Odisha's public transport service 'Mo Bus' honoured with United Nations Public Service Award

Odisha's public transport service 'Mo Bus' honoured with United Nations Public Service Award

Recently Odisha-based public transport service 'Mo Bus' has been awarded the prestigious 'United Nations Public Service Award' for its role and efforts in better

recovery of the world from COVID- 19. The awards recognize 10 innovations to help the world better recover from COVID-19.

Ten initiatives from Brazil, Canada, India, Ireland, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Ukraine has been recognized for their innovative public servicendelivery with the United Nations Public Service Awards and were.honoured in a digital ceremony organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

The 2022 UN Public Service Award winners were announced by Liu Genmin, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, during an. event commemorating the United Nations Public Service Day.

How did Odisha get recognition?

The UN recognition said the problem was that there was a need.to improve bus services in the city of Bhubaneswar, as a result of which most people used private vehicles, two-wheelers and auto- rickshaws instead of taking public transport.

The solution for this emerged as the 'Restructuring of public transport services in the city to provide an integrated, reliable and inclusive public bus service system' launched by the Odisha government in the year 2018. Mo.Bus incorporates "real-time technologies like live tracking,travel planner and e-ticketing" and an e-rickshaw system called 'Mo e-ride' is introduced as a feeder service.