Rajasthan govt yet to form unified transport authority for Jaipur

JAIPUR: The Union urban development ministry drafted a proposed bill for formation of Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) around 18 months back, but the state government is yet to form the authority mandatory for all cities having more than 10-lakh population.
“Around one-and-half years back, proposal for UMTA for Jaipur was drafted. Yet, the government has not ratified it and formed the authority. This would have been very important for public transport in the city where modes of transportation are being controlled by several departments, and not one,” a senior urban development official told TOI. In Jaipur there are private buses and share autos/TATA Magic services and private buses being managed by the transport department. The Jaipur City Transport Services Limited under the local self-help group operates the government buses plying within the city limits. Then there’s Metro Rail operated by JMRC under urban development department and the local trains by Indian Railways.
“Without UMTA it is not possible to facilitate, coordinate, plan and implement the urban transport programmes in Jaipur and to manage an integrated urban transport system. One of the most important problem that UMTA could have managed is to rationalise the private and the government bus routes, shared services and the Metro services in such a way that it maintains a balance in the load factor,” the official added.
Take for example, JCTSL bus routes. The corporation operates 30 routes in the city now. Of which two routes register more than 90% load, while 10 routes register 70 to 90% loads. But there are nine other routes where load factor is less than 70% and nine more routes with less than 50% average load factors.
According to JCTSL officials, there are a few factors that have reduced the load factor of these nine routes to below 50%, like low population density in areas these routes are operated. But the most important being rampant issue of road permit to shared vehicles in these routes by the transport department.
“If shared permits and bus routes are planned in a rationalized way, JCTSL could have increased the load factor on these routes. But JCTSL don’t have any control over issuing route permits for shared vehicles and private buses. Even the present Transport Control Board has no such authority to resolve such issues. UMTA is the need of the hour,” an official added.