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INTRODUCTION

The National Technical Advisory Group

(TAG) for Jawaharlal Nehru Urban

Renewal Mission (JNNURM) has beenestablished, with the intent of bringing in

greater citizen involvement into

JNNURM, establishing volunteer tech-nical corps in participating cities, and

generally ensuring greater stakeholder

engagement in the JNNURM process atvarious levels. One of the central

activities of TAG is go to each of the

JNNURM cities, and create more stake-holder involvement in the JNNURM

activities. This is primarily among

citizens, but also extends to otherstakeholders in the cities – civil society

institutions, business communities etc.

This is also related to one of the terms ofreference of the TAG: to help set up

Volunteer Technical Corps in

participating cities.

In this connection, TAG held the first ofits preliminary series of City Interactions

in the JNNURM cities in Ahmedabad,

Gujarat, in AMA Management House premises on 29

th and 30

th of January

2007. The objective was to betterunderstand the method of stakeholder

consultations that have been undertaken

for preparation of City Development

Plans (CDPs) and Detailed ProjectReports (DPRs), as well as the kind of

mechanisms that Ahmedabad is

envisaging for ongoing engagement ofsuch stakeholders – specifically citizen

communities, and civil society

institutions. The event was scheduled inthree sessions spread over two days. It

was attended by about 125

representatives from a wide cross-

section of stakeholders ranging from

Union Government, AhmedabadMunicipal Corporation and State

Government to industry associations,academia, Civil Society Organisations,

including grassroots players and CBOs.

Apart from five of the six TAG

members, namely, Mr. Ramesh

Ramanathan, Prof. O.P. Mathur, Ms.Sheela Patel, Mr. Vasimalai, and Prof.R.V. Ramarao; and a host of senior

officials from the State, district and

AMC, such as Mr. Rajamani, the

Mission Director, Mr. Anirudh Kumarand Mr. I.P, Gautam, City

Commissioner, Ahmedabad., some of

the prominent participants to the CityInteractions in Ahmedabad were: Mr.

Prem Pangotra, Mr. Vimal Ambani, Ms.

Nafisa Barot, Mr. Kartikeya Sarabhai,Ms Manvita,, just to name a few.


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SESSION 1: JOINT SESSION

(January 29, 2007)

Addressing the joint session of differentstakeholders, Mr. S.R. Rao, Principal

Secretary, Government of Gujarat, said

that a new paradigm in development,i.e., “development through partnership”

was initiated by the Government of

Gujarat in February 2005. The main

elements the new strategies of urbangovernance in the State comprise

partnership of the people, a set of new

reform measures, and good governance.Gujarat government believes that

citizens must be delivered what is due to

them on a proactive basis. JNNURM has been envisaged to empower every Indian

people. For the first time the UnionGovernment has come out with a

substantial package to change thefortunes of urban areas.

The urbanisation trends in Gujarat showthat nearly 28% of the urban population

in Gujarat (2001) contributed to 56% of

State’s GDP. But it is unfortunate that ascompared to rural Gujarat where poverty

levels have now come down to 11%, the

fall in poverty is rather less steep inurban areas. “We are still talking about

28% of our population living in abject

poverty and denied of fundamental

services. We still talk of areas wherethere is no access to water, sewerage,

sanitation, and public conveniences like

pay and use toilets” he opined.

Mr. I.P. Gautam, Commissioner, AMC,informed that a formal consultation that

is required with the stakeholders under

the guidelines issued under JNNURM

was somewhat missing while framingthe City Development Plan (CDP) of

Ahmedabad. “But based on our learnings

from the first year, the areas that haveremained neglected would be duly taken

care of”, he assured.

Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan, National

Technical Advisor, JNNURM and

Chairperson, TAG, in his brief

presentation on role of the Technical

Advisory Group for JNNURM, statedthat contrary to the popular belief that

“the Government gives you a ‘bear hug’whenever you decide to work with it”,

TAG is basically “an irritant to the

system”. The day TAG stops being anirritant; it would loose its value to the

Mission. He also believed that Gujarat

may well be one of the best governedStates in the country; but it still has

many miles to go between the reality ofwhere it is today and the potential of

where it should go.

