Art from Archive - I

A decade old or so..

In that very creative moment availability of tools at ones disposal seems immaterial, it was made by oil paints applied on paper like water color that time, probably water was also used instead of oil just to somehow spread the colors on paper, or may be a bit of fabric color as well. One could have created something like this even with charcoal, or eyeliner or toothpaste, or shaving cream, or tomato catch-up or may be with some combinations of them. Its that very urge to create something that one feels is art, getting caught up in arranging the perfect colors or brushes or tool or a perfect setting in merely postponing the creation of Art. 

  

Historic City of Varanasi and tourism heat map along the edge of river Ganges.

Image Source: Google Earth & Sightsmap

Disposal on the go - For a cleaner city you deserve.

Disposal at the source of generation- Case of Travel generated waste!!

Environmentally responsible
waste management 

Some of us occasionally of habitually buy and carry a plastic pack of chips, a paper wrapped snack, a can of coke, a bottle of juice, a paper mug of coffee, fruits and so on in our car or other vehicles while traveling in city, and disposing those paper, plastic, metal or organic residues in a responsible ways becomes an issue. Depending on the Education level, economic exposure, existence of local transport and environment laws, pro activeness of implementation measures, people’s behavior vary in a cityscape across the region, across the cities of world. Even within a particular city people show different level of responsible behavior depending on economic profile of zone, surveillance and enforcement level.

In many cities of developing countries people tend to pollute the city roads and transit routes by dumping such food waste and byproducts from their vehicle irrespective of occupants education and economic level even in presence of such laws to prevent them, due to lack of willingness to keep their cities clean or lack of enforcement measures or absence of sensible waste disposal infrastructure. Garbage bins if provided are either so scarce in numbers, so inaccessibly located, are in utter unhygienic conditions, surrounded by mounds of open dumped waste, either overflowing of underutilized, that people even if they make up their mind to act in environmentally responsible ways they immediately lose their interest to do so.

In this particular kind of waste generation scenario which emerges on the go should have a “disposal mechanism on the go” itself. Garbage generated within vehicle should be disposed off from vehicle only at pre-identified locations, why to carry it everywhere you go, why to keep garbage in your car just because you couldn’t get the time for weeks to dispose it off on foot to some disposal bin located somewhere. Why not to stop them throwing garbage on road by providing them hygienic garbage bins approachable from within the car along the transit routes, at places where traffic is bound to be slow, somewhere near toll plaza ticket counter, somewhere near the parking entrance, in some of dedicated service lanes of the city etc. 

Municipal Finance in India : Municipal Tax Revenue sources

Municipal Revenue generation through Taxation in India

“Local Self Government becomes meaningless in the absence of financial autonomy. It enjoys the power of imposition of local taxes. The municipal bodies must have a wider scope of collection of revenues”

(Source: UIDSSMT)


ULBs have invented many channels and instruments of revenue generation in course of time due to urgency of handling growth, some of the tax sources both conventional and non-conventional, are mentioned below.

TAXES/FEES

CONVENTIONAL MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

Composite Property Tax

Water Charges

Sewerage Charges

Conservancy Charges

Building Permit Fee

Development Charges

Trade Licensing Fee

Advertisement Tax

Shop Room Rent

OTHER GENERAL MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

House Tax 

Show Tax  

Building Plan Fee

Tax on the consumption of Electricity    

Sale of liquor     

Cess on the transfer of immovable property   

License for Dangerous and Offensive trades

Rates are varied in respective ULBs

Rehari License Fee

Tehbazari Tax

Slaughter House Fee

Cattle Pound Fees

Birth & Death Certificate Fee

Copying Fee

Tree Cutting Fee

Library Membership

Ground Tax

Vehicle License Fee

Death & Birth Reg./ Late Fee

Forest /Garden Income

Dog License Fee 

Animal Tax (Cattle Pound)

Trade License Fee

Tax on advertisement other than advertisement published in the newspaper.

NON-CONVENTIONAL MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

Vacant Land Tax

Service Taxes

Surcharge on Land Registration Duty

Water Supply Donations

Water Supply Connection Charges

Water Benefit Tax

Water Betterment Charges

Sewerage Donations

Sewerage Connection Charges

Sewerage Benefit Tax

Sewerage Betterment Charges

Bulk Garbage Collection Charges

Betterment Charges

External Betterment Charges

Open Space Contribution

Impact fee

Transferable Development Right

Premium FSI

Sub-division charges

Planning Permission Betterment

Road Cutting Charges

Street Tax

Frontage Tax

Cess on Infrastructure

Motor Vehicle Tax/Surcharge

Tax on Petrol and Diesel

Business License Fee

Hoarding Charges,

Advertisement Placement Fees,

Cable TV Fee,

TV Advertisement Charges

Royalty on Auctions

INNOVATIVE /UNIQUE MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

General Obligation Bond/ Municipal Bond

Awarding of development rights,

Town planning schemes (TPS)

Plot/layout readjustment

Additional FSI/FAR

Goodwill auctions

Bank linkages (for Urban Poor)

Capital-based property tax system

Land banking

Transferable development rights (TDR)

