Urban Update February 2018

Setting The Agenda For Tomorrow’s Cities

ISSN 2349-6266 RNI No DELENG/2014/57384

UrbanUpdate Volume IV, Issue X

Let’s not make

Cape Town face of our

Water Future Water crisis has been looming large and experts have been warning since 2012 of this impending issue. They have been forewarning that cities would start facing severe crisis and residents and civic authorities will have to press the panic button. Cape Town is just one example that is likely to reach the ‘zero day’ in a few months.

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FEBRUARY 2018

interview | Dr Harsh vardhan

Government taking sincere initiatives to bring down air pollution in all cities Leaderspeak

Rivers are Lifeline of Cities

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UrbanUpdate Volume IV, Issue X

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Let’s not make

Cape Town

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Water crisis has been looming large and experts have been warning since 2012 of this impending issue. They have been forewarning that cities would start facing severe crisis and residents and civic authorities will have to press the panic button. Cape Town is just one example that is likely to reach the ‘zero day’ in a few months.

SpEak LEaDER

Rajesh Singh Meenakshi Rajput Graphic Designer

ISSN 2349-6266 RNI No DELENG/2014/57384

Setting The Agenda For Tomorrow’s Cities

Volume IV - Issue X

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IV, Issue

Bonn ays from Takeaw

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FEBRUARY 2018

INtERvIEw | DR HaRSH vaRDHaN

Government taking sincere initiatives to bring down air pollution in all cities

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Rivers are Lifeline of Cities

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4

by the

EDITORIAL

Air Quality improvement needs transformative actions

N

orway achieved its targets for automotive emissions three years early. The Scandinavian country had in 2012 set a target to limit transportation related emissions to 85 grams per kilometer by the year 2020.

It achieved this target in 2017. The target was considered by many as overly ambitious becausethe target for the EU was 10 g/Km higher, itself considered a steep ask. The emission level achieved by Norway for the month of December 2017 was 74g/km, well within the target of 85 g/km. All this was possible reportedly due to a big surge in the sales of electric vehicles. During 2017, electric cars accounted for 25 percent of Norway’s total car sales. This was driven by attractive incentives offered by the Government in the form of a total waiver of Value Added Tax on such electric cars.

Closer home, a few days ago the Maharashtra Cabinet cleared an electric vehicle policy which incentivizes both buyers of electric cars as well as manufacturers setting up charging points in the State. The electric vehicle push seems to have gathered momentum as can also be seen from the reported unveiling of electric vehicles by several manufacturers at the Auto Expo which opened in Noida early this month. The Norway example serves to illustrate the huge improvements that are possible in city air quality with more electric vehicles on the road. It also highlights the very positive role of government support, while often expensive, for such a programme for cleaning city air.

The issue of extremely poor ambient air quality and the resultant health hazards are high on the priority list in all our cities. Vehicular emission is a significant contributor to the problem and, with rapidly growing numbers, this will only be enhanced. Thus, in our opinion, we need transformational interventions and not incremental tinkering to address the

problem. Incentives for electric vehicles and infrastructure as in above cases are likely to enable a rapid transition to a more benign transportation ecosystem in our cities. Of course there are other concerns; about the charging infrastructure and after sales service support for example. But we cannot let these tactical constraints come in the way of our strategic pursuits. Solutions must be found including the money for incentives.

Any lasting solution to the urban mobility conundrum-that includes congestion apart from pollution-will be incomplete without transformational measures to promote mass public transport systems. The approach will need to include making public transport, say buses, more affordable and attractive than personal two-wheelers and cars. This seems easier said than done. ULB run public bus services are strained for finances and reeling under losses. Any attempt to raise fares is met with declining ridership. This not only defeats the purpose of revenue generation but also results in more private vehicles on the road, higher emissions and greater congestion. Revenue raising must happen without hiking fares. A cess on every litre of transportation fuel and enhanced parking fees for example could be used to fund the public transport operations. Alongside, some of the preferred roads could be reserved for public transport buses to discourage private vehicles. One could think of other measures, but these are required urgently.

In this issue of Urban Update, we carry an interview with Union Environment Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, where he speaks on air quality in our cities and the ministry’s ongoing actions.

Rajiv Agarwal Editor-In-Chief dg@aiilsg.org

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

5

Quotes

PIN POINT BUZZ

Water shortages shut down power plants across India every year. When power plants rely on water sourced from scarce regions, they put electricity generation at risk and leave less water for cities, farms and families. Without urgent action, water will become a chokepoint for India’s power sector.

Our health is directly related to the health of the environment we live in. Together, air, water and chemical hazards kill more than 12.6 million people a year. This must not continue.

Most of these deaths occur in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America where environmental pollution takes its biggest health toll.

O.P. Agarwal CEO, WRI India

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director-General, WHO

Pascal Mittermaier @PascalMitter Global Managing Director, Cities at the Nature Conservancy

Rapid urbanization in India’s cities has led to less vegetation and higher temperatures – another example of why healthy cities need trees

United Cities @uclg_org

Water is a fundamental right, and guaranteeing access to drinking water and sanitation is one of local and regional governments’ key priorities

UN Environment @UNEP

With our plastic strategy we are laying the foundations for a new circular plastics economy, and driving investment towards it. This will help to reduce plastic litter on land, air, and sea while also bringing new opportunities for innovation, competitiveness and high-quality jobs.

Smart Cities Mission is a step in the direction of achieving our vision to improve the ease of living particularly for the poor, women, elderly and differently abled people. As a major player in digital revolution and a technology superpower, India must also leverage cutting edge technology to power its infrastructure, offices and homes.

Jyrki Katainen Vice-President, European Commission

Hardeep Singh Puri Minister of State for Housing & Urban Affairs

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

Over 1/2 of the world lives in urban areas. But only 12% of cities have air quality measures that meet WHO standards

Erik Solheim @ErikSolheim Head of UN Environment

The Antarctic is a massively important area and you mess with it at your peril.

The world’sbiggest sanctuary in the Antarctic will help protect wildlife and tackle climate change

Inside

Volume 4, Issue 10

Article

40

32

25

Since 2007, many Indian cities tried to implement 24x7 water supply without considering the limited resources with city or state, like limited availability of water and cost to fetch it from long distances, finance required for infrastructure, human resource and technological knowhow

Hill tourist destinations: Building better resilience for climate vulnerability

Cover Story

24

Let’s not make Cape Town face of our Water Future

Water crisis has been looming large and experts have been warning since 2012 of this impending issue. They have been forewarning that cities would start facing severe crisis and residents and civic authorities will have to press the panic button. Cape Town is just one example that is likely to reach the ‘zero day’ in a few months.

LEADerspeak

VELO-CITY The City of Taj! Amazing Agra

30

Come and fall in love with this city. City in which you can explore history and love.

A city that is expanding fast and is still trying to hang on to its past. From kings and Queens to the new generation this city has place from everyone. A city that is struggling to find its feet and become smart as the new adage goes. However, its history , tradition and heritage must be protected at all cost

ONE ON ONE

Pin Point Equi-City Newscan

34

38

RegularS

6 8 12

February 2018

Improving Urban Water Supply System, a Distinct Future, Call to Decide Destiny!

The past three decades have seen an exponential surge in the ‘developmental’ activities in major towns across the Himalayan states so much so that the risk posed by the massive developments, especially the increasing concretisation and pressure on water availability, need a serious relook vis-a-vis trade-offs for the fragile Himalayan ecosystem

42

Inside

15 44 46

City Images Book Review Urban Agenda

Rivers are lifeline of cities Cities in India are growing at an unprecedented pace, and rivers are receding with similar rapidity. National and state governments have had lofty plans to revive rivers, but no visible impact can be seen in most of the states

Government taking sincere initiatives to bring down air pollution in all cities In a conversation with Urban Update, Harsh Vardhan, Environment Minister talks about Delhi’s air qualityand why all governments, states are not coming together

”City becomes chaotic when orderliness is absent” Foo Say Boon, 61, is a veteran architect and urban planner of Singapore. Having worked for many years with the Government of Singapore, easily the best laid-out modern global city, Boon is also working on a few projects in India

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

7

feature | Equi-City

Equi-City’s focus on Slum Development

A challenge for Local Government Equi-City Team

Slums & Urban Development

I

t is estimated that 78.2 per cent of city dwellers within developing countries live in slums. These slums are often described by their low standard housing, overcrowding, acute shortage of basic physical and social services and infrastructure, high environmental and health threat, non-compliance with planning regulations, insecurity of tenure, faulty alignment of streets, social composition (especially in relation to migration) and unfavorable socio-economic and living conditions.

Reasons for Migration

In the last two decades, migration from villages and small towns to metropolitan areas has increased enormously in India. The development

8

February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

of slums have taken place as a result of the industrial expansion in the fringe areas; lack of imaginative integrated housing development in the residential areas; & non-availability of cheap and reasonable housing accommodation for the lower middle class people in urban centers have forced a section of people to seek residence in slums.

With growing Industrialization a large member of people migrated to these cities for gainful employment.

This migration of people to the cities is leading to the dilapidation of urban and environment quality and sustainable development, especially in the metropolitan cities. The problems faced by the people living in the urban areas of India have become major concerns for the government over the last two decades. Slums are considered to be the major issue within many urban areas; particularly problems related to transportation, population increase, health and safety issues.

India is one of the fastest growing and developing countries in the world with many metropolitan cities (e.g.

Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai). Compared to other metropolitan cities in India, Mumbai is one of the biggest metropolitan regions and capital of the state of Maharashtra with many slums varying in sizes. Every year millions of rupees are being spent to resettle and rehabilitate slums in Mumbai to make the city sustainable.

From 1980 onwards, the rate of migration and the sprawling nature of slums into the city has become a major issue. Although many organizations are working towards development and rehabilitation of the issues, the conditions are not conducive to achieving urban sustainable environment. Also, various researchers have reported that to maintain the pace of sustainable urbanization, a holistic approach to sustainable development needs to be considered.

According to the UNESCO definition “a slum is a building, a group of buildings or area characterized by over-crowding, deterioration, unsanitary conditions or absence of facilities of amenities which because of these conditions or any of them, endanger the health, safety or morals of its inhabitants or the community”.

Though slums are spread all over the world, yet it is understood differently in different places. This is a relative concept in terms of its geographical settings and outlay. The concepts and definition of slum vary from one society to another and even from one study to another study conducted in the same society.

Some suggestions for improving this situation have been listed. They are:that the policy makers &planners, house building firms& social scientists should make basic studies on the existing functional use of space in slum households to find out the barest physical needs without imposing middle class value into the existing cultural orientation of the lower strata of society. So long, the facilities provided are not in keeping with the cultural orientation of the group the chances of misuse & abuse are great; facilities which are the immediate felt needs of cultural groups are readily accepted & put to optimum use.

The curative aspect of slum improvement should concentrate on arresting the mentality of “slumliness” as a character among lower strata of society on the one hand & in providing some of the basic felt needs on the group in keeping with the cultural conditions of the groups on other.

The preventive aspects of slum improvement or clearance require a multi-dimensional approach. To prevent the recent trend among the lower middle class to move to slum areas for residence in big cities, rental housing schemes for the lower strata of society should be started immediately on a large scale. A realistic rent control scheme taking into account the present cost of construction & return for the money invested in private rental housing will go a long way in

promoting private rental housing also.

Keeping this emerging problem of slum development in consideration, Equi-City Team conducted a Training Workshop on Slum Development to sensitize Elected Representatives in Nagpur.

Glimpse from the Workshop on Slum Development

As part of Capacity Building exercise, Equi-City Team along with Nagpur Municipal Corporation held a Training Workshop on Slum development for the Elected Representatives of the City.

The workshop was conducted at Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Intellectual Property Management, Civil lines Nagpur. The Chief Guest for the Workshop were Deepraj Pardikar, Dy. Mayor Nagpur City, Girish Gandhi, Convener, City Development Forum, Tanaji Wanve, opposition party leader and Rajesh Mohite, Dy. Addl.

Commissioner, Nagpur city. The Chief Guest was welcomed by the EquiCity team. Jayant Pathak, Regional Director, AIILSG gave a welcome speech discussing the Equi-City project and also the various problems related to Slum development in and around the city. Firstly, he discussedabout the purpose of the workshop thatis to the find solution to the problem of slum development in the city. The objective of the workshop was particularly on Government Resolutions and technical difficulties faced by the Elected Representatives.

The Chief Guests also focused upon the problems faced by the citizens regarding the Slum Development process and their displeasure due to the Local Authority’s stringent rules and regulation which affect their normal way of life.

The workshop was divided into two sessions majorly focusing on the introduction to slums, Land-use Patterns, and Patte Watap.

Session 1

Leena Buddhe, Director, Center for Sustainable Development (CSD), Nagpur informed the audience about

land management, development charges and other issues related to land.

The Expert discussed on the ownership of the land and Reservations.

The session also covered the topic of the land development charges taken by the local authority and the questions were answered by the expert on the validation of the taxes by the Authority in slum development. The session also included the subjects specific to Landuse Change and the process & need ofland-use change according to the user in the area. The expert covered the particular topic on Notified and Non-Notified Slums.

The discussion also included topics on categorical reservation of land distribution and the process of land distribution to the particular user and list of land parcels available throughout the city. Also, the various slum locations in the city were discussed based on their land use and their current reservation according to the authority.

Session 2

The particular session particularly focused on the GRs passed by the Local Authority and the GOI regarding the slum development in India. The land parcels belonging to the Naazul department were also discussed during this session. Various schemes like PMAY and SRA were focused on and questions were asked and discussed by the local leaders on various issues they were facing during their work.

The Issue for development of the private land and the land allocation rules for redevelopment were focused upon in the area. Questions were also raised upon the funds raised and the schemes allotted in the city and their actual on-site implementation, which were answered by the municipal engineers and Dy. Mayor of the city.

