Town Planning, the growing difficulties :

"The end of human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization". These rather radical words of Ralph Waldo Emerson should be enough to caution us. Ever since man has begun his journey towards civilization, we have been showing greater greed. We tend to forget the environmental and social issues and the limited resources that Mother Earth provides us with. Town planning is just one of the issues in this multifaceted problem. To begin with let us define the concept of town planning. Simply stated, it is the discipline of land use planning. Town planning or urban planning is multidimensional including effective land usage, architecture, design, sanitation and drinking water just to mention a few. Urbanization has brought with it complexities in life. In order to ensure a better and safer world to our future generations we need to address these complexities. We can no longer overlook things like town planning and be complacent. Fortunately for us, Indians, we do not need to start from scratch. Thousands of years back The Indus valley people had already given the head start. In fact the remarkable sense of town planning they had shown is unique till date. Today we just need to rediscover the hidden sense in us gifted to us by our forefathers.

We must understand the need for town planning and it does not require us to be intellectuals of high caliber. After all it is common sense that a hospital must not be located near a bus terminus. Similarly it would not be advisable to have a school beside a community hall. We do spend a lot of time planning and visualizing how to make our homes beautiful. The only need is to broaden our scope of thinking and to make the towns and cities a healthier and happier place to live in.

If we had once achieved glory in town planning, why then now do we face it as a growing challenge? The answer lies in our history. Throughout history India had been plundered and had been facing political instability time and again. This was an obvious reason why we had to divert our attention from activities like town planning. Securing ourselves was definitely more important than town planning. The colonial rule had given the deathblow. The imperial masters were only interested in India's exploitation and ere least concerned about public welfare. So when the rest of the world was getting industrialized, we were serving the whims and fancies of the British. Such a situation never gave us a scope for town planning. The British had sucked the money out of the Indians and town planning is not expected of a hungry man. Add to this the pressure of increase in population. Poverty and unemployment led masses to the cities resulting in undesired and unplanned urbanization. This has been a continuing trend.

In terms of population the decadal growth rate of population during 1991-2001 has been a mammoth figure of 31.2%. In absolute terms about 285 million people live in urban areas as on 31st March 2001. Such a rise in population automatically brings with it the issues related to health, housing, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, transportation etc. Each of these areas are to be given equal importance if we are to tackle the growing difficulties of town planning. The unemployment rate has been mounting and also the poverty levels show no significant improvement. All these result in unplanned activities. A major manifestation of the above is the growth in slums in urban areas. Sums present us with all the possible problems related to town planning. Then of course we have the problems of hawkers and street vendors. They have been increasingly contributing to traffic and drainage problems. Such areas have been of growing concern for town planning authorities.

Having had a glimpse of the variety of problems, let us now have a look at the various initiatives taken up by the Government. Post independence these mentioned problems were evident to our policy makers. So we can see allocations for housing and urban development right from First Five Year Plan. Initiatives were taken to cater to housing needs of the weaker sections as well as Government employees. At the same time rehabilitation of refugees were taken care of. The Ministry of Works and Housing was set up to give undivided attention to such issues. The Second Five Year Plan took up the important activity of Slum Clearance and Sweepers Housing. Successive plans have all laid importance to urban development with activities like setting up of HUDCO, passing legislations like Urban Land (Ceiling and Regulation) Act, taking up Master Plans for cities under which Bhubaneswar and Gandhi Nagar were developed. Likewise related initiatives like Building Material Technology Promotion Council, Urban Basic Services for the Poor etc.

were launched under the Five Year Plans. Then of course we had the Global Shelter Strategy and National Housing Policy announced in 1988. With all these and more the Government tried to tackle the growing needs of urbanization. Just prior to the Eighth Five Year Plan the National Commission of Urbanization submitted its report. Consequently the Eighth Plan identified and addressed the major problem areas like drinking water, education, sanitation, demand for housing, proliferation of slums etc. It also identified employment and poverty as key issues. All these began to be viewed as related problem areas and hence urban employment schemes like Urban Self-employment Programme and Urban Wage Employment Programme were launched. In 1998 a comprehensive Housing and Habitat Policy was formulated to address the issues of sustainable development, infrastructure and public-private partnership models. "Housing for All" has been identified as a priority area and subsequently the Two Million Housing Programme was taken up. Current initiatives from HUDCO that need to be mentioned are construction of kiosks for urban poor and implementation of community toilets and sanitation. Additionally exclusive attention was paid to the slums though National Slum Development Programme. Through the National Policy on Urban Street Vendors a major problem area has been sought to be dealt with.

With a galaxy of schemes and policies it seems that the Government has paid adequate attention to the rising problems of urbanization. Paradoxically each such scheme and policy speaks of a problem in itself. Every new scheme launched is either an indication of failure of earlier schemes or of a new problem. The reality is that India is still a developing country and we continue to face these issues day-in and day-out. Ironically many of these programmes have remained on paper. Even after 59 years of independence we cannot site a single city worth comparing with those of the first world at least in terms of the discussed issues. Pragmatically we have done far from enough.

The good signs are that we continue to make moves forward. Recent plans to modernize airports and bringing them at par with the developed nations speaks that we have not given up. The latest impetus is in the form of Delhi Master Plan 2021(referred to as DMP hereon). The vision of the plan is "to make Delhi a global metropolis and a world-class city". It is a holistic approach in the sense that it talks of work productivity, quality of life and sustainable environment apart from the regular critical issues of housing, slums, transport etc. It also takes into account the culture and heritage aspects. Specifically the DMP has highlighted on parameters like land policy, public participation, redevelopment, shelter, unauthorized colonies, informal sector, industry, health, education, sports facilities, disaster management etc. Overall it has taken a sensitive approach to the development of Delhi especially in the backdrop of the Delhi sealing drive and the massive protests against it. The emphasis on public-private partnerships and public participation are the merits worth mentioning.

What however remains to be seen is how the DMP works out. I have my reasons to be apprehensive but surely I too want things to gain momentum. I pin my hopes on the DMP to give us a "world-class" Delhi that the world would envy. In conclusion I would like to mention that the responsibility lies not only with the government but also with every citizen equally. All of us should contribute in our own little way for the betterment of our surroundings. That is the social responsibility we all should share. It is only though effective awareness and sound governmental policies that a planned India can be built. Lastly, I would urge the people of India not to wait for an India Master Plan; instead let us make our India worth mentioning in the future history books just as our very own Indus Valley people ha..

Soumyajit Sarcar

Courtesy : civilserviceindia.com