Three Indian Cities Awarded for Environmental Performance

ICLEI South Asia (SA) through GTZ ASEM awarded three cities for their performance on environmental and sustainability issues under the Urban Environmental Accords on 13th March in Coimbatore at the International Workshop on Improved Urban Environment.

The Urban Environment Accords were proposed on the World Environment Day 2005 in San Francisco and signed by over 100 cities across the world. 16 cities in India also signed the accords for improving the urban environment. In 2008, ICLEI-South Asia through ASEM, India – GTZ (the German Technical Development Assistance) had undertaken the first ever review of the status of UEA implementation covering all 16 Indian cities. The accords look at implementing reforms/projects to achieve improvements at the city level in seven areas including energy, waste reduction, urban design, urban nature, transportation, environmental health and water. Through a detailed questionnaire survey and site visits, ICLEI SA analysed 29 actions under the UEA. The cities of Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bhopal, Gwalior, Bhilai and Kota have performed well in the analysis.

At the workshop, the final results of the assessment were presented by ICLEI SA. Dr. Regina Dube from GTZ ASEM also presented on the opportunities of implementing urban projects by Municipal Corporations. The Municipal Corporation of Ahmedabad received the first prize, Hyderabad the second and Bhopal the third as the top performing cities according to the review conducted last year. It was also suggested that this review be made an annual affair and all cities were encouraged to participate in this process.

In this context, ICLEI SA has also launched an initiative to document good practices in different cities along with the National Institute of Urban Affairs. All cities are invited to send in their good practices to iclei-southasia@iclei.org. A format for this is available in the website. For more information please contact Ashish Rao Ghorpade at ashish.rao-ghorpade@iclei.org