REGIONAL RAIL TRANSIT SYSTEM PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

 

As per the 2011 Census, nearly 400 million (31%) of India’s population lives in urban areas and more than 11 million moved out of the agriculture sector. India’s urbanization is comparatively lower than that of China (45%) and Brazil (87%), however, the satellite images of India depict 63% of built-up area of rural areas with Urban characteristics, that indicates landuse transformation and urban sprawl in many of the India’s 7935 cities and towns. From the past few years, the Central Government launched the Scheme, viz., Special assistance to States for Capital Investment Urban Reforms- to expedite and hand hold the State Governments with incentives in key areas related to Urban development & Governance. Broadly, the assistance was given to State Governments in New Recruitment of Urban Planners, Digital Interventions, Financial Reforms, Urban Planning Initiatives, Environmental & Sustainability Measures, Ease of Doing Business (EoDB), wherein the State Governments need to send appropriate proposals to Central Government for funds and incentives on projects like Sponge city, Seattleite towns, rejuvenation of existing wells & water bodies, GIS Utility mapping, Digital Twin Modelling, Ward improvement planning, initiative to diversify the revenue sources and EoDB .The recently launched (on 2nd June) the Scheme- Special assistance to States for Capital Investment Urban Reforms -with a total incentive amount of Rs. 18000 Crores, wherein, Rs. 13,000 Crores is meant for Urban Governance reforms & Rs. 5,000 Crores for Compliance regulation/ de-regulation- EoDB. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), having observed that+ many States had not prepared the Regional Plans that could be detrimental achieve Regional Balance, thought of connecting various vibrant towns by constructing the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS)that could further urbanize the vibrant towns and could lead to the emergence of new satellite towns that could help to decentralize the Primate City and can mitigate the migration towards large cities. The Regional Rail Transit System (RRTS) is a rail-based, high-speed commuter transit system (200 Kms/ Hour) being initiated by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), with an aim to provide fast, comfortable, and safe transportation between Urban/ Industrial centres and suburban areas- and is three times faster than METRO’s that ply within major cities. The first RRTS was initiated for the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut (82 Kms) corridor (Co-financing by ADBapproved $ 1 billion for this corridor), wherein its 55 kms is operational and remaining portion is under construction.The other two corridors thought of was the Panipat-Sonepat- Delhi (89 Kms) and Delhi-Alwar (158 Kms). Encouraged by the success of Delhi-Meerut RRTS project, the Tamilnadu Government, through its Chennai Metro Rail Corporation (CMRL) has recently initiated the preparation of feasibility study for Chennai-Vellore Corridor (137 Kms), Chennai- Tindivanam Corridor (129 Kms) and Coimbatore to Salem Corridor (169 Kms). Moreover, the Tamil Nadu Government is already in the process of preparing almost 12 Regional Plans covering the entire State and 8 New Town Development Plans for its vibrant 8 numbers of Tier-2 Cities. Based of the above example, the Government of Karnataka also initiated the Regional Rail Transit System (RRTS) across its various radial corridors to decentralize Bengaluru, viz., towards Mysuru, Tumakuru, Hosur, Chikkaballapur, and Bangarpet. This visionary initiative will certainly pave the way for the emergence of self-sustained and well-planned satellite towns around Bengaluru. This move to connect important towns around Bengaluru with RRTS will further make the city grow as a Megalopolis and its region will emerge as Spatial Priority Urban Region. Butt the question of Regional Imbalance of Karnataka remains. Unfortunately, Karnataka has not still prepared the Regional Plans for its regions. Bengaluru’s BMRDA has a perspective plan, which lacks vision and is outdated. Bengaluru city itself, perse doesn’t have a Master Plan for almost a decade, as the earlier Master Plan was prepared for the city’s development control till 2015. In the absence of understanding of various regions within the State due to the absence of regional plans, provision of Regional Rail Transit System (RRTS)can expedite the Regions development. It would be advisable for the State Government to initiate RRTS Projects for Tumukuru- Chitradurga Corridor considering the industrial developments in both these places. Similar RRTS projects to bring in Regional Balance can be proposed between Bidar- Kalburgi- Yadgir, Belagavi-Bijapur- Via Dharwad & Bagalkot and Hassan- Mangalore. However, RRTS being High-Speed/ Semi-High Speed Transit System, the horizontal curvature (radius 4000m to 10000m), the Gauge Width and slope matters. Afterall, for Karnataka being a salubrious state, there won’t be dearth of investments entering into the state if the state proves its mettle in bringing good reforms in ease of doing business, expedite approvals and build appropriate infrastructure for these investments to sustain. But, lack of a Urbanization policy has resulted in inappropriate positioning and focus on the development of various regions in Karnataka!

DISCLAIMER: 

The views expressed in the Article above are BV ANAND  views and kashmiribhatta.in is not in any way responsible for the opinions expressed in the above article. The article belongs to its respective owner or owners and this site does not claim any right over it. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing."

Courtesy: BV ANAND  and  Spade A Spade 2025