MUMBAI: Mumbai on Thursday figured among the ten cities in the world that will be taken up by the Bloomberg Philanthropies, a New York-based foundation, to adopt best of the Road Safety practices worldwide. The selection has been made from 20 strong applicant cities, mostly from low and middle-income countries, which showed strong commitment to reduce road traffic fatalities and injuries within and around their urban set-ups. Sources in the chief minister’s office said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) proposal had been selected after a team of experts with the foundation visited Mumbai to study the logistics available. The proposal was sent in November and is viewed as the first successful effort of the new government in winning best of the consultants and attractive funding for the city’s development.

With a new commitment of $125 million over five years for the selected cities, the foundation can offer up to Rs 90-100 crore for Mumbai to adopt standard practices such as traffic rules, driving discipline and safety, and reducing congestion. The selected cities will receive: senior-level, full-time staff to work within city governments on their road safety initiatives for up to 5 years, comprehensive technical assistance from the world's leading road safety organizations, training for police officers and other relevant city staff, and support to create hard-hitting mass media campaigns. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) will be signed between state and the foundation on 17th in Mumbai for the project in the presence of Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and Michael Bloomberg of the foundation.

BMC Additional municipal commissioner SVR Srinivas said that the application form was sent in November last year. “The number of traffic fatalities and injuries are high in Mumbai. Winning this means that the best road safety practices could be implemented in our city. A detailed proposal was sent for the initiative wherein in-depth analysis of the average number of fatalities and injuries and also what is it that MCGM does was mentioned. Their technical teams would be stationed to train our staff on road safety and traffic management. There would also be awareness campaigns with regards to it,” said Srinivas.

The expert consultants will be roped in by the foundation and will collaborate with the BMC and traffic authorities to win people’s participation in various initiatives. “The programme is more about enhancing traffic management standards than just imposing rules,” sources pointed out.

“Project will be a system based management of traffic with more use of technology instead of imposing and sensitizing the public and drivers and tackling some behavioural issues. For this data collection will be done. Pedestrians first, station area improvement, non-motorised transport will mostly figure on the agenda,” sources added.

Michael R Bloomberg, a former mayor of New York city, will visit India next week and meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hi cabinet colleagues to extend help in developing smart cities.

The selected cities ----

1.Accra, Ghana;

2.Addis Ababa, Ethiopia;

3.Bandung, Indonesia;

4.Bangkok, Thailand;

5.Bogota, Colombia;

6.Fortaleza, Brazil;

7.Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam;

8.Mumbai, India;

9.Sao Paulo, Brazil; and

10.Shanghai, China.

