Union Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath on Tuesday emphasized on the need for transit oriented development of cities as an integral part of urban planning.
Speaking after inaugurating the sixth edition of the Urban Mobility India Conference and Expo 2013 here, Nath said there is a requirement of mixed use development of urban transport centres i.e. development of residential, commercial, entertainment and other civic facilities within the vicinity of main public transport centres.
This, he added, will help to provide ease of access to major facilities to the people and promote use of mass transit systems.
He also highlighted the role of cities as engines of growth which will further create the urgency to address mobility issues. He highlighted the need to create modern cities receptive to innovation in the field of mobility.
Nath said that it is important to have a multi modal approach to urban mobility ranging from metro projects to BRTS, monorail, state of the art buses as well as other modes of regional transportation.
He said that regional connectivity in urban agglomeration can help to decentralize population growth.
He added that it is in this direction that the National Capital Region Transportation Corporation (NCRTC) has been created for designing, planning and implementing an elaborate regional transport system in the NCR.
Stating that metro projects are very high priority for the government and are being successfully implemented in several cities like Delhi, Chennai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Jaipur among others, Nath said the Delhi Metro is an exemplary project and after the completion of all the four phases it will have a length of about 440 kilometres which will be higher than the London Metro.
The Minister hoped that the deliberations during the conference will lead to formulation of a desirable vision for planning urban transport in a manner that can result in transforming the urban areas on faster trajectory of sustainable growth.
