Urban Planning & Issues

[Krishnamoorthy K]

AHMEDABAD: The first ever tree count taken up by the urban bodies will lead to the formation of a development plan for improving environment of the cities in the state.

The state government officials said that a tree survey to estimate tree population in the rural areas, outside the forests of Gujarat, was done in 2003 and 2009, but no such assessment was carried out for the urban parts of the state. Hence in 2011, the social forestry department decided to conduct the first tree counting in all eight municipal corporations, urban authorities areas and 159 municipalities.

The main objective of the count was to assess carbon store and also scope of carbon sequestration in the urban areas, to develop plan for improving environment of the cities and towns, to estimate the total number of trees and status of tree cover in the urban areas, to create a baseline information to monitor trend of tree cover in different cities and to find out the preferences of tree species in urban areas.

The officials said that to complete the tree census, the social forestry department has joined hands with urban department. The first planning for tree census in urban areas of Gujarat was done in late 2010 and enumeration was completed in 2011. The verification of counting was done in late 2011 and also in January 2012.

In Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation area, the tree counting was carried out in cantonment and other areas by the forest department, in schools and institutions it was conducted by teachers and students of the botany department of Gujarat University and municipal school board and in city gardens it was undertaken by park warden department of the municipal corporation. In the census, trees of each species were counted in 11 girth classes, ranging from 10 to over 300 cm.

TOI

Are they going to maintain some kind of computerized database of trees with some unique number along with type of tree and other information? Could they keep GPS based locational information also?

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Radheshyam Jadhav, TNN Jul 20, 2012, 04.50AM IST

PUNE: With the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) phase-II slated to be launched in the coming few months, the central government has sought to know from municipal corporations the status of water supply in cities, implementation of meter billing along with other reforms, including the city's water footprint.

"If the reforms are connected to government funding, politicos don't oppose it. A water footprint will force Pune's politicians to agree on radical reforms such as compulsory water meters, water audit and control on water theft," said a state Urban Development Department (UDD) official.

The Centre has told the state governments and local self-governing bodies that water security for the future will depend on its efficient management and that there was a need to be conscious of water footprints and evolve benchmarks for its efficient use.

Following the meeting of consultative committee of members of Parliament on the issue of water resources in Delhi, the government has directed states and local governing bodies that the planning, development and management of water resources has to keep pace with current realities.

In its communique, the Centre has insisted that a broad over-arching national legal framework of general principles on water is necessary for essential legislation on governance of water in every state.

The local bodies have been asked to prepare their own plans for water management on the lines of the National Water Policy.

The policy recommends that management of irrigation systems should move away from a narrow engineering-construction-centric approach to a more multi-disciplinary and participatory approach.

"The Central government has already asked the municipal corporation to bring radical reforms in civic water supply. The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is likely to lose its share of funds under the JNNURM phase-II if the corporation fails to prioritize water management and drinking water supply before they apply for central funds," said a civic officer.

Based on the condition that the cost of service and its recovery should be equal under the JNNURM, the central government had set up water meters for all consumers in the JNNURM cities. The PMC general body, however, had scrapped water meter system for domestic users in April 1, 2000. It has been billing users on a system based on the annual rateable value of their property. The proposal of water meters is still pending with the PMC, said the officer.

The Centre has also insisted on a public-private-partnership (PPP) for water management. "There is a critical need for mainstreaming PPP in these sectors, as it not only brings in the much-needed capital but also because it brings about greater efficiency and higher levels of customer satisfaction," said the officer

The PMC administration has proposed involvement of private players to renovate the water supply system, but politicos are divided on this issue.

TOI

[Krishnamoorthy K]

July 14, 2012 By G. JAGANNATH DC chennai

Ambulances may not be caught in traffic snarls anymore, costing precious lives. Realising the need for the life-saving vehicles to reach hospitals on time, a new integrated traffic system has been created to pave way for such emergency vans.

A green corridor for emergency services, including ambulances and fire tenders, will soon be put in place through this new system.

“We are going to create a database of emergency services, including ambulances operating in the city, and a GPS device would be fixed on them.

Through the GPS-enabled device, we will be able to track the movement of those vehicles in the city from the control command centre,” Purple Infotech Limited managing director P.N. Mahadevan told this newspaper. His firm will be implementing the project for Chennai police.

He said the officers at the command centre would take control of the signals on the corridors through which the vehicles ply to ensure that the vehicle reaches their destination on time.

Besides emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire tenders, VVIP vehicles would also be tracked and green corridor would be provided to their vehicles too, explained the company’s managing director.

“Driving in the city is a big challenge and so it is needless to say what kind of problems we ambulance drivers face. Apart from the traffic, the road diversions are a big hurdle,” complains a private ambulance driver.

Another problem that the ambulance drivers face is the string of motorists and autorickshaw drivers who follow the emergency vehicle like a tail when other vehicles on the road make way for them.

“If the ambulance driver jams the brake suddenly, the motorists who follow ram straight into the vehicle and create new crisis for the patient,” he added.

DC

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Chethan Kumar, Bangalore, Jul 22, 2012, DHNS :

Online planner

That struggle to find your way through the City growing beyond recognition may well become a lot easier if the project, developed by a professor of the Civil Engineering department of the Indian Institute of Sciences’ (IISc), works as well as its developers claim.

