Delhi Dialogue Chief Says 'Future in Zero Emission Buses, Not CNG', National : Today Indya

Delhi Dialogue Chief Says 'Future in Zero Emission Buses, Not CNG'

National

news18

Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission was set up soon after Delhi government came into power in 2015 with the idea that a government cannot have all the necessary tools to tackle all the 21st century policy challenges

New Delhi: The future of public transport is in "zero emission and clean buses" and not CNG, claimed newly-appointed Delhi Dialogue and Development Commission (DDC) chairperson Jasmine Shah as officials said that tenders for the same were likely in December.

He was appointed chairperson of the DDC, an advisory body of the Delhi government, on Tuesday. The post, that has a cabinet rank, was lying vacant since April after Ashish Khetan resigned and quit the Aam Admi Party. The urban governance and policy expert, spoke to News18.com in an interview about the DDC and the challenges that lay before it.

Edited excerpts:

What exactly is DDC and what does it do?

It was set up soon after the Delhi government came into power in 2015 with the idea that the government, any government, doesn't have all the necessary tools to tackle all the 21st century policy challenges. Any policy issue that you take today is very complex, you need to bring a lot of experts together as well as consult communities people on an ongoing basis to form policy.

How does DDC work?

I am the vice chairperson of the institute and the CM is the chairperson, so eventually the priorities of the institute are very clearly going to be set by the government and the CM. It is neither the DDC nor the individual ministers who set the priorities.

What are the challenges ahead of you?

We want to democratise the process of making policies as well as implementing them. Participation of people and the civil society experts is very important. That participation doesn't happen organically. Governments tend to be quite inert. We need to open up governments.

Will DDC help tackle severe air pollution in Delhi?

First and foremost, air pollution is one of the most serious, serious problem that Delhi faces, one that the government is taking very seriously.

Earlier this year, the Delhi government came up with 26-point agenda called the green budget. That was the first time an interdepartmental action plan was created that spelled out how various departments of Delhi government (will work) together to tackle the problem of pollution...before this September, this was one of the better years for air pollution and that is also because a lot of these initiatives started showing result.

We start talking about air pollution from October onwards because we know that crop burning is a major culprit over here, and we really want a reprieve from air pollution. We need some solution for states surrounding Delhi. DDC will try and set up as ambitious an agenda so that Delhi government does all it can to stop air pollution.

SC has a mandate that Delhi should have 10,000 buses, but that is something that has long eluded Delhi. What is the current status?

Successive attempts to procure buses have because of how the organisation doesn't have internal maintenance staff and capability and why vehicle manufacturers are not willing to maintain it for DTC. It became a logjam of an issue and its administrative in nature, eventually leading to this.

Last year, the government was willing to place an order for 1,000 standard floor CNG buses, the matter went to the court and it took time and after a year of litigation, the court has approved and allowed the government to procure 1,000 CNG buses and these buses should hit the streets in a few months.

What is happening with e-buses and is that the future?

Is CNG the future for Delhi? The government doesn't think so. The future is definitely zero emission and clean buses. There are two kinds of technology that are bieng talked about right now and being reviewed very seriously in the government. One are electric buses and the other is hydrogen fuel buses.

Hydrogen is in a very early stage of R&D and a few pilots are being discussed. The electric buses are more stable and there is a growing demand for them globally. Cities globally are committing to transforming their entire fleets of electric buses. In March this year, the government made an announcement to get 1,000 electric buses in the streets of Delhi. This was a radical committment and it was also a challenge for the entire administration, that we do whatever is necessary to bring these buses to Delhi.

We are hopeful that in a couple of months tenders will be floated in a couple of months

What about the metro? Where does it fit into the scheme of things?

Public transport always works as a network. In any successful public transport system, you never have metro has the only mode. It can never be the answer. In most cities, that have good transport system...close to two-third of the trips happen vis buses because buses, by definition, are flexible and they can provide connectivity to most parts of the city....The relevance of buses will never go. But at the same time, the metro and buses need to work together as a planned system.

It is very clear that the last mile connectivity needs a boost, needs to be a planned system and for that buses normally will provide last mile connectivity...and the DMRC and the Delhi government are working closely on that.

Article Original Source : https://www.news18.com/news/india/as-delhi-air-quality-deteriorates-govt-of...

#delhi dialogue future

#zero emission buses

Sardar Patel’s Statue of Unity inauguration today: World’s tallest statue is an engineering marvel

National

livemint

Built as a tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the Statue of Unity is to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Gujarat. An engineering marvel completed in a record time of 33 months, the design of the statue took a lot of brainstorming among experts due to various challenges related to its location, height and pose.

Ready in a record 33 months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today inaugurate Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s statue, known as the Statue of Unity, in the Narmada district of Gujarat. Against the picturesque backdrop of Vindhyachal and Satpura mountain ranges and the Narmada river, the giant memorial is the world’s tallest statue at 600 feet and is expected to be a major tourist destination in Gujarat.

Conceptualised as Sardar Patel walking on the Narmada river towards the Sardar Sarovar dam, the design of the statue took a lot of brainstorming among experts due to various challenges related to its location, height and pose. The bronze statue is now nothing less than an engineering marvel.

It was on this day, five years ago, when Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, had laid down the foundation stone for the project. Now once again, on the occasion of Sardar Vallabhai Patel’s birthday, will Modi be there at the spot, but this time to inaugurate the Statue of Unityas prime minister.

The Statue of Unity is so towering that even if you are 6-feet high the statue will still be 100 times larger than you. From the outside, the Sardar Patel statue is filled with 1,700 tonnes of bronze and 1,850 tonnes of bronze cladding made up of 565 macro and 6,000 micro panels. The core of the statue is made up of 210,000 cu.m. of cement concrete, 18,500 tonnes of reinforced steel and 6,500 tonnes of structural steel.

5 engineering feats that make Statue of Unity special:

1. Larsen & Toubro, which designed and executed the project after winning a tender, deployed a team of over 3,000 workers and 250 engineers. Although the statue was designed and made in India, the bronze panels had to be cast in a foundry in China, since no such facility to handle such a huge project is available in India.

2. One of the biggest challenges for L&T was to ensure that the face of the statue looks as close as possible to Sardar Patel’s face. For the purpose, they deployed well-known sculptor Ram V. Sutar from Noida who, in turn, went through over 2,000 archival photographs of the ‘Iron Man’ and spoke to several historians and those had seen him to come up with the design matching Patel’s bodily and facial features.

3. For the construction of the statue, the engineers had to be extra cautious in ensuring that the monument had the capability to withstand heavy winds of up to 130 km per hour and earthquakes up to 6.5 on Richter scale, since it is located in the middle of the Narmada with heavy winds blowing all round. They also used two tuned mass dampers of 250 tonnes each to ensure that in any given situation the base of the structure always remains rooted.

4. Another headache for engineers was the walking pose of Sardar Patel, which meant that the statue is the most weakest at its base as there is a gap of 21 feet between the two legs. Keeping the legs of a statue together helps it in balancing its weight.

5. The engineers adopted sophisticated state of the art technologies like light detection and ranging technology and telescopic logging to assess rock joints. The development of the Statue of Unity went through several stages of mock-up, 3D scanning and computer numerical control production to ensure accurate reproduction of minute details.

Article Original Source : https://www.livemint.com/Companies/z9KNZfDJBIFtkYn2o7pRVN/Sardar-Patels-Sta...