SHILLONG, FEB 9: The State Cabinet on Friday approved the Shillong Urban Mobility Policy, 2024 to improve the overall mobility in Shillong town and to introduce 20-minute city concept.
Addressing Mediapersons after the cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister said the state Government have floated the idea of a ‘20-minute city’. The idea is simple: developing or reorienting the city in a way that residents are able to meet most of their needs within 20 minutes of walking or travelling.
“We would like to go with the concept of 20 minutes city- this is the concept that is there in many parts of the country and the world where would like to go with the concept of 20 minute city where particular neighbourhood should be around 20 minutes where people should be able to move around particular locality and the area and get majority of their services within 20 minutes,” Sangma said.
It may be mention that the 20-minute city has become a popular urban planning policy to support low-transport neighbourhoods. Whilst meeting residents’ needs in local neighbourhoods is not a new concept, urban and transportation planners are increasingly being tasked with re-structuring transport and public services to facilitate people ‘living locally’.
While the state Government is focusing on Shillong Urban Mobility Policy, this concept of 20-minute city is a part of urban planning policy.
Elaborating further on the Shillong Urban Mobility Policy, the CM said, “This policy is basically a draft vision and guidelines as what we like to achieve and to achieve that there are many steps to be taken to do that. Eg, we have to create no emission zones or no congestion zones. First thing we have done is that we have created this policy that will now guide us and give us vision to improve overall mobility of the city.”
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said that the Shillong Urban Mobility Policy, 2024 will ensure the mobility in Shillong improves adding it will include aspects of public transportation, creating more walking space, reducing the congestion and creating parking spaces and so on and so forth.
“This policy just gives an outline on how we will approach that and this was clear today by the cabinet. The policy document will guide us and give us the vision on how we would like to improve the overall mobility of the state,” he said.
Sangma said, “It is a process, there is nothing called full implementation. For example, the parking lots of about 3-4 locations have already tendered out and the work will start there. We have about 1200 plus parking spaces for vehicles that are in the pipelines and we expect 50% of that to be completed within this financial year and 50% to be completed in the next financial year. We are also looking at 10-15 kms of walking space.”
The CM informed that the government will also come up with a separate policy for other district headquarters. “We had planned to come up with urban mobility policy and then we realised that Shillong is in a different category altogether so what applies for Shillong will not be applicable for Resubelpara or Nongpoh. Therefore, we will be coming up with a separate policy for the other district headquarters.”
Meanwhile, the CM also informed that Meghalaya will get Rs 500 crore as special assistance on capital investment within this financial year.
“I am happy to inform you that out of Rs 15,000 crore, we have put in a proposal of Rs 619 crore from Meghalaya’s point of view and we have already received approval close to Rs 500 crore out of this,” he said.
He said both the amendment of the Meghalaya Building Byelaws and the Shillong Urban Mobility Policy, 2024 have been adopted with the intention of ensuring the state is able to avail the special assistance on capital investment for urban areas.
Sangma added that the government is expecting another Rs 100 crore to come in after the approvals and amendments are done.
“So we are expecting that Meghalaya should receive Rs 597 crore but even the Rs 100 crore is still pending we are expected to get Rs 497 crore (almost Rs 500 crore) from the special assistance on capital investments for urban areas in this particular financial year,” he said.