Dr. M Ramachandran inaugurates Seminar on Guidelines And Toolkits For Urban Transport Development in Medium Sized Cities in India

Dr. M Ramachandran, Secretary Ministry of Urban Development inaugurated a Seminar on Guidelines And Toolkits For Urban Transport Development in Medium Sized Cities in India organised by Institute of Urban Transport with the support of Ministry of Urban Development and Asian Development Bank, here today.

Speaking on the occasion, the Secretary stated that the need for improvement in urban transport systems is becoming increasingly important in view of the problems of congestion, deteriorating air pollution, road accidents and environmental considerations. He further said that growing personal incomes and rapidly changing markets are generating demand for a greater variety and a high quality of transport services than are currently available in most developing and transition economics like India. Therefore higher priority needs to be attached to moving people rather than vehicles, ensuring greater safety in transport, minimizing adverse health effects etc, emphasized the Secretary. Inappropriately designed transport strategies and programmes can result in unsustainable transport network and services which can aggravate the condition of the poor, harm the environment, ignore the changing needs of the users and exceed the capacity of public finance, he added.

Dr. Ramachandran informed that a number of projects pertaining to promotion of public transport systems in form of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) have been initiated in number of mission cities. Recently the Ministry under the second stimulus package has sanctioned about 14,500 buses across the country to transform the bus transport scene in Indian cities. These buses would be conforming to the Urban Bus Specifications formulated by the Ministry of Urban Development, he said.

He further stated that the Ministry has undertaken a scheme for capacity building in urban transport in an overarching manner. While an ambitious capacity building initiative in the 11th Plan is on the anvil, on a continuous basis, such initiatives have been taken from time to address certain focus areas. He said that the Tool kits prepared with ADB support is one of these initiatives.

Highlighting the Guidelines and Toolkits prepared by ADB in association with the Ministry, he mentioned the following five modules- Module 1 on Comprehensive Mobility Plans (CMPs), Module 2 on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Module 3 on Bus Service Improvement, Module 4 on Parking Measures and Module 5 on Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) Measures. These Guidelines and Toolkits for Urban Transport Development were prepared by a Technical Assistance on Urban Transport Strategy funded by the Asian Development Bank.

The Guidelines and Toolkits focus on the planning process and policy options and serve more as checklists of available measures and the tasks required to solve urban transport problems, rather than providing technical guidelines for the development of detailed transport measures.

The Secretary expressed hope that the conference will come out with appropriate recommendations which could guide the policy planners in further promoting the development of sustainable urban transport in the country.

TFK/MT