1. How Liveable Is Our Neighbourhood?
- By Clean Air Asia
Date: 07-12-2013
Venue: Star Grand Villa, New Delhi
Agenda: Discussion on what is the role we can play to make our society more liveability?
Key Partners: Un Habitat, Shakti Foundation, ICLEI, iTrans, SG Architects
The stakeholder program is planned in such a way that people from different age group,
different professional field and different region come together to same platform and discuss
the common problem with their own perspective and that is how we come to know that
how inter-related these problems with each other and how we can work together to resolve
all these problems. The flow of stakeholder program is like;
● Agenda
● Citizens Experiences
● Short Video (Story of a Delhite)
● Speakers from Different fields
● Expert lecture (Dr. Kulwant Singh)
● Special Emerging Project (Rahgiri of Gurgaon)
● Body Installation at Nehru Place Plaza.(In Partnership with Sakshi)
2. Agenda
To define what is liveability of our neighbourhood? Describe the parameters or the
components affecting the liveability of our neighbourhood. Henceforth setting up the stage
to share experiences of citizens from their day-to-day life; (countermeasures part we need
to write from the speech of person from UNHABITAT)
Partha Bosu, Clean Air Asia-Director India and South Asian Liaison, explained factors like safe
passage, sustainable living and prosperous places defining the liveability of neighbourhood
or the city at large. Safe and reliable mobility and connectivity plays an important role in the
liveability of neighbourhood. With this explanation of the theme and the components
involved in it, he laid the floor to capture the experiences of citizens who attended from
various fields. Following are the components involved in making a liveable neighborhood.
● How are the citizens feeling in the city?
● What is last-mile?
● What is connectivity?
● Are the footpaths that important?
● What is walkability or cyclability?
● How does it affect the livability of a neighbourhood?
Perspectives are different but issues are same and hence we need to resolve by putting an
effort in our own ways .
Citizens Experience :
Speaker Speaker
Information
Region Major Problems Demands
Student, F Engineer
and Master
Student
Delhi,
Pune,
Gujarat
· Vulnerability on
roads
· Risky & black
walkways
· Planned hawkers
· Illumination
Senior
citizen ,M
Architect Delhi · Less awareness
· Vulnerability in
public transport
· Awareness
· Safety
· Faith among people
Traffic
Policemen,
M
20 Years in
Job
Delhi · Fatalities on
roads
· less
Infrastructure
for pedestrian
and cyclist
· less or no
· Improvement in
education , enforcement
and engineering
· Safe Roads
· No fatalities
3. awareness
among people
Person with
Disability, M
Visually
impaired
Delhi · No
infrastructure
for disable
people
· lack of
information
while travelling
· Proper and appropriate
Infrastructure facilities
are demanded
· Announcement at
public places
Professor, M Delhi
University
Delhi · No
infrastructure
for disable
people
· Fatalities on
roads
· Announcement at
public places for person
with disability
· Safe Roads
· No fatalities
HERE F: FEMALE
M : MALE
Jyotpreet Kaur, masters student from CEPT Ahmedabad shared on how vulnerable and risky
for a female to walk on streets when there are no eyes on the streets and poor illumination.
Planning for hawkers and streets with good illumination are the measures she suggested to
improve safety on streets.
Ravi an architect from Delhi, stated on lack of awareness of the components that fosters the
liveability of people in the city and suggested capacity building programs involving both
citizens and Government to capture the need and to ensure the development of the facility.
JagbirSingh from Department of Traffic, New Delhi compared the trend of fatal accidents in
China and in India before and after 2008; Inferences he made were before 2008, fatal
accidents in China more than in India but after 2008 fatal accidents number in China was
decreased but in contrary in India the number was increased. He continued saying if China
can control, why can’t we? Also he listed various statistics regarding penalty for signal
crossing in developed countries and in India.
Haroon Quadri, NAB spoken on most of infrastructure facilities were designed not
considering or regarding persons with disability. He shared saying since persons with
disability are also part of community our infrastructure should be designed in taking the
account of them and their requirements like providing information and announcements in
public places.