Special Education tax

Pilgrim

Octroi

Special and General Sanitation

Shows

Toll on Vehicles,

Timber

Terminal

Menial Domestic Servants

Artisans

Entertainment Tax

SOME OF THE UNIQUE REVENUE STREAMS (THROUGH FEES/ CHARGES) OF MUNICIPALITIES ACROSS MAJOR STATES IN INDIA

Registration Fee

Mutation Fee

Market Fee 

Trade License Fee

Compounding Fee

Slaughter House Fee

License Fee

Betterment / Development Fee

Fire Brigade

Public Health

Swimming Bath Fee,

Stock Registration

Cattle Pound Fee

Teh Bazari Fee

Pilgrim

Scavenging

Prevention of Food Adulteration Fee

Dangerous and Offensive Trade License Fee

Animal Registration Fee

Compounding Fee

Warrant Fee

Bus Stand Fee

Copying Fee

Cart Stand Fee,

Encroachment Fee

Fees from burning ghats

Birth and Death Registration Fee

Sources:

cgg.gov.in/  (http://bit.ly/Jb35C5),

UIDSSMT / http://bit.ly/IkNKk0,

RBI / http://bit.ly/J8i70d

Walkability demands flexibility : new approach to neighborhood planning

By - Anoop Jha

Number of available choices defines quality of urban environment and experience

Walking and jogging  trail

Image shows actual walking trail around a lagoon in some part of Santa Barbara, with different route options for people to choose from, one shorter complete loop around waterbody and other longer route which also includes dotted segment. Close view  of lagoon is an incentive to walk extra length of dotted route otherwise people can take shorter route if they are in hurry or tiered. There has be different available exit choices for people, to make any pedestrian or walkable plan successful whether its planning of park or commercial complex or mega exhibition pavilion.

[Handpicked Books]

Pedestrian Desireline - Significance in, Landscape Architecture, Transport and Urban Planning

By - Anoop Jha

Desired natural and organic Pedestrian Movement Vs Planned synthetic and rigid Transit Network

Pedestrians are a very important element and regular attribute of transit-scape and landscape of any city, they often assume secondary position when it comes to transit plan of the city. transport models revolves around the vehicular dominance, transportation plans are prepared for smooth flow of vehicular traffic and after that pedestrian facilities are integrated rater retrofitted into the vehicular movement plan, through pedestrian underpass and over-bridges, with discontinuous patches of footpaths which is not suitable and safe for even healthy and active city dwellers, not to speak of physically challenged, differently abled and old aged population. Pedestrian circulation and their movement desire-line should be mapped and considered at the beginning and throughout of transport planning process. 


When it comes to landscape planning or outdoor public spaces, again pedestrian desire-lines are often ignored, result can be observed  everywhere  across city- broken fences, walls and barriers to avoid longer route and vehicular traffic, impression of casual pathways made by regular shortcut movement of pedestrian on the otherwise planned green fields and formal landscaped areas. All this because of ignorance to pedestrian desire-line and lack of comprehensive walkability plan for the city, neighborhood, and public spaces which should be otherwise vital and compulsory part of Transport, landscape and Urban Planning process. 

Transportation Viscosity - Resistance in Collective Travel

By - Anoop Jha

Understanding Qualitative aspect of Transportation

Transport Viscosity and bottleneck 

Transportation viscosity or transit viscosity is a resistance faced by commuters while travelling collectively in any given urban or regional setting; it can be sophisticated qualitative criteria to understand and judge the congestion level of any city and can help improve the life of city. Transit viscosity is made of many tangible and intangible elements like, No. of Vehicle per unit length of Road, Surface Material, Condition & Texture of Road, Street Edge, Manmade or Natural Obstructions on Road, Ongoing Development work in Process in the corridor, Ongoing O & M of Road of other infrastructure concealed within the road or corridor, Transport Signage simplicity, visibility and condition and location, Driving Behavior of individuals, pedestrian behavior etc. Most of the characteristics stated above are related to socio-economic condition of city, efficiency of administration and education level of community. Role of planners here is to understand the nature and reason of these frictional elements of transportation which causes transit viscosity and to plan accordingly to reduce the friction.    

Pedestrian Vehicular conflict : why can’t we seem to find a solution?

By - Anoop Kumar Jha

Missing Human Behavioral Analysis aspect in Transport Simulation Model

No matter how functional and mathematically sound a transportation plan and related infrastructure design for any city or stretch appear before implementation, there is always a conflict between vehicular and pedestrian circulation which appears only once the transport plan is in place and functional, it’s the story of every city and every stretch. Blogs and forums are filled with discussions and captured photographs of such pedestrian vehicular conflicts.

It’s a conflict between pedestrians desire to take easiest and shortest route and transport planners age old scientific approach planning with modern simulation tools. Its conflict between “human desire” and “scientific approach”.  

In a country like India, apart from education and enforcement there is one missing crucial aspect which leads to pedestrian vehicular conflict in urban setting, that is understanding of human behavior and learning from past and other projects mistakes. It appears that common man collectively always appear smarter than the panel of planners, designers and implementation and enforcement agencies, because no matter how sound they make any system or transport plan people always find out loopholes in it. People are willing to take the dangerous shortcuts, break the law and even risk their life to reach the destination quickly. There is almost similar pattern and language of such human behavior across the cities and towns of India when it comes to intra city travel, but transport planners do not seem to observe and learn from such cases. Its high time that they should observe, document and incorporate human behavioral analysis in the transport simulation model to arrive at a successful transport plan for a city. 

Transport plan, systems and tools also need to be regionalized or localized, because what works in Bogota  or America or Europe might not work in Delhi or Surat or Jaisalmer  if replicated in-toto.