People & Their Problems

New Delhi, 27 June 2008

Decongesting Cities

PLANNERS, PUT IN MORE EFFORTS  

By Dhurjati Mukherjee

Over the next 40 years, India will experience one of the most dramatic settlement transitions in history as its urban population grows from 300 million to over 700 million. By the year 2025, an estimated 70 Indian cities are expected to have a population exceeding one million. These mega regions: Mumbai-Pune (50 million), the National Capital Region of Delhi (30 million+) and Kolkata (30 million) is expected to be among the largest urban conglomerations in the world.

India’s urban population has expanded nearly five-fold over the past decades even as the overall population has increased by 2.5 times. Population is set to triple in the next two decades, according to a report Integrated City Making, of the London School of Economics & Political Science. The influx of people from the rural areas to the urban centres, in search of employment has aggravated the problem as most of the population finds its place in slums and squatter settlements, which are already overcrowded.

Thus, there is a need to upgrade the quality of life in these places where the poorer segments of the population live. While the government has realized the need to make available the basic necessities of life through the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), there is also a realization to make cities liveable by focusing on environmental aspects and upgrading of parks and lakes.

Besides, the Centre is formulating a policy for the development of 35 satellite towns around large cities to decongest these places. The process has already started. Delhi’s suburbs such as Gurgaon and Noida are highly developed and now the stress would be on improving Greater Noida, Ghaziabad and Chandigarh’s suburbs, Panchkula and Mohali.

In Kolkata, Salt Lake is already congested and the city is being further extended to Rajarhat on the eastern side, while in the west a township is being planned near Dankuni. While Navi Mumbai cannot deal with the congestion in the main city, development of Thane and Nasik is being planned and in Bangalore, the focus is on Mysore.  

As the outer areas of most mega cities have already been developed, the emphasis is shifted to build satellite townships in the peripheral areas to ease congestion. Around Rs 9,000-10,000 crores will be spent in the next five years, according to the Union Ministry of Urban Development. Of these, 28 towns would have a population of over a million and the rest seven a population of at least four million. This apart, the Ministry is also considering inclusion of a few cities from the North East.

As for investment, for cities of at least four million, it is suggested that the Union government should contribute 50 per cent, and both the State and local bodies 25 per cent each. For cities with a population of over a million, the Centre would contribute 75 per cent of the investment, the State 15 per cent and local bodies 10 per cent.

All these measures are expected to deflect immigrant population from the parent city, decentralize economic activity and ensure effective connectivity with an integrated transport system. This has already happened to a large extent in Kolkata, wherein administrative activity along with IT offices and parks, have shifted to Salt Lake. Similarly, Bangalore has witnessed dispersal of IT activity to its suburbs, while in Delhi most industrial centres and offices have shifted to Gurgaon and Noida. So is the case in Mumbai, wherein steady dispersal of industrial activity has already been accomplished.

However, experts have pointed out that most suburbs have not been properly planned as these lack meaningful waste disposal system, proper drainage or public transport. Besides, there is both power and water shortage. This apart, smaller cities such as  Patna, Siliguri and Guwahati in the east, Ghaziabad and Aligarh in the north, Mysore and Coimbatore in the south and Thane and Nasik in the west, need to be further developed and equipped with proper infrastructural facilities.

Given the above, there is an ongoing debate on how Asian cities would be able to balance economic, environmental and social needs of its people. Urban transformation is a favourite subject, whereby experts the world over are deliberating to formulate strategies for the future. On the one hand, there is all-round pressure to upgrade the living standards of the poor segments of the population and, on the other, the ecological aspects of a city need also to be developed.

The  environmental chaos of cities compounded by air, water and sound pollution have created serious problems along with increasing number of diseases, intrinsic to high pollution levels. Global climate change may exacerbate outdoor air pollution in all Asian cities, including our metros.  Urban environmental problems such as air pollution have, in general, been increasing steadily in low-income countries due to heavy traffic and exhaust as well as industrial emissions, affecting human health. In Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata, the level of urban pollution is high because of the existence of small-scale industries located in residential areas.

Water availability and water pollution is another big problem for cities like Delhi and Kolkata. While the former faces a shortfall of 200 million gallons a day or more than its 32 per cent production, arsenic contamination is a severe problem in Kolkata. Experts believe that rising temperatures and energy demand for cooling, increasing precipitation variability, erratic rainfall, unsustainable mining of groundwater could all make mega urban regions highly unsustainable in spite of growth of income and wealth.

Apart from this, flooding has been accentuated in most urban centres due to poor drainage systems. Recall that the floods in Mumbai in 2005 were exacerbated by blocked canals and drains. Besides, the increased risk of infectious diseases among the poor after floods is also a cause of concern.   

The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (ACHR), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), Holcim Forum for Sustainable Construction and many other organizations have been organizing campaigns the world-over for making cities sustainable and providing adequate shelter facilities for the poor, as agreed at the Habitat-II international conference at Istanbul. While living conditions of the poor in slums and squatter settlements need to be upgraded, so far city development has concentrated more on beautification and improvement of places, where the rich and the middle income sections reside.  

Planners in the country have somewhat been ambivalent in accepting the centrality of the poor in the process of urban development. The importance of delivering adequate services and equitable access to land and housing to the bulk of the city residents is still a matter of contention. In recent years, demolitions and relocations have been compounding the vulnerability of many urban residents.

However, this was witnessed post 90s following the emergence of city-level political processes – community and people’s movements – from below for better living amenities for the poor in the cities. This has been accompanied by NGOs and judicial activism for upgrading the standard of living as also voicing environmental concerns.

Thus, apart from decongesting cities, proper plans need to be drawn for upgrading living condition in cities and providing basic services to all, specially the poor, who presently are a deprived lot. An environmentally sensitive and liveable city could well be achieved with a little more effort by both planners and State governments. --INFA  

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