Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on Friday said that her government has decided to give top priority to transport sector with an aim to develop an international standard transport set up in the city.
Dikshit, who inaugurated a day-long seminar on "Urban transport in Delhi" organized by the Transport Department, Government of NCT of Delhi with the assistance from Institute of Urban Transport (Delhi), in her inaugural speech elaborated the progress made by the government in planning and developing transport for the people of Delhi.
She highlighted how Delhi's transport is much better than any other city in the country and region, however a lot still needs to be done.
"This seminar would be useful in deliberating how the transport system of Delhi can be made better," she said.
Dikshit also released a souvenir which is a compendium of technical papers and articles on Delhi's transport system.
The seminar was presided over by Transport Minister Ramakant Goswami.
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In his speech, Goswami discussed in detail how the transport system in Delhi needs to be planned for the people and not vehicles. He emphasized the need for better planning and better implementation of the schemes and systems so that it is the people of Delhi who are the biggest beneficiaries.
In his address, the Secretary and Commissioner Transport expressed the need for knowledge, awareness and training within the department so that officials are better aware of fulfilling the needs and desires of the people of Delhi.
This Seminar is an initiative of its kind to start deliberating and discussing urban transport by engaging experts in the field to discuss about transport planning in Delhi.
The technical sessions began with a presentation on the Regional Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS) by the Member Secretary of NCRPB Naini Jayaseelan. This was followed by a presentation on Delhi Metro by Sharat Sharma, Director Operations DMRC. The subsequent session on Multimodal Integration contained presentations by Sh Samir Sharma from DIMTS and Shri Yash Sachdeva. Both these presentations focused on the need for modal integration in Delhi considering there are so many modes of public transport available to the public.
The second half of the day kick started with a session on Road Safety. Taj Hassan from Delhi Traffic Police and Dr. PK Sikdar from ICT and Dr. Geetam Tiwari from TRIPP, IIT Delhi presented the reduction in road fatalities and injuries and how additional efforts need to be taken towards making roads of Delhi safer.
The session on Green Delhi included a very eloquent presentation by Anumita Roy Choudhary from CSE and Sandeep Mishra from DPCC.
The last session of the event was on Transit Oriented Development and how it would help in densifying transit corridors accommodating more and more people within a higher density area around transit stations.
The day concluded with a vote of thanks by Special Commissioner, Transport, Kuldeep Singh Gangar who thanked the Chief Minister and Minister Transport for being a strong source of motivation and encouragement which made the event possible.