Facilitating Pakoda Economy

In the February of 2018, the Prime Minister of India said that selling pakodas too constituted as employment, in response to his opponents’ criticism that no employment was being generated during his rule in India. He was alluding to self-employment in the trade sector, in which a sizeable proportion of urban dwellers are engaged in and dependent on for survival. Now that CMIE has estimated 1.1 million employment loss in the year 2018, the pakoda-economy becomes all the more important.

There are two types of self-employed, in particular, those who are engaged in petty trade such as selling various things and services on the streets. Things sold on the streets are items of daily use, even clothes and footwear, fruits and vegetables, and cooked food items (the golgappas, bhel, idli, pakodas and chai). After the chai selling attained great heights, now the pakora selling too has ascended in importance. These cooked food economy is fragile, it has to be cooked every day, and in peak summers, probably multiple times a day.

Some engage in the chai economy or pakoda economy out of choice and many have become big business rising from the footpaths. For example, Shankar Vijay icecreamwala in Ahmedabad, now has an upmarket ice-cream shop called ‘Shankar’s library’. Or Sarath Babu of Chennai, who started his career of selling idlis on the street to graduating from IIMA and has moved up in life.

But, there are many who engage in chai or pakoda economy out of ‘no choice’ or as fall back arrangement when formal employment is lost. Many formal textile mill workers took to the business after their mills closed in Ahmedabad. Or new migrants to the city, not finding any employment, start selling things on the street. That is, they are engaged in street trade. Or as our Prime Minister has called them, mini-entrepreneurs, surviving by their wits on the hostile streets; paying the ‘local leader’ (agewan), who could be a vendor or local government official or policeman, for right to occupy street space; honked upon by the motorists or any motorised vehicle driver; breathing the polluted air as all our cities have crossed the limits of air pollution tolerance and often target of eviction drives by the local authorities and consequently not just losing their wares and incurring financial loss but also losing right to work for many coming days after the eviction drive. Ofcourse, street vending means working on streets without access to toilets and braving the summer heat, which is expected to worsen in the coming times due to climate change and expected increase in average temperatures in the cities.

If the pakoda or chai economy is the way forward for India, and for Indian cities, coming from the highest person of the country, it should be facilitated. Instead, urban planning categorizes it as encroachment and hence illegal, as this commercial activity is on land which is not earmarked as commercial. Street vending is on footpaths and in city’s plan footpath is part of the road and classified as road-land use and not commercial land use. Besides, footpath is for walking and rightly so, and not for commercial activities. According to the ‘The Street Vendors (Protection Of Livelihood And Regulation Of Street Vending) Act, 2014 (http://legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/A2014-7.pdf) which extends all over India, vending spaces have to be provided in the city’s Master Plan.

The street vendors are evicted by the police because, as per the Motor Vehicles’ Act, street vendors obstruct traffic flow and hence have to be penalised. The Indian Penal Code seeks to prevent obstruction of a public way and if done so the obstruction can be removed. The municipal legislation seeks removal or any permanent or temporary structures on streets and goods hawked or sold in public places. Municipal legislation also require any hawking or vending activity to obtain license from the relevant authority. It is not easy to get a licence and often a liscense is given to a person only if vending is the sole livelihood activity of the family. Note the term family is important here. We know that in low-income households, multiple members of a family have to work to remain above poverty line. How can then vending be the sole livelihood activity of a vendor’s family!

So without facilitation, through providing land for business through the implementation of the Street Vendors (Protection Of Livelihood And Regulation Of Street Vending) Act, 2014, making access to toilets in public places, a protected area for vending and increasing their access to finance, how is the pakoda economy to be an answer to lack of other employment opportunities in urban India.

The Town Planning Scheme – A Panacea for Planned Urban Development?

Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has launched Town Planning Scheme (TPS) mechanism to fast track area based infrastructure issues for 25 smart cities in the country. The ministry would provide an assistance to every city Rs. 2 crores of central assistance for planning purposes. The Town and Country Planning Organization (TCPO), located in Delhi, will provide hand holding support.

In regimes wherein lands are privately owned, as in all capitalist countries – in contrast lands are owned by the government in China and other socialist countries – it is difficult to obtain lands for public purposes such as for roads, laying of transport infrastructure, laying water and sanitation lines, for education and health facilities, and open and green spaces. These come in the category of public goods that give benefit to all the population while at the same time it is difficult to charge from them the full market value of land. If so charged, either the price of some of these facilities would sky-rocket – more than even what the education and health facilities in the private sector charge – or some of them would be unaffordable, such as open and green spaces.

In India, ongoing urban growth is expected to exacerbate the existing challenges of unplanned urbanization, informal housing, and access to basic services, particularly for low-income populations. Addressing these challenges requires the availability of public lands, which is extremely challenging in privately owned land regimes. Due to a growing population and lack of appropriate planning, cities’ peripheral areas—also called urban extension areas—sprawl in an unplanned manner, without access roads. This makes it extremely challenging to lay trunk infrastructure, reduces the amount of public land available for social amenities and green spaces, and leads to a lack of financing for infrastructure investments. The scarcity of public land makes provision of social housing difficult, even if national funds are made available for doing so

Indian cities lack open spaces.

Till recently, lands for public goods’ provisioning were acquired through Land Acquisition Act of 1894, which was amended through countrywide discussions into Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RFCTLARR) Act. This new legislation is more equitable, transparent, and fair to landowners (the farmers on the urban periphery). But, urban planners and state governments are finding it lengthy, cumbersome and expensive. Hence, in its place, Town Planning Scheme is being proposed to be adopted for urban expansion areas or for development of urban periphery areas. Gujarat has been implementing the TPS since a long time, and more vigorously since 1999 and unlike the ‘Gujarat Model’ promoted in general in India, the TPS has seen partial success.

The TPS works on a philosophy of win-win solution for land owners whose lands are being acquired and for the city government that wants lands for public purposes. TPS is a process of pooling and reconstitution & reallocating lands followed by appropriating parts for public purposes, such as for roads (15%), social and physical amenities (5%), open and green spaces (5%), housing for socially and economically weaker sections (10%) and sale of lands for raising finance for infrastructure investments (15%), from the land parcel of the owner. Compensation is provided to the land owner for the land appropriated at the jantri rates (official land rate) but adjusted for the cost of investments made in infrastructure. This means that if the infrastructure costs are higher than the compensation price, the land owner has to pay the planning authority what is termed as betterment charges. Vice-versa in case of value of compensation is more than the infrastructure costs. These decisions are taken for each owner, plot by plot. So far so good.

But, the real world is different than what urban planners think of and what the urban plans portray and plan for. When the TPS of an area, with size from 100 hectare (ha) to 1,500, is prepared, location of some plots of land change in case the land parcel is reserved for public amenities of a green space or even roads. The decision regarding reconstitution and reallocation are done after negotiations with the land owners. The second round of negotiations happens with the land owners for financial settlement. In a sense, the TPS process allows for negotiations with the land owners, and hence is equitable. Equity is also embedded in the fact that the lands are made available for public purposes. The TPS has been widely used in Ahmedabad and Surat in Gujarat and not in other cities of the state.

