Introduction
Urbanisation being a worldwide phenomenon has affected India’s economy as a direct reflection of the structural changes in the economy with an occupational shift from agriculture to an urban-based industry with increased agricultural performance solely responsible for promoting urbanisation. The combined contribution of industry and services to GDP is higher than agriculture which emphasises urban areas which are likely to play an increasingly important role in the continuing liberalisation of the economy.
As per the current scenario, much of the growth of the economy will come from economic activities that are likely to be concentrated in and around existing cities and towns, particularly large cities, having transport and telecom linkages with the global economy to become preferred destinations for investments.
The cities need to be supported with improved planning and infrastructure to accommodate growth, better governance and management. Currently, 300 million Indians live in towns and cities. Within 20-25 years, another 300 million people will get added to Indian towns and cities. This urban expansion will happen at a speed quite unlike anything that India has seen before.
Five Year Plan’s Realising Role of Cities
The Seventh Five Year Plan
During the earlier phases of Five years planning in India, certain problems have arisen on account of inadequate regulatory reinforcement leading to insufficient control over constructive activities resulting in haphazard and unplanned growth. The role of cities was not recognised until the beginning of the Seventh Five-Year Plan where the economic importance of cities was realised and emphasised.
The Seventh Five Year Plan mentioned “Urbanisation as a phenomenon” to be included under considerations for further economic development. The plan envisaged large-scale urban development via the preparation of urban development plans at the regional as well as the sub-regional level to be able to understand the planning feasibility along with the interaction between physical planning and investment planning, rather than planning based on simple basic urban services like transportation and water supply.
Further, considering urbanisation as a part of economic development this plan suggested the diversion of migrating population back towards small and medium cities by creating opportunities through industrial investments. This diversion was created to concentrate urban development near these small and medium cities using private and public sector investment in them to prevent larger cities from the further urban extension. The idea was to reallocate the benefits of urban development towards other cities which are surviving to date.
However in the current version of UIDSSMT – UrbanInfrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns the objective of restraining the growth of large cities is not mentioned against the objective of migration diversion. (Phatak, UNLEASHING URBANIZATION, 2011)
The Eleventh Five Year Plan
The eleventh five-year plan focused on inclusive growth and is majorly known for its famous initiative called JNNURM, Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. It intends to enable and empower urban local bodies known as ULBs which includes Municipal corporations, Municipalities including Municipal council, municipal board, municipal committee, Town area committees and notified area committees. (India, 2010-11) Under this plan, the preparation of a city development plan and identification of urban reforms was made at both states as well as municipal levels.
However, the CDP offered limited considerations concerning socio economic aspects and could not guide towards the emerging needs by excluding the developments concentrated in peri-urban areas. Therefore, JNNURM was initiated to emphasise urban development and to provide impulsion to certain urban reforms. In spite of some good example cases the overall progress in terms of the execution of service delivery standards has been considered unsatisfactory.
JNNURM attempted towards providing a holistic approach from the point of implementing Urban Governance and providing urban infrastructure to ensure inclusive urban growth.
- A total of 21 projects with an approved cost of 5,211 crores, were formulated and proposed to boost public transportation systems with BRT known as Bus rapid transit system executed in case of Delhi. Another set of 123 projects were allocated for the improvement of vehicular traffic and parking areas with an approved cost of Rs.10, 162 crore. This included building new roads, adding flyovers, introducing Road over bridges known as ROBs that allowed pedestrian traffic to claim its safe access, as in case of Mysore city.
- Later the pilot phase of RAY known as Rajiv Awas Yojanawas launched to make India slum free. This scheme was supported by innovative construction techniques while using land as a resource with private participation for providing houses to eligible slum dwellers along with legislation to provide property rights to slum dwellers.Further the launch of SJSRY known as Swarna Jayanti Sahari Rozgaar Yojana enabled urban poor to gain full employment across the 3,941 towns included for an assistance of 3,360. (Commission)
The Twelth Five Year Plan
The objective of the Twelfth Plan has more inclusive sustainable urban growth with special emphasis overEnvironmental sustainability of Indian cities.It aimed towards making all citiesbecome efficient towards management and utilisation of available resources including water, land and energy and at the same time should be able to preserve and promote their cultural and historical heritage and derive profits from their tourism potential.
