MUMBAI: A new Centre for Urban Science and Engineering (C-USE) was inaugurated on Monday by Prithviraj Chavan, chief minister of Maharashtra at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) campus. Speaking on the occasion, Chavan, remarked, "Rapid urbanization has lead to a plethora of challenges and problems. One of the issues faced by future urban cities would be how to design policies for urban planning taking into account science, technology, social, pscyhological, environmental, financial and other aspects into consideration. A Centre like C-USE can play a pivotal role in this regard."1
With the primary mandate of improving urban quality of life, C-USE will focus on four broad areas planning and design, policy and governance, infrastructure and informatics.
"The centre will be closely connected to Mumbai. We will research on areas of relevance to mega-cities and provide education required for future planners and managers. We will look at training programmes for those already on the job. Focus will also be on data generated by cities and see how this data can be analysed to frame policies," said IIT Bombay director Devang Khakhar.
While curriculum development for an inter-disciplinary masters programme is on, a PhD programme will start in January 2014.
"The centre will create an urban knowledge repository for planners, practitioners, help in capacity building and assist national/ state/ city agencies. We can also look at using IIT Bombay campus as a proving/ testing ground for research projects," said IIT Bombay Professor Krithi Ramamritham.2