[sustran] Reddy questions use of building flyovers

[Vinay Baindur]

*Reddy questions use of building flyovers*

By Ranjit Bhushan Nov 23 2009 , New Delhi

Tags: News
Urban development minister Jaipal Reddy on Monday questioned the usefulness
of building flyovers in
cities, saying that they aided only personal car owners and failed to help
expand new-age public transport systems like metro rail and bus rapid
transit (BRT).

"We are building flyovers in cities for cars only. Even buses can't go.
Two-wheelers cannot use them," he told a national conference on ‘good
governance towards improved basic urban service' organised by The Energy and
Resources Institute (Teri) here.

He said the focus should be on urban public transport and that there is a
need for expansion of metro rail in Delhi and other cities.

On a day when experts from the World Bank, public adminstrators and NGOs
revisited the four-year-old Jawaharlal Nehru national urban renewal mission
(JNNURM), Reddy said that more than 90 per cent of the funds under JNNURM,
which is over Rs 1,00,000 crore, had gone on improving basic services such
as drinking water, drainage and slum improvement.

Reddy said that "We are living in an urban age but our own urbanisation is
33 per cent" while the global average is 50 per cent. He lamented that the
urban local bodies (ULBs) have been victims of "benign neglect".

"As a consequence, no elections were held, some even for 20 years and no
powers were enjoyed by the urban local bodies.”