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| Ancient mega-cities emerging as mega-regions: M Ramachandran |
| Announcement / Econnomy Mar 08, 2010, 20:07 IST |
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Ministry of Urban Development undertaking efforts to create capacities at city end
Spanning administrative boundaries, the ancient mega-cities today are emerging into mega-regions like NCR and MMRDA. This calls for anticipated planning for transportation, infrastructure, environment, equitable access to resources and facilitate energy savings, said Mr. M Ramachandran, Secretary – Urban Development, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. He was speaking at the International Conference on Competitive Cities, “City Development: Emerging Business Models” organised today by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
He lauded 13th Finance Commission report tabled in the Parliament which hand over Rs. 87,519 Crore recommended as grant to local bodies – urban and rural. The grant is segmented into two parts viz, general grant (28-29% of the total figure) and performance based grant. The ministry is also extending substantial support for urban transportation, sanitation and the likes. He said that these measures are undertaken to create capacities at city end. He urged for investments in city development with decentralised focus and incrementing PPP arrangements. He was of the view that rapid urbanisation is worsening condition, by making cities larger emitters of Green House Gasses (GHG).
Mr. Rajeev Talwar, Group Executive Director, DLF Ltd spoke about the governance issues for Tier II and Tier II cities to become Tier I. Benchmarking at global level is imperative for India to be competent in the times to come. This includes the entire issue of resources availability, sanitation, transportation, infrastructure etc.
Mr. Pradeep Singh, Chairman, Infrastructure Sub-Committee, CII Northern Region & Managing Director, IDFC Projects Ltd said that India is urbanising faster than the whole world, which will add to management of a city comparable to a large country like London. This calls for a paradigm shift in city development, adoption of business models for competitive cities of the future. The futuristic green field cities should be able to provide economic development along with ensuring environmental protection. He added that one should know the should & should nots and have & have nots of city development.
Ms. Susan Zielinski, Managing Director – SMART, University of Michigan, USA urged that India can utilise its vast IT talent pool, in building efficient infrastructure support system. Emerging approaches towards city development should envisage combination approaches of a dynamic, flexible, secure and scalable integrated transportation.
Dr. Amit Kapoor, Honorary Chairman of Institute of Competitiveness, India & Professor of Strategy & Industrial economics, management Development Institute, Gurgaon outlined that the cities today suffer from massive infrastructural issues. He opined that projection for urban development should be made on the basis of concepts developed from quantitative data, rather than those of qualitative figures. Each city needs to have a unique preposition for the coming 20 years, and planning must be undertaken accordingly.
Viewing cities as a key tool to make development inclusive, Mr. Anshuman Magazine, Conference Co-Chair & Past Chairman CII Delhi State council and Chairman & Managing Director CB Richard Ellis said that the shift from rural to urban is inevitable. Therefore a whole lot of challenges like resources and infrastructural crunch, global benchmarking in modular governance, environmental stability, in this regard should be looked at with a futuristic perspective. He complimented Finance Minister in the Union Budget speech 2010 acknowledging weakness in governance system and calling for reforms.
Mr. Sanjay Verma, Conference Co-Chair & Member, Infrastructure Sub-Committee, CII Northern region and CEO Asia Pacific, Cushman & Wakefield said that new ideas should be explored towards development of cities. The development model for cities should come up with innovative focus on funding support.
The conference focuses on the topics of new city development, bridging the urban divide, governance and participation issues, sustainability and urban mobility. The key speakers at the conference were Mr. Rajiv Yadav, Member (Admin) NHAI; Mr. Sanjeev Sahai, CEO, Delhi Integrated Metro Transportation.
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