Arghyam had organized its second Annual Conference on 4th and 5th April 2007.  Titled “Urban Water 360⁰ – Envisioning Appropriate Models for Indian Cities”, the conference saw participation from NGOs, government institutions, private sector and international organizations.

Both the days were opened by a set of eminent speakers including Shri. Rajamani, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, Dr. Vaidyanathan, Faculty, Centre for Development Studies, Mr. Nandan Nilekani, MD, Infosys and Mr. Aloysius Fernandez, Director, Myrada, Dr. Ashok Khosla, Chairman, Development Alternatives and Dr. Amitabh Kundu, Dean of Social Sciences Jawaharlal Nehru University.

 

The conference was structured to have one session each on ‘Urban poor – Equity and Access’, ‘Urban Wastewater’, ‘Urban Water Resources’ and ‘Urban Water Governance’. Each session had a set of speakers talk on their experience relevant to the topic of the session followed by an open discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the conference, Arghyam announced an initiative to develop a Practical Framework for Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) in urban areas tying together topics like water supply, water quality, urban hydrology, conservation and capacity-building. The Framework document is envisioned as a guide for those who manage urban water at various levels. This framework will be developed through the concerted efforts of a Core Group of urban water experts supported by Arghyam. It will be experimentally validated through pilot experiments in small towns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a detailed and enthusiastic discussion on this proposal from Arghyam with several practical inputs from the participants.

 

Click the to download detailed documents
Proceedings of the conference

Session Queries and Responses

and the Executive Summary .