By IANS,
Mumbai : President Pratibha Patil Friday said that urban planning should not be limited to catering to the needs of current inhabitants but look at developing cities and townships keeping in mind a minimum time-frame of 25 years.
She urged the need to develop effective public transportation systems to solve the problems of congestion and vehicular pollution and asked planners to adopt environmentally-friendly options like bio-gas, solar and wind energy in their designs.
Speaking at a function wherre she presented the prestigious Nagar Ratna Awards to several municipal bodies here, the President said that works like roads, drainage constructions or repairs should be undertaken in a co-ordinated manner by adopting an integrated development framework for an area.
“The construction of green buildings, designed for energy conservation and water harvesting, should be encouraged as also making earthquake resistant buildings,” she said.
Patil called upon the local self-government bodies to ensure that building plans and standards are strictly adhered to.
Expressing concern over the growing number of slum-dwellers in the country, the president said that the population of people living in urban slums has grown from 26 million in 1981 to 62 million in 2001.
“Being at the lower rung of the ladder, they constitute the vulnerable section that is likely to suffer from hunger, malnutrition and disease,” Patil observed,
The Ahmedabad, Mysore and Pune municipal corporations bagged the coveted Nagar Ratna Awards, for being judged the civic bodies in the country.
The award, instituted by the All India Institute of Local Self-Government, Mumbai, carries a rolling trophy and cash awards of Rs.5 lakhs, Rs.3 lakhs and Rs.2 lakhs respectively for the top three winners.
Besides, Nashik, Kalyan-Dombivali, Faridabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Bangalore, Visakhapatnam and Agartala municipal corporations also received prizes in different categories like public health, cleanliness, provision of basic amenities, use of IT in governance, transparency and accountability.
The president expressed happiness that mayors of six of the 12 award-winning municipal corporation were women.
The awards were decided by a committee, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Arijit Pasayat, which evaluated the performance of various civic bodies covered under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.