Govt. unveils Rs. 25,000-cr green urban plan

The Union government recently announced a green urban mobility scheme entailing a staggering investment of Rs.25,000cr. The green urban transport scheme seeks to encourage growth of urban transport along with low carbon path for substantial and measurable reduction in pollution, provide a permanent and sustainable framework for funding urban mobility projects at national, state, and city levels with minimum recourse to budgetary support by encouraging innovative financing of projects, said Union Minister, M. Venkaiah Naidu, adding that the government has been targeting to move towards a gas-based economy to cut down on emissions and has also set a target to create capacity to generate 175 giga watt of renewable energy by 2022 and reduce dependency on fossil fuels. The new policy will encourage private investments in climate-friendly and sustainable public transport systems such as Metro-rail, non-motorised transport, and other low-carbon emitting systems in urban areas, he claimed.