Challenges in urban development in India - Copy.docx

Challenges in urban development in India - Copy.docx

• 1.
  Emerging Issues andOptions of Habitat Planning in India  Jit Kumar Gupta India is urbanising rapidly due to; rapid increase in population, migration of people from rural areas to urban areas; large investments being made in housing, road network, urban transport, water supply, power-related infrastructures; promoting mission related to smart cities, and rapid urban growth, development and expansion of cities. Historically, number of urban towns and cities have also increased, though not proportionally when compared with the increase in the urban population. Majority of increase in population is getting localised in the existing towns/cities, leading to increase in density and high degree of congestion. Looking at the prevalent trends , urban growth is expected to continue in the years to come led by migration, urban pull and rural push with Poverty pushing people to urban areas . During last 100 years, India witnessed, urbanization level going up by 3 times; urban settlements growing merely 4 times; total population multiplying 5 times; urban population increasing by 15 times and rural population increasing by merely 3.5 times. Massive shift of population to urban areas, is not simply a shift of demographics but places cities/towns at the centre/core of India’s development Cities are engines of growth for the economy of every nation, including India. As per Smart City Mission agenda; nearly 31% of India’s current population lives in urban areas and contributes 63% of India’s GDP (Census 2011). With increasing urbanization, urban areas are expected to house 40% of India’s population and contribute 75% of India’s GDP by 2030. Globally, India is presently ranked as second largest urban system in the world after China. Considering the existing rate of demographic growth, India will be the most populated country by the year 2050 with population placed at 1.6 billion. Further, it has been estimated that 800 million people will be living in urban areas in 2050, as compared to 379 million living in the year 2011.Being the most populated country and having large share of urban population, urban India will bring large number of challenges and opportunities for the nation in the urban development .Challenges posed by rapid and massive urbanisation will include ensuring rational and planned development of the urban settlements, growing vulnerability to climate change, overcoming problems of shortage of housing, increasing pressure of migration, minimising poverty, removing spatial inequalities, making cities safe and resilient; overcoming problems related to promoting inclusive and rational economic development. Looking at the way cities are growing major issues emerging in the urban planning include;  Poor Urban Governance; --In Indian context urban centres are being governed by proxy because of excessive controls exercised by state governments over local bodies. 74 th Constitutional Amendment Act,I992, provides framework for ensuring independence, authority, resources and responsibility to local bodies in order to enable them to act and perform like governments in their own right at local level. However, amendments carried out in the legal framework for empowering urban local bodies remain on paper and are being followed only in
• 2.
  letters and notin spirits. Local governments, being closest to the people at local level, need to be adequately strengthened in terms of their administrative, fiscal, technical and political capacities to enable them to emerge as governments in their right and discharge all their obligations to urban centres with effectiveness and efficiency  Low Priority to Urban Development;--Looking critically and historically, it can be observed that policies of national and state governments are primarily biased against urban sector with approach focused on restricting the growth of urban centres, minimizing migration and encouraging people to stay in the rural areas. Despite these restrictive policies, urban centres are growing at a phenomenal pace. This calls for changing our priorities and strategies towards urban areas. Instead of restricting their growth, policy should aim at allowing these centres to grow at their natural pace with state acting as facilitator, ensuring that all urban dwellers have access to basic minimum facilities required for having an appropriate level of quality of life. Shift in approach to promote orderly development of urban centres has found favour with the present government, with the launch of urban focused Mission and Yojnas, which call for promoting planned development, creating affordable housing, making provision of open spaces, providing basic amenities/services, providing good governance, leveraging technologies, promoting green transportation and making cities clean and green.  Poor Capacity of ULB’;s--If we critically look at entire scenario, it can be safely concluded that urban growth per-se is not bad, but the rapid rate of growth which outpaces the institutional, administrative and financial capacity to cope with it. This challenge needs to be met without wasting resources or distorting the pattern of national development. Poor capacity of urban India to effectively meet the urban challenges has primarily led to cities growing in unplanned and irrational manner.  Mismatch between Resources and Responsibilities;--Despite the fact that urban local bodies have long history spanning over 3 centuries with Madras Municipal Corporation being established in 1688, not much headway has been made in allowing these local bodies to grow in terms of their capacity to effectively discharge their functions, duties, responsibilities within local areas. The basic tenor, character and structure of local bodies have remained unchanged despite dramatic change in the complexion of their nature of duties and people at large. Financial base of ULB’s has been eroded considerably by taking away most of the productive sources of revenue, diluting/marginalizing their role in urban development.  Poverty of Basic Infrastructure--Development perspective of urban areas presents a grim picture. In the process cities lack basic infrastructures and services, garbage collection becoming a nightmare, unauthorized constructions and unplanned development emerging as the order of the day and pot-holes dominating the road network. Quality of life continue to suffer enormously and city functioning getting adversely impacted. Thus, it becomes essential that if the urban areas are to become livable places, providing basic amenities of life to all its residents, ensuring their productivity, sustainability and healthiness, providing
• 3.
