As per an official press release, India’s Union Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs and Power, Shri Manohar Lal addressed the valedictory session of the three-day 17th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference & Exhibition 2024, at Mahatma Mandir, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.
This premier event is dedicated to the advancement of sustainable urban mobility solutions in India.
At the event, the UMI declared different categories of award in the field of Transport Sector especially in the Urban Transport. The awards are given to the state / city authorities for “Excellence/ best practice projects in Urban Transport”.
This year ‘’Awards” are given in 12 categories to the winners as recommended by the ‘Awards Selection Committee’ headed by the high-level officers of the Government and experts of the field:
Bhubaneswar is declared as the ‘City with the Best Public Transport System’; City with the Best Public Transport System; Sri Nagar as the Best Non-Motorized Transport System; Gandhinagar as with Best Safety and Security System & Record; Kochi as City with the Most Sustainable Transport System; Surat as the City with the Best Intelligent Transport System (ITS); Jammu as City with the Most Innovative Financing Mechanism; Bengaluru as the City with Best Record of Public Involvement in Transport; and, also for having “Metro Rail with the Best Multimodal Integration”; and, Mumbai for having Metro Rail with the Best Passenger Services and Satisfaction. Two more awards are for City with the Best Green Transport Initiative; and, City with the Best Freight Transport system.
Running trophy for the State / UT, which has Implemented Best Urban Transport projects during the previous year was also bestowed upon.
Addressing all at the occasion, Minister Shri Manohar Lal stated that “under the visionary leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi India has now come to the third position in the world in terms of operational rail network. Very soon Indian Metro network shall become second largest. Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of ‘One Nation One Card’ which is called National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) is now becoming reality and most of the Metros in India have adopted NCMC, and this is going to be a game changer in Urban Mobility sector.
On this occasion, Sh Khatter also announced Gurugram (Haryana) as the venue of 18th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference & Exhibition-2025.
The other dignitaries present included Shri Tokhan Sahu, Union Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs; Shri Kanubhai Desai, Minister of Finance and Energy, Government of Gujarat; Shri K C Mohapatra, Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Public Enterprises, Government of Odisha; Shri Srinivas R Katikithala , Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs.
Minister Sahu applauded the Urban Mobility India’s (UMI) yearly conference initiative, since 2008, in addressing the issues of Urban Mobility in India. He is also delighted to share surpassing of more than 1 crore daily ridership of Metro trains in the country. He also highlighted that vision and commitment of Prime Minister of India towards “Viksit Bharat 2047”.
The 17th UMI Conference & Exhibition 2024 was organized by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs through the Institute of Urban Transport (India) and with the support of Government of Gujarat and Gujarat Metro Rail Corporation Ltd.
The exhibition comprising display of best practices in urban transport in India and aboard, latest urban transport technologies, attracted more than 2200 delegates including more than 50 participants from abroad.
The exhibition is an important part of the UMI Conference organized every year. Around 76 exhibitors from Metro Rail Companies, public and private sectors participated in the event. It has great value and provides big platform for not only Indian Manufacturers but also foreign manufacturing companies. The companies based in Germany, France, Spain and more also participated in this exhibition. As many as 67 Indian exhibitors and 17 foreign exhibitors participated in the event.
This year, the Conference was focused on the theme “Standardization and Optimization of Urban Transport Solutions”. It emphasized on harmonizing standards for optimizing urban mobility particularly in the Indian context.
Further, it deliberated upon the framework for integration of various modes in urban mobility, multilateral and bilateral funding in view of the Make in India policy, importance of big data for transport planning, E-Bus Eco-system in India, benchmarking of cost in Metro system, digital public infrastructure principles in relation to E-Bus transition, innovative financing and other issues and challenges in Urban transport.
The conference also dwelled upon vision for clean air cities, urban freight, urban transport solutions for small and middle towns in India. The need of the hour is to optimize and standardize the urban transport solutions to have efficient and effective system.
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