joshi vs unni
Peoples participation in the development plan has brought in several voices from varying agencies stating their opinions on the what “people” need or what the municipality should be planning for according to their personal research and views on how the city should be envisioned. Pankaj and Aravind are two of them. Both, architects, are engaged in planning activism as part of their respective NGOs. Listed below under their respective name heads are their views collected by reporters on the city and status of its plan its projects by governing bodies and the municipality. The quotes are researched from standard Google search and name link should direct one to the information pool from where the articles and thus the statements are sourced from. The material has been compiled over a period of a day to retain consistency in the direct search method. To note would be is that they could be mentioned in other news and reportage that isn’t strictly English digitally accessed news editions of popular newspapers and its subsequent virtual archive locations. When the names have started to thin out in regards to Google search further location of their sound bites have been avoided. The concluding set looks at spaces where both have been mentioned together either presenting supporting stances or parallel views.
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07 August 2010, Citizens’ visions of Mumbai’s new development plan I TNN. Nauzer K Bharucha
- Conservation architect and UDRI director Pankaj Joshi said the findings of the survey would be submitted to the BMC. “There is disconnect between what people want and what the government provided them through the DP. Although citizens’ demand more spending on public health and transport, the government increased FSI for five star hotels and private hospitals,” he added.
The survey revealed that one fifth of Mumbaikars do not have bathing areas in their houses. Forty per cent have no proper access to toilets. Of these, 30% do not even have access to public toilet facilities, forcing them to squat in the open. “Sanitation is a critical issue in Mumbai,” said Joshi.
The survey showed that 70% live in one or two room houses. However, the bulk of housing built by private developers contain more than three rooms. Health nearly 63% people dont find private hospitals affordable. On an average, 35% are forced to depend on private health sector as they feel public health care is not satisfactory.
Joshi added that this was the largest sample survey for a development plan. “We started with ten wards, but plan to cover the others later,” he said.
- According to Pankaj Joshi,executive director of UDRI,several countries have such a form-based FSI where higher FSI is granted based on factors such as larger plot size,open spaces,density cap,setback and access way width. FSI has degenerated from being a planning tool to a commodity. This is the best way to decommodify FSI and also ensure that the city gets an adequate stock of affordable housing, said Joshi.
- According to the UDRI, a total 250 organisations divided into 12 groups, as per areas of work like finance, environment, urban planning, and health, will meet citizens to find out more about their demand of open spaces, garden and hospitals. “After the data is collected, it will be submitted to the municipal commissioner for its incorporation in the DP plan,” said Pankaj Joshi, UDRI executive director.
Stating that the idea was initiated after an official letter by the civic chief, Joshi said the committees will also monitor the execution of the suggestions and objections. “The voluntary work aims at making the city better with all the amenities. Here, all departments, including environment and health, will be covered,” he added.
With many people shifting from South Mumbai to suburbs, “the amenities too need to be shifted. If their absence, they need to be created. People can now suggest their needs of market, social welfare facilities, entertainment theatre, schools, transport, communication, flood control and reclamation kind of subjects will be covered,” he added.
- The plan envisages converting land that is now labeled as Preservation Zone and NDZ land into Green zone. In its letter,the UDRI points out,The terminology green zone is misleading as this zone has building potential and that converting the land is aimed at creating farmhouses for the wealthy. Also,it questions the logic of granting additional construction right by way of extra floor space index for construction of bio-technology and information technology parks. It states that instead of using the misnomer green zone,these plots may as well be called developable zone. Green zone is defined in the Development Control Rules as a zone that allows for construction of residential and commercial buildings of small scale. In our very first letter last year,we had suggested that this could be the right opportunity for opening up land for high density affordable housing. This could be done by extending the proposed metro line that terminates at Charkop and thus creating new public transit lines connecting this area to Mumbai. Instead the MMRDAs plan paves the way for low density farmhouses, said UDRI executive director Pankaj Joshi.
- Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI) director Pankaj Joshi said,The open space ratio of 1.33 per cent to the total area points out that there is something grossly wrong with the urban planning department in this city. The ratio of usable space has dropped substantially in the past 30 years since 1981. This ratio also effectively means that the per capital usable open space is just 0.4 sq metre compared to the three sq metre which had been reserved for open space use in 1981.Urban planners and activists point out that the drop in the usable open space area has been more than 80 per cent of what had been planned and expected 30 years back. This is also in stark contrast to the basic requirement of 11 sq metre per capita of open space which has been highly recommended by the Urban Development Plan Formation & Implementation Guidelines of 2002 by the Ministry of Urban Affairs.
- According to the survey conducted by the consortium, the area in ELU for Metro and its stations is zero while only 0.2 ha (hectares) has been allocated for rail car sheds. Land for monorail, its stations and car sheds is likewise zero.
Pankaj Joshi, UDRI executive director, in a letter to municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte, has pointed out these discrepancies in the ELU plan.
“It would seem impossible to run Metro or monorail without any land being assigned for the corridors, stations, terminals, garages and sidings. Thousands are going to use the services and the DP will have to effectively consider this. Metro stations will become a vital part of the infrastructure and not mapping them will create a major failure in planning,” said Joshi.
UDRI has recommended that the ELU be modified to correctly reflect the land use. “The ELU must demarcate transit zones at Metro, monorail and railway stations and bus terminals so that these areas can be reserved for transport interchange nodes. This will have to be done in consultation with the transport planners and various transport authorities,” said Joshi. The ELU plan also does not indicate the presence of hawkers or congregations of naka workers.
“The complete livelihood pattern needs to be planned so that BMC can provide amenities. The DP process must include a survey of vendors by experts and institutions,”
05 October, 2012. A shut case for open spaces, VINAYA DESHPANDE. The Hindu
- “Public open spaces are the largest casualty of unplanned development and substantial changes in land development,” Pankaj Joshi, executive director of Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), said during his presentation at a joint meeting of civil society members and urban planners.
The planners expressed dismay at the MCGM’s (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai) systemic failure to compile data about the changes in land use in the city till now. Mr. Joshi said that there is a great disconnect between the demands and aspirations of people and what the Corporation is actually doing for them. “According to our survey, people want housing, education, health, water supply on priority. But the Corporation is doing something else.”
Questions were also raised on the current mapping of Existing Land Use (ELU). Experts said that the non-recognition of marginalised groups like rag-pickers, naka workers and street hawkers, exhibited the society’s collective denial of their existence.
“People and planners will have to admit that there will be some points where the waste, which is being thrown out of the houses or shops or set-ups, will be separated. There is a serious problem that we are not learning from our past. We have to mark spaces for sorting of waste,” Mr. Joshi said, adding that apart from lacking in marking such already existing places, the ELU also has many discrepancies when compared with the old Development Plan.
15 December, 2012. UDRI welcomes public comments on ELU maps, By Prashant Hamine
- The Urban Development Research Institute (UDRI) has welcomed BMC’s initiative of uploading Existing Land Use (ELU) maps on its website, inviting views and suggestions from the public. Speaking to the ADC yesterday, UDRI Executive Director Pankaj Joshi remarked that the ELU has been put on its website for the first time in the history of any civic body.
“It is a good start. BMC Municipal Commissioner Sitaram Kunte has done a welcome thing. It is good for public advocacy in the planning process. For the first time, ELU maps have been uploaded on the website, wherein people are being asked to give their suggestions. The people need to check ELU maps of their respective wards. The inputs will help the BMC to produce an accurate version of the maps, which will be used as a base for the revision of the Development Plan for Mumbai for 2014-34,” remarked Joshi.
06 January, 2013 01:56:10 AM. ELU survey: BMC trashes UDRI claims, Mumbai By Omkar Khandekar
- “We are disappointed that only one of the issues discussed in the meeting we had with the BMC has received any response from the MCGM. The other critical issues have not been taken into account,” said Pankaj Joshi, executive director of UDRI.
Among the many discrepancies pointed out, it was brought to the notice of BMC that the existing slums in the city are undefined and simply marked as grey areas. There isn’t any survey of the existing educational, commercial and medical facilities conducted in these areas. In addition, areas with concentrations of naka workers, hawkers and rag-pickers are not marked.
“The slum areas of the city house over 60% of Mumbai’s population. But they have not been considered as a vital part of the planning process. This makes one wonder whom the plan is being made for,” said Joshi.
