Rakesh Mohan to head national transport policy panel

The government has set up a high-level National Transport Development Policy Committee headed by Rakesh Mohan, a former secretary with the department of economic affairs and deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He will head the committee in an honorary capacity and will have the rank of a minister of state, an official statement said.

The high-level committe will draft policy measures needed to encourage competitive pricing and coordination between alternative modes of transport, in order to provide an integrated and sustainable transport system in the country.

This is necessary as the framework that the government provides for the transport sector largely determines the level of cost and efficiency in transport operations, an official release said today.

Mohan had, earlier, also chaired the expert group on commercialisation of infrastructure, which brought out the `Indian Infrastructure Report' in 1977; and the expert group on Railways, which drafted the `Indian Railways Report' in 2002.

The committee will include secretaries of all the ministries associated with the development of transportation along with the leading experts in the field.

A national policy on transport was last drafted in 1980 by the National Transport Policy Committee, which was chaired by the late B D Pande, a former cabinet secretary.