Figure 1: Location of BSUP housing in Ahmedabad, 2017

Source: https://www.wri.org/wri-citiesforall/publication/ahmedabad-town-planning-schemes-equitable-development-glass-half-full 

The benefits are: Ahmedabad has used TPS lands for resettling about 20,000 households evicted due to urban infrastructure projects. Their locations are spread across the city (see figure 1), with significant proportion located on city’s periphery. Ofcourse, all has not been hunky-dory with the resettlement process as many households pushed out on the periphery of the city have been immiserized. But, for the first time in urban India, resettlement has been provided to slum households evicted due to infrastructure projects. Ahmedabad has also higher road network density than other cities in India (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Average Area Under Roads in Select Cities

Source: https://www.wri.org/wri-citiesforall/publication/ahmedabad-town-planning-schemes-equitable-development-glass-half-full 

In Ahmedabad, till now, informal settlements on private lands have not been evicted. We are not sure of the future. But, in such settlements, lands could not be made available for public purposes. Thus, the TPS mechanism does not work on brownfield sites, that is in already developed parts of the city. It works only in the immediate periphery of the city wherein the land price escalation is expected due to urbanisation as well as infrastructure investments and hence land owners are not unwilling to give up a proportion of their lands.

The TPS mechanism does not work at all in the greenfield sites, that is for planning within urbanizing limits of the city where development is expected after a 15-20 years. Such lands are still used for farming. If parts of such agricultural lands are appropriated through TPS mechanism, the farmers, who are already under great economic stress, would further lose their livelihood and go down the poverty route. The desire for planned development in rural areas surrounding an urban area has led to a situation of conflict of urban planning authority with the villages. For example, in case of Ahmedabad, 68 villages of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar districts have demanded withdrawal of a notification declaring their village lands (a total area of 625 sq km) to be part of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority and thus be brought under the TPS mechanism.

Pre-empting appropriation of farm lands for planned development of the peripheral areas of a city is also abuse of the mechanism. In Gujarat, the Special Investment Region (SIR) Act of the state has made mandatory use of TPS mechanism in the proposed SIRs such as Dholera (also declared as a smart city), and Dahej. This means that instead of RFCTLARR Act, 2013 (the current land acquisition act that gives fair compensation to the farmers, the TPS mechanism would be used. In other words, TPS mechanism is being used to subvert the RFCTLARR Act! This is surely an abuse of the TPS mechanism.

The TPS mechanism works in certain situations and does not work in some other. It should not be seen as a coercive mechanism of appropriating private lands for public purposes. On the other hands private ownership of lands in Indian cities require some mechanism to procure them at low costs for public goods. There has to be careful application of the mechanism, which till now has been practiced as a mechanism of negotiations and not coercion. It seems its wholesale promotion and adoption may lead to more coercion than negotiations as PILs pending in the Gujarat High Court for the SIRs indicate.

For full report on the TPS mechanism, see: https://www.wri.org/wri-citiesforall/publication/ahmedabad-town-planning-schemes-equitable-development-glass-half-full

The Ring-a-Ring-a Roses – Decentralising Urbanisation to Small and Medium Towns

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?

Le Corbusier Lives in China

Bijlmermeer neighbourhood, the south-east suburb of Amsterdam, which today houses almost 50,000 people of over 150 nationalities, was designed as a single project as part of the modernist approach to urban development. Its first few buildings were completed towards the end of 1960s, after which some residents begun to move in what was advertised as ‘paradise with modern towers’. The original neighbourhood was designed as a series of nearly identical high-rise buildings in a hexagonal grid and has been called honeycomb housing. The urban planning principles were influenced by CIAM, the International Congress for Modern Architecture, set up by Le Corbusier, the master of modern Architecture and his contemporaries.

Le Corbusier’s idea of urban planning was the concept of ‘Radiant City’, wherein, the people were to be put in multi-storey housing so as to allow for large open spaces for recreation and green cover. The circulation was to be at two levels, the elevated roads to reduce traffic congestion and hence pollution and lower level for pedestrians and bicyclists. Upwardly rising residential towers would provide residents with the views as also clean air and sunlight. The original honeycomb housing can be seen in Photo 1.

