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working cities 11

progressivecities 19

smartcities 09

resilientcities 28

greencities 16

plannedcities 12

techcities 14

connectedcities 26

humanecities 24

healthycities 21

vibrantcities 30

happeningcities 18

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Government and Industry Support for Municipalika 2015 (Jaipur, 9-11 December)

Government of India announces 98 selected smart city nominees Minister of Urban Development, M Venkaiah Naidu announced a list of 98 cities and towns selected for devel-opment as smart cities. These cities and towns were nominated by respective States and Union Territories at the end of the first stage of ‘City Challenge’ competition in which all the urban local bodies in each State and UT were evaluated based on their financial and institutional capacities and past track record. After releasing the list of selected cities at a media conference, Naidu compli-mented States / UTs for conducting objective evaluation in the first stage of competition.

Naidu gave details of profiles of all the selected cities and towns in terms of population and characters of each city/town. He informed that: 24 cities are capital cities; 24 are business and industrial centres; 18 are of cultural and tourism importance; 5 are port cities and 3 are edu-cational and healthcare hubs.

In terms of population, 8 have population up to one lakh. These are – Panaji (Goa), Diu, Silvassa (Dadra & Nagar Haveli), Kavaratti (Lakshadweep), Dharmashala (Himachal Pradesh), New Town (West Bengal), Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh) and Namchi (Sikkim). 35 cities have population between one and five lakh; 21 cities are in the population range of five to ten lakh; 25 have popu-lation of above 10 lakh and below 25 lakh; 5 in the range

of 25 to 50 lakh and 4 cities (Chennai, Greater Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Greater Mumbai) have population above 50 lakh.

Naidu observed that 65 small and medium towns and cities making to the list of smart city aspirants is a wel-come feature since making them smart would lay good foundation for better urban management when they fur-ther expand.

The Minister informed that nine capital cit-ies viz, Itanagar, Patna, Shimla, Bengaluru, Daman, Thiruvananthapuram, Puducherry, Gangtok and Kolkata failed to be selected and this goes on to prove that the smart city selection was not influenced by the stature or importance of the cities.

Two more cities would be announced in due course since the Government of Jammu & Kashmir sought more

Contd. on page 2...

13th International Conference & Exhibition onSustainable Habitat & Smart Cities

9, 10, 11 December 2015Jaipur Exhibition Centre, Rajasthan

Co-located with

Ministries of Urban Development, and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Government of India, which have been supporting Municipalika right since its incep-tion in 2003, have reaffirmed their full participation and support for the Jaipur edition from December 9 to 11.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has confirmed its support earlier, and will be highlighting their Smart City as well as e-Governance projects. Also supporting Municipalika 2015 is the Min-istry of New and Renewable Energy, who will highlight initiatives like Solar Cities, roof-top project, waste-to-energy among others.

Besides strong support from sector-specific indus-try associations and trade bodies, who have always sup-ported Municipalika in a big way, the launch of mega urban and housing missions like the 100 Smart Cities, 500 cities under AMRUT, Swachh Bharat Mission and Housing for All – PMAY, and the felt need for the big role which private industry will have to play, has brought in support from industry bodies like FICCI and NASS-COM. While FICCI will enlist private industry partici-pation, with a special perspective of the real estate, built-environment and construction sectors, NASSCOM’s support and participation will highlight the role of ICT in all aspects of Smart City Development, and the semi-nal work which India’s premier IT trade body is already doing in this area.

What’s encouraging is the distinct desire and expec-tation of the Government of India Ministries, Host State Rajasthan, and the states and ULBs to see the latest

global state-of-the-art technologies, best practices, case-studies and strategies in the Conference and Exhibition, with a view to incorporating these into the execution of the urban and housing missions underway.

The Local Self Government Department of Govern-ment of Rajasthan, the nodal agency for coordinating all activities and participation as Host State, has sent invitations to all urban, municipal and housing depart-ments in states and UTs; to foreign missions and trade representatives of countries active in the smart cities sec-tor and allied areas like water, waste, energy etc.; and to leading global technology providers from the private sector.

As the Host City, Jaipur Nagar Nigam is taking keen interest in ensuring good participation. It has sent com-munication to leading Municipal Corporations across the country, inviting their participation in the Confer-ence and Exhibition.

Building smart, safe, green, and healthy cities goes well beyond the urban and housing sectors. Realis-ing this, the Government of Rajasthan is inviting the involvement and participation of its allied departments like environment and forests, energy, public health engi-neering, tourism, transport, disaster management, sci-ence and technology, to showcase their activities and how they contribute in city infrastructure development and management.

Municipalika 2015 will leverage the huge opportu-nities in the Host State Rajasthan and in states all over India, in the area of housing and urban infrastructure

development. It will help in bringing clarity and under-standing of the recently launched urban and housing missions, and showcase the challenges and opportuni-ties. Over 1000 delegates from 20 states and 300 cities are expected to attend Municipalika 2015.

Early expressions of interest for participation have come in from stakeholders and technology providers from countries like United Kingdom, Korea, France, Sweden, Germany, Singapore, United States of Amer-ica, etc. as well as a large number of institutions oper-ating in the housing and urban infrastructure sectors. Canada, of course, has already come on board as Partner Country, building on their impressive presence last year.

The Urban Innovation Challenge (UIC) 2015 has been launched to identify the next generation of innovative solutions to systemic challenges in the urban areas, by under-graduate, post-graduate students and young pro-fessionals from different disciplines. The theme of the competition this year is Smart Cities & Green Buildings. Till the time of going to print, over 150 engineering, tech-nology, architecture, and urban planning institutions from all over India had registered for the contest.

Besides the presence of a large number of senior gov-ernment officials, ULBs, urban parastatals, utilities, etc. which has been the USP of Municipalika, this year there is a also strong focus on private sector stakeholders like real estate developers and builders, technology provid-ers, consultants, EPC contractors, and professionals like architects, engineers, and urban planners, who are showing keen interest to be part of Municipalika 2015.

2 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

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Name of States / UTs Names of Selected Cities Andaman & Nicobar Islands Port BlairAndhra Pradesh Vishakhapatnam Tirupati KakinadaArunachal Pradesh PasighatAssam GuwahatiBihar Muzaffarpur Bhagalpur BiharsharifChandigarh ChandigarhChhatisgarh Raipur BilaspurDaman & Diu DiuDadra & Nagar Haveli SilvassaDelhi New Delhi Municipal CouncilGoa PanajiGujarat Gandhinagar Ahmedabad Surat Vadodara Rajkot DahodHaryana Karnal FaridabadHimachal Pradesh DharamshalaJharkhand RanchiKarnataka Mangaluru Shivamogga Hubballi-Dharwad Tumakuru DavanegereKerala Kochi

Name of States / UTs Names of Selected Cities Lakshadweep KavarattiMadhya Pradesh Bhopal Indore Jabalpur Gwalior Sagar Satna UjjainMaharashtra Navi Mumbai Nashik Thane Greater Mumbai Amravati Solapur Nagpur Kalyan-Dombivali Aurangabad PuneManipur ImphalMeghalaya ShillongMizoram AizawlNagaland KohimaOdisha Bhubaneshwar RaurkelaPuducherry OulgaretPunjab Ludhiana Jalandhar AmritsarRajasthan Jaipur Udaipur Kota Ajmer

Name of States / UTs Names of selected cities Sikkim NamchiTamil Nadu Tiruchirapalli Tirunelveli Dindigul Thanjavur Tiruppur Salem Vellore Coimbatore Madurai Erode Thoothukudi ChennaiTelangana Greater Hyderabad Greater WarangalTripura AgartalaUttar Pradesh** Moradabad Aligarh Saharanpur Bareilly Jhansi Kanpur Allahabad Lucknow Varanasi Ghaziabad Agra RampurUttarakhand DehradunWest Bengal New Town Kolkata Bidhannagar Durgapur Haldia

List of 98 cities selected under Smart Cities Mission

* Jammu & Kashmir has asked for more time to decide on the potential Smart City.* 12 Cities have been shortlisted from Uttar Pradesh against 13 cities allocated to that State.* The Ministry of Urban Development has sanctioned ̀ 194 crore at the rate of ̀ 2 crore per each of the 96 cities included in the Smart City Mission. Of the 98 smart city

candidates firmed up so far, funds will be sanctioned soon by the Home Ministry to the Union Territories of Delhi and Chandigarh.

time to make up its choice while additional informa-tion was sought from the Government of Uttar Pradesh regarding the 13th smart city slot allotted to that State.

98 cities selected under Smart City Mission have a population of about 13 crore accounting for over 35% of the country’s urban population. He further said that under Smart City Mission and Atal Mission for Reju-venation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), 80% of total urban population would benefit from enhanced quality of living.

With the selection of almost all the cities under the Smart Cities Mission, all the selected cities will have to prepare city level Smart City Plans and these will be evaluated in the second stage of competition based on a broad set of criteria to pick up the top scoring 20 cit-ies for financing during this financial year. Funds may be released to these 20 cities by the end of this year. Others will be asked to improve upon the identified

deficiencies before participating in the next two rounds of competition.

Those cities to be selected in the second stage of com-petition would be provided with central assistance of `200 crore in the first year followed by `100 crore each year during the next three years, the Minister informed.

Elaborating on the concept of Smart City, Naidu said: “A smart city would ensure core infrastructure needed for decent living in urban areas. We are not aiming at making our urban landscape look fanciful and flashy. The prime objective is to enhance the quality of urban life by addressing deficiencies in core infrastructure. Expectations in various quarters may be high but the Mission is very practical and realistic in its intentions and objectives.”

He said that making smart cities is a challenging task and States and urban local bodies have to rise to the challenge. He added that the Central Government

has undertaken measures to empower them to meet the challenge through substantially enhanced central assistance and decentralising decision making besides assisting in capacity building of urban local bodies. He informed that as against the central assistance of only `36,000 crore during the 10 years of JNNURM, centre would provide about ̀ 300 lakh crore under various new urban initiatives.

Naidu pointed out that the country cannot afford to miss this opportunity of recasting country’s urban landscape and the situation is ‘perform or perish’ for the States and urban local bodies.

The Minister said that formulation of new urban sector initiatives is based on ‘bottom up’ planning based on citizen consultations as desired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He thanked the Prime Min-ister for his sustained interest in the new urban initia-tives and support.

Contd. from page 1...

3 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

Rajasthan has become the first state in the country to submit State Annual Action Plan under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), targeting universal coverage in respect of water supply connections and sewerage connections to all urban households in the state. The State Government has pro-posed projects under these two categories worth`1,087 crore for approval by the Union Urban Development Ministry during the current financial year.

Under the State Annual Action Plan, AMRUT proj-ects are proposed to be taken up in 13 of the 28 AMRUT cities in Rajasthan. These include Alwar, Beawar and Nagaur in which both water supply and sewerage proj-ects will be taken up while water supply projects will be taken up in 7 other cities of Baran, Bhiwar, Bhil-wara, Chittorgarh, Dhaulpur, Ganganagar City and Sujangarh. In 3 cities of Bhiwadi, Sikar and Udaipur, only sewerage and septage management projects will be taken up.

These cities have been identified by the state govern-ment in line with the principles of prioritisation sug-gested in the Mission Guidelines after analysing the gaps in coverage in respect of household water supply connections and sewerage network services.

Regarding water supply connections in 28 AMRUT cities, the coverage ranged from 28% in Nagaur to 98% in Bhiwadi. In terms of quantity of water being sup-plied, it ranged from 38 litres per capita per day in Gan-gapur City to 150 lpcd in Kota. Water supply is below 50 lpcd in case of Gangapur City and Hindaun City while it is in the range of 51-75 lpcd in 7 cities, 76-100 lpcd in 5 cities and more than 100 lpcd in 12 cities. The national norm in respect of water supply in urban areas is 135 lpcd.

There is no sewerage network in 10 cities of Baran, Beawer, Bhilwara, Bhiwadi, Ganganagar City, Hindaun City, Sawai Madhopur, Sikar, Sujangarh and Tonk. Sewerage projects are proposed in Beawer, Bhi-wadi and Sikar while they will be taken up in the rest after ensuring water supply.

Coverage of sewerage network services in other cit-ies is in the range of 10-25% in 6 cities, 26-50% in 3 cities,

51-75% in 5 and more than 75% in 4 cities. `555 crore has been proposed for 6 sewerage and

septage management projects and `344 crore for 10 water supply projects.

Project expenditure proposed in the 13 cities include: Beawar – `154 crore, Alwar - `130 crore, Bhi-wadi – `110 crore, Nagaur – `110 crore, Sikar – `110 crore, Udaipur – ̀ 85 crore, Baran – ̀ 50 crore, Chittor-garh – `40 crore, Ganganagar City – `40 crore, Dhol-pur – ̀ 30 crore, Bhilwara – ̀ 25 crore, Sujangarh – ̀ 25 crore and Bhiwadi – ̀ 20 crore.

Regarding implementation of mandatory reforms, the state government has informed that creation of website for each city, transfer of all 18 functions to urban local bodies, revision of building bye-laws, sin-gle window clearance for building permissions, 90% coverage of tax revenue, energy and water audit and

migration to double entry accounting system will be implemented in the next 6 to 12 months.

Rajasthan Government has reported that adequate consultations with stakeholders like MPs, MLAs, Chairpersons of urban local bodies and public have been undertaken and their suggestions and views have been incorporated in the Service Level Improvement Plans (SLIP) for each city which was integrated to for-mulate the State Annual Action Plan (SAAP).

For the first time in the country, the formulation of urban development plans including identification of projects, their appraisal and approval has been dele-gated to the States and Rajasthan has become the first state to act under this new architecture.

After broad scrutiny of the State Annual Action Plans, Urban Development Ministry will release the first instalment of 20% of project costs to the States.

Rajasthan first state to submit Annual Action Plan under AMRUT

President Pranab Mukherjee asks 100 Swachh Bharat Ambassadors to work for success of Mission

President Pranab Mukherjee has expressed con-cern over poor sanitation conditions in Indian cit-ies and called for immediate remedial measures through effective actions by all stakeholders. He addressed about 100 icons from different walks of life, designated as Swachh Bharat Ambassadors by Prime Minister, Urban Development Minister and the state governments.

The President said, “Long before Indepen-dence, Gandhiji said that sanitation is as impor-tant as political freedom. Even 68 years after Independence, statistics regarding sanitation speak otherwise. Now is the time for action.

Ambassadors can influence public to adopt san-itation practices. Besides generating awareness, Ambassadors can motivate public into effective actions through continuous involvement until each city is clean.”

Urban Development Minister, M Venkaiah Naidu said, “The country and countrymen are in dire need of freedom from littering and dumping of waste, freedom from open defecation and uri-nation and freedom from ill health caused by lack of hygiene.” He complimented the icons for asso-ciating themselves with Swachh Bharat Mission and urged them to be more pro-active all through

the mission period. Naidu noted that Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi launched the Mission last year as part of several major initiatives to trans-form India.

Both Mukherjee and Naidu expressed hope that on the occasion of 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma in 2019, the Nation would pay him a befitting tribute by ensuring a Clean India.

Speaking on behalf of the Ambassadors, Amala Akkineni, Chairperson, Blue Cross, Hyderabad said that Swachh Bharat Mission besides clean-ing is all about ending discriminatory and derog-atory attitudes towards those working in the field of sanitation.

Swachh Bharat Anthem scripted by renowned lyricist Prasoon Joshi was unveiled on the occa-sion. It was sung by Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo, Shankar Mahade-van and Prasoon Joshi and was supported by Loy Mendosa and Ehsaan Noorani. The Anthem with chorus: “Dam Damak Dam Dam Damkega India - Cham Chamak Cham Cham Chamkega India’’ is expected to receive huge response from the pub-lic in the coming days.

The Mission Ambassadors include Akhilesh Yadav - Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Sachin Tendulkar, Shashi Tharoor, Mridula Sinha - Gov-ernor of Goa, Kamal Hassan, Sonal Mansingh, Prasoon Joshi, Shankar Mahadevan, Mohammad Kaif and Suresh Raina, Anil Ambani, Rakesh Mit-tal, Naina Lal Kidwai, Aroon Purie, Ramoji Rao, Swami Ramdev and Swami Subhakaranananda of Ramakrishna Mission among others.

4 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

When it comes to city planning, the performance of most urban local authorities has been below par. Radical reform measures are needed such as the compulsory and competitive tendering system, followed in the UK

To make our cities more liveable and inclusive, the Government of India has embarked on a number of flagship missions - 100 Smart Cities, AMRUT, PMAY, HRIDAY, Swachh Bharat Mission, National Mission for Clean Ganga and Digital India.

These missions can bring radical urban transforma-tion in India. However, their success is largely depen-dent upon the performance of the urban local bodies and their planning capacity, together with legal, institutional and financial reforms. Looking at the dismal record of the Swachch Bharat Mission, the future appears grim - some radical thinking is needed.

In the past decades, there has been a significant rise in urban growth, along with the workforce. Instead of the earlier practices of departmental works being contracted out to third parties, urban local bodies are now increas-ingly adopting public-private partnerships. However, there are limitations and failures of public-private part-nerships, where profits are marginal, or where doing business is not easy, and payments are irregular due to political interventions. Public-private partnerships also tend to make the urban local bodies complacent and they

tend to lean on the private party to deliver.This situation is not only prevalent in India, but even

in developed countries like the United Kingdom. In pur-suit of ‘value for money’, the UK Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, evolved the concept of ‘compulsory and competitive tendering’ for public services. This was incorporated in the UK Local Government Act, 1988. In its Preamble it stated, “An Act to secure that local and other public authorities undertake certain activities only if they can do so competitively; to regulate certain functions of local and other public authorities in connection with public supply or works contracts; to authorise and regulate the provision of financial assistance by local authorities for certain housing purposes.”

Under this, the local authorities are no more the sole providers of public services like electricity, public transport, housing or sanitation but they have to com-pete with other local bodies and private sector units. The programme aims at “rolling back the frontiers of the state, and revitalising the enterprise.” The conse-quential working strategy involved the following: De-nationalisation of public corporations, sale of public

corporations / government assets, liberalisation or removing restrictions on competition for public ser-vices, and contracting out public services by competi-tive tendering.

The following are the premises and objectives of this strategy: • To provide a high level of public services• To save money and to obtain better value for public money• Survival of the fittest• To save management time• To obtain expertise not available in-house• To retain flexibility• To re-establish management control

Competitive tendering in the UK has opened up an alternative to the monopolies of urban local bodies and public-private partnerships in the pursuit of the delivery of services. Competition helps to reduce the burden on the state and lethargy of the urban local bodies.

The local and public service authorities are obliged to follow the prescribed system for tendering of its services. This has resulted in a drastic change in the government structure, security of employment and the overall atti-tude of the officials towards the public.

In case a bid is not in favour of the existing local body or public sector, the employees have to find an alternative job. As a result, there is a considerable slimming down of government bodies and corporations.

A close interaction is maintained with the workers’ unions in enforcing the provisions of the compulsory and competitive tendering system. Many of the local authori-ties have geared up to face the competition, whereas some local bodies which were too big, unproductive or unable to change their working culture have been wound up.

In India, with an all-round dissatisfaction with the performance of the local governments in the face of mounting establishment expenditure and losses, there is a serious concern to adopt such radical measures.

National missions need local implementationThe author, an architect and urban planner, was Commissioner (Planning) at Delhi Development Authority and a member of the UN-Habitat Human Settlement Network

By A K Jain

States given 3 months time to submit city level Smart City Plans

Minister of Urban Development, M Venkaiah Naidu has said that ‘a Smart City is what the citizens want their city to be and the city level plans should be evolved based on extensive consultations with them. Smart City Plans will be evaluated in the second stage

of City Challenge competition based on such con-sultations and their economic and environmental impacts.”

The Minister said that for realising the India growth story, the urban areas of the country need to be improved in terms of infrastructure, urban gover-nance to enhance business and economic activity and quality of life. He urged the elected representatives and officials of the cities included in the Smart City Mission to leave behind the jubilation over the same and face the tough challenge of making them smart, for which the clock has begun to tick. He expressed confidence that the urban landscape of the country can be recast to make urban areas more liveable and more effective engines of economic growth under the epochal new beginning made under the vision-ary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Urban Development Minister said that a par-adigm shift has been introduced to enable the success of new urban development initiatives based on the learning of the past, including the implementation of JNNURM. Elaborating on the essential features of this new approach, Naidu said, these include : Bot-tom-up planning based on citizen participation, com-plete autonomy to states and UTs in project proposal, appraisal and approval, selection of cities and towns under new urban missions based on objective crite-ria, convergence of different schemes to enable inte-grated planning and better utilisation of resources for visible impact on ground and unprecedented resource support to states and urban local bodies.

Seeking to motivate the Mayors, Municipal Chair-persons and Municipal Commissioners included in

Smart City Mission, Naidu said, “You have it in you to rise to the challenge of making these cities smart if you so desire and act accordingly. All that is needed is change of mindset and commitment to live up to peo-ple’s expectations and the desire to be remembered for what you have done instead of worrying about the next elections.”

Naidu informed the elected and executive heads of urban local bodies that the Smart City Plans to be now prepared for evaluation in the second stage of City Challenge competition will be broadly assessed for the extent and quality of citizen participation and their economic and environmental impacts. These city level plans are to be submitted to the Urban Development Ministry in the next three months for evaluation for selecting the top 20 rankers for extending financial support during the current financial year.

Differentiating between the Smart City Mission and the Atal Mission (AMRUT), Madhusud-han Prasad, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development said that the former is based on selection while the latter on entitlement. He stressed that, “Smart City Mission is not a mere urban infrastructure upgradation mis-sion. It is area based and intended to benefit all the citizens of an urban area in one form or the other. For the success of smart city mission, one has to think out of the box and act accordingly.”

