Urban Update January 2019

Setting The Agenda For Tomorrow’s Cities

Volume V, Issue IX

ISSN 2349-6266 RNI No DELENG/2014/57384

Update

Technology for

January 2019

E-Waste

India must wake up to address this threat to health & environment Climate Change

Future cities will witness an influx of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, 5G, Internet of Things, Geospatial Technology and Cloud Computing. However, city leaders in India need to be cautious of their usage based on their requirement, capacity and suitability in a specific urban environment

The project is funded by the European Union.

We only have 12 years to save ourselves, let’s act fast!

The project is implemented by the AIILSG.

Magazines & Journals

Energy Efficiency

AMRUT Knowledge Management

Seminars

Project Management Customised Training

Sustainable Development Goals

Policy Research

Advisory Services

Swachh Bharat Mission

ECBC

Smart City Mission Capacity Building

Skill Development

All India Institute of Local Self-Government No. 6, F-Block, Bandra Kurla Complex, TPS Road-12, Bandra-East, Mumbai-400051, Maharashtra Tel.No.: +91-22-26571713, 26571714, 61805600, Fax: +91-22-26572115, Email: contact@aiilsg.org

UrbanUpdate A monthly magazine published by the AIILSG — a project funded by European Union’s ‘Equi-City’ programme for India.

Ranjit Chavan President-AIILSG Rajiv Agarwal Editor-In-Chief Director General-AIILSG Ashok Wankhade Managing Editor Abhishek Pandey Editor Ravi Ranjan Guru Executive Editor

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Kumar Dhananjay Consulting Editor Aniruddh Gupta Media Associate

Setting The Agenda For Tomorrow’s Cities

Volume V, Issue IX

Technology for

Adarsh Som Senior Reporter

ISSN 2349-6266 RNI No DELENG/2014/57384

Update January 2019

E-WaStE

India must wake up to address this threat to health & environment CLImatE ChaNGE

We only have 12 years to save ourselves, let’s act fast!

Future cities will witness an influx of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, 5G, Internet of Things, Geospatial Technology and Cloud Computing. However, city leaders in India need to be cautious of their usage based on their requirement, capacity and suitability in a specific urban environment

Prateek Singh Aman Saxena Editorial Assistants Meenakshi Rajput Rajesh Singh Senior Graphic Designers Volume V - Issue IX Printed and published by Ranjit Chavan on behalf of All India Institute of Local Self-Government.

Printed at Artz & Printz, 208, DSIDC Shed, Okhla Industrial Area Phase-I New Delhi-110020 Published at Sardar Patel Bhavan, 22-23, Institutional Area D-Block Pankha Road, Janakpuri, Delhi-110058 Note: Subscriptions are only invited from municipal corporations, government bodies, academic & research institutions, etc. working in the domain of urban development.

We only charge courier and handling charges. We may fully wave-off the charges for municipalities and academic institutions upon receiving such request and approval from our management.

The project is funded by the European Union.

The project is implemented by the AIILSG.

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Despite careful selection of sources, no responsibility can be taken for accuracy of the contents. The magazine assumes no liability or responsibility of any kind in connection with the information thereof. The views expressed in the articles are the personal opinions of the contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the All India Institute of Local Self-Government. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is strictly prohibited without written permission from the publisher.

The project is funded by the European Union.

The project is implemented by the AIILSG.

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.

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January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

EDITORIAL

Vision for better cities; some essentials

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

T

he New Year is a time to look into the future, make plans and resolutions and chalk out the roadmap for these plans. So also with cities. It’s time to look at the present status of various urban rejuvenation schemes and how we leverage these to build more vibrant and livable cities. There are many challenges that our cities face and most are common across cities of India and even the world. Environment degradation, poor air quality, congestion, waste management are all common challenges across a large number of cities. Cities everywhere are working to address these in their own ways.

We believe that there are a few essential dimensions which local bodies and planners will need to keep in mind while finding solutions.

The first is efficiency, or ‘doing more with less’. As city dwellers swell in numbers, there will be increasing pressure on resources to meet their aspirations. Take water for example. Several cities are already faced with acute pressure, confronted with issues of contaminated water, depleting groundwater resources and decaying water bodies. This challenge has to be addressed on many fronts, the crucial one being conservation. Cities need to make do with less water and use this valuable resource wisely. Energy is another.

Cities and citizens will need to embrace more ‘green’ energy, i.e., renewables and choose energy efficient gadgets thereby preserving finite resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Technological innovations will play a great part in enabling this effort to reduce our carbon footprint and thus build livable cities.

Another dimension is inclusivity. As rural populations migrate to cities in large numbers in search of livelihoods, they meet difficulties on many fronts. Cities must prepare to host such populations in an equitable manner. Housing and mobility are prominent elements of the challenge and need to be addressed. There are other

sections of the population which are often left out in the race to build efficient cities.

The specially abled are among the worst off.

Many elements of our built environment and other infrastructures such as public transport and roads are not specially abled friendly; with the result that these persons are unable to access livelihood, education and other essentials to their full potential.

Their economic participation is thus limited by their disability. This will need to change.

Other groups such as women and children and especially the elderly are often at a disadvantage in everyday life.

All the above and the task of improving livability in an efficient, sustainable and inclusive manner will be possible only with the whole-hearted participation by the common man. And therefore active and effective citizen engagement is another essential. Sadly we have a long way to go.

Traffic violations, misuse of pedestrian sidewalks and cycling tracks, damage to public assets, poor waste management practices, are all rampant in our cities. This too needs to change.

There are several dimensions to building successful and efficient cities, and in our opinion, the above are some of the crucial ones. In this issue of Urban Update, we bring you viewpoints on a wide spectrum of issues by several urbanists. We trust you will find these pages engaging.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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Quotes

The urban UP will undergo a major change if issues like sanitation, SWM, clean drinking water, drainage system are fixed. Mayors and chairpersons of municipal bodies should tour their respective towns for an hour every day and monitor public amenities

In 1800, 2 per cent of world population lived in urban centres, now half of it, and in 2050 two-thirds or even three-quarters of the world’s population will be living in cities and towns. It is an unbelievable revolution

Yogi Adityanath Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh

Michal Kurtyka Secretary of State at Ministry of Environment, Poland

PIN POINT There is no doubt that the govt needs more investment for creation of healthcare infrastructure but looking at macroeconomic fundamentals, there is very little money whereas the liabilities are huge

People are drinking and bathing in Ganga out of respect. They don’t know that it may be dangerous to their health. If cigarette packets can contain a warning, why not the people be informed of the adverse effects (of the river water)

Sujatha Rao Former Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, GOI

Adarsh Kumar Goel Chairperson, National Green Tribunal

BUZZ UN ENVIROMENT

Joysce Msuya

CMO Kerala

EESL India

@UNEnvironment

@JoyceMsuya

@CMOKerala

@EESL_India

Acting Head, UN Environment

Chief Minister of Kerala

If we don’t change the way we consume or manage waste, by 2050 there will be around 12 billion tonnes of plastic litter in landfills and the environment. Our planet will be swamped

Kerala tops UN’s SDG India Index.

The State was a “Front Runner” with a score of 69 in the Baseline Report 2018, which highlighted the progress made by States & UTs by presenting a comprehensive picture across economic, social & environmental dimensions

1.8 million people die prematurely in India annually because of air pollution & stubble burning that constitutes to poor air in parts of India. However, the movement to stop it in northern India is gaining momentum!

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January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Opt for electric Vehicles to not only reduce your carbon footprint but also enhance your savings.

With incentives on electric vehicles purchase& levies on polluting vehicles, India can move towards a self-sustainable ecosystem for EMobility

Content

Inside Volume 5, Issue 9

6 8 30

Pin Point Equi-City Urban Dialogues

36 43 46

Newscan Urban Blog Urban Agenda

January 2019

Leaderspeak

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Technology for future cities Future cities will witness an influx of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, 5G, Internet of Things, Geospatial Technology and Cloud Computing. However, city leaders in India need to be cautious of their usage based on their requirement, capacity and suitability in a specific urban environment

Articles

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India must wake up to address threat to its health & environment India is sitting on a time bomb called e-waste. It is producing e-waste at a compound annual growth rate of 30 per cent & by 2020 this is going to go up to 5.2 million metric tonne per year

14 20 22 24

Philosophy of Local Self-Government in India City within a city reflecting inequity Youth Movements for SDGs We only have 12 years to save ourselves, let’s act fast!

Time is running out and we have to act fast to save ourselves from catastrophic climate crisis. There is a challenge and opportunity both. We are in a climate emergency that requires unprecedented action at global level

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urban dialogues

30

Agra’s history must remain a pivotal aspect of its development All India Institute of Local Self-Government in partnership with Agra Municipal Corporationand a host of other partners organised ‘Urban Dialogues – Amazing Agra’ at Crystal Sarovar Premier Hotel, Agra on December 18, 2018. The event focused on finding solutions through which Agra can be developed into a Smart City while preserving its culture and heritage.

Some of the key takeaways from the dialogue were – History is an important aspect of Agra and must remain a pivotal aspect of Agra’s development; the city requires a huge investment for strengthening urban infrastructure; the development agencies must engage all stakeholders in development process

Save urban lakes to tide over water related problems Catching the rain where it falls and storing it in lakes and waterbodies seem to be the only viable option for parched cities

One On One

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Answer to mobility woes lies in mass transport BRTs are cost effective, metros are not. The cost of metro is ten times more than that of BRT but still the poltical class prefers Metro because what happened in Delhi. Metro is a very expensive choice but politically safe. Cities across the world are going for BRT

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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article Equi-City

Vision For 2019 Team Equi-City

A

fter the completion of almost three years of successfully running, the Equi-City Project will be entering the fourth and final year of its implantation. The fourth year of the Project will be a crucial one, as it will primarily be concerned about outreach, sensitization and evaluation of the host of activities.

The basic focus of the Project this year will be on implementation of activities to promote equity in the provision of municipal services throughout the city. The vision for 2019 activities will be formed primarily by implementing citizen’s awareness and education campaigns on municipal services. Part of it will be carried out by directly sensitizing the citizen through various campaigns/ efforts and part of it will be done by raising awareness about the municipal services and promoting the EquiCity Mobile based and Web based Apps for analysis and evaluation of various municipal services. This is expected to result in further achieving equity throughout the city by improving the services in the expanses and regions that are lagging behind. Hence the aim for these activities will be to evolve strategies to target citizens, especially poor urban dwellers and therefore will adopt a combination of various channels, mass media, social media, road shows/street plays, inter academic competitions etc. These activities will focus on developing specific strategies and approaches to maximize impact on various target groups (youth, student, women, children) in collaboration with key stakeholders. The sensitized and educated consumers will therefore make a demand side pull and push for quality and reliable municipal services.

PROJECT ACTIVITIES FOR 2019 Promoting participatory governance process

The Project will continue with conducting regular Forum meetings with members of City Development Forum (CDF)

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January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

and Inter-City Forum (ICF). The citizens, women and under-represented communities, and minority communities wherein they will be made part of the intercity forum and the City Development Forum (CDF) by making them part of the participatory governance process. The three Annual Intercity forums will help stakeholders inform, educate and sensitize wider set of stakeholders on diversity and delivery of municipal services. The key events within the participatory forum help LAs and stakeholders to forge collaborative solutions. Further, the Annual forums help strengthen the initiative through feedbacks received on various issues faced in Nagpur.

Best practices and knowledge sharing forums by cities and national workshop

The Project will also organize several Best Practices and Knowledge sharing Forums for municipal bodies, which will culminate in a National Workshop. A series of Forums will be conducted to support and promote the knowledge sharing and best practices. The intent of the forum will be to enable participant not only share best practices, but also work as a sounding board to issues and concerns faced by the target city in implementation of all its actions.

Urban awards

During the end of the year an Urban Awards Ceremony will be organized for promoting municipalities which have striven to achieve better performance and governance.

This action will focus on incentivizing CSO’s, NGO’s, Local Authority Officials and elected representatives who bring some efficiency in the municipal service delivery.

The Award will act as a catalyst to encourage more innovative practices and incentivize greater equality in the municipal services.

Leadership workshops

To build capacities of elected representatives and municipal officials for playing a leadership role in participatory forums and development of the city. They will be specially educated in leadership and managing the diverse demands of the local offices. The focal point of the workshop will be to hone the skills of municipal officials and elected representatives to act as leaders and to think innovatively and holistically about the challenges they face and who can follow through with real focus and determination to present solutions and public value.

The course of study will be to exercise leadership in the public sector, while developing innovative frameworks for addressing policy issues. The project will also draw upon

the private and public sector resource base. Farther, the workshop will brainstorm on how innovative partnerships and new models of collaborative governance can be developed given the setting of the target city.

The activity will train 30 leaders each – municipal officials and elected representative who will play a key role in the various meetings and forums. They will reach out to various sections of the society. Special attention will be made on promoting women and minority communities -both leaders and officials.

Implementation of municipal rating system in Nagpur

As part of the Municipal Rating System, a community scorecard and citizen scorecard will be developed. Some of the questions that it will seek to answer is a) citizens’ views and experiences in service delivery, b) variations in service delivery and provision, c) efficiency in service delivery, d) relationship between service user satisfaction and perceptions of local governance, and e) remedial measures to improve service delivery and local governance.

To bring the concept of Performance Measurement alive in Nagpur Equi-City Team started working on developing a Municipal Rating System to measure efficiency in the delivery of municipal services. The purpose of this action is to develop monitoring and evaluation instruments which will allow both stakeholder (citizens, NGOs, etc.) and local offices to guarantee transparent and accountable delivery of municipal services. The monitoring and evaluation tools will be collaboratively produced by all stakeholders – through iteration of the Municipal Rating System.

The primary focus of these tools is to create a demand pull by citizens to insure effective and efficient service delivery by local agencies. For this activity a questionnaire has been designed based on research and analysis to select 4 particular prabhags for further research on monitoring of current level of status of municipal services and coming

up with citizen and a community scorecard for an effective Municipal Rating System.

Farther, the Equi - City Team conducted an analytical field survey covering 4 Prabhags and approximately 3000 houses respectively. The main aim of this activity was to gather initial information about the level of services being provided in these areas after which analysis would be done to compare these levels of services with the Service Level Benchmarks. Performance Measurement must necessarily be accompanied with performance benchmarking, otherwise it is hard to evaluate how well or how poorly the agency is doing and what types of disciplinary actions are called for.

Further, a Phone based application is being initiated based on the questionnaire of the Municipal Rating System to evaluate the level of existing services throughout the city.

Established along the varied answers from the stakeholders a Municipal Rating System and Community Scorecard will be brought forth and implemented throughout the city.

Information dissemination through IEC activities in Nagpur

The information dissemination effort is anticipated to cover over 200,000 citizens and 50,000 urban poor who are sensitized and trained. Educated consumers are able to create a demand side pull and push for quality and reliable municipal services. The Urban Update newsletter is required to benefit educated citizens who are able to create a demand side pull and push for quality and reliable municipal services. E-newsletter and website encourages healthy debate and encourages accountability in municipal services and diversity of LA organizations. A web based application will also be used to gather and involve citizen feedback on level of municipal services in Nagpur. Also, awareness campaign drives will be organized throughout the city sensitizing citizens on issues related to diversity, water and sanitation, etc.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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leaderspeak Technology Integration

Technology for future cities Future cities will witness an influx of advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, 5G, Internet of Things, Geospatial Technology and Cloud Computing. However, city leaders in India need to be cautious of their usage based on their requirement, capacity and suitability in a specific urban environment. Any technology integration should put citizens at the centre. The adoption of modern technology should improve civic services in a city, bring the concept of the smart city closer to citizens and enable an inclusive and sustainable urban environment

T

he integration of advanced technology in the existing urban management at all levels will remain in focus in years to come. According to a report by IDC on Spending on Smart Cities (Worldwide), spending on smart cities technology will be about $135 billion by 2021. I am hopeful that 2019 will see a lot of new projects being rolled out on the ground. The beginning of a new year provides us with an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past and start afresh. This year and further on, technological advancements in various domains of urban operations will keep adding value to existing infrastructure and delivery systems and will provide a chance to local corporations to correct their mistakes in different areas of operation. This article will focus on some of the technologies which have already arrived or are about to arrive in our cities and make people’s lives better.

