Srinagar, Sep 24 (KNS): PM awardee and senior transportation planner, Er. Avinash Shabade on Saturday delivered a lecture on “Multimodal Integration for Passenger Terminals (Rail)" at National Institution of Technology (NIT) Srinagar.

The expert talk was part of special lecture series organised by the Civil Engineering Students’ Association (CESA).

Er. Shabad is the senior Transportation Planner in City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra Limited. He is an alumnus of IIT Bombay.

He was specially invited to have an interactive session with Civil Engineering BTech and MTech students of Transportation Engineering & Planning specialization. Many faculty members of the CED also attended the session.

Director NIT Prof. (Dr.) Rakesh Sehgal welcomed the guest and expressed happiness at organizing the technical session on the campus.

He said that such technical sessions should be held very frequently so that our students are exposed to the needs and issues of the industry.

Prof. Sehgal lauded the role of the Civil Engineering department and assured his support for such initiatives in the future.

 Institute's Registrar, Prof. Syed Kaiser Bukhari said the institute would always encourage and facilitate the organization of such technical sessions. 

“Such lectures will benefit students and help them to explore more options in the field of transportation engineering,” he said.

Prof. Bukhari said such lectures will help our students in a long way in developing their expertise in their respective areas.

In his key lecture address, Er. Avinash Shabade focused on the theme of ‘Planning Integration of Transportation Modes at Railway Passenger Terminals. He highlighted the role of Transportation Planners and Engineers in the planning & development of a city.

Er. Shabade, while explaining the whys and hows of Traffic and Transport Planning, presented case studies of Multi-Modal Integration of Transit Hubs of Mumbai Suburban Rail (local trains) done in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

He explained how over time, one of the best public transportation facilities in the world has evolved in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai and how it can be adopted in other areas keeping the needs of the society in focus.

The speaker also stressed that the experts from NIT Srinagar should offer their expertise and services to the concerned in Government to be part of the planning and development process.

Prof. Abdul Qayoom Dar, HOD Civil Engineering, while welcoming the guest, expressed his happiness at the conduct of such lectures that gave an opportunity to the students to get exposed to the needs of the industry.

While introducing the guest speaker, Prof. Mohammad Shafi Mir, Chairman CESA mentioned the passion and contribution of Er. Shabade in the field of transportation engineering and planning.

He also highlighted Er. Shabade’s recent felicitation by Shri. Nitin Gadkari, the Hon’ble Minister of Road Transport and Highways of the country.

Prof. Mir, Officer-in-Charge Transportation Engineering & Planning Division of Civil Engineering Department, thanked the guest speaker.

He laid emphasis on the need for the development of Public Transportation System in Srinagar City.

Prof Mir said in order to have a people-friendly and efficient transportation system in Srinagar Metropolitan Area (SMA) there is a need to plan for the development of a comprehensive public transportation system including road transport (bus & tram), rail transport (LRT & MRT) and water transport.

“We also need to work on integrating all these modes with each other and with other smaller modes to have multimodal integration in order to extract maximum benefits from each mode,” he said.

Prof Mir said in Kashmir, we are looking for short-term solutions to solve the transportation problems.

"We also need to focus on long-term and sustainable solutions like integrating our transportation network with our land-use (traffic generating activities) and developing a robust and integrated public transportation system," he said.

Dr. P. N. Hiremath, Coordinator CESA, thanked the guest speaker for his very informative, thought-provoking, and inspiring talk.

The president of the CESA, Mr. Sheikh Aadil Rahim also expressed his thanks to the guest speaker.

The session ended with a question-answer session in which students interacted freely with the expert and gave their feedback as well.

The students said that they found the interaction very inspiring and technically useful. They expressed their thanks to CESA for organizing such a session and requested for organizing more such sessions in the future.(KNS)