A research centre on urban development comes up at Panvel

Pillai Group of Institutions of Mahatma Education Society, Panvel, on Saturday launched a research centre in collaboration with New York University (NYU) – Urban Expansion Observatory (UXO) – in its premises. The centre, apart from having researchers from NYU, has many educationists and officials from Mumbai University as well. It was inaugurated by Dr Naresh Chandra, pro vice chancellor, Mumbai University, and Dr SK Mahajan, director, Higher and Technical Education, Maharashtra.

The results of research carried out at the centre is to be presented at the United Nations Habitat Conference (UN Conference III) that will take place in 2016. Such a conference takes place every 20 years.

The research at the centre will be based on monitoring global urban expansion. Around 15 analysts from India will study cities across the globe, and through high resolution satellite imagery, measure the quality of global urban expansion. The results presented at the UN conference will help in formulating better plans for urban development.

Patrick Lamson-Hall, NYU research scholar, said: "In every country, people move to cities in search of better lifestyle. However, there is very little focus on expanding cities. This has led to the need for an average city to expand three times over to accommodate the demand of the growing population. As 50% of the world is now urbanised, we need to make room for expansion; Navi Mumbai is an example. In highly populated countries, cities need hectares of land to expand. Hence we need to figure out the drawbacks cities faces and aim at planned urban expansion."

Of the 4,000 cities in the world, the centre has zeroed in on 200, which they will analyse. This data will be sent to researchers in NYU. That will help in finishing the research by year end, in time for UN Conference III.

"We have chosen 15 analysts from amongst 200 who had applied from all over India. They will collect data. They have already been trained on this, and from Monday, they will begin the work. We aim to focus on having more space around developing cities and demarcating arterial roads, so that, cities grow in a planned manner with sufficient open spaces as well as transportation modes," said Manual Madrid, project manager.

Pritika Hingorani, associate vice president, IDFC Institute, said: "We are a research-focused think tank set up by IDFC to investigate issues around political economy and urbanisation. We will help adopt some rapidly growing cities and assist them to plan ahead for spatial expansion. We will also mediate between the analysts in Navi Mumbai and researchers at NYU."

Dr Priam Pillai, COO, Mahatma Education Society, said: "We will make use of this research by involving some of our students and faculty in it. The projects and analysis that they undertake this year will be based on the research at UXO. This will also give them an opportunity to interact and gain exposure to such researches."

Officials in CIDCO's urban development department were also invited for the inaugural event. They felt the result of the research would help in planning development around Navi Mumbai's airport project.

Dr Naresh Chandra said: "Urban planning is a very important topic and understanding developmental needs will be benefit cities across the country. This is a positive and progressive step in the field of education."