Kerala Urban Policy Commission proposes climate-change mitigation steps and professionalisation of urban governance

Kerala’s urban policy, an interim report on which was submitted by the Urban Policy Commission to the government last week, has proposed several steps to mitigate climate change. It also recommends professionalisation of urban local body governance and the setting up of metropolitan planning committees and business development councils for major cities. Last year, the State government constituted the commission, headed by M. Satish Kumar, a Senior Associate Professor at Queen’s University, Belfast to formulate a comprehensive urban policy to guide Kerala’s development activities for the next 25 years. The major climate change-related proposals include strengthening of the early warning mechanism with multi–hazard early warning system, installation of temporary flood barriers to protect high risk areas, initiation of cross-border collaboration between states to protect the Western Ghats, implementation of a decarbonisation approach to reduce carbon footprint as a larger section of the population moves from two wheelers to four wheelers, mandatory carbon audits for corporations followed by municipalities, annual green fee and purchase fee on motorised vehicles and promotion of Extended Producer Responsibility schemes to reduce waste generation.