Pune Municipal Corporation Pune Municipal Corporation After taking up an initiative towards making the city friendly for people with disabilities, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is hoping to establish a children-friendly city as it is set to join hands with the Bernard van Leer foundation to be part of the Urban95 programme. The programme focuses on providing facilities for children within the scope of planning and management of cities. The civic administration would seek nod from Standing Committee to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the foundation. “A meeting between the PMC officials and the foundation was held. The foundation representatives have shown interest in helping the city develop as a children-friendly city,” said civic official. The foundation has been working towards developing cities that provide healthier, safer and exciting neighbourhoods for children. It would provide technical and financial assistance to pilot and scale innovations in the Urban95 programme for developing public spaces, mobility, data management and parent coaching. “The PMC would take up development of five locations within civic jurisdiction to make them child friendly,” the officer said. It can be transforming existing physical spaces into places for young children to play and explore nature and caretakers to meet and rest. The mobility factor would focus on enabling children to walk or cycle to healthcare and childcare facilities and sources of healthy food and providing parents and caretakers with information on early childhood development through the existing services and structures. The civic body will have to provide space for an office of the foundation and share information to implement children-friendly projects in the city. The civic officer said: “The foundation will help the PMC in capacity building for initiating children-friendly initiatives. The financing of projects would also be done as per the need.” It would identify the problems faced by children in the city and help make rules and regulations to address them. The official said the development plan, including the development control rules, of the city will consider the needs of children in the city. The foundation is already working with Bhubaneshwar in Odisha to develop it as a children-friendly city. In 2016, Bhubaneshwar emerged as the winner of a contest for the 100 upcoming Smart Cities in the country and Pune ranked second in the competition. For all the latest Pune News, download Indian Express App

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