4 min readNew DelhiFeb 2, 2022 02:33 AM IST
First published on: Feb 1, 2022 at 01:14 PM IST
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech Tuesday announced the government’s plans to set up a high-level committee of planners, economists and institutions to provide recommendations on issues and policies related to the urban sector.
“By the time of India at 100, nearly half our population is likely to be living in urban areas. To prepare for this, orderly urban development is of critical importance. This will help realise the country’s economic potential, including livelihood opportunities for the demographic dividend. For this, on one hand we need to nurture the megacities and their hinterlands to become current centres of economic growth,” the finance minister said.
“On the other hand, we need to facilitate tier 2 and 3 cities to take on the mantle in the future. This would require us to reimagine our cities into centres of sustainable living with opportunities for all, including women and youth. For this to happen, urban planning cannot continue with a business-as-usual approach. We plan to steer a paradigm change. A high-level committee of reputed urban planners, urban economists and institutions will be formed to make recommendations on urban sector policies, capacity building, planning, implementation and governance,” she said.
The Finance Minister also announced that modern building by-laws will be introduced and five institutions that will be designated centres of excellence will come up with an allocation of Rs 250 crore each for “India-specific urban knowledge”.
In a bid to push clean fuel consumption in public policy Sitharaman said: “We will promote a shift to public transit usage through special zones with zero tolerance for non-public transit and encourage Electric Vehicles only operations.”
Sitharaman announced that to foster further efficiency in the electric vehicle ecosystem, a battery swapping policy will also be deployed.
“For setting up battery stations at scale a battery swapping policy will be brought out and interoperability standards will be formulated,” Sitharaman said.
“The private sector will be encouraged to develop sustainable and innovative models for battery and energy as a service which will increase efficiency in the EV ecosystem,” she added in her Budget speech.
In the 2021-22 Budget, the Finance Minister had allocated Rs 18,000 crore to boost public transport in urban areas.
The finance minister had announced Public Private Partnership models to run more than 20,000 buses. The government had also announced ‘MetroLite’ and ‘MetroNeo’ technologies to provide metro rail systems at much lesser cost with similar experience in Tier-2 cities and peripheral areas of Tier-1 cities.
“Innovative ways of financing and faster implementation will be encouraged for building metro systems of appropriate type at scale.Multimodal connectivity between mass urban transport and railway stations will be facilitated on priority. Design of metro systems, including civil structures, will be re-oriented and standardised for Indian conditions and needs,” Sitharaman said.
“The private sector will be encouraged to develop sustainable and innovative models for battery and energy as a service which will increase efficiency in EV ecosystem,” Sitharaman said. 
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