5G Technology

Easy availability of fast internet on mobile phones has revolutionized the way information travels between peoplepeople, people-machines and machines-machines. In the last couple of years, the speed of mobile internet has seen a significant improvement from 2G to 4G in India. And, the affordability of smartphones and reduction in prices of monthly rentals accelerated the internet penetration among lower-middle and low-income groups. This has certainly augmented the efforts of the government to reach out to people digitally. The next revolution in this space is going to be the availability of 5G technology. This will improve the efficiency of many services which are related to data collection and transfer. 2019 may see the beginning of 5G in India. It is the next generation of mobile internet connectivity, offering fast and reliable speed. But it is not just speed; 5G offers far greater latency (network response time) and the ability to connect gadgets and sensors too, not just phones. Any technology that we have mentioned in the introduction cannot function well in the absence of robust network speed. The network will propel Internet of Things (IoT) technology which requires huge amounts of data transfer.

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January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Ranjit S Chavan President, AIILSG

IoT and Sensor-based technology

Integrated Traffic Management System, security systems of smart cities and delivery of many civic services are expected to be connected with Command and Control Centers of Smart Cities. The implementation of IoT will require embedding of sensors in many types of equipment and devices being used in smart city eco-system.

Sensors are embedded in every physical device that makes up the Internet of Things. In layman’s language, a lot of devices will be connected to the Internet and will continuously transfer data for better decision making at a centre. Seamless data collection using sensors will enable data analysis as a support system for decision making for key projects and programs.

At a small level, Smart Homes has begun witnessing advanced connectivity of smart devices, wearables, smart home appliances and services, medical devices, connected vehicles, smart entertainment, smart lighting, smart buildings, etc. The technology has made life easier in homes and if implemented at a large scale, it can provide smart solutions to almost every problem in our cities.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

We have already started experiencing AI in our lives. Siri and Alexa have already ventured into our lives as our virtual assistants through iOS and Android devices. They keep learning about our needs, behaviours and action patterns based on our usage of mobile phone and produce results based on this learning.

An editorial in UK-based newspaper Guardian explains Artificial Intelligence. It says, “Artificial intelligence is a term whose meaning constantly recedes. Computers, it turns out, can do things that only the cleverest humans once could. But at the same time, they fail at tasks that even the stupidest humans accomplish without conscious difficulty. At the moment the term is mostly used to refer to machine learning: the techniques that enable computer networks to discover patterns hidden in gigantic quantities of messy, real-world data. It’s something close to what parts of biological brains can do.”

Many futuristic projects such as driverless cars, facerecognition programs and smart speakers are enabled by AI. AI-based applications are now available in healthcare.

The apps can diagnose diseases and improve public health,

control traffic and assist parking, monitor public safety, process control in manufacturing and in online retail. All these have significant implications for urban local bodies and for management of citizen services.

Robotics

Integrating robots in urban spaces is rapidly transforming some of the advanced cities in the world into real smart cities. Robots can work in a wide range of fields where a human cannot go. Cleaning of sewers is one of the dangerous works executed by sanitation employees. The robots can be given such works. Recently, Urban Update published a news report saying some cities are planning to deploy fire-fighting robots.

Cities such as Dubai, Tokyo, Amsterdam, and Singapore are examples of how robots can be helpful in urban operations. According to a news report, Japan is expected to introduce robot taxis for the tourists travelling to the country for the Olympic Games. They are also planning to introduce ‘social robots’ that will be able to communicate with tourists in over 20 languages and can function as translators for foreigners.

Easy availability of fast internet on mobiles has revolutionized the way information travels between peoplepeople, people-machines & machines-machines. In RECENT years, the mobile internet has seen an improvement from 2G to 4G in India. And, the affordability of smartphones and low prices of monthly rentals boosted the internet usage among middle and low-income groups. This has certainly augmented the efforts of the government to reach out to people digitally Challenges

Technology comes with its own set of challenges. When the number of devices collecting data is increasing by the day, the privacy of users’ data is also becoming a big concern.

Studies suggest, over 50 billion devices will be connected by 2020 including a billion cameras. These devices will feed data to AI platforms. If the citizen privacy is to be protected, a new set of policies has to be introduced for the people who are in control of our data because every search, every move, every test informs a merchant, authority, or insurer.

The advertisements visible on your social media accounts are a good example. In 2018, Facebook was in the news over alleged privacy violations and its CEO had to apologise in public. Hope, we learn from our counterparts and create a strong data collection ecosystem where citizens get the best of the facilities without compromising their personal data.

India has a good opportunity to become a leader in this area because it is developing a lot of things in urban areas from scratch.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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Article E-Waste

India must wake up to address this threat to health & environment India is sitting on a time bomb called e-waste. It is producing e-waste at a compound annual growth rate of 30 per cent & by 2020 this is going to go up to 5.2 million metric tonne per year

E

lectronics waste (e-waste) is a global challenge and India is also facing the problem due to rapid rise in use and fast disposal of electronic gadgets and lack of safe disposal facilities. Developed countries and a few developing ones are preparing themselves to address these challenges. The increasing ‘market penetration’ in developing countries, ‘replacement market’ in developed countries and ‘high obsolescence rate’ of the products make e-waste one of the fastest growing waste streams. Environmental issues and the trade associated with e-waste at local, trans-boundary and international levels have driven many countries to urgent interventions. According to a study published by United Nations University (UNU) in 2017, India generated 1.7 million tonnes of e-waste in 2014.

ASSOCHAM predicts that India would generate 5.2 million tonnes per annum of e-waste by 2020 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 30 per cent, out of which a mere 1.5 per cent of e-waste gets recycled.

Hazardous effect on health and environment

Findings say that e-waste becomes hazardous both for health and the environment when it is dismantled and processed.

Various elements, metals and compounds are used for developing components and modules which are required in the core of the electronics products for their functioning at the desired performance level. Sometimes these elements are hazardous. Dr Sandip Chatterjee, Director, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) says “during the useable life of the products, these elements do not pose any threat to the consumers. However, recovery of valuables from the e-waste by unscientific, crude methods in informal sector is hazardous for the operators as well as seriously damaging to the environment. Exposure of the six identified elements (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers) during recycling of e-waste by primitive means can have serious health issues including cancer.”

The present rules stipulate that every producer of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and their components or consumables or parts or spares shall ensure that new EEE do not contain pollutants such as Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Hexavalent Chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers beyond a maximum concentration value. Every producer shall provide the

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January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Kumar Dhananjay Consulting Editor

detailed information on the constituents of the equipment and their components or consumables or parts or spares along with a declaration of conformance to the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) provisions in the product user documentation. Further, CPCB shall conduct random sampling of electrical and electronic equipment placed in the market to monitor and verify the compliance of RoHS provisions and the cost of sample and testing shall be borne by the producer. The random sampling shall be as per the guidelines of CPCB. If the product does not comply with RoHS provisions, the producer shall take corrective measures to bring the product into compliance and withdraw or recall the product from the market within a reasonable period of time as per the guidelines of the CPCB.

By 2020 India would produce 5.2 million tonnes of e-waste

India generated 1.7 million tonnes of e-waste in 2014 and may generate 5.2 million tonnes by 2020. Dr Sandeep Chatterjee says “with rising aspiration among young population and economic development, it would be very difficult to restrain the e-waste generation. However, creating awareness among stakeholders, providing affordable technology for recycling e-waste and creating adequate infrastructure could change the situation. Once this is provided the e-waste would be properly channelised and disposed of in formal sector and jobs would also be generated for the locals and resource materials could be recovered for fresh electronics products, which is the key theme of the circular economy.”

India scenario: E-waste

E-waste Generated in 2016 (MT)

Total e-waste of the world (2016) 44.7 Million Metric Tons

Total e-waste of the India (2016) 2 Million Metric Tons

Future Growth of E-waste in India (2020)

Unorganized 79% 1.58 Million Metric Tons Organized 21% 0.42 Million Metric Tons

5.2 Million Metric Tons (Estimated)

Did India wake up late

Developed countries like those of North America consume 11.6 Kg/inhabitant, Europe consumes 16.6Kg/inhabitant whereas, India consumes only 1Kg/inhabitant of electronic products. India has now started the aspirational rise in consumption and therefore if awareness is created and adequate recycling facilities could be created in the country, India can deal with the issue. The behaviour of the citizen to distinguish between normal solid waste and hazardous e-waste will be critical.

In this regard, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is pursuing an awareness programme on Environmental Hazards of Electronic Waste on pan-India basis since 2015 to create awareness among the public about the hazards of e-waste recycling by the unorganized sector and to educate them about alternate methods of disposing their e-waste. So far, 31 States and UTs, covering nearly 21.7 crore audience has been covered under the mass awareness programme. The programme has also created nearly 1260 expert trainers on pan-India basis, who could be able to carry out further training. The programme has created training tools, content materials, films, printed materials, videos and jingles, etc. for every strata of the society.

Law needs to be further strengthened

E-waste (Management) Rules, 2016 enacted October 1, 2017 had enough provisions to address the issue. The 21 products (Schedule-I), majorly originators of e-waste, were included under the purview of the rule. The rule also extended its

purview to components or consumables or parts or spares of the Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) along with their products.

The present rule has strengthened the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR), which is the global best practice to ensure the take-back of the end-of-life products. A new arrangement entitled ‘Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO)’ has been introduced to strengthen EPR further.

PRO, a professional organization, would be authorised or financed collectively or individually by producers to share the responsibility for collection and channelisation of e-waste generated from the ‘end-of-life’ of their products to ensure environmentally sound management of such e-waste.

The rule has provisioned the target for the producers, which was missing in the first version of the Rule (2012).

Now manufactures are mandated to take-back their sold products with recommended mechanisms. The EPR collection targets in India were kept very conservative (10 per cent) in the initial year (2017) for providing adequate time for the producers to prepare themselves and align with complex collection mechanism of the end-of-life products.

Gradually this target would be enhanced to 70 per cent in 2023. This initiative would definitely enhance the materials flow to formal sector in future. Presently, the regulators in the State (SPCBs) have knowledge barrier and they require better training and understanding of the clauses of the rules and they also should be provided adequate resources to address the situation in the ground. The major challenge for e-waste management in India is limited recycling capacity and

Finding says that e waste becomes hazardous both for health and the environment when it is dismantled and processed .Various elements, metals and compounds are used for developing components, which are in turn required in the core of the electronics products for their functioning of the desired performance. Sometime these elements are hazardous Top E-waste Generators (State-wise) Madhya Pradesh

7.6%

Gujarat

8.8%

Karnataka

8.9%

Delhi

9.5%

West Bengal

9.8%

Uttar Pradesh

10.1%

Andhra Pradesh

12.5%

Tamil Nadu

13%

Maharashtra

19.8% 0

5

10

15

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infrastructure. Effective enforcement of the E-waste Rules requires a level playing field for producers, creating standards in the entire value chain, and introduction of recovery targets so as to ensure efficient and responsible recycling practices.

The regulator needs to be empowered to implement the rule more stringently and close down the illegal, informal operations. This would enable the concentration of feedstock for recycling at some designated places rather than being scattered across numerous informal recycling sites, which is today a big disincentive for setting up modern state-of-the-art recycling facilities. It is evident that this subject of managing e-waste calls for transformative actions in order to protect human health and the environment; just as electronic gadgets have had a transformative impact on our lives.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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Article Local Self-Government

Philosophy of Local Self-Government in India

T

he term Local-Self Government (LSG) evokes multiple images among various stakeholders.

For some, the LSG is a tool of ‘Democratic Decentralization’ or for others it is ‘Third Tier of Government’ or mechanism of ‘Grass Root Level Democracy’. However, when it comes to actual practice of LSG in India, the reality is far away from the above images.

The philosophy of LSG is inherent in the idea of ‘Selfgovernment’, which implies that the institutions of LSG exist in their own right and not merely as a means for the externally determined end. The philosophy of LSG is concerned with explaining their fundamental objective or raison de’ etre in India.

The LSG takes two forms in India: Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in rural areas and municipalities in urban areas. However, this paper is confined to identify the fundamental objectives of PRIs in the existing arrangement and the same can be applied in case of urban local bodies. If we trace and review the facts about the objectives of these institutions available in the literature on their conception, reports of various committees, or the mission and vision of government, it reveals inherent contradictions in vision and actual practice. Rather, it enforces the view that the PRIs are not the agencies of self-government as they exist as a tool

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January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Arunoday Bajpai HoD (Pol Science) Agra College, Agra

for facilitating implementation of externally determined development schemes under the rubric of rural development.

Of course, they still retain their image of being ‘local’ and ‘elected’, but without the idea and practice of ‘self’.

The PRIs have faced their existential challenge since their very inception in independent India. When the first Draft of Indian Constitution was placed before the Constituent Assembly, there was no mention of PRIs in the draft. Dr Rajendra Prasad, the President of Constituent Assembly, drew attention of Dr Ambedkar to this omission through his letter on May 10, 1948. After much debate and opposition from Dr Ambedkar, Article 40 was inserted in the Constitution under DPSPs on the proposal of noted Gandhian K. Santhanam, submitted on November 25, 1948.

This non-binding provision seeks to ‘endow them with such power and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government’ (MOPR: 2018). While Gandhi considered Self-sustaining Panchayats as the core of ‘Gram Swarajya’, Dr Ambedkar abhorred village Panchayats as he argued that the Indian villages were nothing but ‘a sink of localism, a den of ignorance and communalism’ (Live Mint: 2015). This contradictory visualization of PRIs was carried forward in their future evolution and conception. In the Constitution, the entry no. 5 of the State List (7th Schedule)

mentions LSG as ‘Local Government’, though ironically, its final purpose is declared to be ‘self-government’.

In 1950s, image of LSGs was projected as ‘Panchayati Raj’, following the recommendations of Balwant Rai Mehta Committee Report, 1957. Interestingly, this Committee was appointed to review the progress of Community Development Programme (1952) and the National Extension Service Scheme (1953), (Not for strengthening PRIs) and accordingly it viewed the PRIs a tool for enlisting popular support in the implementation of rural development schemes. It even suggested that the Collector should be the Chairman of Zila Parishad, which is placed at the three tier PRIs. This initial perception of PRIs as a tool still continues to persist among those who decide the fate of PRIs. Though, Ashok Mehta Committee (1978) recommended, inter alia, placing all district level development functions under the Zila Parishad, its recommendations were not accepted by the government for political reasons.

The GVK Rao Committee on PRIs (1985) suggested that the District Development Commissioner (DDC) should be made the Chief Executive of the Zilla Parishad in those states where the Panchayati Raj institutions hold the responsibility for planning and implementation of various development programmes. But the committee was clueless as in which part of the country PRIs exercise the responsibility for the planning and implementation of development programmes. However, LM Singhvi Committee for the Concept paper on PRIs (1986) tried to retrieve the idea of self-government as it noted, ‘The Panchayati Raj Institutions have to be viewed as institutions

endow them powers of making and implementing the plans of economic development and social justice (Article 243 G) and makes the plans prepared by the District Planning Committee subject to the approval of state government (Article 243 ZD).

