 Hi, welcome to this show of the news click. And today we are very happy to have Romi Kosla with us. Thank you for joining us, Romi's up. And if you don't mind, I'll call you Romi though. Age is such a big difference. Well, Romi has been, I mean, professionally he's an architect planner, but who believes in the future of India. And Romi has also been instrumental into the urban revitalization of some of the very important cities in the war-torn countries of Europe and parts of Asia comprising Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Cyprus, Palestine. And this work was assigned to him by the UNDP. So thank you for joining us, Romi. What we are discussing today, I mean, that is, I think something very important. We all know we are passing through a very difficult phase, the phase of pandemic COVID-19. Millions of people have died. We've lost many of our friends. I mean, not a single house that we can point out that has not been affected, either infected or the house that has not lost. It's a real grief that has stricken around the world. But what we're discussing today, and for that we have, I mean, the best person probably in the region to just speak about that is one of the dossier or one of the circular of the government It was kind of a guideline that was issued by our central government. We have seen, I mean, the government has been pointing out that Doga's kidurium just keep a distance of six feet. But recently we saw the principal chief advisor, the scientific advisor to the government of India saying that, no, we must maintain a distance of 10 meters. Okay, fine, that's not a problem. But what the problem is actually when he says, you know, your houses should be ventilated. Yes, houses should be ventilated. Keep your air conditions on and also keep your doors and windows open. Now, so ventilate your houses. I mean, it looks so good. I mean, it looks so nice to speak about, not realizing that 40% of our population lives in just a single room. And in our urban centers, you know, I think more than, especially the urban agglomerates that we're talking about, the metropolis of our country, nearly 50% of the population lives in slums. So I think it's a big disconnect that we are witnessing now. I mean, what are we talking about? Where are we heading to? Nevertheless, this is something important. So I think this aspect of, you know, going back to the whole process of town planning, building houses. So before you just point out straight to the questions from me, how do you take this circular as? I mean, what is it? I mean, the intent is fine, the science is good, but I think it's far away and far distance from the actual reality that is existing. And then we'll come pointedly to the questions that I think we want you to address, please. You see, we as a country face many, many problems and the question is who is going to take responsibility for the solutions that are being recommended? You see, it is very easy to sit in government and give directors. So is there any person taking responsibility for those? So if you say that there are 40% of the population which is in single room or without houses, should get houses. IFO give a directive that the housing ministry should provide houses for them. Has anybody taken any responsibility for this work? And we have had unfortunately more than 70 years of governance without responsibility, governance with lot of directives, lot of acts, lot of laws being passed, but nobody taking the responsibility. And this pandemic today, which is amongst us here, is actually the culmination of a system of government which doesn't take responsibility. It gives all sorts of directives. Finally, we have the government of uneducated people. So we have people who don't bother with responsibility or anything. So the question comes, how do we take the responsibility for all the directives, whether on housing, whether better ventilation. Now, we are very lucky. In this great country of ours, there are 28 states, nine union territories, 720 countries, 723 districts, Dalak Panchaik. Here is the place where responsibility has to be placed. So more decentralization. Why are we not making people responsible? Why are we going to one place for doing miracles to this country? There are going to be no miracles. So to give you an example, let us take housing for instance. Now, let us look at the 730 odd districts and their municipalities also. Each of them has a housing problem. Each of them face different systems of housing. I cannot make it in Himacharya. Therefore, the responsibility for housing comes down to the district level. And even within a district, Panchaik has to be made responsible for delivering housing. You can't have a fellow sitting in South Block ruling this country with the dictates. And after that, they go home. So what happens here? So we have to recognize that something like housing is a personal requirement. It is not a general requirement. It is a personal requirement. Each family is different. Each area is different. Each climate is different. Each building material is different. So I would say that there has been, we are in a crisis. And the single cause for that is because nobody has taken the responsibility to solve any problem. So Rami, if I may just ask, because this is what you've placed, needs of housing in the national context. And you say in the national context, it is more local and regional context that has to be considered. I mean, fair enough. And we also realized recently in Le because I am instrumental. And of course I have gone through all the documents that you actually created in some, I think, two decades or three decades earlier for Le. So now I am part of that, writing the vision document for Le. And you'll be surprised to know that a building plan for Chandigarh, I mean, how a house is to be considered in Chandigarh, the same structural methods are being used to construct a house in Le, which is minus 20, minus 30 degrees. And then all of a sudden, we find in Kendri with their Le's, children getting chill planes. Okay. So yeah, so I think I have fully substantiated what you're saying. I mean, it has to be very regional. But at the same time, what way I mean, do we do? I mean, when you say that, you know, panchayats have to take the lead. I mean, what could be the process leading to such a process? And then we'll come