(a) whether the Government proposes to introduce congestion pricing in cities to avoid traffic jams and excessive pollution pockets;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(b) if not, the alternate measures being devised to reduce the burden of increasing number of vehicles on roads in cities?
THE MINISTER OF ROAD TRANSPORT AND HIGHWAYS
(SHRI NITIN JAIRAM GADKARI)
(a), (b) and (b): (i) Urban Transport is inter-twined with Urban Development, which is a State subject. As such, initiatives for planning and development including introduction of congestion charges, addressing the issues of traffic congestion and excessive pollution, etc. in the area of urban transport, are taken by the respective cities/States/UTs. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), being the central line Ministry for urban transport matters, has notified its policy (NUTP 2006) and other various guiding frameworks to help cities/ULBs/States/UTs to identify principles and strategies for better planning, design and implementation of concepts in the area of urban transport by making the best use of various guidance documents issued by the Ministry.
(ii) Government has launched National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) as a national level strategy to reduce air pollution levels across the country. City Specific Clean Air Action Plans have been prepared and rolled out for implementation in 132 non-attainment and million plus cities. These action plans focus on city- specific short/ medium/ long term actions to control air pollution by reduction of vehicular emission, traffic de-congestion, Intelligent Traffic Management System, reduction of road dust, reduction of burning of biomass/ crop/ garbage/ Municipal Solid Waste, landfills, construction activities, industrial emission, etc. The details of City Specific Clean Air Action Plans action plan are available at https://cpcb.nic.in/approved-city-action-plans.
(iii) As part of the Bharatmala Pariyojana, 191 congestion points have been identified at various interventions like Ring Roads, Bypasses, lane separators, greenfield alignment etc.
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