Dastkar Andhra's annual cotton handloom exhibition in Pune

Pedestrians, Pune's second class citizens

Pedestrians, Pune's second class citizens

By Pankaj Sekhsaria

DNA, Pune Edition,
Wednesday, October 22, 2008

There is a new hierarchy that has slowly but surely entrenched itself in India’s urban reality. It is not really articulated in that light, but it is an experience that any resident of our cities could not have missed. Get on to the roads of your city as a pedestrian or a cyclist and you know instantly that you are a 2nd class citizen. It’s not difficult to understand - while the annual growth rate of human population across 23 of our major cities for the period 1991-2001 was a little more than three, the annual growth rate of vehicles for the same period was almost 10 and this has only accelerated in the recent years. The consequences are obvious - zooming cars and two wheelers, blaring horns, billowing smoke, narrower footpaths, fewer trees – it is increasingly a punishment to even get out onto to city roads if you don’t have a personalized mode of motor transport.
In line with the logic that growth in vehicle population and density is non-negotiable and questioning it amounts to sacrilege, the single biggest activity in our cities in recent times has been road and flyover construction and road widening. Trees, footpaths, old shops, houses – nothing matters. Conservative estimates suggest, for instance, that at least 50,000 trees, many for accommodating the increasing traffic, have been chopped down in Pune in the last five years alone. Pedestrian and cyclists occupy minimum road space and cause no pollution at all, but that is of no consequence at all. By cutting trees and reducing (even eliminating) footpaths the situation is only being made more hostile for them.
An excellent example of this is the four laning and huge expansion of road width on the highway between Nigdi and Dapodi along with the most recent construction of grade separators. It has been suggested that a vehicle can now cover this distance in a little over eight minutes. While motorists are delighted for obvious reasons, others, particularly those who walk or use cycles have been completely forgotten. There are a number of sections in this stretch where one has to take a detour of at least a couple of kilometers to just cross over to the other side. Twenty minutes of driving time saved for a motorist has directly translated to at least twice the duration of transport time for a pedestrian. Children and old people will, in fact, be put to the greatest hardships.
The recently published nation-wide study on ‘Traffic and Transportation Policies and Strategies in Urban Areas in India’ that was commissioned by the Union Ministry for Urban Development provides evidence of precisely this. Thousands of people are killed annually in our metros in road accidents and not surprisingly a substantial number of those killed are indeed pedestrians. “And for pedestrians,” the report notes, “our city roads have simply forgotten they exist. The percentage of roads with pedestrian footpaths runs to hardly 30% in most cities.”
It has to be remembered that every citizen is a pedestrian at some point in his or her use of the roads of a city. Unless priorities in urban planning, in the media and in our thinking are not refocused, this problem is only set to increase. Merely adding and widening roads is not going to help. What is needed is a more fundamental effort at improving public transport, reducing private vehicles and putting the welfare and safety of the pedestrian and cyclist at the very centre of all that we do.
More pedestrians, otherwise, will continue to die and the most frightening part is that it could be anyone of us, any point of time.

Handloom photo exhibition in Pune

Andhra handloom exhib in Pune

The Green Vein for Pune

Dear Friends

The citizen's guide - The Green Vein- for the city of Pune is finally ready would like to thank Roda Mehta, Satish Magar, Vikram Bhosale and Mr Tulsani for their donations in making this happen. Not to forget the host of people (all credited in the guide) who helped immensely in putting this together and getting the information and text in order and sharpness. A special thanks to Ashish Mehta for the introductory note (see below).

We are requesting a donation amount of Rs 100/- for each copy if you pick it up from us or an amount of Rs 150/- if you would prefer that we send it to you (the amount is to cover packaging and posting costs). For more information please do contact kvbooks@gmail.com or call Sharvari at 09422057737.

We would also love a feedback on the guide when you have read it...

THE GREEN VEIN - An Introduction
Citizen's Guide for Pune City

Citizens can do a lot to protect their immediate environment. Rampant tree felling in cities has seen many citizen groups like Trees of Delhi, Pune Tree Watch, Hasiru Usiru in Bangalore, Nizhal in Chennai and Save Rani Baug in Mumbai up in arms to protect what rightly belongs to the citizens – the ecological security of the city. Besides these there are many efforts across Indian cities where efforts are being made by the citizens to protect their environment in different ways. An environmentally conscious citizen may wish to participate as well.

In this case then there are a few questions that must be asked: How well do you know your environment? Do you care about your environment? Are you pessimistic about the future of this environment, or do you see a light at the end of the tunnel? Are you aware of the measures that are being taken to protect your environment? Do you perceive yourself to be a citizen, a consumer, a bystander, or a member of an urban environment? Would you save a tree from being felled? Could you name an environmental legislation?

