Bhubaneswar: The State Government has appointed Prof HM Shivanand Swamy, Amit Bhatt and B. Venu Gopala Reddy as three independent directors of the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT), the special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the development of public transport infrastructure and facilities in and around State Capital. This appointment will be valid for three years.
Prof. Shivanand Swamy, currently the Executive Director, Centre of Excellence in Urban Transport, CEPT University, Ahmedabad, is an economist and urban and regional planner of repute and has been an educator, researcher, policy advisor and consultant in urban transport planning and management.
As an academic, he has been involved in teaching at CEPT University since 1986 and his teaching and research interests are in land use-transport planning, public transport planning, transportation economics and finance.
He is currently leading a “Leaders Programme in Urban Transport Planning and Management’’ aimed at building leadership in urban transport development in India. Prof Shivanand Swamy has been instrumental in upgrading CEPT from an autonomous institute to that of a university.
Amit Bhatt of WRI India is a director of the organisation’s Delhi office and has been in leadership role in the sector for last 18 years. A member of Institute of Urban Transport, he has expertise in public transport planning, urban transport, non-motorised transport (NMT), capacity building, road safety and urban development.
Bhatt’s major project “Raahgiri Day’’, which started in 2013 in cities of North India was a major success story for engaging communities to bring about changes for popularising concept of NMT. It can be noted here that “Raahgiri Day’’ also started here in January 17, 2016, and was extremely successful. Later it was re-named as “Patha Utsav’’ towards the end of 2017.
B. Venu Gopala Reddy, former Chief General Manager (CGM) and Head of Operations, SBI, Bhubaneswar from 2015 to 2018, has 36 years of experience in banking operations in key positions, delivering record breaking performances through team work and building relationships.
Reddy has vast experience in SBI in treasury, rupee market, structured products and derivatives, bullion desk, money markets and Forex, foreign department, business and operations, agri business unit, credit analysis and merchant banking divisions at Mumbai, Kolkata, Singapore, Bangalore and Bhubaneswar.
CRUT, formerly known as Bhubaneswar Puri Transport Services, with 16 directors on its Board, aims to provide reliable, safe, accessible, user-friendly and sustainable public transport and set up a mechanism to deliver public transport services, that keeps pace with the growth in demand and in sync with the latest technological innovations.
With shares from Bhubaneswar Development Authority, Cuttack Development Authority, Puri-Konark Development Authority, Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Puri Municipality, the organisation is all set to deliver the best available IT and technology based tools like GPS, passenger information system (PIS), integration with Bhubaneswar One project, integrated warehouse management system, integrated audit and payment module etc in the Transport Management System in the process of transport optimization.
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