When Chief Secretary Rakesh Mehta — as municipal commissioner nearly five years ago — decided to embark on a project to design bicycle tracks for the city, he had his task cut out: finding an engineer willing to take up the project.

Recounting his experiences of sensitising people about non-motorised vehicles and pedestrians while planning infrastructure projects, Mehta said: “To get people interested in the idea, I was willing to send them on trainings and foreign trips, but no one was willing to do it. Eventually, I had one engineer who came up and agreed to design bicycle tracks and be a part of the designing cell, but the project is yet to take off.”

Over five years down the line, he is battling it out for another project — creating bicycle tracks along the city’s historical nullahs.

“It took a long while to convince and get the Public Works Department to start working on it. It is still to take off,” he said.

Speaking at a panel discussion on “Will Delhi become walkable” organised as part of the first Habitat Summit at the India Habitat Centre (IHC), Mehta said to make Delhi walkable, sensitivity and thought must be a part of the job description for planners in the government. “Besides, no government can work in isolation,” he said. “It has to work with what people want, so there is a need to have public debates to ensure that the government plans according to their needs.”

The lack of discussion on infrastructure and people’s needs is one of the reasons why Delhi is still not as walkable as New York or London, and closer home, Mumbai. “It is a city that walks anyway. People walk to bus stops, markets and schools every day, so we need walking facilities,” he said.

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