Transport Infrastructure: A roadmap for the future: By E. Sreedharan For one of the world’s oldest civilizations with a culture spanning centuries, sixty years is not a long time. But as a nation, the last six decades since India became a republic have been truly momentous as the country has witnessed far-reaching developments in many spheres. However, development of transport infrastructure was probably not given the importance it deserved initially as our planners did not realize that investments in transport sector come back to the nation manifold fueling growth in many other sectors. As time passed, it was realized that mobility is an important requirement for economic growth of the nation as economic activities flourish in areas where accessibility is good and mobility fast. Gradually, the spotlight has shifted to development of transport infrastructure. Urban Public Transport Since Independence, India has undergone a fundamental change in the way its citizens live and work. A primarily rural society for countless years, India has seen a spurt in the pace of its urbanization. Since job opportunities have increased in urban areas at a much faster pace than in villages, attracting millions to the already-overcrowded cities, the proportion of urban population went up from just 17% in 1951 to 28% in 2001, according to the latest available Census figures. Currently, the proportion of urbanization is estimated to be about 35% and this figure is likely to go up to 45% by 2020. Thus, by that year, more than half a billion people will live in India’s teeming cities. According to recent Government estimates, 14 cities already have populations in excess of three million while seven have more than five million residents. However, urban public transport facilities have failed to keep up with the rapid rise in population. Public transport is fully road-based in almost all our cities with the exception of Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata where sub-urban trains play a limited role. The result is that our roads are heavily congested with an explosion in the number of vehicles, causing heavy pollution and keeping the average speed of vehicles low. The most disturbing effect of the dependence on road-based transport is the high fatality rates on city roads. According to estimates, almost 120,000 people die every year across India in road accidents, including 2,000 in Delhi alone. A possible solution is to increase the capacity of roads but cities are already so congested that there is little scope for this. Read More at: iasscore.in/latest-news-71.html
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 14:20:18 +0000
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