{"id":54469,"date":"2018-07-13T21:45:39","date_gmt":"2018-07-14T04:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=54469"},"modified":"2018-07-13T21:45:39","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T04:45:39","slug":"india-must-build-a-new-chicago-every-year-through-2030","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/india-must-build-a-new-chicago-every-year-through-2030\/","title":{"rendered":"India Must Build a New Chicago Every Year Through 2030"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aerial panoramic view of the Chicago skyline at dusk.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

India will have to build a new Chicago every year to meet its massive urban demand as 40 percent of the country\u2019s population is projected to reside in urban areas by 2030, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said, writes Yoshita Singh.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Addressing the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development in United Nations, July 11, the Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs asserted that India\u2019s development goals will be met in an inclusive manner anchored in the human rights.<\/p>\n

Puri, who served as the Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013, said nearly 600 million Indians will reside in urban areas by 2030, the target year for achieving UN\u2019s ambitious development agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo lay further emphasis on India\u2019s urban prospects – from now till 2030, India has to build 700 to 900 million square meters of urban space every year. In other words, India will have to build a new Chicago every year from now till 2030 to meet its urban demand,\u201d Puri told the UN forum attended by diplomats, top UN officials, civil society member, urban planners and national stakeholders.<\/p>\n

Chicago is the third most populous city in the U.S. after New York and Los Angeles with over 2.7 million residents and has an area of 606.4 square kilometers.<\/p>\n

He stressed that India still had to build 70 percent of the new urban infrastructure required by 2030 and this has to be green and resilient.<\/p>\n

Puri linked the success of the 2030 Development Agenda to India\u2019s national success in achieving the Sustainable Development goals, saying that \u201cif India succeeds, the 2030 Agenda will succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Millennium Development Goals succeeded because China was able to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and I say with equal conviction,\u201d that India is well on its way to achieve its 2030 Agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndia\u2019s national development goals…policy initiatives for inclusive development converge well with the SDGs, and India will play a leading role in determining the success of the SDGs, globally,\u201d Puri said.<\/p>\n

He asserted that India will achieve its development goals, including the SDG Goal 11 of sustainable cities and communities, in an inclusive manner anchored in human rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will resettle people in slums on an as-is-where-is basis, that is they will be resettled where they are living,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At present, over 30 percent of India\u2019s population, on a base of 1.2 billion, lives in urban centers, as compared to 17 percent of the population living in urban areas at the time of India\u2019s independence in 1947.<\/p>\n

Addressing the session on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, Puri said flagship programs implemented by the Indian government were moving in a direction to ensure that India succeeds in the 2030 Agenda.<\/p>\n

Puri, who is also President of the Governing Council of UN-Habitat, told the forum that India was implementing some of the world\u2019s largest and most ambitious national schemes for social inclusion, economic growth, and environmental sustainability, through silo-breaking approaches.<\/p>\n

He, however, highlighted that urban areas in India faced multi-pronged challenges and a complex ecosystem in ensuring housing for all, technology-based solutions to enhance service delivery, better mobility and greener transport, smart governance and in doing more with less.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy promoting cooperative federalism, ensuring integrated planning through convergence, and focusing on an outcome-based approach compared to a project-based approach, we have embarked upon the most ambitious and comprehensive program of planned urbanization ever undertaken in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

More than 90 percent of the global urban growth is occurring in the developing world and India, China and Nigeria will together account for 35 percent of the growth in the world\u2019s urban population between 2018 and 2050.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would not be an overstatement to say that India\u2019s urban agenda will constitute one of the defining projects of the 21st<\/sup>century,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Outlining the various ambitious programs launched by India, Puri said the country\u2019s international commitments are mirrored in the national development goals.<\/p>\n

Puri said the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or the Prime Minister\u2019s scheme on Affordable Housing for All is the world\u2019s largest housing program for the poor under which the government aims to build 11 million affordable homes for urban Indians by the year 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have already sanctioned over 5 million and are confident of meeting the targets by middle of 2019. Giving a fillip to gender empowerment, the title of each home under the Mission is under the lady of the house, or co-jointly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

India is in the process of creating 100 Smart Cities to strengthen urban infrastructure by applying smart solutions, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith India striving to meet its national socio-economic development targets, achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 169 targets linked to them will be a major success story of the millennium affecting more than a billion persons all at once,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Established in 2012, the HLPF meets annually under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).<\/p>\n

It is the main United Nations platform on sustainable development and has a central role in the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs at the global level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aerial panoramic view of the Chicago skyline at dusk. India will have to build a new Chicago every year to meet its massive urban demand as 40 percent of the country\u2019s population is projected to reside in urban areas by 2030, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has said, writes Yoshita Singh. Addressing the High Level…<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":54432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,72,19],"tags":[1420,1749,5286,6554,50,147,2287,6553,3442,6555],"class_list":["post-54469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-politics-current-affairs","category-topics","tag-development","tag-un","tag-chicago","tag-hardeep-singh-puri","tag-india","tag-siliconeer","tag-united-nations","tag-urban","tag-usa","tag-yoshita-singh"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}