Urban Policy And City Planning- Cohort 2.0

Event Report
Samprikta Banerjee

The Center for Habitat, Urban and Regional Studies(CHURS), at IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi conducted a one-month immersive Online Introductory Certificate Training Course on ‘Urban Policy and City Planning – Cohort 2.0’ from July 3 to July 25, 2024.

The chair of the program was Dr Rumi Aijaz, Senior Fellow and Head, the Urban Policy Research Initiative, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi.

The convenors for the session include Dr. Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Associate Professor at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, and Visiting Senior Fellow at IMPRI; Mr. Tikender Singh Panwar, Senior Fellow at IMPRI and Former Deputy Mayor of Shimla; Mr. Sameer Unhale, Joint Commissioner at the Department of Municipal Administration, Government of Maharashtra, and Urban Practitioner; Mr. Aravind Unni, Urban Practitioner, Researcher, and Development Professional, New Delhi; Dr. Simi Mehta, CEO and Editorial Director of IMPRI; and Dr. Arjun Kumar, Director of IMPRI.

Day 1: Opening Remarks and Vision for Urban India

Dr Rumi Aijaz began the session with his opening remarks mainly emphasizing the significance of addressing emerging urban challenges through innovative solutions. The session dealt with valuable insights on the meaning and aspects of a developed settlement from an urban perspective thereby highlighting the theme of the course – “Viksit Bharat: Developed India by 2047”.

Not only this, the session progressed further into identifying such settlements and discussing in detail the characteristics of such developed settlements that entail effectively balancing social, economic, and environmental needs in a manner that promotes long-term well-being, integrating sustainable practices, preserving natural resources, and ensuring a high quality of life for their inhabitants.

The session fostered discussion on various government programs aimed at improving life and infrastructure in Indian cities and touched upon the critical issue of climate change and how this issue exacerbates the day-to-day challenges of waste management, mobility, sanitation, and ensuring clean drinking water for its citizens. Hence, it highlighted the important need and challenge of ensuring development without sacrificing sustainability. The session concluded with a necessary suggestion for a country like India, that is the requirement of combined and coordinated efforts from all the sectors of the society and key actors.

Prof Chetan Vaidya commenced the next session of the day by exploring the vision for achieving sustainable urban development in India by 2047, highlighting the importance of integrating innovative policies and community engagement to build resilient and inclusive urban spaces. The session further progressed into an overview of urbanization and the characteristics that lead an area to be classified as urban and the corresponding urban local body.

The session highlighted the evolution of local urban bodies from lack of constitutional recognition to the current three-tier structure, where India’s urban governance now operates on three levels: national, state, and local. He pointed out the various significant government initiatives and how these have reformed urban governance by empowering local bodies rather than relying solely on urban development authorities and state governments. Most importantly it looked at decentralization as a vital player in urban development along with the advantages bestowed by mitigation of climate change, improvement in transport and metro systems, and sustainable practices of adaptation to development.

Day 2: Future-Proofing Urban Planning and Enhancing Mobility

Archt Romi Khosla began the day with a discussion on the present conditions in India’s urban sector, underscoring the absence of a comprehensive guiding document for urban growth. He highlighted the various challenges faced in implementing existing planning documents, setting the stage for a critical examination of urban policy in India.

Mr Khosla emphasized the need to recognize the diverse realities of India, a country that is both the fifth-largest economy globally and home to vast socioeconomic disparities, and the major role that the interplay between community, freedom, social responsibility, and discipline in the development of “natural cities”. The discussion then turned to urban development policies and their impact on biodiversity and towards the end, to urban growth and healthcare facility upgrades in Indian cities.

Mr Srinivas Alavilli addressed the urgent need to address India’s growing urban mobility issues, particularly in Mumbai and Bangalore. The main highlights of the session included solutions to urban mobility and public transport issues, prioritizing public transit and active mobility, integrating multi-modal transport for affordability and reliability, and policy shifts for public transport.

