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Khandagiri, an outer area of Bhubaneswar till the 1990s, is now a fledgling urban landscape.
Lingaraj Barik, a media marketing professional living in one of its neighbourhoods, travels to the heart of the city that houses the state secretariat, Odisha assembly, government departments, and business establishments for his official work.
“A few years back, my movements around the city were quite smooth. But now, I encounter traffic congestion at several places. It takes about 50 minutes to reach my destination, which I used to cover in 15 minutes a few years back,” Barik said.
Former college teacher and social activist Subash Panda lives in Jayadev Vihar, the starting point of a 13 km straight road that leads to Nandankanan.
From 8.30 am to 11.30 and from 4 pm to 9 pm, there is a heavy rush on the road. Panda mostly avoids the road and takes an alternative but longer road to save time and avoid vehicular pollution.
Both Barik and Panda use their two-wheelers and four-wheelers, depending on the traffic situation on the road.
Radha Sethi, who works as a house help in city apartments along the same busy road, has no such choices. She has to spend around 45 minutes travelling in a city bus and also walking 1.5 km every day to reach her workplaces in two neighbouring apartments just 11 km from her house, along the Jayadev Vihar-Nandankanan road.
“Bhubaneswar is growing at a fast pace in terms of population, infrastructure, and number of vehicles on the road. The growth is unbalanced and unplanned, and it will be a nightmare for city commuters if the growth is not evenly spread out in future,” said urban planner Piyush Ranjan Rout.
Bhubaneswar replaced congested Cuttack as Odisha’s capital in 1948. The modern Bhubaneswar, counted among India’s first planned cities along with Chandigarh and Jamshedpur, was designed in 1966 by German architect Otto Konigsberger.
Konigsberger adopted a linear approach to design the city. The basic structure of the city comprised the government buildings, employees’ quarters, neighbourhoods and markets. They were flanked by several wide parallel roads that were connected to each other with grid roads, with circular squares functioning as the nerve centres of the roads.
The cityscape was more than enough for a population of 40,000. Bicycles were the main mode of transport; there were few two-wheeled and fewer four-wheeled vehicles. There was an abundance of lush greenery along the roads, and around government quarters and neighbourhoods.
Since then, Bhubaneswar, adjudged the Number 1 among the first lot of 20 Smart Cities declared by the central government in 2015, has expanded far beyond its original template.
According to the last census in 2011, the city’s population was 885,363. It is now projected to have 1.3 million, according to the World Population Review. Bhubaneswar is one of the fastest expanding cities of India that grew by 30 per cent between 2011 and 2021.
The area under the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) covers 186 square kilometres. Having around 1,600 km with an average road density of 11.82 sq km, the city ranks among the top cities of the country with a substantial road network and also compares with major global benchmarks.
The city’s roads are managed by three different agencies. The roads and building division of the works department manages the main roads while the BMC looks after the internal roads. Besides, the National Highway Authority of India takes care of the national highways passing through the city.
According to Regional Transport Office data, on the other hand, the annual registration of vehicles has increased in the last two decades from 25,543 vehicles in 2000-01 to 110,370 in 2019-20. In the last 10 years alone, the city has added over 2 million registered vehicles to its roads, an increase of 85 per cent. Around 80 per cent of the total vehicles are two-wheelers.
Most people use their two-wheelers to move around the city. Three-wheeled auto-rickshaws were — probably still are — the mainstay of Bhubaneswar’s public transport system.
However, there was a major transformation in mobility after the state government launched the Mo Bus (my bus) service under the Capital Region Urban Transport (CRUT) in 2018 during the World Cup Hockey Tournament in Bhubaneswar.
A CRUT report in 2023 showed that before the introduction of Mo Bus and Mo E Ride — a feeder electric three-wheeled service to Mo Bus — buses accounted for just 8 per cent of all trips and auto rickshaws 17 per cent. As compared to public transport, two-wheelers and cars accounted for 55 per cent and 7 per cent of all trips while at least 13 per cent people used other modes like bicycles, hand pulled rickshaws and walking.
After the introduction of Mo Bus, the data showed, the ridership in it increased by 200 per cent in over four and a half years with 57 per cent commuters shifting from private modes.
Mo Bus, rechristened Ama Bus (our bus) after the change in the government in 2024, has proved to be an effective and affordable mode of transport for lakhs of people. CRUT has a total fleet of over 560 including 180 electric buses of which at least 300 ply in Bhubaneswar city that also links Cuttack. CRUT also operates in Rourkela, Berhampur and Sambalpur.
The buses are quite frequent on all routes. There are different types of concessions in tickets for different groups such as disabled, senior citizens and women. During peak hours, the buses run to full capacity.
In October last year, Bhubaneswar received the “City with Best Public Transport System” from the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs for the smooth functioning of Ama Bus. It was the sixth time that the CRUT managed public transport system has received the central government’s recognition as one of the finest urban mobility services in the country.
However, in recent years, certain roads and traffic junctions have had heavy traffic loads during peak morning and evening hours. These areas, that suffer frequent traffic jams, also generate most of the city’s vehicular pollution.
Everyday a huge mass of people is on the move on the roads — on bicycles, motorcycles, three-wheeled auto rickshaws, cars and city buses. People travel up to 20 km to their workplace and for other activities. The three main routes that witness heavy rush and frequent traffic jams are: Jayadev Vihar to Nandankanan road, Khandagiri to Tomando road and Pahala to Rasulgarh road.
