PEDESTRIAN-FRIENDLY CITY
FOOTPATHS:
Senior and super-senior
citizens need them
most
By
Professor B.
R. Sant
Chairman, Management and
Resource Development Foundation (MRDF), Hyderabad [E-mail:
brsant@rediffmail.com]
I.
Do we have proper footpaths for pedestrians to
walk?
“Whether you
live in a city or a small town, and whether you drive a car, take the bus, or ride a train, at some point of the day,
everyone is a pedestrian”. This is
universal. But there is something more
to it According to law, a pedestrian must walk only on footpaths
(also called sidewalks, pavements)
not on roads.
The senior citizens, the infirm, the women, are the real sufferers
of encroached roads. Countries like Brazil, Copenhagen, and many others pay special attention to make sidewalks
vibrant and attractive such that the city dwellers and “tourists” feel, while walking, more at home, more safe, and
more secure.
Just look around our
cities’ footpaths. You will find fruit-vendors, cooking-stations,
shop-keepers inching in every direction,
even the house-owners in residential localities with sloping ramps and decorative gardens in front of their
houses. But, no one seems to be complaining!
Why? At least the civic
activists among the pedestrians Associations
of senior citizens at city, state, and
national levels must protest and
demand pedestrian-friendly footpaths.
There has to be a “movement” with a
slogan: “We want to walk safely, we are pedestrians,
we need help, give us encroachment-free-footpaths (EFF), that is our right”. In the present article, the author has
attempted to analyse the complex issue
of restoring city footpaths and providing EFF for pedestrians.
II.
Roads
and pavements are “twins”
Genetically
and technically, roads and pavements
are “twins” coming up simultaneously from the same source with
only one difference viz. that
roads are later hard-surfaced for vehicular traffic , while sidewalks are left
mostly to their own tragic fate of neglect. Flanked on 2 sides of a road, footpaths are twice the length of
roads. Whereas roads get a
“royal” treatment, sidewalks are virtual “orphans” . As
though all this is not
enough, footpaths are mercilessly
abused, misused, obstacled, and encroached.
EFF is
not just a “need”, it is at the heart of
beautiful, cultured, and civilized cities anywhere in the world. All
parameters of urban development
and growth revolve around EFF. More
importantly, EFF, along with good roads, have a built-in safety against
accidents and natural disasters. EFF is
a key to successful tourism.
III. Who are footpath encroachers?
In law,
encroachment is a crime. Still, many people, rich and poor, have a tendency to grab and occupy others’ properties.
It is their greed and selfishness that makes them “encroachers.” There are 3 main categories (types) of
encroachers.
Category-1: Street vendors/hawkers/make-shift
shop-keepers. They constitute
tea-stalls, eateries, products selling like garments, vegetables,
fruits. They are virtual
daily-wage-earners with meagre incomes.
They are the “most-visible” type.
Category-2: Shop-keepers, small, medium, and some
large. Their encroachment style is
extending in small measures their premises
in all directions. They are
generally doing-well businesses. They
are the “partially visible” type.
Category-3: House and building-owners. They
boldly ‘invade’ into footpath-spaces infront of their
houses/buildings by constructing decorative gardens, sloping ramps and steps,
tree plantation, mini-parking areas.
They are generally rich, affluent, and influential people of the
society. They are the “virtually invisible type”.
IV. Why
encroachers continue?
Over decades, the malady of pavement
encroachments has surpassed all limits and is now a “chronic disease” in all
city footpaths. It was not curbed in the
beginning and later “allowed-to-happen”
by city civic authorities. The
temptation to appropriate freely available property with no checks, no
supervision, no punishment is perhaps the core reason for continuing
encroachments. Ethics and integrity have
not percolated enough in our ethos. It is not known ehether the mamool-culture
prevails in the footpath world. However,
it is popularly known that any attempt to “clear” footpaths or even to “identify”
encroachers is fret with serious socio-political consequences. Lately, genuine activists, senior citizens,
and alert media are raising their voice demanding restoring footpaths mission
(RFM)/EFF.
However, that is not enough.
Pedestrians especially senior
citizens, must “shake-up” the corridors
of power starting from corporators, to MLAs, to MPs, to Ministers, to PMO, and
claim their (pedestrians) right-to-EFF.
V.
Observations by courts
In December 2013, while dealing with a PIL on illegal occupation of
pavements, leaving no place for pedestrians to walk, the Andhra Pradesh High
Court ordered that action be initiated
under the provision of Land Grabbing Act/criminal law against those encroaching
upon city footpaths in Hyderabad. Nothing much happened thereafter. While disposing off an NGO’s PIL in August
2016, the then Supreme Court Chief Justice Mr. T. S. Thakur observed: “We know footpaths are encroached. There are so many more human problems. But our [judiciary’s] capacity to solve
problems are limited. If we give a
direction to clear footpaths of encroachments all over India, will it happen?
Hamare kehene par kya
Ram Rajya aa
jayega [can we bring in ideal government]?”
The present author in his individual capacity made an appeal to National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to cover
all the Indian cities for RFM/EFF. They
have now asked the Telangana SHRC to examine the issue. The SHRC has sought a
report from District Collector,
Hyderabad, and Commissioner, GHMC,
Hyderabad.
V.
The New
Strategy for RFM/EFF
Whenever footpaths encroachment issue is raised officially or unofficially, strangely enough, it is the category-1 that is almost always talked about,
discussed, and targeted for action (evict and convict). Our mindset has made hawkers and vendors
synonymous with encroachment. The
resultant de-encroachment drives then become socio-politically sensitive. No sooner the city police and city civic
officials commence their work, the local leaders virtually threaten and stop
all activity. Next day, everything is
generally quiet and business is as usual.