Mayor Nanda Jichkar, added to this discussion focusing on the needs and practices that a Ward member should follow. Mayor, Nagpur city mentioned the ‘Smart Prabhag Yojana’ which was recently launched in Nagpur city as a part and parcel for development of the city.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

9

NEWSCAN

Booming Indian cities look to bike sharing to put brakes on congestion

MUMBAI: As urban population surge and vehicles clog the streets, Indian cities are gearing up to launch bikesharing systems to ease traffic congestion and deadly air pollution. Bikesharing system launched in June 2017, in the southern city of Mysuru and the central city of Bhopal have met with a tremendous response, officials said.

According to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington D.C.based research organization, “About half a dozen more cities, including Bengaluru, Pune and Bhubaneswar, are now drawing up similar plans.”

Chandramauli Shukla, Chief Executive of Bhopal Smart City Corporation said, “Bike sharing is a viable option for Indian cities — we just need good-quality bikes, dedicated lanes and a system that is efficient.”

The corporation implements the federally-funded Smart Cities program to

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

improve services like internet connectivity and public transport in 100 cities across India. With rising incomes and a large young population, passenger vehicle ownership in India has nearly tripled in the last decade, government data shows. Gridlock has become common and transit systems struggle to keep pace. Vehicle emissions account for almost a third of air pollution in India, which has nearly half the world’s 20 most polluted cities, according to the World Health Organization. Some 2.5 million people in the country die every year due to pollution.

Mysuru, close to the technology hub of Bengaluru, was the first to introduce a bike-sharing program, with the State’s Chief Minister riding a yellow TrinTrin bike at the launch. Registered users can borrow any of 450 bikes from 48 docking stations for a nominal fee.

In Bhopal, users can register on their

smartphones and unlock one of 500 bikes from 60 docking stations. The city now has 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) of dedicated bike lanes, according to WRI, which provided technical expertise to the Bhopal Municipal Corporation on the bike-sharing system.

Amit Bhatt, Director of Transport at WRI India said, “More than 25,000 people registered in the first few months, half of them women. In India, people look down on those who bike.

So we had to show this is cool, with good-quality bikes and a mobile app to register and unlock bikes. But the main priority is safety, with dedicated bike lanes.

That has encouraged people to give it a go. Officials must be careful not to repeat the mistakes of China, where unchecked growth of bike-sharing firms led to piles of discarded bikes clogging sidewalks”.

NEWSCAN

India m2m + iot Forum hosts the ‘IndiaEU dialogue on ICT for Smart Cities’ The forum aims at enriching the m2m and iot ecosystem by demonstrating the applications and usability of disruptive and specialized technologies such as m2m and iot in making Smarter Cities and Smarter Villages in India NEW DELHI: India m2m + iot Forum has delivered another successful edition of India Smart Cities Forum and India Smart Villages Forum. The 5th edition of the forum was jointly organized by Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (DMS, IIT Delhi), FI Media (Future Internet and Electronic Media) a project funded by the Delegation of European Union to India and India m2m + iot Forum. The inaugural session on ‘smart cities journey so far’, witnessed the Honourable Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Hardeep Singh Puri addressing the audience comprising of distinct stakeholders from the ecosystem. “Smart Cities Mission is setting a new benchmark in terms of project implementation. This remains one of the fastest ever project implementations at this scale and geographic spread in urban sector”, said Hardeep Singh Puri during his inaugural address to the audience.

Dr Sameer Sharma, Additional Secretary during his plenary address re-emphasized the significance of machine-to-machine (m2m) and internet of things (iot) technologies in smart cities. “M2M and IOT holds considerable promise and potential for Smart Cities in India and the World to improve lives of the people through enhancing exist-

ing capabilities manifold and opening vistas of development.”

The forum, also hosted the most significant ‘India-EU dialogue on ICT for Smart Cities’, moderated by the European Union, focusing on innovations, concrete cooperation experiences, and business partnership opportunities in the space of ICT for Smart Cities. ‘India and the EU share similar challenges and need similar solutions to ensure smart and sustainable urbanisation.

Companies and organizations including European Union, FIWARE Foundation, Telular Corporation, SEAK Energetics, C-DOT, GAIA Smart Cities, Dolphin RFID, Osiris Smart Connected Systems, Parking Rhino and Smart Cities Lab, demonstrated m2m and iot solutions for smart cities, with case studies that showcased successful implementations of these technologies.

The Forum also organized a dedicated ‘India Smart Villages Forum’ that focused on empowering Villages through Technology and Creating Rural Innovation Clusters’. This specialized session brought together the stakeholders from the eco-system addressing the basic of needs of any village encompassing the vision for a well-connected smart village highlighting key sectors that will contribute towards building scalable and sustainable smart villages in India.

While sharing about the latest works which have been initiated by Ministry of Rural Development, Dr Seema Gaur, Chief Advisory, Ministry of Rural Development said, “Under BharatNet which is the world’s largest broadband connectivity program, recently a significant milestone has been achieved by connecting over one lakh Gram Panchayats which is the basic administrative unit at village level.”

Ajay Singh Yadav, Mukhiya, Village Dharnai, District Jehanabad, Bihar shared about his works with Green Peace International to bring electricity via Solar Power to his village. It took one an half year to completely install the solar plants, which were then used to provide electricity to the whole village India m2m + iot Forum 2018 was supported by European Union, Ministry of Communications, GoI, Digital India, Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India. The forum delivered a successful 5th edition with the valuable support from 3GPP, All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG), EURAXESS, European Telecom Standards Institute (ETSI), National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), oneM2M and Telecom Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI).

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

11

BRIEFS

Parliament to go paperless The Centre is keen to bring its “go green initiative” into the hallowed portals and proposes a shift to paperless functioning and digitized proceedings in Parliament and State Assemblies. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar to float the ‘paper-free’ plan at a two-day All India Chief Whips Conference at Udaipur, where rolling out e-Sansad and e-Vidhan is part of the agenda. The ‘going paperless’ and achieving more automation in State legislatures and Parliament is part of the government’s Digital India plans. Over the past few years, the Union government has cut down on printing of hard copies of parliamentary documents and reports. In 2016, for instance, the government more than halved the number of printed Budget copies from the previous figure of 5,100.

Indian Railways goes ‘Hi-Tech’ The government plans to install GPS devices on 2700 electric locomotives by December 2018 in order to provide real-time train information.” Railway Ministry in collaboration with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is implementing Real-Time Train Information System (RTIS) which involves tracking of train by placing GPS/GAGAN (GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation System) based devices on locomotives”, said Rajen Gohain, Minister of State for Railways. He also mentioned that a reliable and high-level accuracy of about 99.3% of real-time reporting of arrival and departure timing updates has been observed, which is good enough to meet RTIS requirements.

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

NEWSCAN

World Book Fair calls for Climate Change Awareness New Delhi: The 26th New Delhi World Book Fair, a nine-day event themed on ‘Environment and Climate Change’ was inaugurated by environmentalist SunitaNarain, European Union Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski, National Book Trust Chairman Baldev Bhai Sharma and Madhu Ranjan Kumar, Joint Secy- Minister of Human Resource Development.

HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar addressed the visitors through video conference and said that climate change awareness is important as humans have exploited earth beyond limits. He also said, “We have taken more from the earth than it could offer. It is about time we realised the importance of awareness, and it won’t be possible without collective efforts by not wasting electricity, water; by taking bicycle to travel or by walking more instead of using petrol and dieselrun vehicles”.

Spreading awareness about the effects of climate change, Author-environmentalist Sunita Narain said, “The western world is talking and negotiating about environment change, they are holding meetings while here in India we are witnessing climate change with extreme cold, extreme drought and extreme rains.”

She also said, “It is no more an upcoming event, climate change is here. And

the worst affected are the poorest people, the farmers, the marginalised. We don’t need to be told about climate change, we are living it”.

Talking about the role of books in disseminating awareness about environment and climate change European Union Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski said, “The most important aspect of a book fair is the participation for general public, and with the event’s theme of environment and climate change we hope to spread the message to as many people as possible. The fair has a very high reputation of creating awareness and bringing change in the society. It is a medium to develop cultural ties between India and the European countries”.

The book fair dedicated Hall 7E to the theme ‘Environment and Climate Change’ with books in English, Hindi and other Indian languages on environmentrelated issues like climate change, global warming, water and air pollution.

Over 20 European Union countries and more than 40 countries including Canada, China, Egypt, Pakistan and United Kingdom participated in the book fair.

There was an author’s corner in different halls which gave opportunity to visitors to interact with some of the well-known writers like Ruskin Bond, Jerry Pinto, Michael Creighton, Paro Anand, Mridula Garg and Ranjit Lal among others.

Manipur gets waste management plant to preserve green cover IMPHAL: A solid waste treatment plant has been set up at Lamdeng in Imphal West to protect the green cover of north-eastern part of Manipur. The solid waste treatment plant is an initiative by the state government and is helping the state to manage solid and industrial waste. All the operations of the plant have been handed over to a private agency Eco Care Private Limited which will treat, process, recycle and dispose solid waste of Imphal. The plant has been functioning under the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) model since December 15, 2016.

Madhurjit Singh, Plant Project Manager said, “As of now our end product is only bio compost and in the future we will try to generate power also”.

Imphal generates 120 tonnes of solid waste per day from human activities in residential, industrial or commercial areas. The process includes monitoring, collection, transport, processing, recycling and disposal. This venture has also helped in generation of employment opportunities for many in the city. Currently, the plant employs 19 people. The treatment plant was constructed at a cost of Rs 4,175 crore and in the near future,the plant is coming up with a target of one Megawatt of power by using gas fire.

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BRIEFS

NDMC plans 6 multilevel parking near metro stations The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has joined hands with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to bring relief from parking problems in the capital city. In its standing committee meeting, the north civic body approved setting up multi-level parking lots besides six busy metro stations in its jurisdiction. These facilities — spread over a combined area of over 37,500 square metres — will be located at Panjabi Bagh, Udhyog Nagar, Nangloi, Mundka, Pratap Nagar and Madipur. “This will help us tackle the problem of lack of land availability in many of these heavily congested localities. We have already got a go ahead from the DMRC and five of these six facilities will be located on the green line (line 5),” standing committee chairman Tilak Raj Kataria said.

Chas civic body to install first biogas plant in toilets Chas Municipal Corporation is planning to generate biogas from human waste in public and community toilets. The civic body, in association with Dhanbad-based IIT(ISM) students’ start-up Total Waste Solutions (ToWaSo), will install the first biogas plant at the community toilet at Bauritola locality. The power generated by the plant will be used to meet the electricity needs of the toilet itself. The project, which will entail a cost of Rs 40,000, is part of the innovative initiatives that a town or city must take to earn points in Swachh Survekshan 2018. A total of 17 community toilets, seven public loos and 21 modular toilets have been installed in 35 wards of Chas under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

NEWSCAN

Robots to do manual scavenging

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A group of engineering students from Kerala has developed a robot named Bandicoot for manual scavenging which is responsible for several deaths across the country every year. To promote their invention these engineering students have started a startup called ‘Genrobotics’ and they have already received the patent from Government of India and are now seeking the world patent which will be applicable in 150 counties around the globe. The Kerala Water Authority which is responsible for sewage related issues in the area has already placed an order for 50 robots.

Manual scavenging is a caste-based occupation involving the removal of untreated human excreta from bucket toilets or pit latrines that has been officially abolished by a law in India as a dehumanizing practice. Inspite of a ban, the dehumanising practice continues in the country. According to an estimate more than 1200 people died from manual scavenging related activities between 2014 and 2016 in the country.

Considering Bandicoot as a tech solution to the social malaise, Genrobotics said, “The technology will go global only after fixing the country’s nagging problem. Robots will not only be restricted to sewer problem but can also be used for other under water services.”

Vimal Govind, 24-year-old , a mechanical engineer and CEO of Genrobotics said, “Death of three sewage workers on the outskirts of Bangalore two years ago prompted us to think something out of

the box to tackle the problem, which is often being called India’s shame.”

“I worked more than one year in TCS to earn some money to fund the stage one of the project. We all nine classmates of MES Engineering College in Kuttipuram came around quickly and developed the first prototype in six months. Manufacturing cost of the machine is somewhere between Rs three lakh and Rs five lakh.

The machine weighs 80 kg but the main operating part that goes into the hole weighs only 30 kg,” added Rashid K, a software engineer (a team member).

Once installed atop a clogged sewage line, a wire carrying camera goes inside the hole and beams pictures of the problem on the screen atop. After gauging the problem, the robot dismantles itself from the main machine and goes into the hole taking tools such as a shovel or a jet pipe, depending on the magnitude of the problem, and cleans the system.

To operate the machine, the Genrobotics wants to engage manual scavengers so that they don’t become jobless.

“Even a small boy can operate our system. We will train these workers. It is their product.

We are planning to move a proposal under the Prime Minister’s flagship Swachh Bharat scheme to train them,” said Govind, who recently visited Taiwan for a presentation. In an international conference conducted recently by the American Society of Research, out of 13 papers submitted, a paper on Bandicoot was selected as the best.

CITY IMAGES

Green vertical makeover of concrete metropillars The concept of green vertical gardens has been adopted by the Delhi Metro at the stretch of the Blue Line. The closely and intensely fitted rows of the potted plants are mounted and raised up, hence giving a concrete pillar the look of a vertical garden and increasing the green cover of the capital city. The transformation of the eight drab looking pillars along Mandi House and PragatiMaidan metro stations into beautiful green vertical gardens is a first of its kind initiative by the Delhi Metro. The green transformation of the pillars is to curb pollution in addition to beautifying its surroundings.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

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BRIEFS

Swachh Survekshan 2018 Launched in Guwahati Swachh Survekshan 2018 is a part of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) conducted by the government of India to encourage cities to improve their urban sanitation. The objective of the initiative is to encourage large scale citizen participation and create awareness amongst all sections of society about the importance of working together towards making towns and cities a cleaner and better place to live in. Keeping this in mind, Swachh Survekshan 2018 was undertaken in the city by Guwahati Municipal Corporation at Guwahati Town Club recently. In this regard, the ‘Swachhata App’ plays a critical role, wherein the citizens can register their complaints and the authorities will immediately look into it within a specified time frame.