The sponsored project, ‘Maargamitra’ - a multi-modal public transport trip planner for Bangalore City - has been developed by Ashish Verma, a professor of the institute. The project opens for the public on Monday.

People wishing to use public transport in the City, including a combination of bus and Metro, can access the website (http://planyourtrip.civil.iisc.ernet.in) and plan their itinerary by just keying in the origin and the final destination, using an interactive interface.

Funded through various government schemes, the project uses a specialised software called transcat, obtained through a Department of Science and Technology (DST)-funded project which was completed at the institute earlier.

Speaking to Deccan Herald, Verma said: “We want to scale it further and give more options in future. Right now, we have the database of only BIG-10, Volvo and Metro Reach-1 routes.

Thereby, the maps and text providing details of how to travel are limited to these routes. This is an ongoing process and we are looking at other sources for funds to achieve the same.”

The system will not only display the best path (based on minimising the combination of walking time, travel time, waiting and transfer time) on a map and in a textual description form, but will also give the approximate travel time, fare and number of transfers involved (if any).

“Other than the best path based on minimum total travel time, the trip planner also gives best path based on a unique concept of ‘generalised cost’, in which the best path is obtained based on a weighted combination of walking time, travel time, waiting time, transfer time as well as fare,” Verma said.

On testing the website to provide information for travel from Shivajinagar to Koramangala fourth block, a map, accompanied by the following information came up on the screen: Skim values - fare: Rs 21, transfers: 1 and travel time (min): 27.798506. It also said that the person would have to walk for 0.689439 km, get onto Volvo 362E at MG Road for 1 stop, pay a fare of Rs 10, get off at Mayo Hall, and then get onto G3 at MG Road (Mayo Hall) for 7 stops, pay a fare of Rs 11, get off at Koramangala fourth block (Maharaja Hotel) and walk for 0.651697 km.

“All considerations can be imitated in trip itinerary planning, by considering a generalised cost approach during shortest path analysis for finding the optimum route through a multi-modal public transport network. To keep it simple at the beginning, we have used default weightage value based on our own study. However, in the coming months, the trip planner will be updated to allow users to input the weightages,” he said.

‘Maargamitra’, he said, is an attempt to convert the academic research into something useful to the society, and also promote the use of sustainable modes like public transport in the City. He said that a presentation on this system was made to BMTC and Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) a few months ago.

DHNS

[Krishnamoorthy K]

x-posts

Originally Posted by gandhi.rushabh1992

GREED EATING GREEN

Ahmedabad Needs 13 Lakh More Trees To Meet The 15% Tree Cover Norm

LINK



Ahmedabad: Suppose all the Amdavadis were asked to seek shelter under the trees growing in the city, how many people do you think would be standing under each? The answer is 9 people.

Unfortunately, Ahmedabad is not alone in the list of Gujarati cities with constricted lungs. Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar, and Junagadh have inadequate tree cover, the state forest department has concluded.

The foliage in these cities covers less than 15 per cent of their geographical area. Ahmedabad needs 13 lakh additional trees, in addition to 6.18 lakh existing ones, to meet the norm.

The first ever tree count taken up in the municipal corporations has revealed that only Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar, and Vadodara may be called ‘green cities’. They have higher tree densities than the average of the eight municipal corporations. Other municipal corporations — Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Junagadh, and Jamnagar — are below par. The average tree cover per person for eight corporations is pitiable eight sq meter.

“To achieve the norm of minimum 15 per cent tree cover, the total number of trees should increase to 56.4 lakh trees in the eight municipal corporations of the state, from 33 lakh at present,” additional principal chief conservator of forest, social forestry, H S Singh said. “Cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar and even Junagadh have to work really hard in this regard.”

The 159 nagar palikas of Gujarat have 32.44 lakh trees. The number of trees in corporations and nagar palikas adds up to 65.45 lakh trees. Singh said that if the 2009 count by the department for the rural areas was added, the total number of trees in the state would add up to 27.45 crore, the tree count for the rural areas being 26.8 crore trees.

Singh said Surat has poorest tree cover, the density being far below the average. Surat city has just 3.33 lakh trees, covering only three per cent of its geographical area.

Originally Posted by aks_sky

So we were discussing about Ahmedabad and Singapore. Well here it is, right from the AMC chief himself.

What Ahmedabad can learn from Singapore



Why can we not emulate it from today onwards. If he is able to witness all that in Singapore then why cant he atleast bring over some ideas and work on them. I am sure everything is possible if you have the will to do it. His email is also there if you want to email him about that issue we discussed before.

Originally Posted by aks_sky

But wait there is more!

Traffic cops may soon lock two-wheelers, too

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Radha Sharma, TNN Jul 27, 2012, 03.50PM IST

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat government has accepted the report 'A Solutions Landscape for Gujarat Cities.' The report provides recommendations on how Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara can be supported in their holistic urban planning, energy efficiency and waste water management efforts.

The report was presented by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to officials representing the four cities and the Government of Gujarat at an international seminar today in Ahmedabad. The seminar was was attended by prominent government officials and global business leaders.

A Solutions Landscape for Gujarat Cities was developed under the leadership of the WBCSD's Urban Infrastructure Initiative and brings together the expertise of various corporates that work in India.

