Minister PTR on Madurai, Urban
Planning and Climate Change
Today, 12th August 2024 | 4 pm | Music Academy
This evening, the Music Academy was witness to a different beat altogether –at four pm.
Dr. PTR Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, the Minister for IT and Digital Services in Tamil Nadu, walked into the Hall cool and calm, without any of the fanfare or mumbo jumbo or political slogans that usually accompany a ruling party Minister.
He came on time, and spoke to time!
This was followed by an absorbing discussion with Justice Mr. Chandru.
Addressing one of the alarming crisis of our times, Mr. PTR spoke on the challenges related to urbanisation as well as climate change facing the city of Chennai.
He spoke on the reasons why climate change is not only raising temperatures at an alarming rate but also making incidence of rainfall more erratic and cyclonic storms more frequent.
He also highlighted the failure of cities to adapt to environmental changes through better urban planning.
The session was organized by the Indian Express on the topic, “Is my city taking proactive steps to tackle climate change?” at the Kasturi Srinivasan Hall, The Music Academy, T.T.K. Road, Chennai.
Excerpts from his Speech today -
TN is one of the most urbanized states in the country. It was thought that urbanization was going to be a panacea that would provide a better quality of life, a better infrastructure, better services to the citizens, etc, when they became more urban-concentrated.
In fact experience says that it is not necessarily true. It may be true in some parts of the world, but in India, where development happens without too much planning, complexities become more apparent, and you see evidence of climate change and shifting weather patterns.
The whole logic of urbanization is that, it facilitates accelerated economics. But from a govt perspective, from a urban policy and planning perspective, the goal should be to provide all citizens with a life of some basic dignity when it comes to water, sanitation, clean environment, garbage removal, roads, transportation, street lights, etc., that should determine whether a society is advanced and progressed or not!
But here again, we are faced with a complex legacy. If we take the US it is easy to do urban planning when your country is just 300 years old. Again, even in the US the quality of urban planning is vastly different when you see in Boston, than it is even in New York, and in newer expanded cities like Texas or North Carolina.
In Europe you can see the spread between old cities like Rome, and newer cities. In India, you can see cities like Madurai that have been in constant habitation for more than 2000 years, and for us, to basically bring in any new master plan or new framework is difficult. But it was not always so.
If you look at our cultures, we’ve had a history of well-planned cities in the past. The Indus valley civilization, a proto-typical Dravidian plan, that is recreated in Keeladi, has the same engineering and design! So in our case - part of the problem is the rapidly expanding population.
I was in Kodaikanal last year for some Seminar, and inadvertently the words came out of my mouth, when it took us about 40 minutes to cross one kilometre, and that too with a police escort. And I said, this is the textbook example of the failure of urban planning!...
To listen to the entire talk, you may watch it on our YouTube Channel HERE
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