Road safety expert Prof Dinesh Mohan dies of Covid at 75
Colleagues, friends, and students remembered Mohan as a “great humanist”, and a fervent supporter of human rights, besides being a noted name in academia.
Dinesh Mohan, honorary professor of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, and leading road safety and transportation expert, the man behind the now scrapped bus rapid transit (BRT) system in Delhi, succumbed to Covid-19 on Friday. He was 75.
Mohan was undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at Delhi’s St Stephen’s Hospital when he died on Friday morning following a cardiac arrest.
Colleagues, friends, and students remembered Mohan as a “great humanist”, and a fervent supporter of human rights, besides being a noted name in academia. An alumnus of IIT-Bombay and University of Michigan, Mohan was also known for his work in areas of advancing motorcycle helmet design.
Professor Mohan started his career with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Washington DC, USA. Since 1976, he was with IIT-Delhi’s Centre of Biomedical Engineering, where he did pioneering work through the establishment of the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Program (TRIPP) at the institute.
In a message on Friday, IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao said, “He was a great humanist and fervent supporter of individual rights. The Delhi Declaration on People’s Right to Safety is one such example, besides many others...It is a huge loss for all faculty, students, and staff at TRIPP and all those known to him at IIT-Delhi and the traffic safety community in India and the world. We pray to the almighty to give his family strength to overcome this huge loss.”
Geetam Tiwari, professor of civil engineering and transportation planning, IIT-Delhi, said Mohan always rooted for more sustainable modes of public transport. “He designed Delhi’s BRT. The whole idea was there, but the press treated it very poorly, without understanding much. So, it was scrapped by the government,” she said.
The BRT project was implemented by the chief minister Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government in 2008. However, it was not well-received, and scrapped in 2016.
Delhi transport commissioner Ashish Kundra said Mohan was a doyen of sustainable urban transport. “A great thinker and a progressive mind, he always infused new ideas and energy for urban transport solutions in Delhi. I had sought time from him separately for guidance. But, that wasn’t meant to be,” he said.