About

Coming from a small industrial town Bharuch, in the state of Gujarat, India and undertaking primary education from a convent school in my hometown made a great impact on my life and my moral values. Respect for knowledge and diligence are the things that I inculcated from early years. I was involved in various co-curricular activities such as acting, anchoring, class leadership, etc. which widened my way of thinking. With time, I developed an interest in mathematics and qualified mathematics Olympiad (international rank -259).

After qualifying the national competitive test for admission to undergraduate courses, I got admitted into an institute of national Importance – School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada under the Ministry of HRD, Government of India. I pursued my Bachelor’s degree in Physical Planning for four years. It was a great experience taking up such a professional course which deals with the issues of cities, villages, community, urbanization, environmental degradation, etc. I understood the functioning of the city and its relation to people and their needs from various perspectives. Throughout the course, I feel I have developed my professional and managerial skills. To gain practical experience, I have done two internships in two international firms involved in Urban Planning and consultancy (in ‘Lea Associates South Asia Pvt. Ltd.’ and in ‘Aarvee Associates’). Furthermore, I had served as trainees (volunteer) for two NGOs (in ‘Centre for Environment Protection Research and Development’ and in ‘Make a Difference’). I have also lead my department at the national level NOSPlan convention (National Organisation For Students of Planning) held at Bhopal, which turned out to be a huge success as the university achieved the overall 4th position at national level competitions. It was an extremely challenging task of coordinating 50 students and ensuring proper coordination and communication among the participatory colleges.

My personal life experience and academics resulted in a desire to know more about city planning. I have come across many cities as a part of curriculum such as Port City- Haldia, Educational hub- Dharwad, Market Hub- Vijayawada and many more. I understand the importance of spatial planning and urban development and would like to address the challenges of sustainable development in the context of developing world. As a requirement of a bachelor degree, I did my thesis on ‘Impact of Delay Decision Making in Urban Infrastructure Projects’. In addition, the research looked into the spatial implication due to the delay of an infrastructure project. I believe that the failure of many projects has resulted due to the delayed decision-making process and hence my thesis intends to draw practical inferences of reducing time and cost overruns.

Urban planning as a course is still in its nascent stage in my country and has been mostly neglected by the government. Therefore, I pursued Master of City and Regional Planning from the University of Texas at Arlington along with GIS certificate. Here, I had a chance to understand the difference in planning practices among the two nations. Some of my recommendation to Indian Planning would be to develop code enforcement agencies and taking pro-active measures to develop local government ordinances.

Watch my YouTube video on Transportation Safety:

Watch my YouTube video on City Awareness: