UN Conference
on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development
In the UN
Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development, Habitat III, in Quito,
Ecuador, the two central themes that were discussed upon included the
challenges of a rapidly urbanising world and of providing people with equal
opportunities in cities.
UN should
strengthen the process to evaluate how countries have fared since the two
previous conferences on issues such as reducing urban inequality, improving
access to housing and sanitation, mobility, and securing the rights of women,
children, older adults and people with disability.
India’s
ambition to harness science and data for orderly urbanisation is articulated in
a set of policy initiatives, chiefly the Smart Cities Mission and the Atal
Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation. The Centre should also take its own National Urban Transport Policy on
developing cities around mobility networks seriously, and liberate cities from
the tyranny of traffic.
Rapid
urbanization is the talk of the society now a days. No doubt we should provide
equal opportunities to the people who live in rural areas at par with urban
people starting from health, education and employment opportunities. For this
purpose, if we make rural areas urban or cities, the negative effects of
environment pollution will also be extended to the green rural areas also,
where the climate is still fresh and pure. We have to think about how our
efforts have effected in improving access to housing and sanitation in existing
urban areas. The Central Government should take seriously the liberation of
cities from the tyranny of traffic and dangerous environment pollution.
In the name of
smart cities what is being done is to spend lavishly on Metro Rail, Bullet
Trains, Express High Ways, Concrete roads and such other things. There is not
an iota of improvement in the basic civic facilities like cheap local
transport, public health, education, garbage disposal, pollution control, clean
drinking water and so on because these involve no big money to share.
Uneven
urbanisation and industrialisation has made most cities hazardous for people
living and working. The utter disregard of climate change and pollution by the
rulers and industrialists is the major cause of most diseases in urban areas.
Rural infrastructure should be strengthened and concentration of population in
cities should be discouraged for healthy life.
Indian
government should treat seriously the statement of Economist Late Dr Richard T
Gill that underdeveloped world cannot copy the development systems of the
Western world, whose Temperate Zone climate and different cultures dictated a
form of development, which has no relevance in the "east". The
developing nations, therefore, need a THIRD Technology, which is a scientific
adoption of the METHODS of the West, suited to the typical conditions in each
nation. Moreover, almost all these developing nations are in the Tropics, where
both natural resources and population are high - yet, poverty is strikingly
high. With the concept of City Pockets being developed, relegating the
thousands of Villages to second fiddle, shifting populations occur and social tensions
and troubles occur. Unless a country like India, where 900 million out of 1,300
million are in villages, starts a Dispersed development plan - in each of the
650,000 Nos - there cannot be any Inclusive Development
UN conference
on Habitat has thus articulated two messages. One is to reduce urban inequality
and care for women, children and the aged peoples’ status. and the other
focuses on creating urban structure in resonance with the need of the people
for a facilitated accommodation and movement.
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