‘Thane could well be India’s first sustainable city’

After cleanliness, what? For a while now,the city of Thane has been in the news for the pro-active clean-up efforts of its former Municipal Commissioner T Chandrashekhar and the unusually high degree of public support for his actions.

Over the last few years, roads have been widened, trees planted, lakes cleaned and plans chalked out for an elevated light railway.

Last year, Thane was rewarded with the encomium of the cleanest city in the country by HUDCO.(The ‘plague’ city, Surat in a remarkable turnaround and under similarly enlightened leadership came second).

Enough plaudits, one would think for a 2.5 lakh strong town better known as a satellite to big brother, Mumbai. Clearly it isn’t.

Proof is in a 35-page proposal prepared by two Thane-based architects, Yashdeep Srivastava and Deepika Mathur titled, ‘An Attainable Dream - Thane, India’s first sustainable city.’

Cogently argued, the proposal goes beyond mere cleanliness or beautification to lay down a blueprint for what its proponents consider the ‘real’ challenge of the future which is : “to steer inevitable development down a course of least ecological impact employing the greatest efficiency of means.”

Srivastava formerly project architect with Charles Correa is currently engaged in diverse undertakings that explore contemporary-historical contexts and the application of sustainable principles.

Mathur, an alumnus of the Parsons school works in a city-based project management firm. Long time residents of Thane, the husband and wife team undertook the project at their own initiative combining data available in the public domain with research and field work to come up with a set of recommendations.

The recommendations, which aim to provide a unified vision versus a faddist or piece meal approach to the environment cover a wide range of urban development issues.

Balancing the reality of a fast expanding population with the need to preserve natural resources, the proposal suggests for instance the utilisation of space under flyovers for pedestrian traffic and hawkers and creating public parks along the city’s many lakes and the creek to be used for recreational purposes and to serve as catchment areas during the rains.

It also contains basic practical suggestions such as pushing the use of recycled and low-embedded energy construction materials and inducing adaptive reuse of old buildings.

Pointing out that many measures intended for purposes of beautification end up harming the environment, it suggests alternatives. The planting of exotic trees and plants, for instance which require too much water for growth or the hard, impervious paving in parking lots which prevents the absorption of water.

The former, it is claimed, could easily be substituted with hardy perennial plants while the latter could be substituted with precast concrete blocks with holes in which grass could be planted to reduce heat absorption. There are measures that concern the local citizen as well. Srivastava-Mathur believe that the involvement of the resident is crucial to the success of a holistic plan. In keeping with the idea, they propose the use of renewable energy sources like solar geysers in all housing societies, facilitating water-harvesting and water-recycling techniques in buildings, urging
environmentally sound practices in garbage disposal, industry, construction sites and so on and the introduction of tariff structures that would encourage
parsimonious consumption.

The proposal also suggests using the municipal school infrastructure, local NGOs, clubs such as Rotary and TV channels to impart information and awareness on green topics. The proposal that coverssubjectsranging from conservation of historical sites,a cultural centre, waste disposal methods and the creation of norms for developers appears to be wideranging and idealistic in scope. Equally ambitious is the idea of making the environment the central concept in city planning.The intention though, as Srivastava explains, is to generate discussion and encourage the idea of a holistic approach among planners and concerned citizens.

The small city seems to be the right place to start.

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