Urban Planning & Issues

[Krishnamoorthy K]

From the urban design and heritage perspective, I have short-listed five ideas:

* Implement 74th constitutional amendment to decentralise governance, give power to people, check on corruption, organise public hearings, ensure all committees have non-political members and engage varied subject experts behind every urban intervention. Bangalore has noticeable number of urban experts with worldwide exposure, whose ideas could be tapped if they are involved right from ward committees to the proposed metropolitan planning body. Inter alia, some priorities may get set and between a flyover or power generation unit, we may do the latter.

* Revive Urban Arts Commission with regulatory powers towards city aesthetics, heritage bye-laws, streetscapes, historic precincts, traditional ambience, appropriate built forms and respect for the holding capacity of each locality. Preserving the city’s beauty cannot be preached at today’s land prices and increasing cost of building maintenance. All such public suggestions, if only accompanied with incentives, can be implemented.

* Cut down on vehicle-based road-widening and urban renewal, where road-widening has no real end. Mumbai’s Fort area and Kolkata’s Park Street area have huge vehicular congestion. Central London and New York have similar stories to tell. The wide road of today is bound to become a narrow road tomorrow at the present rate of vehicle sales. We let car manufacturers make money, while the mental agony, social displacement and property loss for inhabitants cannot be justified. If we understand the city mechanism, the self-regulatory powers of a city can be re-instated.

* Discourage city land becoming an investment for returns, where people seem to be buying sites just to keep it vacant. Bangalore sites have often ensured more returns than what gold and shares have managed. No urban idea can survive against such monetary gains. City expands at huge cost of providing roads, phones, buses, water and other services, while site owners enjoy huge return of investment. Owners of vacant sites should be made to pay for expanding city, so taxpayer’s money can be utilised for developmental works.

* Introduce implementation monitoring systems where unemployed youth can earn from the penalties charged for violations. If posters deface city walls, we decide to spend money to paint them. Alternately, violators could have been fined to collect funds for the administration.

Bangalore has become a city of in-migrants, who do not even pay the actual cost of services and infrastructure. We all pay subsidised price for water, power and mostly for everything public, which never happens in private sector. Let the private attitudes and public concerns come together in governing Bangalore. We, then, would have taken one more step towards a better

DNA

'Expensive' mill land cause of malaria in South Mumbai
Sterilisation on rise as India seeks escape from poverty

[NParry]

Excellent suggestions. Perhaps, BBMP in Bangalore can also enforce a new rule: build or sell off empty sites within 12 months. So that the speculators are not allowed to sit on empty sites for years on end and the sight of ugly, overgrown, snake-infested sites ends. Revival of the Urban Arts Commission is a must. Additionally, a sort of a 'finishing school' for contractors and engineers who build city roads and other facilities, something that would teach them to finish the last mile in the most perfect way, i.e, removing the ugly debris of construction all over the city.

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Infrastructure major HCC's realty arm, Lavasa Corporation, that has floated a firm, MyCity Technology, in partnership with IT major Wipro [ Get Quote ], today tied-up with networking leader Cisco to provide Information and Communication Technology services in the newly-created Lavasa city.

MyCity Technology, a joint venture company between Lavasa, Wipro and Cisco, will invest around Rs 450-crore (Rs 4.5 billion) to provide e-governance, ICT infrastructure and other value-added services in Lavasa city, the first of its kind venture in the world.

"MyCity is an endeavour towards making Lavasa a planned and well-managed city. With partners like Cisco and Wipro, we intend to make it green and sustainable through effective use of modern technology," Lavasa's Chairman Ajit Gulabchand [ Images ] said.

Gulabchand, however, refused to divulge any details on the stake each of the company holds in MyCity.

MyCity will be investing close to Rs 450-crore, that will be utilised over the next 10-years to provide ICT and architecture solutions such as water and fuel management, security, better transport and communication and also to make the city energy efficient.

rediff/PTI

Cartosat-2B launch: a boost to the country's infrastructure and urban planning

[Krishnamoorthy K]

SINGAPORE: India needs solutions and strategies to improve sustainability of transport system in the cities, director general of the New Delhi-based Institute of Transport has said.

"We need a wide range of strategies," Bharat Indu Singal said at a plenary forum on "New Vision for Sustainable Urban Transport," in Singapore on Wednesday.

Supports for such strategies were coming as the Indian government has already launched an ambitious capacity building programme to upgrade skills for planning good urban transport policies, he told the forum, which is part of the World Urban Transport Leaders Summit 2010 being held by Singapore Land Transport Authority June 30 to July 1.

Additionally, the government has also tied its financial aid with the cities bringing in reforms including institutional set ups.

"This has obviously worked," added Singal. He pointed out that previously the institutions were weak and the urban transport was being managed by 20 odd agencies without any coordination either on planning or on operation.

On environment, he said, "We have improved emission standards, especially the percentage of sulphur in diesel and petrol is to be lowered to 0.5 per cent from 8 per cent previously".

Singal has also called for immediate action on short-term and long-term plans for the cities.

The short-term would be to make the cities "walkable" by providing footpaths and non-motor traffic by providing cycle tracks.