- Teri and MMRDA declined comment on the release date of the report, for which data collection is in its first phase. “This kind of a report is essential to understand the city’s performance and will help in the sustainable development of the city in the coming years,” said Pankaj Joshi, executive director of Mumbai-based Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), which is working with the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on the advocacy of the city’s Development Plan 2014-34.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), which consists of seven major municipal corporations — Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Vasai-Virar, Mira-Bhayandar, Bhiwandi-Nizampur and Ulhasnagar — is among the top 10 most populated urban clusters in the world. As per central government guidelines, the ideal open space ratio in any urban area should be 11 sq m per person.
For Mumbai, which has a population of over 12 million, the situation is far from ideal. UDRI’s Joshi said the city’s current development plan considers only 0.9 sq m of open space per person.
- The committee , which includes citizen representatives, transport expert Ashok Datar and Sudhir Badami, Pankaj Joshi from Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), urban planner and engineer Shirish Patel, Karmayog founder Vinay Somani, Indrani Malkani, trustee of the V Citizens’ Action Network, additional commissioner of police (traffic) Brijesh Singh and officials from the BEST, MMRDA and civic officials from roads and development plan departments will work on crucial issues of pedestrian movement, traffic planning and bottlenecks and enhancing urban mobility through public transport, among other things.
“While the existing bottlenecks and traffic congestion issues will be the main focus, the committee is also planning to encourage more non-motorised transport such as cycling in the city,” said a senior civic official. Pankaj Joshi of UDRI said, “The think tank will deliberate on issues of traffic in the city. At present, the committee is also focusing on pedestrian issues,” he said.
- Urban planner Pankaj Joshi of the Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI) said it is a welcome move but the state government should have a clear policy on providing low cost housing to the urban poor. “Urban poverty is not because people chose to stay in slums but they are forced to as there is no other option. So, the government, rather than celebrating the extension of cut off date, should focus on issues like how it will create affordable housing for the poor,” said Joshi.
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November 6th 2012. Land use ward maps of BMC have discrepancies
- Aravind Unni , Architect and member of the NGO said, “We have discovered at least 75 errors in the mapping of ELU survey. The errors range from not mapping several dwellings to a school or a dispensary not being marked in the survey. The coastal villages and informal settlements are the ones that are mapped most erroneously. Many villages have not been mapped at all, while various informal settlements have also been left out of the survey. There are also mistakes in marking communities as slum clusters and residential.”
“The ELU and its errors clearly reveal that the survey was primarily done through satellite imagery and not through people participation. The survey, which will eventually lead to the DP, should be free of any errors and inaccuracies. They have to be corrected before taking any further steps in the DP revision process”, further adds Unni.
- An architect planner with NGO Yuva, Aravind Unni said, “The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has shown these slums on their map for resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R). How can they target them on World Human Rights Day? This is nothing but hypocrisy.”
The NGO has carried out a comprehensive study in the same area (P/North ward). Yuva’s study titled ‘(in)Accessibility and (in)Equality of Infrastructure in P/North Ward’ calls that the current state of affairs a “developmental emergency.” It categorically states that in the last 20 years, the BMC has implemented only 15% of the developmental plan.
“The police did an informal survey of the area and have taken the names and numbers of 20 people objecting to this move. People are fighting for their basic right to livelihood and are being treated this way on such a day,” Unni said.
06 December 2012. Urban poor ghettoised: NGO
- Rehabilitation has resulted in ghettoisation of the urban poor as most of it was done in one ward where the Human Development Index is the lowest. “On one hand, the BMC is mapping informal settlements in the survey and, on the other, the state is demolishing them,” said Aravind Unni, planner and architect, Yuva.
Only 5-7% of the actual DP has been implemented in the city’s 24 wards in over 20 years. In P/North ward, the execution of the public health scheme is only about 58.27%, out of which 90% is concentrated in Malvani.
On the other hand, 350 homes were demolished in Kharodi, Malvani, and an estimated 1,850 people were rendered homeless last week. “The state promised shelters for the homeless as per SC directives and has failed to deliver,” said Unni.
06 February 2013, 01:34 hrs. New DP will consider hawking zones: Kunte Express News Service
- “The DP is the only long-term solution to the hawkers issues of livelihood. The current arbitrary evictions offer a narrow and exclusionary solution to the structural problem of the informal sector which accounts for 70 per cent of all employment in Mumbai,” said architect and urban planner Arvind Unni of YUVA, an NGO that conducted a survey of the vendors along with Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in 1998.
