J&K govt to implement Comprehensive Mobility Plan for Jammu

JAMMU, December 10: Jammu and Kashmir government will implement proposed Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) including 50 Kilometre-long Monorail Service and 130 Km-long Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system for Jammu city in a phase-wise manner. The proposed Comprehensive Mobility Plan for Jammu shall be implemented phase wise at an estimated cost of Rs 16,632 crore, an official spokesman said here. The CMP was discussed in a high level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary B R Sharma yesterday. The CMP for Jammu proposes 50 Km Monorail Service via identified routes, 130 Km Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) system for major routes besides focus on road widening, re-configuring of existing linear and radial road pattern into ring and radial pattern, new roads and river bridges, the spokesman said. Besides, new parking facilities, adding road capacity at bottlenecks, junction improvement, restricting on-road parking, footpath improvement and augmentation, pedestrian sub-ways and bridges, better traffic policing and integrated freight complexes at the city periphery are other points of proposal The plan also proposes strengthening the existing government institutions, he said. The proposed CMP prepared by RITES Ltd is based on revised Master Plan Land Use-2021 for Jammu city and divides the city into 169 traffic zones and identifies the need for high capacity transport system on major routes and improving the quality of existing public transport system, presently catering to nearly 64 per cent of population in Jammu,he said. The CMP also incorporates the comments received from various department and stakeholders, the spokesman said. Considerable area was added to the revised study and the CMP has been prepared after analysing the existing transportation scenario, examining the growth pattern and projecting the passenger and freight mobility requirements, he said. The recommendations will address the passenger and freight mobility requirements for the next 20 years in Jammu city, keeping in view the future population and growth in 2021, 2031 and beyond, he added. With Jammu and Srinagar cities witnessing progressively high density of traffic resulting in congestion and slow movement of traffic due to road space constraints, State government had engaged RITES Ltd for preparing the mobility plans for the twin cities, which shall be placed before the Cabinet for approval and thereafter DPRs will be prepare, he said.