For the long-term, he called for sustainable public transport system which must be city-wide to ensure people are able to complete the full journey.

"If the people have to worry about the first mile and the last mile of their journey, they would take out their cars," he said.

Furthermore, he stressed on the need for holistic planning in managing the public transport system and traffic network that would benefit the people.

All components of public urban transport must be planned in comprehensive and holistic manner and implemented together for full benefits, Singal said.

Lastly, he called for control on cities' urban outlays, as it would lengthen the public transport journey.

Singal also highlighted the need for people-friendly interchanges for changing transportation modes.

The interchanges should be vertical or adjacent but not 200 metre apart which would discourage people for taking a walk.

ET

Park your car and take the metro in Mumbai
Bhuvaneshwar: Buses aplenty, none to ride

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Coimbatore-based Epic Energy Ltd, which has been asked by the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) to prepare a master plan to make Amritsar and Ludhiana solar cities, is likely to submit its report by July 15. According to sources, initially it would submit its report on Amritsar and later on Ludhiana. After the submission of master plan, the state government will approach the Centre for approval of the plan and for funds.

Speaking to Business Standard, sources in PEDA said Epic Energy has been given extension due to certain unavoidable reasons and they had written to them that the report would be submitted by July 15. They revealed that initially master plan of Amritsar would be submitted and as the study on Ludhiana is going on, so it is early to state the date when it would be completed.

After submission of master plan to the PEDA and before finalisation, draft of the plan would be discussed in a stakeholders consultation workshop having representation from elected representatives, local research and academic institutions, resident welfare associations, industries and corporate organizations, NGOs, etc.

The consultant would prepare master plan for these cities which would include complete information about the population of the city, energy consumption by domestic household, commercial establishments, Industrial household, etc.

It is worth mentioning that the Master Plan prepared by the Epic energy will set a goal of minimum 10 per cent reduction in projected total demand of conventional energy at the end of five years to be achieved through energy saving from energy efficiency measures and generation from renewable energy installations. Further, the program on “Development of Solar Cities” would support and encourage urban local bodies to prepare a Road Map to guide their cities in becoming ‘renewable energy cities’ or ‘solar cities’ or ‘eco-green cities’.

The master plan prepared would provide total and sector-wise projections for energy demand and supply for next 10 years. Also, it would provide a complete sector-wise base-line on energy utilisation and GHG(green house gases) emissions in the city. Year-wise targets for energy conservation, renewable energy addition and GHG abatement along with the action plan for implementation will be clearly brought out in the master plan.

Potential sources of funding from respective organisations (both public and private) for providing financial support will be identified in the master plan. This step involves predicting the energy demand for five year and 10 year periods and to estimate the demand, growth in energy use in different sectors needs to be established. These growth rates would be used for making future projection of energy demand in each sector for year 2013 (five year) and 2018 (10 year).

He added after finalisation of master plan the Punjab government will approach the centre for funding purpose. According to the ministry of new and renewable energy scheme, 50 per cent of the total project cost (maximum upto Rs nine crore) would be borne by the Centre while remaining portion would be funded by the stockholders and the department is also planning to approach state government for funding.

BS

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Images were taken by the satellite's panchromatic camera, which has a 0.8 metre resolution

— Photos: ISRO

VIEW FROM THE SKY:Cartosat-2B's image shows Allahabad, including a fort and the Triveni Sangam. (Right) An image of Madurai with the Meenakshi Temple seen in the centre.

Chennai: Remote-sensing satellite Cartosat-2B has sent high quality images of the Indian landmass, including Allahabad in Uttar Pradesh and Madurai in Tamil Nadu.

The images were taken by the satellite's panchromatic camera, which has a high resolution of 0.8 metre. That is, it can image even small objects such as cycles and mopeds on the road, and sheep and cattle grazing on meadows.

The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C15) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) put Cartosat-2B and four other satellites in orbit on July 12. It was launched from Sriharikota.

P.S. Veeraraghavan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) in Thiruvananthapuram, said Cartosat-2B was in good health and that “it has taken a good number of pictures.”

He said the images of Madurai included the famous Meenakshi temple with its gopurams (towers), the railway junction and a running train, the airport with parked aircraft, and another temple situated in the centre of a tank.

The images of Allahabad showed a fort in the town and the Triveni Sangam.

The Hindu

India's Cartosat-2B satellite starts sending images

The multiple spot scene imagery sent by Cartosat-2B camera would also be useful for village/cadastral level resource assessment and mapping, detailed urban and infrastructure planning and development, transportation system planning, preparation of large-scale cartographic maps, preparation of micro watershed development plans and monitoring of development works of village.

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Easing crowded cities

The surge in private townships – at least 36 are pending approval in the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is located – has come as rapidly growing populations put pressure on cities.

India's urban population is set to increase from the current 340 million to 590 million in 2030, a 40 percent increase in the total population, according to a recent McKinsey report. It’s a pace of urbanization second only to China.

To cope, India needs to add 700 to 900 million square meters of commercial and residential space – the equivalent of a new Chicago – every year, the report says. It also needs to invest $1.2 trillion in water, sewers, and power – more than eight times India's current per capita spending.

“The government alone cannot create such planned cities,” wrote Ajit Gulabchand, head of Hindustan Construction Co., which is developing Lavasa, in an recent op-ed. “A different model is required ... which is executed substantially by the private sector creating partnerships at different levels from planning, designing, policing as well as carrying out the municipal functions.”

Villagers complain

With the new developments has come controversy. Lavasa faces allegations of fraudulent acquisition of land (the 25,000-acre project will cover 20 villages), inadequate compensation for some villagers, and concerns over environmental impact.

Some villagers on the vast construction site say they won’t leave. Leelabai Margale, a widow with four children, sells tea and biscuits to construction workers in a shack on the side of a road that she says cuts through her land. Her land title deeds at the local record office were switched into the name of an “agent” company, she says.

In a tiny settlement of adivasis (tribals) nearby, Tumnabai Waghlekar says her family was offered just 700,000 rupees ($15,000) for 45 acres of land. She and her husband, whose family has lived in the area for seven generations, don't want to relocate, though her brother, who works for Lavasa, is trying to persuade them otherwise. “They want to move all the adivasis to one place, like a tourist village,” she says.

CS Monitor

Fund crunch hits Hyderabad Bus Rapid Trasnport System (BRTS)
On camera: Crumbling Delhi Games stadiums
India for early investment, services pacts with Asean
Indian Urban Infrastructure : Washing and Housing 0.5 Bn People

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Gandhinagar: Gujarat’s perceived spate of urbanisation may soon get a stamp of authority. According to officials conducting the census 2011, Gujarat is expected to emerge as the most urbanised state in the country. In the 2001 census, Gujarat ranked third in the country with urbanisation at 37.35%, preceded by Tamil Nadu at the top with 43.86% and Maharashtra next with 42.4%. Gujarat was closely followed by Karnataka with 33.98% and Punjab with 33.95% of its population living in ‘urban area’.

“The results of the first phase (of census) indicate a significant increase in urbanisation of areas, mainly owing to industrialisation. To this effect, a whopping area of 750 sq km surrounding Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, including Gandhinagar, has been declared urban agglomerate (UA),” director of census operations in Gujarat, Manish Bhardwaj said.

The initial estimates indicate a significant increase in ‘census towns’. The number of towns in Gujarat has increased by 106.7% — from 74 in 2001 to 153 in 2010. A census town is defined as an area with a minimum population of 5,000; at least 75% of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and a population density of at least 400 persons per sq km.Another benefit of this spate of urbanisation and declaration of Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar UA is going to be the city of Gandhinagar.

Bhardwaj said that Gujarat's capital is the only city in the country which is not a Class A city. With the area being declared an UA, Gandhinagar will get the benefits of Ahmedabad being a Class A city.

The first phase data has revealed a 38% increase in the number of houses in the state. In 2001, there were 91 lakh houses in Gujarat, which has increased to 1.32 crore in 2010. The number of houses in Gujarat in 1991 was 74 lakh. "This indicates a strong migration pattern from rural to urban areas, mostly for employment. People continue to have a house in the village, but also have a house in an urban area. This is also a sign that the average size of a family per house is reducing," Bhardwaj said.

DNA

[fuwad]

The Government is planning to extend the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) to some more cities in the country. It was proposed to include 28 cities/urban agglomerations with population of 5 lakh and above under the Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) component of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM)

Public private partnership can play a significant role in supplementing Government’s efforts of building infrastructure in urban areas. JNNURM encourages urban loal bodies to use public private partnership for this purpose.

Request for inclusion under UIG of JNNURM have been received from a number of cities including Warangal, Karamsad, Gandhinagar, Hubli-Dharward, Gulbarga, Belgaum, Gaya, Biharshariff, Pawapur, Nalanda, Rajgir, Sultanpur-Lodhi, Kurkshetra- Pehowa, Gurgaon, Aurangabad, Vrindavan, Kurnool, Jodhpur, Gwalior, Guntur, Panipat, Bellary, Calicut, Darjeeling, Klimpong & Kurseong, Deoghar, Sambalpur, Dhule, Malegaon, Kolhapur, Port Blair, Kaithal, Siliguri, Haldia, Amravati, Solapur and all cities of Bihar with population above 2 lakh.

Cities that are not covered under this component are eligible for coverage under another component of JNNURM, namely Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) subject to availability of funds.

This information was given by Shri Saugata Roy, Minister of State, Urban Development in reply to a question in Lok Sabha Today.

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=63894

[engineer.akash]

Asian Giants Face the Risks of Urbanization

By ALAN WHEATLEY

Published: August 2, 2010
BEIJING — Urbanization is the path to prosperity. But it can also be just a fancy word for penury.

Ask Mumbai’s slum dwellers or the “ant tribes” of young office workers crammed into tiny rooms and shacks on the outskirts of Beijing.

The trajectory of growth across Asia, especially in populous India and China, will be shaped by the way governments tackle the complexities of urban development, from providing public works to endowing hundreds of millions of peasants who leave the land with the education and skills to thrive in the city.

