives in Bhopal’s 40 Piplani Quarter Basti. He cycles 10 kilometres every morning to reach his office in Manisha Market. From there, he goes to his worksite with other workers. It takes him two hours to go and come back. Sometimes it gets dark. But the salary of Rs 10,000 is not enough to buy a motorcycle or bear the cost of petrol. Government rations are also not available.
“It is difficult to go by any other means. You will have to change three buses or ‘Magic’ taxis. I can reach there by bicycle in that time,” he said.
Bhagwan Das has been settled in Bhopal since 2016 after working in many cities like Delhi, Lucknow, Jammu and Chandigarh. He likes the city’s open air and scarcer traffic, as compared to other cities. But he said, “For the last few years, Bhopal is beginning to resemble other cities.”
Mahendra Yadav is a mechanic. He lives in Anand Nagar. He travels eight kilometres away to Saket Nagar by bike to work at his garage. Although it takes him 45-50 minutes to commute daily, he spends Rs 2,000 on petrol. This is a big expense for him. He said, “The bike saves time. I have no direct access to public transport. So I cannot use it even if I wants to.”
Bhopal is the second largest city in Madhya Pradesh after Indore. In 1951, the population was just 100,000, which increased to 18,86,100 in the 2011 census. According to the Draft Master Plan 2031, its population has now reached 2.3 million, growing at the rate of 2.56 per annum. The population density in Bhopal is 62 persons per hectare.
Twenty years ago, the biggest means of transportation in Bhopal were Bhat and minibuses. Bhat was a big autorickshaw, on both sides of which people sat on the rails. The second big means of transport used to be minibuses. These buses used to run on numbers, for example, there used to be buses numbered one, two to 19. These buses were notorious for passengers jostling, fighting for space and mouthing the choicest abuses, as well as pickpocketing.
Twenty years ago, new buses started operating under the Centre’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission scheme. The buses were to operate through a government agency. Under the scheme, 287 buses operated on 15 routes of Bhopal. This system continued for some time, but many problems arose. Big buses were not suitable for the narrow roads of Bhopal. These continued to operate, but no attention was paid to their maintenance. Slowly, these buses started going off the road. Three hundred more buses were purchased under the AMRUT Yojana (2020), and the routes were also increased to 22. These buses were smaller in size.
Bhopal is a growing city. It was earlier divided into old and new cities. In the last two decades, it has expanded to suburbs like Kolar, Hoshangabad Road, Bairagarh and Avadhpuri. The density is low and the city is geographically more spread out. This is the reason why the number of vehicles in Bhopal has increased tremendously in the last 10 years. According to data, the number of vehicles is increasing by an average of 10 per cent every year since 2002. That year, there were about 300,000 vehicles here, which increased to 790,000 in 2011. According to the data given by the Transport Department in the MP Assembly on February 25, there are a total of 1,507,613 vehicles in Bhopal, of which 1,080,556 are two-wheelers and 290,272 are four-wheelers.
According to the Sustainable Unban Transport Index, most of the traffic in Bhopal (25 per cent) is by two-wheelers; 43 per cent people walk on foot and by cycle, four per cent people use bicycles. Two per cent people use autorickshaws and three per cent people use cars.
Mobility expert and professor at the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology in Bhopal, Rahul Tiwari said, “The current development of Bhopal does not seem to be planned at all, especially from the perspective of transportation. There is a great lack of comprehensiveness in it. In the last five-ten years it has become even worse. The biggest reason for this is that instead of public transport, everything is being done keeping private vehicles in mind, which is not a good model for the development and environment of any city.”
A 24-km long Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) corridor was built in Bhopal in 2013. In 2025, it became the first city in India where a BRTS was demolished.
According to Tiwari, not even 20 per cent of the correct model of the BRTS has been implemented: “A BRTS does not come about just by dividing roads and installing railings. There were many flaws in it, from the bus stops to many other things. Therefore, people could not use it properly. Instead of bringing any new transport model in place of BRTS, flyovers are being built which is not good for Bhopal’s future.”
He added, “In Bhopal, many wide roads have been built inside the city in the last few years. This does not happen in any country of the world. Along with wide roads, arrangements are also made for the population around it. There is no space for pedestrians and cyclists. There are no trees and plants, there is no space for children and normal life. The speed of the city increases. But culture is lost.”
Road accidents are also a big problem. Statistics show that despite huge investments, there has been no significant reduction in accidents. In 2024, an average of eight road accidents occurred every day in the city, with one death in every second accident.
The people of Bhopal are looking towards the metro to make its traffic smoother. The construction, though, is moving at a snail’s pace.
“The metro will cover only a small part of the city. Secondly, while it is being seen as an alternative to road traffic, in reality it is not so. Hence, the metro and its mobility will also have to be worked upon comprehensively,” said Tiwari.
Online monitoring of air quality is being done in Bhopal since 2018. According to the website of the Environment Surveillance Centre, the data of all three centres in Bhopal city in the last five years claim that the Air Quality Index (AQI) has improved.
The annual AQI trend data of TT Nagar Center was 187.69 in 2019, which came down to 117 in 2023. The trend data of Bhopal Environment Complex was at 195 in 2019 and came down to 121, while the data of Bhopal Collectorate is at 113.
Yet, this is more than double the annual standard. Indicators from three directions show a trend of improvement in the environment, but amidst the decreasing greenery and increasing number of vehicles, this figure also surprises environmentalists.
Lokendra, Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal, said that the effect of the increase in the number of two-wheelers and four-wheelers in Bhopal is clearly visible. The department’s data shows that in the last 10 years, the number of patients is increasing at an average rate of 5 per cent every year. PM 10 and PM 2.5 in Bhopal’s environment are continuously higher than the set standard. This is not only affecting the lungs, eyes, nose and ears, it is also having a bad effect on the nervous system of Bhopal’s residents.
This article is part of our series on how India moves, which looks at the relationship between air quality and human mobility in cities and towns.