Emerging Challenges of Urban Planning in India

Presentation for Indian Urban Congress, Mysore November 19, 2011

Dinesh Mehta, CEPT University

Meeting the Urban Challenge: We have made some valiant

attempts
Decentralisation and Governance:
74th Amendment and its subsequent implementation by various states
Reforms in urban sectors removal of ULC, rent controls, reduction of
stamp duty, ease of land acquisition
Voice of people RTI, citizen charters, media interest in urban

Large numbers cities have done well to cope with problems

Urban Development on State Agenda -Tamil Nadu, Gujarat
Growth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities

Urban Finance and Development:

Massive infrastructure investment in cities through JNNURM/UIDSSMT

New Housing for Poor through IHDP/BSUP

Private investments in townships
2.

India: Urban growth

SOME STYLISED FACTS

3.

Indias urbanisation: Has it kept pace with economic growth?

India has low urbanization combined with high economic growth.

Current level

4.
Source
: Mario Polese, Pamela Echeverria and Mila Freire, 2002

Indias Urbanisation: acceleration in 2011?

90 million added in Urban and Rural

areas
5.
Bhagat,
(2011), Urbanisation in India, EPW, August
20, 2011

Growth of large cities in India

6.

Growth Rates of large cities

7.

Myth of Rural-Urban Migration

8.

Emergence of Census Towns in 2011

9.

Urban Poverty: Slums a manifestation

Percent Slum Population in Cities

60.00

50.00

40.00

30.00

20.00

10.00

0.00

10.

Urbanisation and Declining Poverty

11.

The debate over Rs. 32 per capita per day as Urban Poverty line
Rural Poverty decline much faster than Urban Poverty
Urbanisation helped decline in rural poverty increase in rural non-farm
employment

Rural Poverty by distance from a town

The further away one is from an urban area, one is more likely
to be poor -decline in rural non-farm employment as one
moves away from a city
Krishna and Bajpai (2011), Lineal spread of growth, EPW, Sept 17-23, 2011
12.

Poverty by size class of towns

13.

Lanjou and Murgai, urban growth and rural poverty in India, presentation Delhi
April 14-16, 2011

URBAN PLANNING

14.

If planning is everything..may be its nothing*

*Aaron Wildavsky Policy Sciences, 1973

What do Planner do?

Planners aim to "understand, analyze, and influence the variety
of forces social, economic, cultural, legal, political,
ecological, technological, aesthetic, and so forth shaping the
built environment.

Planners can no longer define a role for themselves. .

planners have difficulty in explaining who they are and what
they should be expected to do.. planners never seem to do the
right thing.plans are never implemented

15.

Is Planning a Trivial Profession?"

What has happened over time?

Todays planners are busy creating a bureaucratic maze, issuing

permits and enforcing planning and building codes,
reactive rather than proactive, corrective instead of pre-emptive

the disciplinary identity of planning has diminished (did it ever

exist in India?)
Dominance of Political Processes, land speculations,
builder/developer lobby has meant a loss of professional
identity for planners.
Paucity among planners today of the speculative courage and
vision.
Source: Adapted from Thomas J. Campanella, Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of
American Planning, Blog Posted on PERMALINK, 25 April Nov 2011
16.

Planning and the Poor : Planners are anti-Poor?

Why do the poor have no

place in our planning?
Vision to make world-class
cities: neglect of the poor
Urban planning is preoccupied with land and its
use
Slums have 20-25% of
population but use less than 3
percent of land
The poor do not have any
formal stake over land and
hence are not a part of the
planning process

17.

Challenge of Planning Indian Cities

Crisis of Prosperity in Indian Cities
High Economic Growth leading to Rapid Changes in Consumption
Infrastructure water, roads, transport etc. unable to cope with rising
demand
Poverty among Plenty..the poor continue to be neglected

Mega Cities and Mega Urban regions

Many large cities of the world are in India and development taking place
40-50 Km away from these cities
We have little experience of planning large cities

Lack of Capacity
DO we have adequate number of planners?
Small towns in India lack adequate capacity to plan and implement
Public sector (government) fails to attract good planners
18.

Too many plans for Cities

Every new government Programme contemplates a citywide approach and hence a new set of plan
19.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

20.