Strategies will need to fit divergent demographic profiles. The working-age population of China will peak around 2015, putting a premium on sustaining growth in productivity to ease deteriorating dependency ratios.

India will be younger for longer. Its working-age population will swell by perhaps 270 million people by 2030. Job creation on a heroic scale, especially in mass manufacturing, will be imperative.

“The relative merits and opportunities of the demographic difference between the two countries are often overlooked,” said Richard Dobbs, a director of McKinsey Global Institute, which has published in-depth studies on the issue.

M.G.I., the research arm of the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co., has offered a set of recommendations to transform urban India that it says could add 1 to 1.5 percentage points to annual growth in gross domestic product.

Releasing the potential of India’s cities holds the key to capitalizing on its young population, M.G.I. says. It estimates that urban India will create 70 percent of all new jobs in the country in the next 20 years.

A study by Tushar Poddar, Goldman Sachs’s economist in Mumbai, also digs into the powerful demographic forces at work.

Mr. Poddar says that urbanization could contribute 1.8 percentage points to annual G.D.P. in India by 2050 because labor is 3.5 times as productive in industry and 5 times as productive in services as in agriculture.

Urbanization, along with growth in the labor force, advances in education, an increase in the number of women in the work force and a favorable age structure may generate at least four percentage points of G.D.P. growth annually between now and 2030, Goldman Sachs estimates.

A golden age beckons, if India can create about 40 million industrial jobs over the next decade, about 40 percent of all new jobs in the country.

“For potential to meet reality, however, would require a massive overhaul of India’s archaic labor laws and heavy investment in education and skills training,” Mr. Poddar writes.

Ordinary Chinese might not bet on India’s getting its act together. Visitors typically return from India shocked by the seeming chaos of daily life and the all-too-visible poverty.

Yet it is worth remembering that China has paid a price for its meteoric ascent: Its shiny cities have been built by a floating population of migrant workers who are treated as second-class citizens.

The migrants, whose ranks reached a record 211 million in 2009, are largely denied access to education, health care and housing in the distant cities where they toil long hours on building sites and in factories.

As a means of social control, the Chinese registration system — “hukou” — has its uses. Beijing was relieved when 20 million migrants who had lost their jobs during the global financial crisis quietly went back to the villages where they were officially registered. They were absorbed the way a sponge sucks up water.

Yet political and economic pressure for change to the registration system is growing.

Shanghai and other cities have begun to extend more rights to migrants, and the government says it will make it easier for rural people to settle in smaller cities — the sort of places to which coastal manufacturers are relocating because costs are lower.

“There is a huge debate raging about urbanization and land reform, but it looks as if the party is moving in favor of small-town urbanization,” said Stephen Green, head of China research at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai.

Shifting people permanently off the land will be a stern test of Chinese policy planning, which is not faultless.

For example, China vastly expanded college enrollment in the late 1990s to ease job pressures, but it failed to anticipate the consequences: There are now six million graduates a year, six times as many as before, but more than 30 percent of them are unemployed.

Hence the army of young would-be professionals, China’s ant tribe, who eke out livings on the fringes of cities like Beijing, trying to get a foot on the job ladder.

Many factories, by contrast, say they cannot hire enough production workers.

“China’s current tight labor supply reflects a structural imbalance, with white-collar workers still unable to enjoy accelerated wage increases,” the investment bank China International Capital Corp. said in a recent report.

Skill mismatches in India are even more glaring. Only 11 percent of the members of the 15-to-59 age group have received vocational training, according to a report by the manpower consulting firm TeamLease and the Indian Institute of Job-Oriented Training.

Such statistics dramatize what M.G.I. calls the unprecedented policy tests posed by the speed of urban development — a seismic shift for a nation that takes pride in its rural identity.

“Indeed, India is still debating whether urbanization is positive or negative and whether the future lies in its villages or cities,” the M.G.I. report said.

The research group’s answer is clear: Villages and cities are interdependent; addressing life in urban India is not an elitist endeavor but rather a central pillar of inclusive growth.

So, can India rise to the occasion?

“There’ll be ups and downs, but there’s a growing realization of the challenges if they don’t. Failing to change could convert a demographic dividend into a demographic debt,” said Mr. Dobbs of M.G.I.

Alan Wheatley is a Reuters correspondent.

NY times

India's future is bright thanks to younger population.The article seems to have spoken positive on Indian scenario and negative on the Chinese.

[engineer.akash]

India's cities grow fast, develop slowly

High rise residential buildings are seen behind a slum in Mumbai, July 20, 2010.

Tue Aug 3, 2010 8:01am EDT
By Rina Chandran

MUMBAI (Reuters) - It happens every year. When monsoon rains lash Mumbai, the city turns into a cesspool, which along with its potholed roads and gridlocked traffic, mocks its ambition of becoming a global financial center.

India has Asia's third-largest economy and the increasing global clout that goes with it. It is already home to a quarter of the world's 20 most densely populated cities.

