Germany to provide urban transport solutions for Bhubaneswar

urban transport  BhubaneswarThe Housing and Urban Development Department of the State Government and Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) in collaboration with German funding agency German Corporation for International Cooperation or GIZ, will prepare a city-wide, holistic master plan for non-motorised transport (NMT) focussing on low-carbon urban transport.

Based on this eco-friendly master plan, measures would be selected for which the project could provide technological support.

Titled as SMART-SUT (Smart Cities-Sustainable Urban Transport), the futuristic project will be implemented in three cities in India, i.e. Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore and Kochi. At national level, GIZ is implementing it with Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. The project forms part of the focal area of Indo-German bilateral technical cooperation `Sustainable Urban and Industrial Development’’.

As per the project, preparation of boundaries under the metropolitan development area relevant for the CMP need to be decided including possible integration of nearby urban local bodies like Cuttack and Puri.

In future there is also a plan to implement the Temple City in the German-French initiative of Mobilse Your City (MYC) programme as part of this cooperation project. The project would also involve operationalisation and implementation of the Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA), proposed to cover the three cities.

While BDA will implement the project, in close association with Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited GIZ experts will prepare the project operational plan. H&UD, on the other hand shall involve BDA and other stakeholders to participate in the state and national level project steering committees, as required by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.

The project would also work towards establishment of a system for measuring and mitigating air pollution and emission of green house gases and the overall planning and management of urban freight was identified as potential future topic for the extension of the project.