Country’s first Garbage fest begins on a grand note India’s first ‘Kachra Mahotsav,’ a three-day festival to encourage and promote recycling and up-cycling of waste, begun on a grand note in Raipur Municipal Corporation (RMC) garden. Artists from all around the nation are exhibiting and selling variety of products which are organic, recycled, and reprocessed from the things usually classified as garbage.

The Mahotsav was organized to exhibit the creation of new and beautiful artefacts out of the daily waste. The three-day garbage fest shows the utility of the garbage which is lying in every home and creating best out of waste. The vision of the fest is to facilitate and create a healthy environment.

It provides a road map to smart cities, on how we can creatively reduce, reuse and recycle waste.

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

NEWSCAN

Haryana govt frames rehabilitation policy for slum-dwellers CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government has come up with a rehabilitation policy for people living in slums on government land in urban areas of the state.

The ‘slum-in-situ’ policy has been approved by the Chief Minister Manohar LalKhattar. The policy states that the government would allot houses to people living in urban areas by developing colonies under PPP (public-private partnership) model. “The government will conduct a survey under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana to identify the slums and policy will be applied on identified slums only”, said State Urban Local Bodies Minister Kavita Jain.

Jain said that the developer would pay rent to every household so that the beneficiaries could move to other locations and construction activities could start.

According to the Haryana government, “The rent for such households in Municipal Corporation of Gurugram and Faridabad would be Rs 3000 per month and Rs 2000 per month for other areas. Similarly, Rs 1500 per month and Rs 1000 per month would be the rent for all the municipal councils and the

municipal committees. The ownership right over the unit allotted to beneficiary would be given after 15 years of allotment. For 15 years, the unit would be given to the beneficiary on lease. The lease money would be Rs 20,000 for Municipal Corporation, Gurugram and Faridabad, whereas it would be Rs 15,000 for other urban areas. Similarly, Rs 12,000 would be the lease amount for all municipal councils and Rs 10,000 for all municipal committees. Similarly, beneficiaries in all the municipal councils and municipal committees would have to pay Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively.

Website for free pick up of e-waste launches in Bhubaneswar BHUBANESWAR: In an initiative to make Bhubaneswar e-waste free, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank Group organised a workshop on clean e-Bhubaneswar.

Under the clean e-Bhubaneswar project issues like hazards of e-waste, proper recycling methods, opportunities in terms of resource extraction, pressing need for appropriate e-waste management and potential options that can be implemented, were discussed.

In collaboration between BMC, State Pollution Control Board (SPCB), IT Department and private sector, the

project aims at developing a model for e-waste management in the city to tackle e-waste challenges.

An official from BMC said, “The Clean e-Bhubaneswar project is part of the IFC-European Union Eco Cities programme. Eco-Cities India is a multi-year climate change focused programme aligned with Government of India’s Smart Cities initiative to create climate smart infrastructure in five cities - Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. Implementation of the project is being undertaken by consortium of Sofies Sustainability Leaders Private Limited and city-based Siddha Development Research and Consultancy”.

NEWSCAN

NDMC launches ‘Recognition of Prior Learning of Safai Karamcharis’ NEW DELHI: NDMC in collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Skill Council for Green Jobs and All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) as a training partner has launched a program ‘Recognition of Prior Learning of Safai Karamcharis’. The program is launched by Honorable Member of Parliament, Meenakshi Lekhi. The other eminent members of the event are NDMC’s chairperson Naresh Kumar, Anita Arya (Council member of NDMC), BS Bhatti (NDMC Committee member), Dr Praveen Sakeen, CEO of Skill Council for Green Jobs, Abdul Rashid Ansari (Member NDMC) and Dr Shakuntla Srivastav (Chief Medical Officer NDMC).

While addressing the program NDMC’s Chairperson, Naresh Kumar said, “NDMC in recent few months has done some efforts in skill development under which we have started two skill development centres and we are getting very good response. Under these centres approximately thousand students are getting trained in health sector and solar energy and are grabbing jobs in the market. In collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation and National Safai Karamchari Finance & Development Corporation we have fixed one week training module to further strengthen our approximately 2500 employees. So in coming two years we expect to train our all the employees”.

Addressing the Safai Karamcharis, Honorable Member of Parliament, Meenakshi Lekhi said, “Besides giving training for sanitation and health Safai Karamcharis should also be made aware about First-aid techniques so that they can tackle any emergency situation.”

She has also talked to the NDMC’s chairman regarding the inculcation of First-Aid in the training program of Sa-

Honorable Member of Parliament, Meenakshi Lekhi distributing Safety Kits to Safai Karamcharis

fai Karamcharis.

When asked about the program Dr Mita Sinha, trainer for the program from AIILSG, New Delhi said, “Usually there is no training program for Safai Karamcharis because they have low education level so in order to improve their skills we have launched a program. Under this specialized program they will be taught and made to learn various topics like importance of hygiene and health, precautions to be taken during work etc. using smart media like pictures and animated stories.

Also they would get a certification for this which would act as an achievement for them”.

Emphasizing on the health of Safai Karamcharis, Anita Arya, Council member of NDMC advised them to wear masks, safety jackets, gloves and shoes while working as Delhi’s pollution hazardous to health.

Dr Praveen Sakeen, CEO of Skill Council for Green Jobs said, “Though we have organized such training programs at various places but we have received immense pleasure and coopera-

tion while working with the NDMC and its employees. My experience is highly satisfactory and I hold great admiration for NDMC. I assure you all that we will raise the standards of these training programs to international level”.

Speaker from National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation (NSKFDC) informed that ,”we provide a loan ranging from 60,000 to 25lakh rupees to the Safai Karamcharis at very low interest rate of 1% to 3% to increase their standard of living. This rate of interest can also be excused. Apart from this, we also provide an education loan of 10lakh rupees (to study in India) and 20lakh rupees (to study abroad) to the children of Safai Karamcharis. According to the Manual Scavenging Act 1993, “No Safai Karamchari will go down the sewerage for cleaning as it is fatal and hazardous to the health.” In extreme situations even if any Karamchari has to go down the sewage Chief Executive Officer will be responsible for his health.

Meenakshi Lekhi also distributed safety kits to Safai Karamcharis.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

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BRIEFS

Mumbai Society Transforms Sewage land in to a 10000 sq ft. Garden From the young to the senior citizens, 80 residents of a housing society in Mumbai joined hands and came together to recreate a garden which was lost when a drainage channel flowing along the building compound was widened. The residents of Tirupati Towers in Kandivali took the initiative to do something and joined hands in December 2017, and have successfully recreated a garden measuring 10,000 sq. ft. along the river. Venkatraman Chandramouli resident and former Executive Director, Air India, spearheaded this initiative. The garden currently has 120 trees. Additionally, a 1,500-sq. ft. area is reserved as a kitchen garden, where vegetables such as brinjal, radish, ladyfinger, chillies, tomatoes, spinach etc., are being grown since 2015. The residents plan to plant another 300 trees in the compound.

Google for public toilet in your area Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) with the help of google has come up with a technical solution to map all the public and community toilets. Now people can locate the public toilets in their vicinity.

By searching ‘toilet’ or ‘public toilet’, Google map would help them navigate to the nearest public toilet. The civic body aims to make Vijayawada a cleaner city and to curb public urination, is making the residents aware of the facility. The facility is so far available only in metropolitan cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. The users can also share their experience about the facility and can give feedbacks directly to the civic body.

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

NEWSCAN

Ranchi to have Bicycle Kiosks to reduce congestion RANCHI: To make commuting easy Urban Development Department Secretary, Arun Kumar Singh told Jharkhand High Court that the capital will have a metro rail service and build bicycle kiosks to encourage biking.

Appearing before a division bench of Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice Rajesh Kumar for hearing on a PIL, Arun Kumar Singh said, “The Ranchi Metro on its 16.2 kilometres long tracks will operate through Smart City, MG Marg, KutcheryChowk and a depot after the CRPF Camp station in its first stage and the policy for the metro services had been already formulated by the State Government and sent it to the Centre.

He also said, “As per the centre’s criteria, cities with population more than 10 lakhs are allowed to have metro rail services, so Ranchi is qualified”.

Further the senior IAS officer also informed the bench and said, “We were planning to start bicycle services in various parts of the capital to curb traffic congestion. Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) would build kiosks in collaboration with urban development department where commuters can rent bicycles. People will hire cycles to go to their work place while their vehicles will be parked at another point. This practice

will ease vehicular pressure in the main arteries of the city.”

The Secretary said an intra-state bus terminus, would come up at Sukurhutu in Kanke, and a Transport Nagar at the Marketing Board Complex in Pandra.

The PIL was filed by advocate Rahul Das after the death of two school children in a road accident at Kishoregunj in 2015.

With the objective of streamlining traffic, improving urban infrastructure, using green technology to beat rising pollution levels and organising medical help for those who are injured in road accidents, the bench of Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice Rajesh Kumar passed several orders to widen the scope of the PIL.

New app to clear junk vehicles off roads NEW DELHI: Under the capital’s first comprehensive parking policy, the Delhi government aims to launch an app to check the presence of junk vehicles parked on city roads. The app will be named as ‘Khatara Gadi’ which is yet to be finalised. This app will be linked through the centralised data base of vehicles which will tell the age of the vehicle based on its registration number. The app will facilitate the citizen to click pictures of such vehicles and there will be an option of geo tagging so that it will be easy to reach them and later be disposed at junking facilities. In accordance to the policy, the petrol vehicles age more than 15 years and diesel vehi-

cle more than 10 years will be seized. To dispose junk vehicles the transport department has collaborated with a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) and is coming up with a facility in Greater Noida.

The policy also aims to empower private entities to take up their disposal.

NEWSCAN

Mayors Demand More Powers Ranjit Chavan, President of AIILSG, was unanimously elected as the Working President of the Maharashtra Mayors’ Council.

GOA: Mayors from across the State participated in the Maharashtra Mayors’ Council meeting held in Goa recently. The meeting was presided over

by Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, Mayor, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

Mahadeshwar guided the participants and shared his experiences. He said that mayors should have the power to call meetings of chairpersons of various subject committees and heads of departments. They must have general powers of inspection and give directions to the commissioner regarding the implementation of any resolution of the corporation or any committee.

He added that the mayor must have access to records of the corporation and obtain them from the commissioner.

Regarding suspension or cancellation of resolutions passed by the corporation, he demanded that government may obtain an explanation from the corporation before taking such action.

Other mayors from the state shared his view and said that mayoral post has become a symbolic designation and demanded more administrative and financial powers for mayors for improving civic services in cities.

Ranjit Chavan, President of All India Institute of Local Self-Government and former Mayor of Vadodara Municipal Corporation was the Convener of the Maharashtra Mayor Council. In his introductory speech, he said, “a mayor represents millions of people. All these citizens have a lot of expectations about the facilities offered by the municipal corporations. If these expectations are not met, the mayor has to bear the brunt of the public. To meet these expectations of the common people, the administrative and financial powers are a necessity for the mayors.”

Chavan informed that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and

Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, Mayor of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, and Ranjit Chavan, President of AIILSG along with mayors from the state during Maharashtra Mayors’ Council meeting in Goa

all other municipal corporations in Maharashtra have suggested amendments to be made to give more powers to the mayor. He shared information about the powers of the mayors of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan and Odisha. All the mayors present at the council meeting unanimously supported the proposed amendments.

During this meeting, the primarily suggested amendments included: Mayors be given financial authority (up to a particular budget); they should be given some authority in the corporations’ administration; they should be given the right to implement the resolutions passed by the General Assembly and the right to demand records of various municipal departments.

It was also suggested that the Mayor should be Chairman of the Tree Authority instead of the Municipal Commissioner and before suspending or cancellation any resolution passed dur-

ing the General Body Meeting, the corporation should be consulted.

In the meeting, the discussion saw active participation from Rajendra Devalekar, Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation Mayor; JaywantSutar, Mayor of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation; Dimple Mehta of Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation; Nanda Zichkar, Mayor of Nagpur Municipal Corporation; Kavita Chautala, Mayor of Panvel Municipal Corporation; Sanjay Narve, Mayor of Amravati Municipal Corporation; Meena Allahani, Mayor of Ulhasnagar Municipal Corporation; Nitin Kalge, Mayor of Pimpri – Chinchwad Municipal Corporation; Swati Yavaluje, Mayor of Kolhapur Municipal Corporation; Sheela Bhavare Mayor of Nanded–Waghala Municipal Corporation; and Rupesh Jadhav, Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation’s Mayor. A large number of officers of various municipal bodies also attended the Maharashtra Mayors’ Council.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

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Delhi govt signs MoU with Fukuoka to tackle air pollution NEW DELHI: The National Capital Territory of Delhi and Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture celebrated the 10th anniversary of friendship by signing the memorandum of understanding (MoU), on January 16. On behalf of Japan’s Fukuoka Prefecture, All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG) as a Knowledge Partner had the privilege to invite various speakers from different Indian cities. The event was attended by the Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi Manish Sisodia, UD Minister Satyendar Jain, Transport Minister KailashGehlot and Environment Minister Imran Hussain.

It’s a deal for cooperation in various fields including environment and air pollution. Apart from air pollution and environment, the areas of cooperation will be culture, tourism and heritage, education and youth exchange.The signing was done between the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal and Governor of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, Excellency Hiroshi Ogawa. The agreement says that the two parties will develop joint action plan and develop modalities for financial obligations for cooperation in different sectors. The agreement will remain in force for three years.

Signing of Friendship agreement between Delhi and Fukuoka Prefecture

“We hope to harness our further potentials in the spheres of environment and air pollution. We have the example of a fruitful partnership in the inception of the Delhi Metro and we hope to expand this cooperation in other modes of transport and their multi-modal integration,” said ArvindKejriwal on the occasion. Hiroshi Ogawa expressed his happiness over agreement by saying that Fukuoka Prefecture was the first local government of Japan to have a friendship agreement with the Delhi

government in 2007.

“Pollution is the new area in which we will be conducting training. Also, culture and heritage related exchange will be done.

