No flyovers, congestion fee to make Delhi traffic free: Panel

Central government panel proposes Rs 20,000 crore package to decongest Delhi

GN Bureau | June 6, 2016


#Decongesting Traffic in Delhi   #Delhi motor vehicle Act   #pedestrians   #parking   #decongestion   #Delhi traffic  
Delhi traffic
Delhi traffic

A central government-appointed committee set up for 'Decongesting Traffic in Delhi', has recommended that parking and encroachment on footpaths should be made cognizable offences. This comes as a relief to pedestrians in Delhi who are forced to walk on the main roads due to obstructions on pavements. The committee was set up by the minister of urban development Venkaiah Naidu in October 2014.

 
The panel headed by the urban development secretary, Rajiv Gauba, said, "Parking on footpaths should be made a cognizable offence with heavy penalties and compounding. This should be done by utilising the relevant provisions of the Municipal Act for public space encroachment as well as the Delhi Motor Vehicle Act and Delhi Police Act for endangering the life of citizens." 
 
Once it becomes law, the Delhi chief secretary, with representatives from other stakeholders, should monitor implementation. Police and enforcement agencies can book the offenders and can also make arrests.
 
Key recommendations of the panel include: 
  • Signal-free corridors should be avoided as this only attracts more traffic. 
  • Building new flyovers should not be taken up unless over a river, a natural barricade, rail line or if there is no other solution.
  • In order to push measures to reduce private vehicles on city roads and to encourage use buses, taxis, auto-rickshaws, cycling and walking, the panel suggested the need for stiff parking charges.
  • As a thumb rule – higher the congestion, higher the fee should be levied in the area to reduce parking demand. 
  • The committee recommended five times charges for on-road parking than off-road. Even penal charges for parking violations should be 10 times the normal rates.
  • It was noted that roads in the city covered almost 21 percent of the total land, 60 percent of passenger trips were below four km distance and 80 percent below six km, which were ideal for non-motorised transport. The panel recommended development of infrastructure for promoting walking and cycling. For this investment of Rs 20,000 crore should be made for bus rapid transit system, walking and cycling infrastructure. 
  • The committee also expressed serious concern over escalating of gated communities in the city which was compelling local traffic to come on the main roads by preventing short cuts for movement of people.
The panel had representatives from 19 different agencies from central and Delhi government, but the final report was heavily loaded with views from the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning & Engineering) Centre of DDA.
 
Similar recommendations have been made in other cities to combat vehicular traffic and congestion.
 
A study by a Chennai-based urban policy research think tank had proposed last year, a congestion tax model as a solution to traffic congestion in Chennai which has the greatest vehicle density in the country, much higher than those of Delhi and Mumbai.
 
 

Comments

 

Other News

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

PM Modi visits Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh in Moscow

Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh. The Rosatom pavilion, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of the largest exhibitions on the histo

Let us pledge to do what we can for environment: President

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday morning spent some time at the sea beach of the holy city of Puri, a day after participating in the annual Rath Yatra. Later she penned her thoughts about the experience of being in close commune with nature. In a message posted on X, she said:

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter