India Urban Lab - Goa 2018

LAB PROCEEDINGS INDIA URBAN LAB - GOA 2018 6th-9th February 2018

DAY 1

Goa Urban Lab 2018 began with Dr. Anjali K Mohan introducing to the participants, India Urban Lab. She elaborated the concept of India Urban Lab as a tool for collaborative engagement of academicians and practitioners across sectors to examine issues, challenges as well as opportunities for development in any region. The Lab framework, the agenda and the outcomes of Bangalore Urban Lab 2015, the first in the series were presented.

Ditte Amskov introduced IFHP and its role in organizing the Urban Lab along with its partners, INDE, Kokum, Global Utmaning and Nordic Innovations.

Claude Alvares one of the resource people spoke about Goa and its socioecological-cultural-economical and political evolution.

Elin Fabre highlighted the relevance of these exercises in the context of global sustainability agenda and the larger development goals of United Nations.

Further the three representative sites were introduced and the participants were briefed about the site visits.

Resource people who have been engaged with the three sites for the past many years curated the site visits. The group first visited various spots along the Panjim creek from its mouth through the urban fabric and into its upstream reaches near Altinho hills wetlands. Vishal Rawlley along with Tallulah D´Silva curated the site visits for Panjim creek. The morphological transformation that the creek had undergone as it moves through the urban fabric was varied and driven by its edge conditions as well as how it engaged with its surroundings.

Next the participants moved towards the village of Assagao from the higher grounds of the plateau area of Mapusa and traced their way into the valley between the two ridges. Peter Fernandez a resident of Assagao, took the participants around the fields of Assagao, which being the valley area, had a critical role in recharging the regions ground water reserve. Peter also indicated how the water which once had greater time to percolate is now carried out of the valley through the cemented and channelized canals. He also indicated the trend of occupational change among the community and the shift of communidade system of land with the urban land management tools and real estate.

Following this, the participants travelled to the third site which was viewed from the Sada (plateaus) at Fort Agunda as well as from Fort Sinquerium while passing through the main axis road which is heavily commercialized. Antonio Mascarenhas from National institute of Oceanography accompanied the participants. The area around the access road to Sinquerium fort bastion as well as the area around the Agunda fort was found to be derelict, mostly occupied by acacia plantation. The participants visited the mangroves along Nerul River across Koko beach. The river mouth has been active tourism area with intense activity resulting in loss of biodiversity. The beach stretch of Candolim was also found to host intense tourism related activities which was mostly on the dunes or in its extreme proximity damaging its natural vegetation.

Antonio further pointed towards the insensitive nature of Dolphin viewing activities and the poor waste and sewage disposal management. The resource person also highlighted the dependence of the dense tourism footprint on water resources, with over-extraction of ground water triggering salt water intrusion deeper into the land.

Prof. Ribeiro highlighted the changing nature of settlements and how administrative and statistical definitions and categorisation often contradicts or fail to capture this.

He highlighted that settlements falling under the category of towns which continued to be governed by panchayats are an example of settlements caught in between the administrative protocols. Thus agents and state stakeholders of development management encounter vacuum areas in terms of applicability of regulations. In such a context which is evidently the case of Goa’s settlements, he emphasised the role of mapping as a powerful tool in validating and tangibly recognising ownerships, change in use etc. He further highlighted the need to make maps accessible to public as this would ensure accountability and responsibility to all agents of change, be it state or non-state or even individuals. Prof. Riberio also stressed on the need for clarity among the roles and responsibilities of various state organisations so as to resolve overlapping mandates and conflicting agendas.

Prof. Mukhopadhyay spoke about the economics and the fundamentals of commons.

Common pool resources are the resources which are often subjected to degradation as these are difficult to fit into the conventional systems of economic valuation.

Natural systems and resources mostly fall under common pool resources. Successful systems of management of such resources are those which are able to clearly define who owns the resource, who receives the benefits and who bears the cost. He observed that traditional systems of resource management were more successful as these were managed based on kinship and trust which is maintained by socio-cultural norms. The smaller scale of management and decentralized nature of such systems add to the ease in management of common pool resources. He further highlighted that the key factors that drive collective action such as; clarity in the activity undertaken, the regulatory mechanism, the cost of communication to establish the institution, and feasibility to punish violators enough, to deter them from violations, has to be addressed.

Post the perspective session the working sessions began with each group working on one of the site. The session was structured into three sub-sessions, one for internal brain storming which aimed at each group discussing their observations followed by a session post lunch where each of the group was required to visit another group to

understand their approach, provide feedback as well as self-evaluate.

Manguesh Prabhugaonkar participated in one of the working session. The participants articulated and consolidated their observations into findings in terms of issues, concerns, potentials etc. Day 2 concluded with a panel discussion where the participants presented and discussed their findings to experts who have been working on the three sites.

The participants also captured the working session findings into the meeting sphere tool through various queries through the day.

The panellists included; Dr. S T Puttaraju1, Sanjit Rodriguez2, Vishal Rawalley, Armando Gonsalves, Tallulah D´Silva, Peter Fernadez along with the curators Dr. Anjali K Mohan, Mohan Rao, Dean D’cruz, Reboni Saha, Ditte Amskov, and Olga Gaitani. The panellists gave more insights about the three sites and its problems. They highlighted the need to look at the disaster vulnerability of these regions, the rapid impact of tourism and role of communities in defining the future of these landscapes.

Water was recognised as a critical resource by all and each emphasised the need to realise tangible outcomes on ground.

1 2

Chief Town Planner from TCPO, Goa MD, Goa Solid Waste Management Corporation

DAY 2

Day 2 began with a perspective session on the planning history and framework by Prof. Edgar Ribeiro followed by a session on economics of commons by Prof. Pranab Mukhopadhyay. The perspective sessions were followed by working sessions for each of the sites which were reviewed by expert panellists.