The perception of PRIs as a tool of development has resulted in two negative outcomes: First, it makes PRIs as the culprit for the failures of development plans, as they are projected as agencies for their implementation. But, as we know, the success of development process is contingent on many factors beyond the control of PRIs. Second, this perception hampers the growth of element of ‘collective agency’ in PRIs. ‘Agency’ is the ability to make one’s own choices and act upon them. Collective agency occurs when people act together with purpose, power and rationality (Hewson: 2010).

The Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MOPR), Government of India has identifies certain factors, which hamper the growth of local self-government in India. These factors are: Lack of adequate devolution, Excessive control by bureaucracy: Tied nature of funds, Reluctance to use fiscal powers, and Nonharmonization between State Acts and central legislations.

However, its focus seems to be on strengthening functional abilities of PRIs rather than altering the perception about the PRIs as tools of government sponsored schemes. The Vision and Mission of MOPR are also at odds with each other.

How its Vision of attaining decentralized and participatory local self-government can be harmonized with its Mission of empowering and enabling PRIs to ensure inclusive development with social justice, and efficient delivery of services (MOPR: 2018) .

The 73rd Constitution Amendment, 1992 is viewed as a milestone in the history of empowerment of PRIs in India, but it also falls short of visualizing them as institutions of self-governance. It leaves PRIs on the sweet will of states to endow them powers of making and implementing the plans of economic development and social justice (Article 243 G) and makes the plans prepared by the District Planning Committee subject to the approval of state government of self-government which would naturally facilitate the participation of the people in the process of planning and development flowing from and as part of the concept of selfgovernment. Development planning should be democratic planning’. This vision of PRIs was never put into practice. The Thungon Committee on PRIs (1988) reversed the idea of selfgovernment as it unduly relied on district administration for development activities (Shodhganga: 2018).

The 73rd Constitution Amendment, 1992 is viewed as a milestone in the history of empowerment of PRIs in India, but it also falls short of visualizing them as institutions of self-governance. It leaves PRIs on the sweet will of states to

The foregoing discussion reveals that we have consistently perpetuated and practiced the idea of local self-government as tool of development, undermined their ‘collective agency’ and held contradictory position on its nature and goals. These developments have blurred the philosophy of LSG, existing for own value and purpose as institution of democratic decentralization.

A noted scholar finds it embarrassing to use the term ‘local self-government’ in India and instead preferred to call it ‘local government’ only (Maheshwari : 2008). We need to transit from devolution of 3Fs to the division of powers between the states and LSGs.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

15

Article Heritage

Most neglected urban aspect Heritage sites all over the country have a great social, economic and national importance. Conservation of heritage is crucial as it not only triggers tourism and contribute in growth of country’s economy but reminds us of our glorious past as well. Many of these historical monuments lie in ruins due to negligence.

Hence, there is a need for urban planners and city managers to understand the significance of the preservation of these relics and work towards protecting the heritage sites.

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f you talk to any of the new generation of urban planners or city managers in India, you will clearly feel the indifference about one of the most important aspects of urban management : conservation of our heritage. And this includes the built heritage and the natural heritage.

Conservation heritage experts such as architects and historians, on the other hand, are found complaining that archaeological sites or stand alone monuments of great historical importance still lie in ruins all over the country and those responsible for protecting them and documenting them are least bothered.

Conservation of heritage in our emerging cities is crucial

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Abhilash Khandekar Sr Journalist

not just for preserving our past with some emotions attached to them but has social, economic and national perspectives aligned to the same. In today’s time tourism potential of any country also counts as an international parameter of growth. Tourism brings in foreign money and contributes to the GDP and that is the economic angle.

Yet, what we see is minimal efforts from different governments - national or regional -towards identifying new monuments, excavating significant sites or using experts to maintain old monuments that represent India’s glorious past.

There are multiple reasons for this neglect. First, the low priority of concerned departments in government and secondly the requisite demands from society for the same.

Since it’s a low priority area, the budgets are also relatively small for this kind of an effort.

On the national level, there is a very good agency by the name Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) which was created way back in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham who went on to become its Director General later. It works under the Culture Ministry of India with prime job of maintaining India’s heritage. But ASI has a vast list of its own monuments and sites that they look after. A case in point is of an iron pillar which is at Mehrauli near Delhi and originally belonged to Udaygiri near Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, a district which is full of archaeological treasures.

But not many know much about this 5th century Gupta period monument.

Actually, most of the Indian heritage monuments are classified for protection as those under the jurisdiction of ASI and the remaining are under state archaeology departments. State departments too always keep struggling for funds and normally a posting of Archaeology Commissioner is considered as a sideline job for an IAS officer, not much sought after by many in the elite service.

It then has a ripple effect as the entire organisation does not work with much enthusiasm towards the very purpose it has been created. The state of museums across the country, mainly at the district places, is an area of huge concern.

But what we are talking about is the heritage conservation in our sprawling cities. Here the municipal corporations

have a role to play which they are not playing at all for more reasons than one. Neither the mayors nor municipal commissioners are much interested in this area of work or perhaps they think erecting new buildings is their only mandate. I have known many cities where the natural heritage such as century old lakes or steps wells are not being maintained, in fact they are being unmindfully buried to create land for construction. What is more unfortunate, the citizens are not raising their voice against the demolition of archaeologically important structures. Meera Dass, architect and former member of National Monuments Authority, New Delhi says listing of such monuments and their documentation is a must for saving our past. Having been associated with INTACH, a non governmental body created for this purpose, Ms Dass says much more work is required to be done in this area considering India’s vast treasures.

When we talk about looking after our heritage it’s not only Taj Mahal or Kutub Minar or Khajuraho temple cluster, it is much more. Several small monuments are strewn all

has been trying to raise his voice for conserving a number of quaint beautiful buildings and structures in Malwa area but not with much success. “We had listed more than 150 small and big monuments for conservation but authorities neither have interest nor funds”, Mondhe, President of The Nature Volunteers said, adding more attention is also required to be given to natural heritage conservation in cities.

But in neighbouring Bhopal, the MP government has recently done an extraordinary job of preserving the century-old magnificent Minto Hall which was in disuse for over 25 years after the MP state Assembly got shifted to new premises in the late nineties. Nawab Sultanjahan Begum, the female ruler of Bhopal princely state, got the rest house made for Lord Minto, the 17th viceroy of India and also the Governor General in 1909. After the Raj was gone and states merged into Indian Republic, this Indo-British style building was used as Government Hamidia College, Bhopal and later it housed the Assembly with lot of wood work inside.

Hari Ranjan Rao, Principal Secretary Tourism in MP says it took two years and Rs 65 crore for a Delhi conservation

While ASI has expertise, it lacks requisite funds. While big municipal corporations have money, they lack expertise.

Capacity building in this sector for municipal officers is one way. Of the three schemes launched by urban develolment ministry one pertains to heritage cities but the focus needs to be sharpened for this so cities beautiful past is restored piece by piece and funds made available are used properly. Heritage conservation of a city also means supporting old libraries, enriching museums and looking after old trees and gardens which have a glorious past. over the places in our cities which are growing by the day.

This growth of urban hubs is posing the biggest threats to historical monuments. While bodies like INTACH have been doing something in this field, along with ASI, INTACH (Indian National Trust for Archaeology, Culture and Heritage) is facing a financial crunch.

When the Government of India gave away the iconic Red Fort of New Delhi to Dalmia group for maintenance, the role of ASI once again came in for criticism in public for falling short on its efficiency and resources, something that led to entry of private players for conservation of our important monuments.

Early last year the conservationists lobby was hugely motivated and happy that Ahmedabad was adjudged as the World Heritage City by the UNESCO. This was expected to trigger a movement across the nation for heritage conservation but that did not happen.

In Indore, Bhalu Mondhe, a Padmashree winning artist

architect to do the massive restoration work and bring back the original shape and grandeur. The Minto Hall was recently inaugurated and is now an international convention venue with huge halls, corporate board meetings and a top restaurant. It’s the tourism department which got it restored while still maintaining the old grandeur, style and quaint look. In fact, Minto Hall can now lead conservation movements in many other cities because as said earlier, most cities have a large number of historic monuments, buildings and such assets that need immediate attention to save them for posterity.

Historic Bhopal city now has a new beautiful address that stands as a specimen of an excellent heritage restoration project of urban India.

[The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.]

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

17

Article Smart Cities

Pardigm shift in Indian planning through Smart city development Smart Cities Mission drives a paradigm shift for the urban planners as it involves the application of smart solutions and implementation of smart infrastructure to improve the physical, social, economic and institutional infrastructure of the city. This not only enhances the urban planning sector but also provides enough opportunities for better investmet in the city and employment opportunities for various skilled people that drives growth of the city holistically.

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ities are engines of economic growth for the economy of every nation including India. The Smart Cities Mission aims to develop 100+ Smart Cities in India over the next 10-15 years in order to ensure a decent quality of life for the growing number of urban dwellers. The four pillars of comprehensive development are - institutional infrastructure (governance, planning and management), physical infrastructure (water, power, sewerage, etc.), social infrastructure (sports facilities, parks, theatres, etc.) and economic infrastructure (infra required to promote investment and generate livelihoods). The four pillars use technology in a sustainable and resilient way to produce employment and quality of life for citizens. This attracts skilled people and investments into the city, thus creating a virtuous cycle where growth drives growth.

Smart Cities Mission

The Smart Cities Mission marks a paradigm shift by applying smart (intelligent) solutions in core infrastructure services to meet urban challenges keeping citizens at the centre. The mission is being implemented through ‘area based’ approach envisaging three models.

In retrofitting, an area consisting of more than 500 acres is developed with an objective to achieve benchmarks given in guidelines. Redevelopment envisages an area of more than 50 acres which is completely developed from scratch with innovative financing including land monetisation, beneficiary charges, and monetising and enhancing FSI. Greenfield development envisages developing an area more than 250 acres around cities to address the needs of the expanding population. How Smart City India is a Paradigm Shift in Modern Planning

Smart City incorporates all the earlier planning principles

The smart city development takes into account all the

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Pravin Bhardwaj SWM Expert

earlier planning principles and has built in new ideas for the city development: ♦♦ The Smart City concept by selecting the Garden City Concept and the New Towns concept has adopted ‘Green’ concept. ♦♦ The redevelopment scheme of the green city takes into account the Modernism concept and the new urbanism. ♦♦ The retrofitting idea incorporates the principles Central Business District and Concentric Circles approach. ♦♦ It involves the community in decision making including developing the Vision statement and SWOT analysis.

The entire planning and implementation of the Smart city uses convergence of various central and state schemes. The steps followed are: Firstly, the city needs complete and integrated planning rather than for particular sectors as captured in the 500 Cities, HRIDAY and SBM and Smart Cities Programme.

It also ensures holistic city development and alignment of objectives with supplementary missions such as Swachh Bharat Mission and Online Grievance Redressal Mechanism from Digital India. A Smart City also showcases how the best citizen-centric facilities can be made available and will catalyse similar activities in the rest of the 500 cities.

AMRUT follows a project-based approach in which the aim is to improve governance, sanitation, water-supply, waste management, urban mobility and other such urban infrastructure projects at the Pan-city level. The AMRUT and SBM will complement the Smart City Mission by funding core physical and institutional infrastructure in the City. Secondly, all cities do not have the resources and capabilities to become ‘Smart’; but basic needs of city dwellers have to be fulfilled. While 500 Cities Programme and SBM will address the basic infrastructure needs and a certain minimum resource allocation will be made by the Central Government under the AMRUT and SBM Programme, for earning a place in the Smart Cities Mission,

the Cities l had to compete with each other in what is called the ‘Challenge’. This was based on the concept of cooperative and competitive federalism and encourages cities to continuously improve their performance and strive to attain the benchmarks specified in the Mission. This is the first time that an element of competition had been introduced for participation in a national programme.

Thirdly, the approach of Smart Cities Mission is not prescriptive in nature and recognizes that ‘one size fits all’ approach is inadequate. Therefore, cities will be allowed to focus on sectors and projects most relevant to the needs and priorities of their citizens.

Agenda 21 principles applied to Smart city India Mission Think globally, act locally urges people to consider the health of the entire planet and to take action in their own communities and cities. Long before governments began enforcing environmental laws, individuals were coming together to protect habitats and the organisms that live within them.

These efforts are referred to as grassroots efforts. They occur on a local level and are primarily run by volunteers and helpers.“Think Globally, Act Locally” originally began at the grassroots level. However, it is now a global concept with high importance. It is not just volunteers who take the environment into consideration. It is corporations,

government officials, education system, and local communities.

The entire planning of the smart city is based on the local level planning for the global cities of tomorrow. The citizen participation is key in the present smart city development.

The area based model is the key for the city development.

The smart city approach takes into account the local level planning with citizens involvement so that a particular city makes a model inside its own city and then the entire city is developed based on the model developed in the city with people’s involvement.

This is first time in the world that a country is planning to develop its cities on the principles of the agenda 21 “Think Globally, Act Locally”.

In Indian town planning it is important to understand the idea “think globally, act locally” as urban management and development greatly impacts the surrounding environment.

The ways in which the plan is initiated is vital to the health of the environment. Corporations need to be aware of global communities when planning for their cities with new initiatives. Not only do corporations need to be aware of global differences, but also urban and rural areas which plan on expanding or changing the dynamics of their community.

As stated - Addressing the complex urban environmental problems, in order to improve urban livability through Urban Environmental Strategies (UES), involves taking stock of the existing urban environmental problems, their comparative analysis and prioritization, setting out objectives and targets, and identification of various measures to meet these objectives. The present smart cities development keeps all the above parameters in mind.

What planning schools need to do

The major cities in India are going through the Smart City planning approach which is very different from the Master Plan Approach, Zonal Plans and Outline Development Plans made by the Indian Cities. The students of the panning schools need to be taught about the changing planning pattern in the Indian cities and the convergence agenda being taken up in planning the Smart Cities.

The teachers also need to get associated with the new smart cities being developed in several states so that the knowledge of the smart city development is explained to the students. The other way is to take the students on study tour to one of the selected smart cities so that the students are involved in the implementation of the smart cities and understand the process properly.

Conclusion

By the end of 2019 every State/UT in India will have at least one Smart City going through the implementation phase.

Every State/City will get a chance to then understand from their own cities and can develop the other cities in their respective State/UTs by using the example and the process involved in the smart city development.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

19

Article Bhubaneswar Smart City

City within a city reflecting inequity

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t was a joyful moment for people of Bhubaneswar when, on January 28, 2016, the capital city of Odisha got a nod from the Government of India to become a smart city. But after almost three years, the project seems to be suffering from a lot of issues and the city still has a long way to go to become truly smart. According to many city dwellers, despite announcement of many programmes, Bhubaneswar lacks on many fronts to claim itself smart, and the smart city development is confined to a small part only.

Bhubaneswar Smart City Project

Bhubaneswar is being developed under the Smart Cities Mission of the Government of India to get a smarter face and transform into a city that has core infrastructure to offer a decent quality life to its citizens by applying smart solutions. In order to plan, implement, manage and operate the Smart City Development Projects in the city, Odisha government has constituted a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) company named “Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL)” to act as the nodal agency.

The project envisages two way development – “Area Based Development” in an area of 985 acres, spread over four square kilometres, around the centrally-located transit station into a vibrant destination called the Bhubaneswar Town Centre District (BTCD); “Pan City Development” of technological projects, named Smart Solutions project, with social equity as a cross cutting strategy to deliver inclusive society for citizens of Bhubaneswar.

Area Based Development

As per area development plans, a number of programmes are to be implemented while some like smart parks, social equity centre, smart Janpath and housing projects are under execution within BTCD area, which is about 4 square kilometres, to transform it into a world class urban space.

