India may soon overtake its advanced Asian peers Japan and South Korea in terms of metro network and stand at third position globally just behind China and the United States.

Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep S Puri along with Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan jointly inaugurated 15th Urban Mobility India (UMI) Conference and Expo 2022 in Kochi on Friday (4 November).

Speaking at the event, Union Minister Hardeep S Puri said that India currently has the fifth-largest metro network in the world, and will soon overtake advanced economies such as Japan and South Korea to become the third-largest network.

“As of September 2022, 810 km of metro line are operational in 20 cities and a network of more than 980 km of metro network and RRTS is currently under construction in 27 cities,” the minister said.

Acknowledging the incorporation of best practices/ learnings from other countries into Indian Urban Mobility Systems, Hardeep Puri said that we have been able to learn from the experience of other countries.

The minister congratulated the Kochi Metro for the innovative Kochi Water Metro project, which will connect 10 islands through 15 routes and will cater to a daily ridership of more than 1,00,000 people across 78 kilometres of network.

“Not only will the water Metro revive the traditional water train and travel routes once ubiquitous in the city. It will also provide a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to daily commuters. Inland water transport is inherently more energy efficient than road or rail transport,” he said.

“A developed India by 2047 makes it imperative that urban mobility is a crucial driver towards that goal, especially since nearly 50 per cent of the population will be in urban areas. We can start preparing the roadmap for what urban transport will look like in 2047,” he added.