Bill to constitute Unified Metropolitan Transport Authorities for notified urban areas in the State has been held up for nearly a year. With the Kochi metro rail project making quick progress, authorities concerned may resort to the ordinance route to create an authority that will oversee and regulate public transport infrastructure and services.
Sources said the draft Bill was ready about a year ago but there were no signs of the Bill coming into being in the near future. The completion of the Kochi metro rail would require a unified system for controlling services, tariffs, etc., so that the metro rail and other transport services in the city operated at their best to be cost-effective and convenient to commuters.
Sources said bureaucratic hurdles had come up in the face of some powers being wrested away from the current system of centralised control over the transport sector in the State.
The government of Kerala had issued an order on June 24, 2013, which said the Union government had approved the Kochi metro rail project subject to some conditions. The conditions included “the integration of public transport systems and the introduction of a common ticketing system”.
The order also said that a unified transport system for Kochi with common “command and control” system for transport planning and scheduling and integration of various transport modes was an “urgent necessity”. The unified authority is meant to coordinate the operations of various transport modes such as waterways, metro rail, bus services and services by taxis and autorickshaws.
The order said the proposal was for setting up a Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority Committee for Kochi with the managing director of the Kochi Metro Rail Limited as its chairman.
The objectives of the proposed authority, among other things, included “establishing institutional mechanisms for strategic planning of all transport and mobility needs of the residents of the city” and establishing “effective coordination amongst all transport and related organisations belonging to Central, State and private sector organisations”.