These cities were also expected to promote world class infrastructure and services at affordable prices to support the economic activities offered by them. The approach was to generate employment avenues and to enhance the quality of life by bringing people residing in the city as the predominant factor for the urban development. This development should ensure to provide its citizens with access to basic services of clean water, sanitation, sewage, solid waste management, affordable public transport systems and housing along with a healthy environment.
The Twelfth Five Year Plan focused on strengthening the five enablers for urbanisation: governance, planning, financing, capacity building and innovation.While strengthening the urban governance frame work by adopting the following strategies: Suggesting merger of Ministry of Urban Development with that of the Housing and Urban development in order to achieve Convergence at the Central Government and by setting up UTMA known as Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) for all million plus metro-politan cities to look into the city level transportation planswith respect to the spatial and land use plans for an integrated approach.
It also mandated the capacity building component of E-Governance under renewed JNNURM scheme for every city receiving assistance under the scheme. Further this mandated the creation of DP known as development plans for every city with a minimum perspective of 10years of projected growth while taking into account its natural endowments, economic potential and sustainable elements to promote clean and green city. It specifically provided the following:
- Strategic densification along mass transit corridors with mixed land use.
- A city mobility plan for making cities safe for vulnerable groups including women, children, pedestrian and cyclists.
- Urban poverty reduction strategy with inclusionary zoning for old age homes, orphanages, working hostels, night shelters, etc.
- Plans for City sewerage, sanitation, water sources, Economic and commercial activity plan, Infrastructure plan, Affordable housing plan, Environment conservation plan and Plan for peri-urban areas with respect to the city.
Mission City Approach was followed under JNNURM-I. About 70 per cent of the central assistance was provided to 65 Mission cities in particular which limited the concept encouraging medium and small cities to realise their full economic potential. Therefore under JNNURM-II the limitation was removed and all cities were made eligible to participate under the programme.
Along with improvements in JNNURM II and RAY, the NULM known as National Urban Livelihood Mission scheme is also taken up under the Twelfth Plan with an objective to make cities engines of inclusive growth. This entails revamping the guidelines of Swarna Jayanti Sahari Rozgaar Yojana (SJSRY) and enhancing its scope. Its basic thrust would be to build capacities and skills in sectors that have growing employment opportunities and are relevant to local socio-economic conditions, within the umbrella of NULM, theNational scheme for support to street vendors and assistance to the States for provision of shelters. (Commission)
Major Initiatives Towards Urban Planning In India
As stated by the planning commission the future of urbanisation in India will be directed towards growth irrespective of the definition of large cities defined as million plus, metropolitan agglomerations or megacities, this growth will be taking place on the peripheries of cities and densification will happen too in case of few existing cities. (K.C.Sivaramakrishnan & B.N.Singh) The analysis of urbanisation patterns and projections for the next 20 years for India is indicative of the fact that a huge amount of the urban population will be living in metropolitan regions.
However, this does not ensure the growth of main cities continues at the same pace. Instead in a few cases, the central city growth may decline with significant growth towards its peripheries. Agglomerations covering several municipal jurisdictions will emerge as a distinct feature of India’s urbanisation. They will also cause the existing urban agglomerations to expand in scale, where agricultural mandi towns, new industrial centres and service activities located in the metropolitan regions will be integrated together.
It is also projected that most of these urban agglomerations will be growing along the future transport corridors, leading to the elimination of distinction in terms of identity for areas as urban and rural. These urban corridors will be characterised by multiple nodes, concentrating densification towards metropolitan nodes or otherwise the urban periphery as in the case of Bangalore and in the case of Calcutta respectively.
Further it is estimated that a few corridors may eventually lead to discontinuous growth wasting urban lands and other resources in the process of development and therefore will need careful management in fields of infrastructure and its due environmental implications with an urgent need for an urban model that goes beyond the current municipality model of Indian planning.