  urban infrastructures, onprescribed norms and standards, need to be made the priority area on the agenda of any government.  Uncontrolled Urban Sprawl; Urban sprawl or uncontrolled expansion, both in population and geographical area, of rapidly growing cities is the root cause of majority of urban problems. In majority of cities, their economic base is incapable of dealing with the problems created by their excessive size. Massive immigration from rural areas and movement of people from small towns into big cities has led to the urban sprawl of large metropolises. Urban sprawl is rapidly encroaching upon the precious agricultural land.  Overcrowding; Overcrowding is a situation in which too many people live in too little space has been observed, as the distinct character of urban areas. Overcrowding is a logical consequence of over-population in urban areas. It is naturally expected that cities having large size of population squeezed in a small space, invariably suffer from overcrowding, lack of basic amenities, adequate open spaces, problems of safe transportation and quality public spaces. This is well exhibited by almost all the big cities of India, where high density in large urban centres remain a major problem.  Housing Shortage; Overcrowding leads to a chronic problem of shortage of houses in urban areas. This problem is specifically more acute in those urban areas where there is large influx of unemployed or underemployed immigrants with little financial capacity and resources unable to find affordable place to live when they enter cities/towns from the surrounding areas. Factors responsible for housing problems faced by the urban people include; high cost of urban land, shortage of developed land at affordable cost; shortage of building materials and financial resources; inadequate expansion of public utilities into sub-urban areas; poverty and unemployment of urban immigrants; strong caste and family ties and lack of adequate transportation to sub-urban areas, where most of the vacant land for new construction is located.  Growing Unemployment ; The problem of unemployment is no less serious than the problem of housing. Urban unemployment in India is estimated at 15 to 25 per cent of the labour force. This percentage is even higher among the educated people. Growth of economic opportunities in urban areas have failed to keep pace with the quantum of immigration. The limited capacity of urban areas to create enough employment opportunities and absorb the rapid growth of the urban labour force, has led to major problems emerging in the urban areas.  Mushrooming of Slums and Squatter Settlements; Unchecked, unplanned and haphazard growth of urban areas has genesis in the mushroom growth and spread of slums and squatter settlements which present a striking feature in the ecological structure of Indian cities, especially of metropolitan centres. Extreme unhygienic living conditions, impoverished population , overflows excreta, temporary structures, lack of basic amenities remain the distinct features of urban slums. Housing one sixth of urban population, slums pose enormous challenge to sustainable development of urban India.  Inefficient Transportation; According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 10 percent of the world’s road fatalities (130,000) occur in India alone. Traffic crashes occur every minute, and a life is lost every 3.7 minutes. Crashes have a
• 4.
  significant negative impacton the nation’s economy, costing the country the equivalent of 3 percent of its GDP between 1999 and 2000. With increasing traffic bottlenecks and traffic congestion, almost all cities and towns of India are suffering from acute form of transport problem. Transport problems increase and become more complex as the town grows in size. With its growth, the town performs varied and complex functions and more people travel to work or shop. Travel and traffic have emerged as the worst gifts of Indian urbanization. City leaders and other decision-makers must consider issues of safety not only on the roads, but also in the surrounding environment. Safety and accessibility are key components for ensuring that cities become secure, sustainable places to live.  Water Scarcity; Water is valued as being one of the most essential elements of nature to sustain life. However, supply of water remain invariably short of demand as the cities grow in size and number. Water quality remains another urban issue. It is said by 2022, twenty two large cities of India including Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai etc, will become highly water stressed cities. With only 4% of the total global water, housing 17.3 % of global population and having largest animal count to support, India faces enormous challenge in ensuring availability of appropriate quantity and quality of water to all its urban/rural residents  Deficient Sewerage ; Urban areas in India are almost invariably plagued with insufficient and inefficient sewage facilities. Not a single city in India is fully sewered. Resource crunch faced by the municipalities and un-authorized growth of the cities are two major causes of this pathetic state of affairs. According to latest estimates, only 35-40 per cent of the urban population has the privilege of sewage system. Most of the cities have old sewerage lines which are not looked after properly.  Poor Solid Waste Management; As Indian cities grow in number and size, the problem of garbage disposal is assuming alarming proportions. Huge quantities of garbage produced by our cities pose a serious health problem. Most cites do not have proper arrangements for garbage disposal and the existing landfills are full to the brim. These landfills are hotbeds of disease due to innumerable unhealthy gasses leaking into their surroundings  Lack of Safety and growing Crime; Modem cities present a meeting point of people from different walks of life having no affinity with one another which leads to promote anonymity in cities. Like other problems, the problem of crimes increases with the increase in urbanisation. In fact the increasing trend in urban crimes tends to disturb peace and tranquillity of the cities and make them unsafe to live, in particularly for the women  Increasing Urban Pollution; With rapid pace of urbanisation, industries and transport systems grow rather out of proportion. These developments are primarily responsible for creating favourable options for promoting pollution of environment, particularly in the urban environment. Majority of urban centres in India are facing perpetually, the problem of large-scale urban pollution. Smog and smoke have become integral part of urban environment. Capital city of Delhi is known for high degree of pollution particularly during winters, when visibility gets reduced and air pollution hits badly the operation of cities.