Under AMRUT, all towns and cities with a popu-lation of more than one lakh each are included in the mission for ensuring basic infrastructure to improve service levels by targeting individual households. Under Smart City Mission, selection of cities is based on competition and the implementation strategy is area based.

Streamlining of approvals for construction projects to be firmed up by year end

At an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by Naidu, it was decided to conclude the process of streamlining

approvals for construction projects in urban areas by the end of this year. Minister of Culture and Tourism, Dr Mahesh Sharma besides secretaries and senior officials of 8 Ministries and Departments including Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Urban Devel-opment, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Civil Aviation, Culture, Consumer Affairs, Defence and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, attended the meeting.

Naidu reviewed the progress made by various ministries and departments to enhance the ease of doing business in respect of construction and hous-ing projects in urban areas, in the context of imple-mentation of new urban sector initiatives like Hous-ing for All, Smart City Mission and AMRUT. It was decided in the meeting that the ongoing efforts in this regard will be completed and necessary notifi-cations will be issued by the end of this year to enable Urban Local Bodies accord approvals in a specified time period.

Naidu was informed that the Ministry of Civil Avi-ation has uploaded the Colour Coded Zoning Maps of Ahmedabad and Lucknow airports on the web-site of Airports Authority of India further to similar action taken earlier in respect of airports at Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Same would be done in respect of Guwahati, Bengaluru, Chennai, Nagpur and Jaipur by the end of this year. Such uploading of Colour Coded Zoning Maps would enable ULBs accord approvals without the appli-cants going to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Officials of the Ministry of Civil Aviation will hold talks with those of the Ministry of Defence to resolve the issue of uploading Zoning Maps in respect of 25 defence airports.

Ministry of Culture has informed that a Mem-orandum of Understanding has been signed with ISRO for survey and mapping of all the 3,686 pro-tected monuments in the country for uploading and enabling online approvals.

Ministry of Consumer Affairs will come out with National Building Code-2015 keeping in view with the objective of enhancing the ease of doing business in urban areas.

‘Smart City is what citizens want their city to be’

5 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

565 cities and towns identified for building houses under PMAY - Housing for All mission Within three months of the launch of the Housing for All (Urban) mission, 15 States have signed Mem-orandum of Agreement (MoA) with the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation commit-ting themselves to implement 6 mandatory reforms essential for making a success of the housing mis-sion in urban areas. 565 cities and towns also have been identified in 17 of these states for beginning construction of houses for the urban poor.

By signing the MoA, the States have taken up the responsibility of implementing the 6 reforms which include:

1.Doing away with the requirement of separate Non Agricultural Permission (NAP) in case land falls in the residential zone earmarked in the Mas-ter Plan of city or town

2.Preparing or amending Master Plans earmark-ing land for Affordable Housing

3.Putting in place a single-window-time bound clearance system for layout approvals and building permissions

4.Doing away with approvals below certain built up area / plot size in respect of Economically Weaker Sections and Low Income Groups

5. Legislating or amending existing rent laws on the lines of the Model Tenancy Act circulated by the Ministry of HUPA

6. To provide additional Floor Area Ratio (FAR) / Floor Space Index / Transferable Development Rights (TDR) and relax density norms, for slum redevelopment and low cost housing

15 States that have agreed to implement the above reforms include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir,

Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Sikkim and Uttarakhand.

565 cities and towns in 17 states have been identi-fied for building houses for urban poor

include – Andhra Pradesh (40 cities), Chhattisgarh (36 cities), Gujarat (30 cities), Hary-ana (9 cities), Himachal Pradesh (13 cities), Jammu & Kashmir (25 cities), Jharkhand (14 cities), Kerala (14 cities), Madhya Pradesh (74 cities), Manipur (28 cit-ies), Mizoram (23 cities), Nagaland (19 cities), Odisha (42 cities), Rajasthan (40 cities), Sikkim (8 cities), Telangana (28 cities) and West Bengal (122 cities).

Under the Housing for All initiative of the Gov-ernment of India named as ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana’ (PMAY) and launched by the Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi on June 25 this year, 2 crore houses are targeted to be built for the poor in urban

areas by the year 2022, coinciding with the 75 year of Independence.

Under this urban housing mission, central gov-ernment will provide an assistance in the range of `1 lakh to ̀ 2.30 lakh per house under different com-ponents of the scheme including In-situ redevelop-ment of slums using land as resource, credit linked subsidy scheme, affordable housing in partner-ship and beneficiary-led individual construction / improvement.

With the announcement of lists under Smart City Mission, AMRUT and Housing for All, there has been a clear convergence of implementation of the three schemes. The states that have identified 565 cities for housing for urban poor, also account for smart cities and AMRUT cities. Of these, Smart City Mission, AMRUT and Housing for All Mis-sions will be implemented in smart city aspirants enabling convergence of schemes and resources of State and Central governments.

In case of Telangana, both the smart city aspi-rants of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporations and Warangal, AMRUT and Housing missions will be implemented. Similarly, in other AMRUT cit-ies of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, Maha-boobabad, Miryalaguda, Nalgonada, Nizamabad and Suryapet, Housing for All Mission will be implemented resulting in convergence.

Welcoming this convergence, M Venkaiah Naidu said, “This convergence of urban schemes helps in better utilisation of resources resulting in visible improvement in urban areas. I am glad that state governments are resorting to convergence based approach as intended by the central government.”

Clean Ganga Fund receives `66 crore in donationsClean Ganga Fund (CGF), an initiative which was launched by the NDA government as part of its ambi-tious mission to cleanse the Ganga River, has received donations of over ̀ 66 crore till August of this year.

In September of last year, the Union Cabinet had given its approval for setting up of CGF with the aim of utilising the collection for various activities under the ‘Namami Gange’ programme for cleaning the holy river.

According to official sources, till August 14 of this year, CGF has received around `66.20 crore. Of the total amount, Public Sector Undertakings alone have contributed about `13 crore between April and mid-August 2015.

Private companies have contributed over ̀ 45 lakh in the current fiscal, while individual contributions stood at `15 lakh during the same period. Sources have said that individual contributions range from anywhere between ̀ 55 and over ̀ 5 lakh.

Non-Resident Indians too have shown an interest in making the river Ganga pollution-free. NRIs from Aus-tralia, Singapore and the USA have contributed for the purpose. They have donated `6.60 lakh between Sep-tember 2014 and March 2015 and around `2.50 lakh

from April to August, 2015.The Government had announced that these funds

would be managed by a Trust headed by the Finance Minister and the secretariat of the Trust will be set up in the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation under the Clean Ganga Mis-sion Director.

The funds would be employed in various activities relating to cleaning up of the Ganga, including setting up of waste treatment plants, conservation of biotic diversity of the river and development of public ame-nities, in addition to activities such as Ghat redevelop-ment and Research and Development and innovative projects.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has teamed up with the Union Urban Development Min-istry for the purpose of mapping over 500 towns and cities, to make a base plan for better planning and management.

This base plan would then help the town planners to prepare a master plan for many fast urbanising local bodies. The mapping is being presently done for munic-ipal local bodies with a population of more than a lakh.

“We have tied up with the Ministry of Urban Devel-opment to map over 4,041 areas. This includes around 500 urban local bodies. After mapping these cities and towns, we can prepare a base plan. This can help urban planners prepare a better master plan,” said VK Dadhwal, Director of ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre.

Dadhwal was speaking at a news conference being held to elaborate on additional features incorporated in the Bhuvan, country’s geo-platform launched in 2009. He added that over 2,500 town planners have been brought in and trained on how to use the base plan.

“A small percent of the cities have been mapped. This project can cover around 500 urban areas, which will be later taken to 4,041,” said an ISRO official. The space agency would also map and offer management plans for heritage sites and monuments of national importance.

Dadhwal noted that ISRO has diversified operations under Bhuvan Application Services like one metre sat-ellite images for more than 300 cities in the country and 3D city models with extrusions of the buildings and vir-tual city models, which would be a “useful tool for Smart City Programme of the government.”

isro teams up with ministry of urban development to map 4,041 towns

6 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

UN adopts sustainable developmental global goals for people and planet by 2030 The 193-member United Nations General Assembly has formally adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, along with a set of bold new Global Goals, which Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed as a uni-versal, integrated and transformative vision for a better world. “The new agenda is a promise by leaders to all peo-ple everywhere. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms – an agenda for the planet, our common home,” declared Ban as he opened the UN Sustainable Development Summit.

The UN chief’s address came ahead of the Assem-bly’s formal adoption of the new framework, Transform-ing Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel-opment, which is composed of 17 goals and 169 targets to wipe out poverty and fight inequality and tackle climate change over the next 15 years. On 25 September 2015, 193 countries of the Unite Nations General Assembly adopted the ‘Transforming our World’ doctrine.

Speaking to the press after the adoption of the Agenda, Ban said, “We must engage all actors, as we did in shaping the Agenda. We must include parliaments and local gov-ernments, and work with cities and rural areas. We must rally businesses and entrepreneurs. We must involve civil society in defining and implementing policies – and give it the space to hold us to account. We must listen to scien-tists and academia. We will need to embrace a data revo-lution. Most important, we must set to work – now.”

Sustainable Development Goals Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and

improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being

for all at all ages Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality edu-

cation and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all

women and girls Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable

management of water and sanitation for all Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustain-

able and modern energy for all Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable

economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries

Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and pro-duction patterns

Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degra-dation and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development

7 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

Release of new chapter on sustainability by National Building Code of IndiaKeeping in line with the vision of India surging into a new era of orderly, safe and sustainable development, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has made concerted efforts to bring out Amendment No 1 to the National Building Code of India 2005 (NBC 2005), thereby intro-ducing a new Part 11 ‘Approach to Sustainability’ in the Code. This was released by Alka Panda, IAS, Director General, BIS.

DG, BIS informed that the objective of addition of new chapter to NBC 2005 is to create buildings and built envi-ronment in such a way thereby making sustainability a way of life and necessary tool for all buildings to come up. She urged the local authorities, the Government con-struction departments, the private agencies / builders / developers, consultants and professionals to copiously follow and implement the provisions of the new chapter.

The Part 11 intends to promote positive environmental

impacts; identifies health, safety and welfare impacts with a view to contribute to a positive quality of life for current and future generations, she further added.

The National Building Code of India (NBC) is a prestigious publication of Bureau of Indian Standards

formulated to lay down a set of minimum provisions for buildings designed to protect the safety of pub-lic with regard to structural sufficiency, fire hazards, health aspects, etc. including environmental con-cerns. It mainly contains administrative provisions; development control rules and general building requirements; fire and life safety requirements; stip-ulations regarding materials; structural design and construction (including safety); building and plumb-ing services; and landscaping, signage and outdoor display structures.

V Suresh, Vice Chairman, NBC Sectional Com-mittee of BIS, Dr Prem C Jain, Convener, NBC panel for Sustainability and H S Dogra, Chairman Civil Engineering Division Council apart from various stakeholders from the building industry attended the event.

UN-Habitat organised two major events as part of Urban October: the World Habitat Day on October 5, 2015 and the World Cities Day, which would be taking place on October 31 in Shanghai, China, as well as several cities, national and regional level events organised by UN-Habitat partners around the world.

The World Habitat Day has been celebrated every year since 1986, while the World Cities Day was observed for the first time on October 31, 2014. The aim of the World Cities Day is to promote the international community’s interest in global urban-isation, encourage cooperation among countries

in meeting opportunities and addressing chal-lenges in urbanisation towards sustainable urban development.

Urban October has been developed to raise awareness, promote participation, generate knowl-edge and engage the national and international com-munity towards a New Urban Agenda in 31 days of promoting a Better Urban Future.

It is the overarching platform where partners converge and debate on urban issues, building up to the Post 2015 Development Agenda and the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Development (Habitat III).

The topic for this year’s World Habitat Day was ‘Public Spaces for All’, with a specific focus on gen-der issues and the responsibilities and roles of men and women in public spaces.

Urban October by UN-Habitat

8 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 Cover story

...Just as our vision behind the Agenda 2030 is lofty, our goals are comprehensive. It gives priority to the prob-lems that have endured through the past decades. And, it reflects our evolving understanding of the social, eco-nomic and environmental linkages that define our lives. We live in an age of unprecedented prosperity, but also unspeakable deprivation around the world.

I am pleased that elimination of poverty in all forms everywhere is at the top of our goals. Addressing the needs of 1.3 billion poor people in the world is not merely a question of their survival and dignity or our moral responsibility. It is a vital necessity for ensuring peace-ful, sustainable and just world.

The goals recognise that economic growth, industri-alisation, infrastructure, and access to energy provide the foundations of development.

We welcome the prominence given to environmen-tal goals, especially climate change and sustainable con-sumption. The distinct goal on ocean ecosystem reflects the unique character of its challenges and opportunities. Equally important, it focuses our attention on the future of the island states.

I speak about Blue Revolution, which includes the prosperity, sustainable use of marine wealth and blue skies.

Today, much of India’s development agenda is mir-rored in the Sustainable Development Goals.

Since Independence, we have pursued the dream of eliminating poverty from India. We have cho-sen the path of removing poverty by empowering the poor. We have placed priority on education and skill development.

Our attack on poverty today includes expanded con-ventional schemes of development, but we have also launched a new era of inclusion and empowerment, turning distant dreams into immediate possibilities: new bank accounts for 180 million; direct transfer of benefits; funds to the unbanked; insurance within the reach of all; and, pension for everyone’s sunset years.

The world speaks of private sector and public sec-tor. In India, we have defined a new personal sector of individual enterprise, micro enterprises and micro finance, drawing also on the strength of digital and

mobile applications. We are focusing on the basics: housing, power, water

and sanitation for all – important not just for welfare, but also human dignity. These are goals with a defi-nite date, not just a mirage of hope. Our development is intrinsically linked to empowerment of women and it begins with a massive programme on educating the girl child that has become every family’s mission....

We are reviving our manufacturing, improving our services sector, investing on an unprecedented scale in infrastructure; and, making our cities smart, sustain-able and engines of progress.

We are committed to a sustainable path to prosper-ity. It comes from the natural instinct of our tradition and culture. But, it is also rooted firmly in our commit-ment to the future....

Our national plans are ambitious and purposeful: new capacity of 175 GW of renewable energy over the next seven years; energy efficiency; a tax on coal; a huge afforestation programme; reforming our transporta-tion; and, cleaning up our cities and rivers. The energy intensity of our growth will continue to decline.

Sustainable development of one-sixth of human-ity will be of great consequence to the world and our beautiful planet. It will be a world of fewer challenges and greater hope; and, more confident of its success.

Our success will give us more resources to share with our friends. As India’s ancient saying goes, the

wise look at the world as one family. Today, India is fulfilling its responsibilities as devel-

opment partners in Asia and Africa and with small island states from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Nations have a national responsibility for sustain-able development. They also need policy space.

However, we are here today in the United Nations because we all believe that international partnership must be at the centre of our efforts, whether it is devel-opment or combating climate change.

And, the principle of common but differenti-ated responsibilities is the bedrock of our collective enterprise.

When we speak only of climate change, there is a per-ception of our desire to secure the comforts of our life-style. When we speak of climate justice, we demonstrate our sensitivity and resolve to secure the future of the poor from the perils of natural disasters. In address-ing climate change, it is important to focus on solu-tions that can help us reach our goals. We should forge a global public partnership to harness technology, inno-vation and finance to put affordable clean and renew-able energy within the reach of all.

Equally, we must look for changes in our lifestyles that would make us less dependent on energy and more sustainable in our consumption.

It is equally critical to launch a global education pro-gramme that prepares our next generation to protect and conserve Nature.

I hope that the Developed World will fulfil its financ-ing commitments for development and climate change, without in any way putting both under the same head!

I also hope that the Technology Facilitation Mecha-nism will turn technology and innovation into an effec-tive instrument for global public good, not just private returns.

As we see now, distance is no insulation from chal-lenges. And, they can rise from the shadows of conflict and privations from distant lands.

So, we must transform international partnerships on the strength of solidarity with fellow human beings and also our enlightened self-interest...

Excerpts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at the United Nations Summit for the adoption of Post-2015 Development Agenda

World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati, on concluding her three-day visit to India has said that the slowdown of the global economy will not stop India from becoming an economic powerhouse as long as reforms are sustained to ensure the most vulnerable and poor share in prosperity. Indrawati praised India’s strong economic fun-damentals and improving investment climate, and encour-aged the government to continue its economic reforms, particularly the enactment of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation.

“India is an engine of growth for the world economy with the potential of reaching and sustaining high eco-nomic growth above seven percent a year,” said Indrawati, who is also the World Bank’s Chief Operating Officer. “But it’s great potential will only be fully realised if the economic fundamentals are strengthened, deeper reforms are imple-mented, and the promise of prosperity includes all citizens, particularly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable.”

While meeting the Finance Minister of India, she dis-cussed with him the Bank’s support for the government’s priority areas - Swachh Bharat, 100 smart cities, AMRUT, 24x7 power, cleaning the Ganga and Skilling India. She assured the Railways Minister of the World Bank’s contin-ued support for modernising India’s railways and upgrad-ing its rail system infrastructure, which is critical for a fast growing, urbanising country.

Indrawati also attended the launch of the World Bank flagship publication “Leveraging Urbanisation in South Asia”. She stressed India’s unique opportunity to over-come “messy and hidden” urbanisation that was stopping the country from fully realising its economic potential.

During her visit to Mumbai and Jaipur, the World Bank Managing Director met the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra

and Rajasthan, along with their high-ranking officials, toured infrastructure and inclusion development proj-ects, and discussed further areas of cooperation between the Bank and India.

Indrawati was accompanied by Annette Dixon, Vice President for the South Asia Region of the World Bank during her visit. Today, India is home to the largest oper-ations of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), and the International Finance Corpo-ration (IFC). Recognising India as a key partner in ending

global poverty, the International Development Associa-tion (IDA) deputies have provided Transitional IDA funds worth USD 3.4 billion for the next three years. For Interna-tional Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) lending, the single borrower limit for India has recently been increased to USD 20 billion from USD 17.5 billion, and the Government of India agreement to purchase Spe-cial Private Placement Bonds of up to USD 4.3 billion -- all geared to help create additional borrowing options for India. World Bank assistance to India between July 2014 and June 2015 amounted to USD 3.8 billion.

momentum on reforms, inclusive growth can make india the growth engine for global economy: sri mulyani indrawati, coo & md of world bank

Sri Mulyani Indrawati, COO & MD, World Bank on way to board a local train at Church Gate station in Mumbai, India on September 22, 2015

urban news digest | october 2015 • 9smart cities | it, gis & gps application, e-governance

Prime Minister Narendra Modi toured the smart city, Masdar in Abu Dhabi, taking a ride in a self-driving car, which runs on batteries powered by solar energy.

Modi discussed urban development and next gen-eration urban spaces with UAE officials at Masdar, which is being billed as the world’s first zero-carbon, car-free city, and was briefed on its PRT or Private Rapid Transport System. The PRT uses self-driv-ing cars, produced by 2getthere, designed by Italy’s Zagato, and employs virtual software to guide them.

“Science is life” Modi wrote in the visitor’s book at Masdar City, a 5.95 sq km strip located 17 km south-east of Abu Dhabi international airport.

The project is being helmed by Masdar, which is also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Com-pany, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi government, and has two major objectives: To turn Abu Dhabi into an international hub for renewable energy, and to support the development and commercialisation

of sustainable technology.“It has the same rationale, the same philosophy

as NASA when it started: Put a man on the moon to show the strengths of the United States in that area of technology. Masdar is being developed to show Abu Dhabi’s commitment to clean air and technol-ogy,” said Fred Moavenzadeh, President of the Mas-dar Institute for Science and Technology (MIST).

Masdar was planned to be an incubator for a new generation of Emirati green start-ups, with an aim to garner investments in green energy and technol-ogy, which, in the long term, would earn Abu Dhabi significant revenue when its oil runs out.

In 2006, when construction began, the govern-ment’s vision of Masdar was for it to be the World’s first zero-carbon, zero-car city which would house 50,000 residents and 40,000 commuters by 2015. But in 2010, the completion date was pushed to 2025. At present, the completion of Masdar City has no scheduled deadline.

Smart City Masdar inspires PM Modi to say science is life

GPS to be installed on all state buses in Andhra PradeshGlobal Positioning System (GPS) is set to be installed in all 12,000 buses of Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) to monitor their movement.

APSRTC Managing Director N Sambasiva Rao said that the monitoring with GPS would allow the depot-level staff to inform the passen-gers about the arrival and departure of buses in advance, which would eventually improve occupancy.

He informed that the APSRTC management is focusing on improving the occupancy of the buses from its existing 72%.

“At the same time, the management is also con-centrating on fuel consumption efficiency from the existing 5.17 kmpl to 5.27 kmpl for each bus,” he said.

The management has submitted a fare hike proposal to the state government in view of the increased cost of operations, after a 43% hike in salaries of the staff.

Criminal tracking system launched in police stations across Maharashtra

ndmc smart grid project to boost power distribution

Maharashtra government has launched a Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) in police station across the state, with the intent to adopt a paperless working mechanism.

With the help of this system, which claims to be the first of its kind by a state, the police would now be able to register an FIR with a single click.

Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao launched the CCTNS project in Nagpur at a function attended by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) K P Bakshi, Director General of Police Sanjeev Dayal and other dignitaries.

While addressing the gathering, the Governor said CCTNS was not just for checking the increas-ing crime graph, but it had the ability to transform the police force and make it more people-friendly.

“The system will help bring transparency in police administration,” he said.

He assured that it would improve the reputa-tion of the police department as CCTNS project was a positive step towards achieving the goal of ‘Digital Maharashtra’.

Proper co-ordination and sharing of data of crimes and criminals would benefit the state and the country in nabbing repeat offenders. It would also lead to accurate investigation of crime and would increase conviction rate.

