Foreign study tour must have experts: Transport expert

Following the news of top bureaucrats’ World Bank-funded tour to five foreign cities to study the Bus Rapid Transport System (BRTS) there, transport expert and BRTS campaigner Sudhir Badami has written to urban transport specialist of the World Bank, Hubert Nove-Josserand. He has requested him to include second or third-rung officials too.

Badami, who is on the MMRDA’s Steering and Technical Advisory committees for BRTS, wrote: “Today’s press report [about the study tour] is encouraging because four senior-most persons of MCGM and BEST and the urban development ministry are finally visiting places where BRTS has been successful. [It is] disappointing because the second-rung or third-rung officials are not visiting when it is important that they discern good features from bad with the help of their experience.”

The officials he wants to see included are Victor Nagaonkar, officer on special duty, BEST; T Srikanth, senior transportation engineer, MMRDA; and SV Srinivas, additional metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA. They will add minuscule costs to the budget but there will be significant gains, he said.

He added, “They must visit London and Paris to see how effectively they have prioritised traffic by allocation of one lane to bus and two footpaths on a 10-m road.”

The tour will cost Rs60 lakh. It will be from Oct 18-30.