Photo 1: Aerial view of Bijlmermeer, Amsterdam

This location of Bijlmermeer was selected as it was then outside the city of Amsterdam and land costs were low. However, it took a long time before the public infrastructure such as good roads and metro line were constructed to provide good connectivity to the place. The residents of Amsterdam lost interest in the project and subsequently, it was used as a social housing which came to be occupied by the immigrant community of the city. The Surinamese immigrants were located here by the government, in what then became social housing. It became essentially a low-income neighbourhood. Low-income neighbourhood with concentration of immigrant community also meant high levels of unemployment among the youth of the neighbourhood. Eventually, it came to be known as a neighbourhood with high crime rates. The grade separation of roads provided automobiles to move fast on the elevated roads but the spaces below when the roads crossed the pedestrian walkways created potential negative spaces wherein crime thrived. In an endeavour to reduce crime in this neighbourhood, the city of Amsterdam decided to convert this into mixed-income neighbourhood, that is, to gentrify the neighbourhood by attracting middle-income families to it.

However, high rise living is not conducive to the living style of middle-income groups, who prefer to live in low-rise condominium housing so that the children can play outside and parents can keep a watch on them. The new concerns such as of safe cities and climate change mitigation efforts such as promoting cycling, has led to flattening of the roads wherein the mixed traffic, motorised as well as non-motorised and pedestrians can move together. In all, many of the high rises have been torn down to create a safe and liveable neighbourhood. The neighbourhood has now good public transport connections and a commercial centre with multifarious activities. There has been conscious efforts to convert unsafe spaces into safe spaces.

Photo 2: Renewal of Bijlmermeer, with low rise apartments

We shift to another continent, another country, China, another era, twenty first century. China, in its rapid pace of urbanisation and strides towards modernisation has also adopted vertical urban form. The cities, central parts as well as the peripheries are transforming into high-rise complexes. Within the city, the former low-rise housing with lower per capita living area have given way to multi-storey buildings, about 25 to 30 storey high having modern facilities and higher dwelling unit size. The per capita living area on an average has increased from 5.3 sq m per person to 36.6 square per person in 2016 (Source: http://www.chinabankingnews.com/2017/07/07/chinas-per-capita-residential-space-rose-40-8-square-metres-2016/). To keep lands free for green spaces and other public goods such as roads, gardens, education and health facilities, convention centres and sports complexes, the housing form has taken to be multi-storey.

On the urban periphery, in the rural areas and peri-urban areas, the high-rises house the rural population. The rural residents, some out of choice (mainly the young generation) and some by mandate (mainly the elderly who prefer rural housing type for social reasons) have been shifted to multi-storey buildings to release rural lands. In some villages, the village committees, which are the local governance units, have sold surplus lands through long term leases. The profits from such land-sales have been invested in improving the rural conditions and constructing public amenities of the urban areas. Such profits have also been used to cross subsidize new housing construction. 

Photo 3: A Village near Suzhou City in South China

Photo 4: New High Rises on Suzhou City’s Periphery, China

There has been a push in the recent years in China for increasing urbanisation, which is seen as a way to improve the living conditions of the rural population. The proportion of employment in agriculture in 2017 has come down to 17.5% in China from 55.3% in 1991 (Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=CN). Large number of rural residents are employed in non-farm work and a large proportion of agriculture is in the green houses with the application of modern technology. There is a shift towards industrialised agriculture, an aspect which is being promoted by the national government. Industrialised agriculture requires large land parcels. Further, the Chinese government is paying the farmers to grow trees, which will contribute towards carbon sequestration to meet its commitment under the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) after the Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation. This also requires that lands be released.


A village in Suzhou City’s periphery in South China – Suzhou is a tourist town with traditional Chinese gardens of the former elites – where the residents were either engaged in some business (See Photo 3) or the males working in the city, was to be transformed into high rise living. Clearly, many had shifted out of agriculture to non-agriculture occupations and were unmindful of moving into modern housing. The type of modern housing that is coming up in this village’s periphery and likely for also this village can be seen in Photo 4. Photo 5 shows that general landscape of cities in China, which is of Suzhou city. Photo 6 is the landscape of peripheral areas of Tianjin City, which is an industrial city and this road is towards the Tianjin Free Trade Area.

