Key Problems Faced By Planners In India And The Way They Can Be Addressed

India’s cities make a major contribution to the country’s economy with less than 1/3th population, its urban areas comprise over 2/3rd of the country’s GDP and generate 90% of government revenues. Urbanization in India has expanded rapidly due to the migration of the people from villages to cities in search of employment opportunities. Slums are 1/4th of all urban housing. In Mumbai, for example, more than 50 % of the people reside in slums and most of it are located near the employment centres.

Population density

India’s population density is a major challenge in the urban cities. As population density drives urbanization, embracing the growth is the key to the development instead of curbing the growth. For example - Like the suburbia in US, If it's too sparse, then we lose efficiency and like Mumbai, if it's too dense, then it becomes an uncomfortable habitat to live in resulting in squatters and jams. The graph of city level distribution shows how most megacities have unequal distribution of density. Though the traditional planning strategy of segregation gave way to mixed used development, no effort was made to devise an organization strategy to address the issue of population density. As a result, when population increases, there are fewer amenities per person such as schools and hospitals and more competition and higher prices for fewer beds and admissions.

Self-sustaining communities

It includes a community which has the combination of all the works, homes and other amenities such as schools, colleges and even health care facilities within it. Rather than controlling the total population of the city, densities of such communities can be limited. The FSI does not control the population density and that is what planners usually tend to control making it difficult for the government to build good amenities around.

For example – In cities like London, each individual is accounted for irrespective of the area they reside in. New models of garden cities emerging back in Brazil.

Transit oriented development

The base of the city lies in the good street connectivity with mass rapid transport and then the rest of the land is developed around the streets based on the land use zoning. Urban transport planning is only focussing on the development of moving vehicles and totally lack to consider the number of people walking or using the bicycles.

For example – Navi Mumbai was developed based on the street connectivity but since the population density exceeding the nominal amount. The local trains in Mumbai offer people a cheaper and faster mode of transport and at the same time encourage people to move to the city for jobs, creating the 'city-drag movement. But as more people come in using the same route, the value of adjoining land and other amenities rise. In Delhi, land values went up three times once the Metro became functional. While the areas around these corridors are in high demand, the rest of the city remains underutilized.

Streets and traffic congestion

Streets are usually designed according to the hierarchy of network ranging from arterial to local and minor streets depending upon the usage and the connectivity of the streets with the neighbourhood. The more urbanized the city becomes, the more the population density the city withstands and as a result the vehicular congestion on the streets is a major challenge. The development of more infrastructure such as flyovers, bridges is not an optimum solution to the problem. The abundance of infrastructure increased the attraction of real estates to the surrounding areas and thus resulting in the imbalance and under usage of land.

For example – The AIIMS flyover in Delhi proved that these infrastructures are similar to allopathy medicines and they are not the permanent solutions to the traffic congestion. Delhi's satellite town of Gurgaon is a prime example of this phenomenon. The problem is not with the individual cities but the connection between Delhi and Gurgaon, which clogs daily making people's lives miserable.

The handicapped administration

In India, the planning is way lower than the investment with the lack of proper body of decision makers who has the complete knowledge about the technical issues of the city. The higher authorities such as DDA, AUDA, CMDA etc. do not have any integrated authorities such as the planning commission to address the technical issues of the city. Technical help is taken after the decision makers have made a choice. Service delivery governed by the city local bodies which leads to chaotic accountability. Thus, cities are born out of an economic drive rather than being the economic engines within. The policy makers generally concentrate on the profit analysis than analysing in depth about the functioning of the economic engines. And thus, majority of our Indian cities do not have a comfortable living and they rely on temporary solutions.

For example - The Mayor of London has a technical permanent body, which makes decision on the city. In India, the system we follow is that we hire a technical body for specific purposes as in the case of the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. Technical body was assigned only to solve the problems that got added upon.

Stagnant urban productivity

Static urban productivity and underdevelopment faced by the planners today can be resolved with theintertwining of urbanisation and the economic growth. Market based framework and market friendly planning can drive the growth of the cities in the near future.

Lack of funds

India does not have sufficient funds to develop optimum infrastructure facilities like London, Paris, Shangai, Singapore etc. The per capita GDP of India is way lower when compared to these cities. Lack of funds from the government can be solved by the public private partnerships or private developers. Urban local bodies do not generate the revenues needed to develop the infrastructure. Poor financing by the urban local bodies and the service developers to improve the infrastructure of the new housing colonies. Inability of the LIG groups to buy a house due to the lack of access to the mortgage and micro finances.

For example - The CG road project of Ahmedabad was funded by Aravind mills and they took over advertising for 7 years as a tenure period in the CG road. The S. P ring road, Ahmedabad was funded by selling the agricultural lands and didn’t involve any government funds.

Exploitation of natural resources

India with increasing urbanization, has more percentage of built spaces than open, green and liveable spaces. The planning should be done in a way that cities have public realm with good and liveable spaces instead of being a concrete jungle. These results in urban island effect, global warming etc. For example – Mumbai port design has set a trend where only 40 percent of the spaces are privatized and the rest 60 % are public. Among which 22 % has purely public open spaces and parks.

Lack of modern planning framework

The traditional framework with outdated rent control regulations etc. does not enable the growth of cities and instead choke them. It can be made efficient using the new strategies such as the land acquisition, mutual benefit strategies. Rigid masterplans and zoning regulations lead to limitations of the land available for the growth of cities.

For example - The Nalanda airport which initially claimed 6. 5sq. km area with the implementation of effective principles took only 3. 5sq. km area. Mumbai has low FSI within the main city limits to reduce the population density and instead resulted in more number of people consuming smaller areas.