Dr. Bipin Kumar Tiwari, professor from university of Delhi, shared on how the infrastructure
4. facilities for persons with disability were neglected and misused due to lack of enforcement
in design and maintenance of the facilities. He talked on the experiences of Desh Bandu
college infrastructure facilities that were structured in the way of disable friendly.
Short Video (Story of a Delhite)
The story of a pitiful and unfortunate milk vendor who lives in delhi from a long time ago
and he witnessed the changes occur on road spaces related to pedestrian and cyclist. He
being a milkmen use to travel on cycle for his job , previously the roads are empty as there is
no much vehicular traffic so he come early from his job to home but as vehicular traffic
increases day by day his travelling and waiting time increases as a cyclist, so he decided to
go early in morning when the traffic is less but besides traffic more vulnerable situation he
faced like street thieves as the illumination is less or not existing on roads during early
morning time. He decide to leave his cycle behind and turnout as pedestrian for his job but
the situation is more tragic being a pedestrian as there are no footpaths , no zebra crossing
,no shade etc . The condition of milk vendor on Delhi roads become worse as a pedestrian in
comparison to cyclist .The question like where to go and how to get rid of all these problem
arises in his mind but in end no solution come .
To get rid of the problems faced by cyclist and pedestrian on Delhi roads we need to come
together as one, as a citizens of india and that is how we able to bring the change in current
scenario and make our roads safe and walkable for pedestrian as well as comfortable and
congestion free for cyclist .
see at :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcjMDOOS6oY&feature=youtu.be
Speakers from Different fields
Prabhat Agarwal (Aravali Scholars) mentioned about the emphasis of NMT infrastructure in
growing cities and its impact on quality of daily life. He depicted several issues focusing poor
design of pedestrian and NMT infrastructure on Gurgaon roads. In encouraging walk and
cycling he discussed on how Euphoria band from Delhi made an anthem “Let's Walk
Gurgaon - where we ditched vehicles and walked to work."
Ranjit Joseph, researcher from Transparent Chennai, working on the walkability project
shared the experiences and methodology of how the organisation working with
communities and local government to create a well-planned and efficient urban
environment that provides everyone with a good quality of life. He had spoken on how the
interactive design workshops were organised to capture the desires of the community
facing the various infrastructure related issues.
Sanskriti Menon, Programme Director at Centre for Environment Education (CEE) shared on
how CEE involved in various programs in educating and participating citizen’s in urban
5. governance for the betterment of society. (Key word; Surveys for the entire city)
Corni, talked on bicycle culture in Europe and in India by narrating how the three consecutive
royal generations in Germany was using bicycle but in India there were no footages of a royal
family using bicycle. He shared the experiences on revolution of cycling in Europe and its
impact on liveability of the community.
Dr. Kulwant Singh(UN Habitat)
Special Emerging Project (Rahgiri of Gurgaon) AB SUNDAY NA HOGI MOTORGIRI CHALENGE APNI
RAAHGIRI
By : Prabhat Aggarwal
Car-free carnival organized weekly to promote cycling and walking .The concept hasn't
taken off in car-crazy India despite the bicycle being the cheapest and most ubiquitous form
of commute. But with pollution and stress preying on urbanites, now is the time to think,
and commute, differently. And there's no better place to start than Millennium City,
trailblazer of the booming modern India and harbinger of her future. That new start could
be on November 17 when Gurgaon observes 'Raahgiri Day', a novel concept engineered by
organizations and activists with a green thumb to encourage cycling and walking among
residents and also promote the use of public transport to declutter the city's roads.Large
number of people congregated to participate in the Rahgiri Day which is organized every
Sunday in the Millennium City.
Body Installation at Nehru Place Plaza.(In Partnership with Sakshi)
A Road Safety Campaign was attempted for instilling road safety behaviours through CineArt
at Nehru Place Plaza, New Delhi with help of volunteers from Sakshi and Volunteer. The
campaign was focused on presenting the various issues like formation of potholes due to
negligence of roads,causes to inaccessible and unsafe roads, illegal parking of vehicles etc.
CineArt is an innovative cinema based education and communication medium that steered
people to know more about the campaign on road safety.
