Kochi Design Week: Local People’s Happiness Integral to Development

KOCHI:
Developmental projects should invariably resolve the concerns of the local population and take special care to make them not only part of the process but also position then as the end beneficiaries, a panel of experts said at the Kochi Design Week (KDW).

Public-Private Partnerships, or PPPs, should ideally be Public-Private-Community Partnerships (PPCPs), according to Cochin SmartCity Mission CEO Alkesh Kumar Sharma, who is also MD of Kochi Metro Rail.

Participating in a panel discussion on the second day of the December 12-14 KDW, the senior bureaucrat said any development project would be faced with a long list of challenges. “They include acquiring land, getting connectivity and conserving both nature and heritage,” he noted. “Addressing social issues, too, should be accorded top priority.”

At the session titled ‘Design for Infrastructure: Connected Building for Future Smart Cities’ and moderated by Rajgopal Nair of Autodesk India, Sharma further said data collection is integral to developmental projects. “For that, we have highly advanced systems today. What is equally necessary is the conversion of such data into good information,” he added.

Highlighting the need for fast-progressing cities in the country to have a master-plan for development, he said a strong public transport system, too, is essential for modern-day urban life. KDW 2019, organised mainly by the Kerala government, seeks to explore the scope of implementing the latest trends in design and architecture for the state to have a sustainable infrastracture.

S N Raghuchandran Nair, Managing Director of SI Properties, called for an end to “unmindful loading and unloading charges”, a practice in Kerala which he described as “extortion given legitimacy”. Expressing concern over the state’s dependency on migrant labourers, he pointed out that 18 lakh of the 25 lakh immigrant workers in Kerala are engaged with the construction sector.

Highlighting the scarcity of land availability in the state, he said Kerala had only 96 lakh acres of which hardly 15 lakh acres would come in handy for developmental work after subtracting forests and other zones barred from carrying out works.

Abbey V Rodrigues, Vice-President (Sales) of Cera Sanitaryware, drew attention to certain shortcomings of most developmental projects. The Kochi Metro Rail, for instance, is yet to think about train connectivity between downtown Ernakulam and the international airport at Nedumbassery, he said.