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Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ http://www.navhindtimes.com/articles.php?Story_ID=032625 Panaji: ambitious urban renewal plan, discouraging reality By Nandkumar Kamat [EMAIL PROTECTED] AN ambitious urban renewal, infrastructural upgradation and governance plan-City Development Plan (CDP)- for Panaji has been prepared by the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA). It has a perspective of 2030 AD. This task was entrusted by Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd (HUDCO) to New Delhi's Intercontinental Consultants and Technocrats Pvt Ltd. A city assessment report was prepared in September 2006. After multistakeholder consultations from October 2006, the City Corporation of Panaji (CCP) approved it in February 2007. The draft city development plan prepared in March 2007 was then presented recently to the committee headed by the chief minister. If the state government completes the remaining formalities under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), then the decks would be cleared for the capital city Panaji to qualify for a substantial central grant of Rs 278 crores in the 11th five year plan period ( 2007-12). Spread over just 812 hectares, Panaji is one of the smallest capital city in India. But it has high population and vehicular density and is located on an ecologically fragile island. It has been identified as one of the coastal city vulnerable to flooding due to the predicted sea level rise. The city is in urgent need of substantial investment for improved drainage, sewerage, solid waste management, water supply, traffic and transport regulation. With ridiculously meager resources, the CCP has been hard pressed to manage Panaji -- known since the 19th century as 'Princess of Asia'. It has come on the international cultural map after the hosting of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) for past three years. At the time of the end of Portuguese rule in 1961, the population of Panaji was about 36,000. The 2001 Census placed it at 59,066. The CDP projects the population in 2030 to cross 100,000. Panaji receives about a thousand international and five thousand domestic tourists every day. This floating population has been stressing the city's insufficient infrastructure. CCP's income has grown marginally from Rs 7 crore (Rs 70 million) to just Rs 10 crore from 2001 to 2005. Without fresh capital input and investment, Panaji would turn out to be an unsustainable urban habitat. Therefore the CDP comes as a shot in arm for the CCP as well as GSUDA. The experience gained in Panaji CDP could be used to prepare similar plan for Margao and other major towns. What are the salient aspects of Panaji CDP? The City Development Plan (CDP) provides the starting point for the reforms by identifying core city challenges, a perspective and vision for the future development of a city, its present stage of development and current status and sets out a direction of change. The CDP defines the vision for Panaji in these words: "Panaji is to be developed as a city that is environmentally and economically sustainable, a city that is a mixture of heritage and modernity, a city that cares for its citizen, a city that cares for its tourist, a city that maintains it culture, a city that provides high quality infrastructure services and facilities, a well-managed clean, green and safe city that provides a better present and bright future to its people." The CDP spells out the sectoral vision. The vision for water supply aims to provide good quality water in an equitable, efficient and sustainable manner. The vision for sewerage aims to provide sewerage services to all based on principles of quality, equity, value and responsiveness. Considering the threat of flooding and the need for improvement of stormwater drainage the CDP aims to improve condition of storm water drain so as to handle run-off water, water logging and rejuvenate water bodies. CCP has yet to locate suitable sites for sanitary landfills, but the CDP dreams to achieve environmentally Sustainable Waste Management Practice. People entering and leaving Panaji city face tremendous hardships due to congested traffic so the CDP's vision is to provide cost effective and efficient public transport system with proper road geometry. Panaji is emerging as a major tourist centre so CDP aims to position the city as a global tourism destination with a local touch. People are concerned about the loss of open spaces and the green cover, so the CDP aims to create a sustainable and eco-friendly urban environment that take care of the present and future generations. The old slums from Panaji were removed but new slum areas are rapidly emerging. The elevation controls and limited space to expand has put brakes on the city's physical growth. So for managing urban growth the CDP aims to adopt a connectivity centric approach to development rather than spatial expansion of the city to meet growing population demands. In the first year of CDP's implementation the GSUDA may undertake works of Rs 64 crore (Rs 640 million). These would be based on specific sectoral project reports. Before undertaking these works there would have to be wardwise meetings. The CCP needs to form the mandatory citizens' committees, on non-political lines in all the 30 wards. These committees need to identify and specify the sectoral needs for their wards. Without such grass roots level, ward level citizens's participation, the funds provided by central government would be wasted. The CDP may be a technically sound and professionally prepared document. But its' implementation would depend upon quality of the works proposed to be undertaken. Since the past 20 years the MLAs (members of the legislative assembly) from Panaji have be been promising the ecological restoration and beautification of the Santa Inez creek -- a drainage lifeline of the city similar to Mithi river in South Mumbai. But the creek has been deliberately blocked to stop its natural tidal flushing and reduce its salinity. The Ourem creek at the entrance of the city was illegally reclaimed near Neuginagar junction. A massive private construction has been permitted on this illegally reclaimed land. The construction has blocked the natural drains from Fontainhas ward. This would cause flooding of the low lying Ourem road during monsoon this year. Three multistoried buildings near the Branco Bar, Santa Inez have been permitted, without mandatory setbacks at the cost of damaging an encroached stretch of a section of Santa Inez creek. The CCP does not seem to have the capacity to understand the importance of natural drainage system. Except the Altinho area the rest of Panaji stands on reclaimed land which is below the sea level. The CDP has taken a note of the ecological fragility of Panaji. But the CCP needs to get its' act together to conserve the natural watersheds, creeks and drains. HUDCO has done an excellent job in preparing CDP for Panaji. However when the JNNURM funds flow in, the corporators and citizens need to be vigilant, so that Panaji gets quality infrastructure. (The Navhind Times) [This article was first published in The Navhind Times, under the title 'Ambitious Urban Renewal Plan for Panaji'] _______________________________________________ Goanet-news mailing list Goanet-news@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-news-goanet.org