Inclusive Heritage-Based City Development Program in India

This report summarizes the motivation,
objectives, methodology, results and lessons learned from
the design and implementation of the Demonstration Program
on Inclusive Heritage-based City Development in India. The
development objective of this program is to test an
inclusive heritage-based approach to city development
planning in three pilot cities with a focus on learning and
future expansion. The pilot cities include a metropolis
(Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh), a medium-size city (Varanasi,
Uttar Pradesh) and a small city (Ajmer-Pushkar, Rajasthan).
The pilot cities have been selected on the basis of
population, living standards in historic areas, heritage
value and reform orientation. These cities represent India s
diversity in terms of settlements as well as social and
cultural heritage, and provide scope for customizing the
tested planning instruments, specific institutional and
financial arrangements and methods at an early stage. An
initial activity is the first phase of a larger program
aimed at providing national policy makers, state
governments, urban local bodies and sector professionals in
India with exemplary practices, institutional arrangements
as well as financial and management incentives that can
assist them in incorporating cultural heritage into their
overall city development planning framework. This activity
has three components: component 1 offers institutional
set-up and selection of pilot cities; component 2 provides
advisory support to pilot Cities; and component 3 maintains
knowledge management and learning systems. Overall, the
program is expected to leverage existing public funds under
national and state-level schemes that have been earmarked
for urban renewal investments but are currently not being
utilized for this purpose due to lack of capacities,
appropriate mechanisms and tools.