He also introduced a successful campaign called “Personal to Public”, run by his research organization, WRI(World Resource Institute) which aims to encourage the use of public transport in Bangalore by addressing issues of reliability, affordability, and safety. By prioritizing people over vehicles and embracing forward-thinking strategies, India’s urban planners can address the growing mobility issues and pave the way for a more accessible and environmentally friendly future.

Day 3: Urban Development Policies and Financing Strategies

The first speaker of the day Dr Deepak Sanan began the session by giving the participants an outline of the differences between urban planning and policy in India before and after the independence. According to him, housing concerns are related to the larger issue of providing shelter for refugees from the Partition, particularly in North India, and urban growth is a worry that has arisen since independence.

He touched upon the four phases of urban development beginning from the very start of India’s journey i.e., the Nehruvian Era, where planned economic development and industrialization were the main features, moving further into the era starting from 1967 and spanning 15 years, where it saw the emergence of centrally sponsored schemes, then touching upon the start of 1980s to the end of the 20th century in the third phase which marked the recognition of markets and economic growth as critical drivers of urban development and lastly the current stage of 21st century where focus was mainly on finance and reform.

He emphasized on the current status of urban services in India and compared it to global standards to identify the areas of improvement required. He also used the trends thus inferred to form a future outlook with a focus on sustainable urban development.

Mr Ravikant Joshi conducted his session next and gave a brief overview of his vision for Viksit Bharat to begin the discussion. He focused on municipal resources and highlighted that in developed countries, local governments often have multiple sources of revenue, including local income tax and sales tax.

By adopting a balanced approach that includes a mix of local taxes, efficient revenue sharing, and innovative financing, municipal bodies can secure the necessary resources to support sustainable development and address climate adaptation and mitigation. He also touched upon tax jurisdiction and duly mentioned the present status and issues in Indian Municipal Finance and their various sources and financial autonomy. He included inferences from the RBI reports on municipal finances and suggested important ways forward for improvements in the structure of local government in India.

Day 4: Urban Social Security and Housing

Mr Sandeep Chachra began the session by discussing the significance of urbanization, urban policy, and city planning in achieving an inclusive and developed India by 2047. He emphasized that while these points are broad, they reflect general trends observed globally and nationally, especially in the Global South, of which India is a part. He highlighted the imagery and trajectory of urbanization in the Global North and drew a comparison of the varied starting points they had and the added challenges that the Global South faced.

From a political economy perspective, he emphasized that the issue is not just social security in cities but ensuring social services for the fragmented social groups, including the homeless and those living in slums or on pavements, and addressing urbanization’s newer impacts, he discussed the interconnected issues of social security, social justice, wages, and employment.

He suggested that the design of cities and urban mobility patterns must change to accommodate the needs of the working class, who primarily rely on public transport, walking, and cycling. He also highlighted the unequal access across different social classes and proposed loss and damage compensation funds for urban and peri-urban affected climate change.

For the second session of the day Dr Akshaya K Sen began by explaining the concept of Viksit Bharat and the crucial role of the real estate sector, particularly residential real estate, in achieving this vision. The session emphasized India’s sustainability targets and the building sector’s role in achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. The goals of the session involved inclusivity, affordable housing, sustainability, security of land tenure, achievements of the JAGA mission(This mission was initiated by the Odisha government in 2017 in order to bridge the gap between tall buildings and slums), resource efficiency, and circular economy.

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna was given a significant place in the talk and its major positive points which aided the development were highlighted like Technology Submission(TSM), the Global Housing Technology Challenge(GHTC), and promoting sustainable housing. Dr Akshaya Sen concluded by highlighting opportunities for action by governments at all levels, industry stakeholders (including developers, investors, contractors, engineering and architecture firms, and banks), and occupants and communities.

Day 5: Urban Environmental Action and Climate Resilience

The first speaker of the day, Prof Kala Seetharam Sridharan, delved into primarily talking about the way to promote urban environmental promotion given the battle against climate change and took us into the entire debate on environmental degradation and climate change about the trade-off between economic growth and the environment.

Her session highlighted the relationship between carbon emission in the process of urbanization, the way to deal with multidimensional poverty and slums, solid waste management and the optimum per capita waste generation, ideas to tackle wastewater, and the need for reduction in fossil fuel dependence. She concluded the session with a sectoral analysis of India and ways to mitigate the issues faced in each sector.