He called upon various stakeholders totruly engage themselves with JNNURM

– the Mission that seems to be different.

“We do not say that this is different andyou must participate in it. But it can be

different, if we give it one chance and


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each of us make up our mind on whether

it is something we would like to investyour time on”.

“As we become a mature democracy we

must realise democracy is not likecricket, it is not a spectators’ sport. We

have to do something - we have a role to

play. It is not a one way street. If wewant to criticise, write letters to the

editor and criticise but when the

Government is giving us a chance to be a part of it then it is our responsibility to

get involved”, he argued.

Mr. I.P. Gautam then made a

presentation on City Development Plan

(CDP) of Ahmedabad.

Open House

The brief presentations by Mr.

Ramanathan and Mr. I.P. Gautam werefollowed by an open house involving

comments and opinions of the

participants and a question & answersession.

Planned urbanisation is the need ofthe hour

Mr. Mahesh Pandya, an Environmental

Engineer and currently working with an NGO, observed that most of the

shopping malls coming up in

Ahmedabad had not taken environment

clearance. Besides, there are problems

concerning traffic congestion, watersupply, and inadequate drainage system.

Around 70% of the drainage system of

Ahmedabad is inadequate. The concept

of Mission and urbanisation is good butit should be properly planned, he

suggested.

Involvement of the poor essential

NGOs are not representatives of the

poor, said Mr. Binoy Acharya ofUNNATI. They could only facilitate

participation by the poor. He therefore,

requested TAG to involve poor people’sassociations in JNNURM. Involvement

of associations is very important – be it

commercial associations; teachersassociations; doctors associations;

lawyers associations; environmental

associations; slum dwellers associations,etc. Everybody needs to participate in

the Mission. Only then it would be

called real stakeholders participation.

Each city has to produce a different

model

Ms. Sheela Patel responded by saying

that involvement of the poor is essential but the answer also lies in the hearts and

minds of people.. No external individual

can come and ensure participation. So if NGOs are agents of change then they

would also have to produce a

methodology that is local and involves awell laid process. It is very easy to say -


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promote participation, have engagement.

We sat all morning today to discuss this process as to how do you create this

participation in a city where there are so

many levels of inequality. So I feel that

what you are talking about different projects, different stakeholders, different

people, I think that each city has to

produce a different model.

Improve the quality of presentation

Mr. Prem Pangotra suggested that inorder to have a meaningful consultation,

efforts should be made to improve the

quality of the presentation. For example,

if there are 10 projects proposed in theCDP of Ahmedabad, there should be 10

slides per project and those 10 slides

should cover an adequate description of

the project itself. It should also have aspatial distribution of the drainage

system that is being proposed - whichzones and (or) which wards get covered.

It should also have a statistics on before

the project what is the condition and

after the project what would be thesituation with certain parameters like

coverage. Now this is the amount of

information that needs to be presented ina meeting before people can meaning-

fully react to it before criticising it.

Mr. Pangotra to anchor formation of

group

Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan said that since

AMC was ready to do a presentation on

CDP, it should make a presentation on

all the 10 approved projects and the

other 4-5 projects submitted. He alsocalled upon the participants to form a

group of 4 to 5 persons by the end of the

programme, which would work with

AMC to design its schedule as to whatall would be presented, how, how much

information would be given, etc. Mr.

Prem agreed to anchor a group of 4-5 people to sit with AMC and prepare a

presentation that lives up to their

satisfaction.

Incorporate the equity concept

upfront

According to Ms Renu Khanna from

Baroda, a major concern is that while the NURM is happening, large scaledemolition of slums is also taking place

at the same time and that too without any

alternative housing and rehabilitationarrangements being made. Therefore,

whenever we talk about CDPs, certain

indicators of urban development withequity have to be incorporated upfront. It

is unfortunate that what is more visible

today are the malls and the multiplexes

and what is not visible is what ishappening to the poor. Slum free city

maybe a great idea but we should not

remove all the urban poor, and makethem invisible. The other point of

concern, according to Ms Renu is that

participation is becoming tokenistic.


