Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, the Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs and Petroleum & Natural Gas has emphasized on government’s unwavering commitment to strengthening the Urban Transport network across the country. He was addressing the Consultative Committee Members of Parliament attached to the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) here yesterday.  The agenda item for the meeting was Urban Transport.

Shri Kaushal Kishore, Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs, Shri Thiru A.K.P. Chinraj, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Shri M.V.V. Satyanarayana, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Dr. Shrikant Eknath Shinde, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Shri Ramesh Bidhuri, Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha), Shri Abir Ranjan Biswas, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Smt Vandana Chavan, Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha), Shri Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MoHUA and other officials of Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, attended the meeting.

Shri Jaideep, Joint Secretary & OSD, Urban Transport, MoHUA, made an elaborated presentation on Urban Transport before the members at the meeting. In the presentation details were shared on growth of metro network across the country.

The participants were briefed about ‘One Nation One Card’, an indigenously developed National Common Mobility Card ( NCMC), launched by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in March, 2019 to enable seamless travel through Metro, Rail, Bus and other Public Transport Operators (PTO) and for use in Retail Shops/Restaurants/ATM/Kiosk/Fuel filling/Parking/ Retail Outlets by single card. NCMC card is based on qSPARC (quick Specification for Payment Application of Rupay Chip) developed by National Payments Corporation of India ( NPCI). Presently, the Metro Rails Cos. Live on NCMC are:

• Delhi Metro (DMRC)
• Bengaluru Metro (BMRCL)
• Mumbai Metro
• Chennai Metro (CMRL)
• Ahmedabad Metro (GMRCL)
• Kanpur Metro (UPMRCL)

Further, State Road Transport Undertakings (SRTUs) adopting the NCMC ecosystem include Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited, Goa, B.E.S.T. Undertaking, Mumbai and Haryana Roadways.

During the meeting, the Members of Parliament raised issues pertaining to Urban Mobility which included the matters related to metro connectivity in their respective constituencies/ states, scaling up of metro operations in the country, last mile connectivity, enhancement of amenities, ease of travel and passenger comfort etc.

In response to the queries of MPs, the Union Minister Shri Puri informed that at present, around 874 kilometers of metro rail is operational in 20 cities across the country and about 986 kilometers is under construction in various cities. He informed that India is well on its way to have the 2nd largest metro network of the world.

Spread of metro network across the country:

The Minister Shri  Hardeep Singh Puri also mentioned about “PM-eBus Sewa”, a scheme recently approved by the cabinet for augmenting city bus operations by deploying 10,000 e-buses on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. Salient features of this scheme are:

• Deployment of 10,000 e- Buses on PPP Model
• Bus operations support for 10 years
• Support for development/upgradation of bus depot
• Support for behind-the-meter power infrastructure
• Coverage of cities with 3lakh+ population
• Selection of cities through a challenge method

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RKJ/M