How

Do

we mainstream

slums

in

Pro-Poor Urban Planning

Under the PAS Project support is being
provided to the Ahmedabad Municipal
Corporation for
Organizing available data on slums
Developing a Slum information
system on a GIS platform

Strategy to integrate slums

networking slums to city infrastructure
Developing investment plans for
slum infrastructure with funding from
GOI and local programmes.
21.

our plans?

GIS BasedExample:
Slum Information
System
Conceptual
GIS Based
MIS
for SlumsFramework

2222
WEST
VASNA

No.
No.of
ofSlums
Slums::156
518
16

22.

AHMEDABAD MUNICIPAL
COPRORATION
VASNA
WEST ZONE
WARD

Information System for each Slum household

23.

Full survey of all 500

slum Pockets
Biometric survey of
325,000 slum households
Households: 359,625

Huts
having
Water
Huts
Owner
having
and Individual
Rental
Individual
Distribution
Toilet
Housing
Connection
Facility
Structure

Pucca House
Kutcha House
Semi-pucca
House

ACCESS TO BASIC SERVICES

24.

India Water Supply improved basic access but

decline in household level services
Basic access in
urban India has
reached nearly 95%
by 2004.
% Household level
connections in
urban India has
declined from 54%
in 1990 to 47% by
2004.

25.

Source: WHO-UNICEF Joint

25
Monitoring Program, 2000 and 2008

THE WATER DAY ..ONCE IN 2 weeks

26.

India Urban Sanitation marginally improved access,

high open defecation, and reliance on shared facilities
Imp + shared in
urban India reached
75%

Basic access
increased from 49%
to 54%

Estimated Open
Defecation still high at
18%

27.

Source: WHO-UNICEF Joint

27
Monitoring Program, 2000 and 2008

India GDP per capita and Sanitation

India worse off than

other countries with
similar GDP per
capita

28.

ADB (2009), Sanitation in India: Progress, Differentials, Correlates and Challenges , p. 2

29

Need to link infrastructure investments to

service outcomes
Aggregate statistics suggest good
coverage of water and sanitation
in urban areas in India
BUT little is known about the
quality, level and financial
sustainability of service
Only limited information on
access of urban poor households
to water and sanitation is
available
Lack of WSS information leads
to misallocation of resources

Difficult to assess impact of past

investments
29.

Resources for WSS is not a major constraint

around USD 10 billion invested in urban
WSS over 7 years Gujarat has allocated
over One Billion USD for Sanitation

Performance Monitoring
Alignment of PAS information with
state and central government programs
to track progress on performance

Gujarat and Maharashtra state

wide PAS web portal for
performance monitoring

13th Finance Commission has identified

performance linked grants requiring
reports on key indicators
Many state governments have their own
reform programmes, based on similar
approach as the JNNURM
Project website www.pas.org.in

30.

30

City Level Dashboard

31.

H o w w i l l p e r fo r m a n c e m o n i to r i n g h e l p ?
Has the investment made any
difference in service level? At city level
one can measure and compare
performance over time.
100
75

Use for tracking financial viability. Has

there been an improvement in cost
recovery? Need for policies related to
tariff setting

Performance linked financing; reward

better performing cities
32 Build capacity of poor performing cities
32.

50
25
0

Rajura
Naldurg
Thane
Akola
Ballarpur
Parbhani
Islampur
Panchgani
Baramati
Basmat
Nagpur
Lonar
Nandura
Jaisingpur
Jamner
Deglur
Umared
Navapur
Shrivardhan
Daryapur
DhamangaonRly
Mehkar
Daund
Jejuri
Indapur
Katol
Kagal
Panhala
Yawal

As monitoring tool, state and national

governments can name and shame
cities and refocus investments

Coverage of individual water

supply connections

In Conclusion Messages for Delhi meeting

Focus on Performance Outcome
Monitor performance not expenditure.. No need to have a 100 page
monitoring format (like in JNNURM) that has become meaningless
exerciseKeep monitoring simple and transparent

No new Plans
Use the statutory plans as a basis..develop investment plans to
complement the Master Plans

Access to Basic Services

Despite massive investments in basic services, the service levels are poor. Ensuring
access of water and sanitation to all, removing open defecation should be the principal
goal . With small investments, it is possible to improve service levels for all, especially
the poor

Poor Urban Governance has been a bane of many problems

We are more centralised than before with central and state funding, restore local
autonomy, Need better systems of transparency and accountability, consider
regulatory agencies for urban services,

33.

Thank You
dineshmehta@cept.ac.in
34
34.