to the pandemic. And this is something very interesting point that you've raised. Let us separate out two separate things, right? One is responsibility. The second is finance. Okay. So let me talk about responsibility. This is the time when every panchayat must prepare a report card. It has to do it for health facilities. It has to do it for the hospitals, beds. It has to do it for houses. Now, when we come to houses, every panchayat must have a report card. We cannot tackle the problem until we have this data. What we are tending to do is we go to the census or census. She doesn't make any sense to us because nobody wants to take the responsibility. Now, you tell me that there are 2.5 lakh panchayats. You have forgotten about them. You have taken a census. You have given a shortage of lakh crores and allocated so many big funds. After that, everyone is asleep. So, responsibility must first of all begin by making a report card at the panchayat level. And you have to support the panchayat by helping them prepare the report card. And what I am saying is the report card is not only for housing. It is for health. It is for infrastructure. Separate report cards. Now, this database that you will establish will be of a different order because in the report card of the housing, now we know that almost 30% of the entire housing in India is single root. And another 37% is two root. This is 6-7 people living here. There is a pandemic like this. What do we understand? The family must be sick. So, we have to then discuss with the panchayat what is the reasonable standard of housing that you should build in the panchayat. You should help build or you should approve. When you say panchayat, it also means the local bodies. I mean the urban local bodies. Urban local bodies. You see, in the case of the municipalities, I mean at block level. I mean at block level. So, half the population is urban, so you do it at the block level so that I have an office in the block or in the panchayat where I know that this person is going to be dealing with my house as a person I have to do it. You know, taking that there is a beautiful line that Tolstoy has started. He says that happiness is the same for all rich people. But unhappiness is each individual suffering in a different way. Absolutely. Housing is a problem in which each family suffers in a different way. And you cannot put it into statistics. So, to answer your question very briefly, finance, let's get it from the center, let's get it from the state. But responsibility has to be with urban bodies and block level and panchayat. Perfect. I think from this, we move to the second question. You know, this whole business of housing design in general, ventilation and insulation. And so, yeah, you pointed out the specificity of the whole issue that should be quite local based. So, yeah, we'll come to the capacity also. But, you know, take for example, Delhi. Slowly and slowly what our planners and architects have been doing and then they're influencing the, even the bodies that approve those plans, the height of the roof gets reduced and reduced. So, in a ventilation, all of a sudden gets, I mean, secondary or even tertiary. That's not even part. Now, the pandemic has hit you back and said, look, this is very important. I mean, some of the basic tenants of housing and living, are they getting reinforced? So, how do you actually look at it? You see, there are two or three broad issues here. When you are living in a big city like Delhi or Bombay or Calcutta, the level of pollution is high. And because of the dense building, the breeze that you get is very difficult to clear from, without mechanical means from the house itself. So, you cannot form a general rule which is extending all over India. What the governments in the past have done is they have framed typical bylaws. All right? What are the bylaws they call them? I mean, sorry, India got a model bylaws, whether you're in Leh or whether you're in Bombay. Now, the root cause of the bylaw is the fact that it is generalized and not district wise, not climate wise, not climate wise. So, climate is important here. Now, let me take a house in Leh, which we make with mud, where there are minus 20 degrees. I can't have big leasing there, no? Yes. You understand? No, I cannot have big leasing. I may require in Bombay people to see. So, you can't have what the bylaws have done is they have given percentage because it's not 10% of all the opening, bathroom, ventilation. It's not at all so. And I would go back and I would say that we have to frame at panchayat level our bylaws. In each panchayat and each municipal block, you must have the bylaws. And I'll tell you why. Yeah. Because let me take, for instance, a urban city like Delhi or Indore or Bhopal. The city has different densities. You cannot have general bylaws, which cover everything. So, even a municipal area has to have block-wise bylaws. This block has this density. So, this bylaw. I agree since both you and I, I mean you are in Dharamsala, I mean Simla. So, we can easily understand that even on a mountain, the northwest and the southeast should have different sets of buildings. Because it, I mean, depending on the sun and the strength of the rock. Yeah, please go ahead. So, what we, what I come back to what I originally said is that let us regard housing like medical, like the medical, as a personal problem. Let us solve it at a personal level. You have a look what is wrong with him and then you present it. Two last questions from you. And so, when you say the personal, I mean, I again will go back to the general. And I mean, just, just cite one example. And this, I, and this is what I understood more when I went to the Lady Harding Medical College in Delhi. And I saw there that their old set of buildings, Lady Harding is a building made in the British times. There is a very, especially one board which is OBS Guiney. It is a very high building. I mean, it has a very high room in which ventilation is very good. It was like really cold because the wall, the thickness of the wall, air could move in. And then there was an outer wall to protect it from the sun. So, you know, so those experiments were done earlier. And now I can assume that that is a highly ventilated, you know, hospital. The general, when you speak about, you know, public institutions, public