Sunday, December 23, 2007

Creation of PCEF

Discussion on proposed Pune Citizens' Environment Forum, 27th June 2007

Minutes of key issues and decisions

The main purpose of the Pune Citizens' Environment Forum is to advance progress toward sustainable development of Pune, by focusing discussions and action on key environmental issues, and providing a regular forum for interface, exchange of information, planning, and redressal between citizens and the administration.
The role of the PCEF is that of working together and not in an adversarial manner. The need for activism arises when the administration is not responsive or amenable. In Pune, there are tremendous intellectual inputs available from citizens groups and NGOs. However, there are a range of impediments in conversion of these inputs into on-ground implementation, such as capacity gaps, immaturity of democratic processes, etc. The role of CSOs has evolved, and in many parts of India, the government and citizens groups and development professionals are working together to achieve results. Mr Pardeshi stressed the point that the PMC administration looks forward to a solution-oriented mode of work.
The Citizens' Environment Forum (CEF) will address the following themes initially:
a. Water (including rivers and streams)
b. Biodiversity (including green spaces)
c. School education (focusing on environmental education and action)
d. Public education (focusing on the PMC’s role in public education)
e. Environmental aspects of Development Control Rules (waste, water, energy etc)
f. Promotion of Eco-housing
g. Promotion of decentralized waste management and other aspects that require outreach/ public discussion
h. Promotion of non-motorized transport modes (including cycling and footpaths) and other aspects that require outreach/ public discussion
i. Sustainability indicators
Since several of these are linked to each other, a joint consideration of certain aspects will be required. Sustainability indicators need to be identified for each theme.
The Forum will meet once in two months for the first few months, starting June/ July 2007.
The Municipal Commissioner will chair the PCEF and its meetings. The Forum will have Theme Groups and a Secretariat. A table of participation in each Theme is attached.
The mode of operation of the CEF for each theme is envisaged as:
a. Initial meetings with PMC officials, NGOs, researchers, relevant stakeholder representatives on the theme concerned to arrive at the points that are meant for public discussions (policy gaps, data gaps, improvements needed in implementation, roles/ responsibilities of the admin and citizens, etc)
b. Preparation of a base presentation / paper using material from the above meetings, CDP, ESR etc
c. Stakeholder/ Public meeting (with adequate publicity etc) to discuss actionables (with indicators for assessment/evaluation) for PMC and citizens/CSOs etc
d. Consolidation of ideas from public meeting, preparation of strategy papers to be uploaded on PMC website and disseminated through PMC newsletter and other media (press notes, articles, CSO newsletters and websites)
e. Submission of relevant recommendations to the Development Plan Steering Committee/ Planning Committee
The Secretariat of the Forum will be Yashwant Khaire, Sanskriti Menon, Ranjit Gadgil and Shamita Kumar (the latter three in their individual capacity, to clarify that the Secretariat is not linked to any particular CSO). Its key functions will be to
prepare for the meetings, take notes and send out minutes
seek inputs from stakeholders and from relevant officials and CSOs, and
facilitate the initial meetings of the Theme Groups
send minutes of theme groups for uploading onto the PMC website and ourpune.com
The Forum will be linked to, and integrate its outputs with, ongoing formal mandatory processes such as the Development Plan 2007 and the annual Environmental Status Report. Towards this, a. A representative of the CEF will be part of the DP 2007 Steering Committee (Sujit and Ranjit are part of the Steering Committee)
b. Required data from the PMC depts will be made available to the CEF for analysis to feed into the ESR as an ongoing process
c. One agenda item in the meetings of the CEF will be a review of the actions arising out of the ESR of July 2007
d. The Forum could become the platform for the preparation of the ESR, and groups within the Forum should "have ownership" over the ESR process.
Suggestions for specific themes included:
a. Eco-housing training modules can be considered as content for public education
b. Eco-housing group should consider the application of recommended technology to SRA construction
c. Innovative communication methods such as the BNCA initiative at public gardens can be used for public education
d. NIASA may be requested to join the Forum as regular Quality Improvement Programmes are arranged for architects and builders
e. Health issues are to be considered as a cross cut and may be included as indicators of sustainability
f. Ground water needs to be included in the theme on water
Expected outputs
a. Enhanced understanding and awareness about key environmental issues of Pune city
b. Inputs into DP, ESR and annual budgeting and planning processes on key environmental issues
c. Identification of aspects in each theme that need specific actions in terms of additional research, data collection, communication/ outreach, policy advocacy at various levels, etc that can be pursued by citizens groups, research and academic institutions and the PMC
d. Enhanced linkages between administration and citizens/ citizens groups
e. Regular public monitoring of action taken.
The draft Environmental Status Report was presented by the Mr Yashwant Khaire and Dr Ajay Ojha, PMC Environment Cell. Suggestions for the ESR process included:
a. Analysis of trends over the last 10 years
b. Highlight environmental aspects of municipal services, amenities, facilities
c. Access data from non-PMC sources as well (the example of groundwater was highlighted)
d. Disaggregate data and its presentation at the electoral ward level to the extent possible now (waste, diseases, water etc)
e. Put in place data collection methods for the future that enable dis-aggregation of data and its presentation and analysis
f. The CEF themes need to link up with the ESR chapters/ sections
Theme Groups
Secretariat: Yashwant Khaire, Sanskriti Menon, Ranjit Gadgil, Shamita Kumar
Water (including river): Zigisha, Himanshu, Vijay Paranjape, Ramchandra Kowlgi
Biodiversity (including green spaces): Mr Savarkar, Doc, Anchal, Raghu, Saili S Palande, Green Hills, Yashwant Khaire, Ashish Kothari, Laxmikant Deshpande, Veena Dharmaraj, Ruby Ardeshir
Sustainability indicators: Dr Sanap, Ranjit Gadgil, Sanskriti, Laxmi Narayan, Laxmikant Deshpande, Shantanu Roy, Girish Sant
School: Doc Bharucha, Dhanamanjiri Sathe
Public education: Sanskriti, Veena, Anand Agashe, Amarnath Karan, Saroj Badgujar, Poorva Keskar, Anagha Paranjape, Pratima Kirloskar
Promotion of Ecohousing: Veena Dharmaraj, Anagha Paranjape, Aneeta Benninger, Mr Kanvinde (NIASA), Anchal, PBAP, Pratima, Dinesh Girolla, Anchal Sondhi, Poorva Keskar
Environmental aspects of Development Control Rules: Mr Keskar, Aneeta Benninger, Pratima, Anagha, Zigisha Mhaskar, Dinesh Girolla, Sujit Patwardhan, S.V.Ghaisas, Poorva Keskar, Shantanu Roy
Aspects of waste management: Dr VS Ghole, Aapla Parisar, Laxmi Narayan, Poornima Chikarmane, Sudhir V. Gawali, Suhas Khadilkar, Girish Sant
Traffic, cycling and footpaths: Ranjit Gadgil, Sujit Patwardhan

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