It envisions retrofitting and redeveloping the city’s core into a vibrant space by promoting mixed land-use, green infrastructure, pro-business environment and social equity.

Envisaged as people’s smart path, redevelopment plans for city’s Janpath Road include streetscape design, beautification, landscaping, intersection redesign, and infrastructure upgrades with construction of new pavement, rehabilitation of existing pavement, construction and/or rehabilitation of major and minor bridges, culverts, road intersections, interchanges,

20 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Basudev Mahapatra Senior Journalist

drains, etc., BSCL says on its website.

According to Toronto based IBI Group, which is the strategy and implementation partner of BSCL for Bhubaneswar Smart City project, the plan is to “transform the city’s geographic centre into a vibrant, multi-modal mixed-use district that supports increased densities, balance of life and work opportunities, and place making opportunities within close proximity to upgraded transit facilities.”

As per BSCL authorities, it has started working on multi-level car parking, on major smart corridors, on smart parks – many of which have already been executed.

The American Planning Association that has awarded Bhubaneswar Smart City project mentions, “The Bhubaneswar Smart City Plan redefines the concept of “smart cities” and outlines a citizen-driven vision for the future by using technology to help residents gain better access to city services, and improve the overall quality of life.

Even though Bhubaneswar Smart City project has won several awards since proposal stage through planning and execution of many programmes, city dwellers like Dr Prasanna Mishra, a senior citizen as well as a retired bureaucrat, are critical on such kind of development planning under Smart City Mission. “The so called Area Based Development adopted for Bhubaneswar Smart City is centred on 2.4 per cent of the total Municipal Area of 46000 acres which is called BTCD. I fail

to understand how this bizarre idea will make a Smart City and improve the life of city dwellers,” he says.

While there is no clarity on environmental sustainability in the BTCD area, the current plan seems to be working to develop a high value real estate within the city which will benefit only a few living in Bhubaneswar, opines Biswajit Mohanty, a leading environmentalist who is now the Chairman of Executive Committee of Greenpeace India.

Pan city development

Under Pan Development Programmes, BSCL claims to have launched common payment card system for different services across the city; an intelligent traffic control system; an e-platform called BhubaneswarOne, which can be used to find locations, ward information, information on public services, updated notifications from various Government organizations, location and significance of different tourist sites, event calendar of Bhubaneswar City etc.; and various other smart solutions.

In regard to transport facilities, Dr Krishan Kumar, the Managing Director of BSCL, has said in an interview that, BSCL is in the process of strengthening the city’s transport system. “Within one and a half years Bhubaneswar will have one of the best bus-based public transport systems,” he adds.

“We have completed about 30kms of underground cabling on major streets. Housing projects have taken off now. We have almost finalized our systems for about 10000 houses for weaker sections in Bhubaneswar, which will take care of about 15 per cent of our requirement. This, if repeated 3-4 times, should take care of housing for all,” he has said.

“It still lacks on many fronts. Nothing is said about having a slum free city, nothing about more amenities like Night Shelters, Working Women’s Hostel, Public Toilets, etc. They talk about interruption free electricity to the BTCD area only and not for the city of Bhubaneswar,” Dr Prasanna Mishra tells.

Even after three years, there is very little improvement in terms of infrastructure and services, says Biswajit Patnaik underlining that traffic congestion in the city still remains an issue all over the city.

BTCD and several other parts of the city, however, have undergone a major makeover exercise. With lots of beautification works done, new city bus services and smart bicycle services are implemented in the city.

Launched before the Men’s Hockey World Cup 2018, the Smart Bicycle programmes has lost its lustre by now. Many of the bicycles don’t have the seats. The mobile app driven scheme also does not attract local youth or even tourists because there is no instant hiring system in place, Mayank Mahapatra, an undergraduate student at city based Rajdhani College, observes.

“Many of the works seem to be temporary or without long term utility value and are simply wastage of public money,” says Panchanan Kanungo, former finance minister of Odisha.

“In the name of Smart City, we are going to spend 4500 crore rupees of public money to benefit only a few businessmen, well-off and powerful people,” he adds. The issues need an

informed public dialogue and should not be left to the fancy of a few power-point flaunting bureaucrats, Dr Mishra urges.

Making it socially smart

It’s not only infrastructure and services; the smart city needs to be socially smart as well when equity and inclusiveness remain two pillars of Bhubaneswar Smart City project. On this front, BSCL has started many activities to engage people of different strata.

“We conduct meetings with the wards and ward committees.

We proactively reach out to institutions and have a dialogue with them. We have started a program with the youth under the Socially Smart Bhubaneswar, where we don’t just talk about Bhubaneswar’s smart infrastructure, but we also try to learn how the citizens are socially smart in it… We are working with UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) to create a socially smart Bhubaneswar,” says Dr. Krishan Kumar.

“We also organize a large number of programs on outreach, like ‘Pathotsav,’ which is one of the most successful programs across the country with almost 40000 people participating every Sunday morning. We have Ekamra Walks (in the heritage space of the city known as Old Town) where people come and join us,” he adds.

“We are working in 24 slums within the BTCD area; we have reached out to about 70 colleges in the city and discussed gender violence, gender equity in campuses, and related issues.

In slums, we focused on youth and groomed peer leaders from the communities. We have imparted safety training to around 330 girls and linked 169 youth for skill training of which 18 have got employment,” says Sarojini Brahma, UNFPA coordinator for the socially smart city programmes.

“The peer leaders have taken charge of development of their respective communities. They are promoting education of all children in their communities. In fact, they are taking ownership,” she observes.

However, there still are many social issues to draw adequate attention. According to a report titled City Makers in Bhubaneswar, prepared by Centre for Child and Women Development (CCWD) on the homeless dwellers of Bhubaneswar, more than 6500 people living in Bhubaneswar are homeless. While 66 per cent of these persons sleep on the pavements under open sky, 33 per cent spend the night on Verandahs of shops, temples and public places, the study finds. The existing shelter homes with less than 400 beds accommodate only 0.58 per cent of city’s homeless people.

The Smart City project needs to work to address such issues in order to become truly socially smart. And, instead of centring the development within a very limited space within the city, BSCL has to expand its vision of development and work to ensure equity across the city in terms of access to all services and infrastructure.

[The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.]

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

21

article SDGs

Youth Movements for SDGs Prof Dr Mukesh Kanaskar Deputy Director General, AIILSG Distinguished Professor & Academic Head, AIILSG

Shweta Gupta Executive Director, AIILSG’s International Center of Equity & Inclusion for Transformation

2th January is marked as the National Youth Day in India. While laying the roadmap for 2019 and future, it is inevitable that an important stakeholder to be considered while envisioning is the “YOUTH”.

Though it is obvious that the living spaces should have at their center the human beings, many times the brick & mortar issues gain centrality. However, developing countries like India can ill afford neglecting the human factor, especially the youth. One of the most crucial related issues is how the vibrant youth energies are channelized.

This really decides whether India will be reaping a demographic dividend or is rolling towards a demographic disaster.

At 150 million, India has the largest number of youth in the world, more than even of China. The youth in India would singly constitute the 12th largest country in the world. The vibrancy of the youth needs no elucidation.

What is of interest though is how this vibrancy is channelized constructively. Contrary to the popular perception about next-gen (held especially by some from the past-gen), there are interesting pointers towards the youth depicting high social sensitivity, less discriminatory (on various social fault-lines) provided proper sensitization efforts are undertaken right from the childhood. While the theoretical discourses have their own significance, youth gain learnings of life through actions.

AIILSG’s experience indicates that creating avenues for the youth to undertake actions for the disadvantaged populations has two fold-impacts: fostering a sociallysensitive human resource and while doing so progressing on key developmental parameters- succinctly captured as Sustainable Development Goals. This underlines the importance of the ‘Youth Movement’ mode pioneered by All India Institute of Local Self-Government’s International Center of EQUI-T (ICEQUI-T). These youth movements have crucial significance towards attaining the SDGs whereby it is AIILSG’s action-oriented manifestation of the SDG campaign of “MY WORLD” for the SDG Advocates.

Thus the AIILSG-ICEQUIT approach of fostering pro-SDG youth movements will be an important aspect to chart and

charter the roadmap for 2019.

The cities and settlements are defined by the human beings who stay in it, their interplay and sensitivity individually & collectively. ‘Inclusive Development’ is the key theme for the last 2 Five Year Plans of India as well as for the global instruments such as SDGs. A vital enabler of inclusive development is the sensitivity depicted by the wider society towards the disadvantaged. An important factor in this regard is the inner connect that the youth feel for the disadvantaged leading to constructive actions by them. AIILSG’s experience is extremely positive in this regard whereby the voluntary zeal of the youth have in turn bolstered their realization of assets of own life, bolstered their self-image which re-fuelled their passion for making their cities, villages and earth a better place to live for all.

Another crucial impact of such movement is, and will be, in ensuring that the development won’t be seen only from a very constrained ‘project’ centric understanding. In many developing countries, the term development has been synonymous to ‘development-projects’ whereby the most essential input is monetary resources. Illustratively- for addressing the softer development initiatives (such as those

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related to children, gender-inequalities, social-inequalities, differently abled), there can be no-cost or low-cost interventions through volunteerism. However, the obsession with the project-centric approach implies gaining financialresources becomes an essential precondition for initiating any actions.

Even development of social innovations has fallen victim to this ‘project’ approach. AIILSG is probably a unique organisation in the world which has set up its socialinnovations lab at its International Center of Equity & Inclusion for Transformation (ICEQUI-T). Very importantly, while ensuring that the ‘innovations’ won’t fall prey to the very constrained ‘project-centric’ approach, it has committed itself to dedicate own resources (monetary and human resources) as a part of its visionary roadmapnot just for 2019 but till social . One such innovation developed by ICEQUI-T as a part of the AIILSG roadmap is of “constructive Youth Movements”. Objectives of these youth movements are: sensitization among the youth with respective to the respective social issues, build their capacities to undertake transformational actions and establish related sustainability-mechanisms.

Each movement is configured for & pitched at the respective youth populations. E.g. The Movement of Youth for SDGs2 (End Hunger & Malnutrition) is prominently promoted in educational institutes in the areas which have tribal villages in their vicinity. Moreover, some youth movements having universal relevance are promoted in all areas. Illustratively, after the Nirbhaya incidence in New Delhi, AIILSG initiated its movement “Men for Women’s Dignity & Health” with the objective of “Enabling Men to be more accountable & responsible for Women’s Dignity & Health”. An important part of the decadal roadmap for the future by AIILSG is to initiate similar youth movements under the aegis of its ICEQUI-T for each SDG relevant for the disadvantaged populations such as: MY SDG 1: No Poverty, MY SDG 2: Zero Hunger, MY SDG 3: Good Health and Well being, MY SDG 4: Quality Education, MY SDG 5: Gender Equality, MY SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, MY SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, MY SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, MY SDG 13: Climate Action & MY SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.

The activities under each of such movements include:

♦♦ Designing customized knowledge products including Information-Education-Communication material (such as posters, portable exhibitions, scripts [vetted through a systematic process to ensure scientific rigour is maintained] for street plays & puppet shows ♦♦ Establishing linkages with and mobilizing universities, educational institutions, networks & citizen action groups for collective actions and synergy ♦♦ Sensitization programs through use of appropriate media as per the respective context: including street plays,

puppet shows, social media, mass media ♦♦ Grooming a cadre of Master Trainers as ‘Advocates of the cause” (e.g. for “MY SDG 2- Movement of Youth to End Hunger & Malnutrition” movement, developing a cadre of MY SDG 2 advocates) ♦♦ Grooming a cadre of social innovators. E.g. ‘SDG Innovators’ who can develop innovations to spur SDG Action ♦♦ Effective Dissemination: Documenting human stories (photo essays, audio-visuals, illustrations, case studies) for communicating SDG messages. ♦♦ Sustainability enabling actions & sustainability mechanisms. This set of actions also includes engaging multiple stakeholders & building networks/ partnerships to bring transformational change for attainment of the developmental commitments such as the SDGs, Engaging marginalized & excluded populations to become part of SDG dialogue & action AIILSG makes efforts to take these movements to other countries in need of such movements. E.g. AIILSG’s MY DRR international movement is as of beginning of 2019 seeded in 25 developing countries.

The sustainability of these movements is ensured through:

♦♦ Develop cadre of the cause advocates from the youth ♦♦ Involvement of various universities & educational institutions to continue to take further the cause as their own initiative in future, ♦♦ Developing visual tools of “self-assessment and planning” which can be used even by the illiterates by demystifying, de-jargonizing the respective cause into easily understandable terms, translating the related parameters into pictograms & images, using universally decipherable rating methods (such as baby faces- smiling, expression neutral and smiling, signal principle- whereby ‘red’ is rated as precarious & ‘green’ as satisfactory) ♦♦ Making the customized IEC & knowledge products available to all concerned for use by them ♦♦ The MY (Movement of Youth) Social Cause Facilitation mechanism at AIILSG’s ICEQUI-T provides facilitation support to all concerned stakeholders in initiating, undertaking and sustaining youth movements.

The authors have developed as a scientific body of knowledge the ‘development of social Innovations’ and as a part of it: the ‘fostering of youth movements’. Related knowledge and skills are rendered to all interested in the form of capacity building workshops. E.g. Prof. Dr. Mukesh Kanaskar has designed and is undertaking (customized) capacity building workshops for international and national stakeholders on “MY Innovations for Realizing the Sustainable Development Goals”. AIILSG believes that through its youth-movement approach will enable channelizing the vibrant youth energy constructively for the attainment of the SDGs.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

23

Article Climate Change

We only have 12 years to save ourselves, let’s act fast!

Time is running out and we have to act fast to save ourselves from catastrophic climate crisis. There is a challenge and opportunity both. We are in a climate emergency that requires unprecedented action at global level

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he year 2018 can be termed historic in terms of realisation of the ‘catastrophic’ climate crisis we are in. Never in the past had we been warned of the consequences of not addressing climate change in such clear terms. The landmark 1.5 degrees Celsius special report (SR 1.5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in October 2018, has clearly warned us that we only have 12 years to save ourselves from catastrophic climate change. Yes, just 12 years!

The SR 1.5 report

This is a big cause of worry for our cities as well as a huge opportunity for them to take action. We are in a climate emergency that needs ‘unprecedented’ actions. The IPCC report that was prepared on the basis of an assessment of over 6000 recent scientific papers and documents, now clearly tells us that the Paris Climate Agreement – that wants to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius – is not enough. In 2015, governments agreed at Paris to keep global warming “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and to strive for a 1.5 degree limit. The SR 1.5 that was commissioned to understand the impacts of a 1.5 degrees Celsius rise as against the 2 degrees Celsius, projects that a 2°C rise in the global average temperature would lead to worse global and regional climate impacts. For example, limiting warming to 1.5ºC rather than 2ºC could result in 420 million fewer people being exposed to severe heatwaves. Further, this half degree difference could help us prevent corals – one of the most vital carbon sinks – from being completely lost and could ease pressure on the Arctic.

Most importantly, most of our actions are needed to be taken by 2030. It is possible to limit the global temperature rise to below 1.5ºC, says the IPCC report, however it requires unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society.

The world – especially the poor and vulnerable communities – is facing the wrath of climate change impacts under the current 1.2 degree Celsius warming situation. The year 2018 has already been considered a climate change tipping point. The number and impacts of extreme weather events have been increasing and this

24 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Ranjan K Panda Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India

year, even as the world governments - during the climate negotiations at COP 24 at Katowice - succumbed to pressure of countries like USA and Saudi Arabia to undermine the importance of the SR 1.5, extreme events caused severe damages to the economy of countries as well as that of the people living in vulnerable pockets of the world. A report, counting only 10 most extreme disasters that hit the world that year, pegged the total loss caused by these events at $110 billion. These disasters include hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts.

