Toward Coordinated Urban Transport Planning in India

Abstract

Management of transport is highly fragmented in cities in India. Several agencies of the government are involved with some aspects of urban transport planning and often do not interact adequately to ensure that they are not working at cross-purposes. The government of India has, therefore, recommended that every city with a population of more than one million should set up a unified metropolitan transport authority (UMTA) to ensure proper coordination and integration of transport plans. This paper reviews the early initiatives taken in some cities and presents the strengths and weaknesses of the approach adopted. The focus of these early initiatives has been guided by the need to bring all concerned agencies together rather than set up new entities or carry out any major restructuring of existing institutions. This initial move seems to be a good one in the context of the well-established governance and administrative system in India. However, there is a need to ensure that the UMTA is not dependent on the interests of a single individual and is not weakened by change of personnel. For this to happen, the UMTA needs to be given a definite role in some matters, one of which would be the final authority to approve large projects and allocate funds for them. Subsequent efforts should be toward converting the UMTA into a full-fledged agency to take charge of all urban transport matters.

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