A major chunk of Bhubaneswar’s traffic is gravitated towards these roads because most of the recent infrastructures like malls, business establishments, offices, IT companies, corporate hospitals and educational and coaching institutes have come up along these routes. The areas along the Jayadev Vihar-Nandankanan road are already packed with all these. Hundreds of residential apartments are coming up along Khandagiri to Tomando. A single residential apartment along Pahala to Rasulgarh will have over 2,400 flats — each household having more than two two-wheelers besides four-wheelers.
Most roads in the city’s posh areas (designed by Konigsberger) such as Saheed Nagar, Satya Nagar, Kharvel Nagar, Janpath, Ashok Nagar, Bapuji Nagar, AG Square, Rajmahal and Kalpana squares are busy as usual, but traffic jams are not frequent on the planned road networks in these places. Only Kalpana Square to Rasulgarh road has heavy traffic as it has most of the city’s old business establishments.
But these areas have their different challenges. With the increase of vehicles, a lot of parking lots have been carved out of the existing roads as there is no room for expansion. But often, hundreds of cars and motorcycles are just parked by the road, blocking traffic mobility.
Panda, who has spent half a century in Bhubaneswar and seen the city grow, says that people park their vehicles by the road for two reasons: First, the parking lots are full to their capacities, especially in front of business establishments, and second, as the pavement for pedestrians have been taken over by shops, people are in a hurry to buy goods and go home.
The traffic congestion has highly contributed to the city’s pollution level. A study in 2023, Identification and Quantification of Emission Hotspots of Air Pollution over Bhubaneswar: A Smart City in Eastern India, said the city’s hotspots confined over just 12 per cent area contributed 50 per cent of the emissions of total nitrogen oxides (NOx). Emissions from transport were a major contributor to the total NOx in the city.
On the other hand, the report said, road dust and transport contributed to 31 per cent and 29 per cent of PM 10 levels in the city. In Bhubaneswar, dust pollution is generated mainly from rapid construction activities, which also contributes to creating obstacles in traffic mobility.
Many studies suggest that Bhubaneswar’s annual average PM 2.5 concentration, mainly coming from road dust and transport emissions, is around 47.4, which is higher than the national average of 40. According to the Central Pollution Control Board data, the MP 2.5 level in the city slipped to “very poor” and “extremely poor” categories during last winter by hovering between 111 and 176.
Besides the construction of new roads, repair of old roads, even those in good condition, is an ongoing process. The city’s green cover, which could absorb the dust and pollution, has become the primary casualty of the construction of roads, apartments, malls and other establishments. Interestingly, many government quarters and quarters for MLAs having excellent tree cover are being razed to the ground to construct multi-storey housing projects for the employees and MLAs.
Over the past five years, a state health department report says, there has been a 30 per cent increase in respiratory problems that have mainly affected the children and elderly people.
The roads having heavy rush are vulnerable to accidents. According to the transport department figures, the five-year averages of road accidents and deaths in Khurda district are 865 and 314 respectively. Almost a half of these occurred in Bhubaneswar city area, which forms a major part of the district. Besides, transport sources said, 30 people have died due to 80 accidents involving Ama Bus in the last three years.
To ease the traffic and minimise pollution due to congestion, many roads are being constructed parallel to the roads carrying heavy traffic. Some roads have been fully or partially opened for traffic like the Utkal Hospital Road parallel to Jayadev Vihar to Nandankanan.
Many underpasses have also been created out of flyovers to divert the small vehicles, according to R & division officials. They said that construction of more flyovers is being planned.
According to BMC mayor Sulochana Das, the BMC has created a well-equipped centre that monitors the traffic situation in the city. “Wherever there is a jam, alerts are sent for necessary action. In several cases, the monitoring centre has been effective to defuse congestion and avert accidents,” Das said.
Odisha transport commissioner Amitabh Thakur said the government has asked the help of IIT Kharagpur, IIT Delhi and IIT Bhubaneswar to give plans on road and traffic. There are also proposals for AI monitored traffic signals.
Rout feels that though Bhubaneswar has better road density than many other cities of India, the problem lies with roads, which are constructed with mainly cars and heavy vehicles in focus though a vast majority of the people travel in two-wheelers and, most importantly, bicycles.
“These lesser commuters jostle for space with cars, buses and trucks. It is quite unsafe as there are no separate corridors,” he said.
In 2018, the Odisha government had launched the “Mo Cycle-Public Bicycle Sharing” project along with Mo Bus for cleaner and to encourage people to use bicycles in the Smart City. Around 40 km of pathways were earmarked for the purpose, and it was said that the whole city will have bicycle corridors.
Bicycles with GPS tracking systems were purchased and placed at several points. People had the option to pick the bicycles on hire from any location and deposit at any destination. But after the World Cup Hockey was over, the initiative gradually faltered in a few years.
According to most people Down To Earth spoke to, the government must take up the bicycle project with all seriousness as it is clean energy and will avert accidents. Besides, they said, pavements should be cleared for pedestrians and more green cover be created to absorb pollution.
“In a city like Bhubaneswar, there is enough room for improvement,” Rout said.
This article is part of our series on how India moves, which looks at the relationship between air quality and human mobility in cities and towns.