On challenges for police in 21st century, the Governor said, “We need well-manned, well-equipped, well-trained, modern police force to

maintain safety and security of citizens and main-tain law and order effectively.”

Chief Minister Fadnavis said that the state needed quality policing to maintain law and order, and that the use of modern techniques would help achieve that goal.

He further announced that the state is develop-ing many other applications related to CCTNS to make police people-oriented.

“CCTNS will ease burden on the police,” Fadnavis said. He announced that the government plans to cover every smart city under CCTV sys-tem surveillance. Mumbai would also come under full CCTV coverage in a year.

Praising senior police officers for working hard to achieve good conviction rate, Fadnavis said, “We aim to achieve 50% conviction rate.”

The North Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is in the process of coming up with a `500 crore ‘Smart Grid’ project, which is aimed at reducing losses through bet-ter power distribution and monitoring thefts and faults in transmission.

“We are coming up with a Smart Grid project to improve power distribution in areas under the NDMC’s jurisdiction. The project, a part of the smart city initia-tive, will enable us to accurately judge power require-ments of each locality, cut down on outages and sell off the surplus,” a senior NDMC official said.

The Union Power Ministry in-principle, has, approved the project and the Council gave its nod to it in a meeting.

“The project with an estimated cost of ̀ 500 crore has been divided into three phases – replacing old equip-ment and cables, installing smart metres in households and institutions under NDMC jurisdiction, and devel-oping a software to improve the efficiency of electricity distribution,” the official said.

“We will rope in consultants for the technology development. Software will be developed to work out the future load requirement in every area accurately. If there is deficiency of electricity in a particular area, we will be able to schedule the distribution of power there in advance,” he added.

Presently, during summers the civic body meets a peak demand of 380 MW of electricity, but in winters, it comes down to 90 MW.

“So, during winters when less electricity is required, we will sell off the surplus electricity beforehand as the software will help us to give accurate figures regarding consumption and demand,” said the official.

The smart grid system would also help in predicting voltage interruption.

“Though the first phase works, including the over-haul of old cables, transformers and other equipment, are likely to cost us a big amount, it will be beneficial in the long run. The new ‘smart metres’ will help online bill generation and trace habitual defaulters,” he added.

10 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 smart cities | it, gis & gps application, e-governance

Rajarhat New Town could be the first in West Bengal to get a smart fuelling zone, which would not only have petrol pumps, but also a facility to recharge electric-run vehicles, a Wi-Fi hotspot and an electronic surveillance system.

The zone has been designed to be set up on a 2,000 sq m area in Action Area III, which is close to the intersec-tion of important commercial and residential complexes, such as Unitech, Rosedale, Sukhobristi and Arts Acre.

“The plan is to have a fuelling zone that will have smart utilities and Wi-Fi hotspots,” said Debashis Sen, Chairman and Managing Director of the Housing Infra-structure Development Corporation (HIDCO). He added that the authorities would soon float tenders to invite bids for the project.

Officials informed that it would be a new-generation fuel pumping station, which will cater to the various needs of the customers. Apart from conventional pet-rol fuelling, there will be a charging station for electric buses, electric cars and electric three-wheelers.

The entire zone would be Wi-Fi enabled, allowing customers to use it for online work. The Wi-Fi will be routed from a smart tower, which will also have a video camera surveillance system. It would keep a watch on the hub to make sure security at the zone was not breached. The zone will eventually be connected to the main arterial road of the township or Biswa Ban-gla Sarani.

The proposed project is a step forward towards developing New Town as a smart city.

rajarhat new town of west bengal set to get a smart refuel station

siemens offers integrated solutions for smart city developmentNew urban sector initiatives like the Smart City Mission and Housing for All Mission came in for an extensive discussion between the Minister of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation and high level delegations from Siemens AG and the UNO and UNDP.

A five member delegation led by Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Sie-mens and Dipak Parekh of HDFC Bank met Venkaiah Naidu, Minister of Urban Development of India, and discussed possible areas of involve-ment in the Smart City Mission. Kae-ser referred to the growing presence in India of Siemens over the last 45 years and evinced keen interest to further deepen partnership in India’s growth story in the context of new ini-tiatives in the urban sector.

The delegation said that given the experience and expertise of Sie-mens, the company is in a position to offer integrated solutions to poten-tial smart cities covering the areas of urban infrastructure, energy, security, waste management and governance platforms and ranging from plan-ning to execution. The delegation also referred to a Memorandum of Under-standing signed with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) for partnering in Smart City Mission based on a consor-tium approach. President of Siemens said that the company has the ideas,

technologies and identified financing partners in Deutsche Bank and KFW to assist the potential smart cities.

Naidu suggested that Siemens’ rep-resentatives and senior officials of the ministry should hold further discus-sions on evolving a template for city-wise integrated solutions for the con-sideration of urban local bodies.

A delegation from the UN and UNDP led by Yuri Afansiev, Resident Coordinator of UN and Resident Rep-resentative of UNDP also met Ven-kaiah Naidu and explored the areas of possible cooperation in the imple-mentation of new urban sector initia-tives. Afansiev suggested that use of pre-fabricated housing technologies should be adopted on a large scale to meet the ambitious housing targets of the Government.

mass messaging services kept out of the encryption policy The draft policy, which had been put up on the website of the Depart-ment of Electronics and Informa-tion Technology (DeitY) meant that the government could have access to all encrypted information stored on computer servers in India, includ-ing personal e-mails, messages or even data. The draft policy pro-posed users to store all encrypted communication for at least 90 days and make them available to security agencies, if required, in text form.

Defending the decision, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Infor-mation Technology and Telecom said the government under the lead-ership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promoted social media activism.

“The right of articulation and freedom we fully respect, but at the same time, we need to acknowledge that cyber space transaction is rising enormously for individuals, busi-nesses, the government and compa-nies,” he said.

However, the Minister main-tained that there is a requirement for an encryption policy that would apply to those who are involved in encrypting a messaging product “for a variety of reasons”.

“I wish to make it very clear that there are two issues. One is creation of encryption. Many companies send

messages in an encrypted form. Other is those who are consumers of applications like WhatsApp, social media and other platforms avail-able in the cyber domain. The pur-pose of this encryption policy relates only and only to those who encrypt. This has to be made very clear. As far as ordinary consumers of appli-cations are concerned, they do not fall in this domain. Because (for) those who encrypt, for a variety of reasons, there has to be a policy reg-ulating the manner of their encryp-tion,” he said.

Prasad added that while the gov-ernment supports freedom of social media, “some sort of encryption policy is being followed all over the world, particularly in free demo-cratic societies”.

Government of Rajasthan announces SMART Raj projectGovernment of Rajasthan has launched its smart city project, which is known as ‘SMART Raj’. The salient features of the project are as follows:

• Single package covering all 187 ULBs• Single State Level Software Solution (SLSS)

which will be Web Based.• Includes supply, installation of hardware at

State Data Centre (SDC) and all 187 ULB• Total contract period shall be 5 years – 3 years

implementation and 2 years O&M• The 187 ULBs shall be commissioned in 3

phases as below:(i) Phase I of 18 months – development of soft-

ware and commissioning of 7 ULBS of category A and 25 of category B

(ii) Phase II of 9 months –commissioning of 43 ULBS of category C

(iii) Phase III of 9 months –commissioning of 112 ULBS of category D

• Approximate cost for works in the RFP is ̀ 163 crore. Total sanctioned cost of project is `183 crore

• Scope of work includes work of door to door household survey for urban development tax

The services to be provided on-line to citizens

are Birth, Death and Marriage Registration Sys-tem; Building Permission; Online Cash Collec-tion Module; Billing Accounting of Rental Proper-ties (Shops, space for Hoardings including on-line booking of ULB properties like community cen-tres, marriage gardens, etc); Trade License Man-agement; Demand generation (Challans) Modules such as Land Use Change Module, Compounding Charges, Debris (Malwa) Charges, Name Transfer Fees, Lease deed (Patta) Issuance, Road Cutting Charges, Sewer Connection Charge; RTI Act Mod-ule; Lok Seva guarantee Application Management; No Objection Certificate Management.

The services available to ULB are Stores, Inven-tory and Workshop Management System; Accrual Based Double Entry Municipal Accounting Sys-tem; Legal Cases Module; Establishment n Pay-roll, Personnel Management (HRMS); Asset Man-agement System Urban Assessment/ Lease, Billing and Collection; House Tax Assessment, Billing and Collection (Urban Development Tax or any other tax related to land / property levied by the gov-ernment); E – Auction of hoardings, lands, oth-ers; Solid Waste Data Management System with

GPS enabled Vehicle Tracking System; File Track-ing System in category A ULBs; Payment gateway Module; Web Portal.

The objectives and outcomes of the project are:a) Single Window Services to citizens on any-

time, anywhere basis. b) Provide a single integrated view of all ULBs

in the state.c) Creation of web portals for access to ULB’s

information and services.d) Training the government staff to run the oper-

ations and manage assets independently.e) Operation & maintenance of the application

and handholding for a period of 2 years with a pro-vision for further extension.

f ) Transparency and accountability in ULB functioning.

g) Quick re-dressal of grievances.The current status of the project is that letter of

Intent (LOI) has been issued to the lowest bidder comprising of consortium of M/s Fourth Dimen-sion Solutions Pvt Ltd, M/s Ricoh India Ltd and M/s Mars Telecom Systems Pvt Ltd on July 22, 2015 for `124.26 crore.

urban news digest | october 2015 • 11SpecialFeatures workInG cItIes | special feature

Melbourne in Australia remains the most liveable location of the 140 cities surveyed, followed by the Austrian capital, Vienna. Vancouver in Canada, which was the

most liveable city surveyed until 2011, lies in third place. Although the top cities remain unchanged, the last year has seen a number of changes in city liveability scores. Over the past six months 38 cities of the 140 surveyed have experienced changes in scores. This rises to 53 cities, or 37% of the total number surveyed, when looking at changes over the past year. Of these changes the majority have been negative, 38 in the past 12 months, reflecting deterioration in stability in many cities around the world.

Civil unrest, acts of terror and violence have triggered stability declines around the world. High profile terrorist shootings in France and Tunisia, and the ongoing actions of Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East have created a further heightened threat of terror-ism in many countries. Meanwhile, protests over matters like police brutality, democ-racy and austerity have also raised the threat of civil unrest in many countries, nota-bly the U.S. where the deaths of a number of black people in police custody have led to widespread protests and accusations of racism.

On the other hand, those cities moving up the ranking are largely in countries that have enjoyed periods of relative stability following falls in liveability. Over five years 89 of the 140 cities surveyed have seen some change in overall liveability scores. Of these cities, 57 have seen declines in liveability.

Although the most liveable cities in the world remain largely unchanged, there has been movement within the top tier of liveability. Of the 65 cities with scores of 80 or more, 20 have seen a change in score in the past 12 months.

Global business centres tend to be victims of their own success. The “big city buzz” that they enjoy can overstretch infrastructure and cause higher crime rates. New York, London, Paris and Tokyo are all prestigious hubs with a wealth of recreational activ-ity, but all suffer from higher levels of crime, congestion and public transport problems than would be deemed comfortable. The question is how much wages, the cost of liv-ing and personal taste for a location can offset liveability factors. Although global cen-tres fare less well in the ranking than mid-sized cities, for example, they still sit within the highest tier of liveability and should therefore be considered broadly comparable, especially when contrasted with the worst-scoring locations.

World’s Most Liveable Cities @ 2015Liveability is recovering, but unrest still presents a threat

With great coffee, food, lively music, arts scene and lots of open space, Melbourne is ranked at the top

Vienna, the musical city with palaces and architecture came second with only 0.1 point short

Once the title-holder until 2011, Vancouver remains the third most liveable city in the world

With a great skyline including the 553 metre high CN Tower, Toronto came fourth in the survey

Besides parks, beaches, vineyards, for ghost story lovers Adelaide has the most terrifying tourist trails

How the Rating is Calculated

The liveability score is reached through category weights, which are equally divided into relevant subcategories to ensure that the score covers as many indi-

cators as possible. Indicators are scored as acceptable, tolerable, uncomfortable, unde-sirable or intolerable. These are then weighted to produce a rating, where 100 means that liveability in a city is ideal and 1 means that it is intolerable. For qualitative vari-ables, an “EIU rating” is awarded based on the judgment of in–house expert coun-try analysts and a field correspondent based in each city. For quantitative variables, a rating is calculated based on the relative performance of a location using external data sources.

Category 1: Stability (weight: 25% of total)• Prevalence of petty crime • Prevalence of violent crime • Threat of terror • Threat of military conflict • Threat of civil unrest / conflict

Category 2: Healthcare (weight: 20% of total)• Availability of private healthcare • Quality of private healthcare • Availability of public healthcare • Quality of public healthcare • Availability of over-the-counter drugs • General healthcare indicators (adapted from World Bank)

Category 3: Culture and Environment (weight: 25% of total)• Humidity / temperature rating (adapted from average weather conditions)• Discomfort of climate to travellers • Level of corruption (adapted from Transparency International) • Social or religious restrictions • Level of censorship • Sporting availability • Cultural availability • Food and drink • Consumer goods and services

Category 4: Education (weight: 10% of total)• Availability of private education • Quality of private education • Public education indicators (adapted from World Bank)

Category 5: Infrastructure (weight: 20% of total) • Quality of road network • Quality of public transport • Quality of international links • Availability of good quality housing • Quality of energy provision • Quality of water provision • Quality of telecommunications

Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit Liveability Survey 2015

Melbourne, Australia

Vienna, Austria

Vancouver, British Columbia

Toronto, Canada

Adelaide, Australia

Top 5 cities

urban news digest | october 2015 • 12planned cities | architecture, planning, design

Ganti Associates (GA) Design recently won an interna-tional ideas competition with their radical shipping con-tainer skyscraper, which has been envisioned to provide temporary housing in Mumbai’s overpopulated Dharavi Slum. After careful consideration that steel shipping containers can be stacked up to 10 storeys high without any additional support, GA’s winning plan calls for a 100 metre-tall high rise comprised of a series of self sup-ported container clusters separated only by steel gird-ers placed every eight storeys.

Containers can be stacked 10 storeys high without requiring additional supports. The steel skin itself could take the load like a ‘Monocoque’ structure, therefore cut-ting costs for additional columns or beams. The design of the 100 metre tall high rise structure (approx 32 sto-reys) calls for erecting portal frames connected with steel girders placed every eight storeys. Each eight sto-rey self-supporting stack rests on these girders and the module repeats vertically. The units are arranged sym-metrically around a central core which houses the ver-tical circulations specifically the stairs and elevators, portals serving as ducts for vertical plumbing and elec-trical needs.

CRG Architects, another architectural firm also came third in an ideas competition, which too focused on providing temporary housing in Dharavi. CRG’s ‘Containscrapers’ proposes to house 5,000 city dwellers

by stacking 2,500 shipping containers up to heights of 400 metres. The radical proposal would be supported by a concrete structure and would offer a range of hous-ing options, from flats to three bedroom residences.

The position of the ‘boxes’ containing a couple of con-tainers may seem to be random, but in reality it follows a programmed mathematical pattern according to the type of the environment, to offer the maximum flexibil-ity to distribute the units in height. To provide a better randomisation to these positions, the modules of water tanks and empty structures, alternate to ensure a reg-ular arrangement in height, and that all users enjoy the vertical gardens, and all dwellings may have availabil-ity of smooth water distribution.

Shipping containers to be used to build skyscraper for Mumbai slum

lagos plans to build a new city reclaiming land from atlantic

The government of Nigeria’s former capital, Lagos has announced that it intends to build a new city, which will become the new financial centre of Nigeria, and perhaps West Africa. Eko Atlantic, pitched as Africa’s answer to Dubai, is a multibillion dollar residential and business development that would be sited as an addition to Vic-toria Island, along the renowned Bar Beach shoreline in Lagos. The plan calls for many high-rise buildings which would take root on 10 sq km of land reclaimed

from the Atlantic Ocean. It would house 250,000 peo-ple, and employ a further 150,000 people commuting on a daily basis. The new district would be promoted as a 24-hour, green-conscious, world-class city, which can attract and retain top multinational corporations.

The scale of the Eko Atlantic project is immense, so its progress depends on the success of a team effort between investors, planners, engineers, and contractors.

a sky pool suspended 35 metres above london street levelA 25 metre long, 10 storeys high suspended swimming pool nicknamed the ‘Sky Pool’, has been planned as the second phase of a new high-end residential devel-opment in the London district of Nine Elms, adjacent to the new Embassy of the United States.

The pool, which is part of two buildings, has been designed by London-based practice HAL and part of a complex of 2,000 homes developed by Ireland’s Bal-lymore Group. The water will be held in suspension by just 20 centimetres of “structure free” transparent glass, and will connect two housing blocks together. Besides a rooftop bar, orangery and spa, a second con-nection between the two is also planned in the form of a footbridge.

Sean Mulryan, Chairman and CEO of the Bally-more Group said, “My vision for the sky pool stemmed from a desire to push the boundaries in the capability of construction and engineering. I wanted to do some-thing that had never been done before.” He continued, “The Sky Pool’s transparent structure is the result of

significant advancements in technologies over the last decade. The experience of the pool will be truly unique; it will feel like floating through the air in central London.”

The pool itself has been designed by Arup

Associates and specialist advice was sought from design engineers Eckersley O’Callaghan, alongside aquarium designers Reynolds. The scheme is expected to be completed in 2017.

tallest building of Japan planned near tokyo stationMitsubishi Estate Co announced it would build a 390 metre tall, 61 storey skyscrapers near JR Tokyo Sta-tion. The new struc-ture would become the tallest building in Japan, beating Osa-ka’s Abeno Harukas, which is currently the country’s tallest sky-scraper at 300 metres.

The new building is scheduled to be completed by 2027. The planned construction site, located in the Tokiwabashi area of Chiyoda Ward, covers more than 30,000 sq metres. Presently, the JX building that houses the headquar-ters of JX Holdings Inc and the Nippon Building are located on the site. The new building planned by Mit-subishi Estate would be the 20th tallest in the world at the moment.

Several other tall building projects have also been progressing around the same area, with Mit-sui Fudosan Co planning to open a 245 metre high building in 2021, and Tokyo Tatemono Co planning to open a 250 metre high building in 2023 in a rede-velopment project on the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station.

13 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 architecture, planning, design | planned cities

New Amsterdam office building claims to be world’s most sustainable

A Canadian firm has recently been granted a U.S. patent to build the world’s first ever space elevator, 20 times the height of the world’s tallest building Burj Khalifa. The elevator will also have a tower assisting spacecrafts to land and take off.

Ontario based Thoth Technology has outlined plans for an elevator to space which will help save enormous amount of fuel and money that goes into launching

rockets into orbit. The company will be building a freestanding tower

that reaches 20 km above the planet’s surface.“Astronauts would ascend 20 km by an electric eleva-

tor. From the top of the tower, space planes will launch in a single stage to orbit, returning to the top of the tower for refuelling and reflight,” said its inventor, Dr Bren-dan Quine.

The elevator would also be used for wind energy gen-eration and communications.

According to the President and Chief Executive Offi-cer of Thoth, Caroline Roberts, the space tower would also include self-landing rocket technologies to herald a new era of space transportation.

The Thoth design will reportedly use inflatable sec-tions and flywheels to provide dynamic stability.

The design attempts to get around the complication of geostationary orbit by setting a height of just 20 km instead of the full 100 km, which is considered the end of our atmosphere and the beginning of space.

A new 40,000 square metre office for Deloitte, by PLP Architecture claims to be the world’s most sustainable office building, having been awarded the highest rat-ing ever recorded by the Building Research Establish-ment, a global assessor of sustainable buildings. The project, which has been named The Edge, achieved a BREEAM new construction certification of ‘Outstand-ing’ and a score of 98.36% by utilising innovative smart technology.

The workspace has been organised around a grand 15-storey atrium, a window animated by office activ-ity, circulation bridges, and lift cores. The base of the atrium has been activated by a restaurant, a café, exhi-bition spaces, and conference facilities.

Additionally, the shape of the building allows north-ern light into 60% of the offices. East, west, and south walls have smaller openings in a dense load-bearing structure; while on the south, photovoltaic cells shade the openings.

Besides its role in the environmental strategy, the atrium also provides the building with an identity that will contribute to the outstanding architecture of the Zuidas.

Canadian firm outlines plans for an elevator to space

World’s tallest atrium to be built in Beijing

In the wake of the President of China, Xi Jinping’s orders to call an end to “weird architecture” in an era of construction boom in the country, Zaha Hadid Archi-tects disclosed a proposal for a 46-story skyscraper in southwest Beijing, China. This project, Leeza Soho, intends to build the world’s tallest atrium comprising a 200 m high space, extending nearly the full height of the gently twisting cylindrical tower.

The project would feature an underground prome-nade that would link the subway station below the site through the building to a public park to be built to the west. The gross floor area of the project has been esti-mated to be 172,800 sq m, with 48,800 sq m of space located below ground.

The project has further proposed a parking space for 480 cars besides providing ample area for 2680 bikes. It will also include 3D building information mod-eling energy management system that will attempt a monitoring of real-time environmental control and energy efficiency.

Future of housing in los angeles by mad architects: cloud corridorA futuristic model for housing in Los Angeles has been proposed by MAD Architects, as part of the ongoing ‘Shelter: Rethinking How We Live in Los Angeles’ exhi-bition at the A+D Museum.

The concept, which has been dubbed as the ‘Cloud Corridor,’ is based on Ma Yansong’s ‘Shanshui City’ phi-losophy of architecture to “manifest the spiritual essence between people and nature.” The vision is the opposite of sprawl, proposing a high-density vertical village, made up of nine interconnected residential towers.

Cloud Corridor focuses on the concern of sprawl in cities and offers a topological alternative: the high-den-sity vertical village. Through reorienting the streets ver-tically, nine interconnected residential towers reallocate the urban fabric to join together disparate neighbour-hoods into a vertical village with public spaces and gar-dens in the sky.

