This story is from January 9, 2019

South takes baby step to reclaim streets

South takes baby step to reclaim streets
NEW DELHI: The image of children playing gleefully in the streets with little risk of being knocked down by speeding vehicles is history. The takeover of Delhi’s streets by the city’s 1.1 crore vehicles has robbed the kids of some sense of freedom that people used to take for granted not so many years ago. In Sarita Vihar, however, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has taken the baby step to reclaim the space for people, turning a portion of the market area into a “play area” for floor games like hop scotch.

In cities such as London, Glasgow, Bristol and Amsterdam, under projects like Play Street, Scotch Hoppers and Playing Out, communities are convincing the local councils to temporarily stop traffic and make the streets open for children. The exercise is meant at getting families, children and adults, to spend time together outdoors in a space they are familiar with but don’t use for playing. The Sarita Vihar initiative follows in their footsteps.
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“The idea is to allow space away from dangers of vehicles for kids can play, make friends and be a part of the community,” said Alok Singh, director, horticulture department, SDMC. Singh said that the civic body has decided to work on an open space near Agrasen Market in Sarita Vihar’s G Block. “It is a pilot scheme, and after assessing the response of the community, we will take it from there,” he said.
The tenders for improving the surface have already been floated. “Besides colourful floor games, we have designed some innovative games with common pipes and balls for the area. Skating too will be possible,” revealed Singh, who was a member of a study group that visited London last year to see how the Play Streets project was being implemented.
“People still love to play on the street — but it sometimes takes careful design to get them started,” added Singh. Neetu Choudhry, SDMC councillor from the Sarita Vihar ward, said that this particular street was identified based on its child friendliness and because it will be relatively easy to stop the traffic there.

Kanak Tiwari, an urban development specialist at the National Institute of Urban Affairs working on child-friendly smart cities, said that India had a rich culture of street games in the form of gulli danda, stapoo, even galli cricket. “We may have to adapt these western concepts in the Indian setting to deal with the increasing automobile pressure,” Tiwari said. She outlined several strategies for zeroing in on streets to be used by kids while reducing the threats from vehicular movement.
The first such initiative was taken by the Times of India Group with the Raahgiri Day in Gurgaon in 2013, followed by New Delhi in 2014, Bhopal, Navi Mumbai, Dwarka and Indore. Civic authorities cooperated in closing down certain important stretches on the weekends, leaving them free for sporting, entertainment and socially relevant events involving the people at large. Tiwari said Raahgiri had set a trend, but rued that it was never institutionalised as part of the planning process of the city.
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