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We need to redefine the requirements

of the people

Mr. Kartikeya Sarabhai from Centre for

Environment Education commented that

the when we create a new shopping mallor say a new garden, there is no place or

provision for a paani poori person in that

area. This is despite knowing fully wellthat he would sure encroach upon that

area. Similarly, we create a very

wonderful river front plan but there areno ghats in it. Therefore, there is a need

to redefine the requirements of the

people and we also need to learn how

people use things.

Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan suggested that

it would be better if we could also comeup with possible solutions to the

problems we describe.

What about projects where in-depth

planning has not gone in?

Mr. Jehangir Cama wanted to know if

JNNURM would still go on financing

such projects where the proper in-depth

planning has not gone in? What aboutthe projects which have no consideration

for rehabilitation of the slum dwellers?

What is going to happen on the riverfront? How in the absence of a parking

policy for a city like Ahmedabad where

there are 600 vehicles registered eachday, can the road development take

place? How can money be spent like

that? These are the questions we wouldreally like answers to and also would

like to know if JNNNURM would keep

meeting expenses for such projects or

what?

Mr. Ramanathan replied that if anyonehas a specific issue on the project to not

get sanctioned because something has

not been done, he or she should write to

TAG. “If you write to us and give ussufficient details we commit to you as

the National Technical Advisory Group,

we are not here to come and give somesweet talk and disappear. Please write to

us and give us the data. We will bring itup when the project comes up fordiscussion to say this is what we are

hearing from the city, and how do you

address this? We can’t say that we can

stop the project for you but we shallcertainly represent and come back to you

with the status”.

Time to integrate & implement

housing schemes for the poor

Mr. Vimal Ambani, Convenor of the

infrastructure panel, CII, said that a timehas come where we start thinking about

not slum clearance, not slum up-

gradation but more of how do weintegrate poor housing - economically


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priced housing in each of the respective

cities. If we design houses for the upperincome group, then we better design for

the maids and the servants too to live

around. Otherwise they are going to live

wherever space is available. We need tointegrate that into our planning and the

plans may be there but they are not

implemented it seems and we need tosomehow or the other make sure that the

implementation takes place. He also

wanted to know how credible are therecommendations of TAG to the

Ministry or Mission Directorate?

On the credibility of the TAG, Mr.

Rajamani, Mission Director, commentedthat one of the best features of JNNURM

besides its many other features iscitizens participation. It is so explicitlystated in JNNURM. Other programmes

might have been paying lip service to

community participation but certainlynot JNNURM. The Technical Advisory

Group (TAG) is the mechanism to

enhance community participation in theoverall scheme of JNNURM. It has been

part and parcel of the Ministry since its

creation, in the sense it has been working

with the Ministry very closely on a day-to-day basis and the Ministry values its

advice and recommendations very much.

Some of the other important obser-

vations and comments made during the

session were concerning need to preparelong term projects (lasting 25 – 30 year);

worsening traffic problem in Ahme-

dabad; water management & sew-erage

planning issues; lack of trans-parency,etc. Ms. Swati Vyas from SEWA (Self

Employed Women’s Association) said

that since SEWA is working on the slum

networking with the MunicipalCorporation, it would be happy to join

hands with the Corporation as far as the

Insurance Programme is concerned.According to Mr. Dakshah, Municipal

Councillor, we should increasingly apply

web technology in projects like sewagewater treatment etc. If we move a step

further then we could also generate

electricity through this, he believed.

Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan called uponthe participants to take leadership roles

to address the problems of the city. He

favoured formation of a ‘City Connect’kind of platform in Ahmedabad as well.

This is one platform which is being

operationalised in Bangalore. Estab-

lished with the help of the local CIIChapter, here people do get themselves

involved with the Municipality and the

Urban Department. Incidentally, it is a platform not only for industry. Even

NGOs and the urban poor could be

asked to join in such platform because ifwe rare only going to ask for airports

and flyovers then the city won’t

improve”.


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He promised funding support and

serious commitment to ensure

involvement from the part of the UnionGovernment, the State Government and

the Local Government. “The process

would involve discussion, debates even

amongst the group of outsidegovernment. Nobody said democracy is

about consensus. It is about agreeing

how to disagree and finally finding some

common ground”, said Mr. Ramanathan.