Zubin Irani, a senior corporate official said "This project has demonstrated the importance of working with industry from other sectors, to ensure that the solutions offered to the cities are holistic, and respond to the varying needs of urban management authorities in their pursuit of inclusive and sustainable urban development. The UII companies in India thank the Government of Gujarat and city officials from Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara for their participation in this dialogue with us."

Peter Bakker, President, WBCSD said: "A growing majority of the world's people are city dwellers and if cities are not sustainable, then the world cannot be. This project is exciting because we have brought multi-sector businesses together with city officials and developed recommendations that are practicable and address multiple urban development issues. And they can be refined to meet the needs of cities around the world. By implementing these recommendations two major benefits of sustainable cities will be realized: improved living conditions, and the creation of inclusive communities."

TOI

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Published: Tuesday, Jul 24, 2012, 16:32 IST
By DNA Correspondent | Place: Gandhinagar | Agency: DNA

In the next few years, the state will touch new heights. A new policy allowing taller buildings is in the pipeline. A draft of the policy titled ‘Regulation for tall buildings’ has been floated among top officials for deliberation on the subject.

Sources in the state urban development department have confirmed the development. “The state government is mulling a policy that will allow tall buildings to come up in the state. At present, hotel and hospital policies allow buildings up to 40 metres in height. This policy paper proposes allowing buildings up to 70 metres high and even taller,” said a source on condition of anonymity.

According to the source, issues regarding Floor Space Index (FSI) are currently being ironed out. “Currently, hotels and hospitals have been given an FSI of 4, but FSI will have to be hiked if developers are allowed to construct taller buildings,” the source added.

Some officials believe the policy needs more dimensions. “The policy should not be limited to merely deciding about FSI, safety norms, and parking space only. We need to understand that such tall buildings will change the skyline of cities. The aesthetic value of buildings should also be an important factor,” said the official.

Other issues that needed to be considered are capacity development for building such large structures in the state, along with checking user acceptance, the official stressed.

DNA

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Vibhor Mohan, TNN | Jul 28, 2012, 03.31AM IST

CHANDIGARH: The city's skyline is set to change as the administration plans to relax height restrictions in southern sectors to allow structures with ground floor plus five storeys in future for 'space optimization.' This would be a major deviation from the present height restriction of ground floor plus three storeys.

Sources said the urban planning department has decided to allow upcoming structures, especially housing schemes, to go higher in the third-phase sectors of the city from Sector 47 to 63. A provision will also be made in the master plan of the city, which is expected to be ready shortly.

The existing housing apartments in the southern sectors have a maximum of three storeys, with some having stints for parking instead of the ground floor. But given the craze for owning a dwelling unit in Chandigarh, the decision would bring some relief as more families could be accommodated.

"While even in adjoining Mohali and Panchkula, there is not much appreciation in prices of flats and prospective buyers prefer plots, there is a mad scramble even for owning a two BHK (bedroom hall kitchen) flat in Chandigarh. Prices double in a few years," said Kamaljeet Singh Anand, property dealer based in Sector 49.

However, the relaxation in height restrictions is unlikely to be extended to the existing structures.

"There has neither been any request from any quarter nor has the structural stability of the existing flats been studied to consider such a move," said a UT official.

The upcoming housing project of Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) in Sector 63 is likely to be the first residential structure in the city to have five storeys. "It was due to a land dispute between Chandigarh and Punjab that the urban planning department allowed increase in height of the flats, which were originally planned to be five storeyed," said a CHB official.

TOI

[Krishnamoorthy K]

With urban transport being locked in a vicious circle of congestion, unsafe roads, long duration of travel, and so on, Prof Holger Dalkmann, director of World Research Institute’s Embarq programme, has said that although there are solutions to this problem, they need to be applied at the local level.

Speaking at the National Institute of Advanced Studies here, he said now was the opportunity to make the changes for sustainable transport.

“We have to look at it from an integrated perspective and make sure that we do not miss the window of opportunity that we have to adopt changes for sustainable transport,” he said.

He suggested the use of private transport should be avoided by developing land closest to transport hubs or bus stations, shifting to public transport and non-motorised transport by increasing civic amenities necessary for this, such as a bus rapid transport (BRT) corridor, integrated transport hubs, and so on.

Emphasising on BRT as one of the solutions for better public transport in cities, he cited examples of Ahmedabad, Rio in Brazil, and other cities that had adopted BRT successfully and were proactively thinking of expanding.

“BRT corridors can be built at a small fraction of the cost of other mass transit facilities such as Metro, mono rail or light rail. It has been shown in countries such as Brazil that BRT does not need extremely wide roads to work. It will work just as well if implemented correctly,” he said, adding that BRT also reduced road accidents drastically, not just along the corridor but in surrounding areas as well.

However, he added that BRT corridor alone could not solve problems unless it was properly implemented and monitored. While BRT had been working well in Ahmedabad, it failed in Delhi because of poor manner in which it was implemented, he said.

DNA

BRT taking Delhi for a ride: Survey
CRRI explained why Ahmedabad BRT works
Arrogant car users opposing BRT: Delhi govt‎

[Krishnamoorthy K]

By Express News Service - BANGALORE 26th July 2012 09:00 AM
Close to half the households in urban areas in the state live in rented houses, revealed the latest census data released by Karnataka’s directorate of census operations.