Each floor plate of Cloud Corridor boasts gardens to accompany residential units. The garden patios and courtyards provide a lush environment in the midst of the surrounding urban density. Elevated corridors and multi-level garden patios shape the city skyline and pro-vide a viewing platform for residents.

The Cloud Corridor’s speculated site is adjacent to Museum Row, and sits above a forthcoming Metro sta-tion. Cloud Corridor’s podium dually serves as a public park and as a transportation hub, providing the site for activity after museum hours. The podium lifts away from the ground to reveal both a private-access lobby for tower residents and entry for Metro Station patrons.

The Cloud Corridor questions the typical residential typology and alters everyday urban experiences into opportunities for residents to interact with nature among the growing density in cities.

urban news digest | october 2015 • 14tech cities | built environment, engineering, construction

Sharjah is building a new waterfront city at the cost of around USD 5 billion, which will accommodate 200,000 people upon completion of 10 natural islands that will be connected by bridges and canals. The Sharjah Waterfront City would be spread across 36 km of coastal land on the north eastern coast of the emirate.

The city will have 200 mixed-use towers; 95 apart-ment buildings providing affordable luxury apart-ments; multi-level hotels and serviced apartments; with over 1,100 waterfront and park-side villas; marine clubs; a shopping mall; two entertainment centres; and mosques, schools, banks, stores, coffee shops and restaurants.

“We have commenced work on the infrastructure after securing the required approvals from the govern-ment authorities,” said Hayssam El Masri, President, Sharjah Oasis Real Estate Development Company.

The first phase of the project would be spread across a plot area of 3.05 million sq feet with a total construc-tion area of 15.22 million sq feet. El Masri told that the second phase is expected to be completed by 2020–2021, stating that, “The project will be developed in multiple

phases, keeping in mind the market dynamics.”Sharjah Waterfront City, on completion, will have a

total area of around 60 million sq feet – making it one of the biggest real estate developments in the emirate. The project is also expected to become a major tourist destination and support Sharjah Tourism Vision 2021, the strategic plan developed by Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority which aims to attract 10 million tourists by the year 2021.

Sharjah unveils $5 billion waterfront city Bajaj Electricals Ltd IBMS Unit bags Best IBMS Company AwardBajaj Electricals-IBMS Unit has been awarded “Best IBMS Company” by CIMS Healthcare Excellence Award in July 2015. Bajaj Electricals Ltd is India’s lead-ing consumer durable company with an equally strong presence in the lighting and EPC sectors in the country.

Speaking at the occasion, Senior GM and Head IBMS, Shakti Leekha said, “The Award encourages Bajaj IBMS to keep doing Customer delight, and get-ting new technologies, product & solution to market by innovating and creating smarter solutions which are Customer-Centric, Open Technology and Simple.

Bajaj Electricals has entered into an alliance with Delta Controls to offer dependable, open-platform and user friendly building management system (BMS) and energy management systems (EMS) to commercial, healthcare, education, leisure buildings along with specialised applications for data centres with energy management and energy reporting tools for energy efficiency.

The building management systems provided by Delta Controls consists of controllers that operate on Native BACnet (BACnet/IP, BACnet Ethernet, BAC-net MS/TP) along with options of controllers with hot swappable modules for easy maintenance and expan-sion and Power over Ethernet (POE) controllers which are IT friendly and future ready with wireless and EnOcean products.

The software is designed as a Unified enterprise Platform for Building Automation, Access Control Solution and Lighting Controls with multisite manage-ment tools. The software consists of web-based appli-cation that combines the power of enterprise dash-boards with easy-to-use facility management tools with customisable Energy Management dashboards and powerful energy reports give managers the tools to reduce consumption and drive down costs.

Bajaj Electricals-IBMS now has the products and solutions for Internet of Things (IoT) and the ecosys-tem of system integrators to move from smart buildings to smart cities and ensuring conservation of energy.

affordable prefab home villa one can accommodate a growing family

cement-free concrete blocks to become a reality

Danish architecture firm EFFEKT has designed a bud-get-friendly house that can accommodate the needs of a growing family. Built on the outskirts of Copenha-gen, Villa One, an affordable prefab house, can easily add bedrooms as the family grows bigger. The mini-malist timber-clad structure was created to both match the cost and surpass the quality of cheapest kit homes in Denmark.

The building was designed for a developer who owned a vacant suburban plot on the outskirts of the city. His brief to EFFEKT was to create a house for first-time buyers that would match the cost, but sur-pass the quality of other prefabricated structures.

“He was looking for a new approach to a private house for a young couple with or without kids,” said architect Mikkel Bogh. “He felt the available options for starting families had become too standardised in order to make a quick profit, and he was looking to develop an alternative that would be flexible over the long term as the family grew.”

The 136 sq metre home has been designed to be flex-ible with a Y-shaped floor plan to maximise commu-nal spaces and views out to the landscape, courtyard, and secret garden. The shape of the house also helps in protecting the residents from the noise of the visu-ally hidden, but loud highway located at the end of the sloped property. To make the most of the noise buf-fer zone, the architects installed a meadow sculpture

garden between the house and the highway.The minimalist interior of Villa ONE comprises

mostly white surfaces, curved walls, timber floors, and floor-to-ceiling windows, which flood the house with natural light. Remarkably, the majority of the interior spaces are devoted to social and communal use, with a 45 sq metre living and dining room serving

as the node of the three wings. The master bedroom is on the western wing, while the southernmost wing houses the children’s bedrooms, a bathroom, and kitchen. The third wing contains a sunken living space which can easily be converted into a third bedroom. The garage also has the flexibility to be turned into a fourth bedroom.

Ever since manufacturers have developed techniques to make concrete blocks cheaper than traditional clay-fired bricks, concrete blocks have been one of the most omnipresent construction materials. However, this comes at a price as the production of concrete accounts for around five percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions, and concrete blocks contributes a consider-able portion of these emissions.

To control these runaway carbon emissions, a Cali-fornia-based company called Watershed Materials has been developing alternatives to the traditional concrete block which utilises less cement, significantly reducing the amount of carbon dioxide produced; they even have

in the works, a product which they hope would offer a widely applicable concrete block alternative which uses no cement at all.

So far, Watershed Materials’ flagship product has been the Watershed Block, which employs just 50% of the cement of a standard concrete block. While the other 50% – “There is no ‘other 50%’ that provides the rest of the strength,” explains Alex Wright, part of Water-shed’s creative team. Rather the strength is provided by a machine which compresses the blocks together. “Rock forms in nature over the course of millions of years as pressure fuses loose grains into solid stone. Watershed Materials has developed technology to activate this pro-cess in seconds rather than millennia.”

Another advantage of their system is in the aggre-gates which can be used: firstly, unlike traditional con-crete, Watershed’s system can use a wider range of aggregate sizes and secondly, whereas aggregates for traditional concrete must be washed to make sure the cement binds to them properly, aggregates used in cre-ating Watershed’s blocks can remain unwashed. Not washing the aggregates saves both time and water, mak-ing the Block an economical and ecological choice. How-ever, it also suggests that aggregates retain the charac-ter provided by the local soil, meaning that blocks are attractive and context-sensitive without having to be artificially dyed.

15 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 built environment, engineering, construction | tech cities

Vo Trong Nghia Architects unveils tree-covered university campus for Ho Chi Minh City Vo Trong Nghia Architects has begun work on FPT Uni-versity Ho Chi Minh City, a building that is set to begin a renewal of the natural landscape, earlier destroyed by mass development. In the city of Ho Chi Minh in Viet-nam, only 0.25% of the city is covered in greenery, con-tributing to environmental stress on its infrastructure - frequent energy shortages, increased pollution, and rising temperatures are becoming more common as the city grows.

To break the pattern of straight, vertical buildings, FPT University has been envisioned to be a forested mountain, growing out of a city of concrete and brick. By creating more greenery than its destroying for the construction, the project would help combat environ-mental stress and become a means for more sustain-able development. The campus will occupy a 22,500 sq metre site among the skyscrapers of the southern Viet-namese city.

Ample green space would be dedicated to circula-tion and gathering, accommodating the estimated flow of 5,000 students at one time. The ground floor would feature a large courtyard with high trees, a pond, and space for lectures, events, exchange, or eating lunch.

A semi-outdoor garden would weave through the building, connecting each programme to greenery, continuing onto the roof where it will provide addi-tional public space. In addition, trees that recycle air and reduce energy consumption by producing shade

would cover the facade.Vo Trong Nghia Architects designed FPT Univer-

sity with the prospect of creating a “harmony between humans and nature” and aiding in “the recovery of greenery that once flourished in this land.”

copenhagen’s new artistic landmark: cirkelbroen bridgeDanish-Icelandic artist, Olafur Eliasson has created Copenhagen’s new artistic landmark, a bridge called Cirkelbroen, which features a series of wire masts based on ships’ rigging. The bridge spans Christian-shavn Canal to connect the Christiansbro area with Applebys Plads.

The 40-metre long footbridge has been made from five interconnected circular platforms of various sizes, each with its own ‘mast’, a reference to the boats that sail Copenhagen’s waterways. From the mast is suspended several tensioned wires which connect to the periph-ery of the circles. One section of the bridge functions like a swing bridge, rotating to allow large boats to pass through the canal. Smaller boats such as kayaks can pass below the elevated podiums.

Rather than making a straight path across the canal, the bridge follows a slight curve, allowing pedestrians “to slow down and change their focus.” The bridge would allow the people of Copenhagen to walk or ride in a continuous route along the entire Inderhavn, mak-ing it simple for the people to move around.

“But Cirkelbroen is much more than a bridge or a work of art. It is a new venue. It is an observation post

in the harbour,” said the Danish charity Nordea Foun-dation, who commissioned the bridge.

Red LEDs set in the balustrades illuminates the structure at night and are synchronised to turn on and off with the area’s street lights. Curving Brazilian Guari-uba wood handrails are affixed to the top of a crisscross-ing arrangement of red railings.

The bridge is expected to be used by roughly 5,000 cyclists and pedestrians every day.

The Beijing based architecture studio, Penda has devised a modular facade system for a high-rise block in Vijayawada, India, which would allow residents to customise the appearance of the building with hanging gardens and balcony details. The studio has been com-missioned by Indian developer Pooja Crafted Homes to design the Vijayawada Garden Estate for a corner plot in the city that sits on the banks of the Krishna River.

The architects based the design on a modular shelv-ing unit, which uses a structural grid to support indi-vidual elements. Residents will be able to personalise their homes by selecting optional plug-ins ranging from flooring to facade details and planting.

“The structural grid and the infrastructure are the only constant elements in the building,” said studio co-founder Chris Precht. “This framework for a tower can be filled with prefabricated modules, which the home-owner can choose from a catalogue.”

“In an age of mass-production and a certain con-formism in the building industry, we try to use modern construction techniques to bring back a level of indi-vidualism and flexibility for the inhabitants of a high-rise,” he added.

Abundant planting would provide each residence with its own elevated garden, while also creating a screen from neighbouring properties and the elements. Penda envisions that the greenery would eventually sprawl across the building as it matures, covering its regimented structure.

Rainwater collected on the roof would be used to water pollution-filtering plants on balconies, while open hallways would help to provide ventilation and minimise the reliance on air conditioning.

vijayawada tower to feature modular elements that residents can personalise

Ajay Pandey recently took over charge as MD and Group CEO of GIFT City, India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC).

The construction work of the first World Trade Centre of Gujarat at GIFT city has started in full swing. The World Trade Centre at GIFT City would connect several organisations across the 330 cities of 100 different countries of the world. It would have offices of leading Financial, IT/ITes companies, Con-sulate offices etc.

Volupia Developers Pvt Ltd acquired Co-developer status from Board of Approval, SEZ, Ministry of Com-merce & Industry in GIFT SEZ Ltd for development of office tower in GIFT SEZ – IFSC. Volupia Developers

also received Development Permission from GIFT SEZ Development Committee and commenced the construction of the office tower from July 2015.

Reliance Capital Limited acquired Co-developer status in GIFT SEZ Ltd on August 2015 for developing of office tower and residential tower in GIFT – IFSC.

In the Mission Statement & Guidelines Booklet issued by Ministry of Urban Development, under the category of Greenfield Development in Smart Cities, GIFT City Projects has been recognised as the first model Smart City in India.

GIFT City’s strong promoter profile of Govern-ment of Gujarat (GoG) backed Gujarat Urban Devel-opment Company Limited (GUDCL) and Infrastruc-ture Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) and steady Project progress coupled with the accred-itation of IFSC status and the notification of the reg-ulatory framework has lead to upgradation of com-pany’s credit rating. ICRA has upgraded the rating assigned to the long term fund based facilities of Guja-rat International Finance Tec-City Company Limited too [ICRA] BBB + from [ICRA] BBB.

Kotak Mahindra Bank signed MoU with GIFT City on April 10, 2015 for setting up an IFSC Banking Unit for carrying out Offshore banking related activities in GIFT SEZ-IFSC.

Multi-Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), has signed a memorandum a understanding (MoU) with GIFT SEZ Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Guja-rat International finance Tcc-City Company Ltd for developing an International Exchange in GIFT city.

GIFT City appoints new MD & CEO, Ajay Pandey

urban news digest | october 2015 • 16 urban news digest | october 2015 • 16green cities | environment, energy, ecology

During his recent U.S. tour, Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a roundtable meeting on renewable energy, with top energy CEOs and experts in San Jose. Dr Ernest Moniz, Secretary of Energy, United States and Prof Steven Chu, former U.S. Secretary of Energy were present at the roundtable meeting. Top energy CEOs and investors, including Ahmad Chatila, CEO SunEdison; Nikesh Arora, President and COO, Soft-bank; K R Sridhar, CEO, Bloom Energy; Jonathan Wolfson, CEO, Solazyme; John Doerr, Venture Capi-talist; and Ira Ehrenpreis of DBL partners were pres-ent. Prof Arun Majumdar, Prof Roger Noll, Dr Anjani Kochar, and Prof Sally Benson from Stanford Univer-sity participated in the discussion.

Among the views expressed at the roundtable, was a clear assertion that India has the makings of becoming the Clean Energy World Capital.

The participants said that clean and renewable energy will soon be an inexpensive energy option, with electricity storage becoming cheaper. Partici-pants were of the view that states and cities in India should be allowed to take the lead in clean energy ini-tiatives. A related thought was that the current grid is not designed for carrying the 175 GigaWatts (GW) of renewable energy that India is targeting, and there-fore a complimentary effort is required on the grid side. Private investment was emphasised as vital for realising the vision of 175 GW, with a parallel example being given of how Israel had solved its water short-age using private investment.

Experts were of the view that India has to address issues in four key areas – viz technology integration; finance; regulatory frameworks; and the right talent

pool. They also expressed concern at the financial status of power distribution companies (Discoms) in India.

The CEOs present gave a brief overview of the technologies and innovations being used in their companies. In addition to solar and wind energy, bio-mass was also suggested as a key provider of clean energy.

The Prime Minister thanked the participants for their views, and emphasised India’s commitment to realise the vision of 175 GigaWatts of clean energy. He said there is massive scope of investment in the sector, for example, through the Railways, where 100 % FDI

has been allowed. He said the Government is work-ing to address issues in regulation, and address the financial health of Discoms.

The Prime Minister also gave an overview of ini-tiatives already undertaken in the area of renewable energy, such as Kochi Airport becoming a solar-pow-ered airport, and solar panels being installed over a canal in Gujarat. He said that early next month, a dis-trict court in the tribal belt of Jharkhand will become entirely solar-powered. The Prime Minister also mentioned coal gasification as an important area of research. He expressed confidence of a renewable energy revolution over the next decade.

Prime Minister Modi’s roundtable with top CEOs on renewable energy at San Jose

‘India needs National Lab Policy for Renewable Energy Projects’

Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State (IC) for Coal, Power and New and Renewable Energy said that a National Lab Policy is needed to address the test-ing, standardisation and certification renewable energy projects in the country. Such a policy docu-ment should bring out a clear work plan identifying the need of equipment and infrastructure including funds requirement. While inaugurating the National workshop on Lab Infrastructure for Testing, Stan-dardisation, Certification and Inspection for Renew-able Energy Deployment Programme, the Minister said that indigenous technology development and standardisation is essential for the growth of renew-able energy in the country. There is a need to pay more attention on ensuring quality and reliability of renew-able energy systems for effective promotion of renew-able energy. Goyal emphasised on maintaining consis-tency in manufacturing and confidence in reliability of these technologies / systems to ensure that systems installed function properly.

The Minister stated that the Biogas needs to be given more attention to make it a well organised industry. Improved biomass cook stoves should be promoted for

clean cooking solutions, thereby addressing both fuel saving and health hazards concerns of rural women and children. He further stressed that proper stan-dardisation will facilitate financing options for deploy-ment. We need to strengthen test facilities for proper testing to maintain quality of products. Also, training, proper inspection for checking the quality of systems

installed is needed, ensuring effective utilisation of renewable energy. Goyal hoped that the workshop will address the gaps streamlining the test protocols and strengthening test labs for proper performance test-ing of renewable energy systems to ensure the quality.

Upendra Tripathy, Secretary, MNRE emphasised on the need of proper testing of renewable energy sys-tems following the standardised procedures to ensure the reliability so that they function properly when deployed at site.

The workshop was organised in view of the MNRE’s ambitious programme of 175 GW Renew-able Energy Deployment Programme. The objective of this one day national workshop was to discuss the standards and procedures being followed for effec-tive implementation of testing and certification, iden-tifying the gaps to meet the needs of ensuring quality and reliability of the systems / products / compo-nents, taking into account technology advancements and local requirements. Experts from test labs associ-ated with testing and certification in solar, wind, etc. and representatives from SNAs participated in the workshop.

Indigenous Technology Development and Standardisation is essential for the growth of Renewable Energy

Ministry of Environment proposes scheme for developing city forestsThe Ministry of Environment has planned to come out with a scheme, which aims to develop at least one city forest on forest land in cities having munic-ipal corporations. “The Environment Ministry has proposed an urban forestry scheme, namely ‘Nagar Van Udyan Yojna’ on pilot basis. The aim is to develop at least one city forest initially on for-est land ranging from 20 ha to 100 ha in cities hav-ing municipal corporations,” Environment Minis-ter Prakash Javadekar said.

Javadekar said that the Ministry would be pro-viding one time financial support for development of the city forests and the scheme aims to create 200 city forests in the country within the next five

years. He said that a school nursery scheme has also been proposed on pilot basis for five years. Under this scheme, it is proposed to create small nurseries in schools involving students from class VI to IX. “The main objective is to create awareness about the environment and help students identify and learn about the various benefits of trees and plants,” Javadekar said.

He further said that under the scheme, 1,000 schools of the country would be selected every year and each school would raise at least 1,000 saplings by involving students. Selected schools would receive grants of `25,000 in the first year and ̀ 10,000 per year for the subsequent two years.

17 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 17 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 environment, energy, ecology | green cities

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Delhi-Faridabad Metro Line, which would provide hassle free travel for around two lakh daily commuters between the national capital and the industrial hub in Haryana.

The extension of the Delhi Metro would connect Badarpur to Escorts Mujesar in Faridabad. The total cost of the project from Badarpur to Escorts Mujesar is nearly `2,500 crore. Out of this, `1,557 crore was borne by the Haryana Government, the Centre contributed `537 crore, while the Delhi Metro provided the remain-ing ̀ 400 crore.

The nine stations in this section include Sarai, NHPC Chowk, Mewala Maharajpur, Sector 28, Badkal Mor, Old Faridabad, Neelam Chowk Ajronda, Bata Chowk and Escorts Mujesar. All these stations are elevated and located on either side of the Delhi-Mathura Road (NH-2).

“The nine-station metro corridor which was 95% indigenously built will provide people a safe, affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable, environment friendly and sustainable transport facility,” a Haryana government spokesperson said.

Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar, addressing a press conference thanked the Prime Minister for “gift-ing” the Metro service which would take the city to “another level of progress” with better connectivity with other NCR towns.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is committed to provide Environment friendly Metro system and as part of this endeavour, DMRC has defined a Solar Mis-sion, to install Solar PV power plants at various locations in existing and upcoming DMRC networks.

There are eight metro stations of Faridabad extension line where Solar PV power plants will be installed. These are NHPC Chowk with 151.2 kWp, Mewla Maharajpur

with 151.2 kWp, Sector-28 with 151.2 kWp, Badkhal Mor with 151.2 kWp, Old Faridabad with 150 kWp, Neelam Ajronda with 151.2 kWp, Bata Chowk with 151.2 kWp and Escorts Mujesar with 151.2 kWp.

The energy generation expected is 15, 87,837 kWh / year (i.e. 540 kWh / station / Day). The number of Solar Modules installed (300 Wp each) are 4028, and the inverters installed are 47 in numbers with 25 kWp.

These plants are part of DMRC Solar Mission of 20 MWp for which survey is done and work for 11 MWp has been awarded till date. DMRC is committed to install solar plant of 50 MWp in its existing and upcom-ing network.

Providing a major impetus to India’s concerted efforts to facilitate India emerge as one of the global leader

in Green Metro Systems, Janpath and Mandi House Metro Stations of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Lim-ited (DMRC) was awarded with Indian Green Building Council’s (IGBC) Platinum Rating, under IGBC Green Mass Rapid Transit System Rating - world’s first com-prehensive rating for rail based MRTS System.

Prakash Javadekar, Minister of State Environ-ment, Forest & Climate Change (Independent Charge), Government of India presented the IGBC Plaque to Dr Mangu Singh, Managing Director, DMRC Ltd at the first edition of Conference on Green Metro Sys-tems organised, jointly by CII-Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC) recently at DMRC - Metro Bhawan, New Delhi.