Mr. Vimal Advani on behalf of CII

agreed to anchor a meeting to create a

city connect on February 8th

. A follow-up meeting anchored by Dr. Prem

Pangotra took place in the adjacent room

to work on the type of information thatthey would like to be presented in

consultation meeting with to be

organised shortly by AMC on CDP and

DPRs.

SESSION 2: INTERACTIONS WITH

CORPORATORS (January 30, 2007)

Setting the tone of the session, Mr.

Ramanathan informed that the objective

of the interaction was to take suggestionsfrom the corporators and members of the

Standing Committee, AMC, basically on

four-five issues – what do they thinkabout the JNNURM? There exists a City

Development Plan for Ahmedabad.

Around 10 to 15 projects have already

been submitted. Out of these 10 projectshave been approved, while 2-3 others are

under assessment. What is their take on

that? Moreover, what about the capacity

of elected representatives? What

problems do they face?

In his initial address, Mr. I.P. Gautam

gave a brief description of the role of the

Standing Committee in the overallfunctioning of Ahmedabad Municipal

Corporation and narrated the practical

difficulties in meeting with the demandof JNNURM in supplying water 8 hours

per day. Converting water supply

capability from 2 hours per day to 8hours or 24 hours per day huge

investments would be required. There

are also some operational problems

involved.

The problem of water supply was also

flagged by the Chairperson of theStanding Committee, AMC. She also

briefly touched upon Ahmedabad’s

problems concerning traffic congestion,health; poor drainage system, solid waste

management, etc. In her view, there is a

need to create awareness about where tothrow the garbage, where to place the

trash bins, amongst all regarding this.People litter the places as far as 25 feet

around the trash bins, she complained.

One of the corporators spoke about the

weak financial position and limitedfunding options of the Ahmedabad

Municipal Corporation. Apart from property tax and octroi, AMC does not

have much option to raise extra

resources for its kitty. So the funding

from the Central Government, StateGovernment and the other outside


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sources is always like a blessing. Being

the grassroots representatives of thecitizens, corporators are best suited to

know their daily problems. The

Councillors may not be Technical

Experts but they sure are Social Experts,he claimed.

Rehabilitation of the slums should be

given a priority. Encroachments have nothappened over night. But those who

have been living at a place, say for the

last 20 – 25 years, they have definitely

been contributing to the urbandevelopment. The question is - who

makes our city clean? It’s the poor

labour. If we move him far away from

the city he would not do so and wouldreturn back, he further argued.

According to another Councillor, whohad been Mayor at one point of time,

whatever resolutions are passed in the

Mayor Council, is never implemented. Itis not implemented by the State’s Chief

Minister or the Central Governmenteither. With a view to stop frequent

changes in the positing of

Commissioners, which badly affects

their motivation and efficiency level, hecalled upon the Central Government to

pass an Act mandating the term of a

Commissioner at least for 5 Years.

According to Dr. Jaisukh Sawariya, a

first time corporator from Ahmedabad,

though all the projects running underJNNURM are excellent, but the problem

is non-cooperation and apathy being

shown by the common citizens. There isa need to create awareness amongst the

citizens. If need be, the offenders must

be punished. On the other hand, the

eastern part of Ahmedabad, which is

primarily inhabited by the middle classand people belonging to the lower socio

economic group, should be given extraattention. This neglected part of the city

must be provided with affordable good

quality health services and hospitals.There must also be provision for

educational institutes in Eastern

Ahmedabad.

Some of the other problems discussedduring the session included slum

management & resettlement, problemsof mosquitoes, rodents, etc. how do we

solve this problem; non-compliance of

the high-court order of day to daygarbage collection , etc.


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Summing up the session, Mr.

Ramanathan stated that the eastern partof Ahmedabad definitely needs more

attention. Therefore, changes in the CDP

of Ahmedabad, if any, should mention

that the next round of projects comingfrom Ahmedabad must address this

issue. Secondly, the corporators could

also provide their feedback on guidelineson the housing projects for the Urban

Poor.

SESSION 3: DIALOGUE WITH

CSOs (January 30, 2007)

The session started with Mr. Ramesh

Ramanathan recapitulating the discu-ssion/action points of the joint session.

