Govt's new policy to promote public transport

The Centre is mulling to roll-out new policy to promote public transport system and to discourage people from buying private cars.

Concerned with growing pollution and traffic congestion in urban areas, the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry is planning to come out with the new policy soon, said a senior official in the Ministry.

The new policy will focus on to boost the public transport system like buses, taxi, metro etc. Besides, the government is also focused on promoting the vehicles run on alternative fuels like ethanol, methanol besides electric vehicles to curb the growing pollution.

The ministry has set the target that usage of taxi aggregators should cross from current 35 lakh in a year in the country to 1 crore by next 2-3 years. "More public using taxi means, lesser the usage of private cars," said the officer.

In the policy the ministry will also encourage states to have proper public transport system within the state as well as in major cities and improve the last mile connectivity.

Aiming to promote green vehicles in the country, the ministry recently granted exemption to electric vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles like ethanol, methanol from getting permit to ply as commercial vehicles.

In the 'Ease of Moving Index India Report' by Ola Mobility Institute, 60% agreed using public modes of commute and a majority of Indians are willing to adopt electric mobility and are in agreement that electrification will reshape the transportation segment.

Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government is targeting electric vehicles to account for 15% of all vehicles sales in five years in a bid to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dependency on fossil fuels. An estimated 2,000 electric vehicles were sold last year.