The Hindu 29.11.2013
Cities other than Chennai to be developed
Commissionerate of Municipal Administration will soon
take up development of cities other than Chennai in the State, said
Secretary, Municipal Administration and Water Supply, K. Phahindra
Reddy, here on Thursday.
The development would be a
midcourse correction aimed at improving non-motorised transport in the
city corporations and town municipalities.
The
Commissionerate would take the help of the Institute for Transportation
and Policy Development in the course correction, just as it had done so
for Chennai, where a departure had been made.
Mr.
Reddy was speaking at the two-day conference on ‘Sustainable Cities
Through Transport,’ organised by the Commissionerate of Municipal
Administration, Chennai, and the Institute.
There was
an urgent need to improve non-motorised transport in the cities and
towns because Tamil Nadu was the most urbanised State in the country.
It
enjoyed the highest road network and the government’s spend on urban
infrastructure development was almost twice that of the Union
Government. Tamil Nadu’s progress did not stop there.
It was the first to go for a midcourse correction to reorient its priorities in urban development.
With
the West as the role model, the State had taken up providing new roads
and widening existing roads, constructing flyovers, road-over bridges,
rail-under bridges and much more — almost all at the cost of pedestrian
pathways.
The mistake in following the Western model
was that they held personalised motor transport as a priority. Whereas
in India the reliance was on cycling, walking, and public transport.
There was an urgent need to go back to the old system as for long the
country had compromised the space meant for non-motorised transport.
The
State Government had made a beginning in Chennai by improving
pedestrian pathways and constructing tracks for bicycles. It had also
planned to improve the penetration of public transport system.
Corporation Commissioner G. Latha inaugurated the conference.
Earlier, Enrique Penalosa, former Mayor, Bogota, Colombia, spoke about his measures to improve the city.