Srinagar, July 11: Terming Srinagar “urban planning challenge”, Peoples Conference led by Sajad Gani Lone Tuesday sought revamp of planning and policies for prosperous development of the City.
 The party’s Srinagar head, Junaid Azim Mattu said: “Srinagar stands at a precipice of population growth where urban planning laws, regulations and policies need to be redefined to both accommodate the emerging private sector and conserve the historic identity of the City.”
 “Despite being an established tourism destination successive governments have failed to promote Srinagar as an economically and environmentally sustainable modern City that nurtures opportunities for entrepreneurs, local businessmen and skilled artisans to contribute positively to the State’s economy,” Mattu said in a handout.
 “Considering the unprecedented rate of emigration to the City from other parts of the State in the last few decades, sustainable urbanization is one of the most important challenges we face in Jammu & Kashmir. “
 Stating that Srinagar, as are all capital cities to their states, was the hub for much of our economic production and consumption, Junaid Mattu said that it was time to facilitate economic processes in the City to generate wealth and opportunities.
 “A historic city like Srinagar that has a legacy of culture, art and enlightenment shouldn’t be allowed to be consumed by monstrous congestion, corruption, economic persecution, unemployment and poverty,” he said. 
 Due to political incompetence and lack of will, Srinagar is the most neglected part of our haywire and ill-planned growth agenda, the consequences of which have already started to emerge as “we face a paralyzing deficiency and inadequacy of public infrastructure.” 
 Mattu added that it was about time to demand pro-active policies to shore up economic production, revenue, institutional structures of urban planning and management. “Due to a criminal political and planning neglect, our State’s economy is fairly incapable of reaping the productivity, growth and economic dividends of urban living and economic activity rendering Srinagar incapable of economically performing to its true potential,” he added.
 “We urgently need a new city design that eschews urban sprawl and resolves associated challenges of infrastructure, traffic management and systemic additions to our housing capacity,” he added.
 “We need to understand the concept of urban re-development to make up for the damage and destruction caused to the city due to decades of misgovernance and planning shortsightedness.”
  Srinagar needs to grow towards the neighboring towns of Pampore, Pattan and Ganderbal – towns that would provide a great opportunity to become modern, well-planned and equipped satellite towns.
 “The lunatic law that prohibits vertical construction beyond five floors has resulted in residential congestion and unavailability of land for commercial activities in Srinagar, both consequences directly and adversely affecting the State’s and City’s economy.”          
 “Due to both a failure of politics and a shortfall of government financing to develop Srinagar, there was an urgent need to involve the city’s private sector in the Urban Planning process.
 “Despite the fact that hundreds and thousands of dedicated, competent Kashmiris are vying for greater private commercial investment in the city, officials and ministers have utterly failed to acknowledge and respect the positive force of market forces in developing the City.”
 He said: “We need to look at our problems with better insight and understanding. Our traffic problem for instance is not a policing problem but an infrastructural problem that has been compounded by an increasing vehicular density on our roads.”
 Adding that many cities around the world have faced similar challenges in the past, Junaid Mattu stated that “we needed to create a mature urban-planning regime for Srinagar to especially put emphasis on economically and infrastructurally run-down areas of Shaher-e-Khaas.”

Lastupdate on : Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:00:00 IST