The day further progressed with a session by Prof Shyamala Mani, her session highlighted the comparison of India’s urban population improvements in access to improved water sources between 1990 and 2010 with an increase from 89% to 96%. She highlighted the various missions of the government in regard to better sanitation facilities for the urban population like Amrut(Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation), Swachh Bharat Mission Urban 2.0, and Jal Jivan Mission.

She touched upon the importance of access to sanitation and drainage infrastructure, the need for urban waste management, and ways to manage per capita waste generation. She also briefly touched upon the impact of climate change on India and health hazards on waste workers and concluded her session with necessary ways forward for the government to note in this regard.

The concluding session of the day led by Prof Debolina Kundu, offered an insightful analysis of India’s urbanization trends and the accompanying challenges. Her session began with an overview of the trends and challenges in India’s urbanization and the ways to address those challenges like improving health and living conditions in low-income areas, addressing child education and protection disparities, inclusive urbanization, and the progress towards achieving SDG targets in India. The session concluded by outlining key policy recommendations for addressing the challenges of urbanization in India, emphasizing the need to bridge the digital divide and enhance Information and Communications Technology (ICT) access for poor urban households.

Day 6: Integrating Inclusive Migration and Urbanization

For the first session of the day, Prof Irudaya S. Ranjan began by deliberating upon the importance of databases for urban policymaking and city planning. Elucidating on the inexpedient treatment of migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic and the absence of up-to-date data due to the lack of a Census since 2011, he emphasized the necessity of empirical evidence, not only for migration policies but for any kind of policymaking. His session mainly addressed the plight of the migrants and the challenges and opportunities of migration.

Additionally, Prof Irudaya S. Rajan foregrounded the necessity for revamping supply chains in cities with high migration giving the example of One Nation, One Ration Card policy. Finally, Prof Irudaya S. Ranjan argued that urbanization cannot be made the focal point of economic progress without addressing migration and the issues related to it. He concluded the session with the arguments for a National Migration Survey and the need to address the challenges faced by migrants in urban settings were particularly compelling, highlighting the importance of a holistic approach to urbanization in achieving the vision of a Viksit Bharat.

The day was further progressed with the next session by Prof Darshini Mahadevia who underscored the critical importance of housing in enhancing living conditions, a fact starkly highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. She touched upon the housing crisis in India which is exacerbated by ineffective programs for low-income populations and also provided a brief overview of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban(PMAY-Urban). She highlighted the various components of this scheme such as In-situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR), Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS), Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP), and Beneficiary-Led Construction (BLC) and the important outcomes they entail.

Despite these schemes, the overall housing supply falls short of the demand, and many completed units remain unoccupied due to their location on city peripheries, lacking access to essential services and public transport which she duly notified and suggested that to achieve the goal of a “housing for all” policy by 2047, a successful urbanization model must ensure improved quality of life for all urban residents, including migrants.

The concluding session of the day was led by Mr Tikender Singh Panwar, who highlighted that to achieve sustainable and livable cities, the focus must shift from a central narrative to one that emphasizes effective decentralization and local governance. He started off with a historical context of urbanization where he brought up the shortcomings of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992 which mainly were the incomplete transfer of power to local bodies and poor financial decentralization.

He therefore emphasized the need for democratic decentralization and the empowerment of local governments which included expanding their functions, enhancing financial autonomy, and capacity building. He focused on the need for inclusive urban governance, adopting innovative approaches to data and technology, and trying to take inspiration from global models of democratic decentralization to aid the bottlenecks in the Indian format of decentralization.

Day 7: Strategies for Effective Urbanization and Decentralization

Ms Vanessa Peter, in the first session of the day, talked about the need for inclusive and equitable urban spaces. Explaining the rationale behind initiating the decentralised & participatory gender & child budgeting process, she stated that the population shift from rural to urban for livelihood opportunities calls for mechanisms to elevate people from poverty in urban areas. She identified the various ways in which the decentralization problem of India can be obliterated by providing necessary steps to be taken into account and included in the process to ensure effective decentralization equitably and inclusively.