DAY 3

Day 3 began with an overview of the feedback and suggestions made by the panellist. Dr. Mohan highlighted the agenda for the day which would be premised around framing of concerns and pathways for redressal. Five key questions were emphasised upon; 1. Identify the client 2. Move beyond conventional practices 3. Examine the Master Plan 4. Low hanging fruits with respect to the larger vision 5. Role of people and other agents of change Following the wrapping up session, the second perspective session was held with Mr. Sanjit Rodriguez, and Dr. S T Puttaraju. Mr. Rodriguez weighed on the need to translate the efforts put into the lab into actionable items that can be implemented, both in short term and long term. The long hanging fruits are those that can begin a conversation and set momentum to change. Pilot/demonstrative projects are most viable means to engage with stakeholders immediately.

The stakeholder pool in the three representative sites is varied. This would allow strategies to be moulded to target the nuances through engagement of the various stakeholder types. For instance, in Candolim, the context is that of socioeconomic-techno-political nature with

the additional vulnerability with climate change and water resilience.

Dr. Puttaraju gave an overview of the various plans prepared under the TCPD along with other initiatives taken up by the department. He pointed to the statutory nature eco zone 1, as areas that cannot be interfered with, for any type of development activities. This along with the eco zone 2 is an important addition made to the draft land use plan. He also weighed on the need to make the legal documents such as land use plan and other spatial maps accessible and user friendly to facilitate better participation and engagement with communities. Such a process is critical in avoiding delays in the approval of plans as it would minimise conflicts and help incorporate concerns and aspirations of the citizen right from the beginning. Panchayat level plan making is as critical as larger regional plans and that regional plans in isolation cannot further the plan implementation and development needs of communities. TCPD of Goa also recognises water resource management and resilience critical in sustainable development in Goa. Before concluding, Dr. Puttaraju also invited the audience for a visit to the information kiosks that makes statutory land use maps and associated spatial data accessible through a digital platform which was a new initiative to make land use plans more accessible to the citizens.

Following the perspective session, Mr. Rao summarized the key takeaways along with the agenda for the days working sessions with respect to previous days working session outcomes and panellist review. The participants moved into their respective groups to take forward the feedback and further the inception of ideas and strategies that can address the issues and concerns in short and long term. The working session unlike the previous day, was structured as a single session with each team working on developing a narrative recognising the concerns through ideas and strategies of intervention. Following the working session, the participants presented the proposals to the same panellists who had reviewed the work on the previous day. The panellist provided suggestions and feedback on the approach and proposal made by each group.

Mr. Rao facilitated the discussions and brainstorming session to further the feedback and need to anchor the short term interventions on a larger more comprehensive vision for each site, so that the endeavour doesn’t end at the short term pilot interventions. Each of the group engaged in informal discussions with the panellist to better understand the suggestions that can be integrated into the proposals and the larger narrative.

Public Meeting at ESG, Panjim The public presentation began at 6.30 pm. Dr. Mohan introduced to the audience the Urban Lab, its objective and what the Goa Urban Lab brought to the table. She gave a brief overview of the proceedings of the previous four days leading up to the public presentation. Ms. Amskov gave an overview of the role of IFHP and Nordic Innovations in bringing together the lab. Following the introduction, Mr. Rao, elaborated the scope of work and limitations around the four day exercise to the audience. He highlighted the varied context, scale, and concerns between each of the three representative sites. The premise of choosing these sites was explained and the three groups presented their work.

Sanika Godse along with Rushika Khanna presented the group’s impression of Assagao and the dynamics of change. The group proposed a system based approach to managing the socio-economic and urban transformation of Assagao, so that villages in transition can take mitigative measures before it is too late to deal with pressures of conventional urbanisation and development.

Mridula Garg presented the findings and proposals made by the Candolim team. Their proposal was anchored on a broader strategy to re-structure the development intensity through proactive measures that are driven by the intrinsic potentials of the zones (ecological potential & tourism related). Zone based proposals covered not only the beach front but also the Sada reaches, the Nerul river and mangroves along with the axial road of intense activity.

Abinaya Rajavelu, representing the Panjim Creek presented their approach to exploring intervention ideas for the creek. The proposal was based on a vision to reimagine and re-adopt Panjim/Panaji (St Inez) Creek as an ecologically sensitive and inclusive urban common. To enable and demonstrate possible interventions given the high diversity in its edge conditions, the team proposed pilots at the various interfaces of the creek that can, in the process recognise the nuances associated with each interface.

The expert panellists put across their thoughts on the three proposals. Mr. D’Cruz and Mr. Alvares highlighted the need to recoganise an ecological base in the three narratives to better understand the dynamic of deterioration of natural systems. Mr. D’cruz also emphasised the need to take into cognition the implication of interventions in ecologically sensitive areas especially with Nerul river edge and its mangroves. Mr. Mukhopadhyay added that the future pressures from changing land use upstream of Panjim Creek will also have to be anticipated.

Prof. Riberio emphasised the need to bring convergence of various state and non-state agents of change along with the various regulatory arrangement in place to work together.

The members of the audience highlighted many relevant aspects especially the need to engage with the communities in furthering the proposals, where politicians and elected representatives have critical role in accelerating change. Along with the stake of different stakeholders the accountability and responsibility of each was also important. “Lab to land”, was a unanimous agreement reached upon by the audience and on that note Ms. Amskov concluded the Lab with a vote of thanks.

DAY 4

The fourth day of the workshop began with Mr. Rao and Dr. Mohan, briefing the participants about the day’s program. The participants had to work on the final narrative for each of the representative sites and prepare the presentations for the public meeting scheduled at 6.30 pm. The curators and experts also gave inputs in the process.