While rapidly modernizing cities such as Shanghai and Sao Paulo are winning business from centers such as London and New York, the slow pace of urban development in India is harming its cities, which by 2030 will be home to about 590 million people -- nearly twice the population of the United States today.

Indian cities over the next two decades will also house 40 percent of the country's population and generate some 70 percent of new job opportunities, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), the research arm of consultancy McKinsey, estimates in a report.

To cater to this growth, India needs to invest $1.2 trillion in capital expenditure, mainly infrastructure, over that period, an eight-fold increase of current spending levels, MGI said.

"Across all major quality-of-life indicators, India's cities fall well short of delivering even a basic standard of living for their residents," the report said.

India now spends $17 per capita on urban infrastructure, compared to rival China's $116.

That figure is clearly inadequate: while it took about 40 years for India's urban population to rise by nearly 230 million in 2008, it will take only half that time to add the next 250 million people, analysts say.

India will, over the next two decades, see an urban transformation the scale and speed of which has not happened anywhere except China, with many cities becoming larger than many countries, in terms of population size and GDP.

"It's going to be one of the most defining changes that we have yet to see," said Roopa Purushothaman at Everstone Investment Advisors.

Poor infrastructure shaves an estimated 2 percentage points off India's economic growth.

"There cannot be high economic growth without a high degree of urbanization," said Ashish Sharma, a principal at consultancy Booz & Co. "There is a clear, positive correlation between the GDP of a country and its degree of urbanization."

FOCUS ON VILLAGES

Historically, India's politicians and policy-makers have focused on villages. Urbanization has largely been a result of existing cities expanding economically and demographically, rather than anything planned, Sharma said.

This largely haphazard growth has created inequity. With more than 500 million mobile phone subscribers, more people in India have access to a mobile phone than a toilet, a "tragic irony," a recent UN report noted.

Credit: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui

[engineer.akash]

India cannot be made slum-free in five years: officials
2010-08-02 20:00:00

India's fast urbanisation is also spawning greater numbers of slums, forcing millions of people to live under pathetic conditions.

And a year after the government made the grand claim to make the country slum-free, officials say the five-year time-frame is unrealistic.

Housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry (MoHUPA) officials said a committee formed to look into population of slum dwellers has put their numbers sizeably higher than estimated earlier.

'The 2001 census had estimated the slum dwellers to be 23 percent of the population of 640 towns surveyed but latest estimates show their number to be about 29 percent of the urban population,' an official told IANS.

Addressing the joint session of Parliament on June 4, 2009, President Pratibha Patil had announced that the government planned to make India slum-free in five years through a new scheme, Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).

A year has passed since the announcement and officials said the task of ridding cities of slums is 'complex and huge' to be achieved in five years.

'The aspiration is to do it in the shortest possible time but it is unlikely to be done in five years,' said an official.

The scheme will be implemented at a pace set by a plan of action formulated by the states, the official added.

In the preparatory phase of RAY, which began in March this year, each state is required to prepare its plan of action based on geographic information system(GIS)-enabled mapping for specific cities to be made slum-free. The states will later scale up the programme to make the entire state free of slums.

Unlike previous schemes, RAY seeks to provide property rights to slum dwellers. The programme seeks to tackle shortage of urban land and housing that keep shelter out of the reach of the poor.

According to a National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) report, around 57 percent of slums come up on public land, owned mostly by local bodies and state government, 24 percent along drains and around 12 percent along railway tracks.

The officials said central assistance under RAY will be predicated on the condition that states and union territories assign legal title to slum dwellers over their dwelling space.

The states will also be required to continue three reforms under the JNNURM (Jawharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) including internal earmarking within local body budgets for basic services to the urban poor, earmarking at least 20-25 percent of developed land in all housing projects (both private and public) for economically weaker sections and provision of basic services for poor.

'The aim is not only to make the country slum free in a time-bound manner but also to prevent future growth of slums by providing housing and basic services such as sewerage, water, street lights, education and health services,' said D. S. Negi, Director, National Building Organisation and Officer on Special Duty, RAY.

A technical group on estimation of urban housing shortage constituted by MoHUPA had estimated the housing shortage in urban areas at the beginning of the 11th Plan at 24.71 million, of which 98 percent pertained to the economically weaker sections and low income groups. The total shortage of dwelling units is expected to rise to 26.53 million by the end of 11th plan.

The officials said the existing schemes for affordable housing and interest subsidy for urban housing will be dovetailed into RAY.

The scheme requires each state setting up a Rajiv Awas Yojana Mission Authority to take decisions regarding land use and town planning.

sify

I was working on Affordable homes for LIGs during my internship- Later dropped it.

Why don't Indian cities follow Himanshu Pareikh's slum development plan,his work in Indore has been well appreciated all over the world-Read here for more

[ericos87]

Delhi gets new industrial policy

PTI, Aug 4, 2010, 08.58pm IST

NEW DELHI: Seeking to make Delhi a global hub for clean, high technology industries and services sector, chief minister Sheila Dikshit on Wednesday unveiled a new industrial policy for the city -- the first such comprehensive document after a gap of 28 years.

Dikshit said the new industrial policy aims to make the national capital a "model state" for environment-friendly industrial growth as non-polluting industries as well as services sector will be encouraged by the government.

