Single body for all transportation works - Pune does it

24 October 2008 - 10:00am — silkboard

Learning from mistakes and gaps at other cities - Pune could be doing that. Read this morning, with great interest that Pune has created a special purpose vehicle called Pune Infrastructure Development Corporation (PIDC). Quoting this story (PIDC cleared), this body will be:

... a special purpose vehicle, for resolving the traffic and transport problems of the city. The company will have to raise Rs 24,000 crore for the implementation of projects like flyovers, bridges as also the Metro rail in the city. “The company would be responsible for the infrastructure to improving the traffic and address the transportation woes of the city. PIDC will not be responsible for public transport though,” Municipal Commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi said.

An equivalent situation for Bangalore could be a BMLTA like body entrusted with running CTTP with Rs 50000 crore worth of projects detailed by the study conducted by RITES and others. Refer Naveen's post for details on a PIL some of us are proposing to make something like this happen in Bangalore).

I still need to read more details on what PIDC is, but if it indeed is something like BMLTA, but with authority and money on hand, then imagine what this could bring us. Outer Ring Road will get High Quality Bus solution before or along with the upgrade to make it an expressway. There would have been no elevated road to Electronics City, there may have been a Metro line on Hosur Road with connection to a Rapid Bus corridor or a Mono on Outer ring Road. Etc, etc ... you list your favorite example of car centric projects.

Keep thinking, and please, join us in our efforts to rid Bangalore of its congestion problems by getting a single responsible body for City's Transportation needs.

Comments

Pune PIDC - At least, it's a good start

Naveen - 24 Oct 2008 - 4:51pm

SB - Great job scooping this up. A few other excerpts from the report : "On a query as to how PIDC would help in improving public transport service, Pardeshi said it would be responsible for raising infrastructure for Metro rail". "Earlier, the proposal was not well received by the political parties fearing that the company would be an independent entity and they would have no control over it. But once it became clear that the company would be affiliated to the PMC, it got the go-ahead". "The SPV proposal was passed by majority vote with the NCP, Shiv Sena and BJP voting in favour while the Congress voted against it. The Congress corporators staged a walk out in protest". It is not clear if this body will have enough teeth to address all traffic /transport issues - it might well turn out to be another BMLTA-like body - just an additional entity that "co-exists" in the system & is at the mercy of the politicians who will use it to benefit their own vote banks - hope this does'nt happen.

I have huge reservation about this one

asj - 24 Oct 2008 - 5:42pm

Not too long ago I did a detailed appraisal of the CMP http://pune.praja.in/disc... This SPV is supposed to implement the CMP which has many short comings and questions. MMRD in Mumbai is very similar - one will think that they have enough expertise to deal with infrastructure projects, but one only needs looking at the bus stop design on Mumbai's western express highway to see how pathetic they are when it comes to pedestrians safety - http://www.flickr.com/pho... This is an SPV that is supposed to build build and build and nothing else - a formual for making Pune in to a cement mixing bowl. ASJ

www.driving-india.blogspot.com

Not clear to me

silkboard - 24 Oct 2008 - 5:50pm

As I said, what exactly is PIDC is something I am still trying to read and understand. If its a body simply meant to carry out works already detailed and handed out by PMC, then I would go with ASJ. But if this a single window through which all transportation works gets assessed and designed, so that problems of multi-modal connectivity, preference for public transport etc get looked after - then this could be a good thing. asj - if you have more to share on PIDC, please enlighten us. I bet Ranjit would know it all, or we will hear more from the papers or PMC website itself.

Too many similarities

asj - 24 Oct 2008 - 8:47pm

SB, if you check the Ranjit's Picassa album and the article from IE - the similarities are striking The type of projects, the budget amounts...which is half of Pune's annual GDP and will be raised only by giving away FSI along BRT / Metro rail projects - so a formula for increasing population density further. Perhaps this PIDC could start by replying to the questions people like me raise. ASJ

www.driving-india.blogspot.com

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