Delhi has lots of historical sites and we have the experience and technology for preservation and repair,” Ogawa said. On the occasion a government official said that Fukuoka has overcome the challenges of air pollution it faced in the past and will share the same with Delhi.

Pilgrim centres implement ‘Green protocol’ KOCHI: The District administration is all geared up to implement a green protocol at pilgrim centers and festivals in places of worship.

The ‘green protocol’ successful implementation during the annual festive season at Thiruvairanikkulam Temple near Kalady has prompted the district administration to explore such a possibility. The ongoing Thiruvairanikkulam Temple festival has set a model of sorts by strictly following a green protocol ensuring that roads and temple premises remain clean despite lakhs of devotees flocking to the temple for the 12-day opening.

District Collector K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla reviewed the implementation of the green protocol and encouraged the volunteers on the field. He said that more than cleanliness, the Thiruvairanikkulam experiment propagated the significance of a green life style. Following green protocol decision was taken unanimously at a meeting convened by Mr Safir-

20 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

ulla ahead of the temple season. The follow-up measures to implement the decision were taken by ‘Suchitwa Mission’ and ‘Haritha Kerala Mission’ and were assisted by an order issued by the Collector enforcing green protocol.

The use of plastic and disposable plates and glasses were banned in regards of the issued order. Suchitwa Mission opened a special cell at the entry point of the temple itself.

The initiative to put in place a scientific system along the lines of the one at Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram for the segregation and treatment of waste was taken by the temple organizing committee.

A Centre for separating and sending non-biodegradable waste to the treatment point had been set up within the temple premises. The Panchayat also chipped in for the timely movement of non-biodegradable waste. Plans are now afoot to set up a plant for the treatment of waste water to facilitate its reuse before the next pilgrimage season.

NEWSCAN

World Economic Forum 2018

Create a Shared Future in Fractured World DAVOS: World Economic Forum was held this year when the global economy is not doing well. World markets are tanking and reports are not suggesting an immediate revival. India this year led the forum, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered the inauguraladdress. He led the largest Indian contingent ever to the forum consisting of more than a hundred delegates. In his address, he said, “climate change, terrorism and backlash against globalisation are the three most significant challenges to civilization as we know it”. He also mentioned about the opportunities and dangers of technology, about India’s plan to fight income inequality, about job creation and how the country is “cutting the red tape and rolling out red carpet” to international trade and investment.

World Full of Rift and a Shared Future

PM Modi in his address to the forum underlined the fact that “In a world that is full of fault lines and rifts, we need to build a shared future. With new forces arising, the balance between economic capabilities and political power is changing at great speed. Because of this, we can foresee far-reaching changes in the nature of this world with respect to peace, stability and security.

The challenges we face are as numerous as they are daunting”.

Environmental concern was a key feature in this year’s deliberations at Davos. It was evident at the forum that countries have split on the issue of climate change and pollution. They have failed together to live up to their environmental pledges. What the forum failed to resolve was its commitment to come out of its narrow confines and show solidarity. In an apparent dig at the developed countries, PM Modi said that “everyone talks about reducing carbon emissions, but there are very few people or countries who back their words with their resources to help

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the opening day of World Economic Forum

developing countries to adopt the appropriate technology. Very few of them come forward to help.”

WEF Report Not Good for India

While India was the attraction at the forum this year, reports released by WEF did not bring much cheer to India. The Inclusive Development Index (IDI) 2018, a report published by WEF ranked India at sixty-two out of the total seventy-four emerging countries.

IDI is based on the notion of people’s economic progress rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP). WEF says that the Index has three pillars of growth for global economies: growth and development; inclusion, intergenerational equity and sustainability. The report says that the IDI is ‘designed as an alternative to GDP that reflects more

closely the criteria through which people evaluate their respective countries’ economies’. As per the report, among the G20 countries, India ranked second last. ‘Even in the emerging and developing economies, India couldn’t make it to the top 10, with China, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka making a mark.

Other South Asian economies such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines also ranked far better than India.The report, however, says that India is an ‘advancing economy’ as compared to China and Bangladesh which are ‘slowly advancing’ and Sri Lanka which is ‘slowly receding’.

The existing and emerging challenges to the contemporary international system and global governance architecture deserve serious attention of leaders, governments, policy makers, corporates and civil societies around the world.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

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Smart Cities Mission: 82 SPVS Formed So Far NEW DELHI: “Smart Cities Mission is a step in the direction of achieving our vision to improve the ease of living particularly for the poor, women, elderly and differently abled people. All Indians should be able to enjoy a clean and sustainable environment. As a major player in digital revolution and a technology superpower, India must also leverage cutting edge technology to power its infrastructure, offices and homes.” Stating this at the Smart Cities Summit organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Housing & Urban Affairs informed that the Smart Cities Mission is progressing at a brisk pace. There are about 3000 projects worth Rs 1,40,000 crores at various stages of implementation. Tenders for projects worth Rs 16,000 crore have been called, and more than one lakh crore worth of projects are being readied for issuance of tenders. This remains one of the fastest ever project implementations at this scale and geographic spread in urban sector. This will have a ‘Lighthouse’ effect. Other cities and regions around them will soon start undergoing transformation towards becoming centres of urban excellence.

Addressing the participants at the Summit, the Minister said that there is a new benchmark in terms of project implementation. In a short duration of 2.5 years (First round of 20 cities were selected in Jan 2016, and last 30 cities were selected as recently as June 2017) which is a small period in terms of urban development life-cycle where transitions take place over decades. He further informed – “Smart City Mission has a strong focus on innovative digital technologies and dovetails with Digital India ‘vision areas’—digital empowerment of citizens, making government services available digitally, and creating digital infrastructure as utility to every citizen—very closely. Digital Technology solutions, such as surveillance systems lead to greatly reduced crime and improved safety of residents particularly women.

City wide wi-fi networks have improved

22 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

Commencement of India’s first-ever ‘Livability’ Index NEW DELHI: The commencement of the Country’s first-ever ‘Livability Index’ to rank 116 cities was announced by the Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

The result of the exercise will be declared in the month of June. The minister said “The housing and urban affairs ministry has decided to assess the livability standard of 116 Indian cities, which include the identified Smart Cities and few more cities with a population of over one million,” Among the cities to be assessed for the ‘Livability Index’, include Delhi’s three municipal corporations, Bangalore (Karnataka), Kochi (Kerala), Ghaziabad, Meerut, Varanasi, Allahabad and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Faridabad in Haryana.

The core 15 parameters to assess the cities will be like governance, social infrastructure, education, employment, health and safety and security etc. The other things that the ‘Livability Index’ will take into consideration are the physical infrastructure like housing, open spaces, land use, energy and water availability, solid waste management and pollution, among others.

According to a report, through an international bidding process under a World Bank-funded programme, the ministry has selected the ‘IPSOS Research Pvt Ltd’ in association with the ‘Athena Infonomics India Pvt Ltd’ and ‘Economist Group Ltd’ for the assessment of the livability indices in 116 cities. communication among citizens as well that with various service providers. Egovernance and citizen feedback management has led to improved social cohesion by increase in opportunities for citizen engagement, reduction in social inequities, and reduction in response time for services for business. Integrated traffic management will increase the traffic speeds and reduce traffic congestions and hence cleaner air for people to breathe”, he further informed.

Deliberating on the approach followed by Smart Cities, the Minister

informed that cities have co-created a vision and smart city proposal through an extensive citizen engagement. The quality of some of the smart city plans can be ascertained by the fact that Bhubaneswar smart city plan was adjudged as the best city plan by American Planners Association. This is also first time that cities have created an institutional mechanism (SPVS) at the city level. Till now 82 SPVs have been formed and considering the capacity gaps existing at cities, this is not a small achievement by any standards.

NEWSCAN

SDMC sets up musical instruments beneath Nehru Place flyover All the spaces under flyovers have been developed, each with a different theme such as Make in India, Yoga, Meditation, Wildlife, Children Park and Teachings of Gandhi Ji. The spaces are now being used in the evenings by the localites for a walk and spending quality time NEW DELHI: The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has for the first time set up musical instruments beneath the flyover at Nehru Place.

The availability of outdoor musical instruments for the general public below the Nehru Place flyover is a first of its kind in the country. The passersby can spend their time in these parks and try their hand at playing instruments such as the conga, babel drum and cadenza.

Visitors can also play instruments like the sitar, tabla, and flute.

“The idea is to create a park-like ambience in the spaces under flyovers, which are usually frequented by anti-social elements and squatters,” an SDMC official said. A total of Rs 62 lakh was spent on sprucing up the 190×25 meter area, the official said.

“The project has also rid these places of illegal occupation, which had made these areas unsafe for the general public”, he said.

The official added that it took nine months in the completion of the beautification project and in the coming months more such spaces will be identified and revamped into spaces for the public.

An official said, “The south civic

body has also beautified the 160×50 metre space beneath the Kalkaji flyover at a cost of Rs 50 lakh.”

The boundary sports fancy grills, the space also has a paved footpath lined with shrubs and grass and sculptures set in the middle of a grass-lined avenue. According to another official, “All the spaces under flyovers have been developed with a different theme such as Make in India, Yoga, Meditation, Wildlife, Children Park and Teachings of Gandhi Ji. The spaces are now being used in the evenings by the localitesfor a walk and spending quality time.”

Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal inaugurated the beautified spaces below the Nehru Place and Kalkaji flyovers, which have been developed by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).

“The beautification executed by the

SDMC will go a long way in showcasing the city during the ASEAN summit in January 2018. However, the civic agency should not stop here and should focus its efforts in identifying new spaces and making it fit for public use,” said Mr. Baijal during the inauguration.

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal said, “The south corporation should explore more areas in order to replicate the project.”

The civic body has so far developed spaces under 12 flyovers at a cost of Rs 7.82 crore, Lajpat Nagar (ring road), South Extension (ring road), Savitri flyover (outer ring road), Africa Avenue (outer ring road), Sarai Kale Khan (ring road), Nehru Place (outer ring road), Kalkaji (opposite KalkajiMandir), Bijwasan, Palam, Tilak Nagar, Mayapuri (ring road) and Raja Garden (ring road). It has also developed Jamunwala Park and Rock Garden Park.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

23

COVER STORY | Water, Climate Change & The Crisis

COVER STORY | Water Climate Change & The Crisis

Let’s not make

Cape Town face of our

Water Future Water crisis has been looming large and experts have been warning since 2012 of this impending issue. They have been forewarning that cities would start facing severe crisis and residents and civic authorities will have to press the panic button. Cape Town is just one example that is likely to reach the ‘zero day’ in a few months.

24 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

M

Ranjan K Panda Convener Combat Climate Change Network

ega cities, the face of aspiration and progress of the modern world, have bad news in Cape Town that has become the face of Water Emergency. According to the United Nations, water scarcity already hits more than 40 percent of the globe’s population and is expected to aggravate further due to global warming that will make one in four people face chronic or recurring shortage of water by 2050. At Cape City, this future has arrived, in a much fiercer and scary way.

Drought stricken Cape Town of about 4 million people is facing severe shortage of water due to low rainfall for a consecutive three-year period.

The city is working on a war footing to avoid a Day Zero that was to come

in mid-April but is now shifted to 11th May, thanks to water rationing both by domestic consumers and agriculture. Looking at the disaster management plan of the City authorities, that is being updated each day, one would realise how terrifying it could be for the people of a city when a water emergency stares at their face. The city administration says they are prepared to move mountains to solve the crisis, but the question is, ‘can they really?’. The Day Zero is only about three months away.

Some estimates say that the city adds 50000 people per month and the water demand for the city has grown by leaps and bounds. Dams and water supply projects were started to be built from the mid-1600s and at a point of time, in early 1900s, it looked that the city was having more water being sup-

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

25

COVER STORY | Water Climate Change & The Crisis

plied than it demanded. Dams, their augmentation and the supply systems have been very regular and aggressive.

Restrictions of water use have also been taken up from time to time as and when drought struck.

Warnings ignored

Experts had warned that the City would start facing severe water crisis from 2012 onwards but the city planners did not care much. They always felt that the numerous dams and water supply systems would be able to supply required water to the city population. Had they cared for expert advice and checked leakages in the supply that stands somewhere around 40 per cent at the moment, things would have been much better.

There have also been siltation problems for the dams. The city has also been advised by various agencies to work seriously on recycling of water and desalination of sea water. However, that too has not been heeded to, allege many.

Now the city authorities are desperately seeking help from people to reduce their water consumption to below 50 litres per person per day. This will bring the collective consumption to 450 million litres a day. People have so far cooperated as they are scared of the Zero Day for which the city has made extensive arrangement of police to prevent water riots.

Day Zero will take effect when dam levels are at 13.5 percent and that can be delayed if people cooperate, say the city authorities. When the Day Zero arrives the municipality will take control of municipal water supply in a phased manner in order to stretch this supply, until the dams are at a sufficient level to allow water to be distributed via the reticulation system once again. Household taps will run completely dry, public taps will be opened with heavy police & military protection; and, water will get costlier.

Two water worlds will emerge, one for the rich and another for the poor

New water equation scenarios will

26 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

Water wars in The Indian cricket team currently on tour of South Africa, when it landed in Cape Town faced an unusual situation. The city which is suffering from an unprecedented water crisis has imposed an impossible order to implement. The team after a sweaty practice session under hot conditions came back to the hotel to be told that they cannot bathe for more than two minutes. The city has passed this order as one of the measures to deal with the water crisis. The panic button has been pressed and several measures are being taken to deal with this unprecedented crisis. With a dry winter, dipping ground water level, and reservoirs shrinking, level six water restrictions have been enforced. capetown: The local media is painting a grim picture of the situation. There is a danger that Cape Town may become the first city to become waterless in modern times.

The city is fast approaching the ‘zero day’ as it is called. In April, less than two months from now taps will go dry in the city. This is the result of three continuous years of drought.

