More projects are in the offing, even as planners from India and Europe meet in New Delhi to discuss ideas at the Indo-E.U. conference on sustainable urban development. The programme, Asia-Urbs, has undertaken 19 pilot projects across South and Southeast Asia, keeping in view the considerable demand from local governments in Asia and the European Union (E.U.). According to Vincent Rotge, executive project manager of Asia-Urbs, "the focus of the programmes was to improve the understanding between two continents through urban development."

If that happens, instances of collaboration between India and Europe in urban development will multiply rapidly and won't be restricted to the bigger and better known cities. It will include the smallers and lesser known ones whose problems are really quite big. The city of Rajkot in Gujarat has joined forces with the Leicester City Council in Britain and the municipal council of Maia in Portugal for environmental management and waste strategy in the textile dyeing industry. Through this tie-up, Rajkot seeks to benefit from the experience and expertise of the two European textile centres.

The historical links between the cities are interesting. All three are industrial centres for textile manufacture. In Leicester, the Gujarati community owns most of the textile and clothing industry. Leicester and Gujarat were also made twin cities in 1991. Italy and Spain are sharing their experience in industrial waste management with Tamil Nadu. The two-year development project will target capacity building in environmental and industrial policies at the level of the local government, also involving private and public agencies and others with technical expertise.

Despite differences in geography, Tuscany in Italy, Castilla-La Mancha in Spain and Tamil Nadu share several similarities. They have experienced industrial development in textiles, leather and footwear, with a predominance of small and medium sized enterprises. A collaborative project between Raichur, the London Borough of Brent and Horsens in Denmark, called "Community Access 2000", envisages exchange of information on how local needs could be fulfilled through social policies adapted to the situation in Raichur. Rotge also mentioned a project in Auroville in Pondicherry, with Venice in Italy and Cologne in Germany. This would demonstrate technologies for innovative urban management and how they could be replicated for India.

Asia-Urbs has also received feelers from Mumbai, Panjim and Howrah for similar urban rehabilitation projects. But these are at a very nascent stage. "We are very interested in taking up a city like Shahjahanabad (the walled city in the old quarter of Delhi), but we have not received any proposal so far," says Rotge. Rehabilitating Shahjahanabad is an urban planner's dream, according to him. "It is so tricky. Extremely beautiful, yet densely populated with workshops and small and medium enterprises."

What was required for such a project is rehabilitating physical structures without compromising the delicate economic balance, through "sophisticated and comprehensive policies." Built during 1639-48 on river Yamuna, with a population of 60,000, the walled city has a population of 10 million covering an area of 1,483 square kilometres today. The real challenge to planners in regenerating the city, say the experts, is its daytime population, which is not only several times the resident population but is steadily growing. Add to that, the depleting green and the unpleasant sights. While Indian planners are grappling with the possibilities, the European Union is only too eager to accept a small part of the challenge, as an example.

(India Abroad News Service)