Photo 5: From the internal city highway, Suzhou City, China

Photo 6: In Tianjin City Free Trade Area, China

Thus, we see very much the modernist transformation of China’s cities and its peripheral rural areas. This is very much the idea of New Urbanization, which is managed and is focussed on releasing lands for private and public transportation, green spaces and other public amenities. It is Le Corbusier ideas in practice in the twenty first century!

Darwinism on City Roads and Transit – Unleashing the Animal Spirits

Everyday, returning home safe seems to be now becoming a great achievement! It was normal to return home without any much event on the way. But, those days of complacency, so to say, on the roads are gone. Any mishap or a conflict or worse accident may occur not due to one’s own mistake but because of many other factors beyond one’s own control. We say truly, we are in god’s hands if one leaves ones house for some work. For the poor, the wrath of god can visit even their homes during monsoon or when the local government decides to undertake ‘development’ while demolishing their homes!

The Mumbai stories of 4-5 people dying on railway tracks everyday or occasional stampedes as on the Elphinstone road footoverbridge, reminds of the hazards in everyday transit. Four people die on Delhi roads everyday. For Ahmedabad, the rate is low but recorded at 6 deaths per week on the city roads due to accidents. If there are no serious accidents resulting in deaths, there are minor accidents causing denting of vehicles. Dents on the vehicles are now new fashion statements! If not an accident then a skirmish, due to two vehicles brushing each other, and one of them decides not to ignore this brushing and wanting to vent out all the pent up anger compounded due to various frustrations on the other party. These have become part of everyday life in our cities. And add to it, the cow nationalism makes one even vary of brushing a cow on the roads; the ‘mother cows’ who have been left to fend for themselves, unleashing their animal spirits on the roads, foraging garbage and eating plastics.

Let us leave aside the road accidents and deaths or injuries caused due to them, sheer time spent on the roads due to rogue behavior of the drivers itself causes higher exposure to vehicular fumes and hence health impacts. The anxiety on the road due to the grid-locks, once again caused due to ‘I will not let any one go before me’ syndrome, or the everyday struggle to be ‘oneup’ on the road against other drivers, be they cyclists, scooter/ motorbike wallas, four wheeler drivers, autorickshaws and all goods transport vehicles is too much with those with low tolerance levels to shocks. Everyone wants to go first, the large vehicles such as buses and trucks want to push their vehicle first while trying to make space amidst multitude of small vehicles. The cyclists wanting to find space while stopping a truck. The two-wheeler wallas, always angry that the big cars are taking up too much of space, wanting to go first. There are unlimited and unmatched matches on the road to go first. It is daily struggle for mobility on the city roads.

All these while, on most junctions, in case of Ahmedabad, no one respects traffic lights if there is no police manning the junctions. What an irony; traffic lights are for self-regulating traffic! If there is no policeman or para-policeman manning the junctions, invariably, even during light traffic, there are jams, and then struggle for ‘I go first’ or ‘I will not allow anyone else go first’. Survival of the fittest, one who has quick reaction to jam and finding few inches of space to but-in his/ her vehicle. Interestingly, some of these complicated maneuvers are undertaken by some drivers while constantly talking on their mobile phones.

On the road sides, there is struggle to walk on footpaths, as they are encroached upon by vehicles or vendors. Inspite of the Vendors’ Act, no spaces are found in the city to locate them, no governance mechanism except those of ‘agewans’ that is ‘local leaders’ who in a sense are weekly hafta collectors. One is not sure whether there is low capacity to govern street trade or lack of willingness to govern street trade that has caused the situation we are in. It gets worse when a big car stops on a narrow road to purchase goods from a larri, unconcerned about the roadblock the person may cause on the narrow roads.

Thus, people walk on roads, cyclists who should be in the left-most lane are in the centre of the road and on junctions while turning right are in the front of a bus or a BMW. Where do we see such ‘all are equal on road’ syndrome!