Noting that "growth with environment friendliness" has been the key parameter in finalising the policy, she said the new policy would ensure transparent and business friendly environment for industrial growth.

There are a number of large-scale projects envisaged in the policy that include setting up of SEZs, industrial parks and redevelopment of industrial areas on public-private-partnership basis.

Dikshit said encouraging services sector will ease pressure on infrastructure namely power, water, land and civic facilities in the city.

The policy aims to simplify the various processes for getting clearance to set up business and makes it clear that even the existing industries of the city need to be upgraded to make them environment friendly.

Asking various industry association to properly maintain the industrial clusters, Dikshit said "it is a matter of shame that roads and other basic infrastructure in these clusters are in bad shape. There is so much filth and labourers live in very unhygienic condition there."

Dikshit said Delhi is predominantly a metropolitan city without much hinterland and the need of an ever-growing population have to be balanced with the responsibility of keeping the national capital a clean, modern city with a healthy environment and a proper ecological balance.

The new policy also envisages operation and maintenance of existing industrial areas and development of new industrial areas on PPP basis. The policy was approved by the Delhi Cabinet earlier this year.

Industry minister Haroon Yusuf said one of the main objectives of the policy is to develop world class industrial infrastructure and facilitate business through e-governance.

Chief secretary Rakesh Mehta said while growth of IT and IT-enabled services led the service sector growth in India, Delhi's service sector continues to be dominated by trade and retail.

"Neighbouring states taking advantage of proximity to Delhi, have developed into IT and electronic hubs. This new policy recognises the present dynamics of economic activities," he said.

The policy envisages redevelopment of the planned industrial areas and unplanned industrial clusters as well. It also seeks to remove multiplicity of authorities and gives power to DSIIDC to own and manage all the existing and new industrial assets in Delhi.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/b...ow/6257836.cms

[engineer.akash]

Parekh committee wants private participation for a slum-free India

Saubhadra Chatterji / New Delhi August 05, 2010, 1:25 IST

Private players may soon be roped in for developing slums under the Manmohan Singh government’s ambitious Rajiv Awas Yojna (RAY).

An experts committee, headed by HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, has suggested the Centre encourage private sector participation in implementing the scheme. The Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Ministry plans to roll out RAY to make India slum-free in the next five years.

This is a controversial proposal, as non-government organisations (NGOs) are bitterly opposed to the entry of the private sector in slum development, given that land on which slums exist in India has become enormously valuable over the years.

Several state governments have mooted the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model for slum development to provide affordable housing through partnership and interest subsidy for the urban poor.

Significantly the Parekh committee does not favour the PPP model. The report said the mode works well when the ‘partnership’ is clearly defined between the government and the private players.

“PPP is not a panacea for absolving the public sector of its social and economic responsibilities,” the Committee observed. It said that only in some places where land is scarce and prices are high should the PPP model be used.

The committee also does not share the government’s dream of making India slum-free in the next five years. It said the target is “unrealistic”. The report said: “It (slum-free India) should be projected as a long-term commitment of 20 years, with the first five years representing the first phase of the mission.”

The Parekh committee was appointed by the government to look into the draft guidelines of RAY, along with other over-arching projects, and present a report on the scheme. In its 17-page report, Parekh has also suggested that RAY not be undertaken as a stand-alone scheme but made part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) “for the simple reason that infrastructure and services form an integral sub-component of JNNURM”.

Parekh, who was roped in by the government last year as a firefighter for the beleaguered IT firm, Satyam, has also suggested that funds budgeted under RAY be ‘ring fenced’. “Ring fencing such funds will also prevent hasty approvals by the Centre just to ensure that funds allocated under RAY are utilised.”

Drawing heavily from various past policy mistakes of the government on land issues and JNNURM failures, the veteran banker has repeatedly asked the government to keep the community at the centre of all planning and management.

“Under RAY, detailed procedures for community-level participation in drawing up such plans will need to be built in. RAY is about living communities. Any attempt to design for people must be done with people. Any physical plan must ensure that it incorporates living spaces (personal and public),” the report said.

It has also asked the government not to adopt a “one-size fits all approach” for slum development. “Every city has to have a variety of ways to housing the urban poor, suitable to the different parts of the city and its variety of needs. Clearly, a one-size fits all concept cannot work. The role of the community in the preparation of such plans will be core to this activity.”

With RAY having different components like slum upgradation, redevelopment, rehabilitation and creation of new housing blocks, the committee has suggested different strategies to be adopted for various components. While it hailed RAY as an “extremely important and a much needed initiative with large economic impacts that are essential for achieving inclusive growth objectives” it has also advised against a pan-India roll out.

“While an all-India coverage of the scheme is laudable, given the scale of the problem, it is prudent for states to adopt a phased mechanism for implementation. It is advisable for the states to begin work in a limited number of cities that can then be extended to other cities after taking into account the lessons learnt,” Parekh remarked.

It has also asked for participation of “genuine community-based organisations” to serve as a link between municipalities and poor communities and professional appraisal of projects among other things.