- Unni said if hawkers are to be considered while preparing the new DP, the existing land use (ELU) survey, which is currently under scrutiny, must map present hawking areas and natural markets. Another survey should record and recognise the hawker population. “It is only after this that regularisation and consequent rehabilitation of hawkers can be carried out in the future with adequate demarcation of markets and hawking areas in the upcoming DP,” he said.
- “These zones can accommodate only 15% of the city’s hawkers. If the BMC did not act for 28 years, it can’t suddenly go back to those hawking zones and declare all other hawkers illegal,” says Aravind Unni, an architect-planner with YUVA, a not-for-profit.
30 May, 2013 12:13:39 AM. BMC drags its feet on action, new laws | By FPJ Bureau
- Architect Aravind Unni from YUVA said, “It is extremely dangerous to have electric meter rooms beneath the staircase and BMC should change this layout after consulting various bodies like Fire Brigade and Building Proposal Department. This placement has already cost lives and poses danger. Ideally, escape routes and electric meter rooms should be away from each other”.
20 August, 2013, 04.01 AM IST. Civic body admits to 19% errors in land use survey I Linah Baliga TNN
- “The present DP process is not mapping slums, gaothans, koliwadas, special planning areas (SPA), hawkers, homeless, pavement dwellers and other most vulnerable population groups,” said architect Aravind Unni of YUVA, an NGO working for participatory DP plan process. “We wonder how such a huge planning exercise can happen when the most needy and the majority of the city’s residents don’t figure in the survey. We are asking now why only 1% of hawkers were mapped. They should also come in the ELU; it can also be linked to the hawkers’ bill.”
- “The DP needs to consider space for child learning centres where the children can explore their skills and experiment with creative ideas. The DP needs to reserve at least one Balbhavan in every administrative ward that can act become a space for recreation and learning,” said architect and city planner Aravind Unni of the NGO Yuva.
Unni added that such spaces can be located in multi-purpose amenity centres that also house other state amenities required specifically by the ward population.
- “If you leave South Asia, Africa and Afghanistan, such abysmal slum percentages don’t exist anywhere in the world,” said Aravind Unni, an architect and member of YUVA. “We are saying forget about being a Shanghai but don’t be a Kabul for god’s sake. The state has to realise that while you need HIG and middle class housing, the actual deficiency is there for lower income group and the economically weaker sections of society.”
- “Even if you have a salary of 50,000 bucks, you’ll realise that it’s impossible to rent,” Unni said. “Let every section of the city have rental housing. So if I’m working in city I shouldn’t have to go to Dahisar to sleep.”
- “We don’t see disabled people because our cities are so bad for them,” Unni said. “For them to even venture out in the open is a problem. That has to change and there has to be a time frame for this. (For instance) whatever footpath design happens should consider the disabled.”
- “The ‘provisional data’ seems to have hugely underestimated the number of slum households and people living in them. It is ambiguous in its term itself and does not reflect the figure in 10 wards which have 60% of the city’s slum population. Even more surprising is the fact that the BMC has based its report for the proposed DP on these figures, without considering alternative population growth scenarios,” said Marina Joseph, Hamara Sheher Hamara Vikas Niyojan campaign.
- Aravind Unni, of the NGO Yuva, said there are doubts about where and how the slum population has declined, adding that the estimate was strongly connected to planning standards.
- “While the BMC’s preparatory studies acknowledge that currently 70 per cent of the city’s economic growth comes from the service sector, there is no mention of the fact that 70 per cent of Mumbai’s labour force is from the unorganised sector, or is contractual labour in the service sector. This includes domestic helps, rickshaw drivers, vegetable hawkers, and others. They contribute the most to sustainable growth as they use the least resources in Mumbai, yet the studies have not addressed their needs,” said architect Aravind Unni, of Yuva.