Since the animal spirits have been unleashed in the Indian economy, the state taking a back seat in even regulating the economy, this spirit has been passed on to all the spheres of life, including the roads. Survival of the fittest. Or to say, survival of the most risk-taker on the street.

Earlier, in our socialist era, ironically the cars thought they ruled the streets. And indeed, transport planning and road designs were only meant for private vehicles, with the emphasis on ensuring that they moved fastest on the roads. Socialist era did not mean more public transport. But, with the unleashing of animal spirits in the economy also led to increased incomes and more personal vehicles, in particular the two wheelers on the streets. In many cities therefore footpaths have not been built or have been narrowed to accommodate the increased private vehicular traffic. The owners of private vehicles are unwilling to give up their right to the road space, the vulnerable – the pedestrians and cyclists – although in larger numbers then motorized vehicles, are unable to voice their needs. Not being given any space on the road, they vent their frustrations by mingling with motorized vehicular traffic.

Darwinism on the roads will not take us anywhere. One place where strict government regulations are required, and that is the roads, in particular the city roads. The government needs to take a call. It has to do both, regulate the traffic as well as increase the supply of public goods in transport. Animal spirits do not help in this aspect of city life. In general in life, unleashing of animal spirits has no limits of self-interest at the larger well being of the society.

What Has Changed in Ganeshnagar – Dumping Site of PAPs in Ahmedabad?

With a team of documentary makers of a channel, I had a chance to revisit Ganeshnagar after about 3 and half years. Last I went was with a group of students, when one room of the present school building was constructed. Then, I wanted the students of planning, housing specialisation doing their studio exercise on rehabilitation strategy, to see how not to do rehabilitation. In 2012, when I went, I was a bit sceptical about going for the fear of being recognised as a member of the Buch Committee involved in the monitoring of Sabarmati riverfront rehabilitation and on whose head the blame of inadequate and inequitable rehabilitation has been laid. Luckily then and even now, my identity did not come to the fore and hence in the way of my visit.

The living conditions in 2016, remains as we had documented at the Centre for Urban Equity (CUE) in Ganeshnagar in 2012 (See http://cept.ac.in/UserFiles/File/CUE/Advocacy/Living%20Conditions%20in%20Ganeshnagar_Resize.pdf). Prior to that, in 2009, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working with the poor and displaced in the city had held a public hearing on displacements (http://cept.ac.in/UserFiles/File/CUE/Advocacy/Public%20Hearing%20on%20Displacements.pdf), also documented extremely poor living conditions in the location. But, there is some change; the height of the garbage dump at Pirana, just across the road from Ganeshnagar, has increased and can now be seen from Ganeshnagar. Earlier, we could only smell the garbage, as the public hearing report documents, but could not see it.

For those who know Ahmedabad, coming from Narol circle and way to crossing Sabarmati river, Pirana garbage dump, which now is about 50 to 60 meters high, comes on the left side, that is to the north of the road and Ganeshnagar is on the right, that is to the south of the road. Standing in Ganeshnagar, if one faces north, one can first see high tension lines passing through, and then the Pirana garbage mountain. This garbage mountain did not exist 4 years back. The garbage dump was and the olfactory senses revolted on reaching Ganeshnagar, but, now one sees, one smells and one experiences the garbage dump! This is the first big change.

