Discussing the capacity of Indian cities in the post-pandemic world

COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world at an unprecedented time. India has tried its best to fight this health emergency and control the situation. Cities are at the forefront of this and their capacity building at the ground level is the key to normalcy. Post pandemic problems are new and they need serious discussion to come up with an effective solution

All India Institute of Local Self-Government, in collaboration with United Cities and Local Governments – Asia Pacific (UCLG ASPAC) and Urban Update, organised a total of three webinars in the month of July as part of its E-Dialogues series. Throughout the three webinars, a range of daunting questions about contemporary urban issues were asked and efforts were made to find answers.

E-Dialogues 8.0

The eighth edition of the Webinar series was based on the topic “Flood, Thirst: Water management in crisis?” Through the Webinar, Urban Update aimed to put together a panel with an all-round knowledge of water management in India and the problems it faces. Thus, the panel consisted of Ranjan Panda, Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network, India; Raman VR, Head of Policy, WaterAid India; Swami Shivanand Saraswati, Founder President, Matri Sadan; and Amla Ruia, Chairperson, Aakar Charitable Trust. The session was moderated by Kumar Dhananjay, Consulting Editor, Urban Update.
Dhananjay introduced the theme of the Webinar by stating how the world is witnessing unusual events in regions not so distant or different from one another. “While Chennai is facing a drought-like situation, Mumbai is drowning in heavy rains and subsequent floods. This peculiar situation is prevailing in countries across the world and the most common reason for this is a poor water management system,” said Dhananjay.
To take the discussion forward, Dhananjay invited Ranjan Panda as the first speaker. He began by saying that a number of water researchers, activists and on-ground workers have been sounding alarm bells about the challenges that water, as a resource, in India is facing. However, these warnings have been mostly falling on deaf ears as the authorities continue to turn a blind eye to the problems at hand. In addition to this, the issue of climate change has been in the limelight since the late 20th century. Although the Government of India has taken initiatives to tackle this problem, the success has not been satisfactory. “Although we have been talking about climate change and its effects since years, we have failed to take appropriate actions to stop it. This, coupled with the absence of an integrated approach in water management in India, is responsible for the establishment of a stark division between the people who have and do not have access to water,” said Panda. He added that although water conservation is the need of the hour, providing supply of water to every household is equally, if not more important. “Countless people die of water scarcity in India. Planned use of water for different purposes is one of the fastest ways of saving as much water as we possibly can.”
Raman VR was the next to speak. He began by saying that the problem of water management in India is a ‘mixed syndrome’. While quoting an example from the time he was an expert for a committee of the Government of Uttar Pradesh, Raman said that governments are also unaware of how they are destroying rivers, lakes and ponds, and what they can do to repair it. He said, “Initiatives like the Jal Shakti Abhiyan, launched in 2019, was a flagship water conservation awareness program. However, it ended up becoming a competition between different districts. The real essence of the program was lost and people barely learnt anything. Thus, apart from problems in drafting policies related to water, their implementation and operationalisation is also faulty.” He concluded by saying that until governments and policymakers understand that merely drafting policies on paper is insufficient, no real change will take place in the condition of water quality in India.
Swami Shivanand, while quoting a verse from the Rig Veda, said that whenever mankind disrupts the natural state of things, there is always a disaster. “A river, from its start to its end, must flow uninterrupted. Construction of dams, canals and tributaries of rivers, only disrupts their flow and makes them unstable, leading to their pollution and complete destruction,” he said. He added, “The flow of River Ganga in Haridwar has mostly been controlled by check dams. Civic authorities also throw untreated sewage and sludge into the river, thereby polluting it further.” The absence of proper, scientific planning of dams and reservoirs, canals and tributaries of rivers in India also has a huge role to play in the ironic occurrences of droughts and floods. Moreover, policymakers have stopped paying attention to the advice of the experts, engineers and activists while taking decisions related to water. Being driven mostly by profits and the interests of their supporters, politicians often end up making a disastrous decision, which may have short or long term effects on India’s water resource.
While concurring with what Swami Shivanand said, Amla Ruia added that we must start acting on conserving water on all fronts immediately. Constant construction of cemented structures, along with unregulated drawing of groundwater by individuals and the absence of water harvesting systems across the country, are responsible for the depletion of the groundwater table and the pollution of surface water. “Moreover, felling of trees and razing wetlands causes the soil to dry up. This stops the surface from absorbing the surface water to replenish the groundwater table. Construction of large check dams, which stops the natural flow of river water, has also wreaked havoc. Instead, constructing multiple small check dams fulfils the same requirements without the additional problems,” said Ruia. In addition to this, she suggested that the government must work on spreading awareness in both rural and urban areas in the country on the need to save water and use it judiciously. “If the people do not understand the importance and urgency of water conservation, any number of policies of the government will continue to fail.
Dhananjay concluded the session by saying that lack of a proactive response from the people, the inability of the government to approach the issue of water management with an integrated plan and the ignorance of the general public towards the deteriorating condition of water resources across India, are all collectively responsible for the degradation of water. Unless we all come together and try to find solutions to the problem fast, the future of water in India remains dark.

