Thiruvananthapuram, The Kerala City Coverage Fee, constituted to formulate a State City Coverage to deal with the challenges of fast urbanisation, has submitted its last report back to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Native Self-Authorities Minister M B Rajesh introduced on Sunday.
Closing report of Kerala City Coverage Fee submitted to CM
Chatting with the media, Rajesh claimed that Kerala is the primary state within the nation to nominate such a fee.
“The government aims to address the challenges posed by rapid urbanisation while also viewing it as an opportunity for growth,” he stated.
The fee performed 33 research and held 53 stakeholder conferences throughout 14 districts of the state, partaking in intensive consultations with varied sections of society.
Based on the minister, over 2,500 representatives from totally different organisations have been consulted as a part of the method.
Rajesh added that the fee had submitted an interim report in December 2024, and a few of its suggestions—reminiscent of establishing Metropolitan Planning Committees in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, and Kozhikode, in addition to issuing municipal bonds—have been included into the current State Funds.
With the ultimate report now submitted, the federal government will focus on and determine on its adoption, he stated.
“This is an important milestone in the development history of Kerala as this report will provide insights for formulating development strategies for the state for the coming 25 years, especially in the context of rapid urbanisation along with climate change,” he stated.
The state authorities constituted the Kerala City Coverage Fee in December 2023 to border a complete city coverage for the state within the context of accelerating urbanisation that’s far above the nationwide common.
Based on the estimation of KUPC, above 80 per cent folks of Kerala shall be city by 2050.
The report highlights city-specific suggestions based mostly on regional strengths, together with the event of Thrissur-Kochi as Kerala’s FinTech Hub, Palakkad and Kasaragod as Industrial Sensible Cities, and the Thiruvananthapuram-Kollam Information Hall to advertise analysis and innovation. Moreover, Kannur is proposed to be promoted as a Style Metropolis, whereas Kannur-Kasaragod and Thrissur-Ernakulam are instructed as Edu-Well being Hubs. Kozhikode is advisable to be branded because the “City of Literature,” leveraging its wealthy literary heritage.
Different key suggestions embrace growing a risk-informed grasp plan on the native degree to combine local weather resilience into city planning and launching the ‘Jnanashree Programme’, which goals to supply sustained technical assist to establishments throughout varied domains—expertise, planning, administration, finance, and authorized affairs—in any respect ranges of administration, modelled after ‘Kudumbashree’, in keeping with an official launch.
Moreover, the report emphasises the necessity to rework state universities into globally aggressive centres for analysis and innovation.
The report recommends the institution of a state-level Digital Knowledge Observatory, integrating present spatial datasets from nationwide and state establishments, together with the introduction of a focused inexperienced price on city growth initiatives to fund catastrophe danger discount initiatives, together with resilient infrastructure and emergency response techniques, in keeping with an official launch.
One other main proposal is the creation of a Local weather Finance Advisory Cell on the state-level to help native governments in accessing inexperienced funds, carbon financing, and worldwide local weather adaptation sources, making certain environment friendly allocation for mitigation and resilience-building efforts.
Moreover, it recommends the event of eco-industrial parks powered by renewable vitality for industries reminiscent of electronics, gems and jewelry, agro-based meals processing, spices, and cashew processing.
The report additionally advocates the formation of MSME clusters such because the Thiruvananthapuram-Kollam Cluster, Kochi-Thrissur Cluster, and Kozhikode-Kannur Cluster to foster small and medium enterprises.
Different key suggestions embrace the deployment of decentralised wastewater therapy techniques, regulation of septic techniques, visitors and transport surveys, mobility planning, heritage and eco-resource itemizing, preservation of open areas, growth of sensible and sustainable tourism infrastructure, and initiatives to protect and promote Kerala’s handicrafts and artistic economic system.
The Fee was headed by M Satheesh Kumar, Belfast College, UK. Fee members embrace E Narayanan, Kochi Mayor M Anil Kumar, Sharmila Mary Joseph, Vyn Krishnamurthy, V Suresh, Ok S James, Hitesh Vaidya, Janaki Nair, S Asok Kumar and Tikender Singh Panwar.