Ludhianvis witness an eye opener panel discussion on “Building more liveable cities in Punjab”

Ludhiana, July 8, 2018: Citizens and architects will be taken in smart city committees, said Sanyam Agarwal, Additional Commissioner Ludhiana Municipal Corporation who was chief guest in event organized by Indian Institute of Architects, Ludhiana Centre in association Ideate, a leading organization from Mumbai creating awareness about art, architecture and cities pan India. Will Ludhiana and other cities of Punjab become more live able and smart in coming times was discussed in detail during panel discussion on the topic “Building More Liveable Cities in Punjab” held here on Saturday evening. The panel discussion had very interesting views from the varied range of dignitaries on the panel starting from Chief Guest Sanyam Agarwal, Additional Commissioner Ludhiana Municipal Corporation followed by Sanjay Goel one of the Directors of Ludhiana Smart city Ltd, Zafar Chaudhary, Bimaldeep Singh, Atul Singla and Mandeep Singh. The audience highly appreciated special presentation made by Ar.Sourabh Gupta from Archohm consultants, Delhi on "Building a State". Sanyam Agarwal informed that a smart city committee shall be formed involving citizens and Architects. He accentuated that it is the citizens who have to make the city smart and live able. IIA Ludhiana Centre extended their full support to the Municipal Corporation for the cause. Saurabh Gupta was the keynote speaker on the topic ‘Building of State” and he shared his presentation on transforming the existing congested areas of city of Agra into more open and usable spaces. Sanjay Goel, Director of Smart city Ludhiana, who was the moderator asked challenging questions from all panelists. His emphasis was, if and when smart city mission shall be completed and the challenges to overcome. Zafar Chaudhary, another leading architect, related the cities of the Punjab with the smart cities of international standards from western world. He emphasized that a detailed planning process should be adopted for next 30 to 40 years and then acted upon by creating awareness amongst the citizens. Bimaldeep Singh emphasized the use of Satellite Mapping in the cities to check haphazard and illegal constructions on the lines of PUDA, which has already enrolled Punjab Remote Sensing Center in PAU Ludhiana by paying just four crores to map the area outside city limits of Punjab. Mandeep Singh another architect shared his thoughts about ever increasing problems in upcoming Smart city of Ludhiana and explained that the citizen participation is must in Smart City Mission. Architect Atul Singla Post Graduate from AA school London and Dean School of Architecture and Design LPU, shared his detail viewpoints about town planning of Jalandhar & Amritsar. Amit Singh and Santosh Kumar organizers of the event from ideate presented the vote of thanks. Presentations were also given by Merino and Viva Companies about their latest products. Overall, the panel discussion turned out to be interesting one. Ar Sanjay Goel left no stone unturned to make this discussion interesting and elaborative. He even asked some of the hard-hitting questions to the panelists. The role of politicians was also discussed. It was observed that the haphazard growth of cities is taking place in the cities of Punjab and the role of politicians and others cannot be denied as many builders are turning into politicians and politicians turning into builders. It was observed that the role of neither a politician or nor a builder be ignored because both are part and parcel of the society. However, everyone must play its constructive and positive role in building the cities liveable. The issue of illegal constructions coming up in the cities of Punjab was also discussed during the panel discussion. The issue of Jalandhar was specially pointed out in which the Punjab Cabinet Minister identified some of the illegal buildings following which departmental action was initiated against some of the officials of Municipal Corporation Jalandhar (MCL). It came out in the discussion that time has arrived to take maximum benefit of the technology to find out illegal constructions. Satellite Mapping instead of using the manpower was considered the best way to check haphazard and illegal constructions in the cities across Punjab. Some of the reasons behind slow pace of development were also discussed. These reasons included lack of proper and timely planning, lack of zeal and proper implementation, lack of proper vision, shortage of funds, lack of coordination between the departments and the Centre and the state government, illegal encroachments, and many more. It was observed that pace of development in India cannot be compared with the developed Nations because development at a wider perspective sometimes required dislocation of locals residing at a particular place for over the decades and it is a time consuming and lengthy procedure to rehabilitate the dislocated people. It was felt that the huge number of population in India sometimes played a key role in delaying the development projects. Citing an example, it was stated that hundreds of people residing illegally in the surroundings of Jagraon Bridge are required to be rehabilitated to other places if the things are to be done right. It was also observed that citizens themselves play a key role in making cities liveable. The government can plan and implement an idea but the actual shape is to be given by the citizens themselves. Citizens can play a wider role in making their cities neat, clean and beautiful, pollution-free from all aspects. The involvement of people from all walks of the city in identifying the city areas to be development can make a city really liveable. The event was attended by many leading architects including Yogesh Singla-Chairman IIA Ludhiana Centre, Niranjan Kumar, Balbir Bagga, Sumit Sharma, Vikram Likhi, Arpan Aggarwal, Tarsem Goyal, Arun Bala,Baljit Bawa, Jagpal Singh, Ritika Sethi, Nidhi Magoon, Geetika Gambhir, Akanksha Bajaj, Harveneet Singh, Dipika kaur, Hardeep Singh, Vikas Sharma, Neeraj Sharma, Gurpreet Brar, Tonish Verma, Simranjeet Singh, Shaina Saggar, Prabhpreet Singh and many other leading architects from all over Punjab and Chandigarh.