CHENNAI: The city is all set to have a unified transport authority that will plan, construct, operate and maintain its rail and road networks.

The Government passed an order on Friday to set up a committee that will figure out the modalities of a Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA). The committee, headed by Jayanthi, vice-chairperson, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, will consist of officials from the Highways Department, Railways, CMDA and, Metropolitan Transport Corporation.

"The committee will submit its report in two months," the Transport Department Secretary, R. Karpoorasundarapandian, said on Saturday at the valedictory session of a two-day seminar on "City transportation" held at Anna University.

The UMTA would initially be an advisory committee, coordinating between the Mass Rapid Transit System, upcoming Metro Rail and the MTC, said the Transport Secretary.

Depending on the expansion of its role, the body would be given a statutory or company structure in the future.

The plan of a unified authority, floated nearly three decades ago, got mired in legal and procedural bottlenecks.

It gained momentum after the Centre endorsed the setting up of a unified authority in its draft National Urban Transport Policy unveiled recently.

Mr. Karpoorasundarapandian assured the organisers that he would urge the Government to look into the recommendations of experts at the end of the two-day seminar on "Transportation in Chennai: challenges and solutions."

The organisers submitted a set of 15 recommendations covering mass transportation, parking, traffic management, road development and coordination of various government agencies.

During the deliberations, the city planners explained how they revived and even finalised ways to tackle traffic bottlenecks and improve the travel network ahead of Chennai becoming a 10-million-plus (population) mega city.

The Second Master Plan, which would come out of the CMDA stable in two months, had an array of transport strategies: right from multilevel parking lots to setting up the UMTA. Panagal Park and Broadway bus stand would be the first in the city to have multilevel parking areas.

The T. Nagar bus stand, Patullos Road, MUC Ground and Government Estate on Anna Salai would follow suit as soon as Mecon, a Steel Authority of India subsidiary, completed its feasibility study, said Ms. Jayanthi.

Decongestion would continue by shifting textiles and food grain markets from Broadway to the Koyambedu wholesale market complex while buses would serve as feeder services to the rail system.

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