The Mayor of Cape Town Patricia De Lille has warned that if residents do not drastically cut down on their daily consumption of water 22nd April will be the ‘zero day’. The date has been advanced by a week. Earlier it was 29th April. Some experts have warned that it could be as early as third week of March. Cape Town is a water scarce region and is fed by

six dams in and around the city. Water levels in all of them are drastically low. In 2014, levels were full at 87.9 percent. But today it stands at thirty three percent. In actual terms its twenty two percent because the bottom ten percent is deemed unusable.

Cape Town is a favourite destination for tourists from across the globe. Keeping that is mind the tourist board has issued a ten point advisory for the visitors to help conserve water.

1. Choose to stay in accommodation that has water-saving measures in place 2. Re-use your towels instead of asking for a new one daily 3. Try to flush the toilet as little as possible. Each flush uses between 6 and 14 litres, depending on the

n Cape Town

kind of toilet 4. U se a cup to rinse your mouth when you brush your teeth rather than letting the taps run 5. Limit your showers to two minutes, and avoid bathing 6. Report leaking taps and toilets as soon as you notice them 7. Avoid washing clothes until you have a full load’s worth of laundry 8. Take a dip in the ocean instead of swimming pools, and maybe even spare yourself a shower 9. If possible, use a dishwasher to clean dishes. Just make sure you only run it when it is full 10. Use this calculator to make sure you’re helping to save water The situation has come to such a pass that authorities have decided

that once the capacity of dams reach 13.5 percent municipal water supply would be stopped except to essential services like hospitals. The citizens of the city will have to go to municipal water points to fetch water that too a maximum of twenty five liters a day.

Armed guards will be on standby to maintain peace and to ensure that people don’t take more than their share. Of course, private companies are set to take advantage of the situation. There is a list of companies who are willing to bring water tankers from less drought-prone areas for a price.

It’s virtually a water war in Cape Town.It’s also a result of the national government’s bungled water allocation policy.

emerge. According to the city authorities, densely populated informal settlements will stay connected, as many of them are already using standpipes to collect water.

Critical infrastructure, population density and risk profile for disease outbreak are some of the factors that the City will take into account to decide which areas stay connected.

That’s good planning but the worry is when the city says it won’t cut commercial supplies.

Strategic commercial areas, highdensity areas with significant risk of increased burden of disease, and critical services, such as hospitals and clinics, where possible, will continue to receive drinking water through the reticulation network. The authorities say that their priority will be to keep strategic economic areas and industrial areas connected, in order for the economy to continue to function, to minimise the impact of this disaster on job losses, and ensure that people continue to get paid.

This will certainly result in water wars that the city would not want to take place. Water inequality will also substantially grow as the city plans to let rich people keep receiving normal water supply at household levels by paying very high costs. Common people will also pay a higher monthly tariff but will have to fight for water standing in long queues.

More than 400 years of water planning and dam building has not really helped the city avoid such a scary scenario.

Wake up call for Indian cities

Cities back in India need to learn from this. Many of our cities too are starting to face severe water shortage and are doing too little or almost nothing to protect, augment and rejuvenate their water resources.

If not our own hundreds of examples of water riots then at least Cape Town should serve as a wakeup call for our city planners. Let’s build water smart cities and not just concrete jungles!

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

27

numerographs | Water in Indian Cities GlobalServices Water Scenario

Water

water borne diseases

scenario

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh had 18, 52, 642 incidences of diarrhea in 1998 which fell to12, 15,659 in 2006. Malaria cases were 57,735 in 2001 which dropped to 39,099 in 2005 and hepatitis cases also comes down to 17,846 in 2006 from 27,595 in 2000-01.

65%

of our water needs are met by rivers, 80% of water is used to grow our food, 2000 cubic metre per capita fresh water is available, which says that in 15 years, we may have only half the water we need for our survival. But what are we doing? Bengaluru got ranked 2nd on the list of 11 cities across world to run out of water. When are we going to wake up and do something to preserve water?

West Bengal

West Bengal had a different case as there were 7, 20,352 diarrhea incidences in 1998 which increased to an astonishing figure of 26, 22,968 incidences in 2006.

Other states

Other states in which malaria incidences had increased from 2001 to 2005 were Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. While the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Rajasthan had reportedly less incidences of Malaria in 2005 as compared to 2001.

INDUSTRIAL WASTE

90%

of waste water discharged in rivers after treatment—38,254 million litres—do not meet environment norms. The sewage water should be treated so that it is fit for bathing. World Bank estimates that the current industrial water use in India is about 13 per cent of the total freshwater withdrawal in the country and the water demand for industrial uses and energy production will grow at a rate of 4.2 per cent annually

28 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

URBANISATION

70%

of India’s water pollution happens due to waste from cities that house only 36 per cent of India’s population, says a report of the Central Pollution Control Board. Owing to poor infrastructure, cities are able to treat only 31 per cent of the waste, while the remaining is dumped untreated.

The report also points out that only 38 per cent of the population in the cities have access to sanitation and 78 per cent to clean drinking water.

DEPLETING GROUNDWATER RAINFALL WASTAGE

210

billion cubic metres is the amount of groundwater extracted in India annually, which is the highest in the world. Groundwater today provides for more than 60 per cent of net irrigated area. As a result, over 60 per cent of districts in the country are facing problems relating to poor quality and shortage of groundwater, says the mid-term appraisal of the 11th Five Year Plan

65%

rainwater runoff goes into the sea, which is a major wastage considering that over 70 per cent of country’s farming is rain-fed. The runoff also causes soil erosion, river flooding and siltation of water bodies

Demand and Uses (In billion cubic meters)

1999

n n n n

2010 n n n n

Irrigation 524 Domestic 30 Industries 30 Power 9

2025

n n n n

Irrigation 557 Domestic 43 Industries 37 Power 19

2011

n n n n

Water Annual Availability (m3/ year)

1210

1545

2025

2050

Irrigation 611 Domestic 62 Industries 67 Power 33

Population (In million)

Irrigation 807 Domestic 111 Industries 81 Power 70

Population (In million)

Water Annual Availability (m3/ year)

1394

1340

Projected

2050 Population (In million)

Water Annual Availability (m3/ year)

1640

1140

Projected

Demand for water in India is expected to rise drastically to about 833 billion cubic metres (BCM) in 2025 and 899 BCM in 2050. At present, water demand stands at 712 BCM.

Source: Water in India: Situtation and Prospectus-2013, UNICEF, Water in India: Situtation and Prospectus-2013, UNICEF: Progress on sanitation and drinking-water - 2014 update. World Health Organization and UNICEF 2014, MoHFW, GOI, 2006 National Health Profile 2006, CBHI,DGHS – MoHFW MoHFW, GOI, Annual Report, 2002-03

Millennium Development Goals By 2012, 116 countries had met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for drinking water, 77 had met the MDG target for sanitation and 56 countries had met both targets.

The MDG drinking water target of 88% coverage was met in 2010.

In 2012, 89% of the population had access to an improved drinking water source.

Between 1990 and 2012, 1.6 billion people gained access to a piped drinking water supply on premises. Almost 750 million people still rely on an unimproved source for their drinking water.

Since 2000, an average of 50 000 people per day in sub-Saharan Africa have gained access to an improved drinking water source.

82 per cent of the world’s population without improved drinking water sources live in rural areas.

Since 1990, almost two billion people have gained access to an improved sanitation facility.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

29

Leaderspeak | COP 23

Ranjit S Chavan President, AIILSG

Rivers are lifeline of cities Cities in India are growing at an unprecedented pace, and rivers are receding with similar rapidity. National and state governments have had lofty plans to revive rivers, but no visible impact can be seen in most of the states. An analysis of the present and past schemes to underline the progress of river rejuvenation

R

ivers are in danger, almost everywhere.

Whether you talk about Yamuna River in Delhi, Gomti River in Lucknow or Ganges in Varanasi or any other river in any other city of India, the rivers are getting heavily polluted and are in a state of crisis as municipal waste, industrial sludge and other waste are being dumped into the rivers untreated. The importance of rivers and the urgency to rejuvenate them can be gauged from the fact that the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has a Cabinet Minister and two Union State Ministers to look after the works related to river cleaning and rejuvenation programs.

Similarly, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is a separate ministry while earlier, it was just a department under Ministry of Rural Development.

It seems, Government does take

30 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

this issue seriously but cleaning programs for the Ganges are looked up at as an example not just because of the religious and cultural importance of the river for a large population but also for the focus of the government in rejuvenating the rivers.

The Ganga Basin which is the largest river basin of the country houses about 40% population of India. The river after traversing a distance of 2525 km from its source, meets the Bay of Bengal at Ganga Sagar in West Bengal.

Ganga Action Plan

Ganga Action Plan (Phase-I) was launched in 1985 and covered 6, 4 and 15 Class-I cities in UP, Bihar and West Bengal respectively. The program of river cleaning was extended to other major rivers of the country under two separate schemes of GAP Phase - II and the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP). Yamuna and Gomati Action Plans were approved in

April 1993 under Ganga Action Plan Phase - II. Programs of other major rivers were subsequently approved in 1995 under NRCP. After launching of NRCP in 1995, it was decided to merge GAP II with NRCP. A notification of this effect was issued in December 1996. According to the Ministry reports, the Ganga Action Plan besides aiming at improving the water quality of river Ganga is to serve as a model to demonstrate the methodology for improving the water quality of other polluted rivers. Though the river water quality of Ganga has shown discernible improvement, the full impact of the action plan would be visible when the left out works in the 25 class I cities and the works in other class II and class III towns along the river Ganga are taken up. The important tributaries of River Ganga like, Yamuna, Gomati and Damodar which directly discharge into the River Ganga are heavily polluted and are

taken up for pollution abatement programmes. For this purpose, the second phase of Ganga Action Plan was started in stages between 1993 & 1996.

Both Central & State Government provided help and had equal Share that is 50:50 in the working of Ganga Action Plan (Phase II).

After April 1997 Central Government took the full responsibility of this project and sanctioned the total cost under Ganga Action Plan. Other river conservation plans for Yamuna, Gomati and Damodar have also been accepted, and the government sanctioned Rs 2285.48 cr for the same. This money was to help in starting 441 projects in 95 cities under the plan. The funding pattern was changed to 70:30 between centre and state subsequently.

The mission could be termed a failed one because of no visible impact on the condition of the River. In the following years, the state governments and municipal corporations of the cities which are situated on the banks of the Ganga also initiated some programs but those remained limited to the beautification of the ghaats and providing basic amenities to tourists and banning the use of polythene.

Namami Gange

Namami Gange Programme is an Integrated Conservation Mission, with a budget outlay of Rs 20,000 cr to accomplish the twin objectives of effective

abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of River Ganga. This mission is one of the flagship missions of the current government. The main pillars of the Mission include Sewerage Treatment Infrastructure, River-Front Development, River-Surface Cleaning, Bio-Diversity, Afforestation, Public Awareness, Industrial Effluent Monitoring and Ganga Gram. The initial review of the program is not encouraging though a couple of initiatives in some parts have brought positive results, but the current proportion of pollution in the river does not tell a good story about the success of the Mission. The major problem of dumping sewage into the river by municipal corporations and industries remained unresolved.

Innovative yet costeffective options

Cleaning of rivers in Indian cities is a critical challenge for municipal corporations because lack of resources at their end resulting in disposing of municipal sewage into rivers or in other water bodies. Sewage Treatment Plants in many of our cities are either defunct or do not exist at all. Municipal Corporations do not have sufficient funds and technical resources to invest in ‘expensive’ technologies to treat their sewage. There is a need to look beyond conventional methods of treating wet waste. Kolkata based ecologist and wetland

warrior Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, who died recently, set an excellent example through his work on the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW) and its wise use in treating the city’s wastewater.

According to an article published in the Indian Express, Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, an engineer in the state’s planning board, was assigned the task of how to gainfully use Kolkata’s sewage. He travelled across the country to study the feasible option. He ambled along the 28-km channel that carried the city’s sewage eastwards, along with the slope, to where the salt marshes once stood. Here, he saw shallow ponds that turned the city’s sewage into algae.

Then, the algae-rich water was let into nurseries, to be eaten by fish, that was then sold in the city. A marvel of recycling, of turning waste into food.

The wetlands, often called the city’s kidneys, treat its sewage and garbage for free, provide employment to thousands, and generate cheap food. Not to mention preventing floods, absorbing Kolkata’s runoff during the monsoon.

Most of our cities, which are facing a similar problem of treating their sewage, can learn a lesson from the experiments of Ghosh and implement locally but this does require dedicated, and concentrated efforts with community support and the solution can kill two birds with a single stone by treating garbage for free and mitigating after effects of urban floods.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

31

Article | Building Better Resilience

Hill tourist destinations

Himalayan towns that witness large scale tourism activity need to build resilience in view of climatic changes with a sustainable approach Nivedita Khandekar Independent Journalist

T

he Char Dham Yatra in Uttarakhand took a major hit in 2013 in the wake of the cloudburst and heavy flooding leading to large scale disaster. Year 2014 continued to witness fewer pilgrims. Srinagar saw an acute dip in its tourists’ inflow post the 2014 floods. Excessive snowfall in December 2016 and January 2017 saw several road blockages in Himachal Pradesh and left scores of tourists stranded.

With tourism, come the associated weather-related problems. The past three decades have seen an exponential

32 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

surge in the ‘developmental’ activities in major towns across the Himalayan states so much so that the risk posed by the massive developments, especially the increasing concretisation and pressure on water availability, need a serious relook vis-a-vis trade-offs for the fragile Himalayan ecosystem.

From the westernmost areas such as Wuler Lake, Srinagar and Leh (Jammu & Kashmir), to popular tourist spots in central Himalayas such as Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh), Mussoorie, the pilgrim hub of Uttarakhand to the eastern Himalayan Gangtok (Sikkim), Tawang, Walong, Parshuram Kund (Arunachal Pradesh), Indian Himalayas are full of natural beauty.

Pristine landscapes, snow-clad peaks, wilderness, deciduous forests, pine forests, cold desert such as Ladakh, and wide river basins such as Brahmaputra

– you name it and the Indian Himalayas have it.

