Few people realize that Goa, too, is a land of five rivers: the Mandovi, Zuari, Sal, Terekhol and Chapora. This, in addition to Goa's access to the sea routes via Mormugao and Panjim Minor ports, makes Goa one of the premier destinations for developing water-transport infrastructure in India.
Currently, ferries and bridges like the Atal Setu over the Mandovi take people across, on their way to school, work and other day-to-day activities. But there are chokepoints and limitations. For one, the bridges typically only connect the two banks where the river is the narrowest, rather than taking people as close as possible to their final destination over water. Two, as the population (domestic and tourist) grows, the pressures on infrastructure rise too.
An obvious fix, says Harvard University Graduate School of Design-trained architect Nondita Correa Mehrotra, is running water buses that can hit the sweet spot between affordability, accessibility, efficiency and lower climate impact.
India has a 7,516.6-km coastline and 400 rivers including 14 major river systems. As such, the potential for using waterways for better mobility is huge. Having said that, the use of waterways is just one way to relieve pressure on urban transport infrastructure, and make urban mobility cheaper and more effective.
Legendary Indian architect Charles Correa was an outspoken advocate of improving and democratizing public transport infrastructure across land and sea routes. In a 2010 interview to the Hindustan Times, for example, he suggested the Bandra-Worli Sea Link be used exclusively for public buses during the morning rush hour.
Correa also thought about how populations would travel from home to work in his design for Navi Mumbai.
Across India, there is growing urgency to find sustainable solutions for transportation for obvious reasons. And that's perhaps why the theme for the 2024 Nagari Short Film Competition organized every year since 2020 by the Charles Correa Foundation was mobility in urban India. In the past, the short film festival has invited live action documentaries of around 8 minutes on topics ranging from livelihood and water in the city to adequate housing in urban India.
The Charles Correa Foundation had its Nagari Short Film Competition 2024 awards ceremony in Mumbai earlier this month, as part of at the Conscious Collective initiative of Godrej Design Labs. The winning entry, 'Sundari' from Mumbai also highlighted the importance of transport over water in a city like Mumbai and how infrastructure projects like the Bandra-Worli Sea Link affect local livelihood as well as topography.
Over a video call with Moneycontrol, Charles Correa's daughter, director of the Charles Correa Foundation and principal at RMA Architects in Mumbai and Boston, Nondita Correa Mehrotra, explained why India needs water buses before it focuses on air taxis or self-driving cars; why cities should be designed or reimagined around the three pillars of jobs-housing-transportation; the pressure points in urban mobility and where to watch the short films that were selected under the 2024 Nagari film festival.
Could you begin by telling us what the Charles Correa Foundation does, and where does the Nagari short-film festival fit into this?
We look at human settlements. Education and research in human settlements. It is education also for the public; getting people familiar with the criteria that all the citizenry of the country needs to understand. Because (while) many of the decisions that need to be made are often made by people with some authority, there could be or should be pressure from the public. (The public need to know) what are the choices, are we on the right side of the decision-making process... And we need to be able to define that. Mr Correa himself had set it up that way. He felt that that was perhaps where our expertise could be best used. For us to look at these issues as professionals but break it down to what can be easily understood, without coating it in all the jargon that architects and planners or urbanists do, that's what we try and do.
Therefore, the Nagari films, we thought, were a good vehicle to be able to do that. They are very, very short films; just 7-8 minutes. And they just give you a slice of what the focus (theme) is that year. This year it's mobility. Perhaps not one of the films tells you all the issues about mobility in urban India. They can't possibly do that. Even a long film would not do that. But we think that as a kind of anthology, like short stories, it can bring together different slices of the same issue... watch(ing) several of them together gives you a better understanding. But we do it through narratives, through talking to people. Rarely do we ever go to an expert and get a kind of talking head. It's just people, through their hardships, through what they are, what they are facing, they tell you what the story really is.
Can you unpack the idea of mobility here? Are we talking about, for example, how cities are designed? Are we looking at public transport? Did Charles Correa think about mobility in the urban context when he was thinking about how to design spaces, buildings and urban plans? And how do you see it now, when we are almost in 2025?
Mobility is very, very important. It's the ability to be able to move to connect. Infrastructure is one aspect of it. But (looking at) all of mobility. Mobility is even social pressure on people to move or not to move, right? Do you have the right to be mobile? Do women have the same rights as men? It's also something we could look at under mobility.