The Kerala floods, that got listed in this report by the UK based charity, Christian Aid, is said to have caused death of more than 500 people and displaced more than a million people. The heavy rainfall that Kerala experienced was highest in 80 years, the report notes. According to data released by the Centre of Research on the Epidemiology

of Disasters, extreme weather had already caused death of approximately 5,000 people by first week of December 2018. By that time, according to this report, more than 28.9 million had needed emergency assistance or humanitarian aid because of extreme weather. Researches have also pointed out that economic losses caused due to climaterelated disasters have increased by as high as 151 per cent in the last two decades. There is absolutely not an iota of doubt about the fact that we need urgent and unprecedented actions to save ourselves from the climate crisis we are in.

The SR 1.5 estimates that to stay below this temperature guard of 1.5°C, the world has to cut net anthropogenic CO2 emissions by 45 per cent over the 2010 levels by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050. Cities can lead this action.

The SR 1.5 and cities

More than fifty percent of the world’s population now lives in urban areas and that’s going to grow substantially especially in the small to medium cities in the developing world. It is estimated that more than two-thirds of people will move to urban areas by 2050, causing severe hardships to the small and medium scale cities in countries like India.

This would also mean serious efforts to combat emissions from the urban areas. As the demand for more housing and other infrastructure increases, the emissions from shrinking natural places (deforestation) and grey infrastructure will make our urban areas climate hotspots. The SR 1.5 identifies cities and urban areas as one of four critical global systems that can accelerate and upscale climate action, but recognizes this will require major transitions in how both

mitigation and adaptation are undertaken.

Migration from rural areas to cities, caused by increased distresses due to climate change, could exponentially increase in a 2.0°C scenario compared to 1.5°C scenario.

Migration from already marginal agriculture-dependent communities could increase as temperatures rise and water stress increases, says the SR 1.5. The overall global population suffering water scarcity at 2.0°C is projected to be double at 1.5°C. That means the cities will have to face graver challenges in accommodating them. Swelling slums and informal settlements are already a big worry for the cities. The SR 1.5 estimates that keeping the temperature rise to 1.5°C would mean a reduction of population exposed to climate risks and related poverty by as much as 457 million.

2019 the defining year

Cities and governments at all levels have to take the IPCC report seriously and need to start both mitigation and adaptation efforts. Cities across the globe have already started progressive actions. The impacts of climate change will vary from region to region, making it mandatory for the actions to be localised in sync with the 1.5°C commitments that each city needs to plan without any further delay.

One thing that I have been propagating aggressively in this column as well as in my campaigns, and that the SR 1.5 has also endorsed, is building ‘nature-based solutions’ in cities as well as neighbourhood ecosystems that support the cities in their water, food and related requirements.

I would sincerely urge upon our city authorities, state governments, national government, civil society and other stakeholders to explore ways to support ‘nature-based solutions’ by promoting forest and water conservation actions with complete involvement of local people. Urban dwellers, as I have always argued, should not only be considered as ‘tax payers’ and ‘consumers’. They are citizens first and they have a responsibility towards making their cities climate resilient. Cities must demarcate at least 33 per cent of their geographies as forest zones and integrate natural sponges all across the city limits. This will help them fight the extreme precipitation caused floods and water scarcity both.

Further, there is an urgent need to build city-village collaborations in which cities can pay for regeneration of natural forests and water bodies in their neighbourhood and in shared watersheds. That will have far reaching impacts on local food and water security, and also aid India’s Paris commitments. We need to break the conventional barriers of narrow planning domains and move towards more inclusive and dynamic approaches such as this.

[The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.]

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

25

article 2019 Water Roadmap

Save urban lakes to tide over water related problems Catching the rain where it falls and storing it in lakes and waterbodies seem to be the only viable option for parched cities

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NITI Ayog report in 2018 placed India at 120th amongst 122 countries on the water quality index. The report had also stated that 54 per cent of India’s ground water wells are decreasing in levels and 21 major cities across the country are expected to run out of ground water by 2020. Over exploitation of ground water due to urbanisation has led to rapid depletion of ground water levels. And among all the measures being discussed and taken, there is hardly any substantive action taken for saving, rejuvenating urban waterbodies. And each of the big cities has anywhere between 100 and 300 lakes and waterbodies while the smaller ones have 50 ormore. That makes for about 50,000odd lakes, waterbodies, johads, wetlands and others across Indian states.

As Jayesh Ranjan, vice chairperson of the erstwhile Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (now Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Area), while talking about 400-odd lakes and waterbodies under its jurisdiction, had rightly pointed out how increasing urbanization had led to loss of waterbodies, thus resulting in increasing run off area (causing not just loss of surface soil but also flooding of urban areas; Chennai floods in 2015 being the worst example in recent times). The lakes not just contribute significantly to additional recharge of the ground water regime due to percolation but also can be of direct use all the time for various purposes.

According to a research paper ‘Urban Development Impacts on Waterbodies: A Review in India’ by Sauni Wan Lenar Laloo and Alok Ranjan of MNIT, Jaipur, a holistic understanding and acknowledgement of an urban water system should be an important part of urban water management plan. Without a healthy catchment water body is no more than a tank and has no abilities to maintain its water balance by its own. It is also required to replace the fast track development programmes, with well analysed and environmentally sustainable programmes based on a holistic understanding of urban environment and its needs.

However across India, there are increasing number of examples of how not to revive lakes and waterbodies compared to very few examples of properly, scientifically

26 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Nivedita Khandekar Independent Journalist

done works. A recent example is from the national capital Delhi.

In the last week of December, the Delhi government announced a decision to revive 159 waterbodies and create two mega lakes using treated sewer water. Calling it as a “major decision, which would help recharge groundwater, create additional reserves of water among other benefits,” the Delhi Jal Board, the nodal agency for water in Delhi, approved the proposal for rejuvenation of 159 water-bodies all over Delhi along with the creation of mega lakes at Nilothi STP (25 acres) and Rohini STP (32 acres). While a whopping `376 crore was approved for rejuvenation of lakes, more than `77 crore was approved for the two mega lakes.

According to the government plan, the cumulative Lake area will be spread across over 350 acres with water potential to hold 1581 million litres or 135 million gallons.

“Water-bodies will be designed scientifically to recharge groundwater to the maximum extent possible. Apart

from rainwater, treated water from STPs will be polished using natural wetlands and other methods to maintain the water levels in the water-body throughout the year,” the government said.

Further the government claimed that landscaping would be done, and public areas and open spaces would be created around the mega lakes and other big lakes. The consultants for the project are NEERI, IIT Delhi and WAPCOS and different models would be used for different lakes depending on the condition in the area. Some would have treated sewage water of the local area, those in the dry areas will be revived through nearby STPs.

Whither BoD?

But not all are happy with the Delhi government’s decision.

Vinod Jain of NGO Tapas has been fighting a case in Delhi High Court since over a decade to save Delhi’s waterbodies.

In 2007, the Delhi High Court constituted a monitoring committee that has been regularly carrying out field surveys on a monthly basis. Up till now, approximately 1100 plus waterbodies, big and small, have been identified across the national capital. Six monthly report is submitted by the Delhi government to the court-appointed committee, which has stated that of these (1100+), ownership of as many as 629 waterbodies has been established while that for rest, even when these are marked as waterbodies on revenue records, the land ownership is not confirmed.

Of the 629 for which land ownership has been established, 159 waterbodies fall under the jurisdiction of Delhi government. The above-mentioned proposal is for these same 159 waterbodies. Jain, in a related case in the Delhi High Court, had drawn attention of the court

citing the case of Hauz Khas lake about how diverting sewage water into the waterbodies can be detrimental for groundwater. Therein, the Delhi government had filed an affidavit stating that it will not divert treated sewage water into the waterbodies. “(Now), diverting BoD (biological oxygen demand) level touches 10 plus, whereas world standards say BoD level need not be more than 3 for bathing purposes. If the government goes ahead with the plan of diverting sewage water into the water bodies for their revival, it will mean additional expenditure for eutrophication, just as was done in case of Hauz Khas,” Jain says, adding, “If and only if, the government has plans to bring BoD to about 3 or below, then only it should go ahead with this plan.”

Why the focus on infrastructure?

But it is not just the BoD part (the quality of water) that environmental activists have a problem with. It is basically the way these water bodies are planned to be revived.

Diwan Singh of NGO Natural Heritage First, with his team members has been working for the survival and revival of waterbodies in Dwarka area of Delhi. Singh and his team have been fighting for waterbodies for more than two decades now. In 2011-12, they had carried out a survey across 50 villages of Delhi that had 183 water bodies, big and small. Of those, they found as many as 93 completely dry; 63 had sewage in them and rest 27 were a case of reverse storage where people were pumping water and extracting water from the ground using tube wells as these waterbodies were used by villagers for animal husbandry. The bottomline is, all of them are non-functional as waterbodies.

Singh says the government plan concentrates majorly on using treated sewage water, not to forget the emphasis on infrastructure.

“Instead, the focus should be on harvesting rainwater in water bodies, big and small. That is to be done through storm water drains and managing catchment area through contour management,” he says.

Another aspect lacking is community participation.

As Anupam Mishra, the Gandhian environmentalist and author of the famous ‘Aaj Bhi Khare Hai Talab’ had so well documented, India’s stupendous number of lakes that acted as sponge for absorbing rains where it falls, survived entirely due to community ownership.

Time has come again to make citizens aware of the importance and benefits of lakes and wetlands. Just making policies and laws will not suffice. The community is an important stakeholder and the urban lakes and waterbodies cannot and will not survive and/or rejuvenate without the active participation of this most important stakeholder.

[Nivedita Khandekar is an independent journalist based in Delhi.

She writes on environmental and developmental issues. She can be reached at nivedita_him@rediffmail.com or follow her on twitter at @nivedita_Him]

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

27

One on one Madhav Pai, Director, India, WRI India Sustainable Cities

Answer to mobility woes lies in mass transport BRTs are cost effective, metros are not. The cost of metro is ten times more than that of BRT but still the poltical class prefers Metro because what happened in Delhi. Metro is a very expensive choice but politically safe. Cities across the world are going for BRT Let’s start with BRT because you have worked on this project in different cities of India. Do you think that BRT has a future in India?

BRT has a technology that serves a very good purpose.

It’s a very cost effective way of creating high quality mass transportation systems. If you look at the corridor in Indore today, you know that 11 km corridor is now carrying 70-75 thousand people. They are recovering all of their cost. So from cost perspective it’s a sustainable mode also. But one of the challenges in India is that, especially as you go to the smaller cities lengths of journey are small, so for 4-5 km trip people don’t really care for mass transport. Its the big cities where mass transport is more needed.

I think big cities are afraid to go for BRT after what happened in Delhi. They are afraid politically. It’s a lost opportunity. Cities all over the world you know like Rio and Mexico City are building BRTs. So we are not doing it and we are losing; we are going with the more expensive choice of Metro. The problem with Metro is you have to pay for it.

It costs a lot of money.

To put it in perspective, what is the cost of per kilometre of metro and BRT, if we compare the two?

Metro is about 300 crore per kilometre while BRT will be 15 to 30 crores per kilometre. Based on that calculation, cost of metro is ten times that of BRT. Like in Kerala, there is a new government and they are asking the right questions. If we take example of Kochi, they are saying why are we building this Metro if it’s only 30-40 thousand people who are going to use it daily?

How are we going to recover the cost of such a massive infrastructure? Even the Delhi Chief Minister is questioning the phase-IV for Delhi Metro. It is a good thing because in the end somebody will have to pay the debt, so that issue is not going to go away. So I think BRT provides a cost effective option. It’s just that you know politically that we have to be courageous to do it.

28 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Abhishek Pandey Editor

Why did the Delhi corridor fail and what are the lessons that we need to learn from that?

There are multiple reasons. If you look at it, BRT is equally about re-organizing operations. In the end if you build a corridor for mass transit and you want 60-70 per cent people to travel whole distance a five kilometre stretch will not help. That is why It didn’t solve anything. So you have to pick up a corridor where you need to ensure that for at least 70 per cent of people whole trip need is met.

Moving away from BRT and metro, let’s talk about the future of urban mobility especially now that electric cars are coming up. Do we have that kind of infrastructure to support sustainable transport of electric cars?

The reason I am asking this question is because when we started promoting

E-Rickshaws it has created a mess in Delhi. The proper management is missing and it is creating problems for traffic and for other road users.

I think we will have to create mass transport on major arterials. There is no other option. You have to make the most cost effective sustainable alternative. We have to make a choice a number of times and these are not just techno-economic decisions but they are political decisions.

So in that political context you have to make the decision.

So mass transit is a necessity especially on the major arterials in cities. But beyond that now we are really seeing a lot of new types of sharing that are emerging. In India electrification actually will happen in two three wheeler segment rather than in cars. We have a majority of people who still use two wheelers in our city. So, we can probably come up with ways in which you have shared two wheelers.

Two wheelers are very cost effective actually. Shared two wheelers, shared buses, these kinds of things can come up and actually become alternatives. There is a huge opportunity for India to rethink the usage of two and three wheelers. The government has to subsidize. Some amount of subsidy is required for public transport; you are not going to be able to run everything on profit.

Do we have infrastructure in place at this point in time?

Do we have infrastructure for electric vehicles?

See, charging infrastructure will have to be put in place.

Right now charging infrastructure is very limited. So I think charging infrastructure will have to be systematically put in place as required as we ramp up electric vehicles.

Often it will be home charging but some amount of charging will also be required on the road. I

think you know if you don’t get too many load peaks then the battery life increases. Still I think we will need charging infrastructure in a big way.

There is a concern about safety component of two wheelers. If a person is riding a two wheeler for 20 years, probability is that he will meet with a fatal accident he may lose a limb or eye also. So what is your view on this aspect?

I think safety is a huge issue in all our cities. You know hundred and fifty thousand people are dying whether its two wheelers, pedestrians or whatever. So I think from a safety perspective we have to completely reimagine our cities.

We have to make slow streets. At that point, if you look at the roads and the way we have designed them, we have designed them for a speed of 60 km/h, 80 km/h or even 100 km/h. This design of the road has to change because nobody can drive more than 20 kilometres an hour . So you should re-design the road because all that little accidents happen at night or they happen when there is some collision with buses. There are very specific places where accidents happen. So I think some amount of work has to be done through education and helmets and all of that.

But I think that is a huge part of it and can be done by redesigning the roads where there is space for people to walk, where the carriage way is designed for heterogeneous stuff which is what we have on India’s roads and basically slow streets. The streets that are designed for 25 or 30 kilometres per hour and it doesn’t cost much to do it.

We were talking about safety of pedestrians when the government and state government are widening our roads for cars specially. Your take on that?

