Article | Urban Transportation
Enhancing Non-Motorized Transport System of Indian Cities Indian cities have witnessed an increasing shift to motorised modes of transportation systems while the traditional Non-Motorized Transport takes a back seat in city transportation plans. This article discusses the current status and challenges Non-Motorized Transport (NMT) Systems in India face and their role in ensuring first and last mile connectivity and puts forth recommendations for enhancing it Akanksha Dewan, Barkha Sharma & Renuka Kulkarni Department of Energy and Environment, TERI School of Advanced Studies
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he lack of effective planning and land use controls have resulted in cities expanding beyond the old city boundaries into the countryside areas. This has led to cities losing their compact forms, thus increasing the number and length of trips, which in turn increases the dependency on nonmotorised transport systems. We look into different case studies elaborated in expert sessions held at the Conference on Integrated Sustainable Transport for Smart and Resilient Cities (IST Conference) during October 10-11, 2019 at UNESCO House, Chanakyapuri to provide recommendations that might improve the existing framework of NMT systems in big cities like Delhi.
Policy Frameworks for NMT
The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) has encouraged Indian cities through its various initiatives and programmes to adopt NMT as a key element of their integrated urban transport system. An overview of these policies and programs suggests that NMT has been included but has
42 February 2020 | www.urbanupdate.in
not yielded the desired results mainly attributed to lack of implementation. To work on this, the government linked Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) funds with the NUTP’s Vision. JNNURM was launched in 2005 with an aim to develop and improvise infrastructure projects including urban transport. The National Mission for Sustainable Habitat (NMSH), under the Prime Minister’s National Action Plan on Climate Change, constituted a subcommittee specifically focusing on urban transport systems under MoUD in 2015. Amongst the eight principles of sustainable urban transportation listed out by the sub-committee, Walking’ and ‘Cycling’ were the focus. In addition, the Service Level Benchmarks (SLB’s) developed by MoUD focused on integration of NMT with overall performance of urban transport systems by its continuous assessment of infrastructure (MoUD, 2010). A working group was set up to provide recommendations on urban transport when the 12th Five Year Plan was being formulated. One of the key recommendations delivered by this group was to allocate funds to improve, maintain and upgrade existing NMT
infrastructure. Even though the policies and programs have been comprehensive enough to address the issues related to NMT and promote its usage, the implementation of the same is questionable. This is attributed to the lack of integration of multi-modal systems which can be attributed to inappropriate allocation of funds.
Challenges Policy Framework and Finance
Statistics reveal that very few smart city proposals have allocated appropriate finances for NMT. A 2017 study conducted by SUM Net India Secretariat compared the budgets of five Indian cities and brought out linkages between sustainable transport and their budget allocations in cities of Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Nagpur and Bangalore. The budget analysis revealed that the share of expenditure on motor-vehicle related projects was the highest across all five cities. The analysis also pointed out the problem of multiple organizations handling overlapping and indistinct functions. This complicated planning of transport services. Consequently, the
