How do we create a larger platform, a larger canvas, a larger vision to tackle the greatest challenge facing us today, our exploding cities?’ Lalit Kumar Jain, the keynote speaker at a panel discussion organised by Inside Outside and Business India Exhibitions electrified his audience of builders, architects and designers with his ideas on the need for an action plan for the next decade, says Geeta Doctor.

Lalit Jain is the Chairman of Kumar Builders as well as the President of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) and the Chairman Indian Green Building Council, Pune. He mentioned that according to a report by the Mckinsey Global Institute,

India will have 68 cities with a population of one million people. Jain was concerned that without a proper policy there would be mega cities ringed around by slum cities as has been seen in other parts of the developing world. ‘Sixty-five% of the population below the age of 35 need jobs. We are in danger of

creating a social conflict that will be unmanageable,’ he warned. ‘We need to think vertically,’ he said, ‘the current policy of horizontal development leads to a shrinking of the farmlands, a depletion of the green belts and a huge increase in infrastructure costs’.

As compared to this, Jain mentioned the Marina Bay Garden City plan at Singapore that has not only attracted global attention with its stunning concept, realising in four years the cost of its investment. ‘Why can’t we do this in India?’ He asked. ‘We need to be like soak-pads who can get the best of ideas from what we see around us.’

Others on the panel, Sanjay Bajaj of Jones Lang Lasalle reminded the audience that Pune needed to keep pace with its infrastructure along with its development. Landscape designer Jayant Dharap spoke of the strange anonymity of many of the new IT projects.

He emphasised the need for an integrated approach to landscape designing that would reflect the indigenous character