Senior Urban Environmental Specialist
About the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA):
Established in 1976, the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA, is a premier Institute of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India for research and capacity building for urban sector in India. NIUA’s broad objective is to bridge the gap between research and practice on issues related to urbanization. For more than 40 years now, NIUA has been the vanguard for contributing to and building the urban narrative for a fast-evolving Urban India. The Institution has been actively working on bringing forth key areas of concern for urban India in order to build the urban discourse at various urban scales. It has utilized its competencies in research, knowledge management, policy advocacy and capacity building to address urban challenges and continuously striving to develop sustainable, inclusive, and productive urban ecosystems in the country. It has emerged as a thought leader and knowledge hub for urban development in India and is sought out by both Indian and International organizations for collaborations and partnerships in India’s urban transforming journey. NIUA is committed towards aligning its efforts towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through all its initiatives and programs.
About the Water and Environment Vertical:
NIUA’s Water and Environment Vertical focuses on developing enabling frameworks, mechanisms, and pathways to help Indian cities manage their water and environmental sectors in a sustainable manner. Given our affiliation with India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, our vision and work are geared towards bringing about a noticeable difference on the ground. We support the Ministry in implementing the different national Urban Missions and initiatives that have a bearing on urban water and environment. Additionally, we work with a number of national and international resource partners with an agenda and mandate similar to ours.
Typically, our work in urban water and environmental management includes:
- Developing national level strategic frameworks, guidance documents and advisories applicable for all cities to facilitate on-the-ground action
- Developing digital tools and instruments to help cities move up the state-of-the-art ladder.
- Undertaking action research on relatively unexplored subjects
- Supporting the piloting of innovative concepts/technologies through demonstration projects.
- Developing niche capacity building modules and certification programmes
About the Project:
Since 2019, NIUA and the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) have been working on a joint initiative to promote river-sensitive development in Indian cities. One of the key achievements of the collaboration has been the development of an Urban River Management Plan framework (https://niua.in/rca/knowledge-resources/) to help river cities prepare dedicated plans for managing the urban river stretches within their administrative boundaries. A number of cities have already used this framework to prepare their URMPs (visit https://niua.in/rca/knowledge-resources/ to download the URMP for Kanpur).
From October 2023, a dedicated Project Management Unit (PMU) is being set up at NIUA for NMCG-World Bank assisted project involving preparing Urban River Management Plan (URMP) for 60 river cities from Ganga Basin spanning across five states of West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand.
The PMU shall be responsible for overall project coordination including selection of appropriate agencies/organizations for preparing the URMP, monitor plan preparation process, coordinate with state/city/consultant for execution of project activities and ensure quality project deliverables.
Responsibilities:
The Senior Urban Environment Specialist shall work in the aforementioned PMU to carry out the responsibilities listed below:
- Review the baseline assessment, gap assessment, interventions for urban river management and provide technical inputs on urban environmental aspects.
- Support in reviewing and providing feedback on project deliverables (inception report, baseline assessment report, draft URMP report) submitted by the agencies/consultants engaged by the PMU.
- Liaise with agencies/consultants engaged by the PMU for timely completion of project activities and submission of project deliverables.
- Liaise with State/city officials for execution of project activities.
- Prepare project briefs, monitoring reports, presentations for submission to the client.
- Extensive travel to the project cities for on-ground monitoring and reporting.
- Support in preparing content for capacity building and training programmes organized for different stakeholders.
- Support the PMU lead in overall execution of project activities, monitoring, evaluating and report requirements.
- Provide support to the team for conducting key events (e.g. workshops, conferences, review meetings etc.)
- Carry out any other additional tasks assigned by the PMU Lead.
Required Qualification, Work experience and Competencies
Necessary:
- Post graduate (Masters) qualification in Environmental Planning/Management, Environmental Engineering, Water Resources Management, Urban Planning/Management, or related disciplines from a reputed university/institute.
- 10+ years of relevant professional experience in urban master planning/environmental planning/environmental engineering/infrastructure planning/bio-diversity and ecology conservation etc.
- Excellent writing and communication skills in English.
- Strong inclination for documentation and developing knowledge products.
- Strong inter personnel and co-ordination skills, working independently, and flexibly.
- Willingness to travel to the project locations across India as required.
Desirable:
- 5+ years of experience in urban environment and water resources planning and implementation related projects.
- Experience in preparation of city master plan, city development plan, city sanitation plan or any other city wide plan preparation.
- Working in Project Management Unit (PMU) of relevant national missions, state missions/programs or city level project implementation.
- Experience with document design, GIS-based analysis, preparing corporate presentations.
- Experience of managing large consultancy assignment.
Reporting: The Senior Urban Environment Specialist shall report to the Team Lead, PMU at NIUA.
Duration: This is a contract-based position for a 1-year term, which is renewable subject to satisfactory performance.
Remuneration: As par with the industry standards, depending on experience and skills and fitment with NIUA remuneration structures. Proof of past remuneration (last received salary/monthly contract payment) would be required.
Application Process:
- Step 1: Interested applicants submit their CV and cover letter through the NIUA portal. The last date of application is 10 May 2024, 23:59 IST. Applications received after this cut-off time will, unfortunately, not be entertained.
- Step 2: Shortlisted candidates will be notified by email by 20 May 2024. Regrettably, it will not be possible to provide individual feedback on applications that are not shortlisted.
- Step 3: A team member from the Water and Environment vertical will be attached to each shortlisted candidate. The purpose is to help the shortlisted candidates understand the team culture within the Water and Environment vertical, and address any queries that the candidates may have. With this, we hope that the candidates will be able to put their best foot forward in the subsequent rounds of the selection process.
- Step 4: The first round of online interview will be conducted with the shortlisted candidates.
- Step 5: The second round of competency-based interview will be conducted with the top performing candidates from the first round.
- Step 6: Reference checks of selected candidates will be made. Following satisfactory reference checks, an offer will be made to successful candidates.