In view of the above Indian government has proposed development-specific urban reforms embracing industrial and economic policies as a key development strategy with the emergence of industrial and economic corridors. Creation of SEZ’s known as Special Economic Zones and NIZM’s known as National Investment and Manufacturing Zones focusing on specific industrial and economic activities in and around existing urban regions.
Special Economic Zones
In the year 2000 Indian government announced its SEZ Policy and SEZ Act was passed in the year 2005 catering to the objectives of promoting foreign as well as domestic investments while promoting trade through exports and creating employment. The Act anticipated these Special economic zones to act as engines of growth by attracting huge financial investors to help develop infrastructure within the area, to enhance economic activity and by creating additional employment opportunities to benefit its population. (Planning Commission)
This also supported the idea of diverting migration from metropolitan cities by providing other cities with adequate and expected opportunities. Till the year 2014, a total of 196 Special Economic Zones were operational in India with few of them being successful in achieving the anticipated levels of development and investment whereas the majority of them could not meet up to the planning expectation. (Shriya Nanad, 2015)
National Investment and Manufacturing Zones
These are conceived as special industrial townships offering better levels of infrastructure, governance, fiscal planning green technology as compared to Special Economic Zones. Its proposal is applicable only to manufacturing industries which are capable of organising clusters and are self-regulatory. These are again proposed along the emerging urban corridor and in total fourteen investment regions are proposed across India where Andhra Pradesh is leading to setting up India’s first national investment and manufacturing zone. Apart from these fourteen, the pilot phase of NIZM belongs to the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor where a total of eight investment regions are identified to promote state of art infrastructure and land use zoning under the umbrella of this concept. (Finance, 2016)
Urban Corridors
During the year of 1988, a total of 329 urban centres across the country were identified as GEM’s known as Generators of Economic Momentum by the National Commission on Urbanisation with the idea of converging and consolidating development activities. Along with 49 SPUR’s known as Spatial Priority Urban Regions based on the evaluation of development potential and existing opportunities. This followed a study titled as India-Urban Corridors by the National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organisation (NATMO) based on the data acquired from the 1991 Census, to identify potential urban corridors at the country level.
Later by the year 2014, India had its inspiration from the already established international models of urban corridors from countries like china, japan and the United States. These examples helped in the realisation of the benefits of developing such urban corridors to help boost economic growth while diverting urban expansions and infrastructural investment towards second-order cities along the corridors to start developing with state of art facilities and in return favouring the major cities. The pilot project in this regard is still under development in collaboration with Japanese investors in the year 2007 and it is known as the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
It is expected to attract 52% of foreign direct investment in India and is expected to reach a total of US$90 billion. (ADOMAITIS, 2014) along this corridor the following National Investment and Manufacturing Zones are identified: within Gujaratit’s the Ahmedabad-Dholera Investment Region, in Maharashtra Shendra-Bidkin Industrial Part city and Dighi Port Industrial Area is identified, in Haryana, it’s the Manesar & Bawal Investment Region, in case of Rajasthan the circuit of Khushkhera- Bhiwadi-Neemrana Investment Region and Jodhpur-Pali-Marwar Region is considered whereas Madhya Pradesh has Pithampur-Dhar-Mhow Investment Region and Dadri-Noida-Ghaziabad investment Region in the state of Uttar Pradesh. (Finance, 2016)
State-wise Emerging Urban Corridors in India
Maharashtra: The state has proposed the development of different urban corridors while setting targets for the year 2021 for allocating 42% of the urban population along the Mumbai to Thane Urban corridor, 11% population along Mumbai to Pune, 21% along Mumbai-Nasik- Dhule-Amravati-Nagpur corridor and 6% along the Pune-Ahmadnagar-Aurangabad- Jalgaon corridor.