But really, in the urban context, what is very, very important is the access to transportation. If you look at a city, the three most important legs, really, that the city would stand on would be jobs or the access to jobs, housing, and therefore transportation. In the Indian context, perhaps, it really comes down to public transportation. Building infrastructure for the private cars helps one (segment) of the population, but it's not what is really needed for a city to be efficient. And without a city being efficient, you are going to be questioning, really, the economy, finance, all sorts of other things. Because jobs and housing are related to that.
Mr Correa did get very, very involved in that. (Case in point:) Many of his sketches and planning for New Bombay or Navi Mumbai today. How they (people) move around, drawing the MRT rapid transportation system as a way to open up land. So you are opening up land, you are creating jobs, you're providing housing. That's what you need. And then of course, there are many, many other aspects of social institutions, educational institutions, all sorts of other cultural things, recycling, garbage collection, all the many, many, many aspects of a city. But the three most important ones are that relationship of jobs, housing and transportation. Yes, he was very involved in it. And it does not show up so much at the scale of a building. But, yes, in master plans and in new cities being developed, these are very important ingredients.
How do you look at this question now in 2025? Just as an example, internationally people have been talking about the 15-minute city, where everything from your office to schools for your kids and shopping is within 15 minutes of where you live. Is that viable for India? Also, are some of these design fixes for better, cheaper mobility possible mainly in upcoming cities - including smart cities - or can some of these ideas be retrofitted on to older, more densely populated cities as well?
You can graft these ideas on to existing cities, but then all the new infrastructure that we are putting in needs to have an overall plan. We can't just do one of these things at a time. Perhaps (we could have a) national policy for this... really looking at public transportation.
Fifteen-minutes cities are great, but 15-minute cities are more at a neighborhood scale. It is great to have that close proximity to jobs. So, again, to these three important criteria, which is jobs, housing and transportation. But of course you live in a city because you want the other institutions which are perhaps cultural, perhaps education; all these things you want to be part of. You are not going to be siloed in your 15-minute city. So, there are moments when you need to look at the bigger picture. But yes, it needs to work at the smaller scale as well. So, both need to happen, I think.
And we can graft these systems on, but we have to be really mindful of what we are doing and having an integrated scheme looking at it holistically - that, I think, is important.
Often when people think about mobility within cities, they think about road transport, not necessarily, say, waterways. And that is a conversation that comes up in India sporadically. Are there any Nagari festival presentations this year or are there any thoughts within the foundation in terms of how to better use some of our waterways for transportation?
In fact, we have a scheme which we have been trying to discuss and build some sort of consensus around in Goa. Because Goa has these two very important rivers: the Mandovi and the Zuari. And there exist some ferry crossings, but the ferry crossings just go the shortest distance to the other bank of the river - they go back and forth, and they have to keep turning around. We did something which I think Mr Correa had looked at before, but this as an idea I remember him saying once that a place like Istanbul is fantastic because of these kind of water buses that go back and forth. And so we have drawn it up. And I think it would be a wonderful idea if it could get implemented.
A good example of this more integrated system (could be): You live in a village. You want to get into Panjim, say. You take your two-wheeler up to the existing ferry crossing, but now it's a water bus, so it zigzags down the river and you get off at Panjim. So you could be way in into the eastern part of the state, and you are trying to get to Panjim, you take this water bus, and you then when you arrive at one of the stops in Panjim. You can pick up the (road) bus system or you could walk (from where the water bus drops you off). So you are using three methods of transportation in one trip. But they are well-connected, they are well-synchronized so that it becomes really effortless and you don't need to bring your two-wheeler all the way into Panjim, which would take too long, or rent a cab, which, I don't know if you've been to Goa (lately), but that is expensive and definitely not for the local people who need to make this trip really often.
So, we are looking at those kinds of schemes that are integrated and can be used elsewhere. You are right, there are many, many cities in India that have that kind of opportunity, but perhaps not the connectivity that could or should be in place.
Are you also thinking about self-driving cars and air taxis, as part of your vision for mobility in the city?
No. I mean, some of these things work in places which are affluent and have reason to have all those systems. We need to think of ways that 70-80 percent of our population can use. That's what was so nice about the BEST in Mumbai or the suburban trains that go back and forth that reach just about everyone. I think water taxis or bus services which move on water - those systems that could work. You could, for example, cross very easy easily from the old city of Mumbai to Navi Mumbai - much more easily than (through) just a few points that exist today. It is not a huge distance.
Again, I am just saying that we need to find systems that are not so expensive. The ones that exist where you can put your private car on it, is great... but how many people actually need that kind of service? That needs to be there as well, but that is not what we should prioritize, because the first question we should ask is does it reach 60-70 percent of the population? Could they make use of it? What is the price range that they could afford and what would you be doing with that? Would it be opening up possibilities?
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