Ganeshnagar site has been used for dumping the displaced households from various infrastructure development projects post 2008. Term dumped is used, as they were literally dumped and not shifted through any pre-planning. Hence, there are evictees of road projects, flyover projects, Kankaria lake development projects and the biggest displacement project of all Sabarmati Riverfront project. In 2011 November, about 4,000 to 5,000 households evicted from the Sabarmati riverbank, evicted under the Gujarat High Court order, were dumped on the site in a short period. Ganeshnagar became a large temporary rehabilitation site. The idea was that these households would then be given a permanent rehabilitation unit. Which many were given; taken to Vatwa rehabilitation site, Odhav rehabilitation site, etc. But, many are still left on the Ganeshnagar site. Some 20,000 BSUP (Basic Services for the Urban Poor) dwelling units constructed in the city proved rehabilitation to the project affected people of the city. Imagine, what would have been the plight of these households if JNNURM was not designed and if BSUP was not introduced! In December 2016, about 850 households still remain in Ganeshnagar. Some of them were from the riverfront, and have been given an allotment letter for a plot of land in Ganeshnagar. Strangely, there was no map accompanying that would tell them which plot of land in the large site.

There were some households who were evicted in 2008 and have been living on the site since then. Post 2011 dumping of the riverfront evictees, our public hearing and pressure of the NGOs who went to assist the large mass of evictees in 2011, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) constructed water supply points with water taps and public toilets. The water taps are broken, the hardware vandalised and stolen, and no water is coming.

Public Toilet in Ganeshnagar

The public toilets are not maintained and are now filled with shit. The area around the public toilets is also full of animal and human shit, plastics and all kinds of rubbish; completely unusable! This forces everyone to defecate in the open! Do we have to go anywhere to witness hell! Nehruji said about Kashmir, if there is heaven on earth, it is here it is here! We have to say about Ganeshnagar, if there is hell on the earth, one of them is here! The second change is that the facilities provided by the AMC for the residents of Ganeshnagar rehabilitation site, as many have been allotted plot of land on the site, are now under total disrepair and unusable.

Broken water taps

The third change is that two rooms of an anaganwadi, which also came through the pressure of the NGOs, have been constructed. Thankfully, they are working. A lady came at about 10.30 am and was cleaning. There is also a school building now. The school is working. But, the rooms are also used for gambling and drinking when the school is closed. The caretaker (chowkidar) of the school, who had objected to the abuse of the school premises, was murdered two months back.

Anganwadi at Ganeshnagar

School at Ganeshnagar

The fourth, and probably the most dangerous change that has come is setting up of a unit of ‘gau rakshak dal’ (a cow protection unit – dal in a sense is a mini battalion). The organisation was constructing a pucca building in the centre of the site. The representative of the unit, who got a whiff of our visit to the site, came instantaneously as we entered, even before we could get out of our vehicles. He asked us in some minor menacing way, who we were. Our answer to him was the same question bounced back. After telling his affiliation and on our query as to what he was doing here, he said, he was providing water to the site residents. Any guess as to what would be coming forth here in the future! The impacts of demonitisation were ofcourse not missed out on us.

Urban Planning, New Urban Agenda and Inclusive Cities

Context

Habitat III held at Quito from October 17 to 20, 2016 is successfully over, declared UNHABITAT. The communiqué from UNHABITAT also states that the ‘New Urban Agenda’ has been adopted by the countries. The Habitat Conferences are events to set urban development agenda for the next 20 years and hence in this context, the New Urban Agenda is an important document. The first Habitat Conference was held in 1976 in Vancouver and the second was held in Istanbul in 1996.  The New Urban Agenda has been set out also in the context that more than half the population in the world is now residing in urban areas, cities and towns, across the world. Many more will transit to urban areas in the next two decades, particularly in Asia and Africa.

Therein lies the importance of New Urban Agenda for India. India is on the path to urbanize, expecting 600 million residents or 40% are expected to be residing in the cities and towns in India by 2031. If urban India were to be a country, that it would be the second largest country in the world! The full pdf document of the New Urban Agenda is available on the Habitat III website link: https://habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda/

The New Urban Agenda

The New Urban Agenda says all the right things. The agenda acknowledges that: “Since the United Nations Conferences on Human Settlements in Vancouver in 1976 and in Istanbul in 1996, and the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, we have seen improvements in the quality of life of millions of urban inhabitants, including slum and informal settlement dwellers. However, the persistence of multiple forms of poverty, growing inequalities, and environmental degradation, remain among the major obstacles to sustainable development worldwide, with social and economic exclusion and spatial segregation often an irrefutable reality in cities and human settlements.”