Prime Minister inaugurates Badarpur-Faridabad Metro Line

Government begins work on National Electricity PlanGearing up for its ambitious plan to provide 24x7 power to all, the govern-ment has started the process of drafting National Electricity Plan for next five years which will outline sectors projec-tions, including generation.

The committee, which has been entrusted to chalk out National Electric-ity Plan, has decided to constitute 11 sub-committees to deal with different aspects of the sector, the government said in an order.

The sub-committee-1 Power for All will suggest “measures for making avail-able reliable and quality power to con-sumer at affordable rates” and make assessment “in terms of increase in demand...due to Power for all schemes,” the order said. Another sub-committee

will make demand assessment in terms of peak and energy requirements for the period from 2017-22 and 2022-2027, it said.

There is also a sub-panel which will assess the generation capacity addition during 2017-22 from grid-connected renewable energy sources, it added. The sub-committee on fuel requirement will “identify and quantify the different types of fuel requirement to meet the capacity addition, source-wise fuel availability etc.,” it said.

As on July 2015, the country’s power generation capacity is 2.75 lakh mega watts. The total power generation in the country was 1,048.67 billion units dur-ing 2014-15, up from 967.15 billion units in 2013-14.

Kolkata Airport outlining a plan to generate own solar power Authorities at the Netaji Subhas Chan-dra Bose International (NSCBI) Air-port in Kolkata are planning to generate their own power through solar energy.

“There are plans for installing solar panels across 55 acres of land at the cost of ̀ 130 crore to meet the power require-ment of NSCBI Airport, which is around 15 MW,” said Airports Author-

ity of India, Chairman, R K Srivastava. “We are working on the lines of

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of self reliance and the proposed solar power project will generate around 20 MW, which will be more than sufficient for the NSCBI Airport,” he said.

The AAI Chairman informed that the aerobridges of the new and old

terminals would be connected to facil-itate operations at the airport.

“We are also presently scouting for an alternative land for a new tower for the Airport,” he added.

Srivastava recently inaugurated the ‘Swagat Seva’, a meet, greet and assist service for the aid of both outgoing and incoming passengers both at the

domestic and international wings of the NSCBI Airport.

The Airport authorities said that the all-inclusive ̀ 200 per passenger fee would allow passengers to benefit from facilitation services in clearing airport formalities and would also assist in fetching cab services and booking of Rail and Air tickets for the passengers.

urban news digest | october 2015 • 18happenInG cItIes | events

HUDCO, under the aegis of Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA), Government of India, had launched the 4th edition of HUDCO Design Awards 2015 a while back and has received excellent response. The objectives of the awards are to encourage professionals to be more creative and provide out of the box solutions; to use creative design for improving the living environment in our cities; to document / showcase the best practise, and possibility of replication; and to sensitise decision makers regarding utility and applicability of innovative designs.

For the last three years, HUDCO has successfully con-ducted HUDCO Design Awards competition that felici-tates innovative projects under five categories that have contributed towards sustainable urban development. The categories are: a) Cost Effective Urban / Rural Hous-ing Including Disaster Resistant Housing; b) Innovative Town Design Solutions / Eco Cities; c) Conservation of Heritage; d) Green Buildings and e) Landscape Planning & Architecture.

The design award is open to all professionals

(architects / engineers / urban planners and other allied professionals) who are engaged in the development and design of urban or regional places, buildings, neighbour-hoods or cities. The awards are for completed / under execution projects, taken up / under execution or com-pleted within the last seven years. Entries complete in all respects will be evaluated by a panel of judges nomi-nated by HUDCO. There are two prizes to be won – first prize would be worth ̀ 4 lakh and the second prize would be worth ̀ 2 lakh.

The Indian Buildings Congress (IBC) presented the IBC Life Time Achievement Award to V Suresh for his five decades of professional service in the area of housing, infrastructure, rural and urban devel-opment and built environment sectors. This took place during the 20th annual convention of IBC and national seminar on ‘Innovative Concepts in Mak-ing of Smart Cities’. The award was presented by Chaudhary Birender Singh, Union Minister for Rural Development, Panchayat Raj, Drinking Water and Sanitation at NDMC Convention Centre.

V Suresh was the CMD of HUDCO when HUDCO registered all-round growth for housing and infra-structure development and financing with innova-tive options, establishing housing retail finance and development of appropriate technology applica-tions including national network of Building Cen-tres, disaster mitigation and rehabilitation projects for Latur, Orissa, Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Jabalpur and Gujarat.

He is also Chairman of the Housing Committee, Vice Chairman of National Building Code Commit-tee and Member of Smart Cities Committee of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). He is member of the Gov-ernment of India Task Force on Rural Housing and Habitat. He was earlier the Chairman of Government

of Kerala Task Force on Housing Policies. He is actively associated with the good urban initiatives for meeting the challenges of urbanisation and mak-ing cities smart, green and vibrant. He is also chair-man of IGBC Policy and Advocacy Committee for green building initiatives. He has represented India and worked closely with UNCHS, UNIDO, UNDP, SAARC, ADB, JBIC, KfW, USAID and ADPC on var-ious facets of sustainable and safe human settlements

for different global context initiatives. He is currently working as Director in Hiranandani Group Project Companies dealing with integrated and self-con-tained mixed used townships.

V Suresh works very closely with Good Gover-nance India Foundation as Advisor for good urban governance initiatives for meeting the challenges of urbanisation and making smart, green and vibrant cities through Municipalika and Urban News Digest.

HUDCO Design Awards 2015 gets good response

Indian Buildings Congress confers Life Time Achievement Award to V Suresh

The 3rd Annual ET Infra Focus Sum-mit, organised by ET Edge, discussed the current scenario and future trends in Infrastructure segment, apart from Smart City & AMRUT mission. Sunita Quadros, Business Head, Times Conferences Limited empha-sised, “There is a major contribution by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he has driven for better infrastructure and a better quality of lives. We have taken firm steps towards this vision through varied initiatives and pro-grams which has resulted in a rise in the interest within the private sector. The involvement of the private sec-tor and their investment is extremely vital in this segment.”

The summit delved into the trends in the infrastructure segment. Differ-ent infrastructure segments are now being combined into one integrated facility, and with this integrated solu-tion departments will now dovetail better. Captain BVJK Sharma, Joint MD and CEO, JSW Architecture added, “I attach big importance to

Sagar Mala Project since it connects to everything from transportation, ship-ping, logistics, warehousing, mari-time zones, storage and much more.”

The panellists discussed the essence of a Public Private Partner-ships being risk sharing and not risk transference. Addressing the issue, Vinayak Chatterjee, Chairman, Feed-back Infra Limited said, “The bed-rock of smart city economics is ask-ing the corporate sector to participate in building it in Public Private Partici-pation model. But with most of corpo-rate India reluctant to step up because their fingers are burnt, it will take time to reset the system.”

The summit extensively discussed the need to address issues like debts, time delays and consequent lags in the infrastructure industry. It saw lead-ers discussing measures to service debts, control delays, clearances and land acquisitions, etc.

Government initiatives are emphasising on public expenditure led infrastructure development. The summit also discussed the need for revenue assurance which ought to be built into the current regulatory envi-ronment. The event closed with fruit-ful discussions on railway and water issues presided by Sanjay Bandopad-hyaya, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Roads, Transport & Highways, Gov-ernment of India and Shashi Shek-har, Secretary, Department of Water resources, Ganga Rejuvenation, Gov-ernment of India.

The Asia-Pacific Housing Forum (APHF) is a biennial conference organised by Hab-itat for Humanity and the India chapter of the fifth forum, APHF5, was held in Delhi (Gurgaon) in the month of September.

APHF5 saw government policy and decision makers along with industry professionals and community leaders, all coming together under one roof. The discussions saw the exchange of ideas, experiences, intervention models, and policy analysis and consensus building on affordable housing, proper sanita-tion and seeking market solutions and technology solutions towards achiev-ing housing for all and an open defeca-tion free India!

Chaudhary Birendra Singh, Union Minister for Rural Development,

Panchayati Raj, Drinking Water and San-itation, came and shared his thoughts on rural and urban housing, land acquisi-tion and the role of corporate in ensuring housing for all. Sheila Kriplani, Chair-person HFH India said, “To bring dig-nity and hope to all, we believe that none of us can live with dignity until everyone lives with dignity”.

Dr Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Pov-erty Alleviation inaugurated the forum, where she shared the Government of India’s efforts towards housing for all and highlighted the fact that 20 million houses were required in urban India whereas rural India needed 30 million houses to achieve the Government’s mandate of ‘Housing for All by 2022’.

et infra Focus summit discusses future plans and sustainability of smart cities

habitat for humanity conducts asia-pacific housing Forum in new delhi

urban news digest | october 2015 • 19progressive cities | policy, reform, finance

India joins UN’s Better than Cash Alliance

m venkaiah naidu gifts pradhan mantri suraksha bima yojana policies to 10,000 women

India has joined the UN-based ‘Better than Cash Alliance’ that promotes the transition from cash to digital payments to reduce poverty and drive inclu-sive growth.

The ‘Better than Cash Alliance’ was set up in 2012 by a group of development organisations, founda-tions and private companies, including Citi and Visa, to lobby for a shift towards electronic payments in the fight against global poverty.

Arun Jaitley, India’s Finance Minister said, “The scale of ambition of Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has been much higher than for any other financial inclusion initiative in the past. The project has been instrumental in bringing almost all families of the country into the formal financial system and enabling citizens at grassroots level to perform financial transactions and keep their hard-earned money safe.”

India joins the Alliance for digitisation of pay-ments in order to achieve financial inclusion and to share success stories from PMJDY, which is the world’s largest financial inclusion programme.

Under PMJDY, in one year, about 180 million new accounts have been opened, with deposits totalling more than USD 3.4 billion.

By joining the Better than Cash Alliance, the

Indian government said it would have a new research, technical, and policy partner as it seeks to utilise this potential and find ways to make the elec-tronic shift.

Ruth Goodwin-Groen, MD, Better than Cash

Alliance said, “By making the digitisation of pay-ments to achieve financial inclusion a top priority, the Indian Government is showing its commitment to improving the lives of its people and driving inclu-sive growth.”

Minister of Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu gifted Accident Insur-ance Policies to 10,000 women on the occasion of Rakshabandhan Day. The woman beneficiaries, who get the benefit of accident insurance cover of `2 lakh were identified from the villages of his native Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh.

Naidu’s initiative came in the back-drop of the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to gift at least one social security cover policy to sisters on Rak-shabandhan Day.

The 10,000 women were gifted insurance policies by Venkaiah Naidu under Prime Minister Suraksha Bima Yojana launched recently. He paid

the necessary amount towards pre-mium for life time accident insurance coverage.

Under the scheme, `201 can be deposited against each beneficiary in the bank from which premium for two years at the rate of `12 per year will be deducted and from the interest on the remaining amount of `177, premium requirements for 10 years will be met. This enables accident insurance of `2 lakh for beneficiaries of 18-70 years of age for life time.

The insurance policies were pre-sented to the beneficiaries by Venkaiah Naidu at a programme organised in the premises of Swarna Bharat Trust at Ven-katachalam village near Nellore.

new features on currency notes will soon be able to tackle fake indian currency notes menaceTo fight the threat of Fake Indian Cur-rency Notes (FICN), the government has approved the introduction of seven new security features and the project is expected to be completed by May next year.

In the first phase, the features will only be included in high denomination notes of `500 and `1,000, which are in high demand by counterfeiting gangs as also Pakistan’s ISI.

The government recently approved the security features recommended by the RBI Central Board, details of which are not yet known.

The `500 and `1,000 currency notes with those features will soon be avail-able and be introduced in those of other denominations by May 2016.

The Bhartiya Reserve Bank Note Mudran (Pvt) Limited and Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited are undertaking the project.

RBI has also asked the banks to stamp

fake notes detected over the counter as “COUNTERFEIT NOTE” and impound them immediately. Banks found not fol-lowing the practice will be penalised. Banks have also been instructed to issue a receipt for counterfeit notes to the ten-derer of the FICN, they said.

As per the estimates, fake Indian cur-rency notes of face value of ̀ 30 crore are in circulation. The National Investiga-tion Agency has been made the nodal agency for FICN cases as the govern-ment treats it as ‘economic terrorism’.

Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor project intends to double job potential in 7-9 years: GovernmentThe Government said that the Delhi Mumbai Indus-trial Corridor (DMIC) project aims at doubling the employment potential and triple industrial output in the next seven to nine years.

The DMIC project is being developed on both sides of the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor as a global manufacturing and investment destination.

The project is being executed in stages and ini-tially eight investment regions are being taken up. It is also seeking to create a strong economic base with a globally competitive environment and state-of-the-art infrastructure to activate local com-merce, enhance investments and attain sustain-able development.

“New DMIC cities will help meet pressures of urbanisation and also lead India’s economic growth for next 20-30 years. The project aspires to double employment potential, triple industrial output and quadruple exports from the region in the next seven to nine years,” said the Commerce and Industry

Ministry in a statement. The projects that are under implementation

include a model solar power project in Neem-rana, Rajasthan; a logistic data bank; integrated Industrial Township in Greater Noida and Vikram Udyogpuri (Madhya Pradesh).

To develop trunk infrastructure in the Greater Noida Township, tenders for appointment of engi-neering, procurement and construction (EPC) con-tractor has been issued.

Further, the Ministry said that sharehold-er’s agreement and state support agreement have been finalised for the Ahmedabad Dholera Special Investment Region in Gujarat.

“The environment clearance has been obtained for the project and preliminary engineering works have also been completed. The government has approved the trunk infrastructure packages for the activation area (22.5 sq km) for an aggregate value of `2,784.83 crore and the tenders are being floated in

a phased manner,” the Ministry added.The tender documents for the selection of the

EPC contractor for roads and underground utilities and design and construction of an administrative building for Dholera have previously been issued with an aggregate value of `2,366 crore.

Shareholders’ agreement and state sup-port agreement have been executed between Maharashtra and DMIC Trust for the Shendra Bid-kin Industrial Park in Maharashtra. Land has been transferred by MIDC to the special purpose vehi-cle and the environment clearance too has been obtained.

“The Government of India has approved the trunk infrastructure packages for an aggregate value of `1,533.44 crore and the tenders are being floated in a phased manner,” the Ministry said.

The tender for design and construction of roads and services and road over bridges has been issued with an aggregate value of `1,296 crore.

20 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 progressive cities | policy, reform, finance

Delhi government proposes to collect entertainment tax after eventsTo ease the process of procurement of license for enter-tainment events, the Delhi government has proposed not to collect entertainment tax before any event from the organisers and has given permanent licenses to 23 auditoriums.

As per a senior government official, the government is also in the course of bringing entertainment tax, fire and electricity under the purview of a single-window clearance.

“Soon a nodal officer will be appointed for creation of a single-window licensing process which will give a boost to ease-of-doing-business and events in the city,” he said.

According to the official, event organisers would be able to hold ticketed events in the city without submit-ting any entertainment tax before the event.

“Tax as per the ticket sale can be deposited after the completion of the event. Earlier, this was to be done prior to ticket-selling permissions being given,” the officer said.

Due to strict licensing process in Delhi, most of the big concerts, including international acts, were being held in Gurgaon and Noida. No big show / concert were recently held in the national capital.

Event and Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) held several meetings with the Delhi govern-ment with regard to the issue and had been demanding that steps be taken to make the city best destination for entertainment events.

“Soon permanent license for holding an event will be issued to 23 auditoriums. These venues can be used at the time of any cultural programme or musical function.

Change in the entertainment tax depositing framework for EEMA members is certainly a big gift to the industry. The number of ticketed and corporate events in the city is surely to see an increase,” EEMA Treasurer Rajeev Jain said.

L&T wins `1,500 crore water supply project from Rajasthan

Larsen & Toubro informed that it has won a turnkey order for `1,489 crore water supply projects from Pub-lic Health Engineering Department, Ajmer.

The company said, “The Water & Effluent Treatment Strategic Business Group of L&T Construction has won turnkey orders worth `1,489 crore in August 2015 in three packages, from Public Health Engineering Depart-ment, Ajmer, under the Rajasthan Rural Water Supply and Fluorosis Mit-igation Project (Nagaur).”

The projects, which are to be funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), aim to provide potable water to 986 villages and seven urban towns in Nagaur district and 111 villages

and two towns of Bikaner district in Rajasthan.

“The scope of the packages include the construction of a 5,310 million litre raw water reservoir, a 250 million lead-ers per day water treatment plant, raw water and clear water pumping sta-tions, mild steel and ductile iron pipe-lines, electro-mechanical and instru-mentation and other allied works including operation and maintenance,” said L&T.

The Water & Effluent Treatment Strategic Business Group (SBG) caters to turnkey infrastructure projects, including water treatment plants, water supply and distribution net-works, desalination plants and water management systems.

adb, india sign $500 million loans to improve urban services in rajasthanThe Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India have signed two loans worth USD 500 mil-lion to help the Government of Rajasthan better manage essential urban services and finance water supply and wastewa-ter upgrades.

The signing of Rajasthan Urban Sec-tor Development programme marks the first occasion for ADB to couple a pol-icy loan to support urban sector reforms with a project loan to improve urban ser-vices over the long term.

“Rajasthan is urbanising rapidly. The programme aims to strengthen urban institutions in Rajasthan to improve their governance, and better manage urban services. It also aims at boost-ing the water supply in five cities from 2 hours per day to 24-hour supply, and increasing collection and treatment of sewage and septage waste,” said M Teresa Kho, Country Director for ADB in India, who signed the loan agreement on behalf of ADB.

“The Sector Development Pro-gramme modality will support both the infrastructure needs and the reform

programme. The policy-based loan will provide financial support to the state government to implement reforms that will help municipal bodies, individual households and private sector investors. The project loan will support invest-ments on improving urban services in six cities with provision of long-term operation and maintenance embedded construction contracts for nonrevenue water which is an innovative mecha-nism,” said Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance who signed the agreement for Government of India. Manjit Singh, Principal Secretary, Local Self Govern-ment, signed the loan agreement on behalf of the Government of Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, the USD 250 million project loan will support water system improvements in five cities — Hanuman-garh, Jhunjhunu, Pali, Sri Ganganagar, and Tonk — which currently have low piped water coverage and high water losses. These upgrades will include nearly 200,000 new house connections with proper metering to cut water losses.

In response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for “toilet first, temple later”, the New Delhi Munic-ipal Council (NDMC) has decided to build 40 public toilets in areas under its jurisdiction.

“The NDMC is planning to construct 40 public toilet utilities (PTU) at the roadside, market areas and other busy places. There are already 190 such utilities available in NDMC areas. Toilets in pub-lic places are of utmost importance to maintain cleanliness,” Chairman of the Civic Body, Naresh Kumar said.

In order to save on construction and mainte-nance costs as well as earn revenue, the civic body has taken up the projects on the public-private part-nership mode.

“Tenders have already been floated for the PPP projects. Our Prime Minister has also encour-aged roping in of private partners for the task. The

work for 10 PTUs has been entrusted to National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd (NBCC). The project will also include construction of masonry dustbins and garbage stations in the toi-lets,” Kumar said.

“Also, there is a plan to construct Roll Call Shel-ters with washing and toilet facilities for safai karamcharis, and to procure good quality fluores-cent mesh polyester jackets for them as well as other field inspectorate staff of NDMC,” he added.

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission, the NDMC has deployed mechanical compactors and auto-tip-per trucks for collection and transportation of gar-bage from its residential and market areas, with mechanical sweepers being used for cleaning roads.

“We have procured tricycle rickshaws and 1,100-litre garbage iron trolleys. Plans are afoot to con-struct a garbage transfer station and install a mini waste-to-energy plant as a decentralised approach to manage garbage disposal,” Kumar added.

As part of its green city initiative, the council has also launched a major plantation drive under which around one lakh saplings are to be planted.

40 public toilets to be constructed by NDMC on PPP mode

urban news digest | october 2015 • 21healthy cItIes | water, sanitation, waste management

Reckitt Benckiser to set up hi-tech toilets at Varanasi ghats under Swachh Bharat MissionExcited by the response to its Banega Swachh India project, Reckitt Benck-iser India, the maker of Dettol soaps and Lizol cleaners has decided to adopt Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency to launch a Swachh Varanasi programme.

“This takes the Dettol Banega Swachh India project to the next level. There is a lot of emphasis on Varanasi, which seems to be leading the country’s cleanliness drive,” said Reckitt Benckiser Regional Director, South Asia, Nitish Kapoor. “Varanasi is an interesting place to scale up the Swachh India campaign given its her-itage and challenges.”

“Projects like these do translate into consumers buying more hygiene products but the big impact will be in the long term. Our immediate pri-ority is to change consumer behav-iour,” Kapoor said. He added that the Swachh Varanasi project would span several activities and would be part of the ̀ 100 crore that will be spent on the cleanliness campaign over five years.

The Swachh Varanasi project will begin by setting up toilets at the ghats of the Ganga in Varanasi with low water consumption, cloud based

remote monitoring, on-site sanita-tion technology and the ability to keep track of the number of people using the facilities.

The project has been launched together with the NGOs Charities Aid Foundation and SEED and Dure Technologies. The site at the ghat will have a portable superstructure that can be taken down when the water levels rises and shifted to another site. Under the campaign, Reckitt Benckiser would host programmes in schools and villages in several towns and cities, including Varanasi, aimed at encouraging cleanliness and hygiene.

The Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, while praising the people of Darjeeling for their ini-tiative to make the Queen of Hills clean and green, announced that 50,000 toilets would be built in the hill district.

The Chief Minister said that both the state gov-ernment and the Gorkhaland Territorial administra-tion are working together to make Darjeeling clean and green.

“West Bengal government and GTA are working

together for Clean and Green Darjeeling project worth `500 crore. Bengal is number one in India in Swachh Bharat campaign. Three out of top four dis-tricts are from Bengal,” Banerjee said.