As I said I think we need to segregate pedestrian and

in Kerala, there is a new government and they are asking the right questions. If we take example of Kochi, they are saying why are we building this Metro if it’s only 30-40 thousand people who are going to use it daily. How are we going to recover the cost of such a massive infrastructure. Even the Delhi Chief Minister is questioning the phase-IV for Delhi Metro two wheelers safety also. A road ideally should have three spaces. Less than 10 kilometres an hour for people who are walking cycling or doing what they were doing at less than 10 kilometres an hour, then 20-30 kilometres an hour for rickshaws. Two wheelers and cars can coexist at something like 50 kilometres an hour. Well ideally we should put more buses because you want to move more and more people in that space right. So this type of thinking has to come in road design. I agree with you. This requires some major education.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

29

Article Urban Dialogues

Agra’s history must remain a pivotal aspect of its development All India Institute of Local Self-Government in partnership with Agra Municipal Corporation and a host of other partners organised ‘Urban Dialogues – Amazing Agra’ at Crystal Sarovar Premier Hotel, Agra on December 18, 2018. The event focused on finding solutions through which Agra can be developed into a Smart City while preserving its culture and heritage. Some of the key takeaways from the dialogue were – History is an important aspect of Agra and must remain a pivotal aspect of Agra’s development; the city requires huge investment for strengthening urban infrastructure; the development agencies must engage all stakeholders in development process Team Urban Update

AGRA: ‘Urban Dialogues – Amazing Agra’ witnessed participation of over 150 delegates from different walks of life from the city. More than 70 corporators and municipal officials from Agra Municipal Corporation participated in the event.As many as 15 speakers including Municipal Commissioner, Team Leader Smart City, Representatives from local industries, NGOs and academic institutions put forward their views on various topics such as the development of Agra Smart City, significance of tourism in Agra, importance of the cultural and heritage aspects of the city, advancements that can be introduced to develop the city, better facilities to be provided for enhancing tourists’ experience, beautification of streets, parks and heritage sites complex to improve tourism, and much more. The key focus area of the dialogues was integration of cultural and heritage aspects in the development of Agra Smart City.

The conference comprised a total of two technical sessions, an inaugural and a valedictory session. The theme of Session 1 was ‘Seeing Agra’s growth through a heritage lens’ and the Session 2 focused on ‘Agra Smart City Development’.Arun Prakash, Municipal Commissioner, Rajiv Agarwal, IAS (Retd.), Director General of AIILSG, Ravi Ranjan Guru, Deputy Director General of AIILSG, and Prof Najaf Haiderinaugurated the event by lighting the lamp.

Rajiv Agarwal, delivered the welcome address. In his address he congratulated Urban Update for organizing the Urban Dialogues and talked about the significance of Agra in various domains. Admiring the city, he said that Agra in a way is the face of India. Agarwal put forward his arguments on All India Institute of Local Self-Government (AIILSG) and described the work carried by AIILSG in the domain of Urban Development such as – organising capacity building programs for various officials, events to address urban issues, working for the development of smart city plans, and so on. Arun Prakash, in his opening address,

30 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

congratulated AIILSG for organizing the’ Urban Dialogues – Amazing Agra’ and stated that he look forward to pull out conclusions and take back probable solutions to address the urban issues that the city is facing. Elaborating on the importance of tourism sector, he said that annually around `140 cr are collected as revenue from tickets for Taj Mahal.

He expressed his views on the need to enhance the tourist experience and said “to make tourists feel proud is one of our major objectives”. Better maintenance of tourist spots, building urban pathways around the heritage sites could possibly help to achieve the goal.

He gave details of development works being carried out in the city– Implementation of intelligent traffic system, improvement of road junctions for better flow of traffic and installation of CCTV cameras on 122 identified sites to improve security at public places. Talking about the development in solid waste management of the city he said, door to door garbage collection has already started in the city and the work is in progress to develop RFID tags to monitor the collection of waste from every household to improve the city’s solid waste management system.

The Corporation has installed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based feedback system in public toilets to know users’ feedback on the facility, he added. Detailing out the initiatives taken by the authorities on the enhancement of mobility in Agra, he said that the work is in progress to develop a mobile application named ‘Mera Agra’ and a common mobility card for convenience of tourists. He mentioned that out of 23 major projects that were conceptualized, on 14 projects the work has already began and that the work orders on the rest will be issued soon. PashimTewari in his welcome address spoke on smart cities. He said that everyone has his own perception on smart cities. Admiring the ‘Urban Dialogues’ he said, “this is the beauty of an event such as Urban Dialogues, where different perceptions, thoughts, ideas

Arun Prakash along with Rajiv Agarwal, Prof Najaf Haider, Ravi Ranjan Guru and Pashim Tewari lighted the inaugural lamp

meet at a singleplatform to find out best strategies for better development of cities.”

Hand-in-hand with city’s heritage and urban development

Session 1 focused on ‘Seeing Agra’s growth through a heritage lens.’ It witnessed eminent academicians speak on the topic and present their perspective on Agra’s development into a smart city while preserving its culture and heritage. Speakers who addressed the session with their valuable insights were Professor Najaf Haider, Centre for Historical Studies at JNU, Dr ArunodayBajpai, Head of Department of Political Science at Agra College and Professor Shashikant Pandey, Agra College. Abhishek Pandey, Editor, Urban Update chaired the session.

Professor Najaf Haider, the first speaker of the session focused on Agra’s past for the future. His arguments were based on how history can be taken as a reference point for development of a better smart city and at the same time preserving the city’s rich culture and heritage.

Acknowledging the glorious past of Agra city, he said that Agra’s rich heritage is the source that makes it a tourist centric city. He emphasised on the ‘sense of history’ saying, “Past or history is not the source of identity formation rather it is a source of knowledge that enables one to take unbiased decisions.” Putting forward his suggestions he said that there should be development of multimedia knowledge centres to promote lesser known historical monuments and improve awareness about the importance of history.

Professor Shashikant Pandey took forward the session

and opened his arguments supporting Professor Haider’s views and said that when someone develops an identity based on historical facts then it is one sided approach that could hamper one’s decision making. Pandey emphasised the role of general public and said that there should be involvement of locals with the authorities in smart city initiatives for a holistic development. Only government cannot be held responsible for development of any city as citizens are an indispensable part and play a significant role in giving life to the city. Engagement of people is important as the development plans and smart city concept not only affect the city but also impacts the lives of citizens, Pandey added. Developmental plans should include policies and strategies that are based on human rights. Also, there is a need to address and give preference to weaker sections of the society. Closing his arguments, he said, “Nondiscrimination and inclusion should be the rightful policy for development.” Abhishek Pandey supporting Professor Pandey’s arguments said that feedback from locals should be an essential part of any smart city plan.

The last speaker of the session was Dr Arunoday Bajpai.

Dr Bajpai began by mentioning that Agra like any other city has its own demands, own issues that are well known to locals and only local authorities, expertise and feedback from people can help devise best plan for the city. He stressed on creating a specific plan for a specific city as not all the cities are same. Criticizing the concept of centralization and adoption of a common basis for creating smart city plan he said, “The result of centralization is uniformity”.

Agra participated in the Smart City initiative and was selected among the winning cities in the second round. Agra Smart City is ranked 16th in the country and 2nd in the state of Uttar Pradesh Arun Prakash Commissioner, Agra Municipal Corporation

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

31

Article Urban Dialogues

As per my views on Agra Smart City, a multi-media centre and a heritage interpretation centre should be developed so that the local history can be visualized in integration with the national or the world history Najaf Haider Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU

From Left - Prof Shahikant Pandey, Arunoday Bajpai, Abhishek Pandey and Prof Najaf Haider addressed the Urban Dialogues - Amazing Agra

Development of smart Agra

Session 2 was dedicated to ‘Agra Smart City Development’.

The session was chaired by Dr Sudhir Krishna, Former UD Secretary, Government of India and the speakers on the panel were Anand Menon, Vice President, Agra Smart City Pvt Ltd, Dr Harshit Sosan Lakra, Department of Architecture and Planning, IIT Roorkee and Professor Brajesh Chandra, Former Director at Institute of Social Sciences, Dr B R Ambedkar University, Agra.

Pashim Tewari, Technical Director, AIILSG delivered the key note address for the session. In his address he compared before and after images of various smart cities. Describing the development works done or in progress under smart city plan he showed Pune smart city as an example with pictures of walkable streets, improved roads and said that cities should be designed in a way so that it has equitable space for both the pedestrians and the vehicles. Speaking further on improvements in Pune city he talked about better bus shelters, cycle tracks, urban walkways, and so on.

Moving on with a few more example cities he talked on the

development works in Bhopal, Udaipur, Vishakhapatnam, Varanasi, etc. In his following examples, he laid out points such as – development of parking spaces such as multilevel parking to improve congestion on roads, creation of digital platforms such as a city command and control centre to enhance the functioning and make it more easy and feasible and much more. His speech overall focused on how Agra can take ideas from other citiesto overcome the city’s demand and improve its smart city plan.

Anand Menon, in his address highlighted the smart city plan of Agra, initiatives taken in recent years and more development works that are ongoing. Admiring Agra’s participation for the smart city initiative he said that Agra was selected among the winning cities in the second round, Agra is ranked 16th in the country and second in the state of Uttar Pradesh after Varanasi. Talking about the Agra Smart City plan he said that the plan was drafted on the basis of the inputs taken from the local governmentand a total of 23 projects were sanctioned for Agra under the Smart City Mission. Menon listed out the development

We take into consideration various cities’ urban issues and organize this summit – Urban Dialogues to address those issues and come out with conclusions which we then recommend to the concerned authorities

Rajiv Agarwal Director General

32 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Amazing Agra Declaration Ravi Ranjan Guru in his valedictory address described the role of Urban Dialogues saying that this event is an attempt to bring together voices on urban issues Agra is facing. He said that the points discussed will be collated in a report and will be shared with the concerned authorities for appropriate action. He wrapped up the session with a declaration based on the points discussed through the day. Which are as follows: ♦♦ Agra’s history is an essential component of the city and it must remain a pivotal aspect of Agra’s development. ♦♦ The city must preserve its multi religious polity as well as the various diverse historical monuments and cultural diversities. ♦♦ Agra needs a huge investment in smart city development and it must engage public and private institutions for its development. ♦♦ There is a need of an immediate intervention in all types of pollution – land, water and air. ♦♦ There is a need for Agrato have an active community participation mechanism and must involve all stakeholders including the public representatives, education institutions, prominent citizen voices and industry. This must be supported with the measurement framework to make sure a minimum participation is guaranteed. The city must also involve its youth and make sure that they are well trained and smart. ♦♦ Agra must ensure the involvement of women to provide equal opportunity in smart development. ♦♦ Agra must adopt inclusiveness and must take care of its marginal fringes (Malinbasti’s slums, etc.) so as to bring them into the mainstream. works in progress in Agra city under the Smart City Mission – development of heritage walks in and around the lesser known monuments to highlight their presence and improve tourism as well, use of heritage craft to beautify the city streets near the heritage sites for a better tourist experience and to add value to the tourist spot. Describing further on the development he said, seven junctions have been identified for improvement to smoothen the traffic flow and reduce congestion. Turning towards the renewable energy sector he mentioned that 3.2 MW rooftop solar panel installation work on the government buildings is in progress. The solar project is a pilot project and if successful it will be implemented on the private buildings as well.

Describing improvements in solid waste management he said that the system of door-to-door garbage collection already exist in the city and now they are planning to install RFID tags to monitor the garbage collection. The

development work of command and control centre is on, Menon added.

Dr Harshit S Lakra in her address focused on community participation and implementation of measurement framework. She emphasized on the development of a measurement framework with inputs from industry experts, city leaders and communities residing in the city.

She mentioned the significance of regular and frequent monitoring of parameters used for measurements.

Elaborating on the importance of community participation, she gave the example of Ranchi and said that the infrastructure was developed for the tribal population but the community is not satisfied as it lacks traditions and culture they follow. Talking about women empowerment and involvement of youth, she said that women empowerment in India is a single trackapproach and is mostly limited to provide better security to women. She argued that women should be given opportunities to be involved in decision making bodies, corporate world, better education and more.

Dr Brajesh Chandra was the last speaker of the session.

He said that smart city plans cannot be similar for all the cities. Each city has its own demand and own issues to deal with. Therefore, for real development, specific plans should be made for specific cities. Also, the implementation of development works will be successful when designed and implemented according to the city’s demands, needs and capacity. Dr Chandra also talked about the ever expanding city of Agra as it has now made nearby places like Gandhinagar, Kamlanagar a part of it in the name of development.

Valedictory session

The valedictory session was chaired by Rajiv Agarwal and the speakers present were Puran Dawar, President, Agra Development Foundation, Mukesh Jain, Business leader.

Amir Ahmed, leading lawyer in Agra and Ravi Ranjan Guru, Deputy Director General, AIILSG. Puran Dawar began the session by emphasizing on the importance of integrated development. He said that there is a need for proper mechanism or policies to solve the major problems such as drainage issues, illegal construction along the banks of Yamuna River, unplanned construction on roads and much more. He also emphasized on the responsibility of locals towards the city’s development. Mukesh Jain said that functioning of local government impacts the lives of residents of the city. He emphasised therole of civic bodies towards the people and their safety. He talked about increasing number of deaths of pedestrians due to lack of road security and appropriate infrastructure. Amir Ahmed made the point that corruption is a major problem that has hampered the functioning of government bodies. Whenever a scheme is designed or planned the outcome is calculated first on the basis that includes division of share of pie and then the scheme is implemented.

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Dialogues Amazing

Agra

To discuss how the city of Agra can address urban problems of today without disturbing the city’s heritage and cultural ethos

December 18, 2018 Crystal Sarovar Premiere, Fatehabad Road, Agra

Smart City Partners

M.G. Construction RADHIKA-RPG-AARPEE INFRA (JV) M/S VINOD ENTERPRISES M/s Ram Sanehi & Sons Sushil Singhal Dinesh Kumar Singh M/S PARMAR CONSTRUCTION

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COP24: Negotiations & Resolution on Climate Change KATOWICE: Negotiators from 196 countries and the European Union worked for two weeks on the Katowice Climate Package, implementing the Paris Agreement. There were intense negoatiation among member countries that stretched several hours and days before a breakthrough was made. Finally countries agreed upon resolutions on different topics aimed at implementing the Paris Agreement On the first day, Andrez Duda, President of Poland and heads of 44 other states signed ‘Just Transition Silesia Declaration’. The document envisions reaching targets regarding climate protection, while simultaneously maintaining economic development and workplaces in the spirit of Solidarity’s heritage.

Participants discussed the ways of implementing the Declaration and their consequences.

The second day of COP24 was devoted to the electromobility. The theme was linked to the “Driving Change Together – Katowice Partnership for Electromobility”, a partnership announced by Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland on the same day. Already 38 countries as well as international organisations, representing over 1500 cities and

36 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

regions, joined the partnership. To implement the Partnership completely, a dedicated e-mobility trust fund will be established in cooperation with the World Bank.

Jerzy Kwieciński, the Minister of Investment and Development, Poland emphasised on the significance of efforts made by urban centres to reduce pollution and have a positive impact on the environment. Kwieciński said, “If we want to be effective in implementing climate policy in the world, we have to conduct it in a coordinated manner. We are meeting in Katowice to discuss the implementation of climate goals among the representatives of urban centres from around the world. We also want to promote participation in international cooperation among Polish cities and towns, especially within the NonState Actor Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) network.”

December 6, 2018, the fourth day of COP24 witnessed discussions on Socioeconomic and environmental aspects of energy sector. A series of lectures and debates held on December 8, the sixth day of COP24, was dedicated to cities and metropolitan areas. Participants discussed the consequences of urbanisation in countries and regions all over the world as well as solutions

which must be implemented to reduce the emissions. Małgorzata Jarosińska Jedynak, Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Investment and Economic Development of Poland participating in the discussions said, “Smog has become a real nightmare for the inhabitants of the largest urban centres. Investments in low carbon transport allow us to influence the comfort of their daily lives.”

The following day, December 9, was dedicated to the conclusion of discussions concerning the launch of the Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform.

The Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform will enable systematic participation of these groups in discussions on environmental policy, making it of the most important tools for counteracting climate change.

The ninth day of the COP24 December 11, witnessed discussions on one of the most important aspects of the summit that is Air Pollution.

Poland has been occupying high rankings in most polluted cities in Europe for years. Therefore, the Polish Government operates actively on several dimensions to achieve planned effects, including authority’s initiatives, public and private institutions, and also educating public.

