SUSTAINABLE HYDERABAD PROJECT

10 | INVESTING IN THE FUTURE TORIAL
News
SUSTAINABLE HYDERABAD AT
THE “LANGE NACHT DER WISSEN-
SCHAFTEN 2011”
“Paradox City: Urban development
in India through the example
of Hyderabad.” Under this motto,
Lina Polom and Tobias Kuttler from
NEXUS presented inspiring details
about the “Sustainable Hyderabad
Project” in front of more than 100
interested listeners at the Berlin-
Charlottenburg city hall. Central to
their discourse, which was embedded
in a discussion forum about
“Unfamiliar world metropolises:
Urban development in North Africa,
Iran and India,” was a focus on
the rapid urbanisation processes in
newly industrialising and developing
countries, illustrated through our
work in Hyderabad. The presentation
was given on 28 May 2011 at
the 11th Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften
(“Long Night of the Sciences”):
an annually held chance for
interested visitors to gain a broad
insight into current research projects
at research institutes in Berlin and
Brandenburg.
sion of short presentations that were meant to
act as formal self-introductions, the scholars had
a chance to engage with each other informally
during coffee breaks. As hoped, this exchange
proved fruitful for the 15 participants and led to
a number of interesting ideas for avenues for future
interdisciplinary collaborative projects. This
first HIP workshop included doctoral students
AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE TRAFFIC SOLU-
TIONS
Bhuvanachithra Chidam-
values that tend to influence decisions made,
baram’s PhD is focusing on
developing a comprehensive
integrated framework
that combines vehicle emissions
estimation and traffic
simulation, complemented by social-institutional
analysis. The lack of concrete methods and primary
data to measure and to derive meaningful
relationships between vehicle emissions and
traffic congestion in Hyderabad, suggests the
need for on-road vehicle emissions estimation.
The current development action plans include
only road-improvement projects, like constructing
flyovers. Yet, the problem of traffic congestion
or emissions still remains, as the current solutions
are only based on physical aspects such
as roads and vehicles. In addition to these, however,
there is always human behaviour, which
is shaped by culture, attitudes, emotions and
of Prof. Hagedorn, who heads the “Sustainable
Hyderabad Project”; Prof. Seadle, head of the
Berlin School of Library and Information Science
(IBI) and dean of Philosophical Faculty I; and, last
but not least, Prof. Michael Mann, head of the
South Asian Studies Seminar, all three of whom
have been and continue to be instrumental in
the realisation and further development of HIP.
individually or collectively, during road travel.
This novel approach has provided insight for
conducting a social-institutional analysis of the
problem, with the transport parameters derived
from vehicle emissions estimation serving as an
input. A transport route-mode choice game will
be developed, based on Common Pool Resource
(CPR) theory, where roads are a manmade resource
system acting as an urban commons
shared by heterogeneous groups of vehicles
varying in shape, size, speed, and age. The use
of such an experimental tool is able to study the
typical social dilemma (individual versus group’s
optimum) among vehicle drivers in an urban
transport setting, and to identify trade-offs under
different institutional set ups. Key findings
from this study will be communicated to transport
planners in Hyderabad to support sustainable
transport solutions.
UNDERSTANDING INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS: VEGETABLE
VALUE CHAINS IN HYDERABAD
Rajeshwari Mallegowda governance structures, with special emphasis on
is conducting doctoral research
under the working title
“Marketing Systems and
Sustainability: An Institutional
and Economic Analysis
of Vegetable Supply Chains in the Emerging
Megacity of Hyderabad, India”. Her research is
based on two key frameworks: ‘Economics of
Institutions’ (Williamson) and ‘Institutions of
Sustainability’ (Hagedorn). Her main areas of investigation
are social capital of the various actors
across the value chain, institutional setups, and
transaction costs involved in various chains and
incentive structures/resource allocation. ‘Institutional
innovation’ is another area of interest,
based on the observation that previously existing
vegetable markets have evolved new institutional
structures like the Rythu bazaar, organic
markets and contract farming. Principal component
analysis will be used to analyse social capital
data, while econometric tools will be used to
identify transaction costs incurred in the marketing
of vegetables.
Imprint
Dr. Dimitrios Zikos
Humboldt University Berlin
Division of Resource Economics
Philippstr. 13, House 12
D-10115 Berlin, Germany
+49/(0)30/2093 6740
www.sustainable-hyderabad.de
SUSTAINABLE HYDERABAD PROJECT ISSUES 05 AND 06