BS
Great going Parekh.Keep it up.

[Krishnamoorthy K]

MUMBAI — A local developer has announced plans to build the world’s tallest residential tower, a 117-story structure that it hopes will become the worldwide symbol of this rapidly growing metropolis.

To be called World One, the building is planned at 450 meters, or 1,450 feet, and to be completed in 2014. (Q1, a tower in Gold Coast City, Australia, is now the world’s tallest residential building, at 323 meters.)

While World One’s developer, Lodha, has been running advertisements with lines like “It took seven islands to create Mumbai, now one icon will define it,” the project has drawn praise and cautious concern.

“It will put Mumbai on the international map,” said Sunil Mantri, chairman of the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry, a group that represents developers in that state.

Anuj Puri, country head of the real estate agency Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, said: “Mumbai needs a project like this. It’s a landmark project and a modern symbol.”

Yet some wonder how Mumbai, with its already overburdened resources, will cope with such a venture, or absorb the 1.85 million square meters, or 20 million square feet, of new residential space planned for central Mumbai in the next few years. While the city has a number of road and metro projects under way, they are still considered inadequate for Mumbai’s population of about 17 million.

“A project like this is very important for a city, but it comes in relation with strong urban planning and infrastructure that a city like Mumbai requires,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti, head of the real estate development program at Columbia University and former director of the Department of City Planning in New York. “I’m all for further densification, but plans like this foreshadow a future that really needs to be thought about.”

“Icons alone don’t make a city,” he continued. “You really need the platform that major urban centers like New York, London, Singapore, and Hong Kong have, in addition to great architecture.”

The tower will be part of a larger project called Lodha Place, which is to replace a defunct textile mill on 6.9 hectares, or 17 acres, in the central city neighborhood of Worli. In addition to World One, Lodha Place is to have a shopping area and office space.

Construction of the residential tower alone is expected to cost more than 2.14 billion rupees, or about $440 million. And the starting price of its residences will be more than 47.5 million rupees.

Abhisheck Lodha, managing director of Lodha, said upper-income Indians did not yet have residential options like those in other major cities around the world, something he hopes to change with World One.

Mr. Lodha said the plans also included dedicated open space for public use, as well as an open-air observatory at 305 meters, the first of its kind in the city.

“We want to ensure that we can create quality open spaces like in New York with Rockefeller Center or Trafalgar Square in London,” he said. “Most major cities in the world have a lot to give back to the public realm, which Mumbai hasn’t been able to do quite so well. This is our effort to ensure that this happens.”

The developer has teamed up with the architectural firm of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, headed by I.M. Pei, whose most famous project is probably the Louvre Pyramid, and with Ken Smith, the landscape architect responsible for the roof garden at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Lodha says the tower will house a Six Senses spa, which will be the brand’s first venture in a residential building. And industry sources have said that the developer is close to completing a deal with Giorgio Armani to design the common areas and apartment interiors. If he agrees, it would be Armani’s first participation in a real estate project in India.

The New York Times

Sky is the limit for high-rises - Orissa removes cap on the height of multi-storeyed buildings; builders can now go beyond 27 metres and 23 floors

[Krishnamoorthy K]

The problem, says DJB’s Negi, is that water supply schemes are approved according to the city’s long-term masterplan. However, building activity rarely conforms with the masterplans, as people keep adding extensions to their homes, or new developments spring up.

The result is that high density areas, with a lot of unauthorized, unplanned construction—which is a feature of most of India’s cities—get less and less water.

“If you have Defence Colony (a tony south Delhi neighbourhood), which is a planned area, the supply will be static,” Negi said.

It’s not the case with other, more crowded areas.

The lack of planning in the 1970s and 1980s has led to water distribution systems becoming obsolete, said M.N. Thippeswamy, a former chief engineer with the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board. And even after most cities initiated comprehensive city planning in the last couple of decades, most development agencies have been unable to anticipate the pace of growth.

City authorities focus on one region and growth happens elsewhere, said Thippeswamy, adding that in Bangalore, the water utility planned water requirements for 30 years, “but unfortunately it is not enough for even 15 years”.

Thippeswamy maintains that for a long-term solution to address growing water needs of Indian cities, administrations must opt for an integrated approach—replace old assets, reduce water losses due to leakage, aggressively promote water conservation and rainwater harvesting and find a way to reuse waste water.

“Whether in Bangalore or Mumbai, there are not adequate funds for replacing assets. In Bangalore in some areas, even 100-year-old pipes we are not able to replace,” he said. The only solution, he says, is to earmark funds and start work on replacing ageing assets.

“Unaccounted water cannot be avoided. Even Singapore has 7.5% unaccounted water. But if Indian cities can bring unaccounted water (levels) to 10% (of total supply), it will bring back a lot of water,” he said.

livemint

Heritages and History of Cities

[Krishnamoorthy K]

Towns and cities in the country are growing by default rather than by design, leading to unplanned development and growth of slums in urban areas

India’s needs to rethink the existing land use model and change the town planning approach that is followed to tackle the ever increasing housing shortage in the country according to Kiran Dhingra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation. She was addressing a Seminar on ‘Housing – Enhancing Supply’ organized by the PHD Chamber in New Delhi on Thursday.

