Second Interaction with Swedish Delegation on

Friday March 9, 2007

In March 2006, a Swedish Delegation visited Pune to assess the proposal for a Sustainable City Programme for Pune. Dr B N College of Architecture (BNCA), under the banner of PRAAKRUTEE 2006, presented to the delegation the designs for Environmental Hubs, developed by the six architectural colleges in Pune. Under this interaction organized by BNCA, chief architect Mr Ulf Ranhagen presented his work on the Stockholm Eco Housing Programme. At this time, Mr Ranhagen, his colleagues of the delegation and Pune Municipal Corporation authorities visited BNCA and interacted with the faculty and staff on developing a sustainable city programme for Pune.
As a follow up to this first delegation visit, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) organized a second delegation to Pune to take forward the formulation of Terms of Reference for funding for the Sustainable City Programme for Pune. Planner Mr Hans Hede and SIDA India programme manager Mrs Yasmin Zaveri Roy visited BNCA to meet and interact with the faculty. Mr Dinesh Girolla of Pune Municipal Corporation accompanied the delegation and interacted with BNCA staff.
Prof Poorva Keskar, Prof Anagha Paranjape-Purohit, Prof Shubhada Kamlapurkar, Prof Asmita Divekar and Prof Shilpa Hapse interacted with this delegation, providing them inputs regarding the post graduate programmes and other academic and research activities that are undertaken by Centre for Environmental Planning and Architecture (CEPA) under the banner of BNCA.
The delegation looked at the possibility of developing BNCA’s education infrastrcuture as a platform for academic discussions on Urban Strategic Planning and furthering research and awareness for the Sustainable City Programme for Pune. BNCA’s post graduate courses were looked upon as a potential mechanism to conduct local research and analyses.