December 13, the second-last day of the summit saw Michał Kurtyka, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Environment and COP24 President familiarised himself with reports on the negotiations on the implementation package of the Paris Agreement conducted by ministers in groups.

Each group comprised of two ministers — one from a developed country and the other from a developing country.

Negitiation were conducted in various domains such as finance, transparency, adaptation, global review, the Talanoa Dialogue and the IPCC report.

The UN Global Climate Summit – COP24 ended successfully. In two weeks a whole range of detailed and technical issues constituting a complicated document were discussed.

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Delhi to soon formulate a policy for public art NEW DELHI: The national capital will soon get a policy on public art including a Public Art Master Plan.

The Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) shared a draft on guidelines for the implementation of public art policy in Delhi on December 6, 2018.

The proposed guidelines list the details of the type of art forms and locations where they can be installed; list of approvals required; fixing responsibility for its maintenance and the role of local bodies in promoting public art.

Delhi has some public art, including sculptures, murals, contemporary art installations, etc., which were done without clear-cut policy. PSN Rao, DUAC chairman said, “The idea is to promote different types of art forms and its location. Dhalaos, dustbins, water tankers, communication towers, etc. can also be used to showcase public art.” There have been incidents in the past where artworks installed in public spaces have been vandalized.

The government agencies have struggled with the maintenance and protection of artwork.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Union Minister of State (I/c) for Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, while addressing a public art policy emphasised on the need to create an environment where

people respect and value public art. He said, “Public art is important for urban rejuvenation. But we need to protect it from being vandalized. Recently, I heard about people vandalizing the nuts and bolts at Signature Bridge.”

Rao said that the people, artists, organizations, resident welfare associations, etc. will have to send their proposals through local bodies for the approval of the art work.

DUAC will form a panel for public art advisors who will assist the agency in

finalizing the artwork based on the respective location.

The local bodies will be responsible for their maintenance. In the Public Art Master Plan, DUAC has specified a few places where public art can be installed. DUAC official said that flyovers, bus shelters, Metro stations, parks, district centres, markets, biodiversity parks, interstate bus terminals are some of the locations where public art could be installed.

CM announces PWD sub-division, mini secretariat for Jhandutta SHIMLA: Jai Ram Thakur, Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh announced the opening of PWD subdivision besides the construction of a mini secretariat at Jhandutta, while addressing a public awareness function at Jhandutta in Bilaspur district on December 3, 2018.

The state government announced a new scheme, Atal Adarsh Aawasiya Shiksha Yojana, for the State from Berthin (a village in Himachal Pradesh) for meritorious students, so that they can compete with the students studying in convent schools. He said

that a provision of `25 crore has been made.

He further said that 10 Adarsh schools would be opened under this scheme, which would have residential and special facilities for the students studying there. He said to ensure that the pace of development gets a boost, he had visited 58 Assembly constituencies. The Government was trying to give preference to the areas which had remained neglected so far.

Thakur said that the State Government had already succeeded in getting development projects worth

`6,300

crore sanctioned from the Union Government while Central projects worth crores of rupees were in the pipeline.

He announced the opening of health sub centre at Gugga-Geharwin and expansion of the PWD rest house at Jhandutta. He said that efforts would be made to develop an industrial area at Geharwin. He also announced `2 lakh each for 10 Mahila Mandals of the area.

The CM laid the foundation stone of 33KV sub-station at Berthin worth `5.96 crore.

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CPCB lists 6 lakh petrol, diesel vehicles aged more than 10 years The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) released a list of nearly six lakh diesel and petrol vehicles that are over 10 years old and will not be allowed to ply in Haryana. The list consists of details of the registration mark series, the name of the authority and registration numbers of these vehicles plying in Haryana, including Gurugram, Sonipat and Bahadurgarh. CPCB said on its website that the list includes nearly 2,87,613 petrol vehicles older than 15 years and 3,07,453 diesel vehicles more than 10 years old. The Transport Department had issued a notice warning that petrol vehicles that are 15 years old and diesel vehicles that are 10 years old would be impounded if found violating the Supreme Court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) orders.

BBMB installs two solar plants to supplement power grid The Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) installed two solar power plants at its substations in Jalandhar and Jamalpur that would supplement the power grid in their region.

The two plants have a total capacity of 100kWp and 60kWp respectively. A minimum of 2.56 lakh units annually is the expected power generation.

BBMB installed rooftop photo voltaic plants last year having an aggregate capacity of 175kWp on its office building located in Chandigarh. Installation work of 80kWp solar rooftop plant on the control room building of BBMB sub-station in Delhi and a 20kWp solar roof top plant on BBMB building at Narela is under progress.

38 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Ludhiana mandates completion certificate to get water, electricity connection LUDHIANA: Notified building bylaws mooted a ban on issuing water supply, electricity and sewerage connection before the completion of a building.

Residents of Ludhiana will get a temporary water connection, but the permanent connection will be provided only when people show the completion of a building by fulfilling all requirements.

This step is taken to check the wrong practice among the residents of Ludhiana of avoiding completion certificates after the construction of a building. The completion certificate is a kind of NOC which is issued by the Municipal Corporation Ludhiana (MCL) after the completion of construction work. A final checking is conducted by the officials to certify that the applicant has followed all the building bylaws.

With this practice, rainwater harvesting and fire arrangements can be ensured in all the buildings.

According to the records of Municipal Corporation Ludhiana, around 5,313 applications were received for building plan approval between April 2015 and

March 31, 2018, in all the four zones.

However, only 168 applications were received for the completion certificate.

A civic official explained that the temporary connection for water, electricity and sewerage is permitted for the purpose of facilitating construction. It should not be allowed to continue without obtaining a completion certificate.”

No building should be connected to a sewer line without prior permission of the authority, and without obtaining a completion certificate, he said.

S S Bindra, Assistant town planner said, “It is the duty of residents to apply for completion certificates, but most of the time people do not construct a building on the basis of an approved plan, and so they do not come for a completion certificate.”

He said that the lack of staff in MCL does not allow them to visit every building for checking.

If the condition of a completion certificate is applied strictly then it would be mandatory for residents to obtain one.

UPPCB fines NMRC for violating pollution control norms NOIDA: The Gautam Buddha Nagar district administration sent 31 notices to 10 institutions including the Noida Metro Rail Corporation (NMRC) for violating pollution control norms. The Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) officials said that the penalties were imposed after scrutiny by the district administration. As per the administration, 15 notices were issued against the government and private institutions asking them to pay a penalty of `50,000 for each notice. 16 notices were issued against three contractors working under the government authorities. The administration officials said that the violators need to respond on the charges within a week. If they fail to do so, the prosecution proceedings will be initiated against them. Shailendra Mishra, City Magistrate said, “The administration is serious about curbing pollution in the district. Following the Supreme Court order of November 26, we are going to start prosecution of all private and government bodies found violating pollution norms.

Enough warnings have already been given.” Officials said that the NMRC is penalised for pollution around the areas such as sectors 143, 144 and 145, where Metro construction work is in process. Several plot owners in the industrial areas and UPSIDC site-4 of Surajpur were sent notices. Additionally, 16 notices were sent to contractors working under the Noida authority and whose vehicles were found carrying uncovered waste and construction materials to and from the sites. The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) is also penalised for not implementing pollution control measures at several locations along the 130 m wide road, especially near Haibatpur village.

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Wazirabad to Okhla stretch accounts for 76% of Yamuna’s pollution NEW DELHI: A small stretch of Yamuna River covering less than two per cent accounts for 76 per cent of the river’s pollution, according to a monitoring committee overseeing its cleaning.

The committee said that the river is “fighting to stay alive”. It would not be possible to rejuvenate the river unless minimum environmental flow is provided as it is “virtually reduced to a trickle and remains dry in some stretches for almost nine months of the year”. Justice A K Goel, Chairperson, National Green Tribunal (NGT) formed the monitoring committee in July comprising B S Sajwan, retired expert member and Shailaja Chandra, former Delhi chief secretary. He directed them to submit an action plan and detailed report on cleaning of the river by December 31. The committee

submitted the details to the Delhi government. The action plan mentions, “Although the Yamuna river flows only for 54 km from Palla to Badarpur through Delhi, the 22 km stretch from Wazirabad to Okhla, which is less than two per cent of the river’s length accounts for about 76 per cent of the pollution level in the river”.

The two per cent stretch from Wazirabad to Okhla sees maximum discharge of untreated industrial and domestic waste.

The committee suggested that a team of scientists be formed from Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and other institutions like IIT Delhi or National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to carry out inspections and submit reports to it for remedial action.

It further said that the team can look into the risks and benefits of an alternative way of routing the same quantity of water which can help in reducing the pollution level.

The committee recommended a mechanism to be worked out jointly with DPCC and CPCB to install an online system for quality testing of water in Yamuna at Palla and Wazirabad. It said, “Not only standard parameters would be included but also ammonia because this is brought up as a recurrent problem which impacts drinking water supply to Delhi.”

The monitoring committee raised objection to the capacity utilisation of common effluent treatment plant (CETP) which is as low as 25 per cent.

Delhi has 28 industrial clusters. 17 of these are connected to 13 CETPs and the remaining 11 clusters are not connected to any CETP. The direct discharge of completely unregulated waste from industries and residences into the river is also a matter of concern. “The industrial pollutants when mixed with domestic sewage are not amendable to treatment even by the STPs due to limitation of treatment technology,” the committee rued.

Environmental experts raised concern over the report of the committee, calling it a matter of great shame and regret for Delhiites.

PMC to cover Sanauri Adda garbage dump PATIALA: Patiala Municipal Corporation (PMC) has begun the work of covering garbage dump at Sanauri Adda in Patiala.

Sanauri Adda, the biggest garbage dump site in the city covers about 3 to 4 acres of land. It has been a cause of concern because of the foul smell, dirt, pigs and stray animals, for residents of colonies, including Tej Bagh Colony, Jagdish Colony, Arayin Majra, Sunny Enclave and several others. The nearby colonies suffer from poor conditions as waste is burnt in open. The toxic pollutants from the fire cause respiratory problems, cardiovascular diseases and birth defects for the people. PMC had cleared the project for running bulldozers at the site to

level the garbage dump in its recent Finance and Contract Committee (F&CC) meeting. Yoginder Singh Yogi, Senior Deputy Mayor, PMC said that the officials employ machines to press and level the garbage dump present on the site with the help of bulldozers and hydraulic Poclain machines. “We will level the garbage dump and then it will be covered with sand.” The PMC expects to spend over `22 lakh on the project, including machine work, purchase and putting of sand. Yogi said that while the PMC had approved the GMADA-Patiala cluster solid waste management to be set up in Dera Bassi, the garbage will be sent to the site upon setting up of the plant.

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SDMC to provide eight parking sites for commercial vehicles The Standing Committee of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) on December 18 approved eight parking sites in its jurisdiction for private buses and commercial vehicles. Delhi Contract Bus Association in a petition to the Delhi High Court said that 8,000 buses are registered in the city which are paying yearly parking charges to the municipal corporations and are being parked on the roadside. Shikha Rai, chairperson, standing committee said that such parked buses cause traffic jams. The SDMC approved parking rates as well as a monthly pass for parking of these vehicles at the identified sites that include near Scope Complex at Lodhi Road, outside Tihar jail, and at Dwarka Sector 13 and Sector 14 metro stations.

Delhi approves 4th phase of Metro Delhi Cabinet on December 19, approved the Delhi Metro’s Phase-IV which will include six new corridors spanning a total of 103.93 km. Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, addressing a press conference said that the Delhi government would be spending a total of `9,707 crore on Phase-IV over the next five years. Delhi would pay `1,100 crore this year. The DMRC is expected to start construction from January 1, 2019, with the target of completing it by December 2024 at a total cost of `46,845 crore.

The six corridors include stretches from Rithala – Narela, Janakpuri West – RK Ashram, Mukundpur – Maujpur, Inderlok – Indraprastha, Aero City – Tughlakabad, and Lajpat Nagar – SaketG-Block.

40 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

NEMMP 2020 to promote production of e-vehicles NEW DELHI: Government of India has formulated National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 (NEMMP 2020) to promote the production of electric vehicles. As per the plan specific projects/proposal received under the different focus areas namely Technology Development (R&D); Pilot Projects; Charging Infrastructure are funded by the Government.

To promote alternative clean fuels and e-vehicles the Government has taken proactive steps which are innovative, ushering in proactive use of natural resources keeping in view the increasing pollution, oil consumption and expenditure in the country.

The Government has issued various notifications specifying mass emission standards for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), Biodiesel (B-100), flex-fuel (E 85) or (E100) and Ethanol (ED 95), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and flex-fuel Methanol M15 or M100, Methanol MD 95 and dual fuel vehicles. The Government has also mandated mass emission standard for BS-VI throughout the country with effect from April 1, 2020.

Further, for promotion of electric vehicles, Government has notified for retro-fitment of hybrid electric system or electric kit to vehicles and has specified the type approval procedure of electric hybrid vehicles. The Government has also notified that the registration mark for battery operated vehicles to be on a green background. The Government has also granted exemption to the battery operated transport vehicles and transport vehicles running on ethanol and methanol fuels from the requirements of permit. (with inputs from PIB)

No Cars at city centres in Spanish cities MADRID: Spain wants to ban the vast majority of cars from city centres across the country and the citizens to agree to the idea. Institute of Public Opinion poll sector (IPSOS), released a poll result stating that 63 per cent of the respondents favoured the restriction of car access in downtown areas. The agreeable attitude of citizens towards the ban increased to 78 per cent in the Northwestern region of Galicia. This initiative not only includes the ban on cars but also plans to bring zeroemissions vehicles in the centre of any town of over 50,000 residents by 2025; it’s a rule that would be applied in 138 cities all around the country. The first phase of these zones already exists. Central Madrid recently became an ultra-low emissions zone, protected against pollution and congestion by the toughest restrictions on cars in place on a large scale in any major European city. The idea of introducing such policies has been part of the public conversation for years. With Madrid’s first such car-restricted zone, a 1.8-square-mile (472 hectares) ultra-low emissions zone will transform the city’s transit network. 58,000 vehicles a day will be banned in the new zone. All the cars which run on fuel or gas and are designed before 2000 and all the vehicles that run on diesel designed before 2006 will be banned in the inner area of Madrid. This restriction might clean the city’s polluted air. It is also estimated that after the rules are introduced completely, the level of nitrogen dioxide in the area will drop by 40 per cent.

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Shimla to get 24*7 water supply The Himachal Pradesh government in an attempt to end the water crisis in Shimla decided to augment the Shimla lift water supply scheme at Chaba in Suni area, under which the town would be provided 10 MLD (millionlitres per day) additional water every day. Jai Ram Thakur, Chief Minister, Himachal Pradesh laid the foundation stone of the augmentation work that is expected to complete by next year. He claimed that it would ensure 24*7 water supply to the town. CM said that the state would spend `275 cr on drinking water schemes this year. He further said that the state government proposed a `4,751 cr water harvesting project to the Union government. This project would help in doubling the farm income by 2022.

Mahindra Electric partners with SmartE to deploy 10k electric 3-wheelers Mahindra Electric and a homegrown e-vehicle fleet operator Smart E announced a partnership on December 12. Mahindra Electric signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SmartE to deploy the first 1,000 ‘Mahindra Treo’ and ‘Treo Yaari’ electric three wheelers in DelhiNCR by March 2019. Under the partnership, both the companies will deploy a total of 10,000 electric three-wheelers across the country by 2020. Mahesh Babu, CEO, Mahindra Electric said that India is witnessing rapid urbanization and metros are driving the multi-modal mobility needs of the large working population in cities. Such associations will make it easier to adopt electric mobility and enable our cities to be more eco-friendly.

