Minister for Revenue and Transport M.O.H.F. Shahjahan on Friday said that vehicular traffic remained a major challenge in Puducherry and the government was trying to find alternative ways to tackle the problem.
Mr. Shahjahan was speaking at a workshop on “Smart Mobility - Intelligent, Cost Effective and Green Mobility – Puducherry Way Forward” organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here.
He said the government had received suggestions from various quarters for construction of flyovers. There had been tremendous increase in traffic density in Puducherry with the number of vehicles now touching 10 lakhs. Pointing out that the Union Territory did not have an electric vehicle policy, Mr. Shahjahan said there was an immediate need to encourage private players to help the government tide over traffic problem. An expert committee would be formed to help formulate an electric vehicle policy, he said.
Metro rail ruled out
The Minister said the Delhi Integrated Multimodal Transit System Ltd. (DIMS) suggested that the government should encourage people to use public transport. Although the government looked at alternative modes of public transport, metro and mono rail were not found to be viable for Puducherry.
Pravimal Abhishek, assistant collector, said the future of mobility in Puducherry should invariably be intelligent, cost-effective and green. This resonates with the vision of the smart city proposal as well as the comprehensive mobility plan (CMP). A collaborative effort was on between the government and the Agence Francaise Development for an elaborative study on public transport system as well as an integrated public transport system.
The CMP data showed that the personalised mode of transport accounted for 80% of transport while the figure was 18% for public transport in Puducherry. Of the personalised mode of transport, 83% was motorised while around 17% alone was non-motorised transport.
CII Puducherry chairman M. Nandakumar and vice-chairman M. Kalaichelvan spoke.