• 5.
   Lack ofPlanning; Planning remains central to orderly growth and development of cities. Majority of cities in India do not have any planning framework in the shape of Master Plans/Development Plans to guide their present and future planned growth. As per recent report of Niti Ayog, 65% of the 7,933 urban settlements in India do not have any master plan which regulate use of land. Even in case of cities where such plans are available, non- implementation of master plans has led to haphazard constructions, aggravating problems like traffic congestion, pollution, and flooding. Majority of cities are accordingly growing in unplanned and haphazard manner. In addition, majority of plans prepared have also become outdated and not revised, reviewed and redefined and accordingly do not reflect the concern of urban local dwellers, which needs serious consideration. Metropolitan Area Development Plans and District Development Plans, as mandated by 74th amendment Act, are conspicuous by their absence. Lack of human resource for undertaking planning on full scale ,lower capacity of State planning departments and lack of political will and commitment are the major reasons for the existing scenario/ regime of unplanned development prevailing in urban India.  Growing Urban Poverty; Roughly one-third of the urban population today lives below the poverty line. There are glaring disparities between haves and have- nots in urban areas. The most demanding of the urban challenges, unquestionably is the challenge posed by poverty; the challenge of reducing exploitation, relieving misery and creating more human condition for urban poor. There is rise in urban inequality, as per UN habitat report, 2010, urban inequality in India rose from 34 to 38 % based on consumption in period of 1995 to 2005.  Growing Environmental concern; Vulnerability to risk posed by the increasing man-made and natural disasters is increasing in the urban context. Ongoing Covid-19, has adversely impacted the functioning , operation, economy, employment and livability in urban areas in a large way. According to UNDP 70 % of Indian population is at risk to floods and 60% susceptible to earthquakes. The risks are higher in urban areas owing to density and overcrowding. Urban areas are becoming heat islands, ground water is not being recharged and water crisis is persistent.  Inadequate Open Spaces; Open spaces in urban areas remain at premium due to limited area made available under green uses. In urban India, as against the defined norm of 9sqm /person, on an average, only 2.7sqm of open space is available in the cities and towns. Open spaces are known to be valuable for making the communities happy and healthy. Green spaces are also known to be promoter of more physical activity and create healthy communities. Lack /limited availability of open spaces has been the root-cause of majority of health related problems prevailing in urban areas. AMRUT, Mission launched by Government of India, has mandated the provision of green spaces, develop parks for the use of communities and create recreational spaces in all the 4041 statutory towns/cities in India.  Energy inefficiency; Globally, cities are known to be responsible for global warming, climate change , generators of large carbon footprints , consumers of resources and generators of waste, due to consumption of large black energy
• 6.
