Sudhir Badami has extensive experience in detail engineering, in areas far removed from the current vocation of transportation systems, and has the ability to look at projects holistically and speak his mind at the planning stage itself. Transportation engineering and urban issues are his passion.
Badami is a member of Research and MIS Committee of Unified Mumbai Metropolitan Transport Authority, Government of Maharashtra’s Steering Committee for bus rapid Transit system in Mumbai, and MMRDA’s Technical Advisory Committee for BRTS, also in Mumbai. Currently he is member of the Committee Constituted by the Bombay High Court for making the Suburban Railways System Accessible to Persons with Disability (2011- ).
On the slow progress of BRTS implementation in India, Badami told Projectmonitor, “Despite the successful implementation of BRTS in Ahmedabad, the wrongly projected failed BRTS in Delhi and Pune are given as examples of unsuitability of the economical BRTS in Indian conditions in favour of slick and expensive Metro Rail. Our political section of society is unaware or is unwilling to capture the essence of operating and the need to implement BRTS. That is why there is slow progress. In contrast, China, having realised and experience the folly of motorising their cities from bicycling cities, have opted to go in for BRTS in a big way.”
Wisdom will definitely dawn in Indian cities once Mumbai sets an example, but for that the political leadership needs to be devoted to improving mobility and quality of life of the city citizen and not of financial gains, personal or state alone, he said. An alumni of IIT Bombay, he was a member of the Bombay High Court appointed erstwhile Road Monitoring Committee (2006-07), then commonly known as Pothole Committee. A veteran civil and structural engineer, Badami has been a crusader of many social causes such as noise, disaster risk mitigation and management, etc. His engineering background and non-engineering understanding of urban issues has enabled him to campaign for early and proper implementation of the bus rapid transit system in Mumbai. He also believes that there is scope to introduce cycle rickshaws in Mumbai and in rest of the state and take to traffic calming measures.
Sudhir Badami is a recipient of IIT Bombay’s Distinguished Service Award 2012. He is also a co-founder of Structural Engineering Forum of India.