MoHUA announces winning cities for Streets for People Challenge and Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) organised an online event wherein it announced eleven winning cities for the Streets for People Challenge, and ten winning cities for the pilot stage of the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge. These cities will now enter the scale up stage of the challenge wherein the projects undertaken in the pilot stage will now be scaled up in a sustainable manner. At the event, the Ministry also launched Season-2 of India Cycles4Change and Streets for People Challenges and a book titled 'Nurturing Neighburhoods Challenge: Stories from the Field".

The event was chaired by Shri Manoj Joshi, Secretary, MoHUA. The participants included global and Indian officials from partner organisations who had conducted the challenge, representatives from winning cities, officials from Central and State Governments, including CEOs of 100 Smart Cities.

Announcement of winning cities under Streets4People Challenge Pilot PhaseSince 2020, the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) has been anchoring inter-city challenges to make public spaces more people-friendly. This is in line with the 2006 National Urban Transport Policy, which called for a paradigm shift from car-centric roads to people-centric streets. Over the past 18 months, these challenges vis. Cycles4Change and Streets for People, have transformed into a nationwide movement beyond the 100 Smart Cities.

Under the 'Streets for people Challenge', 38 cites piloted re-imaginations of an important street each by prioritizing them for pedestrians. 11 cities have been selected by a jury panel for the next phase of scale up and will be awarded Rs. fifty lakhs each by MoHUA. Four cities were given a special mention by the jury for their efforts during the challenge. The list of winning cities is at Annexure 1. The challenge was conducted with technical support from the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP India). For more information on the Streets for People Challenge, please visit https://smartnet.niua.org/indiastreetchallenge/

A second season was also launched for India Cycles4Change and Streets4People challenges. Any city that is not already in the top 11 winners, any smart city, capital of state/UT, or city with over 5 lakhs population can apply.

Under the pilot stage, i.e. stage 1 of the India Cycles4Change & Streets4People Challenges:Cities transformed 400+ kms of corridors through temporary solutions to make streets cycling friendly

Received feedback from 60,000+ citizens through surveys

Got 600+ Civil Society Organisations to support their cities

had over 1800 design professionals, students and other organisations coming together to develop and test creative solutions to reclaim streets for people

In the scale up stage, i.e. Stage-2, cities will:

work towards adopting a progressive Healthy Streets & Parking Policy, creating area level parking plans and start on-street parking management

Inspired from the Active Mobility Act to safeguard the rights of pedestrians and cyclists, Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), Government of Karnataka has initiated the conversation in Karnataka, which will support the cities and states to work towards adopting such a progressive act.

Cities will work towards making their interventions permanent and to scale it up across the city

Cites will work to bring institutional resilience through setting up a Healthy Streets Department.

Announcement of winning cities under Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge

MoHUA announced ten winning cities for the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge, in collaboration with the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF) and technical partner World Resources Institute (WRI) India. The Challenge is a 3-year phased initiative aimed at shaping early childhood-friendly neighbourhoods in Indian cities. The list of winning cities is at Annexure 2. Finalists were selected following comprehensive evaluation by a jury of representatives from MoHUA, BvLF, and independent experts in the fields of urban design, early childhood development, and behavioural change.

Following the challenge kick-off in November 2020, over 60 city agencies nationwide responded to an open call for proposals to implement neighbourhood-level pilot projects to enhance the physical and psychological health of infants, toddlers, and their caregivers. Shortlisted by an expert committee in February 2021 based on the strength of their proposals, 25 cities received technical assistance and capacity building over the next 7 months to demonstrate early wins, solicit citizen participation, and build consensus around their projects. In addition to the finalist cities named above, the cohort included Agartala, Coimbatore, Dharamshala, Erode, Hyderabad, Kota, Nagpur, Rajkot, Ranchi, Rohtak, Salem, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruppur, and Ujjain.

Under the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge pilot stage, i.e. stage 1, in 7 months, the pioneering cohort of 25 cities has-

Implemented over 70 pilot projects in neighbourhoods across India. These diverse projects ranged from creation of public spaces in slums, age-appropriate play areas, enhanced outdoor waiting spaces around primary health centres and anganwadis, amenities for caregivers, such as public toilets and nursing cabins, improved streets and junctions, and reclaiming underutilized and residual spaces to create parks and gardens.

These projects benefitted over 1 lakh children between the ages of 0-5 and more than 1 million people.

200+ champions are leading changes on ground, building the movement for young children-friendly cities

In the next scale up stage, i.e. stage 2, the 10 winning cities will receive technical assistance and capacity building to-

Replicate pilots with learnings and influence development plans, regulations and policies.

These cities will may to consider setting up a dedicated institutional mechanism to carry this work forward.

Launch of book – 'Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge – Stories from the field'The booklet has a compilation of projects of all 25 cities that were part of the pilot stage of the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge and can be downloaded from the challenge website. For more information on the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge, please visit https://smartnet.niua.org/nurturing-neighbourhoods-challenge/web/

(With Inputs from PIB)