On an ending note, she explained about the Information & Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC), which is a non-governmental organization and has been working closely with the verb communities like the urban homeless, migrant workers, and informal settlements in Chennai and Madurai for over eight years.

The next session of day 7 conducted by Dr Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, started by putting into perspective India’s infrastructure scenario by calling the now rapidly urbanizing cities “Engines of Growth”. However, a majority of cities are hamstrung by serious infrastructural and government issues. He provided insights on the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA), 1992 and pointed out the various implementation issues that it consisted of.

He analytically examined the status of transformative changes under the rhetoric of the 74th CAA, 1992 and highlighted the issues including the incidence of regular municipal elections, complete lack of clarity in the role and functions of the mayor, rule being heavily influenced by habituated and settled practices of state bureaucrats, and considerable overlapping and fragmentation of decision making structures.

He concluded this session by stating the necessity of empowerment of city governments in India. To achieve said empowerment, he suggested regular municipal elections, the provision of complete power and authority over the devolved functions to the city governments, and a clear-cut division and synchronization of planning, financing, and provisioning among the partnering agencies.

The final session of day 7 was conducted by Mr Sameer Unhale, who offered a practitioner’s perspective and identified six key factors around which city planning and development are centered. His session included the various dilemmas faced by the urban local self-governments wherein the first one pointed out was the choice between having specialized agencies or a single, unified body at the urban self-government level to ensure effective collaboration, coordination, and policy implementation, the second one entailed the dichotomy between the “fiscal imbalances of Indian cities” and the possible need for reformed taxation structures, the third one was the manpower and capacity of various municipal corporations, fourth one was centered on “accountability” and how the methods for ensuring it has evolved with technological advancements.

The fifth one highlighted the importance of a citizen-centric approach in formulating, implementing, and evaluating policies within municipal corporations and the least and the sixth one duly recognized the growing role of international organizations as key stakeholders in city development, a trend that was not prevalent 15 years ago. He ended the session by praising the Smart City Mission.

Day 8: Enhancing Urban Governance and Innovations

For the first session, Dr Amita Bhide delivered her talk and began by pointing out the cruciality of urban governance and how it is influenced by a nexus between the citizens and the local state. She mapped out ways in which accountability can be achieved in a Viksit Bharat and suggested major steps in that direction. Briefly ruminating on the promises made by the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) of 1992, Dr Amita Bhide outlined its significance in achieving good governance.

Dr Amita Bhide argued that the template of local bodies needs rethinking on multiple counts. In a Viksit Bharat, local bodies and their representatives must be proximate to the people instead of being distant embodiments of political constituencies. Hence, she set her agenda for a Viksit Bharat on the importance of local democracy and proximity in institutions; clarity about the nature, role, and functions of institutions; a direct participatory model, especially for budgetary and planning practices; securing reservations and holding regular elections; review of gendered reservations to make them more effective; efficient restructuring and delivery of primary services beyond sanitation or engineering functions; and, adapting agendas and programs to local conditions and priorities so that they are localized instead of simply focusing on their delivery as conceptualized at the central level.

The second session of the day by Dr Rumi Aijaz focused on enhancing urban governance through accountability and transparency with a particular focus on air pollution in the National Capital Region. He elaborated on the Air Quality Index (AQI) developed by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) for the collection of data on the quality of air and spoke briefly about the six categories in which air quality can be classified according to this index.

Referring to a CNN report dated 26th April 2024, Dr Rumi Aijaz ruminated on the fact that the world’s hundred most polluted cities are in Asia and India alone consisted of eighty-three of such places. Based on Dr Rumi Aijaz’s research, he presented a graph that displayed a correlation between the change of seasons and air quality. He also spoke about the various types of interventions undertaken by institutional bodies in Delhi to address the problem of negative air quality. In conclusion, Dr Rumi Aijaz highlighted the importance of good governance for combating air pollution effectively. He emphasized the need to address the issue of migration to cities at the institutional level.

Acknowledgement– This article was written by Samprikta Banerjee, Visiting Researcher at IMPRI.