As of now, we have failed to restrain encroachers and to contain footpath-encroachments. The menace continues and is hampering
development of beautiful and smart cities, nation-wide. The real victims are the voiceless pedestrians.
The science of management
says that when confronted with repeated failures, look for a
“new strategy” . The proposed New Strategy for restoring city
foothpaths to make them
encroachment-free is briefly described here:
Homework: Every city civic body has to meticulously
perform their homework in the form of authentic record of footpaths already
laid and needed, identify/quantify to an extent possible the footpaths
encroached category-wise, and any other useful information/data that will help
de-encroachment campaigns.
Awareness creation and
media coverage: Today, public and even many officials are not fully
aware of the importance of creating EFF,
partly because they do not know precisely what constitutes encroachment, who
are the encroachers, what are the laws
that regulate “vehicular traffic” on roads and
“pedestrian traffic” on
pavements. Everyone talks of road
safety. “Safety” is not just on roads but equally on pavements. As explained at # II, roads and pavements are “twins”. A time has come to replace
the age-old expression ‘road safety’
by “road-pavement-safety”, or
“road-sidewalk-safety”, or “road-footpath-safety”. The twins must be treated equally for safe
traffic movement.
Massive awareness has to be created among different class of people in
the official ranks and in the society. Those studying civics, public adminstration,
civil engineering, social sciences, and urban development must be taught
nuances of pedestrian traffic
vis-à-vis EFF. The issues
involved in awareness programmes are literally life-and-death problems that too for a large number of poor and hapless ‘walkers’.
Our
elected representatives and law-makers
too have to be updated. City civic bodies, city police, resident welfare
groups, and senior citizens councils have to extensively organise seminars, get-togethers, and symposia. The personnel of the implementing
organizations have to be given
specialized training not only in
de-encroachment techniques, but also in management aspects, communication skills, and public
relations.
Media, both electronic and print, can play a very significant role in creating and spreading awareness. Currently,
media is pedestrian-friendly and
most of the news-paper dailies highlight
with photographs the plight of pedestrians
vis-à-vis problems associate with
damaged footpaths, no footpaths, encroached footpaths in the context of the dire need of RFM/EFF.
Field-level de-encroachment operations: The
core of RFM/EFF is to apply the New Strategy to deal with all the 3
categories of encroachments. Such
operations have to be necessarily carried out by city’s civic administration
with the active help of city police. RFM cannot happen by merely issuing a G.O. The activity is more like an “aggressive
marketing” of a product where the
“seller” must know the psychology of
the “buyer, the encroacher”. The guilty will always try to find legal
loopholes and defend their actions.
Political pressures have to be
resisted. Top management must feel convinced, well tuned, and be fully
supportive of RFM/EFF.
Public’s EFF-literacy is not enough . The custodians of
footpaths can succeed only if they have
done their homework meticulously, are ready with their plans, and the field-staff adequately trained. In practice, prioritization may be
necessary This has been done by the
study of the extent of “harm” [minimum,
medium, maximum] each category of
encroacher has caused in the following terms:
Hardship to
pedestrians: Is it for brief
periods, or longer durations, or almost
permanent?
Occupation of footpath
space: Is it transient, or
temporary, or permanent?
Loss to exchequer: In terms of notional (land) value of the
occupied footpath space
The above study has
clearly indicated the overall extent of
harm done by each category of encroachers:
Category-1
--------------------------
Minimum
Category-2
--------------------------
Medium
Category-3 -------------------------- Maximum
VI.
Will the New Strategy create
Pedestrian-friendly Footpaths?
All the city
corporations/municipalties now have a clear idea of the New Strategy to plan
and execute de-encroachment of their city footpaths. In
terms of priority, First is Category-3, Second
is Category-2, and Last is Category-1. This does not prevent any corporation wanting
to tackle all the 3 (or any more) categories simultaneously. Change is always resisted. Any new strategy will not get easily
accepted mainly due to traditions, fixed
mindset, and apparently visible benefits.
The principal advantages of the New Strategy are: (i)
well within the scope of present administrative rules and regulations,
(ii) little or no additional funding,
and (iii) psychological. Uniformity and transparency are the 2 pillars
of good governance. Year after year, for
decades, category-1 encroachers have been virtually the sole target of
de-encroachment drives and campaigns by civic and police authorities. The New Strategy envisages
dealing logically with
categories 3, 2, and 1 in that
order. Once the word goes around that ‘offenders are offenders’, whosoever
they are, all the encroachers irrespective of the category,
will be at peace and make successive operations more easy, smoother, and more
acceptable.
The task of
de-encroachment of footpaths is gigantic and highly challenging, but not
impossible with new management skills, supportive media, and public
cooperation. The New Strategy is a fillip to civic and police administration to
make pavements more accessible and
friendly to pedestrians, especially the elderly, the disabled, and the children. RFM/EFF can be taken up initially as pilot projects
in a few select cities. RFM/EFF is
complimentary to Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and the 2 together can make Indian cities in NEW INDIA more cultured, smarter, beautiful, and liveable.
********
NOTE from the blogger: Above is a paper on the topic sent by Prof BR Sant, placed here in my blog for wider publicity. All ideas and authorship belongs to him. Questions / clarifications / comments etc may be placed here or sent to the author at the email address given above. --Vyasamoorthy
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