In a first of its kind endeavour by any local civic body in the country, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has come up with a unique contest to get the people of the city to participate in designing their city of the future. The DesignForPune contest, initiated by the office of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and aimed at propelling change through citizens’ participation, will invite citizens to send in their vision for the city starting next month, incorporating all the challenges that the city faces along with their strategies to counter them.

Taking it one step further will be the chance given to the teams to simulate their vision on the SimCity computer game, which enables the creation of a whole new city on the web.

“The idea is to create a citywide collaboration in designing the future of Pune, to catalyse on alternative visions for the city and try and formalise on what Pune should be 10 or even 20 years from now. Everyone is so busy putting out the daily fires that no one tends to plan or think for the future — hence this move,” said CIO Anupam Saraph, who hopes to drum up the participation of students and business leaders in the city through this contest.

“People can even take up one single aspect — like having solutions for say traffic or energy. Critical mass will be the all-important factor in taking this concept further,” he said.

Saraph has sought the partnership of companies like Nvidia, which would provide some strategic inputs, and Pune Tech, which would be involved in setting up the website and giving technical assistance to the project. “We have also tied up with the US-based Electronic Arts, which will be supplying us with 100 copies of the SimCity game that we would be showing in schools, to NGOs and other interested people,” added Navin Kabra of Pune Tech.

However, the concept has already invited a cautioning note from the elected representatives, who say it will eventually need their approval before getting incorporated in the city’s development plan (DP) for 2010-2030.

BJP corporator Ujjwal Keskar said that the initiative to prepare a DP with public participation is good, but likely to face problems when it comes before the elected representatives for approval, which is mandatory according to the law. “The civic administration can make a vision for the DP through public participation, but the planning authority of the elected representatives can change it,” he said.

Congress corporator Ulhas Bagul reflected this viewpoint, saying that the involvement of the public in the development process is not bad, but it’s not legal. “The civic administration should involve experts in framing a draft vision for the development of the city instead of going to the masses.”

Leader of the House and NCP corporator Anil Bhosale, too, sounded a cautionary note. “The elected representatives might differ with the citizens’ view and in that case the citizen may feel cheated if his recommendations do not get space in the vision for the DP,” he pointed out.

While Saraph is optimistic that the people’s views will prevail, he is quick to add, “in a worst case scenario, we would at least be creating a generation of aware citizens who know the solutions to the city’s problems.”

They are, however, considering the institution of a steering committee that would judge the various entries at different points of the contest. This would include key government officials, industry leaders and well-known citizens.