Brief Record Note of the 5th meeting of National Transport Development Policy Committee

(NTDPC) held on 21.08.2010 at Rail Bhawan, New Delhi.

The list of participants is annexed (Annex 1).

2. At the outset, the Chairman, National Transport Development Policy Committee (NTDPC)
thanked the Chairman, Railway Board for hosting the meeting. He mentioned the following matters
to be discussed in the meeting:
(a) Presentation by the Ministry of Civil Aviation
(b) Chairman, NTDPC meeting with Secretaries of M/o Coal, Petroleum & Natural Gas and Power.
(c) World Bank’s non-lending support to the Committee
(d) Budget of the committee
(e) Chairman, NTDPC meeting with Chairmen, Working Groups
(f) Progress of website of the Committee
(g) Appointment of consultants and other issues

3. Presentation by Ministry of Civil Aviation

The representatives of Ministry of Civil Aviation made a presentation on the Civil Aviation
Sector. A copy of the presentation is annexed (Annex 2). The presentation covered the following
major items:
(a) Growth in traffic expected and fundamental issues concerned with it
(b) Regulatory and legal issues
(c) Safety issues
(d) Issues governing airlines and airports
(e) Skill crisis in the industry
(f) Major initiatives of the Ministry of Civil Aviation
(g) Other challenges and opportunities
The following suggestions/ observations were made by the Members of the Committee:
(a) Issues of liberalization needed to be considered carefully in context of level of freedom for
foreign airlines to operate in Indian airports.
(b) Working Group should utilize the work of the Standing Aviation Regulatory Advisory Panel on
regulations instead of setting up a separate Sub-Group for the same.
(c) The Working Group should make an assessment of performance of Civil Aviation sector in the
light of international benchmark and measures needed to improve.
(d) The issues relating to impact on environment as a result of development and operation of Civil
Aviation Sector.
(e) Any civil aviation hub planning should ensure profitability without relying on other real estate
activities. Airports in Singapore, Dubai, Amsterdam should be studied for best practices.
(e) Civil aviation growth and policy developments in China should be studied.
(f) Institutional reforms and data deficiencies should be seriously considered.
4. Chairman, NTDPC meeting with Secretaries of M/o Coal, Petroleum & Natural Gas, and
Power.

The Chairman informed the Committee about his meeting with the Secretaries of Ministries
of Coal, Petroleum & Natural Gas, and Power. The main highlights of the meeting were noted:

(a) Energy is an important resource from supply and demand side. Hence, these should be
considered as an integral part of the transport policy.

(b) Pricing policy in petroleum products had been considered already by other committees and need
not be looked into by this committee.

(c) Policy on emissions and fuel quality had been considered in the Autofuel Policy and would be
implemented across the country shortly.

(d) With increase in power generation projects such as those in North-East, transport of coal over
long distances was a major issue due to lack of capacity or concerns with bottlenecks in key routes
to North-east.

The following suggestions were made:

(a) There was a need to study the relative economics of movement by rail and pipelines of
petroleum products.

(b) Power sector would put heavy demand on coal both from domestic and overseas sources. The
development of adequate capacity and other related issues need to be considered while planning
and formulating policy for development of rail and port sector.

(c) Universal access through roads should be considered to enable development in all regions.

(d) An integrated view of what material should move by what mode, should be considered by the
Committee, with the objective of transporting energy at minimum social and economic costs.

(e) Working Group on Urban Transport should consider methodologies for emissions standards
implementation, inspections and maintenance.

The following decisions were made:

(a) Ministries of Coal and Power to be represented in the Working Groups on Railways and Ports
and Shipping.
(b) Ministry of Petroleum to be represented in the Working Group on Roads.

(c) PMO to submit a formal note on energy concerns that should be considered by the Committee.

(d) Secretariat to prepare a paper on the overall energy requirements for transport in the country.

(e) RITES to make a presentation on data availability to representative of all Working Groups. Each
Working Group would send list of representatives for the meeting.

5. World Bank’s non-lending support to the Committee

The Chairman shared the TOR of the World Bank for non-lending technical support to the
Committee. The Committee which included the representatives of all transport ministries approved
the TOR. Following additions to the TOR were suggested:

(a) Item 1 of TOR of Highway sector should include a phrase ‘without compromise on safety’ at the
end.

(b) Global examples on water-based intra city transport should be studied.