Of the total 53.15 lakh households in the urban areas, 27.13 lakh people live in rented accommodation. Also, of these total households, 15 per cent still do not have latrine within the premises and 12 per cent do not have drainage while 36 per cent have open drainage.

Criticising the government for lack of planning Dr R S Deshpande, Director Institute for Social and Economic Change, said that while urbanisation is an ongoing process care should have been taken to ensure a parallel development, which the government failed to achieve. “Both, the government and the private investors should be blamed as they have failed to meet the urban demands,” he said.

The census report also revealed that the percentage of urban population has risen from 24.31 per cent in 1971 to 38.57 per cent in 2011. It is also noted that Bangalore accounts for 15.69 per cent of the state’s population and it has doubled in the last decade. The number of people living per square kilometre in Bangalore has increased to 4,378 in 2011 from 2,985 in 2001.

Bangalore accounts for 15.69 per cent of the state’s population and it has doubled in the last decade. Of the 6.11 crore population in Karnataka, 95.88 lakh live in Bangalore, as against 45.63 lakh in 2001. Interestingly, one in every three person living in urban area, is in Bangalore.

In Karnataka, only 41 per cent of the households are using tap water from treated sources and 18 per cent fetch drinking water from a source located more than 500 meter away in rural areas or 100 meter in urban areas.

Bangalore city also holds the record for having the least gender ratio in the state - 908 women for every 1,000 men while the gender ratio in Karnataka in 2011 is 968 women for every 1,000 men.

“We have been terribly bad in this factor compared to other cities. One reason could be that there are more number of sex determination clinics. The other reason could be the migration aspect where in more number of males are moving into the city,” Deshpande added.

The literacy rate of the state has increased to 75.6 per cent in 2011, ranking it ninth in India, from 66.6 per cent in 2001.

However, the female illiteracy exceeds the female literacy in Raichur and Yadgir districts and eight districts have female literacy rate of less than eight per cent.

TNIE

[Krishnamoorthy K]

NEW DELHI: Delhi Jal Board has claimed that work on the interceptor sewage system is set to be completed by July 2014.

Once the three main drains running through the city - Najafgarh, Shahdara and Supplementary - are intercepted, the biochemical oxygen demand of the Yamuna, an indication of its pollution levels, will come down from a massive 40 parts per million (ppm) at present to about 12 ppm.

The main objective of the project is to direct the untreated sewage to the existing Sewage Treatment Plant (STPs) and allow only treated effluent into the three drains.

Work progress at the Najafgarh drain was inspected by CM Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday.

"The project, the largest ever undertaken by the DJB, will benefit about 70% of Delhi. This will help clean the Yamuna water for non-potable purposes, which will then be used extensively for horticulture and cleaning purposes. Delhi's population has been growing and we have not been successful in meeting its sewage or water demand so far," she said.

A 59-km-long sewer at the depth of 20 to 60 feet will be laid at a cost of Rs 1,978 crore along the river as part of the project to contain pollutants being released into the river by three major drains.


In pic: A worker at the intercepter at Najafgarh drain in Delhi on Wednesday.

The Interceptor Sewer is being laid along the three major drains -Najafgarh, Supplementary and Shahdara to intercept sewage flowing from the subsidiary small drains. The sewage will be taken to the nearest Sewage Treatment Plant ( STP) to ensure that only treated sewage is discharged into the river.

Sewage from 1,600 unauthorized colonies, JJ clusters and rural villages will be trapped in the interceptors which will eventually function as trunk sewers themselves. Work has been divided into six packages, all of which started simultaneously, on July 1, 2011.

The effluent generated will be treated to a level where it can be utilised for non-potable purposes.

"The project is already delayed and we wanted work to finish as soon as possible. Hence it was divided in six parts. Three are set to be completed by June 30, 2013 and work is complete by 22%-32%. The other three will be completed by June 30, 2014. Work on these has progressed by 10%-16%," said sources.

Governments of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and MCD, DDA, Delhi Small Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation and the Upper River Yamuna Board are the other key stakeholders in the cleaning of Yamuna.

The interceptor drains are at a depth of six to 18 m below ground level. The size of pipes range from 600 mm to 2,400 mm, depending on the quantity of sewage that they are expected to tap. The pipes are laid using trenchless technology like micro-tunneling and pipe jacking.

The concrete pipes will be lined internally with high density poly ethylene to make the structures stronger. DJB CEP Debashree Mukherjee said that periodical reviews are being carried out to ensure that work went on smoothly.


In Pic: Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit Inspects intercepter and drain construction at Najafgarh drain in Delhi on Wednesday.

ET

[engineer.akash]

INTL. MEET ON SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT AT INFOSYS MYSORE ON JULY 30

Mysore, July 28- The 3rd International conference on Solid Waste Management and exhibition of Municipal Services, Clean Technology and Machineries, ICONSWM-2012, with the theme Reduce, Reuse, Treatment of Waste, Environment Protection and Climate Change, organised jointly by Mysore City Corporation (MCC), Centre for Quality Management System, Jadavpur University and International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water (ISWMAW), will be held on July 30 at 10 am at the Mahatma Gandhi Auditorium in Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI) building in city.

The conference will be inaugurated by Saugata Roy, Union Minister of State for Urban Development. MLA M. Sathyana-rayana will be the chief guest while Mayor Rajeshwari Puttaswamy will be the guest of honour.

