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Clustered City Development Project In South Asia, Second Roundtable (India)

Facilitated by 

 -  Strategic Planning and Management Services (SPMS) Pty Ltd 

 -  National Institute of Urban Affairs Sponsors 

Sponsored by

 -  Asian Development Bank 

 -  AUS AID

Date: 15  October 2008

Venue: Conference Room, NIUA, New Delhi
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has embarked upon a project in three South Asian countries of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, to examine ways to foster the concept of Clustered City Development (CCD).  CCD is a way of achieving better economic spatial planning and sustainable development outcomes for cities leading to improved competitiveness, urban management and economic governance. 

The ADB has appointed the Australian international consultant Strategic Planning and Management Services (SPMS) Pty Ltd led by Emeritus Professor Brian H Roberts to develop a framework to support innovative interventions for Clustered Cities Development (CCD) in South Asian cities. The project development will be undertaken in association with three national partners, the National Institute for Urban Affairs (India), Centre for Urban Studies (Bangladesh) and SEVANTHA-Urban Resource Centre (Sri Lanka). The three capital city regions that are proposed for the project to develop and test the framework are: Delhi Metropolitan Region (India), Metropolitan Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Colombo Metropolitan Region (Sri Lanka).

As part of this project and shaping a CCD strategy, a series of three roundtables have been planned. The first roundtable was held on 16th July and the second roundtable was organized on 15th October, 2008 to identify possible opportunities, strategies and initiatives to foster the development of a CCD based approach to sustainable development for the national capital cities and other cities in the country, based on the findings of an economic profile study of cities, with particular emphasis on Delhi.

Representatives from the Government, donor agencies, agencies like NCRPB, AMDA etc. and academicians were part of this roundtable.

Dr. Kyeong and Prof. Brian RobertsProf. Chetan Vaidya, Director, NIUA presented a brief introduction to the roundtable. He also stressed on the value of the feedback received from the discussants, which will help streamline the further tasks of the project. This was followed by Keynote Remarks by Dr. Kyeong -Aee Choe, Principal Urban Development Specialist, ADB, wherein she explained the role of ADB in CCD with special reference to India.

Prof. Brian Roberts delivered a presentation on CCD-Context & Process highlighting the CCD concept, its relation with city competitiveness, features of an industry cluster with the help of the example of an electronic cluster, and the concept of strategic architecture to support CCD.

Prof. Dhar and Mr. Sandeep Thakur gave presentation on Fostering Urban led Development Strategy for India and City Competitiveness and Ranking of select cities in the country, while Prof. Mathur detailed out the alternative infrastructure financing options in India. Spatial dimensions of economic and Industrial development in DMA was elaborately brought out by Consultant Mr. Rajveer Singh.

The presentations were followed by discussions and feedback from the participants. The meeting ended with a vote of thanks by the Director, NIUA.
Participants