New Delhi: Calling urbanization a big challenge for India, railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday said that the country needs to learn from other cities of the world and suggested seamless integration of all public transport modes.
“The country needs to learn from other cities of the world,” said Prabhu while speaking at ‘Connect Karo’,—a 3-day global conclave— organized by the World Resources Institute (WRI) India Ross Centre, a research organisation.
He suggested that seamless integration of all public transport modes is one of the most important solutions towards creating balanced cities, and said that this is the underlined theme for his suburban rail policy.
The event has brought together national and international thought experts, politicians, policy makers and think tanks from various fields like urban planning, infrastructure, transport, energy, water and climate change. The event, whose theme is ‘Toward a more equal city’ is seeking solutions on building cities that are sustainable, clean, efficient and equitable for its citizens.
Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, who also attended the event, said, “to find the right sustainability approach it is important to keep an open mind and experiment with various models”.
“An example is the free water scheme which the Delhi government introduced. It was initially looked at with skepticism. Interestingly, we managed to generate Rs178 crore revenue from the model to date,” Sisodia said.
India is witnessing rapid urbanisation and as per experts about 50% of the country’s population is estimated to live in urban areas.
Experts say, in a business-as-usual scenario, this kind of urbanisation could lead to rapid growth of urban poor living in slums with no adequate access to even basic resources like clean air, water and safety.
“At this juncture, it is imperative for the country to veer away from haphazard development and inadequate planning towards robust growth. Recognizing this, the government has invested heavily in cities today. It’s our joint responsibility now to assist this vision to strengthen megacities as well as build healthy, compact and well-connected newer cities,” said Madhav Pai, a director at the WRI India Ross Centre.
