Dr PSN Rao, an eminent urban planner and HoD of Housing at the School of Planning and Architecture here, has been appointed the new chairman of the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC). Besides, the chairman, the Urban Development Ministry has also appointed four members to the commission — Sonali Bhagwati, Sonali Rastogi, Samir Mathur and Durga Shankar Mishra. The new panel, constituted under the provisions of the Delhi Urban Art Commission Act, 1973, will have a tenure of three years.
Rao has studied urban management in Canada, according to a senior UD Ministry official while Bhagwati and Rastogi are practising architects. Mathur is a landscape architect and Mishra an Additional Secretary in the UD Ministry. DUAC, set up in 1974, is mandated with preserving, developing and maintaining the aesthetic quality of urban and environmental design.
The panel scrutinises various building and engineering proposals from the perspective of urban aesthetics and advises urban local bodies like Delhi Development Authority, New Delhi Municipal Council and the three municipal corporations of Delhi.