Stressing on the need to develop educational infrastructure of Darjeeling, she informed that a campus of Presidency University will soon be built in the hills.

project to make darjeeling clean and green

Mahindra Group completes 3,784 toilets under the Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidyalaya programmeThe Mahindra Group completed the construction of toilet blocks in schools at 1171 locations, and suc-cessfully implemented its promised Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidyalaya (SBSV) programme earmarked by the Ministry of Human Resource Devel-opment (MHRD).

“The Mahindra Group has com-pleted its target and handed over 3,784 toilets under the Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidyalaya (SBSV) Pro-gramme. These toilets are spread over 1171 locations across 11 states and 104 districts,” said Rajeev Dubey, Group President (HR & Corporate Services) and Member of the Group Executive Board, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. “In addition, over and above the tar-get, we are in the process of handing over a further 556 toilet units over the next few days, which will make a grand total of 4340 toilet units.”

Swachh Bharat: Swachh Vidya-laya is the national campaign which is driving ‘Clean India: Clean Schools’. One of the key features of the cam-paign is to make sure that every school in India has a set of function-ing and well maintained water, sani-tation and hygiene facilities.

The Mahindra approach is unique due to the fact that many of these toilets are in a block configuration model, usually consisting of five

individual units, are located in girls’ schools and address the special needs of children and the differently-abled. The majority of these toilets are in rural India, and special care has been taken to find customised solutions that take into account the require-ments of the location with maxi-mum utilisation of locally available human and material resources. The toilet blocks also include eco-friendly wastewater disposal and efficient use of water in the toilets.

Mahindra would also under-take a hygiene awareness campaign amongst the students and teach-ers, with the basic principle for hygiene and upkeep incorporated in planning, design and engineer-ing. The toilet blocks will also be equipped with graphics and visuals illustrating key hygiene practices and measures.

Jalandhar plans to build 63 toilets per day under Swachh Bharat MissionThe administration in Jalandhar aims to build 63 toilets per day in order to achieve 100% sanitation coverage in next one year in the district under Swachh Bharat Mission.

Additional Deputy Commissioner Kumar Amit said that under the Swachh Bharat Mission the plan is to construct 2,000 toilets per month and 23,000 toilets in a year’s time.

“The state government has issued funds and work in this direction would start soon,” Kumar said after a meeting with the district administra-tion officers.

“18 villages in the district have 100% toilet facil-ities. 390 villages have 90% coverage. We will tar-get such villages first,” he added.

He also stated every house would be given `15,000 for building toilets.

“Those who have availed of benefits in earlier schemes would not be covered under this scheme,” Kumar explained.

Further, 51 nodal officers have been appointed by the administration to oversee the process and encourage people to help achieve 100% coverage in the district.

Swachh Bharat Mission is the mother of all Missions: Venkaiah Naidu Minister of Urban Development, M Venkaiah Naidu described the Swachh Bharat Mission as the mother of all new Missions launched by the Central Government given its unique nature.

Elaborating on the features and objectives of the Mis-sion, Naidu said, “Swachh Bharat initiative is different from others in the sense that this targets the minds of the people while others seek to meet the needs already felt in the minds of the people. To put it differently, while other initiatives are largely demand driven, Swachh Bharat Mission aims at creating demand for sanitary services and infrastructure.”

Naidu informed that based on reports received till August this year, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana have performed well in respect of construction of individual household toilets.

He informed that as against the target of construction of 25 lakh household toilets in urban areas till March, 2016, construction of 16.45 lakh toilets has been taken up and 4.65 lakh toilets have already been built.

Regarding construction of community and pub-lic toilets in urban areas, Naidu informed that as against the target of building one lakh toilet seats by March,2016, construction of 94,653 toilet seats has been taken up and 24,233 seats have already been built and the rest in progress.

Stating that Solid Waste Management is the largest component of the Mission in urban areas, Naidu said that till August this year, 100% door to door collection of municipal solid waste has been reported in 31,593 of the total 78,003 wards in urban areas of the country and the mission is on course to achieve the target of door to door

collection of 50% of solid waste by March, 2016. In respect of solid waste management, Chandigarh

leads the list of good performers with 100% processing followed by Meghalaya (58%), Delhi (52%), Kerala and Manipur (50%), Telangana (48%), Karnataka (34%) and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (30%).

Ahmedabad (64 wards), Surat (38), Mahisagar (27) and Morbi (14 wards), all in Gujarat and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (30 wards) have reported 100% door to door collection of solid waste in all the wards.

Under Swachh Bharat Mission in urban areas, con-struction of 1.04 crore household toilets and 5.28 lakh community and public toilet seats besides 100% door to door collection of solid waste and its scientific disposal are envisaged at a total cost of ̀ 66,009 crore. The Min-istry of Urban Development has so far released ̀ 1.038.72 crore to 30 States and Union Territories

22 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 healthy cities | water, sanitation, waste management

By Dr Vivek S AgrawalTrustee SecretaryCentre for Development Communication

Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has the final responsibility and has the authority of waste manage-ment in Nagpur. But prior to adopting PPP Model for waste management, it could cover only about 30% of city households leading to heaps of MSW lying unattended throughout the city limits. Service delivery was very irregular both in terms of frequency of waste pickup and timings thereof. NMC had to invest around `8-10 crore annually on SWM sector and still ended up with such a low efficiency of waste management. Citizens had to dispose off their daily waste themselves in common dustbins. From these community bins, waste was col-lected by NMC workers twice-a-week which resulted in waste being piled up in and around the bin and thus, creating an ugly scene and unhygienic conditions in the city. Government also did not take any interest in SWM sector and there was no transparency in complaint redressal, information furnishing or service delivery. Door to door collection was done by NMC employees but services were not provided on time which led to cit-izens’ dissatisfaction.

Adopting the PPP modelNMC decided to break the monotony of low ser-

vice delivery levels in solid waste management in the city. It was decided to develop a partnership model with NGOs and citizens of the city. Applications were invited from NGOs on the basis of cost per household and it was decided to pay `5.50 per household to the awarded NGOs. The project was named as Swach-ata Doot Aplya Dari and was awarded to two NGOs namely Centre for Development Communication (CDC) and Jeevak Welfare Society (JWS) with 9 zones and 1 zone respectively of the total 10 administrative zones of the city. The project was considered to be the largest SWM intervention in India without any exter-nal funding. Financial assistance towards the proj-ect was provided by NMC (mainly) and community (partly). Due to implementation of the project, ser-vice delivery improved beyond 90%, around `5 crore annual savings resulted to NMC, 100% community involvement and satisfaction was reported, proactive governance and absolute transparency were observed.

Monitoring indicators were set in consulta-tion with the NGOs, which further ensured prompt implementation of the project, e.g. households cov-ered, timely complainant redressal, regular and sur-prise field visits, community feedback, service delivery (regular D2D), monthly financial statement (project related), etc.

Joint venture between NGO and corporate After successful completion of the timeline of part-

nership project with NGOs, it was left to NMC to extend the project further or think of a better solution to improve upon the existing waste management sce-nario in the city. It was hence decided to extend the scope of the project to include all types of wastes such as green waste, construction and demolition debris, road sweep-ing waste, drain silt, dead animals, etc. This, in turn, required large capital investment and strict organisa-tional structure to cater for the needs and demands of such a large project. In order to make the project feasi-ble, a first of its kind joint venture was initiated between an NGO, Centre for Development Communication (CDC), having expertise in waste management and field level experience in Nagpur and a corporate body, IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure and Services Limited (IEISL), a fully owned-subsidiary company of IL&FS Group. A company was formulated by the name of Kanak Resources Management Limited (KRML) and its scope was defined in collection and transportation of solid waste. A formal tender was floated by NMC and KRML participated in the tender and was awarded. The work order in relation to the project was issued to KRML by NMC. Work was initiated in May 2008 but the full scale operations came in to force only after April 2009. The project was awarded a duration of 10 years from January 2008 till December 2018.

Plan1. Door to door garbage collection and transporta-

tion from all residential and non residential properties, commercial establishments, shopping complexes, insti-tutions and from all points of garbage generation.

2. To cater the need of Door-to-Door Collection, close body HCV, MCV, & LCV excluding tractors vehi-cles with appropriate bell ringing system of permissible decibels were required to be deployed.

3. Door to door garbage collection & Transporta-tion of waste was to be done on daily basis, i.e. all 7 days a week including National Holidays, Festivals & Sundays.

4. It was to be ensured that no container is placed in the city so as to enable NMC to make it a Container Free City. It was also ensured that waste was not dumped / unloaded at any place other than the ones specified by the NMC.

5. It was to be ensured that no garbage was spilled over or come out of the containers during transporta-tion of waste.

6. Segregated garbage collection from the source of generation was to be ensured.

7. Adequate IEC activities were to be conducted to achieve targeted segregation level.

8. Transfer stations were to be developed at suit-able land that was provided by NMC. Operator was to be made responsible for its development on BOO (Build, Own, Operate basis).

9. Establishment of “Brown Line” with dedicated machinery (Brown coloured) for removal of construc-tion debris.

10. Establishment of “Green Line” (Green colour machinery) on same lines for hotels, restaurants, eat-eries etc.

11. Covered collection containers were to be pro-vided at points & places of bulk & continuous garbage generation like fruit & vegetable market, dense shop-ping area, meat & fish markets etc.

12. Appropriate measures were required to be undertaken to ensure that no open dumping point remain within limits of NMC and community do not litter / put garbage at open place / places where contain-ers were placed in the past.

ObjectiveKey objectives of the project included compliance

with all provisions of the Municipal Solid Waste (Man-agement and Handling) Rules, 2000; efficient collection and transportation of the city waste; 100% door to door collection of waste from the source of generation; check-ing on littering and ensuring zero waste on roads.

Methodology Door to door collection with closed body fabricated

hydraulic automobiles vehicles up to the dumping site directly or through intermediary transfer stations. The basic concept of bin-free project was to make the city bin-free / reduce the bins to minimum number and this can only be done by daily primary door to door collec-tion of MSW. The secondary collection & transfer to the dump sites either by intermediate transfer station or directly by closed body fabricated hydraulic auto-mobiles vehicles. In slums and congested localities

this activity is done with the help of tricycle / bin rick-shaws. This helps in keeping the city clean by reducing the number of community bins to a minimum.

Impact 1. Reduction in the number of bins in the city: the

number of bins in the city was around 700 at the time of project, initiation in 2008. The same has been reduced to 225 and now to 170 bins only. This has been possible only through efficient project implementation and reg-ular door-to-door collection of waste from source.

2. Recyclable material trading with value addition due to segregation: for segregation, Twin Bin Tata is used which have two separate bins for Dry Waste and Wet Waste.

3. Cost savings for municipal body.4. Since Waste is transported in covered vehicles,

it prevents spoilage & foul smell and proves to be a hygienic model.

5. As Waste is directly transported to dumpsite through transporting form compactors to bulk trans-porting vehicles:

• No burning of garbage• No dumping in streets drains and open places• Adds to the aesthetic value of the city by remov-

ing the unhygienic conditions that exist around the community bins

6. Livelihood Creation: The project has been suc-cessfully creating livelihood opportunities for all the levels of the organisation i.e. from managerial levels to grassroots levels which accounts for 90% of the total labour. This project has made the following positive impacts on livelihood creation in the city:

• Livelihood creation for the most downtrodden segment of the society

• Earning at least minimum wages and additional income from recyclable material

• Dignified employment• Transition from rag picker to waste collectors• Got uniform and protective gear• Recyclable material trading with value addition

due to segregation• Selling cleaner waste has enabled in escalating

their incomes• Livelihood opportunities for physically chal-

lenged – around two percent of the total work force is physically challenged. These people are provided with opportunity to sustain their livelihood as per their capacity.

Nagpur Bin Free ProjectBest PracticeBest Practice

23 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 water, sanitation, waste management | healthy cities

Towards Healthy Cities and Citizens

In recent months, leading Indian cities have got into cri-sis modes. The insanitary environment and outbreak of Dengue in Delhi has killed over 25 and unfortunate deaths of husband and wife on the sad death of their child. The horrible conditions of roads in Bengaluru with crater-like potholes have led to many accidents including death of pillion rider wife and arrest of hus-band who was driving a scooter. The monsoon months have seen the collapse of the drainage system and water logging, bringing cities to a halt in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon and Bengaluru.

Healthy Cities A healthy city creates a health supportive environment where the basic needs (food, water, shelter, income, safety, and work) are met for all the city’s residents and an optimum level of appropriate public health and sick care services are accessible to all. The city is planned to be accessible, age-friendly and safe as well as mak-ing urban areas resilient to emergencies and disasters. Urban living offers opportunities, but it is also faced with challenges of housing, water, sanitation, health care, and pollution that are having a severe impact on the environment and health of the people.

SlumsThe urban housing shortage in India would need to build 20 million houses. This shortage has led to the cre-ation of slums with nearly one-third of India’s urban population. India’s slum population has increased to 92 million by 2012. The living conditions in such envi-ronments are deplorable and are characterised by over-crowding, lack of open spaces, inadequate and impure water supply, poor or lack of sanitation and lack of safe supply of food. These contribute to pollution related dis-eases, acute water borne diseases, respiratory diseases, tuberculosis and meningitis. Nearly 100,000 babies in Indian slums die every year before their fifth birthday.

In India 20% of children under five years of age suffer from wasting due to acute under nutrition and 43% are underweight. Malnourished children are more likely to suffer from serious infections and die from common childhood illnesses, such as diarrhoea, measles, pneu-monia and malaria, as well as HIV and AIDS.

Environmental Pollution

Environmental pollution in urban areas is associated with mortality and excessive morbidity. Every year 1.2 million people around the world die due to urban air pollution, mainly due to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Short-term air pollution can aggravate medical conditions like asthma and emphysema and the long-term health effects include chronic respiratory disease, cancer of lung, liver and skin, heart disease, cataracts and dermatitis and even damage to other vital organs.

Water

Increasing urbanisation, changing lifestyles and increasing demand- supply gap is having serious impli-cations on the depleting water resources. In addition, depleted water sources are getting contaminated.The high concentration of biological contaminants and chemical pollutants (arsenic and fluoride) in drinking water are causing many diseases including cancer and fluorosis. According to United Nations, a child dies from a water related disease every 15 seconds. Contaminated water serves as a mechanism to transmit communicable diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and guinea worm infection.

SanitationCovers provision of basic toilets, storm water drainage, treatment and disposal of waste water, management of solid and hazardous wastes. The polluted water sur-faces are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, flies and various arthropods which transmit malaria, dengue and other vector borne diseases. WHO estimates that 50-100 million dengue infections occur worldwide each year.

Public spaces in India are insanitary, lacking clean-liness and hygiene. Spitting spreads bacterial diseases like tuberculosis. In addition, nearly 60% of Indians are found to defecate in public spaces due to lack of individ-ual/ shared toilets and unclean facilities inside public toilets. The Swachh Bharat Mission will make a change.

Waste Management Piles of uncleared rubbish are the fertile breeding grounds for diseases. Improper solid waste manage-ment deteriorates public health and causes environ-mental pollution. The unsafe health-care waste manage-ment (contaminated syringes and needles) poses public health risks like (Hepatitis B virus) HBV, (Hepatitis C virus) HCV and HIV infections. Further potential risks are from dioxins, furans and coplanar PCB’s, exposure to which may lead to impairment of the immune and nervous system, the endocrine system and the repro-ductive functions.

Impacts of Poor Sanitation The economic impacts can be experienced in the cate-gories of health related impacts, domestic water-related impacts, access time impacts and tourism. Besides eco-nomic impacts at the national level, improper sanitation causes diseases, environmental pollution, diminishes welfare and causes death. It should be clearly under-stood that bad health of citizens is a bi product of poor urban infrastructure and insanitary built environment. 1 crore spent on Healthy Infrastructure will save 10 crore in Healthcare.

Way Forward

We need to get into the roots of the health problem where it originates - Water supply, sanitary facilities and safe disposal, hygienic waste management and clean disposal, reducing congestion and reducing respira-tory diseases hold the key. People have to be mobilised and encouraged to take greater interest and responsibil-ities for the maintenance of their own health by making lifestyle changes and taking behavioural actions. Com-munities with institutional structures should work with local bodies and help in mobilisation of financial and human resources more effectively. Participation also develops a sense of responsibility for creating healthy cities and citizens. Alandur city sewerage and waste dis-posal with PPPP (People Public Private Partnership) model has helped shape the improved health of citizens.

By V SureshAdvisorGood Governance India Foundation

More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. According to McKinsey’s recent report ‘India’s urban awakening: Building inclusive cities, sustaining economic growth’ it is estimated that over the next 15-20 years, 600 million will live in Indian cities) and USD 1.2 trillion capital investment in infrastructure alone is necessary to meet projected demand. But is this unprecedented urbanisation affecting the health of our cities? Indeed it is.

urban news digest | october 2015 • 24humane cItIes | habitat, housing, real estate

Vastushodh Projects, a Pune-based realty player, has launched India’s largest affordable housing proj-ect called AnandGram at Bhandgaon on Pune-Sola-pur highway.

“We have launched India’s largest affordable hous-ing project AnandGram at Bhandgaon on Pune-Solapur highway at affordable prices,” said Sachin Kulkarni, Managing Director, Vastushodh Projects.

“This project has many first to its credit, apart from being the largest affordable housing project by a pri-vate developer; it also has a distinction of being the first project in the segment to have received funding from a private equity fund Avenue Venture Partners,” Kulkarni added.

Avenue invested ̀ 20 crore in the project, which is about 80% of the land cost, with the total sales reve-nue expected to be about ̀ 225 crore.

The project is set on a 22 acre plot at Bhandgaon on Pune-Solapur highway near Yavat and will have over 2,000 affordable homes spread across 31 mod-ern buildings, which would be built in parking plus 7-floor format. It will have multiple options like a stu-dio apartment, 1RK, 1 and 2 BHK flats with compact, regular and large options. The sizes of the homes would range between 249 sq ft and 857 sq ft and would be priced in the range of `6.20 lakh to `22 lakh. The construction of the project began in September.

pune-based realtor launches india’s largest affordable housing project

Maharashtra plans Housing for All in urban areas

Rajasthan Chief Minister announces affordable urban housing policies

To cater to the growing need for housing in the state, Maharashtra government will soon bring Housing for All policy aimed for people living in urban areas.

An official in the State Housing department said the policy will be an improvised, practical and a bet-ter version of the Centres Housing for All by 2022. Maharashtra is nearly 50% urbanised and the state’s urban needs are different compared to that of the rest of the country, the official said, adding that the proposal will be brought before the cabinet soon for approval.

The policy will have self certification that the bene-ficiary does not own a house anywhere in the country. If the declaration provided by the beneficiary is proved false, there is also provision for punishment. The amount of contribution by beneficiary to get a house under the scheme would be lower compared to the Cen-tres policy. The official said the government would give subsidy on the home loan interest.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje unveiled two policies pertaining to affordable housing and allot-ment of land in urban areas of the state. In the new pol-icy, incentives have been given to developers so that they get motivated to construct EWS / LIG housing on private and government land.

Raje noted that the government has reshaped the ear-lier policy launched in 2009, for providing affordable housing. She said that with the new policy, the process of allotment of land in urban areas will become faster and smoother for the investors.

The new policy also takes in account the land allot-ment for charitable and social institutions, industrial and public utilities, premier institutions, political parties and government departments, it said. Urban Develop-ment and Housing (UDH) Minister Rajpal Singh Shek-hawat, Additional Chief Secretary-Urban Development and Housing Ashok Jain and others were also present at the unveiling of the policy.

The goal to provide Affordable Housing to all has an economic and social significance. Rajasthan has the largest area in the country which is 10.41% of the coun-try’s area. As per the 2011 census, urban population in Rajasthan is 24.8%.

At the National level, the total housing shortage in urban sector is estimated as 18.70 million, out of which more than 90% shortage is of EWS/LIG housing. In Rajasthan, total housing shortage in the urban sector was estimated to be 1.05 million by Technical Group on Housing Shortage, constituted by Government of India out of which more than 85% is in the EWS / LIG category.

Due to rapid pace of urbanisation, increasing rural to urban migration and gap between demand and sup-ply, especially in EWS/LIG category there is a growing requirement for shelter and related infrastructure in urban areas of Rajasthan. It is felt that policy interven-tion is needed to bridge this gap in housing demand and availability.

New policy has been prepared after review of existing policy and incorporating learnings from the past expe-riences, feedback from various stakeholders and new policy initiatives by the Government of India. This pol-icy is named as ‘Chief Minister’s Jan Avas Yojna-2015’.

Department of Urban Development, Housing and Local Self Government undertook a detailed exercise in understanding various Policy Initiatives of Government of India and formulated the present policy for building stock of EWS / LIG houses to be constructed by Govern-ment agencies like Development Authorities, Improve-ment Trusts, ULBs, Housing Board etc. and by private sector To attract private developers for construction of houses for EWS / LIG segment of the society provisions have been made in this policy by giving a host of incen-tives to the private developers.

Goals of Chief Minister’s Jan Awas Yojana• To achieve the objective of Affordable Housing for

All creation of EWS / LIG housing stock to fulfil hous-ing shortage in the State.

• To attract private investment for construction of

houses for EWS / LIG segment of the society, by giving incentives to the private developers.

• To motivate Government agencies and pri-vate developers to take up construction of Affordable Housing.

• To identify land for affordable housing, which can be monetised by inviting private participation on a large scale.

• To expedite the process of construction develop-ers shall be facilitated by fast track approvals.

Various provisions for Affordable HousingFollowing provisions of Jan Avas Yojana for Low Cost

Affordable Housing have been framed, incorporating various incentives for developers & subsidies for bene-ficiaries by Government of Rajasthan and Government of India. The objective of the policy is to focus on creating housing stock in general and for EWS & LIG category in particular in the urban areas of Rajasthan:-

Provision 1A: Mandatory Provisions for Residential Schemes of ULBs / UITs / Development Authorities / RHB and Private Developers.