Opposition leader Siddaramaiah will inaugurate the exhibition and District In-Charge Minister S.A.Ramdas will preside.

Deputy Commissioner P.S. Vastrad, who is also the Executive Chairman of ICONSWM-2012, MCC Commissioner Dr. M.R. Ravi who is the Co-executive Chairman, M.S. Ravishankar, Chairman, ICONSWM-2012 and Commissioner, DMA, Bangalore and Prof. Dr. Sadhan K.Ghosh, Chairman, ICONSWM and Professor, Jadavapur University, Kolkata will be present.

[pkalein]

Interceptor sewer: How Delhi is gearing up to curb Yamuna pollution levels

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Secretary in the Union Urban Development Department Sudhir Krishna on Friday said urbanisation could not be prevented and the solution lay in creating planned cities making them hubs of economic growth.

Delivering the keynote address at the South India Real Estate Conference 2012 organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here, Mr. Krishna said at a time when landholdings were decreasing, the solution was in encouraging migration to create larger holdings so as to increase food production on the other hand.

As of now, urban areas contribute 60 per cent of the gross domestic product, which is less compared to other parts of the world (90 per cent).

Between 2001 and 2011, the number of towns have increased from 5,161 to 7,935; districts from 593 to 640 and urban population from 1078.73 million to 1,210.20 million, he said.

The 12th Five-Year Plan seeks to step up investment in urban infrastructure; strengthen urban governance; augment soft infrastructure (system); besides renewing and giving more prominence to regional planning. Mr. Krishna said issues in city planning such as city mobility plan giving primacy to public and non-motorised transport; economic and commercial activity plan; infrastructure plan; waste management and inclusive zoning for orphans, aged, working women etc., should be properly dealt with.

The present master plans which are developed for 15 to 30 years should give way to review of plans once in three or five years so as to have more flexibility. On its part, the Union Urban Development Department had proposed several policies on urban governance. Besides, the department was reviewing the standards for urban buses so that the manufacturers produce buses to the market requirement instead of operators buying whatever manufacturers produce.

Unified bylaws

Dwelling upon framework for real estate development, Mr. Krishna said the department was attempting to come out with unified building bylaws across the country. “We are trying this with Delhi at present and the same will be proposed to other State governments too,” he said.

TH

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Other urban areas to follow similar procedure using satellite imagery of NRSA, Survey of India maps

The Khammam draft master plan has become the case study for other urban areas in the country to go for advanced planning utilising satellite imagery of the National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA), maps supplied by the Survey of India (SOI) and ground validation within the next two years, said Union Secretary for Urban Development Sudhir Krishna.

Announcing the renewed launch of the National Urban Information System (NUIS) initiated by the Union Ministry of Urban Development for preparing master plans utilising the ‘Bhuvan’ portal of NRSA at a press conference, Mr. Sudhir Krishna said a toolkit too has been formulated for the same.

Workshop

The toolkit, along with a demonstration of the services for town planners including the Khammam case study, was made at the one-day workshop on ‘NUIS scheme with special emphasis on Bhuvan’ at NRSA attended by 250 municipal commissioners and planners from all over the country.

Mr. Sudhir Krishna said State-level training programmes would commence shortly within the next three months for using the technology during which time all urban satellite maps would be made accessible through ‘Bhuvan’ as also GOI maps which was a significant step.

There are 7,935 urban areas in the country of which about 4,000 have notified their respective master plans. In the State, of the 170 urban areas, 90 municipalities and 23 urban development authorities have master plans. “Master Plans are a must for urban areas with proper mapping of the utilities like water, sewage, environment and even metro needs for the next 20 years to tackle the fundamental problems of cities. Mid-term reviews of the master plans can also be made under NUIS,” he said.

NUIS was initiated in 2006 and 152 urban areas in different parts of the country were chosen for preparing the geospatial database in the first phase with the Directorate of Town & Country Planning (DTCP) as the nodal agency. Funds were not a constraint as each unit would cost up to Rs. 20 lakh only and funds could also be sourced from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), said the Union Secretary.

NRSA Director V.K. Dadhwal said efforts to make ‘Bhuvan’ user friendly was a “continuous process” and did not want any comparison with Google Earth as there was a restriction in the picture resolution unlike the latter.

TH

How to Fix Our Cities
India in transition: Urban migration and exclusion
Master Planning 7,935 Indian Cities and Towns

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Shirish B. Patel



Doubling or quadrupling Mumbai’s FSI will only increase its massive street crowding

Indian cities have evolved over centuries, and in general do not have the grand layouts and leafy avenues of many of their more recent western counterparts. New Delhi is an exception, but then its layout is a western imposition and has nothing to do with the way old Delhi developed, or indeed any other city in India barring a few more recent exceptions.

Building codes

In every city, buildings are meant to conform to a set of building codes — informal earlier, now formalised. These codes are complex: buildings have to observe a minimum required front open space, possibly side and rear open spaces as well, with plinths often mandated to cover no more than a specified fraction of the plot area. The maximum number of floors is also often specified.