Towns and cities in the country are growing by default rather than by design, leading to unplanned development and growth of slums in urban areas, she said.

She highlighted that land acquisition and development systems in the country are archaic and need a total overhaul and along with introduction of good governance practices at the municipal levels, on an urgent basis for achieving the national endeavour of providing affordable housing to all. She added that a review of the urban land policy is being undertaken and urban development authorities need to tune themselves with the macroeconomic policy adopted in the country post 1991.

According to Dhingra, we need to plan new towns and cities, not as satellites of existing ones but around employment hubs like industrial estates. She added that what has accentuated the housing shortage in the country is that while government agencies have moved out of their responsibilities of providing affordable houses to the masses, there has been a failure to suitably incentivise private sector to take up the same and also to provide adequate credit flow to the people to buy houses.

She mentioned that the Ministry was in the process of preparing a white paper to bring out all the issues affecting both supply and demand in the housing sector, which would be put in the public domain to elicit public comments. This would include issues like inclusive growth in urban areas, real estate regulations, creation of new cities, tax incentives required to incentive both the developers as well as the buyers.

She also mentioned that the Ministry, in collaboration with RBI, was working towards formulating a Housing Start-up Index (HSUI) for all urban areas, which will indicate the demand and supply situation as reflected in conversion of building permits into actual starts, in all States. HSUI, in addition to being an index of health and activity in the housing sector, will also be a good indicator of economic growth.

Earlier,Rajeev Talwar, Chairman, Housing & Urban development Committee, PHD Chamber, said that it is essential that planning and development of urban areas takes place with a focus on provision of quality infrastructure services. Immediate need is the construction of maximum number of housing units with a certain minimum standard of services. A renewed focus on housing and urban development is critical for the future.

He mentioned that shortages are multiplying by the day and most of these problems can be taken care of if the supply of housing is allowed by the government agencies to be enhanced on a sustained basis. Recognition of, and increasing the mandate for, the role of private developers in creation of housing stock in all categories, including EWS / LIG, is essential. Unless the developers are allowed to make some profits, the goal of providing quality affordable housing to all will remain a dream.

IIFL

Kolkatta: Save rainwater or face action
Delhi Jal Board may outsource operations to improve services
India cannot be made slum-free in five years: officials

[engineer.akash]

India’s needs to rethink the existing land use model:Kiran Dhingra

Very much true,JNNURM must redefine itself,JNNURM was planned to address civic/housing in the form of slum rehab issues,but turned out to be a bonaza for Transport infra in the form of new buses and terminals.Which I do not oppose but the very idea of JNNURM got defeated,rather renewing the junk cities it has made them more chaotic.

JNNURM is like watering a wilting plant.I would say the central govt must earmark funds to create new cities in total with Private partnership.

We need more lavasas,more chandigarhs and not bidadis or kengeris.

[engineer.akash]

Lacks pavements,totally encroached by shops.Are the pedestrians treated as third rate??Indian cities lack basic public amenities and we are dreaming of being a global player,first let us all become dignified local players...



Look at the above board...NO Parking 200 m....Firstly where is the space to park??

As India101 rightly put it- "more than half of our cities look like slums"

[Krishnamoorthy K]

A National Highways Authority of India official said Wednesday that road deaths are surging in tandem with the country’s investment in road expansion and improvement.

“If you see what happened in 1970 to 2008 the trend is very disturbing,” said Atul Kumar, chief general manager of the National Highways Authority of India. “Fatalities have increased eight times and injuries seven times.”

Mr. Kumar said the accident rate had risen along with road improvements – primarily road widening.

“Ten years back there were just 500 kilometers of four-lane roads, now we have 14,000 kilometers,” the highway official told a conference on road safety in the capital. “So our network is getting improved but our accident rate is increasing at a very alarming rate.”

Pedestrian advocates in India have long said that making roads wider, which allows cars to move faster, makes them unsafe for pedestrians and cyclists, particularly within cities. In India it’s also very common for officials to forget to build walkways for pedestrians into road projects. Delhi is still in the process of adding bridges to allow pedestrians to cross safely on roads widened years ago.

Almost 120,000 people died in India in 2008 in road accidents. Last year, a World Health Organization report showed India had the highest number of traffic fatalities and it was using figures from 2006.

“The states which had the best roads like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had the highest numbers of accidents,” said Mr. Kumar. The three states accounted for 28% of the people killed and 35% of the people injured in 2008, he said.

The most dangerous stretches in the country included a 100-kilometer length of National Highway-7 between Adloor Yellareddy and Gundla Pochanpalli in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. The stretch, which went from being a two-lanes in 2006 to four lanes last year, saw 48 deaths in May alone, according to Mr. Kumar. A swathe of highway between Surat and Dahisar in Gujarat state had 24 deaths in May and a span between Agra and Jaipur, a popular tourist route, saw 22 deaths that month.

“The designs on which roads are being constructed need to be re-looked,” said Mr. Kumar.

WSJ