E-Dialogues 9.0

The ninth edition of the E-Dialogues series was based on the topic “Urban Environment and Biodiversity in Post Pandemic World”. Through the Webinar, Urban Update tried to assess how resilient Indian cities are in times of the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic has underlined the importance of a healthy urban environment that in turn can provide better living conditions to citizens. As part of the Webinar, Urban Update invited Prof Harini Nagendra, Professor, Sustainability, Azim Premji University; Keya Acharya, President, Forum of Environmental Journalists in India (FEJI); R. Sreenivasa Murthy, Member Secretary, MP State Biodiversity Board and Prarthana Borah, India Director, Clean Air Asia. The session was moderated by Abhishek Pandey, Editor, Urban Update and Abhilash Khandekar, Senior Journalist.
Pandey introduced the topic and said that we all know that cities are the worst affected by this pandemic and if we see in India majority of the cases are reported from our big cities whether we talk about Mumbai, Delhi or any other city. This pandemic has exposed the problems and issues of our urban governance and planning. We have our wildlife on streets whether we talk about Indian cities or European cities. So, have we taken the space of the wildlife or there is some problem in our urban planning because of which we are not able to balance development and environment.
Abhilash pointed out that increasingly because of smart cities, metros, various urbanization programs, even in C category cities like Bhopal and others there is a massive cut in the trees. He noted that citizens have a role in trying to relate with the natural resources whether it be wetland or parks. He questioned that in the cities, are the city planners be it, municipal commissioners or encroachers, in the position to do anything else than construction as plantation of trees or creating gardens doesn’t seem to be a part of their agenda.
The first to speak was Keya who began by saying that we have had a rapid rate of urbanization everywhere and but we can’t just sit in our homes, stop our cars and think that the nature is healing, air pollution is lessened, wildlife has come out on roads, birds are visible. We have to be able to figure out how to balance development
and environment.
The environmental issues that our cities are facing already existed but now during the COVID-19, these challenges have come into stark focus. Air pollution levels have dropped significantly during lockdown because of reduced vehicular transmissions. However, it is not that we can manage without transportation post-COVID-19, so the point is we have to figure out what should be done. Keya concluded by saying that we have to learn from the crisis and push and see that these environmental issues are taken seriously by our policy administrators, policies are discussed, and steps are taken to implement these policies.
The next speaker, Mr Murthy, pointed out that there is a need for political and bureaucratic vision for any issue to be addressed. He raised a question as to why the government can’t bring a strict law to put a cap on the population of the area. Murthy quoted the example of Allahabad Kumbh Mela that happens in India and is known to have the highest human density for a month or more than a month to explain the civic burden a city suffers just to address electricity, water, sewage disposal and everything together. Along with water management, air pollution management and waste segregation are among the issues which need to be addressed. He finally said that our development should be sustainable with respect to the ecological perspective.
Prarthana, who was invited next, pointed out that if we look back at the situation of the last 3 months in terms of pollution, the levels are going down, which is a positive outcome of the pandemic and there is one thing that we have realized that it is possible to have blue skies and cleaner air. Prarthana mentioned that Clean Air Asia did a study in Delhi which looked at the lockdown period and it was found that there were days like March 20th, 2020 when the air quality index(AQI) was below 50 which is something in an Indian context was considered not achievable. She added that we need to question ourselves as to why is it that we have not discussed the whole green cover in that area which has been protecting us better than in other areas. She concluded by saying that it is very important to balance the right kind of biodiversity when we are looking at an urban space and we need to talk to the specialists to discuss key issues like invasive species, wrong species and how it can actually do more harm than good.
Prof Harini noted that as academics or people doing research on biodiversity, we need to engage with people who usually don’t pay attention to these environmental issues. She mentioned that they have found a hook to make people understand the reason that nature is needed in a city, trees or healthy water systems, is that the impact it has on an individual’s health both mental and physical. “I conducted a study with undergraduate students in 2006-07 on roads across Bangalore, to measure pollution on the stretch of roads with trees and without trees. There were dramatic differences because the suspended particulate matter, nitrous dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide, all of these reduced substantially, locally in that area that has trees. This is important to know because they determine the street culture or the life of a city”, Prof Harini said. If one thinks of Indian cities, they are growing extremely fast and after living in a city for about 5 to 7 years, you start feeling that it is yours and, in this context, nature plays an important role. She concluded by saying that unless we move away from tree blindness or environment blindness and see that there are beautiful spots of nature, we are not going to care about our city or pressurize the government to take any action.

