One-nation-one-card for public transport soon: NITI Aayog
New Delhi, Sep 3: India will shortly unveil a one-nation-one-card policy for public transport that will bring seamless connectivity between various modes of transport, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Monday.
He said a robust transportation sector was the backbone for the development of any economy, especially for a densely populated developing country like India, and the focus of the nation's mobility strategy was on sustainable modes of public transport, transport-oriented planning and digitisation.
"The objective of the strategy is to plan for the citizens first, rather than focusing on vehicles alone, by providing sustainable mobility and accessibility by switching to cleaner mode of transportation," Kant said at the "Future Mobility Summit-2018-India's Move to NextGen Transport Systems".
The road transportation segment alone contributes to around four per cent of India's GDP with the segment still being heavily dependent on fossil fuels.
In the wake of the worsening air quality in the country's major cities, rising concerns of climate change and an ever-increasing oil import bill, mobility is a crucial piece of the development puzzle and the key to unlocking the potential of India's economy and people, the NITI Aayog CEO said.
NITI Aayog Advisor Anil Srivastava said the government was working towards achieving a robust mobility ecosystem across India.
"The citizens, on their part, should work towards sharing a ride, not owning the ride. The government has integrated many stakeholders across departments to drive India's mobility vision," he added.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