Provision 1B: Mandatory Provisions for the proposed industrial Areas of RIICO and Private Developers.

Provision 2: Development of Affordable Houses by Private Developer on Private Land in Partnership.

Provision 3A: Development of EWS/LIG flats by Pri-vate Developer on whole of Private Land (flatted devel-opment, above G+ 3 format).

Provision 3B: Development of EWS/LIG houses by Private Developer on whole of Private Land (Plotted development with G+ 3 format).

Provision 4: Construction of EWS / LIG Houses on Government Land:-

4A - By allotment of Government Land4A (i): Affordable Housing on Government Land by

Private Developer in 75:25 ratio on G+3 format.4A (ii): Affordable Housing on Government Land

by Private Developer in 75:25 ratio on multi-storeyed format.

Provision 4B – Allotment of Government land by Auction: - Construction of EWS / LIG houses on Gov-ernment land in fixed ratio of 75:25, 60:40 and 50:50 as per size of the city, by auction of developers component of land :-

4B (i): Affordable Housing on Government Land by Private Developer in cities with population 3 lakhs and above in 75:25 ratio.

4B (ii): Affordable Housing on Government Land by Private Developer in cities with population above 1 lakh up to 3 lakhs in 60:40 ratio.

4B (iii): Affordable Housing on Government Land by Private Developer in cities with population less than 1 lakh in 50:50 ratio.

Provision - 4C: Affordable Housing on Govern-ment Land by Private Developer in Joint Development Agreement.

To fulfil the basic need of shelter, a new policy has been framed as Chief Minister’s Jan Awas Yojana-2015. This policy has been prepared after thorough review of the existing policy and the

shortcomings identified have been after extensive stakeholder consultations. It is expected that the provisions made in the policy would attract private investment for construction of quality and affordable houses for economically weak and low income groups of the society. I am confident that the Chief Minister’s Jan Awas Yojana, prepared by Urban Development and Housing Department will be successfully implemented to achieve the goal of affordable and quality houses for all.

Vasundhara RajeChief Minister

Government of Rajasthan

25 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 habitat, housing, real estate | humane cities

BGA Realtors, which is based in Kolkata, is plan-ning to build 1.5 million sq ft of affordable housing spaces across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

The developer has already built 2.5 million sq ft, out of which 2.2 million sq has been sold. The addi-tional projects spread over 1.5 million sq ft which will be launched by 2017 and delivered by 2019. “In 2010 we had launched and sold houses at `2 lakh and delivered them by 2013 without any escalation

in price. The buyers, however, enjoyed a 100% return on investment and at present the government is valuing the same unit at `6 lakh when one goes for registration of the same,” said Shampa Ghose, Man-aging Partner, BGA Realtors.

The apartments, sized between 200 sq ft and 1,200 sq ft, would mostly be studio apartments for the low income group and the three bedroom units for the middle income group, priced between ̀ 5 lakh and ̀ 22 lakh.

Kolkata-based realtor planning to provide cheap housing in 6 states

DLF sets up JV for two central Delhi projects DLF Home Developers, a subsidiary of property developer DLF, entered into a joint venture (JV) with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC, who will invest in the builder’s two upcoming projects in Delhi.

The projects will be located in the Moti Nagar area near central Delhi, where DLF had previously bought two separate parcels of land from DCM Shri-ram Consolidated and Lohia Group in 2007. It had paid `1,582 crore for the 38-acre property known as Swatantra Bharat Mills and DCM Silk Mills. So far, DLF has built three phases of its residential project Capital Greens and a commercial tower on a part of this land.

DLF and GIC have decided to setup two separate JVs for the plots of land and GIC will invest `1,990 crore between the two JVs. These JVs are likely to benefit from GIC’s experience of investing in inte-grated developments across the globe.

DLF will be seeking approvals for the two projects, which it intends to launch in the middle of next year.

The Odisha Assembly recently passed a Bill which plans to reserve 20% of vacant land for economi-cally weaker sections under its affordable housing scheme.

The Odisha Development Authorities (Amend-ment) Bill 2015, that was passed by the assembly has provisioned earmarking 20% of vacant land under residential land use for any housing projects under-taken by the government developing authorities.

A housing shortfall of about 1.5 lakh units was estimated in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack region in 2007. While, a recent statewide estimate by the tech-nical group on urban housing shortage (2012-17) revealed that there is a shortfall of about 4.1 lakh housing units in Odisha. The estimate said that approximately 3.6 lakh affordable dwelling units would be needed in Bhubaneswar-Cuttack region to accommodate the growth during the next 10 years.

In 2012, a study on affordable housing for DFID by CRISIL observed that most of the upcoming develop-ments in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack region were HIG

housing with only a few MIG housing in the periph-ery. The study exposed that developers abstained from developing lower income group and econom-ically weaker housing and instead focused on HIG bracket despite the fact that 40% of Bhubaneswar’s

population stayed in slums. The resultant stock was apartments in the range of 1,200 sq ft mid-sized apartments to 2,500 sq ft luxurious apartments.

Government agencies like Bhubaneswar Devel-opment Authority, Cuttack Development Authority and Odisha State Housing Board, too, have failed to address the issues of mass housing.

According to the new housing for all policy, 1 lakh dwelling units for economically weaker sec-tions would be built in the next five years. The new amendment also makes it compulsory for all apart-ments and group housing schemes with plot size exceeding 2,000 sq metre to set aside 10% of the built up area for economically weaker section dwelling units.

The private developer would be entitled to receive compensatory floor area ration equivalent to 100% of the built up area utilised for EWS units. In case the private developers are not able to provide EWS units in the project area, they would be allowed to provide the same at a location not beyond 5 km away.

20% of urban land to be reserved for EWS housing in Odisha

Based on several representations from various organisations and individuals, the Ministry of Urban Development has proposed to demarcate the Lutyens Bungalow Zone (LBZ) in New Delhi in a transparent manner and accordingly has sought suggestions and objections to the proposals in this regard. Minister of Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu has directed that the proposals for fresh demarcation of LBZ be placed in public domain. As per the Minister’s direction, the report submitted by the Delhi Urban Arts Commis-sion (DUAC) has been uploaded on the Ministry’s web-site (moud.gov.in) inviting comments / views / sugges-tions to be sent to Secretary, DUAC by October 15, 2015.

This is the first time public views are proposed to be taken into consideration before demarcating LBZ which was not done when the first demarcation was done in 1988 and for the second time in 2003.

As per the Report submitted by DUAC on the behest of the Ministry of Urban Development, the LBZ area has been proposed to be reduced by 5.13 sq km to 23.60 sq km from the present 28.73 sq km. The LBZ area of 25.88 sq km demarcated for the first time in 1988 increased to 28.73 sq km in 2003 with the inclusion of new areas such as Babar Road, Bengali Market, Sun-dar Nagar, Jor Bagh, Panchsheel Marg, parts of diplo-matic area in Chanakyapuri.

DUAC has proposed to keep the LBZ boundary close to the original boundary envisaged by Edwin

Lutyens in 1912 while removing the transformed / com-mercialised areas / modern colonies which do not bear any semblance to the Lutyens Bungalow character and retaining green areas which were included in LBZ in 1988.

DUAC, accordingly, in their Report submitted to the Ministry of Urban Development on August 12, 2015 has now proposed to exclude areas such as Jor Bagh, Golf Links, Sunder Nagar, Bengali Market, Ashoka Road, Mandir Marg, Panchsheel Marg, Sardar Patel Marg and Chanakyapuri from LBZ area.

Premises of Supreme Court of India which was deleted from LBZ in 2003 is now proposed to be included in LBZ.

In the proposed development control norms for residential bungalows, FAR of 20 with 12.50% ground coverage is suggested while in the present guidelines FAR is not specified. Basement has been proposed to be allowed within the building line, only for house-hold storage and car parking. Building height is to be restricted to 12 m and the number of dwelling units to range from 1 to 4 depending upon the size of the plot. Setback norms will depend on the plot size.

For development or redevelopment of plots / prem-ises for non-residential purposes, it is proposed to apply the norms of Master Plan for Delhi-2021 and Delhi Building Bye-laws, 1983. However, overall build-ing height shall not be more than 32 m with up to 3-level basement for parking which will not be included in FAR. A total of 7 floors including ground floor is pro-posed to be allowed.

Representations being received in the Ministry of Urban Development are largely related to: Allowing construction of additional floor / dwelling unit within permissible height, Allowing basement in the existing residential plots, Excluding post-Independence resi-dential plotted development colonies like Bengali Mar-ket, Babar Road, Golf Links etc, and Applying devel-opment control norms of MPD-2001/2021.

Report of DUAC will be examined after receipt of comments, views, suggestions and objections from the public.

Lutyens Bungalow Zone in New Delhi proposed to be reduced by 5.13 sq km

urban news digest | october 2015 • 26connected cities | urban mobility, mass rapid transport, communication

The Ministry of Urban Development has come out with a Smart National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) model to enable seamless travel by different metros and other transport systems across the coun-try besides retail shopping and purchases. Minister of Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu has approved the ‘EMV Open Loop Card with stored value’ in this regard.

Following the failure of an earlier effort to come out with such an inter-operable mobility card, Venkaiah Naidu set up a Committee last year under the chair-manship of Additional Secretary(UD) to recommend a card which is inter-operable across different transport systems in the country and which can also be used as a credit / debit card. This Committee had representa-tives of National Informatics Centre (NIC), Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), National Payment Corpo-ration of India (NCPI) and the Ministry of Finance.

After extensive study of various models being fol-lowed across the world, the Committee has recom-mended the EMV Open Loop Card with stored value based model and the same was approved by Venkaiah Naidu.

This Smart Common Mobility Payment Card addresses the deficiencies associated with other cards being used in Singapore and other countries. This card meets travel needs based on stored value of money and can be used for travelling by any means of trans-port and also enables account based retail applica-tions. Accordingly, this card does away with the need for carrying separate cards for banking and transit requirements.

Some of the other models examined include Closed Loop Solution like the Octopus cards in Hong Kong which is limited to using for travel only. The other model of EMV Open Loop Account based model suf-fers from the limitations of not supporting weekly, monthly, student passes etc., and not facilitating checking for ticketless travel, collection of fines etc.,

besides increased costs of robust backend systems required for operation.

Globally, there is no nationwide common card except in Singapore wherein inter-operability is con-fined to the city only. The Committee, hence, recom-mended EMV Open Loop Card with stored value for use across the country.

The Urban Development Ministry has decided to task the National Payments Corporation of India with indigenous development and management of Clear-ing and Settlement of payments, Simulating Cards, Terminals and network, a support base of vendors for providing certified tools, cards, terminals and other services. This is in line with the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

C-DAC will develop the standards and hardware for Metro gates / validators along with related ecosys-tems. Funding of `4.47 crore also has been approved in this regard. Certification and authentication mech-anism will be developed by NPCI or any other govern-ment agency.

Venkaiah Naidu has directed the Ministry officials to ensure time bound and coordinated progress in this regard by various agencies to ensue early introduction of Smart Mobility Cards and also to inform the States of this initiative for taking appropriate action for inte-gration of other systems with the new smart card.

UD Ministry announces Smart National Common Mobility Card model

Maharashtra Government considers permanent Green Corridor in Mumbai

Centre gives nod to Pune Metro project

The Maharashtra government is considering marking a permanent ‘green corridor’ in Mumbai for speedy transportation of critical patients to the hospitals without any hurdles.

Recently, the city police created such a corri-dor between the airport and a private hospital for transporting a harvested heart brought from Pune for transplantation.

“There should be a permanent green corridor in Mumbai whereby the critical patients, who are in need of immediate treatment, can reach hos-pitals without the time getting wasted in traffic snarls. If there can be green corridors for VVIP movement, there can certainly be one for critical patients,” State Health Minister Deepak Sawant said.

In addition, cards could be issued depending on how critical the patient is, to be pasted on the ambulances.

“For instance, if the patient is critically ill and needs treatment immediately, we can allot a red card which will be put on the ambulance. This ambulance will be able to bypass all traffic and reach the destination,” he added.

Following a long wait, the Centre has given its go ahead to the Pune Metro project, paving the way for over ̀ 11,000 crore work for overhead rails to ease the worsening traffic congestion in the city.

“The Centre has accepted my report on the (Metro) project and cleared it for early resumption of work,” Girish Bapat, a Maharashtra Minister, told after his meeting with Union Minis-ters Nitin Gadkari, Venkaiah Naidu and Prakash Javadekar in Delhi. Bapat,

who holds a portfolio of Food & Drug Administration, is also the Guardian Minister of Pune district.

The Pune Metro project’s feasibil-ity had raised doubts due to the cost demanded by previous proposals advo-cating underground rails. Now a major portion of the Metro would be overhead to cut the cost of the project conceived six years back.

“The cost factor should make the fare of the Metro journey affordable for commuters,” Bapat added.

Developer allowed to divest 100% equity in road projects after two years of construction

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi has amended its earlier approval dated May 13, 2015 for permitting 100% equity divestment after two years of construction comple-tion for all Build, Operate and Trans-fer (BOT) projects, irrespective of year of award. The approval would allow the concessionaire(s) / promoter(s) to use proceeds from the sale of divested equity in one or more of the following:

• Incomplete National Highway Authority of India projects.

• Any other highway projects. • Any other power sector projects • To retire their debt to financial

institutions in any other infrastructure projects.

This will result in physical comple-tion of languishing infrastructure proj-ects. This in turn will bring relief to citi-zens / travellers in the concerned area.

The main object of the approval is to expedite award and implementation of highway projects in the country by making additional funds available for investment in projects. Consequently, it will facilitate uplifting socio-economic condition of the entire nation due to increased connectivity across the length and breadth of the country. This will also lead to enhanced economic activity.

27 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 urban mobility, mass rapid transport, communication | connected cities

Following the announcement of highway connec-tivity for four Hindu religious shrines (Char Dham) in Uttarakhand, the Narendra Modi government has now proposed to build an expressway between New Delhi and Katra, which is the base for pilgrims going to the holy shrine of Vaishno Devi in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways is working to come up with a plan to build the 600 km expressway, which would be India’s longest. The expressway would pass through the states of Hary-ana, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir and is expected to cost more than ̀ 15,000 crore. “A consultant to study the feasibility of the project is being appointed. It will significantly improve connectivity between Delhi and Srinagar as a national highway is already being built between Jammu and Srinagar,” a senior government official said.

Road Transport & Highways Minister Nitin Gad-kari confirmed that his ministry was working on the plan.

Katra, which is located 42 km from Jammu, is at an elevation of 875 metres above sea level. The express-way would reduce road travel time between New Delhi and Katra from 11-12 hours to five-six hours. The project is expected to be built on a hybrid annuity model, under which 40% of the cost would be borne by the government. The government has approved plans for the construction of about 1,000 km of expressways at an estimated cost of `16,680 crore. The approved corridors are Delhi-Chandigarh, Bengaluru-Chennai, Delhi-Jaipur, Delhi-Meerut, Kolkata-Dhanbad, Delhi-Agra and Vadodara-Mumbai. “It could be a high trac-tion project as the traffic flow, both private vehicles and freight, is good on the route,” the official added.

The Central Government will hold meetings with the State Governments of Punjab, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir to examine the alignment of the proposed expressway and which towns would be provided connectivity. The government is currently working on a land pooling policy for expressway proj-ects, where a portion of the land obtained from farm-ers would be returned to them after development.

Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has introduced handheld parking ticket machines, which would print the exact fare after calculating the time spent by a car at the parking lot. The facility comes a decade after Delhi introduced it in Connaught Place.

The facility, which has been introduced at Rus-sell Street and Park Street car parking lots, will be extended to all other major parking areas across the city in phases. All parking attendants in the region (Park Street and Russell Street) would carry handheld machines that would read the time of arrival of a car. Based on the time, the car owner or the driver would be given a receipt. The attendant would finally generate a bill out of the machine after stipulated hours of parking. The machine has the preloaded feed of KMC authorised parking fees for both four and two-wheelers.

Aside from this, KMC has made it mandatory for the cooperative societies manning parking lots to provide uniforms and issue identity cards to each and every

attendant for the convenience of car owners. The new system of parking would also make sure that fare chart boards, name of the cooperative society manning the parking lot and KMC helpline numbers are displayed at vantage points.

After inaugurating the system, Mayor Sovan Chat-terjee gave a strong message to the societies running the parking lots. “This system will run smoothly if the cooperative societies concerned, cooperate with car owners. The civic body will be forced to take stern action in cases of harassment of car owners,” Chatter-jee said.

According to a KMC parking department official, the civic authorities would be monitoring the cases of harassment through a grievance cell. “We have warned the cooperative societies to train their attendants to be more sensitive toward the car owners. We will monitor the operations through a grievance cell and take action in cases of harassments,” said a KMC official.

Kolkata Municipal Corporation introduces hand-held parking ticket machines

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru begins trials of e-Gate system

government plans india’s longest expressway to connect delhi and katraBangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL)

announced the introduction of automated e-Gates at Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB), which has been employed on a trial basis at the Domes-tic pre-embarkation security check areas. To pass through this gate, passengers can flash their 2D bar-coded paper or mobile boarding pass at the e-Gate that opens automatically upon verifying the validity. The rel-evant details are also displayed on the associated screen, inbuilt into the e-Gate. The passengers proceed for the mandatory security check and subsequently enter the Security Hold Area. The e-Gate basically eliminates the need for a manual security stamp on the boarding pass and CCTV cameras provide additional security mea-sures. Once passengers cross the e-Gate, they do not need to produce their boarding pass again until board-ing begins.

This system is currently being deployed on selected flights only for one lane and would gradually expand in scope subject to mandatory government clearances. The e-Gate unit has been provided by KABA, Germany.

G V Sanjay Reddy, Managing Director, BIAL said, “Bengaluru is a great location for us to pioneer new

technology initiatives, with a traveller who is IT-savvy, young and excited about independent processes. The intent is to provide all passengers services that define the technological prowess and is a reflection of the city the airport is in. The e-Gate is a definite step towards a fully automated and seamless passenger flow. As we grow beyond 15 million passengers annually, we are thankful to MOCA, BCAS and CISF for their collabo-ration to effectively bring this technology trial to KIAB.”

Centre to build a major port in the southern-most tip of Tamil NaduCentre is set to build a major port at Colachel in the southernmost tip of Tamil Nadu at an estimated cost of `21,000 crore, which is envisaged to become a southern gateway of transhipment in the country.

The project is to be developed by the Adani Group, to establish the Colachel port at Kanyakumari dis-trict in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

Union Minister of State for Shipping Pon Rad-hakrishnan said that the Tamil Nadu Government has given its consent to the centre to facilitate devel-oping the port. “A Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) would be created for the purpose. The port would be developed in three phases and it would take three years for completing the construction,” he said.

The Minister, though, did not elaborate the road-map as to whether the port would be built on Pub-lic Private Partnership (PPP) model, nor did he talk about the monetary contribution by the Union Gov-ernment in establishing it.

Noting that the 1.7 million metric tonnes of goods would be handled at the port, Radhakrishnan said that the new port would soon turn out as a gateway from the south for the country.

“Against this backdrop, the proposed Colachel Port, which is a natural harbour, would come in

handy, wherein mother vessels can directly enter. It is going to play a major role (in coming days),” said Radhakrishnan, adding, that the port is expected to generate thousands of jobs in the region.

He further added that the project would reclaim 500 acres of land from the sea, which would be land filled and adequate compensation would be provided to land owners, whose land would be acquired for the Colachel port.

urban news digest | october 2015 • 28resIlIent cItIes | disaster mitigation, safety, security

Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu inaugurated a mobile-based application system called R-Mitra, which has been introduced by the Eastern Railway to ensure wom-en’s safety. The Minister said that it is an “extremely useful app” that could be used by regional railways nationwide.

“Around 2.7 crore to 3 crore people travel in the Indian Railways system on a day-to-day basis. Differ-ent types of crimes are committed by anti-social ele-ments,” Prabhu said at the Eastern Railway headquar-ter in New Delhi.

“It is a big challenge to deal with crime in railway properties,” the Minister said, adding tracking and preventing crime is very important. “Women’s safety has become very important, they are subjected to atrocities in different places like the workplace, home and during travel,” added Prabhu.

“The basic functionality of R-Mitra (Railway Mobile Instant Tracking Response and Assistance)

is to alert the nearest RPF inspector and divisional security control room in case of any emergency with the press of a button only,” said Eastern Railway

General Manager R K Gupta. “Once the button on the app is pressed, the physical

location of the victim will be sent to the control room with the help of GPS and GPRS and the control room will track the user and ensure action immediately,” he said. He also added that the app would work both online and offline in SMS mode by using the helpline number 56161.

Prabhu further added, “It is a fantastic versatile system and will also act as a deterrent.” The Minister pointed out that the number of passengers has been increasing rapidly and so the crime rate has also been increasing simultaneously.

“So this application has been developed to deal with it and is by far the best,” he said, noting that the Western Railway also has a similar alert system. He hopes that the new app developed by the Eastern Railway, mainly for its suburban women passengers, can be spread in other regional railways also.

Indian Railways launches R-Mitra app for women’s safety

India to implement Sendai framework for Disaster Risk Reduction The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju has said India will implement the Sendai framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in letter and spirit. Inaugurating a workshop on ‘Enhancing Private Sector Partnership for Disaster Risk Reduc-tion’, Rijiju said that India has upscaled its efforts to assist its neighbours and other countries in the field of disaster risk reduction.

