2 city projects to get Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award

Mumbai, Nov 1 (UNI) Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank Dr Josef Ackermann today announced that Triratana Prerna Mandal (TPM) and Mumbai Waterfronts Development Centre (MWDC) as winners of the first Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award (DBUA).

The winners were chosen after an unanimous decision by an international jury and the same was announced in the presence of the Governor of Maharashtra, S M Krishna and the Chancellor of Germany, Dr Angela Merkel here at the University of Mumbai.

The award of 100,000 dollars will be split between two high level projects, the TPM initiative and the MWDC, with a special commendation for the Urban Design Research Institute's Fort Management Project.

In all scope, quality, and quantity, the submissions exceeded expectations for the award, as 74 applications were received from organisations working in the slums and the historic districts, from government and non-governmental organisations, from groups working with children and women, said Ackermann.

Cities as complex as Mumbai need a simultaneity of approaches to function successfully. In governance, in delivery of services, in approaches to housing, in conservation, Mumbaikars high and low are coming together to face the urgent issues confronting the city. And in this most democratic and accommodating of cities, their solutions are as heterogeneous as the population, he added.

Dayanand Jadhav, TPM's founder, said, '' TPM is run by a group of people from the Milan shantytown as a community centre built above a public toilet and has established alliances with a range of bodies such as the BMC, Sterlite Foundation Computer Institute Collaboration, Milan Subway Speeds Area Locality Management Group etc. It uses these alliances to make life better at the simplest level for the residents of the area by building toilets maintaining it''.

Waterfront project, an initiative begun by a group of persons living near the sea in Bandra, wanted to take a walk by the sea, unimpeded by hawkers, buildings, or debris. And so they organised a coalition of citizens, who came from the skyscrapers and the slums, to create a promenade by the sea.

Established in 2007, the DBUA was stated to encourage citizens to take initiatives to improve their cities. It is a traveling award organised in parallel with the Urban Age Project, a joint initiative of the London School of Economics and Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society. In 2008, the award will be located in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

UNI