New Delhi, June 2 -- "There is no government-run public transport in this completely private city. New generations might not even know what public transport was or why it mattered. Once upon a time (before 1970), red government buses run by the government of then-undivided Bihar operated in the city. These were the main mode of transport in Jamshedpur. Fares used to be as low as five or 10 paise. Nobody knows where those buses disappeared. Now, all you see on the roads are privately-owned two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and cars," said 66-year-old Dhanraj, seated with an old friend at a tea stall in the Burma Mines area of Jamshedpur - India's first private city, famous as a Tata township.

He reminisced, "Back then, bicycles and public bu...