KTR lauds Centre's push to electric mobility

Hyderabad : The three days Urban Mobility India Conference at Hyderabad concluded this evening with a call for new paradigms of urban mobility to address the serious problem of transportation in the cities and towns.

Addressing the Valedictory Session of the Conference, Telangana Minister of Municipal Administration K. Tarakarama Rao called for effective solutions based on disruptive technologies to fix the problem of urban mobility. He said that the Indian way of finding 'Jugaad' to solve problems could come handy in addressing the issue of urban transportation in the country. Elaborating on this, he said urban mobility solutions need to be based on 'doing more with less' since urban transport infrastructure is cracking in almost all the Indian Cities and towns.

Voicing concern over environmental consequences of rapid increase in the number of motor vehicles on the country's urban roads, KTR appreciated central government's initiative to ensure shift to electric vehicles by 2030. He further said the country can't blindly copy the practices of developed cities of the world and instead need to find out solutions specific to each Indian city and State. He said that the Hyderabad Metro is unique in several ways being the largest metro project being developed in PPP mode, being executed by a private agency with the State Government providing an enabling environment and centre supporting with Viability Gap Funding.

KTR stated the Hyderabad Metro's first phase is likely to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 28th of this month.

Presenting the outcomes of the three day UMI Conference, Durga Shanker Mishra, Union Secretary (Housing and Urban Affairs), said the conference proved to be highly successful in sharing of experiences and best practices in respect of various issues concerning urban mobility. He said that with emerging new mobility options and changing user behavior, there is a change of view from owning a car to owning the ride, marking a new beginning towards a new urban transportation normal with positive outcomes. He said the challenge is to realize this new normal as quickly as possible through necessary regulatory and policy interventions.

Mishra said metro rail has become the flavor of the season with more and more cities aspiring for metro projects but metro projects can't any more be seen as isolated urban transport projects and need to be handled as part of comprehensive urban mobility solutions and as urban transformation projects.