Both pilgrim centres and places of general tourist attraction serve a range of purposes. The visitors offer economic growth, livelihood to the locals and bring in investment of all kinds to facilitate the tourists. In fact, at several places along the Himalayas, tourism has become the main source of revenue and livelihood for the people and any kind of adverse impact for whatever reason directly hits the local economy.

Importance of the Himalayas

As many as 10 major river basins originate in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region. Thus, the HKH provideswater, livelihoods, and ecosystem services to more than 210 million people and provides water to more than 1.3 billion

people – a fifth of the world’s population – living in downstream river basins.

This region, the Hindu Kush Himalayas region, has already started witnessing the impacts due to changing climate. The phenomenon of climate change is no longer restricted to high value research or some sci-fi films, but it is already manifest vis-à-vis increasing precipitation, floods, landslides, avalanches and even droughts. This takes a huge toll on the already vulnerable Himalayan communities and, also poses a challenge for several of its places to continue as tourist attractions.

Many of the towns across the Himalayan states have witnessed an ugly cement-concrete boom because of tourism. The adverse climatic impacts will affect such developments the most.

During a recentinternational conference ‘Resilient Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH): Developing Solutions towards a Sustainable Future for Asia’ held at Kathmandu, David Molden, Director General of International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), called for collective action – including youth and women – for “increasing the resilience of mountain communities in the HKH, where impacts from climate change, outmigration, and dwindling natural resources pose formidable challenges”.

Leh and Tawang – two typical examples

Since the British times, scores of places in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Darjeeling in West Bengal had undergone changes. From sleepy clusters and villages, the places witnessed a rapid makeover into summer hill stations for the Brits, who brought in the paraphernalia leading to a complete change in the character of these places.

For the last three decades, tourism expanded to lesser explored terrain, now on full-fledged tourist itineraries.

Leh, the headquarters of the Ladakh region of the State of Jammu and Kashmir on the West and Tawang, the district headquarters of the same name in Arunachal Pradesh are the most striking examples of how a typical

Himalayan town grows to accommodate the increased pressure due to tourism.

Both Leh and Tawang have witnessed exponential growth in number of tourists flocking there for the past few years, almost round the year. Both towns are highly dependent on spring water for domestic use. But in view of the commercial establishments, Leh, a place with undulating landscape, has resorted to haphazard withdrawal of groundwater. Tawang, an entirely hilly place, continues to rely mostly on spring water and very less but yes, increase in commercial activity has led to digging borewells there too.

Both the places have seen an exponential rise in concrete buildings such as hotels and guest houses – each of which has a modern toilet and most also have showers. Such establishments are possible only with 24x7 watersupply.

This means a two-fold problem. One, the requirement of water goes up and second, with no sewage network and subsequent sewage treatment, the disposal of this sewage is a problem too.

Water and sewage are just two of the problem issues. Tonnes of solid waste generated in these towns lies scattered around the hills due to lack of proper engineered landfill sites.Leh at least has a dedicated dumping site for disposing all municipal waste, Tawang has nothing and small water channels and hills slopes on almost all roads leading outside the town are littered with garbage.

The intergovernmental organisation ICIMOD – India is a partner state along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar in this organisation – has defined “resilience” as the ability of communities and ecosystems to be prepared for shocks, recover from shocks, and “bounce forward” to emerge stronger than before. As was discussed during the conference, ICIMOD and its local partners have been working on developing solutions for resilience building, promoting regional cooperation, and enhancing knowledge for sustainable mountain development.

India’s Mission Himalayas “The

increasing

intensity

and

frequency of extreme events poses a severe threat that can completely wipe away/wash out the tourism resources & centres(settlements), forest & biodiversity, infrastructure, transport & communication network, support facilities and servicesectors.

Such incidents also involve risk of life for tourists and host communities and service providers in destinations andvulnerable areas in transit locations”, points out the Policy Brief on ‘Sustainability of Tourism in Indian Himalayan Region under Climate Change – Analyses of Policy Options’ brought out by the Central Government in 2016.

An important recommendation of this policy brief was “incorporation of climate change and disaster risk factors in tourism development planning” as the Himalayasare vulnerableto disasters and the extreme climatic events are likely to aggravate the intensity and fury of disasters in fragile settingsand socio-economically backward society.

Such disasters can damage and wash out the tourism infrastructure, roads& communication networks, the support facilities and cut–off the essential supplies to destinations, it said.

Therefore, it was strongly recommended to strictlyadhere to the guidelines as mentioned in the national level and the respective state level action plans for combating climate change. This also includes an effective early warning system for changes in weather patterns and reliable forecast provisions.

Himalayas offers soulful pilgrimage for the devout. Himalayas offers solitude for the seekers. Himalayas offers adventure for the daring. It offers scenic beauty for the traveler. One may be a casual work-related traveler, a pilgrim, an ardent tourist, everyone in enchanted by the hypnotic Himalayan beauty. For us to continue to enjoy all this and much more in the long term, building up a resilient Himalayan community is a must, not an option.

(Nivedita Khandekar is an independent journalist. She writes on environmental and developmental issues. She can be reached at nivedita_him@rediffmail.com or follow her on twitter @nivedita_Him)

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

33

one on one | Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Environment & Climate Change

Government taking sincere initiatives to bring down air pollution in all cities In an interview with Urban Update, Dr Harsh Vardhan talks about his plan to improve air quality in metro and small towns. He also explains other initiatives of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to address environmental concerns. The Minister also speaks about the Bonn Conference and its impact on global efforts on mitigating climate change impacts

Kumar Dhananjay Consulting Editor

34 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

Delhi’s air quality is the worst in the world. It has become a regular affair.

There is a tendency of different agencies to blame each other. Why all governments, state, ULBs and central government, are not coming together to address this issue seriously? Is there any consultative mechanism within the government for inter-ministerial coordination and with state governments so that all can come on a single platform to take right actions to address environmental issues?

Regular co-ordination meetings are held in the Ministry at official and ministerial level with Delhi and other state governments to avoid the emergency situation. In this regard several meetings have been held this year under my chairmanship. Environment Ministers of the states and senior state functionaries including chief secretaries and additional chief secretaries attended these meetings. In the month of September a stakeholder consultation meeting was attended by industries, industry associations, civil society groups and academia.

In addition, in the month of October

another meeting was held with state functionaries of Delhi NCR. During air pollution emergency recently in the month of November various emergency meetings were called to address the issue. Meeting was chaired by Secretary (EF&CC) involving EPCA and CPCB, the two regulatory arms of the Ministry and subsequently MOS held meeting with EPCA to review the situation. Inter-ministerial meeting was also held on 10.11.2017 under the chairmanship of Secretary (EF&CC) involving various ministries and state government wherein measures to address the air pollution emergency were discussed and finalized. Various measures were discussed and accordingly ban on construction, sprinkling of water, ban on entry of trucks, etc. which are there under GRAP were finalized for immediate implementation. In addition, the status is also reviewed regularly by Chairman, CPCB and Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor, Delhi involving ULBs and State Government.

Do you really think there is no need to ‘panic’ or take desperate measures to

Dr Harsh Vardhan Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Minister of Earth Sciences

improve the Capital’s air quality?

Graded Response Action Plan for control of air pollution in Delhi and NCR region has already been notified to address the issue and avoid it from going to emergency level. This plan specifies actions required for controlling particulate matter (PM) emissions from various sources and prevent PM10 and PM2.5 levels to go beyond ‘moderate’ national Air Quality Index (AQI) category. The measures are cumulative.

Emergency and Severe levels include cumulatively all other measures listed in the lower levels of AQI including Very Poor, Poor and Moderate. Actions listed in the Poor to Moderate category need to be implemented throughout the year.Control of pollution is an ongoing process and results are achieved over a period of time. In general, there has been improvement in air quality in Delhi in 2017, in comparison to 2016.

Is there any financially feasible action plan to stop farmers from burning farm stubbles?

As part of Clean Air Initiative of CIINITI Ayog, a Task Force was consti-

tuted under the chairmanship of Sh. A. K. Mehta, Addl. Secretary, MoEF&CC. As part of the Task Force on the basis of various meetings and consultations, our ministry has come up with report ‘Action Plan for Biomass Management’, which has detailed out the financial and technological mechanisms for addressing the issue of crop residue burning. The report has been shared with state government for implementation. A Sub-Committee under the Chairmanship of Secretary, MoRTH to suggest remedial measures for crop residue burning, including both insitu options such as use of innovative farm implements like Happy Seeder, Straw Management system, Bio-char, Prali-char, etc., and ex-situ options like biomass based power plants, co-firing with coal in thermal plants etc. The Action Plan is expected to take into account technological and financial options in this regard.

Though the focus is always on the NCR, we tend to ignore pollution in small cities and towns. Like Varanasi, a few days ago, was declared the

most polluted city in India. According to you, what could be the role of Urban Local Bodies in addressing this issue?

Air pollution issue is being addressed in a comprehensive manner for the whole country though because of recent emergency, since last few years efforts have been more on Delhi NCR. A state-wise list of 98 non-attainment cities as formulated by CPCB is already available. Efforts and action plans are already underway for all these nonattainment cities. Varanasi falls in this list of non-attainment cities. Urban Local Bodies are being involved in implementing the actions such as control of air pollution from construction, burning of waste, etc.

According to a study by University of Maryland, SO2 pollution in China declined by 75% in the last decade while in India, it increased by 50%.

Despite that, recently Ministry of Power wrote to your ministry to delay enforcement in some cases to as late as 2022. Your take.

Emission standards for power plants

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

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one on one | Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Environment & Climate Change

are for control of SOx, NOx and particulate matter. As informed by Ministry of Power, in order to meet SOx standards, Fuel Gas De-sulpharisation (FGD) technology is required to be installed which requires extra space. Accordingly, power plants which were established before 2003 could not install this technology. Hence it has been made mandatory only for the power plants which came up after 2003. Further all power plants can’t be upgraded simultaneously since it requires shutting down power plants for three to six months and this would entail a complete black out. The technology would be implemented in the various power plants in a phased manner. The process has already been initiated and it is expected that it would be completed by the year 2022.

Government of India has decided to advance introduction of BS VI fuel to April 2018 in the NCR. Do you think this will help reduce the pollution level?

What are the challenges in implementation?

Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has announced advancing introduction of BS-VI fuel from April 2020 to April 2018 in Delhi. The leapfrogging from BS IV to BS VI for whole country was planned for April 2017 to April 2020. The commitment of availability of BS-VI vehicle from April 2020 from automanufacturers is still not available. The introduction of higher grade fuel will be beneficial only if it is done in tandem with the rollout of BS-VI compliant vehicles.

As per available reports, using BS-VI fuel in the current

36 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

BS-IV engines or, conversely, running BS-VI engines on the current-grade fuel, may be ineffective in curbing vehicu-

Our ministry has come up with report ‘Action Plan for Biomass Management’, which has detailed out the financial and technological mechanisms for addressing the issue of crop residue burning. The report has been shared with state government for implementation

Dr. Harsh Vardhan Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Minister of Earth Sciences

lar pollution to major extent, and may damage the engine in the long run. The main difference between BS-IV and BS-VI (which is comparable to Euro 6) is in the amount of Sulphur in the fuel. BS-VI fuel is estimated to bring around an 80% reduction in Sulphur content — from 50 parts per million (ppm) to 10 ppm.

Also, according to reports, NOx emissions from diesel cars are expected to come down by nearly 70% and, from cars with petrol engines, by 25%.

Indian government is building 100 smart cities. Is your ministry planning to give some kind of guidelines so that these new cities

remain safe of such hazards?

Smart Cities Programme is being dealt with by Ministry of Urban Development. No specific guidelines are being planned by this Ministry.

However, the smart cities programme will be guided by Ministry’s policies and legislations on pollution and waste.

We would like to know how much fund Government of India has allocated to tackle air pollution in India. What is the action plan?

For pollution abatement BE of Rs 20 crore is available under Pollution Abatement Scheme and Rs 74.43 crore is for CPCB. This includes funds for air pollution.

India has constantly been arguing on the issue of climate change that developed countries must share the burden. After President Trump withdrew support for climate deal, how do you think this deal will go ahead; especially from financial contribution point of view?

India remains committed towards climate action. This has been reiterated by Hon’ble PM at various international forums. India’s climate actions stem from its traditional ethos and commitment to preserve the environment for the current and future generations.

The concerns for the global “commons” has been in the forefront of Government’s developmental efforts including thrust on renewable energy, smart cities, sustainable transport, climate adoptive agricultural practices, better irrigation and water conservation measures and so on. As far as climate finance is concerned,

majority of India’s climate actions are funded from budgetary sources. USA withdrawal may have some impact on availability of public climate finance. Other developed countries will have to step up their efforts. Paris Agreement also includes a wide variety of sources of financing, however the certainty about availability and scale of these funds in the long-term needs to be assured.

Even at the Bonn Conference, negotiations went all the way to the wire. Do you think, Paris deal is still on course?

Bonn Conference, the COP 23, was a successful meeting for India. We were able to move ahead on all the agenda items and were able to bring pre-2020 actions and commitments of developed countries to the forefront. India will continue to engage in constructive negotiations on development of work programme for implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement is a historic treaty which was negotiated and adopted in good faith by all the Parties in an inclusive and transparent manner. World leaders have reiterated their commitment towards successful implementation of Paris Agreement.

The leaders of G20 except the USA, through the summit held in July 2017,stated that the Paris Agreement is irreversible and also reaffirmed their strong commitment to the Paris Agreement, moving swiftly towards its full implementation.

Therefore, the agreement is on course.

Solid waste management is one of the integral components of Swachh Bharat Mission.

What challenges do you think our local bodies face today to handle different kinds of waste? Your ministry has many manuals. Are these followed in letter and spirit?

And, if not, what could be done to build capacity of ULBs? The Community participation is must for efficient SWM,which was the responsibility of the municipal authorities wherein they were required to organise awareness programmes and undertake programmes for community participation in a phased manner.