A post-World War II innovation from America introduced a new form of building control. This is called FSI (Floor Space Index) in India and FAR (Floor Area Ratio) everywhere else in the world. It is the ratio of built-up area of all floors on the plot to the area of the plot itself. The FSI regulation is welcomed by architects. They like the freedom to reduce the footprint of the building and increase the number of floors, while still observing the FSI rule which sets the total built-up area allowable on each particular plot. But from the authorities’ point of view, the FSI specified has to be carefully managed to ensure that the extent of built-up floor space permitted in a locality does not exceed that locality’s infrastructure capacity, in regard to water supply and sewerage of course but, more importantly, in regard to transport and crowding on the streets.

The World Bank has been relentlessly complaining that Indian cities are not optimally using their land. They particularly pick Mumbai to make this case and point out that the city’s irrational building rules impede good economic use of real estate. Alain Bertaud, in particular, a consultant to the World Bank, is vehement that FSI levels in Mumbai are too low and need to be immediately and drastically increased. Once this happens, it will become a model for the rest of the country. To underline its argument, the World Bank presents a bald comparison of FSI across international cities, which is both meaningless and misleading. It is like comparing individuals’ weights without considering their heights or the societies they live in. The policy recommendations that emerge can be both dangerous and damaging for the city.

Table 1 has the FSI values for one of the most crowded residential localities in Manhattan, Community District 8, known as the Upper East Side, compared with Mumbai’s C Ward, one of Mumbai’s densest areas:

On the strength of comparisons like this, Mumbai’s FSI has been portrayed as undesirably low and pushed up to 4, which is the current upper limit, except in the case of hotels, educational institutions, hospitals and the like where the limit can be much higher.

Indoor crowding

But there is a major factor missing in this World Bank’s comparison of FSI. This is that cities are at different levels of economic development, inhabited with individuals occupying, on average, different extents of floor space. Living is simply more crowded in some places, and less crowded in others. Table 2 is a comparison of what we might call indoor crowding.

It highlights staggering differences: Manhattan, at 64 sq.m per person, has six times more residential floor space than someone in Mumbai’s C Ward, and Manhattan has over five times as much floor space per job. With such extravagant use, no wonder Manhattan needs a much larger FSI.

Buildable area

A second factor that is missing in comparing cities is the extent of buildable area: in other words, the proportion of buildable plots to street area. FSI applies only to buildable plots. In Manhattan’s CD-5 the Plot Factor (plot area / street area) is 1.7, which means 37 per cent of the area is under roads and only 65 per cent is available for construction (65/37 = 1.7). In Mumbai’s C Ward, the area under roads is less and the area available for construction is higher — 71 per cent buildable, 29 per cent streets (making for a Plot Factor of 2.4).

What must be factored into any debate on FSI is street crowding. This is an important index which gives an idea of how many occupants live within a given street area. It is the product of the number of residents per unit of floor area, the Plot Factor and FSI. Despite the higher FSI in Manhattan’s CD-8 (three times that of Mumbai’s C Ward), the street crowding is only 2,190 persons per hectare, whereas Mumbai’s C ward even with its lower FSI has 4,690 persons per hectare:

Mumbai’s C Ward already has its streets more than twice as crowded as Manhattan’s Upper East Side (see Table 3). Any doubling or quadrupling of FSI in Mumbai’s C Ward, as is being currently debated under prodding by the World Bank, will only double or quadruple its already massive street crowding to levels so far not seen anywhere in the world.

We have recently witnessed this in a small way in Mumbai’s suburbs. In October 1997, there was a sudden relaxation and FSI could be increased from 1 to 2 in the western suburbs, using Transferable Development Rights. Everyone experienced the sudden increase in traffic volumes, a new and infuriating congestion arising from a doubling of traffic which could not be explained by the slow rise in car ownership, and was much more closely related to the increase in building volumes.

The World Bank’s comparison of international FSI values is thus simplistic in the extreme and seriously misleading, because it ignores the other equally relevant parameters of indoor crowding and Plot Factor. Pressing for a major upward revision of FSI without a corresponding improvement in infrastructure, particularly transport to deal with crowding, is logically indefensible. It promises something it cannot deliver, an improvement in the quality of life. For the poor, and the vast majority of citizens, it will result in a worsening of living conditions, particularly travelling conditions. But worst of all, it is a red herring. It distracts us from the central problem, which is that adding to the city’s land area by establishing new transport arteries is being invariably and unaccountably delayed. There is also a deliberate companion policy of withholding land from the market by one means or another. How to keep land in short supply is thus the name of the game, by which fortunes can be made in short order, and never mind what happens to Mumbai or its citizens.

(Shirish B. Patel is a civil engineer by training and an Urban Planner by accident, experience and inclination. He was one of the three original authors of the idea of New Bombay, and for its first five years was in charge of planning, design and execution for the new city.)

TH

[Krishnamoorthy K]

IANS

Bangalore, Aug 3 (IANS) With increasing migration to urban areas from villages and towns in pursuit of education, jobs and better living, realtors should build smart cities for housing all with as many amenities, a senior official said Friday.

"The way forward to solve the acute housing problem in urban areas is to build smart cities with better amenities so as to provide a quality life for denizens and decongest the old and densely populated cities," union Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Krishna said at a day-long conference on real estate in south India here.

Quoting data on how about 60 percent of the GDP was being generated from urban areas with growing cities as economic hubs, education hubs and tourism hubs, Krishna said smart cities should be planned using a transit-oriented approach to create an ecosystem that would be sustainable and affordable.

