Shri Manohar Lal Khattar, the Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs and Power yesterday, in his address to the consultative committee members of parliament attached to the MoHUA, emphasised that Urban Mobility is an important aspect to tackle the rising urban population and government is working relentlessly to strengthen the Urban Transport Network across the country.
Union Minister Shri Manohar Lal also informed that about 993 kilometres of metro rail is operational in 23 cities across the country and about 997 kilometres is under construction in 28 cities in the country.
He also informed that India is well on its way to have the 2nd largest metro network of the world. The agenda item for the meeting was Urban Transport. Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Shri Dinesh Sharma, Shri Ajay Makan, Ms Kamaljeet Sherawat, Shri P.N. Vasava, Prof V.E. Gaikwad, Ms Kavita Patidar, Shri B.M. Sutariya , Shri V E Vaithilingam , Shri G. Lakshminarayana, , Shri Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Shri Y. Chandolia attended the meeting.
Urban Transport Division, MoHUA, made an elaborated presentation on Urban Transport before the members at the meeting.
The participants were briefed about Metro Rail Policy 2017 and Metro Networks across the cities including Delhi Metro, Jaipur Metro, Patna Metro and Lucknow Metro. The members were also briefed about the ongoing projects of RRTS network including its funding pattern.
Briefing to the members also covered initiatives taken to promote indigenisation of technologies under Make in India and promote Aatmanirbhar Bharat.
The briefing also mentioned about “PM-eBus Sewa”, a scheme for augmenting city bus operations by deploying 10,000 e-buses on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. Salient features of this scheme are:
• Deployment of 10,000 e- Buses on PPP Model
• Bus operations support for 10 years
• Support for development/upgradation of bus depot
• Support for behind-the-meter power infrastructure
• Coverage of cities with 3 to 40 lakhs population
Briefing also covered ‘One Nation One Card’, an indigenously developed National Common Mobility Card (NCMC), launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in March, 2019 to enable seamless travel through Metro, Rail, Bus and other Public Transport Operators (PTO).
During the meeting, the Members of Parliament raised issues pertaining to Urban Mobility which included the matters related to last mile connectivity, enhancement of amenities, metro connectivity in their respective constituencies/ states, scaling up of metro operations in the country, ease of travel and passenger comfort etc.
Union Minister asked the officials that suggestions from members received should be reviewed and provide the information seeker by members.