The Cyberabad Municipal Corporation (CMC), in partnership with UNICEF India, has launched an initiative to make urban governance more child-friendly by recognising children and adolescents as “Junior Citizens” and incorporating their needs into city planning.
A Child Rights Secretariat Cell was inaugurated at the CMC head office in Gachibowli during a session titled ‘Junior Citizens: A Child-Friendly and Safe Cyberabad’. The cell is intended to provide an institutional platform for coordinating child rights and child-friendly urban governance across the municipal corporation.
CMC Commissioner G Srijana said in a press release that the proposed approach would bring children’s perspectives into planning and development decisions. The areas identified include streets, parks, schools, public spaces, mobility, essential services and safety.
The initiative will include structured, zone-wise consultations with children in Serilingampally, Kukatpally and Quthbullapur. According to the CMC, the suggestions gathered through these consultations will be used to inform planning for safe school routes, pedestrian infrastructure, parks, public spaces, water and sanitation, mobility and community safety.
The zone-wise approach is intended to allow priorities to be tailored to local conditions rather than applying a single citywide list of interventions. The announcement, however, did not specify the number of consultations, the timeline for completing them, or the mechanism through which children’s recommendations will be incorporated into municipal decisions.
The proposed framework places children within the city’s planning process as a distinct group of residents whose daily experience includes access to schools, movement through neighbourhood streets, use of parks and public spaces, and access to water, sanitation and other essential services. It also creates a formal administrative point for coordination through the Child Rights Secretariat Cell.
UNICEF India Deputy Representative Jesper Moller and other UNICEF officials attended the session. The partnership brings an international child-rights agency into a municipal initiative focused on urban planning and local service delivery, while the CMC will be responsible for coordinating the proposed consultations and connecting their outcomes with city development priorities.
The first identified consultation areas are Serilingampally, Kukatpally and Quthbullapur. The next steps outlined by the civic body are the zone-wise engagement process and the use of children’s suggestions to shape planning for safer routes, pedestrian infrastructure, public spaces, basic services and community safety.
