CHENNAI: Barely 11 months after being notified, Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (CUMTA) is facing issue over who should head it.Initially, as per law, Chief Urban Planner (Transport) of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority could be appointed as member secretary or Chief Executive officer of CUMTA, which will be a single nodal agency for all transport-related issues in the city.But, sources said there are plans that the body could be restructured so that a bureaucrat could be made the CEO.
As CUMTA is yet to hold its first meeting since its formation in January, Chennai City Partnership, an innovative approach to management of Chennai city, is facing hurdles as World Bank has put forth conditions that it will fund the project only through CUMTA’s Urban Transport Fund (UTF) which has been created to ease financial burden both on the State and local governments.
A former planner told Express that in other States the department is run by technical heads. “Why here there is an issue of appointing a bureaucrat as member secretary of CUMTA. This won’t augur well for transport planning.”
Initially, the State government asked CMDA to provide a separate office for CUMTA as well as appoint the transport planner as CEO once rules were notified. It is learnt that one of the senior planners was promoted as chief planner of transport and is now functioning as member- secretary.It is learnt that after the rules were notified, three meetings had been deferred. The housing secretary could not be reached for comments.
Interestingly, Tamil Nadu government is in discussion with World Bank for ‘Chennai City Partnership’, which has two important components relating to water and transportation sectors.It is learnt that discussions were held recently with officials over the funds for the project.
Sources indicated that World Bank has been strict that any funding pertaining to transport sector should be done only through CUMTA’s UTF. As a result, now there are plans to restructure CUMTA.?
Interestingly, the Comprehensive Mobility Plan for Chennai which is part of Urban Transport Authority is yet to be ratified. CMP aims at integrating land-use and transport planning. While the final draft has been submitted, it is not known when it will be ratified by the authority.
Meanwhile, CUMTA is key to the implementation of `500 crore Intelligent Transport System (ITS) aimed at using modern computers and communications to make travel smarter, faster, safer and more convenient in Chennai.
The success of ITS lies in the coordination between multiple agencies that are responsible for its roll out.