  Majority of energyconsumed in Indian cities is primarily due to planning, designing and construction of energy-inefficient buildings and making operational large fossil fuel-based transportation vehicles. Energy efficiency has never been considered as the priority area in the planning of cities and construction of buildings. However, sustainability of planet will essentially depend upon making cities energy efficient /zero-energy.  Outdate Development control regulations: In majority of urban areas, legal framework guiding the development and construction of buildings have outlived its life and are not in consonant with the emerging trends/challenges of urbanization. Outdated and irrational planning regulations and building byelaws often increase the cost of construction, leading to underutilization of urban land and market distortions. Further, many of these regulations are being amended without sufficient empirical evidence on their impacts. These issues, need to be addressed on priority by all the cities/states.  Inadequate People Participation; People participation remains critical for rational planning and orderly development of cities and towns. People need to actively participate in the urban governance and reforms. However, in the Indian context, people participation remains marginalized and all planning and development projects are prepared within the closed walls of offices without involving people/communities in the planning and development process. This has done more damage than good to the urban growth and has been considered as prime reason for promoting the unplanned and unregulated development of cities.  Limited use of technology in planning and managing cities; In the art and science of planning , designing and managing Indian cities ,use of technology including use of IT/IT enabled services have been found to be minimal, which are still been performed using manual /outdated processes. Technology holds distinct advantages and has shown its potential in all facets of city planning, delivery of services, making services accessible to all its residents, regulating transportation, bringing efficiency in garbage disposal, water management, street lighting etc. Major challenges facing cities can be effectively and efficiently met with innovative use of technology.  Urban Flooding ; Large number of urban centres are now facing the recurring problem of flooding during the monsoon season. Flooding of urban centres has been attributed to; creating large built-up area, occupying all available open spaces, having minimum open spaces; inadequate storm water drainage , paving of all available spaces, bringing low-lying area under development, destroying all available flora and fauna, encroaching on all existing/natural channels of water flow, using land under water bodies for urbanization etc. In order to save cities from recurring problems of flooding ,cities need to be made spongy by creating adequate options of managing/absorbing storm water. As per Niti Ayog recent document,’ Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India- Final Report; September 2021; major challenges faced by the urban India- its cities, towns and metropolises have been defined to include; ◦ Complexity and diversity of India’s urban story
• 7.
  ◦ Absence ofStatutory Master Plans for majority of urban centres ‘ ◦ Lack of Preparedness to Capture Benefits of Urbanization in Census Towns ◦ Sub-Optimal Utilization of Urban Land ◦ Large Magnitude of Population Living in Slums ◦ Increasing Risk of Water Scarcity in Cities ◦ Inadequate focus in City Planning for Disaster Mitigation ◦ Increasing pressures on Coastal Habitation ◦ Lack of Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-Sectoral approach in Urban Planning and Policy framework. Way Forward; Threat of global warming is looming large and becoming a distinct reality. Urbanization has been the major contributor and promoters of global warming. Accelerated urbanization adversely impact climate by creating demand for large mobility, increased commercial/ industrial activities, creating large built space, higher energy consumption and use of natural resources. In order to mitigate the global warming, we have to make the process of urbanization more rational and sustainable by synergizing urban and rural settlements using state of art technologies and by involving communities. ‘Combined with modern technology, better urban planning can solve many problems that cities are facing, so as to lead them to prosperity’ (UN-Habitat). Nations, across the world, have important role to play in minimizing the global warming in general and developed / developing nations in particular. India, with large carbon footprints, has a major role to play along with China and USA, for achieving the objective of minimizing global warming. Accordingly, India has to rationalize urbanization by adopting state of art urban planning and synergizing rural and urban settlements through regional planning. Aim should be to create cities with minimum carbon footprints by adopting an approach revolving around; redefining urban planning; planning compact cities; promoting regional planning; putting in place appropriate policy, legal and institutional framework, duly supported by adequate/dedicated manpower and resources, involving academic institutions and industry and launching capacity building programs, for the communities and other stakeholders. How quick, effectively and efficiently, we are able to do these tasks, shall hold the key to make India, a role model of minimizing global warming/climate change/decarbonizing cities by creating sustainable, safe, resilient and inclusive pattern of human settlements
• 8.
  Considering the criticalrole and importance of urban area, it would be important that cities are , properly planned , effectively developed and rationally governed . Adoption of the principle of developing all the urban centres with their defined periphery, can usher an era of balanced growth, and meeting the national target of , ‘Housing for all’, defined by the Government of India, through Pradhan Mantri shehri /Grameen Awaas Yojna. and realize the goal / targets/agenda defined in the SDG 11. Bibliography  McKinsey Global Institute: India’s Urban Awakening: Building Inclusive Cities, Sustaining Economic Growth, Report April, 2010.  United Nations, New York: World Urbanization Prospects- The 2014 Revision, 2014  Urban News Digest, Volume III, issue 9: www.urbannews digest. in, November,2014  Government of India, Census Report. 2011  UN Habitat Report, State of World’s Cities 2008/2009- Harmonious Cities, defines the cities in their basic characters and growth pattern :  Global Warming Facts, Definition, Causes and Effects NRDChttps://www.nrdc.org/stories/global-warming-101  Government of India, MHUPA: Report of Working Group on Migration, January, 2017  Niti Ayog ,’ Reforms in Urban Planning Capacity in India- ; September 2021  Author; Jit Kumar Gupta Former, Director, College of Architecture, IET Bhaddal, Punjab ;[email protected]