The ‘Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduc-tion 2015-2030’ was adopted during the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan where India was represented by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The implemen-tation of the Sendai Framework involves adopting integrated and inclusive institutional measures so as to work towards preventing vulnerability to disas-ter, increase preparedness for response and recovery

and strengthen resilience. Rijiju proposed that as a part of Corporate-Social

Responsibility, Private Sector can play a big role in disaster preparedness and mitigation planning as well as relief and recovery phase. Speakers repre-senting the Private Sector assured that they would fully support the Government and provide all possi-ble help towards Disaster Risk Reduction.

Rijiju said that India has already started the preparatory work towards the hosting of the First Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Reduc-tion (AMCDRR) in November, next year. As per the tradition, smaller level partnership meetings called the IAP (ISDR Asian Partnership) are held prior to the hosting of the main conference and the 1st IAP meeting will be held in New Delhi during Novem-ber, 2015.

India signs financing agreement with World Bank for National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project-II

Hyderabad launches new community police initiative CLAPP for women’s safety

The Financing Agreement for World Bank (IDA) assistance of USD 308.40 million for National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project-II (NCRMP-II) has been signed between Government of India and the World Bank.

The Financing Agreement was signed by Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs on behalf of the Government of India and John Blomquist, Programme Leader and Acting Country Director in India, on behalf of the World Bank. The Project Agreements in respect of the States of Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal were signed by the representatives of the respective State Governments. Subrai T Nadkarni, Chief Engineer, Water Resources Department and Ex-Officio Additional Secretary, signed on behalf of the Government of Goa; Anju Sharma, Chief Exec-utive Officer, Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority signed on behalf of the Government of Gujarat; Raj Kumar Khatri, Principal Secretary, Rev-enue and Disaster Management signed on behalf of

the Government of Karnataka; Rachna Shah, Addi-tional Resident Commissioner signed on behalf of the Government of Kerala; Suhas Diwase, Director, Disaster Management Unit signed on behalf of the Government of Maharashtra; and R D Meena, Prin-cipal Resident Commissioner signed on behalf of the Government of West Bengal.

The objective of NCRMP-II is to reduce vulner-ability to cyclone and other hydro-meteorologi-cal hazards of coastal communities in the States of Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal; and increase the capacity of the State entities to effectively plan for and respond to disas-ters. The primary beneficiaries of NCRMP-II will be coastal communities in the target states benefitting from cyclone risk mitigation infrastructure and early warning systems. The project will also finance techni-cal assistance for strengthening of multi-hazard risk management at the national level and improving the quality of available information on multi-hazard risks for decision making across the country.

A new community police initiative called CLAPP (Community Led Action Programme by Police) has been launched with an aim to create a safe and secure environment for women in pub-lic spaces. The one year, two cities (Hyderabad and Chennai) pilot project has been initiated by the International Foundation for Crime Preven-tion and Victim Care (PCVC) in association with the Telangana police.

The team would consist of 18 people com-prising both police officials and students, who would judge and implement methods to make the streets safer for women. The initiative comes at a time when attacks on women have increased.

“The goal of this project is to develop a model of community policing. The society must play a proactive role in preventing crime. We need the cooperation of the students to ensure that the city is made safe for women,” said Swathi Lakra, Additional Commissioner of Police and Head of the Teams.

This initiative has been supported by the United States Consulate. “This project, taken up in Hyderabad and Chennai, is aimed at encouraging community participation in pro-tecting women. The U.S. government has been taking many steps to combat such crimes. Women deserve to move securely with dig-nity anywhere. Our government is trying to fight discrimination. Empowered women make better choices for themselves, their families and their communities,” said Gabriel Hons-Olivier, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Con-sulate, Hyderabad.

In 2014, over 20,000 people were killed in India by accidents caused by forces of nature. Among the known causes of these deaths, lightning, alone killed more than 2,500 people. It was followed by sun stroke, exposure to cold and flood, each causing more than 500 deaths. A state-wise comparison of lightning deaths indicates that the highest number of causal-ities was reported in Madhya Pradesh, where more than 400 people lost their lives. Andhra Pradesh, where 19 people got killed by multiple lightning strikes recently, witnessed 69 deaths in 2014.

death by lightning: over 20,000

people killed in india 2014

29 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 disaster mitigation, safety, security | resilient cities

andhra pradesh to have state disaster response ForceAndhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu has given the nod to the creation of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) to strengthen disaster man-agement systems in the state.

This force would at first have a battalion of 100 per-sonnel who will be trained to handle disasters and would be drawn from various forces in cases of disas-ters in the state.

In a review meeting held at Secretariat, the Chief Minister asked the officials to immediately create an inventory of equipment which can be used by the gov-ernment during disasters.

“During Cyclone Hudhud, it was extremely diffi-cult to mobilise equipment. We need to avoid such sit-uations and have an inventory of equipment to respond to disasters immediately,” the CM added.

Stating that the resource mapping during disasters

is crucial, Naidu said, “Within 24 hours of any major disaster, we should be able to begin restoration and relief works. This can only happen if the inventory of equipment is in place.”

The Chief Minister also instructed the officials to create District Emergency Operation Centres.

“We can train DWCRA (Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas) groups on handling equipment. This will not only help us mobilise resources quickly but also help us respond immedi-ately to local disasters,” he said, adding that indus-tries and SEZs too should be equipped with the lat-est equipments.

He also advised regular drills on safety and rescue in schools and colleges to create awareness among stu-dents on how to respond during disasters.

“We can train them in order to mobilise them as vol-unteers during disasters,” Naidu added.

During the meeting, the Chief Minister also gave his consent to strengthening the State Disaster Manage-ment Authority (SDMA).

“The SDMA of Andhra Pradesh should be the best in the country,” he said, adding that presently Gujarat and Odisha have good disaster management systems.

On the National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Proj-ect (NCRMP) which covers nine coastal districts, the Chief Minister asked the department to come up with an action plan on preparedness for disasters.

“Disasters should not only include natural disasters but also any accidents which need preparedness and immediate help. Be it a chemical accident at a factory or accident at an industry or just a fire, we should be pre-pared to handle everything by ensuring zero human loss,” he further added.

Maharashtra Government to introduce motorbike ambulances in 2016Amid rising traffic, the Maharashtra government said that it will begin a pilot project of motorbike ambulances in Mumbai from next year with a view to provide expeditious medical treatment during an accident or any emergency.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect has been signed by State Health Minister Deepak Sawant and British Trade and Investment Minister Lord Francis Maude.

Sawant said the effort is to allow the victims of accident or any emergency access to medical care in the “platinum ten minutes” rather than the “golden hour”.

“The four-wheel ambulances find it difficult to negotiate through the city’s congested roads. Doctors or paramedics riding bikes can cut through heavy traffic because of their manoeuvrability,” he added.

The Minister said the MoU would also help strengthen and expand health care in rural areas.

The bike ambulances would start in the mega-polis at ten places, and would take accident or emer-gency victims to the nearest hospital in the shortest possible time.

Maude said the MoU will help consolidate rela-tions between England and Maharashtra in the healthcare sector.

“The state will benefit from the advanced tech-nology from Britain who will guide the state admin-istration to keep digital records of patients. Doctors and nurses will be trained and healthcare centres in rural areas will be strengthened,” he added.

Mumbai fire brigade gets 90-metre snorkel to fight tall building fires

The Mumbai Fire Brigade unveiled a brand new 90-metre snorkel to combat high fire, three years after it was first initiated the plan to import the device. The hydraulic platform, stationed at the Byculla fire sta-tion, can scale up to 30 floors and has a turntable lad-der and elevated water pumps to conduct fire fight-ing and rescue operations.

Even though the decision to purchase the aerial ladder was made in 2012, the process was delayed due to negotiations with Bronto, the Finland-based com-pany which manufactures the device. The proposal was passed by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Cor-poration’s (BMC) standing committee in 2014 after the fire at the Lotus Business Park in Andheri (West) claimed the life of a fire-fighter.

Fire officials are currently being trained to han-dle the snorkel. The fire brigade is also on course to acquire an 81-metre ladder by 2016. On August 16, the Mumbai Fire Brigade also inaugurated the second fire command centre at Byculla.

After the 2005 floods in the city, the fire brigade planned to set up six command centres across the city – two at Byculla and Wadala in the south, two at Vikh-roli and Mankhurd in the eastern suburbs, and two at Borivali and Marol in the western suburbs. The moti-vation behind setting up these command centres was to cover the length and breadth of the city by provid-ing prompt relief in cases of sudden disasters.

Ajoy Mehta, the Municipal Commissioner, who was present at the unveiling of the snorkel, said that the administration was looking at three major steps to improve fire safety in the city. “First, we are looking to train residents as first responders to disasters. We are also publishing posters to make people aware of fire hazards. We will improve the brigade manpower by filling all vacant posts and provide the firemen with the best training and equipment. In the final stage, we improve fire fighting infrastructure by working on concepts like mini fire stations across the city,” he said.

The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh empha-sised the need to set up readily available blood bank facility along all the major road highways across the country and to begin with, he offered to collaborate with ISBT and related agencies to initiate this process from his own Lok Sabha constituency beginning from the towns along the highway. He was addressing while inaugurating the 40th Annual National Conference of ‘Indian Society of Blood Transfusion and Immunohe-matology’ (ISBT). With the number of road accidents constantly on the rise, he said, this will supplement timely help to the needy at places where the govern-ment infrastructure is still inadequate. In the next phase, the same facility can also be replicated in the interior belts of rural and semi-urban areas, he added.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, soon a team of experts will be visiting the districts of Kathua, Udhampur and Reasi in Jammu and Kashmir to work out an early implementation of this plan. From the experi-ence gained from this area, the same campaign for upgraded empowerment of blood bank facility will also be extended to other States in different parts of the country, including the Northeast, he said.

Dr Jitendra Singh appreciated the efforts of ISBT and said that its role is not confined only to managing and executing blood transfusion but also spreading awareness among the society to encourage voluntary donations. At the same time, he suggested that the rep-resentatives of this organisation should also be incor-porated by the Health Ministry in the decision mak-ing process regarding blood transfusion and related matters.

blood banks along the highways being considered by the govt

urban news digest | october 2015 • 30vibrant cities | heritage, conservation, tourism, culture, public spaces

The Union Tourism Ministry will soon be awarding the title of ‘twin national heritage cities’ to the tem-ple towns of Rishikesh and Haridwar. This will be the first instance of such a tag being given to any of the cit-ies in the country. Announcing this during a visit to Uttarakhand, Union Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma said that funds were being earmarked for the develop-ment of the two cities which will be connected with a metro rail network in the near future.

Sharma also informed that funds to the tune of `120 crore were being procured for setting up a cable car ropeway system for Tehri Lake and the Char Dhams. While `50 crore has been allocated for Kedarnath, `40 crore is for the other Char Dham destinations, and ̀ 30 crore for Tehri Lake.

Detailing the plans being chalked out for Harid-war and Rishikesh, Sharma said that the two cities are

proposed to be developed as “world-class” yoga and spirituality centres. “Our first priority is to help improve the infrastructure and the traffic situation in these cities.

We have asked the state tourism department to send detailed proposals in this regard to the Centre. In order to improve connectivity between the cities, we are also proposing starting of a metro train between Haridwar, Rishikesh and Dehradun,” said the Union Minister.

Lauding the Centre for the initiative, Lokesh Ohri, Co-Convener, INTACH (Uttarakhand chapter) said, “Haridwar is very rich in heritage as it has more than 370 heritage sites while Rishikesh has around 30. These heritage sites include old temples, dharamshalas, akha-ras, havelis, etc., where there are many murals and arte-facts of historic value. Unfortunately, most of them are neglected and in a very bad state and are crying for urgent conservation. Even if the Har-ki-Pauri pre-cinct - which has around 70 heritage sites, is revived, which is not such a tall order, it would be a wonderful achievement.”

Centre to declare Haridwar and Rishikesh as Twin National Heritage Cities

vadakkunathan temple in kerala wins unesco award of excellence for conservationIndia won the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) prize ‘Award of Excel-lence’ 2015 for the remarkable efforts in conserving the ancient Vadakkunnathan Temple in Kerala. India was presented with the award in UNESCO Asia-Pacific Her-itage Award for cultural heritage conservation.

Since 2000, UNESCO has given awards to the Asia-Pacific countries with an objective to promote the pro-tection of cultural heritage sites in Asia-Pacific region. UNESCO honours countries with awards in categories; ‘Award of Excellence’, ‘Award of Distinction’, ‘Award of Merit’, ‘Honourable Mention’ and ‘Jury Commendation for Innovation Winners’.

“The Jury were very pleased with this year’s submis-sions, which included fascinating projects from across Asia-Pacific. This reflects a continuing trend over the

years where we are seeing a broader diversity of typolo-gies being submitted to the Awards coming from a wider geographical spread,” said Tim Curtis, Chair of the Jury and Chief of UNESCO Bangkok’s Culture Unit.

India was presented with two more awards in the UNESCO Asia Pacific Heritage Awards. J.N. Petit Insti-tute, Fort, in Mumbai which is known for its neo-Gothic structure received the ‘Award of Distinction’. The build-ing was built in 1898 and was further extended in 1939 and since then has added to the new-Gothic landmarks in the city.

India also got the award for ‘Honourable Mention’ for Parvati Nandan Ganapati Temple in Pune. The temple went through restoration in the year 2012 and 2013. The 17th century temple was earlier renovated by Jijamata, the mother of Chhatrapati Shivaji.

Dehradun to have world’s first centre for conserving natural heritage India has signed an agreement with the UNESCO to establish the world’s first centre for the conservation of ‘natural’ World Heritage sites at the Wildlife Insti-tute of India (WII), Dehradun.

The WWI will cater to the entire Asia-Pacific region for conserving existing sites, along with identifying potential natural heritage sites across 50 countries.

This is the first time that an existing institute (WII) has been granted the recognition of Category 2 Centre (C2C) by the UNESCO. It is also the first centre to be established for management and training in the field of ‘natural’ heritage in the world.

Even though a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed last year, a formal agree-ment was signed only in the September of this year, in the presence of the Union Environment, Forests and

Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar.“As the centre will cater to the capacity building

needs of Asia-Pacific, it will also be able to provide additional incentive to WII for providing its services in identification, capacity building for management and monitoring of natural heritage for all the countries in the region,” said an official note.

Countries like, South Africa, Spain, Italy, China, Bahrain, Brazil, Mexico and Norway have similar cen-tres, but, these centres are meant for conservation of only the ‘cultural’ heritage sites. While the Dehradun centre will work for conservation of ‘natural’ heritage.

Although not legally part of the UN body, these institutes and centres are associated with UNESCO through formal arrangements approved by the gen-eral conference. They have been selected due to the strength of their specialisation in one of UNESCO’s fields of competence.

PM Modi highlights India’s Buddhist heritageThe government hosted a conference on ‘Global Hindu-Buddhist Initiative’ on conflict avoidance with an aim to leverage its soft power as it looks to promote socio-cul-tural ties through diplomacy among countries with a common heritage.

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi inaugurated the conference, which was attended by religious and spiritual scholars from Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Russia and Mongolia, besides former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, Japan’s Min-ister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bhutan’s Finance Minis-ter and Nepalese Tourism and Culture Minister.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a video mes-sage on the occasion, saying the “aim of the symposium deeply chimes with my belief.” The conclave concluded with a trip to Bodhgaya.

Modi pitched India as a prime religious destina-tion for tourists from these countries, hoping to further strengthen its ties with Southeast and East Asia through a common heritage as part of his ‘Act East Policy’.

“My government is doing everything possible to give an impetus to the Buddhist heritage across India, and India is taking the lead in boosting the Buddhist heritage

across Asia. This three-day meet is one such effort...You are visiting a nation that is extremely proud of its Bud-dhist heritage,” the PM said.

Modi further cited the Hindu and Buddhist beliefs to make his pitch, drawing upon the tenets of these ancient religions to fight climate change and avert conflicts. He said that ideologies should give way to dialogue in order to resolve conflicts.

“Intolerant non-state actors now control large terri-tories where they are unleashing barbaric violence...The severe limitations in our conflict resolution mechanisms are becoming more and more obvious. It is, thus, no sur-prise that the world is taking note of Buddhism,” he said, without naming any country in particular, at the confer-ence organised by Delhi-based Vivekananda Interna-tional Foundation.

31 URBAN NEWS DIGEST | ocToBER 2015 heritage, conservation, tourism, culture, public spaces | vibrant cities

The Union Minister of State for Culture (Indepen-dent Charge) and Tourism (Independent Charge) and Civil Aviation, Dr Mahesh Sharma launched a special cleaning campaign at the recently reno-vated historic Assi Ghat in Varanasi. Launching a cleaning drive at the excavated and restored his-toric Assi Ghat, the Union Minister inaugurated a world class Sulabh public toilet on the occasion. Dr Mahesh Sharma while lauding the effort of Sulabh called upon other organisations to come forward to adopt and clean other ghats. He said a plan is being drafted to clean garbage by using boats as garbage disposal is a major problem in the historic city due to narrow lanes. Now boats will ferry garbage to dump at certain points.

Dr Mahesh Sharma said that a comprehensive plan for the all round development and beautifica-tion of the Ghats of Varanasi and cleaning of River Ganga is underway to fulfil the wishes of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. He announced intro-duction of a special project for restoration and beautification of the Ghats. The Minister said a plan has already been finalised to hold light and sound shows at Assi Ghat soon.

Special cleaning campaign at Assi Ghat in Varanasi

Majuli’s World Heritage tag is proving to be elusive The chances of Majuli getting the UNESCO World Heritage Site tag depend on the State Government of Assam preparing a new dossier on the river island. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had prepared dossiers in 2004, 2008 and 2012; however, these were rejected by UNESCO for lacking detail.

Majuli’s journey to get the coveted tag began in 1998 when the Majuli Island Protection and Developmental Council prepared the first dossier. The state forwarded it to the Centre, which, in turn, sent it to UNESCO. The dossier was received by UNESCO, but they sought more details.

Commissioner and Secretary (Cultural Affairs), Preetom Saikia said that the state government was con-sidering getting UNESCO on board to act as a consul-tant. “Within the next fortnight, we will decide our plan of action. The last dossier was prepared by ASI in 2012. It had some shortcomings and was returned,” he said.

Union Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs, Sarbananda Sonowal asked the state to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UNESCO to prepare a new dossier. He suggested engaging an expert so that the new report could be sub-mitted by January 31, 2016.

2,000 year old labyrinth discovered in india shows the same pattern as greek pylos tablets

Government initiates several measures to increase forest and tree cover: Minister of Information and Broadcasting

A team of researchers from the Verarajendran Archaeo-logical and Historical Research Centre, Tirupur discov-ered a 2,000-year-old square labyrinth in Gedimedu, a village 16 km from Pollachi, which is in the Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu. The finding is significant because the site lies on an ancient trade route that runs from Pal-akkad Gap to Alagankulam on the east coast via Polla-chi, Udumalai, Dindigul, Madurai and Thiruthangal.

The labyrinths, with a complicated network of paths, have been a fertility symbol associated with many cul-tures. They signify a unique pattern of consciousness and have been used as a meditation tool and a wish-ful-filling symbol since the Neolithic period.”The labyrinth

has one pathway which leads inexorably to the goal from the point of entry. One has to walk through the right path to reach the goal. It is believed that the person

who walks through the seven routes correctly will ful-fil his wishes,” said S Ravikumar, who led the team of researchers comprising of K Ponnusamy, S Velusamy and S Sathasivam.

The square labyrinth in Gedimedu, measures 56 feet X 56 feet and is the second largest to ever be found in India. According to Ravikumar, the most important fact is that its pattern is the same seen on the Greek Pylos tablets. “The inner walking space of this labyrinth var-ies from 2.6 feet to 3.6 feet. The entrance is towards the east. Its old name is Seven Round Fort. The pattern is the same that we see on the clay tablet from Pylos in Greece, one of the oldest labyrinths in clay,” he said.

The Government proposes to implement the tree plantation programme extensively in the country. To increase forest and tree cover in the country, the Central Government has initiated several measures. Notable among them are launching of National Mis-sion for a Green India and taking appropriate mea-sures to put in place a proper institutional mecha-nism for expeditious utilisation of amounts realised in lieu of forest land diverted for non-forest purpose.

The National Mission for a Green India aims at following:

• Enhancing quality of forest cover and improv-ing ecosystem services from 4.9 million hectares (mha) of predominantly forest lands, including 1.5 mha of moderately dense forest cover, 3 mha of open forest cover, 0.4 mha of degraded grass lands.

• Eco-restoration/afforestation to increase for-est cover and eco system services from 1.8 mha for-est/non forest lands, including scrub lands, shift-ing cultivation areas, abandoned mining areas, ravine lands, mangroves and sea-buckthorn areas. Enhancing tree cover in 0.2 mha Urban and Peri-Urban areas (including institutional lands) Increas-ing forest cover and eco-system services from Agro-forestry and Social Forestry on 3 mha of non-forest lands

• Restoration of 0.1 mha of wetlands and the eco system services thereof. The Central Government has approved National Mission for a Green India in February 2014 as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for a total cost of `13,000 crore, having a plan out-lay of ̀ 2,000 crore for the 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) with a spillover of 1 year in the 13th FYP along with `400 crore from 13th Finance Commission Grants towards State’s Share. The share of Centre and State being in the ratio of 75:25 respectively for all States except North-Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir for which it will be in the ratio of 90:10. The approval also spells out convergence with MGNREGA for

`4000 crore, CAMPA for `6000 crore and National Afforestation Programme for `600 crore. Budget allocation for the Mission in the current financial year is `64.00 crore.

The Central Government is also providing assis-tance to States Governments and Union terri-tory Administrations under Centrally Sponsored

Scheme ‘National Afforestation Programme (NAP)’ for regeneration of degraded forests and adjoining areas through people’s participation. The scheme is being implemented through a decentralised mech-anism of State Forest Development Agency (SFDA) at State level, Forest Development Agency (FDA) at Forest Division level and Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMCs) at village level. The budget allocation for the current financial year under NAP is `100 crore.

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