An intriguing article by Chetan Bhagat in
Times of India on July 7, 2018 argued that to relieve the choked metros (it is
where we opinion-makers live) fiscal instruments should be used so as to spread
employment to urban centres other than the metros. In India, we forget the
recent history in the quest for glorious past (and I am not saying Chetan
Bhagat is inflicted with it), and fear that we would be branded as being
Nehruvian, we are not willing to say that this was exactly the urbanisation and
economic growth policy in the early periods of independent India. Now that our
metros have become dysfunctional, roads choked – by traffic and by garbage –
and we are forced to jostle with people on roads and public places (wherever
they are), idea of decongesting them has arisen. The easy victims of the
malaise that our cities have become – filthy, chok-a-bloc with people and
vehicles, and unaffordable realty prices – idea is to spread economic growth to
other urban settlements than metros has arisen.
The dynamics of urbanisation is such that
people congregate to the metro cities in search of work, better education
facilities for their children, access to better health care and to some extent
access to recreation. The recreation through movies does not remain anymore a
metro centric phenomenon as one can watch movies – of all types – on mobile
phone if one has smart phone and a reasonable speed mobile network connection.
Cities happened because there was surplus
wealth to sustain those who did not engage in agriculture. Cities became larger
and larger because more and more wealth was created and more and more wealthier
got concentrated in the larger and larger cities. For example, in India, if
definitional complications are left aside, we had 33% of the urban population
living in metropolitan cities (million plus cities) in 1991. But in 2001, 38%
and in 2011 43% urban population lived in metropolitan cities. Number of
metropolitan cities have increased while the very large metropolitan cities
such as Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai (and not Delhi) have not attracted new
migrants.
The idea that small and medium towns should
be promoted to attract economic growth incentives to not just decongest
metropolitan cities but also have equitable or what was then called balanced
urbanisation and hence economic growth was first introduced in the Second Five
Year Plan in India, through creation of New Towns in the backward regions of
the country where heavy industries were located. The Steel Plan city of Bokaro,
Jamshedpur and many others were part of this idea. The first Master Plan of
Delhi (1962) also talked about dispersal of population to satellite towns
around such as Faridabad, Gaziabad, etc. which did not develop then but are now
taking in Delhi’s population without decongesting Delhi.
The support to Small and Medium Towns
(SMTs) came up in 1975 during the Fourth Five Year Plan. Plan pronouncements
meant direct investments by the central government in the proposed activities.
Subsequently, tax incentives were also given for industrialisation of backward
regions since Fourth Five Year Plan onwards to attract private investments.
Direct investments, subsidies and tax incentives all were targeted towards
promoting industrial development and economic growth in what was called
‘backward regions’, along with investments in infrastructure in the SMTs. Both
came as a package. But, these ideas were reviled as ‘Socialist’ in post-1991
period of economic reforms. Now these would be branded as ‘Nehruvian’ and again
blasted by the current political dispensation.
In between, our former and now deceased
honourable President of India Abdul Kalam had proposed the idea of ‘PURA’,
Providing Urban facilities in Rural Areas, with the same idea of supporting
economic growth and improving living conditions in villages around cities. The idea
did not take-off. The current government has introduced the idea of ‘Rururban’
Mission for planned development (economic growth with infrastructure) through
Rural Development Ministry, in line with what was called ‘Rururbanisation’ in
China promoted through development of Town and Village Entreprises.
Whether the idea of pushing economic growth
to small and medium towns is being argued as new idea by Chetan Bhagat or is
considered a rhetoric, it is worth exploring and promoting. This is the only
pathway to sustainable development and sustainable urbanisation. It is the only
way India will be able to meet the Paris agreement commitment on Climate Change,
as small and medium town will be able to manage their waste better, will
require low energy as there can be high-density low rise development, and the
mobility can be through non-motorised transport and walking rather than energy
intensive metro systems. These towns and cities have still to be built and
provide us opportunities to in-build low-energy development. But, it will
require very strong government intervention; markets alone will not deliver. If
we do implement this reinvented wheel, would it be resurrection of Nehruvian
idea or neo-socialism?