06 February 2014 3:00 pm. ‘Include slum population in DP’ I Mumbai
- Citing examples of big cluster-like slum rehabilitation schemes such as Dharavi redevelopment and Golibar redevelopment, the groups demanded that the existing slum rehabilitation schemes should be modified. “Slum redevelopment cannot be the only option and the government should look at alternatives to house this population,” said Aravind Unni of Yuva. “We also demand that 50 per cent reservation for lower income groups (LIGs) and underprivileged be made in all affordable housing schemes,” he said.
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- Architect Aravind Unni, a planner from the NGO YUVA, said the ELU maps had left out over 90% of the hawking areas. He and Pankaj Joshi of the Urban Design Research Institute said as ELU maps would help formulate the city’s development plan (DP), they feared if the hawking study panel worked independently then its findings would not be part of the DP.
23 October 2013. Mumbai’s urban poor demand inclusion in development plan I MUMBAI
- “The ELU is a crucial document as it will form the basis of the new DP, which will be in use for the next 20 years. Not including the above categories and not demarcating the correct land use is like not acknowledging their presence,” said Pankaj Joshi, executive director of the Urban Design Research Institute.
- People fear that not demarcating their space makes them vulnerable to losing their land to builders, as well as not getting adequate facilities. “If the interiors of slums are not marked, the resources and the lack of amenities in these areas are also being ignored,” said Aravind Unni from Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA).
- Pankaj Joshi, executive director, Urban Design Research Institute (UDRI), said, “The BMC’s document remains non-committal about what it plans to do, and instead, indulges only in tokenism about issues related to housing. Dangerously, the only way that the BMC intends to create affordable housing is through increasing the floor space index (FSI).”
- Aravind Unni, non-profit Yuva’s architect-planner, said that part of the BMC’s failure lies in these reservations. “They provide very few reservations to begin with, and even out of these, only a fraction is used. As a result, the DP loses all significance in dealing with the problem of affordable housing.”
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Pankaj has been around a while in various capacities of within and around urban governing bodies. As with the introductory quote its thus appropriate to suggest the beginnings of the “peoples” DP initiative an outcome of an UDRI Survey with the partnership of Academy of Architecture that formally introduces the project towards public purview. The analysis is limited to the established constrains of quotes to state progress of the plan with respect to its opinions. Elaborating from the beginnings the issues raised by Pankaj has been as joint statements with prominent city citizens, stakeholders, committee member and findings of institutional assignments. The progression of concerns after the citizen’s survey has been as on the following - preventing distribution of free housing, DP draft suggestions, objection to the proposed city cultural zone, inadequacies of open space, unclear mapping of monorail, errors in the ELU, regional plan, transport and informal housing. Majorly broader concerns and over arching solutions are the contributions.
Aravind on the other hand concentrates on aspects of informality to establish his positions relative to the stand, his organisation has laid out as their vision of intervention. In reference to the list, Aravind’s entry into to the space of professional urban activism works out within the duration of sound bites i.e. about two to three years. Largely due to organisational positions and personal interest in aspects of service provisions to urban poor one could argue a level of limitation but with nearly 60% of the city a slum, informality and the unrepresented are the need of the hour. Mentions begin with discrepancies in landuse mapping in regards to slums and amenity provisions to infrastructure supports to the unorganized sector. Statements such as “forget Shanghai, lets not become Kabul” and “going to Daishar to sleep” to an extent adds a degree of flair to the process which otherwise are limited to statistical inadequacies. With relatively extreme focus, contribution to this planning process even tough it aspires to be representative of the populous, its definately a selected one.
Purely in the quest of an assemblage of a contemporary history, it can be noted of how the “people” has transformed over the period largely as a result of being the more prominent institute for the press. People as far as UDRI has been concerned with are middle and the upper middle class and therefore the survey conducted was to a degree concentrated to the sector. YUVA’s positions have over the period of its engagement in forced participatory planning, has enabled a quasi paradigm shift so as moderate the way even UDRI now looks at what “people” are essentially. Positions that both Pankaj and Aravind share cater to informal livelihoods and demands of inclusion of the poor in the development planning process. The case is largely towards observing a method of positions while activating a project and how over the period of duration of the project, forces and factors play its outcome. Unni is defiantly the underdog in the game. With relatively limited institutional resources and prowess to command. Playing the majority goes as its only strength. Joshi on the other hand jousts with the big boys and talks about the bigger things. Who’s voice the municipality will finally hear and who will end up supporting the other is essentially the name of the game.