The municipal authorities, with no institutional and financial support, failed to undertake such programmes and educate citizens on the requirements of handling waste and proper segregation practices at the household, shops and establishmentlevels.

To achieve the objectives of Swachh Bharat

Mission, the Ministry initiated a review of the rules and in the year 2016, comprehensively revised the waste management rules under Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 to introduce a fresh regulatory framework for sustainable and environmentally sound management of waste including Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.The new rules provide for ways and means to minimize waste generation, setting of sustainable waste management system involving state urban development departments and adoption of extended producer responsibility by the producers, importers and brand owners for waste collection and their channelization to gainful utilisation viz. recycling, recovery, and reuse.The Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, notified by the Ministry are comprehensive in nature. The Rules mandated various ministries, government departments, municipalities and even village panchayats to abide by certain activities and timelines for effective implementation of the Rules.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

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one on one | Foo Say Boon, Veteran Architect and Urban Planner of Singapore

“City becomes chaotic when orderliness is absent” Foo Say Boon, 61, is a veteran architect and urban planner of Singapore. Having worked for many years with the Government of Singapore, easily the best laid-out modern global city, Boon is also working on a few projects in India. He has done his Master’s degree from Sydney University in urban planning and is known for his out of the box thinking. The first thing when you see Singapore, you are amazed by its eye-catching urban planning amidst skyscrapers and lovely gardens overlooking the sea. So here is an interview with one of those who knows why Singapore is what it is! AbhilashKhandekar, a veteran journalist and a regular columnist with Urban Update, interacts with Foo Boon during his recent visit to Delhi. Excerpts from an extensive chat.

Abhilash Khandekar Sr Journalist

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February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

One hears a lot about Singapore’s modern urban planning. What is the unique speciality of Singapore’s planning and design?

Well, Singapore has its strengths and limitations in terms of geographical location and growth. Its composition is also unique. It’s a city, a state and a nation. That gives it some advantages but being very close to the ocean, this island city can’t grow beyond a point which is a disadvantage. And there

comes the real challenge for an urban planner and designer. Of the total area of about 710 sqkms (East-West 35-40 kms; North-South 25 kmsapprox) that Singapore is situated today on, we use every inch of the land very carefully. It’s also because it can’t expand into the sea unendingly. We can’t go on reclaiming the sea to expand the city, in spite of the pressure of population. We are likely to touch 6.50 million by 2030 therefore our futuristic planning is about intel-

ligent use of the limited land. It’s also why we had to grow vertically. Once upon a time Singapore had the tallest 70-storey building in the world but now many other countries have bigger highrise buildings than what we have.

How do you compare with the world’s top cities, say Hong Kong or Sydney or Mumbai which are mega commercial hubs and close to sea shores.

Each city in the world has its own USPs. Yes, there used to be a sort of comparison with Hong Kong due to some common political, social and geographical features, yet Singapore has its own different character. We both have boundary issues when it comes to land use. If you ask me about our planning structure, we have two plans running simultaneouslyConcept Plan and the Master Plan. Concept Plan is a guiding plan but not a legal instrument which the Master Plan is.

While planning Singapore-and I must add it’s a continuous process- we keep social goals and environmental goals in mind, ours being island state. And importantly, we keep constant monitoring of the Master Plan.

In India, we too have Master Plan approach to the city planning but our cities are nowhere close to Singapore.

How do you see that?

Although we are small in size as a nation-state, we are very serious about the implementationaspect. As I said earlier, our Master Plan has a legal status and structure. The first plan was made in 1958 and then there were new plans every 10 years which improved upon the earlier versions without much disturbance to the core planning. Therefore you see an old Singapore as well as new Singapore. Continuous monitoring and review is our forte. I would go to the extent of saying that we do every day monitoring so that no violations take place. Singapore has superb nature reserves, metro rail that came in 1980 and it’s a strong financial hub. Our land use patterns are very strict with the aim of making citizens a happier lot. Singapore is quite habitable and efficient and thus it attracts global citizens. India’s case is much different!

Could you please elaborate on the last point about Indian planning?

Let me be very frank. I have been visiting India for a few years but I have not seen many of your cities from that angle. Firstly, there cannot be many points of comparison between two countries.

India is huge and complex country due to her rich historical background and social-traditional value system. It’s a great country. Because it’s densely populated, planning needs a different approach.

Your land use issues are quite different from ours, your laws too are different.

Your system appears to me very regulatory. But what is common between us is planning. The way we foresee development India can also see and implement.

Perhaps, more than planning, implementation could be the real issue here, as I feel. When I say social issues, it’s, for example, privacy. The very short distance between two houses and their windows could be a non-issue in India but an average Singaporean values his privacy much more. He may not like these kinds of row houses. So planning has to consider that point which is social or historical. I know you have Master Plans but the challenge comes when cities are not orderly. A city becomes chaotic when orderliness is absent. Your parks are much different than ours, as also the traffic sense. What is the purpose of a public park? The reason we create an open beautiful park is for citizens to enjoy a quiet, serene atmosphere.

It’s an important element in city planning. It has a social value attached to it, in our scheme of things.

How do you see urbanisation trend growing in the world? And the problems arising out of it?

Indeed the speed of urbanisation is frightening. You can see it in India, China....all over. With the ever growing number of residents in cities, scientific planning assumes far more significance than what it was a few decades ago. Whether you call it a smart city, liveable city, efficient city, safe city, whateveridea is that when an urban planner like me looks at the needs of a city, he should have the common citizen at the centre of his planning process. What are the norms he adopts for designing a city depends on the available

historical perspective as well as his futuristic vision. He can then put the land to best use. How do you rate a city? The moment you land at the airport and go to your hotel, you get to know what kind of the city it is or it should be....why is Tokyo better than Shanghai? Planning and managing cities is indeed a challenge for everyone in most of the developing and developed countries. This speed is making cities sick chiefly because service level cannot be maintained upto a standard in such cities. Cities are not just big cities but are becoming mega cities. But somewhere it should stop. Globally, people are thinking about that. Summits are happening....

So what are the solutions to make citizens comfortable and breathe fresh air, unlike in Delhi, among the most polluted cities?

Look, managing cities requires money, and big money at that, besides time-tested ideas. Time has come to fix the ‘carrying capacity’ of a city before it’s allowed to expand. After all you cannot produce your own oxygen and consume for yourself. Carrying capacity of a city has to be considered at the planning stage. Without that, quality of life cannot be provided to the citizens. Planners have a big role to play here because infrastructure creation will always have its own limits.

How do you decide the carrying capacity of a city?

There are many ways to assess the same and evolve a formula which may be different from one city to another; one nation to the other. Water, land, parks, industry needs, agriculture, local population are all indicators on which the carrying capacity is to be determined. After all it’s the justifiable distribution of (natural) resources that comes into play. We in Singapore value them so much. Natural reserves (forest, parks, lakes, etc.) must be protected. Singapore is very strict about its nature reserves. They provide quality to life. India and China have so much land; Singapore or many other countries do not have it. So you people can do a great job through planning cities beautifully and scientifically to make citizens happy and healthy.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

39

Article | Urban Water Supply System

Improving Urban Water Supply System, a Distinct Future, Call to Decide Destiny!

Dr Pankaj Sampat Associate Professor Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad

S

Efficiency is a buzz word and has been much used for enhancing urban water supply system from intermittent to 24x7 water supply system in developing countries like India.

ince 2007, Government, funding agencies and practicing consultants had put in many efforts and tried to develop and implement 24x7 water supply projects in many Indian cities without considering the limited resources with city or state governments like limited availability of water and cost to fetch it from long distances, finance required for infrastructure, human resource and technological knowhow, user willingness and ability to pay for better services and knowledge to implement the project successfully in a time bound manner. This ultimately resulted in failure in implementation of the projects and in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and meeting the political and social expectations. The important objective of 24x7 water supply is to optimise water use including reduced contamination and assured quality water delivery at a reasonable price. There is not a single city in India having quality in the services at par to present as an example before the world. This is the reality and must be addressed by central and state governments jointly in order to stand tall among the world.

40 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

24x7 water supply is a destination which shall happen at the end of the successful implementation of the system upgradation project step by step making water supply system fit for continuous water supply, transforming hardware-system infrastructure, instrumentation, sensors, etc. and software-user and water management

practice in a cost-effective manner. It can be started by diagnosis of the infrastructure and developing system improvement plan which covers reducing water and energy losses first in the selected pilot areas, achieving control over the system. In the second stage, further expansion of the pilot project and repetition can be done till the sys-

tem completely transforms satisfactorily at the city level. It is about system transformation and takes time.

Water utilities are facing high amount of water losses and non-revenue water in the range of 40 to 60%.

Therefore to reduce it, the first step is to have command over the quantification (volume of water handled in the system)which is very important. It can be developed by using proper water flow measuring instruments selected to meet the desired accuracy considering the budget available. The measured water flow readings must be recorded in a scientific manner and analysed properly. The quantification can be done by two methods, tabulation and accounting. The tabulation method is good at an initial stage to have a water balancing idea but at a later stage, water accounting is the accurate method to have holistic water auditing and sustainable and judicious water use as a natural resource. It facilitates analytical reports necessary to support the decision and policy makers, and simple indicators to understand all the consumers to ensure their trust.

Smart ICT applications and effective use of advanced technology available has enough potential to address these issues in a cost-effective manner. Many

cities have now mapped infrastructure and household service connections using GIS and Remote Sensing Technology. Metering and consumer awareness needs to be addressed properly. Cities are at the threshold of upgradation of the service and this needs Central and state governments’ attention. The provision and declaration under AMRUT and SMART city schemes are not sufficient in view of the magnitude, complexity and scale of the problems.

An integrated approach is necessary to have water leak detection and prevention, quantification and auditing on a single platform-Integrated Water Accounting Platform (IWAP). IWAP would give uniform system at national level and be useful in meeting the challenges and in implementation of the projects. Integrated approach is proven in improving the water supply services not only in the advanced countries like the U.S.A., Singapore, Australia, and in Europe but in small countries in the developing world like Vietnam, Philippines and South Africa too. IWAP development requires dedicated multidisciplinary teamwork by researchers, industry and government officials and of course funding support to develop it. Water is a state subject and availability of research funding is nil.

India is a water-stressed nation. Water is a state subject where the state has ultimate authority over many water related issues. Water is important to meet the states’ ambitions to improve the quality of life and to drive industrial and economic growth. These states must form innovative partnerships to meet their needs in the context of growing scarcity, increased pollution, and interstate conflict to meet the development needs.

In particularly, large Indian cities like New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad are to be covered on priority because of increasing dependency on limited water resources available and its adverse effect on meeting the agriculture and industrial water demand. There is urgent need to review and work out the national level action plan and implementation program in a time bound manner keeping accountability at the centre. In second stage all the smart cities and water stressed cities may be covered.

Water hubs may be created in each state which work on the multi-disciplinary aspects where there is potential for job creation in lakhs; skill development and public awareness programs may be implemented through these hubs.

Who will address this need?

Government/s, United Nations, World Bank, Corporates, NGOs? It is a question before the leading academicians, domain experts and professionals including a few officials working on improving urban water supply system in Indian cities and associated with the subject. IWAP has very distinct future.

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

41

VELO-CITY | Agra

The City of Taj!

Amazing Agra Come and fall in love with this city. City in which you can explore history and love. A city that is expanding fast and is still trying to hang on to its past. From kings and Queens to the new generation this city has place from everyone. A city that is struggling to find its feet and become smart as the new adage goes. However, its history , tradition and heritage must be protected at all cost.

Kumar Dhananjay | Consulting Editor

B

ill Clinton, former President of United States of America after visiting Taj Mahal had famously said that ‘ there are two kinds of people in this world, those who have seen the Taj Mahal and love it, and those who have not seen the Taj Mahal and love it. I would like people to watch Taj Mahal and fall in love with it.

Such is the beauty of this monument that symbolises immortal love of an emperor for his wife. The city of Agra, situated at the banks of River Yamuna, and its history dates back to ancient times.

It also symbolises the rich culture and heritage of the country. It is said that the city is mentioned in epic tales of Mahabharat as ‘Agrevana’ literally it means ‘ border of the forest’. It’s a perfect destination for globe trotters as it is home to one of the seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. The Mughals have left an indelible impression on the city evident in many mausoleums and forts found here. A visit to Agra Fort will mesmerize you. A proud testimonial of Mughal architecture, its palaces, mosques and mausoleums leave you speechless. At the ruins of Fatehpur Sikri, the legends of Akbar and his courtiers are still kept alive. The marketplaces and alleyways in the old city are still hub of many activities. Centuries ago, the artisans and craftsmen who made Taj a reality set up

42 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

their houses nearby and created a network of aleeyways known as Taj Ganj.

The History of Agra

It’s popularly believed that the city was built by Badal Singh. Sikandar Lodi, in the year 1475 made it his capital city, during his rule of Delhi Sultanate. The city then known as Akbarabad ever since remained capital of many kings,

especially the Mughals. Agra, the modern city as we see it today was laid by Akbar. He transformed the city into a centre for art culture, commerce and learning. It was his brain child that gave birth to the religion, Din-i-Ilahi. Mughal influence on the city is evident even today in the form of art, culture and cuisine. In the early years, Agra was chosen city of Mughal emperors. It was in

this place where founder of the Mughal dynasty, Babar, laid out the Persian garden on the banks of River Yamuna. His grandson Akbar built the great Red Fort and built its towering ramparts. Within the confines of this great fort, Jahangir built rose-red palaces, courts and gardens. Shahjehan added to it and embellished the place with marbled mosques.

Sikandara and Fatehpur Sikri on the outskirts of Agra are two other historic places. Sikandara is known for garden mausoleum that Akbar built for himself and at Fatehpur Sikri he built an entirely new city that still stands tall today.

His imagination is a living example of unique concept of planning and design.

He created a marvel of architecture that was a perfect blend of “Islamic spatial concept and the Hindu genius for decorative sculpture’. But Agra’s crowning glory remains the Taj Mahal, a monument to love built by Shahjehan in memory of his beloved queen, Mumtaz Mahal.