"The 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) also highlights inclusive governance and environmental sustainability to ensure transparent development of urban areas with master plans and debt coverage ratio," Krishna told about 100 delegates participating in the first 'South India's Real Estate' conference, oragnised by the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ficci).

Though the realty sector across the country has seen a dip in demand due to economic slowdown, high interest rate and increase in capital cost, south India has been a trend setter for the housing sector in the country.

"As a large state, realty sector across Karnataka has been growing at 15 percent and demand for housing is poised to grow by 11 percent during this fiscal (2012-13). With four million people living in slums across the state, there is a huge potential for affordable housing through the public-private partnership model," Karnataka Housing Secretary Laxmi Narayana said.

With the IT and business process outsourcing (BPO) industry generating huge demand for commercial as well as housing space in the state capitals - Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, the realty sector in the southern states have grown by leaps and bounds over the last decade.

"As the knowledge industry expands with sunrise sectors such as biotech, pharma, aerospace and nanotech growing, the number of tier-one and tier-two cities in the four southern states is poised to grow to 14-15 in the next five years from 10-11 currently," Ficci real estate committee chairman and Hirandani Estate managing director Niranjan Hirandani observed.

Stakeholders at the conference favoured a holistic solution to urban development with equal emphasis on planned growth of industrial, commercial and residential areas for optimal utilisation of scarce space and healthy environment.

"As migration of people to urban from rural areas and growth of cities is unstoppable, long-term planning and affordable solutions are imperative to meet the demand for commercial and housing space," Hirandani noted.

A white paper on "Re-orienting Real Estate through Smart Concepts and Technology", by Ficci and global consultants Ernest and Young was released on the occasion.

The paper highlights the accelerated economic growth over the past two decades in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

News Track India

[Krishnamoorthy K]

India's urban population is projected to grow to 533 million by 2025; and the real estate industry is likely to grow by almost 30% over the next decade, partly as a result of building accommodations for this expanding urban population.

Since the housing sector currently contributes up to 6% of the country's GDP and with the National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy stating that at least 50% of the population will live in urban areas by 2041, there is a need to guide sustainable mobility and infrastructure within townships that are coming up in peripheral areas.

According to Madhav Pai, Director , EMBARQ India, new residential developments and townships should aim to retain urban characteristics, prioritize pedestrian and bicycling accessibility and promote mixed-use developments that accommodate the needs of all including children, the elderly and differently-abled .

"This will result in improved accessibility, reduced carbon emissions, enhanced quality of life and economic development. It is important to influence the way we imagine, plan and build our cities and make mobility - especially non-motorized modes and linkages to public transport - an active indicator that consumers , builders and policy makers insist upon in new developments ," he says.

While emphasising on sustainable mobility practices, Rajat Malhotra, COO - Integrated Facilities Management (West Asia), Jones Lang LaSalle India points out, "Most people are aware of and worry about the evils of climate change, but do not consider how much motor vehicle use is contributing to it. The future may hold technological solutions to this menace, including Tata Motors' 'air car' , but for now the obvious counter-measure is reduced vehicle use."

One of the most progressive concepts to have entered the Indian real estate arena in recent times is the integrated township. "Because of the country's huge industrial thrust and significant share of offshore IT / ITeS business , many of the townships taking shape today are centered around manufacturing and information technology hubs. Naturally , they attract home buyers who are also employed in these centers - primarily for the inherent walk-to-work option. Because these townships also offer shopping, entertainment and healthcare facilities within their premises, motorized traffic is vastly reduced," says Malhotra.

Meanwhile, the developers have tried to retrofit their master plans and incorporate basic sustainable mobility guidelines to increase pedestrian and bicycle safety, and reduce motorized transport. They have identified the key enablers and indicators that could be used as tools for sustainable mobility solutions.

While encouraging sustainable mobility principles in real estate, Kishor Pate, CMD, Amit Enterprises Housing Ltd and Hon. Secretary, CREDAI (Maharashtra ) says, "From a residential real estate point of view, the solution clearly lies in providing residents with as many facilities of daily living as possible within residential projects. The developers should focus on project designs that incorporate such facilities and designating no-vehicle zones. The location of the project is also a critical factor . If space constraints within the project do not permit the provision of these facilities, the project can still be located close enough to them to minimise vehicle use."

Seconds Ashok Kumar, Principal and M.D, Cresa Partners, "The new residential developments and townships should inhibit the growth and use of motorized mobility options. This will result in improved accessibility , reduced carbon emissions, enhanced quality of life and economic development."

Besides, in order to ensure sustainable mobility, PMC should integrate the process of revising the Development Plan in this wider planning concept including economic, social, cultural and ecological policies, says Kumar. "There is a lack of planners and planning. There is also need to develop a community of practice from preaching to implementation . The information and data are some of the largest gaps in the system and improving that would be the first step towards building better public, private and participatory mechanisms."

In Pune, there is a need for effective models that may integrate efficiency, speed, cost, mobility and employment. The public-private mobility options and optimal balance will be key factor. When it comes to mobility, we tend to look only at the immediate problems of accidents, traffic congestion, lack of parking spaces and the cost of fuel. However , increased mobility also has a huge impact on the environment and hence the issue needs to be addressed.

ET

[Krishnamoorthy K]

by K.P. Narayana Kumar, Udit Misra

...

