'Moving towards sustainable mobility in cities: Preparing CMPs that promote sustainability'

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) organised the workshop ‘Moving towards sustainable mobility in cities: Preparing CMPs that promote sustainability’ on 30 May 2012 at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The workshop was supported by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. The workshop focused on the subject of mobility planning in Indian cities. The Ministry of Urban Development under the National Urban Renewal Mission has been encouraging cities to prepare their Comprehensive Mobility Plans (CMPs). A recent review of a few CMPs by TERI indicates that there are significant gaps in these plans from the perspective of promoting sustainability mobility in cities. The workshop helped disseminate the findings of TERI’s study to the cities that have prepared/are preparing their CMP. The workshop also benefited the consultants who are engaged by the cities to prepare their CMPs.

The workshop was inaugurated by Dr Sudhir Krishna, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development. Dr Krishna highlighted the need to plan mobility systems with an objective to achieve sustainability. He opined that it is critical that the CMPs identify ‘doable projects’ and innovative financing mechanisms to be able to implement the projects. Mr S K Lohia, OSD (UT) and Ex-Officio Jt. Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development gave an overview of the current status of CMP preparation in the country and highlighted the need to move away from the conventional mobility planning approaches. He emphasized the need to have robust institutional structures to be able to plan and implement mobility plans that promote sustainability. The workshop also benefited from presentations by experts from IIT Delhi, Innovative Transport Solutions (iTrans) Pvt. Ltd, Association of Municipalities and Development Authorities (AMDA), RITES, TERI, Institute of Urban Transport (India), and Municipal Commissioners of Pune and Vadodara.