Experts in the field of Town and Country Planning have stressed that development planning should remain rooted in the country’s social, cultural and economic milieu and cannot be borrowed from the prevailing models of the west.
At a three-day international conference on Town and Country Planning Education which got underway at the University of Mysore on Friday, Prof. Anthony G.O.YEH, former Director, Centre of Urban Planning, Hong Kong University, said planning should be more local and at a micro-level and the western model could not be replicated. He said there were different levels of development in Asia and hence the process had to be rooted in the local milieu.
Prof. P. Padmavathi, Vice Chancellor, Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad, spoke on the emerging challenges in the field of planning and said there were good models of development as in Malaysia where the environmental imperatives have not been sacrificed at the altar of development. She also touched upon the smart-city concept being rolled out by the Union Government and said planners should keep pace with the policies of the Government.
With participants drawn from professional bodies from India and abroad, the conference will delve on the need to integrate planning with education in the context of the ongoing transformation of cities and regions of India and the world.
The technical sessions will deliberate on Planning Education and Ethics, Integrating Planning Knowledge, Planning Pedagogy and Shortage of Professionals, Interface between Planning Education and Practice.
Representatives from Schools of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, Bhopal and Vijayawada, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee, delegates from different cities of India apart from experts from France, United Kingdon, The Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Hong Kong are participating in the conference.
