Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat, has mooted the idea of clean urban India through balanced urban development. He was speaking at the inauguration of a National Summit on Inclusive Urban Development-2013 at Mahatma Mandir at Gandhinagar yesterday. The summit was attended by 5,000 planners, delegates, government officials, mayors and people’s elected representatives from different cities and states of the country and also abroad. He also called for the improvement of the quality of urban life for the dalit, oppressed, persecuted and have-nots to realize the Mahatma’s dream of clean cities.
Narendra Modi added one more ‘P’ to the concept of Public Private Partnership making it ‘pro-people public-private partnership’. He stressed for the need to create mass awareness involving people’s participation through 4Ps in a nationwide movement for 4Ms for generating manpower, money resource, machinery and mobility. Gujarat Chief Minister also said that he had sent a proposal to the Centre for developing 500 self-reliant clean cities, recycling solid wastes generated into organic fertilizers for horticulturists to grow fruits and vegetables. Gujarat has already initiated the scheme in 50 towns as a pilot project.
He said the concept of town planning has changed from providing roads, drinking water and sewer lines to setting up townships within towns. At the same time, he cautioned against unplanned development leading to haphazard growth. Town planning should be considered as an opportunity and not as a crisis.