6. Chairman, NTDPC meeting with Chairmen, Working Groups

The Chairman informed the Committee about his meeting with the Chairmen of the
Working Groups on 13 August, 2010. He further mentioned that the perspectives for each Working
Group were discussed in the meeting. The Chairman reiterated that each Working Group should
limit the number of additional members to a maximum of two to maintain balance and uniformity
in the composition of the Working Groups. The Secretariat would also ensure that the lists of
financial experts and IT experts were sent to all Working Groups.

7. Progress of website of the Committee

The Committee was informed that NIC would take another 4-5 weeks to set up the website
for a cost of Rupees 11 lakh.
One view was that the cost seemed to be high and NIC was taking long time. Another view
was that having gone ahead with registration of domain name etc. we may persuade NIC to finish
the job quickly. After discussion it was felt that Chairman/Secretariat may take appropriate decision
so that website was made operational early.
8. Taxation study
The Committee decided that the Secretariat would commission a study to NCAER on
taxation issues related to all transport modes.
9. Appointment of consultants
The Committee noted the appointment of Krishna Dev as Consultant and Amod Jain (the
services of Shri Jain had been made available by McKinsey and Company on secondment basis).
 The Committee recommended the appointment
(a) Anupam Khanna (part-time basis)
(b) Shubhagato Dasgupta (part-time basis)
Dr. Dinesh Mohan, Member mentioned that Prof. Ian Johnston who is also Commissioner
National Transport Commission of Australia would be in New Delhi in December, 2010. He
suggested that it would be useful if Prof. Johnston may interact with some Committee Members.
He added that Prof. Johnston could keep two days for this purpose and for these two days the
NTDPC may bear his expenditure on account of stay in a hotel and local transport as per approved
norms.
After brief discussion the Committee approved the above proposal. Dr. Dinesh Mohan
would provide the details and co-ordinate with secretariat for making arrangements for the
meeting(s) with Members of NTDPC.

The next meeting of the Committee would be held on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 in the
Ministry of Urban Development. The Working Group on Railways would make a presentation in
the meeting and each Working Group will submit a brief progress report. The meeting following
this meeting would be held on Saturday, January 8, 2011.
 Annex 1

List of Participants:-

1. Dr. Rakesh Mohan In Chair

Chairman, NTDPC
2. Shri Vivek Sahai
Chairman, Railway Board
M/o Railways
3. Shri S. Sundareshan
Secretary, M/o Petroleum & Natural Gas
4. Shri Navin Kumar 23062377
Secretary, Urban Development

5. Shri B.N. Puri 23096606

Member Secretary,
NTDPC

6. Shri R.C. Srinivasn 23096798

Convenor, NTDPC

7. Dr. M. Ravi Kanth 9560729111

Joint Secretary, M/o Power

8. Shri Arvind Kumar 23381204

Advisor (Transport Research)
M/o Road Transport & Highways + M/o Shipping

9. Shri M. Kannan 9818690146

Economic Adviser
M/o Civil Aviation

10. Dr Archana S. Mathur 24369261

Economic Adviser
M/o Petroleum PNG

11. Shri S.K. Lohia 23061114

OSD (UT) & E.D. Jt. Secy.

12. Shri Naseem Zaidi --

Director General
M/o Civil Aviation

13. Shri V.K. Agarwal, 9810190854

M.D., RITES

14. Shri A.K. Gupta, 9810122566

Adv. (T&E), RITES

15. Shri S.K. Mishra 23782538

ED, PPP
M/o Railways
16. Shri Jatin Sarkar 9873405858
GM, RITES

17. Shri M. Ravi Babu 8978610008

GM, RITES

18. Prof. Dinesh Mohan 9811201785

IIT, Delhi

19. Shri Davinder P.S. Sandhu 23010838

Director, PMO
20. Shri Sugan Singh 23096737
Director, Transport
Planning Commission
21. Shri Alok Shekhar --
Director, M/o Civil Aviation

22. Shri M. Ravindra 9884208964

Former Chairman
Railway Board

23. Shri K.L. Thapar 9810590552

Chairman, AITD

24. Shri D.P. Gupta 9810398556

Former DG, Road, and
Add. Secy. M/o Road Transport and Highways

25. Shri Bharat K. Sheth --

Great Eastern Shipping

26. Shri S. Sundar 9810153477

TERI

27. Dr. Anupam Khanna 9818858641

GDN
28. Shri Bala Bhaskar Kalimili --
The World Bank

29. Dr. Krishna Dev 9871404922

Consultant, NTDPC
30. Shri Amod Jain 9711073990
NTDPC
31. Shri Sarvesh Kr. Arya 24617547
Under Secretary, M/o Civil Aviation