This booklet takes up the issue of greens in a city. It has a simple purpose: it exhibits how you can contribute to your environment by simply knowing more about it or saving a tree from being felled, if you are living in Pune. Indeed, it does not wish to make an environmentalist out of you; it does, however, hope to take a few minutes of your time, to be able to inform you about a few things you must know – for example, how a simple phone call could save the life of a tree.

Thanks

Tasneem Balasinorwala
Email: just.tasneem@gmail.com

KALPAVRIKSH
IUCN- TILCEPA
Pune Tree Watch
Pune Tree Authority member
Pune, India

PAVE OUR RIVERS?

You don’t make a road in the river to solve a traffic problem just as you don’t blow a hole through your head if you have a splitting headaches, writes PANKAJ SEKHSARIA

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 4, Issue 45, Dated Nov 24, 2007

http://tehelka.com/story_main36.asp?filename=Op241107pave_our_river.asp

A RIVER IS meant for water to flow. Yes, the statement sounds absurd, because it states the obvious. Rivers carry water, and our earliest civilisations grew along their banks.

Even today human settlements all over the world — whether big or small — are usually situated along rivers and streams.I live in Pune, the cultural, educationaland industrial capital of Maharashtra, rich in history and tradition. Some believe the city was originally called Punya Nagari or Holy City when it was founded on the banks of Mutha river. Indeed, Pune is fortunate to have two rivers, the Mutha and the Mula, which meet here before flowing south to join the Bheema and then the Krishna river. It is therefore a matter of double shame for Punekars that the Mula-Mutha today is little more than a sewer into which huge amounts of industrial and domestic waste are thoughtlessly dumped every day.

This particular story goes back about six years, when a local court ordered the PuneMunicipal Corporation (PMC) to stop work on road construction inside the river. Yes, a road, not on the banks of the river, but inside, on its bed — that part where the water flows. The court’s ruling came in response to a Public Interest Litigation arguing that the road was illegal and damaged the environment. The road was being built at a frantic pace and a large stretch of it, which stands even today, had already been completed. A senior PMC official had made it clear that he wanted the project completed before environmental groups got into the picture and delayed it. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for the city, environmental groups did find out and the court took cognizance of their complaint.

The PMC argued that the road was beingconstructed as part of the Mutha River Improvement plan and to ease the city’s growing traffic problem. So, a road was being constructed in the riverbed as part of a supposed “river improvement” plan. Could things get any more absurd? Pune does face a big traffic problem. Not because the river occupies too much area, but because the vehicle population here has grown astronomically. While Pune’s population has gone up five fold since 1960, the number of vehicles in the city has increased almost 90 times. The city’s public transport facilities are going from bad to worse and, currently, over 1 lakh vehicles are being registered here annually. It comes as no surprise then that the widening of roads has been the single biggest activity in the city in recent times. Trees, footpaths, shops, houses — all are being swept aside to make way for bigger roads. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 50,000 trees have been chopped down in Pune in the last five years, many for accommodating the increasing traffic. Pedestrians and cyclists, the two sets of people who occupy the minimum road space and causezero pollution, have become second-class citizens. There is little space left for them to navigate their way on the roads.

The river is the newest casualty of this breakneck car boom and the city’s administrators seem hell-bent on treating the symptom instead of the disease. The huge increase in the number of vehicles is the problem and reducing them the only viable solution. Anything else amounts to just tinkering around. River development plans, riverfront redevelopment plans, river improvement schemes, river beautification schemes — be it the Yamuna, the Sabarmati or the Mula-Mutha — are no longer aimed at improving the quality of water or helping the river life. They are merely euphemisms for real-estate development and promoting commercial activity. Pune has reportedly been allocated Rs 200 crore for river beautification under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

IT IS hard to believe that in our zeal to “modernise” we have forgotten something as elementary as the fact that rivers are meant to carry water, not roads and cars. They are complex ecosystems performing vital hydrological and ecological roles — like recharging ground water, flushing and breaking down our waste, and enabling clean air to come into the city. Unfortunately, many people seem unaware of just how vital rivers are to our well being. Here is an example from the blogosphere: “The environmentalists are holding up this plan [for the road] saying it will harm the ‘oxygen channel’ running along the river. My foot. Any sane person wouldn’t call it a river in the first place…”But the fact is, even today, the Mula- Mutha supports a large diversity of microscopic floral and animal life. Thousands of migratory waterfowl still visit the river every winter, flying from places as far away as Siberia. Even a hopelessly polluted river can be alive and throbbing with life. The least we can do is not destroy it further.

You don’t make a road in the river to solvea traffic problem, just as you don’t blow a hole through your head if you have a splitting headache.