E-Dialogues 10.0

The tenth edition of the Webinar series titled “E-Dialogues” was conducted on the topic “NEP 2020 – Does it raise more questions than answers and solutions?” Although a lot of the new policy aims at making progressive changes in the Indian education system, a clear plan to implement these changes appears to be missing. There have been responses from across the society, be it educationists, policy makers, teachers’ bodies, student activists and other educational institutions. To bring together the viewpoints of all the stakeholders, Urban Update invited Prof Subrata Mukherjee (Retd), Department of Political Science, University of Delhi; VS Pandey, Former Secretary, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India; Ambarish Rai, National Convenor, Right to Education Forum; N Sai Balaji, National President, All India Students Association; Prof Ashutosh Kumar, Associate Professor, Department of Hindi, University of Delhi; and Prof Ravi Kumar, Department of Sociology, South Asian University. The session was moderated by Kumar Dhananjay, Consulting Editor, Urban Update.
Dhananjay introduced the theme of the Webinar by stating that the NEP has been introduced after 34 years. Although there are strong views regarding the Policy on both sides, it is still unclear if the Policy is a solution or does it give rise to more problems. To bring to light the opinion of the panelists, Dhananjay invited Prof Subrata Mukherjee.
Prof Mukherjee began by saying that after 34 years, the overhaul of the old education policy was inevitable. “The NEP covers the entire education system in India, from pre-school to PhD, thus making it a revolutionary policy, bringing with it new ideas in the education sector. While the Policy resumes the exam structure and nullifies the automatic promotion system in schools, it does not make enough increments in the education sector’s share of the GDP,” said Mukherjee. He added that a decentralized approach to education, along with the issue of the caste system, has been left out from the Policy as well.
VS Pandey began by saying that like the Education Policy of 1986, what is written on paper is drastically different from what happens on the ground. “Although the policy of 1986 aimed that 25 per cent of students in India must have vocational education by 2000, the real numbers were as low as 2-3 per cent.
Similar was the case with expansion of educational services which the government was largely unsuccessful in achieving. According to me, the problem of the education sector is that the policymakers take into account the needs of the management, teachers and the politicians, but not of the students,” said Pandey. Moreover, absence of flexibility in education is also a drawback for students in India.
Stating that the NEP does not mention about the Right to Education (RTE), Ambarish Rai said that only 12.6 per cent schools in India follow the RTE protocol of the Government of India while only 52 per cent schools have access to toilets, drinking water and hand-wash facilities. “Thus, the government must focus on why the Indian education sector has so many infrastructural gaps despite the presence of the RTE Act since 2009. As long as the government does not find the root of the problems, it will be unable to make any positive changes in the education sector through the NEP,” said Rai. He added that the lack of a uniform approach in universalizing education in India is also a very big problem.
N Sai Balaji stated that the NEP promotes ‘graded inequality’ in the education sector in India. He quoted the example of the provision of teaching in regional languages in schools till class 8. Saying that the government failed to mention if English will be taught in private schools or not, Balaji said that this will lead to the formation of two sets of students – those who speak and those who do not speak English. “It is obvious that those who speak English will be students whose parents can afford private education. Eventually, being fluent in English will also give them an upper hand in college admissions and job interviews. This clearly leaves out the socially and economically backward sections of the society,” said Balaji.
Prof Ashutosh Kumar talked about the push towards online education that the NEP has introduced and said that although it is a good initiative, education is not just about books and exams but is a culture. “It is a way of understanding our conscience and our thoughts, which is impossible to achieve through online education,” said Kumar. Moreover, the education infrastructure in India lacks far behind the demand. Kumar said, “The ‘graded inequality’ that Balaji talked about is even more pronounced when apart from government and private schools, international educational institutions are added to the structure. In the presence of such a backward infrastructure, pushing online education may not be successful at all.”
Prof Ravi Kumar, while mentioning that the previous governments have not been able to fully implement even the old education policy, said that there is a continuity in the approach of the government towards the education sector. He said, “This uniform approach stems from the capitalist nature of the state. A capitalist government will never prefer nationalization of education, health and other essential sectors but will try to structure them in order to generate profit for both the government and private entities. The NEP also ‘commodifies’ education in India and promotes the pre-existing problems instead of removing them.”
Dhananjay concluded the session by saying that although most people are already calling it the ‘National Exclusion Policy’, we can only hope that it does not lead to further fragmentation of the education sector on the lines of social or economic backwardness, promote graded inequality, do nothing to improve infrastructure and make the Indian education sector worse off than it previously was.

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