42 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Kerala gets 4th international airport at Kannur THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Suresh Prabhu, Union Civil Aviation Minister and Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala inaugurated Kerala’s fourth international airport at Kannur (North Kerala) on December 9, 2018 by jointly flagging off the maiden Air India Express flight to Abu Dhabi.

Vijayan said, “It is a historic moment for North Kerala. No doubt the new airport will fuel growth in Malabar area.” Prabhu said that Kannurhas scripted another chapter in the country’s aviation industry and it will paveway for the overall development of the State. He said that the new green airport will be a role model for the upcoming airports. C M Ibrahim, Former Civil Aviation Minister was also felicitated at the occasion. Around one lakh people were present to witness the gala ceremony.

The Kannur airport, built on a public-private partnership (PPP) mode is a semicorporate airport. 67.14 per cent shares in the Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) are owned by individuals (mostly NRIs) and corporate entities whereas the State Government owns 32.86 per cent stake in return for land and other development undertaken in the area. It can facilitate big aircrafts like Boeing 777 and has parking capacity for 20 big and small aircrafts. It has 24 check-in counters, self-baggage-drop counters and 32 immigration counters.

Kerala already has three international airports, at Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode. The new airport is expected to encourage tourism and other developmental activities in North Kerala and adjoining Kodagu region of Southern Karnataka.

The Civil Aviation Minister said that the airport will helpthe non-resident Keralites (NRKs), especially in the Gulf region, besides boosting tourism and exports.

Chandigarh to have health education centre

CHANDIGARH: The Chandigarh administration decided to set up the first health education centre at Government Model High School, Sector 22C, Chandigarh, in association with the Rotary Club. The setting up of centre would amount to `2.2 crore.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Union Territory Administration and Rotary Club for setting up the centre, which would be one-of-its kind in the country.

The Union territory administration has decided to set up the centre at the government school in the first phase. Later the committee comprising

representatives of the engineering and architecture departments and the district education officer would identify a site.

The centre will provide basic medical education, health checkup and training. It will be equipped with audio-visual means and will be set up within six months. It will be managed by a team comprising administrative staff, doctors and experts under the society which will have the advisor to the administrator as the chairman. The home, health finance and education secretaries of the Chandigarh administration will be members along with officials from other departments as well as the head of the PGI and two members of the Rotary Club. Rajendra K Saboo, former World President of the Rotary International, said that the club would spend approximately `2.2 crore for the centre, for which the expertise and know how would come from the US-based McMillen Health Centre, located at Fort Wayne, Indiana.

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rbanization of the country increases productivity and improves the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita over the long term. Estimates say that cities will generate 70 per cent of the country’s GDP by 2030. With the growing GDP these cities will experience significant pressure to accommodate the growing population in terms of housing, jobs and transportation.

It seems absurd that the cities struggling to cater the basic needs start building smart cities.

Here it’s important to broaden the definition of smart cities and not to just restrict it to technology. There are several learnings for the emerging markets around the world which could be found in the Indian Smart Cities Mission. Although the program’s capex will fall short, there are several best practices for city leaders in emerging markets.

Engaging with the citizen Efforts must begin with a comprehensive citizen engagement initiative. Under India’s program, every city identified one or two core pan-city issues that it would like to solve. Different cities across India chose mobility, governance, water, energy, security, and solid waste management as their top themes. Most cities that came out on top of the competition engaged extensively with residents to identify their core concerns.

By asking citizens for their input from the very beginning, the program ensures citizen support later in the process, though this support also depends on maintaining two-way communication with citizens. Authorities Kisslay Anand Research Associate, National must update regularly while seeking input on progress, quality of execution, and new ideas.

Institute of Urban Affairs

The Smart Cities Mission granted funding to cities based on project proposals submitted by each city. The competition between cities resulted in high-quality submissions that identified specific objectives and resources and were aligned with citizens’ expressed priorities.

While every city was given seed capital from the government, they were encouraged to come up with innovative sources of funding to bridge the gap between this seed capital and the money needed to fulfill their plans. These source ideas included land monetization, public-private partnerships, and other sources of revenue like development charges.

Solutions beyond technology While technology is a primary driver of India’s smart-city development efforts, the government also encourages cities to think about holistic development. Each city came up with a plan to develop a relatively small area (approximately 1,000 acres) and improve its living standards by addressing core infrastructure challenges such as water access, solid waste management, and open space. This approach had a threefold effect: citizens and city authorities imagined, for the first time, how a relatively small area could be developed and revitalized to achieve higher standards of livability; funding sources were more accessible for planning these pockets of land, given their smaller size; and citizens were more compelled to pay for these developments via betterment levies once they witnessed the real benefits of these neighborhoods.

Quick-win projects for core issues Identifying and rapidly executing quick-win projects is critical to building momentum and winning citizens’ confidence. In India, leading cities identified and implemented a set of quick-win projects such as rejuvenating urban spaces, redesigning streets, and deploying technologies including smart parking or integrated city applications. These projects demonstrated short-term results and increased stakeholder buy-in. At the same time, these cities also prioritized larger, long-term strategic projects, such as ensuring 24x7 water supply, and began making progress on them with the knowledge that such projects would take longer to implement.

[The views expressed are the author’s own. They do not purport to reflect the views of Urban Update.]

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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BRIEFS

newscan

Chamera lake to become model tourist spot The reservoir of Chamera hydroelectric project (Stage-I) popularly known as Chamera lake would be developed for water sports and adventure tourism so that the lake could emerge as a model tourist spot.

Harikesh Meena, Deputy Commissioner addressed a meeting of district-level water sports committee in Chamba.

He said that an action plan would be prepared to set up a houseboat, besides promoting other water sports activities and adventure tourism. Rafting and boating would be introduced in River Ravi to attract tourists who are fond of adventure sports. He further said that the local youth would be trained in water sports and adventure tourism so that they could earn their livelihood.

Mountain biking would also be introduced around DalhousieKhajjiar hills.

Indian Railways to roll out more ‘Train 18’ Railway Board issued a circular to Integral Coach Factory (ICF) to manufacture more Train 18 rakes by the end of current production year that is till March 2019. The circular was issued during a recent meeting of the Railway Board led by Piyush Goel, Minister of Railways, Coal and Corporate Affairs, held after the successful trial of Train 18 on December 5. Earlier, ICF had a mandate to manufacture only one more ‘Train 18’ rake in the current production year, but with the new circular, targets were revised. Sudhanshu Mani, general manager, ICF, told Financial Express Online that ICF will try to make two more Train 18 rakes this year and up to eight in the next financial year depending upon the allotment from the Railway Board.

44 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Odisha tops State Startup Ranking-2018 BHUBANESWAR: The Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy (DIPP) of the Central Government organised State Startup Ranking-2018 where Odisha was declared as the “Top Performer”, said an official statement on December 20.

According to the statement, Odisha was declared “Champion State” in terms of startup policy implementation, incubation hub, seeding innovation, regulatory change framework, public procurement initiative and communication.

As per the survey, Odisha stood ahead of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Delhi in terms of building entrepreneurs.

L.N Gupta, Secretary of Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) said,” We have taken multiple steps in implementing the Odisha

Startup Policy 2016, which aims to place Odisha among the top three startup hubs in the country. Currently, we are one of the fastest growing startup states with over 20 startup registrations per month.”

There are 334 startups within a period of just 18 months and currently the State has nine incubators, 12 nodal institutions and 110 mentors to support them which are recognized in Odisha.

“Startup Odisha Initiative” is an initiative by the State Government which aims to support 1,000 startups by 2020, apart from making Odisha one of the best startup hubs in the country, added L.N Gupta.

The states were ranked on 38 parameters relating to their respective startup ecosystem which also includes feedback from a large number of beneficiaries.

MCC to set up waste-to-energy plant soon MYSURU: The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has decided to follow the Goa model plan of dealing with the waste – converting the solid waste into source of energy. Though the waste management plants in the city including the Vidyaranyapuram Sewage Farm are working at full capacity, the graph of the garbage generated in the city is not coming down.

DG Nagaraj, civic agency’s health officer said that the Goa Waste Management Corporation transformed 110 metric tonnes of garbage into 9 Mega Watt (MW) of power that is

subsequently supplied to the grid and it has been working over the past two years.

Nagraj further said that Mysuru generates 450 tonnes of garbage on daily basis. The State Government has directed the three municipal bodies of - Mysuru, Mangaluru and HubballiDharwad to submit feasibility reports for the establishment of waste to energy plants in respective cities.

“We are planning on setting up a plant that can process and transform 500 metric tonnes of waste to power under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model,” said Nagraj. MCC has discussed the project with officials of the Urban Development Department and the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB).“We are awaiting clearance from the State Government, and KSPCB. We will decide on how to proceed once the project obtains the necessary approvals,” said Nagaraj.

newscan

BMC declares itself ODF BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) organised a self-declaration event of open defecationfree (ODF), as part of Swachh Bharat Mission activities in the Sstate Capital.

The event was organised in the presence of Ashok Chandra Panda, Minister of Tourism & Culture, Ananata Narayana Jena, Mayor of BMC, Priyadarsi Mishara, MLA (Bhubaneswar North) and Bijaya Kumar Mohanty, Bhubaneswar (Central), K.Shanti Deputy Mayor and Subham Saxena, Additional Commissioner at Unit VIII Community Centre.

BMC has taken a series of steps to provide access to clean and usable toilet facilities to fulfil the objective of 100 per cent ODF status in all Urban Local Bodies.

Ananta Narayan Jena, Mayor of BMC said, “We have constructed community toilets of 164 seats under Project Samman. We have also repaired existing 676 community toilet seats, which are now functional in various parts of the city. We are also slapping fines on those found defecating in the open.”

The Mayor declared a complete change in scenario over the past one and half years.

The BMC has also constructed public toilets with 154 seats under Project Samman and renovated existing 364 numbers of public toilet seats in different parts of the city.

Approximately 5,000 toilets are under construction and 320 hybrid toilets are already functional. BMC issued Work Order to construct 20218 individual house hold toilets out of which 12435 have been constructed. Also the corporation has passed resolution for imposing fine of `50 on anyone found defecating in open.

Srimanta Mishra, Deputy Commissioner said, “It is the vision of the State Government and our efforts that is yielding results.”

CPCB directs states to implement fly ash directive by December 31 NEW DELHI: The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) directed all state pollution control boards and pollution control committees to strictly implement the Centre’s notification on utilization of fly ash from coal and lignite-based thermal power plants

by December 31. The notification mandates mixing of ash in brick manufacturing, use of ash-based products in construction activities and use of ash in low lying reclamation projects, among others. Fly ash, toxic remains of coal and lignite burning in power plants, is full of chemicals. Besides causing harm to public health it leads to air, water and soil pollution. The government notified a policy for utilizing fly ash in 2009, the implementation of which has remained sluggish. CPCB issued directions as non-utilisation and insufficient utilisation of ash generated from coal and lignite based thermal power plants was leading to major environmental problem. It asked the state boards to enlist all brick manufacturing units located within a radius of 100 km of thermal power plants in states. District Magistrates were asked to consider cancellation of permission of brick manufacturing units within the 100 km radius who are not complying with the provisions. The CPCB also asked boards to submit annual implementation report and minutes of meetings of state level monitoring committee by June 30 every year.

BRIEFS

Madurai Municipal Corporation enforces plastic ban Madurai Municipal Corporation (MMC) enforced plastic ban in the city on November 10. V Satish Raghavan, City Health Officer said that at least 6000 commercial establishments such as departmental stores, restaurants, marriage halls, retail grocers, and eateries would have to stop using plastic goods having a thickness below 50 microns. First time violators will be issued a warning by sanitary inspector who would be raiding shops randomly in four zones under the corporation.

First time violators will have to pay a fine of `500 and on multiple violations the fine can go upto `5000, along with license cancellation.

‘Single-window system’ for builders in Karnataka The state urban development department will launch a ‘single window system’ for builders to submit building plans and to obtain no objection certificates (NOC).

U T Khader, Minister for Urban Development and Housing, while speaking at second New India Summit of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI) on December 5, said that the system will provide builders a single platform to receive clearance from all departments. Once the system will be onboard the builder has to apply online and software will accept the application automatically.

After the acceptance it will automatically generate application for the NOCs for various concerned government agencies.

Post issuance of NOCs the Urban Development Department will coordinate spot inspection of government agencies on the same day and the licenses will be given within a month.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2019

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URBAN AGENDA Advance Technology

India’s Urban Future Strengthened with Technological Revolution

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he Smart Cities or so called the ‘Next Generation Cities’ are the future of urbanisation. In India, Smart Cities Mission is one of the most ambitious initiatives taken up in recent years. Smart city plans developed for various cities include the use of advance technology for mapping, tracking, and management of urban resources, infrastructure, mobility, and so on.

One such essential element of the smart city plan is to create an Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC), a digital platform based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) that gathers information from various departments and analyses it for better functioning of the city. The objective behind development of ICCC is to capture the complete information of city on a common platform that can be utilized for transforming the way civic authorities respond, simplify their operations, allow them to be more effective in their actions and keeping the city safe and secure. Integrated Command and Control Centre is the ‘smart’ element in Smart City Plans and undoubtedly is the turning point in urban development. ICCC majorly comprises a number of technologies and engineering functions that enable automated decision-making. A smart city thrives on interconnectedness of several services and applications. For example, door to door garbage collection service needs to have vehicle tracking system for its better implementation, disaster management service needs to be equipped with early warning systems with more accuracy, energy and water services must work on smart meters and smart grids, etc.

There are several key challenges that authorities face while implementation or post implementation of ICCC such as: ♦♦ Manual Integrations – A key identification of a wrongly designed ICCC is when manual integration of multiple information feeds is done by analysts to provide the operators the tools they need. This can lead to an inefficient utilisation of resources and time. ♦♦ Connection Gaps – In many cases, there is a gap between the exchange of information between command centre

46 January 2019 | www.urbanupdate.in

Ashok Wankhade Managing Editor

operators and field personnel. This results in the loss of ‘crucial’ time and a loosely prepared response. ♦♦ Too much information – ICCC receives information from various sources which is not structured and hence leads to an overload. There is a need for an organized systematic integration and swift flow of information to give maximum useful information to the operators to take appropriate actions. ♦♦ Low real-time incident analysis – Presently ICCC are being used primarily for post-incident analysis. ♦♦ Increasing dependence of personnel - The response towards an incident may differ from one person to another based upon their skill sets and trainings. In the absence of a particular operator, there is nobody to respond to a particular type of incident. A well-planned ICCC must not have such dependencies and must ensure standard procedures with consistent outputs. ♦♦ Lack of Authority – At the time of crisis, ICCC should serve as the nerve centre for the duration of the response.

It should be perfectly self-possessed to connect all departments and stakeholders with the appropriate tools to provide a current understanding of the situation and support response efforts. However, it is observed that operators are not empowered to tackle an emergency, and cannot provide risk intelligence and authoritative decisions within time.

One of the successful examples of a smart city with centralized operations is Bhopal. Bhopal became the first Indian city to have a cloud based Common Integrated Data Centre, Disaster Recovery Centre and Integrated Command and Control Centre. In addition to Bhopal there are six other smart cities that have an operational ICCC – Gwalior, Jabalpur, Indore, Ujjain, Satna, and Sagar. The ICCC will enable the state of Madhya Pradesh to monitor multiple civic utilities and citizen services across seven cities through a central cloud. ICCC will be used for making cities smarter in terms of managing operations of the smart components deployed across the seven cities. This will finally benefit the citizens within the state of Madhya Pradesh.

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