Organised jointly by the Town & Country Planning, Pondicherry Government, L’Avenir d’Auroville, INTACH and Pondy CAN

Dr. Harjit Singh Anand
Secretary, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, New Delhi

Mr. Negi
Dir. NBO & OSD Jnnurm, New Delhi

Mr. Balakrishnan
Sec T&CP, Pondicherry

Mr. Sellamuthu
Secretary, Urban Development,Tamil Nadu

Dr. Amrita
Chief Consultant, Finance Commission, New Delhi

Mr. Joshi, Sec LAD
Pondicherry Collector, Pondichery

Mr. Durairaj
Chief Town Planner, Pondicherry

Dr. Raya
Professor of Management, Pondicherry University

And members of L’Avenir d’Auroville, INTACH and Pondy CAN

Dr. Harjit Singh Anand appreciated PondyCAN’s initiative to revive this concept of regional planning and for getting him involved. This is the 21st year of the original idea (1987) so felt it had to be implemented now in 21 months. He spoke at length about his experience as the head of NCR in which he was very much involved.

Mr Balakrishnan Sec T&CP, Pondicherry, read out the letter from Chief Town Planner Mr. Kshirsagar, T&CP GOI, which said that the interstate regional plan was a welcome step. He outlined the way forward saying that the delineation exercise had to be carried out and that a cell should be made in the Union Territory and sub working groups to be formed.

Mr. Sellamuthu, Secretary, Urban Development,Tamil Nadu was happy that there was an attempt to have an integrated plan for this region. He expressed his concerns about land use, water and preservation of ecosystem. We can reach greater heights by setting common goals and objectives. He talked about the commonality of interests of this region and emphasised that the social sectors should be taken into account; development with a human face.

Dr. Anand spoke about the four steps of Regional Planning:

1. People: Income from industries, tourism, culture etc
2. Habitat: City structure, underlying principle being spatial
3. Planning: Exercise of superimposing different layers such as water, drainage etc
4. Finance:  Funds through taxes, cess, inflows from Govt etc. Devolution of finance

These steps lead to improving the quality of life and have to be seen from the eyes of the disadvantaged.

Follow up points:

Prepare a vision document about the Region’s future development. Delineate the area Set up the steering group made up of secretaries of UD and T&CP from both states, including collectors from Villupuram and Cuddalore and people from L’Avenir d’Auroville, INTACH and Pondy CAN.