Preserving the Heritage and the Monuments

The city has three world heritage sites

and many monuments that must be preserved at all costs. Climate change to heavy level of pollutants are affecting these sites and monuments. Taj Mahal also is not an exception. Archelogical Survey of India has taken many steps to arrest the situation from going bad to worse. Chief Superintendent of ASI Agra says, “Most primary concern is that how we control the environment.

We need to control the environment and improve the quality that is prevailing at the moment. Other institutions are working on the environment front.

ASI cannot do much on that. We see that they are physically and visually distorted in the prevailing environment.”

ASI in Agra has been doing hard work to preserve the heritage. Its quite challenging for them to keep the visuals effect intact. He adds “ASI mandate is not to clean the environment but whatever visuals impact we see, especially on Taj Mahal, we do clean them periodically.

This time we have taken up the big exercise of cleaning entire surface of Tal Mahal. Earlier we used to do in shaded area where pollutants used to settle and not cleaned by rain but this time we have taken it up as a whole. Every surface, every inch of Taj Mahal is being cleaned.” ASI can not do it alone. Agra needs a concerted effort to clean its environment that will not just protect its monuments heritage but also its citizenery which is breathing air poison.

The City Today as it is

A village, a town and a city and so on are not just human habitats but ensemble of interconnected time-space trajectories as manifested in their dynamic cultural – economy .. these places are locations of successes and failures, people’s past present and their future dreams of all generations. Shashikant Pandey, Associate Professor at Agra College says “Agra is a world known city – both because of its historicity as the seat of Mughal power and their continuing significance of political cultural innovations like Din-e-Ilaahi and sulah kul along with principles of management of empire. Second, also because of the architectural magnificence of the buildings built during centuries of Mughal

rule, the Taj Mahal is a gem of all. Agra surrounds other medieval places as well -Fatehpur Sikri, Mathura-Vrindavan which together complete and fulfil the city of Agra as true centre of IndoIslamic cultural ethos.” He further adds “Agra and it’s surrounding villages and towns are interwoven in this synthetic cultural ethos and heritage-which even now, in spite of attempts at fracturing this cultural unity, thrive and resonate in the air.”

City is continuously growing in size, activities, population, vehicular traffic, market space, trade and it’s natural for existing infrastructure to face the pressure and occasionally fail too. Quite like any other city facing growth and pressure all areas need urgent attention, e.g.- managing vehicular traffic congestion, improvement in law and order situation and effective policing, people friendly health and hospital system, long-term city planning for imminent drinking water crisis, environment degradation, rejuvenation of public education and university system including setting up a Central University ‘ -to name some of foremost priorities and concerns. Member of Parliament from the city Ram Shankar Katheria agrees and says that Agra being a world city is facing a host of problems and the state and central government are jointly working on that. He also accepts that there is a disconnect between various civic and development authorities and says “He has put this issue in front of the chief Minister of the state that a joint development authority should be formed and the last leg of all the development work should be conducted by that body. The chief Minister has taken it seriously and we are working in this direction. A new mechanism for development must be created only then we can successfully execute the projects on the ground. Work in that direction is on and I am hopeful that it will be achieved.”

The City deserves more than what it exists for and has contributed not just to Indian society and culture but to the entire humanity with celebration of love as the seventh wonder of the world- Taj Mahal!

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

43

BOOK REVIEW | GOOD READS

Environmentalist Abhilash Khandekar | Sr Journalist

M

ost of us know Indira Gandhi as a shrewd politician, as the famous daughter of the longest serving Prime Minister Pt Nehru and as the one who had clamped Emergency (1975-77) on the country to save her chair. But that’s not the end of her introduction to the new generation. She was also an environment loving politician, something we seldom get to see in the present context. The forests and wildlife that we fortunately see today, is mainly due to her sincere efforts.

The year 2017 marked the birth centenary year of Ms Gandhi and with that began the year long celebrations in the country, of a PM who was considered by most as the powerful head of a developing nation in times of Cold War years. She is easily one of the most prominent prime ministers the country had. Born on 19th November, 1917 she became India’s third prime minister, after the sudden death of Lal Bahudar Shastri, in January 1966.

Indira was a gifted leader who was wellread, well-bred, but had her share of controversies too during her nearly 15 year long stints as PM. She matured into a towering global leader in those times when we did not possess TV sets in the great number that we have today, not to talk of Internet or mobile phones and umpteen number of channels. It’s thus natural that books about her life and times abound the market all over again celebrating the remarkable politician.

During her lifetime and soon after her assassination in October, 1984, many interesting books hit the stands.

After a brief break, the late prime minister is back in the literary circles.

And with a new identity. Yes, as a votary of nature conservation & and

44 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

Indira Gandhi! a true environmentalist, if I may use the description! And therefore I want Urban Update’s regular readers to know a little more about her role when environmentalism had not become a fashion or a necessity like today.

Environment and urban living can no longer be separated.

Former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has come out with a truly readable biography of the Congress leader which is less on politics and high on her solid contributions to nature and wildlife. In my frank opinion Ramesh appears to be competing with his own identities-that of a politician and a seasoned author!

He is now a regular at LitFests. After 2014 when the UPA lost power to NDA in Delhi, he has already authored four very interesting books in the past three years. I have often seen Jairam Ramesh in the Parliament library, sitting alone in a corner, deeply immersed in a heap of books. Indeed a rare specimen among present-day politicians!

Well, I am introducing to the readers the book that projects, very rightly, the greener side of Mrs. Gandhi not too well known to the present generation of readers or even politicians of her own party. Environmentalists did know of her crucial role in tiger conservation in India, but this book chronicles many such details which were buried deep inside different archives of the world and have been dig up by the diligent author. The more you read it the more you feel you did not know about the history of environment and wildlife in India during that period.

Ramesh tells us through his well researched biographical sketch how Indira Gandhi first tackled the food security issue, then addressed population problem and then focused on nature conservation in the late sixties and early

seventies. The author approaches the vast and new subject methodically and in the initial few pages he answers the question that a reader might ask himself: How did Mrs. Gandhi grow up to care for nature and environmental issues?

Where did she get her empathy for nature from? Who and what influenced her? Clearly, as the author gradually explains, her father and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had a lasting influence on her in that he would often go on treks to Bhutan (a rare pic of Young Indira on the back of a Yak in Bhutan in 1958 is in the book) or to the jungles in Gujarat to see Asiatic lions at Gir, with daughter in toe. She was not only fond of lions but also of rhinos, among other wildlife animals. She had read many wildlife related books, including Book of Indian Birds, by Salim Ali with whom she was fairly close and was influenced by his knowledge or birds and nature. Much

before she became the PM, she had been to Kaziranga Sanctuary twice in 1956 and in one of her letters to her son Rajiv, she described the rhino behaviour.

She wrote: “ ...we saw 15 rhinos which included some baby ones which are called calves. When almost any animal is running, the mother leads the way and the baby follows, but the rhinos do the opposite. Here the baby leads and mother follows. The rhino lives for about 100 years and really looks like an old, prehistoric monster. If there is only one elephant they may attack but we were 5 or 6 and so they did not dare do anything except stop and snort and try to frighten us that way!” This was, as the author Ramesh puts it, a future prime minister educating her son and a future prime minister himself, on the behaviour of rhinos. After she became the PM, she used her experience, love, empathy and of course, the power to do a lot for the nature. From birds to tress and saving animals to helping create sanctuaries and national parks, she did a lot during her two stints as India’s top political executive. Her record of what she did to preserve nature remains unparalleled even today. There are interesting accounts in the book about various CMs being hauled up for not looking into conservation aspects. If Mumbai can see

Book Indira Gandhi: A life in Nature Author Jairam Ramesh Publisher Simon & Schuster Pages 438 Price Rs 799/Recommendation Buy for your personal library!

Good

Reads

the beautiful Sanjay Gandhi National Park standing today, it was she who had told SB Chavan, Maharashtra CM, to stop a development project as it was to cut large number of trees. Another example: the Indian Board for Wild Life (IBWL) formed in 1952 under Maharaja of Mysore was not functioning well and had not met for four years prior to 1969. This made her restless. The IBWL had also not bothered to stop hunting of tiger. So it was she who, in 1970, initiated ban on shooting tigers, four years into her Prime Ministership.

And she also replaced the ailing Mysore Maharaja with Karan Singh, the union tourism minister, as the chairman of the IBWL to energise the board.

At one place Ramesh underlines her genuine love for the tiger. And it’s touching! He quotes from another letter to son Rajiv in which she says: “We have received a huge tiger’s skin. The tiger was shot by Maharaja of Rewa only two months ago. The skin is lying in the ball room. Every time I pass it I feel very sad that instead of lying here he might have been roaming and roaring in jungle. Our tigers are such beautiful creatures, so graceful ...”.

The author gives an example of how she was equally concerned about birds and their privacy. She was herself a keen bird watcher and member of Delhi Bird Watching Society. Peter Jackson, a former journalist from Reuters, had later joined the WWF and he had described the Sultanpur Jheel in Gurgaon as one spot for Indira Gandhi to visit for bird watching. There were flamingoes and Pelicans though Ducks had started to migrate in April 1970. But sensing that her security arrangements would ruin the sanctuary, she instead, sent her secretary Moni Malhoutra to visit Sultanpur and brief her about the wetland. Upon receiving his report, she instructed Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal who swung into action to convert that Jheel and areas around into a bird sanctuary which was inaugurated in 1972. In a similar manner, she had written to MP Chief Minister Shyama Charan Shukla to expand the boundaries of the famous Kanha National Park which she termed as the finest national park of the country.

She had also pulled up Shukla for issuing 29 shooting permits which had “made her disturbed and unhappy”.

There is also a significant mention in the book about when the WWF had donated Rs 20 lakh to the project tiger, Karan Singh tried to buy a small aircraft from the funds, as the head of project tiger. Indira Gandhi got the wind of that and she got livid. She categorically told Singh to use the funds for parks and animals on the ground and not for the aircraft.

The book gives detailed accounts of the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) meeting that was held in Delhi at her behest; of the famous Stockholm Conference on Human Environment in 1972 hosted by the UN and about the effective roles she played at home and abroad for protecting the environment. Towards the end of the gripping book with loads of original letters produced for the first time, the author writes that she was agonised over several of her decisions...she knew for instance that the Silent Valley needed to be saved from a hydel project but it took her almost three years to finally decide. On occasions, Ramesh says, she allowed herself to be persuaded to take a particular decision against her own ecological convictions on account of larger economic and political considerations. Reading Indira Gandhi’s well-worded, crisp yet informative letters and her official notes to ministers and many chief ministers is the USP of this book as it provides a rare delight for a reader who would like to know what all happened to wildlife, nature and the jungles during her long tenure as the able Prime Minister of world’s biggest democracy. This book opens up a window on the beautiful past and brings in a fresh whiff of air at a time when environmentalists across the country are anxious about the future of forests, wildlife and our ecology. ( The writer is a veteran political journalist based in Delhi who also writes on environment, urban affairs and books. He can be contacted at kabhilash59@gmail.com and Twitter handle @abhikhandekar1)

www.urbanupdate.in | February 2018

45

URBAN AGENDA | Urban Resilience

Cities need to strategise supply of drinking water

T

he growing urbanisation has put a severe demand on cities for basic infrastructure and services. Rapidly growing population in the cities attracts adverse effect on quality of urban life, economic productivity and sustainable development. The civic authorities across Indian cities are struggling to provide clean drinking water to its citizens, which is a basic necessity of life. Almost every urban centre in the country is facing water crisis and situation is becoming grim by the day. What is urgently required is to build water infrastructure and institutions and create sound water governance. All the stakeholders need to speed up the water governance.

No one can stop the migration from villages, and small cities to big urban centres as economic activities and livelihood opportunities are available in these cities. As the population in cities grows the demand for basic infrastructure like housing transport, sanitation, solid waste management and water have grown manifold. While the crisis is on all these fronts, scarcity of safe drinking water is the biggest one. In one of its report, planning commission of India(now NITI Aayog) had noted that the lack of safe drinking water especially to urban poor. Naturally, in such a situation people pay a heavy price to commercial vendors for drinking water. The growth of population due to rapid urbanisation is the prime reason for increased water demand. It certainly has to be seen in the context of access to safe drinking water in the process of ongoing urbanisation.

Over the years several indicators have been applied to understand the availability and quality of drinking water in an area.

One of the basic ones is ‘ proportion of population/ households having access to safe drinking water’. This has come

46 February 2018 | www.urbanupdate.in

under intense criticism by analysts as it considers a high [proportion of households under ‘safe drinking water’ category. The argument is that while sources of safe drinking water have been identified, the agencies are not taking sufficient steps to test the water quality regularly. India like any other country is struggling to provide safe drinking water to its city dwellers. It will have to find means and ways to meet the demand using technological means so that people do not get contaminated water. We all know all the source of water in this country is highly contaminated.

Cities need to be covered on priority. It also requires that limited water resources are used wisely so that other sectoral demands like agriculture and industry is also met.

The failure of the civic emergency to provide clean drinking water has made the citizens vulnerable to private water providers. Even in the cities private water suppliers use tankers, tube wells or bore wells, private wells, bottled or packaged water. They flout every norms and regulations using the helplessness of urban citizens. Most of the time they operate illegally and use groundwater resources to sell it to them. In cities, groundwater is already depleting very fast. Worst is that they often supply untreated water and takes no responsibility for its quality. So in the city, we have mainly started depending on bottled water or packaged water as they are considered safe. But at times even the conduct of these companies are under scanner for flouting norms.

We need to address the scarcity of water on priority and usher in a sound system of governance to meet water needs. Also, there is an urgency to pluck leakages and bring the system of efficient use of water and revenue generation. Last but not the least we must keep urban poor in mind while formulating the water policies.

Ashok Wankhade Managing Editor bhau1008@gmail.com

All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG) whole heartedly supports Swachh Bharat Mission and is committed to play a proactive role to realise its objectives.

The institute is organising regular orientation workshops on SBM to augment the capacity of ULBs and also generating public awareness on cleanliness

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