KATHMANDU: The last two decades had witnessed a flurry of plans for the urban transport management. Sadly, however, none of those plans had ever been executed effectively to which the government authorities put the blame on 'lack of coordination' between implementing agencies.

Of the 75 plans formulated for the urban traffic management, none had been implemented for practical purposes as intended originally, said an official at the National Planning Commission.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Labour and Transport (MoLT), the Ministry of Local Development, and the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW) have been working jointly on the transport management of the country but have made no significant dent thus far, he said.

When queried, Dr Pushkar Bajracharya, member of the National Planning Commission confirmed the accusations: "Nothing significant has been achieved in the transport system. The traffic in Kathmandu Valley remains chaotic, the city is polluted and looks ugly and unworthy of healthy living."

Superintendent of Police Pawan Prasad Kharel of Metropolitan Traffic Police Division blames on the lack of coordination among the stakeholders that has affected the plan.

"The NPC formulates policies but the implementation has fallen through for want of adequate budget," he said.

The NPC started incorporating urban development and transport management from the seventh five-year plan (1985-1990).

But Purna Kadaria, secretary at the MoPPW said there was no dearth of resources in implementing the plans.

"It was the negligence on the part of the implementation agencies from the very inception of the plans that has actually pushed the urban transport management into a chaos,” he added.

In 1980, Bagmati Zone had registered just 26,000 vehicles. The number of vehicles registered in 2009 has increased to 444,700 (17 times), according to MoLT.

Along with the 17-fold increase in the number of vehicles, the pollution level too has increased phenomenally, a report of the Asian Development Bank has shown.

Although there is a dearth of research on the impact of air pollution, it is estimated that 19,000 children under the age of five years, have died of respiratory problem in recent years, according to Kamal Raj Pande, joint-secretary at the MoPPW.

"Forty-two per cent of the pollution is caused by vehicle emission,” he added.

David Irwin, leader of the Kathmandu Sustainable Transport Project at the ADB said encouraging public vehicles and controlling private ones, including the motorcycles could be an option for the Kathmandu Valley's efficient management of transport system.

The ADB has initiated a sustainable urban transport management project in October this year. The project envisages improving the operations of public transport, upgrading bus parks, traffic management and pedestrian streets.