“Gurgaon today has the highest number of professionals per square inch in the country,” points out Atal Kapoor, an architect and one of the founding members of I am Gurgaon, an association focussed on improving the quality of life of its residents.

Today, Gurgaon houses practically every big name in the corporate world. Its buildings are designed by the best architects from across the world. Gurgaon has more than 20 outlets for luxury cars such as BMW, Audi and Volkswagen. Malls that stock practically every international brand dot the landscape.

The National Capital Region Planning Board, a body that overlooks planning for regions surrounding Delhi, had forecast that by 2021, Gurgaon would have a population of 16.5 lakh people. That number will be breached this year, nine years ahead of projection.

That explains why Ramaswamy R Aiyer, one of the most respected names in water management in the country, sounds acerbic. “Gurgaon is a disaster, a horror story of how urbanisation should not happen. It is not merely Gurgaon—little Gurgaons are emerging all over Delhi. When these monstrosities were being ‘developed’, did anyone think about where the water for them would come from, and where the waste generated by them would go? Now they exist and answers have to be found. I have nothing to say except to say that this isn’t development, but mal-development.”

His sentiments are echoed by Pramod Bhasin, non-executive vice-chairman of Genpact, India’s largest BPO. “There was a chance to build world class infrastructure and it wasn’t that difficult either. We could have built Singapore. But we didn’t.”

“The problems are clear if you sit here long enough. The roads here used to be dug up every six months…. I’ve seen buildings come up along with pastures where sheep grazed. It was inevitable our offices would collide with the lives of those who lived here in the villages,” he laments.

But research by PropEquity, a firm that researches property markets in India, throws up an interesting paradox. Between 2006 and 2011, as many as 35,353 new dwelling units were created. In the next three years, they predict almost one lakh units are being planned at an average price of Rs 4,500 per square foot.

The paradox is amplified by Bhasin’s sentiments. “An average Delhi resident sneezes at Gurgaon. But I look at them and say you live in a mess and pretend you’re better off because I’m far away from Delhi. But the quality of life is better here. The restaurants, the bars, the golf courses, the clubs are better here.” So much so that when a new expressway connecting Delhi with Gurgaon was opened, the concessionaire who built the road broke even within five years. Thanks to the projections, though, their concession period lasts all of 25 years.

Then, on the other hand, there are migrant labourers, domestic help and industrial workers who constitute Gurgaon’s poor. With no access to public transport, they resort to sharing auto rickshaws or comply with taxi drivers who flout norms and stuff as many as 10 people into a single cab. Their children often fall into bore-wells laid by citizens. These wells were dug because the government is in no position to guarantee water supplies.

The truth lies somewhere in between these extremes. People aren’t willing to let go of Gurgaon simply because there is no alternative. Gurgaon attracted them because property could be bought with money on which they had paid taxes and titles were clear. In Delhi, the costs were prohibitive and when affordable, the titles were disputed.

Who is in charge

of Gurgaon,’ is a question that could qualify for Kaun Banega Crorepati,” says KC Sivaramakrishnan, an expert on urbanisation from the Centre of Policy Research. His question comes from the fact that there are multiple entities that hold responsibility to develop the city. There is the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), private builders and a newly set up Municipal Corporation. Each has its own zones to manage. The problem with this approach is that implementing a holistic plan for Gurgaon has become nearly impossible.

Incidentally, the Corporation, which held elections for the first time last year, is yet to be allotted an office. Corporators say this is because the chief minister’s office does not want to cede control. “We have repeatedly told the mayor and the chief minister we want an office. But they want everything to be controlled from Chandigarh,” says a corporator who spoke off-the-record. The chief minister’s office did not respond to queries.

What exists now is a situation where only a third of Gurgaon is connected to a sewerage line. But residents who live in private colonies say HUDA officials turn their complaints down, arguing sewerage lines are the responsibility of private builders. Some builders have taken the onus of building sewage treatment plants and facilitating water supplies with private tankers.

Forbes India

Urban Journal: No Wonder Gurgaon’s Revolting
Haryana Urban Development Authority understates Gurgaon's population to tweak water figures

[Krishnamoorthy K]

PTI | 10:07 PM,Jul 31,2012

Hyderabad, Jul 31 (PTI) The Union Urban Development Ministry is making efforts to prepare Master Plans for a number of urban bodies in the next one or two years, a top official said today. "Among 7,935 cities and towns, only 24 per cent have got notified Master Plans. So, the Ministry of Urban Development, in collaboration with the partner institutions such as National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), Survey of India, also State Governments, we want to prepare Master Plan for all cities in the months to come," Sudhir Krishna, Urban Development Secretary, told reporters here. The problems in preparation of Master Plan are lack of staff and funding, among others, he said. Krishna, however, said efforts are underway to address problems like training manpower, availability of maps in a year or two. "First step we have crossed is availability of maps. The hitch was that whether the maps can be used in public purpose or not. Maps are ultimately in public domain. Planning authority cannot hold on to maps in their drawer or almirah. Now that the Survey of India has permitted, in two weeks time, all this will be uploaded on Bhuvan (ISRO's Geoportal)." The training of officers in the necessary skills would begin shortly and the exercise will be completed in about three months, Krishna said. The Secretary was briefing reporters on a national workshop on National Urban Information System (NUIS) of the Union Urban Development Ministry.

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