Parisar

Ranjit Gadgil interviewed by Sanskriti Menon

Sanskriti Menon, Senior Programme Coordinator of the Centre for Environment Education in Pune interviewed Ranjit Gadgil recently about ‘Education for Sustainable Mobility’. Ranjit was actively associated with Parisar until recently and continues to be a well-wisher. In this interview, Ranjit expressed his views about sustainable mobility, the role of education in bringing about the necessary changes in society to move towards sustainable transportation systems etc. This interview was published in the autumn 2009 issue of ‘Education and Sustainability’ available at www.es-online.info. Read further for the full interview.

Divergence between Central policies and implementation at ULBs

Parisar, along with about 10 other NGOs and individuals have recently written to the Secretary Ubran Development Department, Govt of India, New Delhi, expressing their serious concerns at the prevailing policies driving Traffic and Transportation Policies in the city. They feel that there is a serious divergence in policies formulated by the Central Government to make a positive impact on condition of urban transportation, and the actual implementation of traffic projects in the cities by urban local bodies ie municipal corporations.

Online survey of JM/FC road one way scheme

Dr. Adhiraj Joglekar conducted an online survey to collect views and experiences of users with regards to the JM-FC one way scheme. The results of the first 136 respondents of the survey between 12th and 15th September 09 are summarized below. We thank Dr. Joglekar for granting us permission to use data from his survey and publish the results on our website.

It is apparent from this survey that though the scheme has increased speeds of travel, it has compromised safety of both vehicle travellers and pedestrians and cyclists, while increasing commuting distances and making it inconvenient to bus users.

Know Your Cyclist

In June 2009, Parisar undertook a survey of cyclists in Pune with the help of Prof. Shruti Tambe of the Sociology Department of the Pune University, and her students. From Parisar's side Ranjit Gadgil was responsible for driving the project. The idea was to understand the demographic profile of cyclists in Pune, and their real needs and requirements. This survey was only a pilot survey with a small sample size of about 100 cyclists. But it still resulted in valuable insights about cycling in Pune and attitude towards cyclists. Click on the image to the left to download the full report (900KB).