The main objective of the session was totake forward the ideas that came up for

discussion yesterday. The participating

CSOs/their represent-tatives were askedto focus not only on the problems of

Ahmedabad but also on their feasible

solutions. “We all know different kinds

of problems that are there. We will not be able to move ahead just by talking

about the problems. Think about whatkinds of solutions we can offer”, he said.

Mr. Sunil Parikh, CRISIL, who was partof the follow-up meeting anchored by

Dr. Prem Pangotra yesterday evening,

wanted to define the scope of people’sinvolvement with CDP and DPRs. On

the other hand, Mr. M. K. Patel, an

Urban Planner from Indian Institute ofTown Planners in India, expressed his

concern on the deteriorating condition of

Eastern Ahmedabad. In response to thesuggestion of Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan

to form different sub-groups to deal with

different problems of the city, he also

offered his institute to work as a hub for built environment, particularly on

transport where all interested

organisations, including NGOs couldcome together and hold meetings on

urban transport at regular intervals.

Socio-economic mapping of the city a

must

Mr. Shobhit Tayal, a Planning Consul-tant, opined that while preparing CDPs,

socio-economic mapping of the city

must also be prepared and included inthe same. This helps in deciding whether

projects have been distributed equitablyover space or not. Ms. Sheela Patel,

Member, Technical Advisory Group,welcomed his views and also

emphasised on the critical importance of

socio-economic mapping of the city asan ongoing monitoring and assessment

tools.

Integrate micro-level plans into DPRs

Mr. Subendhu, CARE, reflected on theneed for implementing 74

th Amendment

Act in Ahmedabd and Gujarat so thatcitizens could be empowered at the

micro-level to be able to really able to

participate in the preparations of DPRs.

The issue is: how best do we involvecommunity in preparing DPR, and is


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there any possibility to integrate micro-

level plans into DPRs?

Develop slums into properly deve-

loped properties

Mr. Vimal Ambani, the CII represent-

tative from Ahmedabad, opined that

instead of talking about slum legislationsand slum up-gradations, what we needed

to do is to develop slums into properly

developed properties. Lifting slums andslum dwellers from specific areas and

asking them resettle far away from the

city would not solve the problem. Why

cannot Ahmedabd have Slum TDRs

(Transferable Development Rights) as being implemented in Mumbai?

Mr. Ramanathan commented that the

only way for us to move ahead is whenwe listen to each other and listening

takes time. He urged the gathering to

form a group on Affordable Housing orUrban Poor Settlements which could

deliberate on affordable housing,

services to the slum areas and so on. Oneof the interesting things is that whatever

be the idea, we have to first convinceother group members that the idea is

worth pursuing. “Somebody who has

worked in slum areas knows howcomplicated this problem is” he

believed.

Ms. Beejal Bhatt from MHT, an

organisation working on Housing andWater and Sanitation for the urban poor,

suggested that there was no need for

relocating or removing slums away from

the cities. It is possible to reorganisesuch settlements properly while working

with the urban planners. He also offered

MHT to become a hub for Housing,Water and Sanitation issues in Gujarat.

Platform for government establish-

ments required

Ms. Thara, Collector, Ahmedabad wasof the view that the issue of urban

administration is more complex and

what is being said actually is only 0.1%of what it has to be. Various suggestionare very good but when we talk about

more ideas coming from outside and

being participative and the ones lookingat solutions, one must not forget that

there are so many vacuums in the

Government set ups which cannotaddress issues which come to the

Government per say. She therefore

stressed on the need to have a forum of

the official stakeholders on a single platform. In response, Mr. I.P. Gautam,

Commissioner, AMC, agreed to organise

such a forum for the official stake-holders.

Emphasis on urban poor missing

According to Mr. Uma, Faculty Mem-

ber, Gujarat Institute of DevelopmentResearch, though there has been a lot of

emphasis on urban development and

urban infrastructure in recent years, theemphasis on urban poor is somewhat

missing. He demanded that the work that

has been done by different groups on

this issue must be considered whilereworking the CDP for Ahmedabd.


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However, Mr. Gautam was not

convinced that the government wasspending less on the urban poor was

wrong. He went on to explain how for

the first time in Ahmedabad, with a total

cost of Rs. 9000 crore AMC was planning to acquire 6 lakh sq. m land

(within the city) to construct 20,000

houses for the urban poor.