Gujarat: Among the land corridors, 72% of the state’s urban population is targeted along the Mehsana-Gandhinagar-Ahmedabad-Vadodara-Bharuch-Surat-Valsad corridor while only 9% will be aligned along Ahmedabad-Rajkot-Junagarh by 2021whereas among the Coastal Corridors6% of the population along Bhavnagar-Porbandar and another 6% along the Jamnagar-Morvi-Gandhidham-Bhuj corridor.
Tamil Nadu: Among the land corridors 43% of the state’s urban population by 2021 will be allocated along the Chennai-Krishnagiri-Hosur corridor and 19% along Coimbatore-Erode-Salem- Krishnagiri corridor whereas among the Coastal Corridors 7% along Chennai- Cuddalore-Tanjavur-Karaikudi and 4% along Tuticorin-Nagarcoil.
Karnataka: In the case of Karnataka state a total of 58% of the state’s urban population will be allocated along the Bangalore-Belgaum corridor by the year 2021 and 13% along the Mysore-Bangalore- Kolar area whereas under the Coastal Corridor only 6% is anticipated to be allocated along Mangalore-Udipi-Karwar corridor area.
Andhra Pradesh: All the proposed Land corridors in the state of Karnataka will be having Hyderabad as its emerging centre along which the state will be directing its population growth. These corridors will be the Hyderabad-Ananthpur-Hindupur corridor, Hyderabad-Vijayawada and Hyderabad-Nizamabad-Adilabad corridor stretch with the allocation of 31%, 11% and 3% of the state’s population by the year 2021 respectively. However, the Coastal corridor will be located along Srikakulum-Vishakhapatnam-Kakinada-Guntur-Nellore with 27% of the state’s urban population by 2021. (K.C.Sivaramakrishnan & B.N.Singh)
Region-Wise Emerging Corridors in India
East: The proposed corridor intends to include Calcutta via Jamshedpur and Rourkela all the way to Cuttack.
North-East: The region has witnessed urbanisation in the cities of Tripura, Aizawal, Kohima and Shillong and hence the Guwahati to Jorhat urban corridor is proposed in view of the recently completed Yamuna bridge at Sirajganj in Bangladesh. It is expected to emerge as a major stimulus for economic development, regional linkages and urban growth for this region.
North: Urban development corridors are already initiated in the north region of the country with Delhi as its emerging centre, we have Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi- Jaipur, Delhi-Agra, Delhi-Dehradun, Delhi-Moradabad-Bareilly, Udaipur-Kota, Amritsar-Jallandhar and Lucknow-Kanpur corridor development segments under process. (K.C.Sivaramakrishnan & B.N.Singh)
Current Perspective of Urbanisation and Urban Planning In India
The current terminology used for urban development is under the frame scope of Smart cities. This concept is based on technologically advanced interventions to help cities and settlements manage their resources better and operate their infrastructure systems and structures more efficiently.
This concept is also the catchphrase of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government which targets setting up at least 100 urban settlements in the first phase. Regarding this, the Ministry of Urban Development has already identified existing cities that will be remodelled based on the smart city concept. They have categorised these cities considered for further development as allocated smart cities and potential smart cities.
As per the scheme of the ministry of urban development initiative, a total of seven smart cities will be executed as role models and they will belong to the states of Gujarat, Kerala, Rajasthan and Karnataka. The state of Uttar Pradesh is alone identified with six upcoming proposals to be considered under smart city modification.
The first three smart cities are essentially aligned along the DMIC known as Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and are expected to be completed by 2019. The idea supports sustainable development as it revolves around protecting the natural environment from the adverse impacts created by urban development. It’s an initiative towards the urban transformation of Indian cities with a smarter approach and concern towards self-sustenance. (Mission, 2015).
However, the government of India hasn’t defined a specific model for smart cities instead each city is expected to formulate its own vision, approach and plan in view of its local resource potential and environmental concerns and to the extent to, which the levels of development could get accommodated. And accordingly, they are expected to prepare their SCP called the Smart city proposal envisioning the proposed plan outcomes in terms of smart applications and infrastructure development and resource mobilisation. (Ministry of Urban Development, 2015)