buildings. There are two new buildings and that is a matchbox. And I was asking them that, how about a second without air conditioning, they won't work. So this planning process, the general process and going between real estate, I can also say that the nexus or interest of, you know, a lot of, I mean, companies that manufacture air conditioning has completely shifted from that but can we just reinforce, I mean, I don't say we go back to the British Air or we go back to, but I think, just as you are talking about the local design, there is no need to reinforce all these things again, where we have climate, energy consumption, of course, air and all of this. And secondly, what are the lessons from this? What should be the future direction? We are seeing that there is no doubt. I mean, we are making modern, but in the name of TOD, I am literally calling it modern slum, the way it has been made. I mean, there is no question of ventilation, no social infrastructure has been kept in mind. And all of a sudden, because you are biking around there, to go to Sree Fort, all of a sudden, I see that there is no cause. I don't think this is a stable form. So how do you see these two things? Look, the kind of house you build and what kind of technique you use is influenced by the cost of energy. You see, if I am getting cheap electricity, I say, okay, we will put air conditioner. If I am getting electricity, where somebody tells me, if you put air conditioner, then your bill will not come. So I will do the first thing, I will leave the air conditioner. And I will ask, what should I do? Make big walls. Don't open windows on the side of the house. So our mind shifts. Secondly, we are in India, we find the building of a house or a structure as one of the best inflation hedges. One of the best inflation. Inflation hedge against inflation. Okay. My savings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where do I put it? Every day I put it. I will get that percentage. So what I am doing is that I am putting my savings into construction. Now I own a plot. And on that I am going to maximize my building because for me, this is my saving. So I will make the roof level low at nine feet because by law has given us nine feet. So nine feet. And nine feet universally is an unhealthy height to have in a tropical country. All no heat rises to the top. I'm no foot. I'm breathing it in all day. You cannot make roof less than 10 and a half feet, 11 feet in a hot area. Obviously if you put 10-11 feet on every floor, then two floors will be less. So everybody says, what are you doing? We are not realizing that health, energy, housing, these are interconnected. Interconnected, definitely. You cannot use one and not affect the other. So if you imagine, why has the COVID hit the urban area so badly is because the living conditions have caused pollution. People's lung capacities are reduced. People's ability to have natural immunity is reduced. Why? Because the living conditions are not good. So we have to first of all start regarding these interconnections. And then if we misuse one part, it's at the cost of another. All right? So if I lower my roofs and I make a hot house, it's at the cost of my health. So we have to balance all three things. Perfect. And so what, I mean, so, you know, take that, of course you've mentioned, the last question probably, that will be the last one. You said that you design in Panchayat, but where is the capacity? So this capacity should be built on a very local level. And I remember you suggesting a national service. So would you like to throw some light on that? You see, I want you to think of the pandemic we have and the shortage of doctors and nurses because we didn't plan for it. For the size of population we have and the number of doctors we have, number of nurses we have, it's very, very small. And in the same way, the size of population we have, the number of architects and engineers we are training is tiny. Tiny, absolutely. So we have to, on a very major scale, create a new level of architect engineer who is a very careful person who has technical training, can go into a village and go into a Panchayat, go into a block area and have two skills is that he is organizing the people in the sense of suggesting methods to them. You see, at higher technical level, you can always get expertise for a short while. But you imagine that in a block office or in a Panchayat office, there is a resident barefoot engineer and I as a householder can go to him and say, sir, my roof is stolen. What can I do for this? So again, it is at a personal level you have to attend to these problems. You must have a national service. I would go to the extreme of saying that every architectural school which has graduated has to give two years of national service. I agree, absolutely true. And the post that you get paid everything, it is for the graduate a huge living experience. Yeah, absolutely sir. We cannot drive. Thank you, thank you so much. I fully substantiate just to share an anecdote with you because I go to school of planning architecture. I'm not an architect by profession, but you decide how to build cities. Me as a sociologist or maybe as someone who's served the city for five years, I come in for whom the city should be built. They have this finally air thesis where they have to prepare a project report. So in one of the batches, they were to do something on the homeless in Delhi. And when I saw the first draft, sir, you'll be completely shocked at me what you actually said. I mean, they must get the feel of what India is. It was a complete binary between they and us. So I said, this won't do. And they are the ones who are going to construct important cities. I made them stay for there for 24 hours, that's all. I said, you stay in a homeless shelter for 24 hours. Of course, they were hiccups. But then they finally agreed. And those students said this was the best period of their lifetime to actually realize what homeless people are actually people in the urban centers. So I think thank you so much for pointing this out. It's not just, I mean, not just a sanitation issue, but it's, I mean, things are very interconnected. And the way how we should move for the decentralization, what you focus and also for democratization, actually empowering those local bodies. Thank you so much for. Thank you.