Need to strengthen IEC portfolio

Ms. Rita Mishra, CHF International,

emphasised on the need to strengthen the

IEC portfolio and the awarenessamongst the community on which the

DPRs are to be implemented. She

suggested that the available IEC underthe SNP could well be utilised under theJNNURM.

Inter ministerial coordination mecha-

nism

Mr. Manu, Municipal Councillor and

Chairperson of Water Supply andSewage Committee, raised the concern

that under the JNNURM, when a project

is undertaken, the city authorities face a

number of problems from variousgovernment agencies such as airports

authority, highway authority, railway

authority, etc. Sometimes due to thecomplicity of the problems, it becomes

difficult to complete projects on time.

According to Mr. Aniruddha Kumar,

Director, MoUD, in case there are

problems, the government can certainlytake these up at the inter ministerial

level. “There is an inter ministry co-ordination mechanism also but so far

none of the agencies, none of the stateshave highlighted these problems and

brought them to our notice. We’ll be

very happy to set up inter ministerial co-ordination mechanism for this”, he said.

On the other hand, Ms. Thara, Collector,

Ahmedabad, suggested decentralising

some powers for small sanctions to thestate level authorities to deal with this

problem.

Some more suggestions

• Ms. Maithali from CEPT Universitysaid that there is a lot of expertise

and research work done by NGOs

and Institutions like CEPT which islying in cupboards. “We could create

a forum or a platform which is

accessible to the Municipalities andthe Municipal Corporations in the

small and medium towns during

preparations of their DPRs”, she

suggested.

• Ms. Archana Shrivastav, Handicap

International, Access Group, offered

to provide the expertise of her

organisation to make project designsfor the city, especially those relating

to transportation, to be barrier free.

She also agreed to anchor a group onUniversal design and Access.

• Impressed with idea of City Connect,

Ms Madhavi Joshi, Centre forEnvironment Education., expressed

her desire to be on that group and try

and work on the process togetherwith the other people.

• Another participant from Unnati

asked AMC to publish a monthly


13/13


newsmagazine or newsletter on

relevant urban governance issueswith write-ups from wide cross-

sections of the society. Mr. Gautam

thought that it was a wonderful

suggestion. Mr. Ramanathan promi-sed even partial funding support

from JNNURM (as part of IEC

activities) for such an effort.

• Mr. Tapan Patel, Centre for

Integrated Development, fully

endorsed the idea of forming atechnical core group in the city and

formation of sub-committees toaddress various problems of

Ahmedabad. He expressed his desire

to be part of the group which workson environmental services like Solid

Waste Management, Water supply

and Drainage. He even agreed toanchor such group.

FORMATION OF SUB-GROUPS

In view of the various suggestions and

comments that came up for discussionduring the deliberations of the session,

Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan pitched in for

a common platform for the people ofAhmedabad where everybody is

participant to its progress. “Under this

platform there would be sub-groups onspatial issues, such as economic

profiling, low income housing, traffic

and transport. If required, groups could

also be formed on universal design andaccess for the disabled. The access group

could also be brought to this platform

including architects, disabled people,etc”, he said.

The anchor persons for the sub groups

that have been formed during the session

are as under:

• Economic Profile - CRISIL: Sunil

Parikh, [email protected]

•

Environmental Services - Mr. TapanPatel : [email protected]

• Participation - Mr. Rajendra Joshi:

[email protected]

• Traffic & Transport - Mr. N.K.Patel:

[email protected]

• IEC - Ms. R. [email protected]

• Housing, Water and Sanitation;

[email protected]

• Review of CDPs: Prof. Prem

Pangotra - prempangotra@iim

• Government:

[email protected]

• City Connect CII:

[email protected]

TAG’s E-Mail : [email protected]

It was decided that all the groups would

be formed by the end of February 2007

and they would all include

Commissioner of AMC as one of theirMembers.

The session ended with the vote of

thanks by Mr. I.P. Gautam.

Prepared by Dr. Rakesh K Singh, Sr. Coordinator(TAG) & Ms Nivedita Datta, Project Coordinator,

Voluntary Action Network India (VANI), New Delhi.

Documents

TAG Interactions Ahmd