“We are still far from adequately addressing these and other existing and emerging challenges; and there is a need to take advantage of the opportunities of urbanization as an engine of sustained and inclusive economic growth, social and cultural development, and environmental protection, and of its potential contributions to the achievement of transformative and sustainable development.”

“By readdressing the way cities and human settlements are planned, designed, financed, developed, governed, and managed, the New Urban Agenda will help to end poverty and hunger in all its forms and dimensions, reduce inequalities, promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, in order to fully harness their vital contribution to sustainable development, improve human health and well-being, as well as foster resilience and protect the environment.”

The New Urban Agenda rests heavily on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set up in 2015 to be achieved by 2030. The SDG 11 is: to achieve “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable human settlements”.  The SDG 11 is about both urban and rural settlements. But, since the expected transition is towards urbanisation, this goal becomes extremely important for urban settlements. The New Urban Agenda has principles and commitments. It then lays out implementation plan with regards to:

i)       The Transformative Commitments for Sustainable Urban Development in the areas of (a) Sustainable Urban Development For Social Inclusion and Ending Poverty, (b) Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Prosperity and Opportunities for All and (c) Environmentally Sustainable And Resilient Urban Development

ii)     Effective Implementation through (a) Building the Urban Governance Structure: Establishing a Supportive Framework, (b) Planning and Managing Urban Spatial Development, and (C) Creating Means of Implementation.

iii)    Follow-Up and Review.

Urban Planning in the New Urban Agenda

Urban Planning has been recognised as an important tool for the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. The agenda talks about integrated planning and balancing of short term and long term needs of the cities. The agenda does talk about relating urban spatial planning with social and economic conditions. It talks about promoting planned urban extensions; infill; prioritising urban renewal, regeneration and retrofitting (primarily to contain urban sprawl) as appropriate; providing high quality buildings and public spaces; promoting integrated and participatory approaches involving all stakeholders and inhabitants; avoiding special and socio-economic segregation and gentrification; preserving cultural heritage; and preventing and containing urban sprawl. The urban renewal commitment includes upgrading of slums and informal settlements. The agenda states that “We will promote …..” the above. Hence, lets investigate each one of these commitments from our Indian experience of how urban planning has worked out or not worked out.

The first issue is with regards to containing urban sprawl through planning. Urban sprawl in the Indian cities have happened due to the real estate interests in cahoots with those in the executive and elected wings of the government. The mid-2000s saw expansion of urban boundaries of many metropolitan cities namely Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. Ahmedabad’s boundaries were expanded from 198 sq km area to 466 sq km area, that of Bangalore from about 250 sq km to about 800 sq km. and so on. The purported idea was to have planned development within the new jurisdiction. Also, their respective urban development authorities’ boundaries too were extended to undertake planning in the peri-urban areas, i.e. laying of physical infrastructure lines of water and sanitation and put in public transport system.

Has that happened? Yes, the roads have been laid out. In case of Ahmedabad (I have close experience of this city) the roads have been laid out without appropriate footpaths and edges. Public transport system has not followed. This has created need for more private transport and hence already, the roads are getting clogged even before the densities have increased. The water and sanitation infrastructure is also not yet in and hence infrastructure in the extended areas are private, provided by the residential estates themselves in case of formal developments and by host of informal water providers in the informal settlements. Our research at the Centre for Urban Equity (CUE) in one large informally developed area shows that this has led to multiple conflicts (See http://cept.ac.in/centre-for-urban-equity-cue/policy-briefs; http://www.crdf.org.in/cue/saic/). The formal residential estates in the city, due to lack of centralized water system are mining the ground water, at the peril of sustainable development!

Source: http://www.crdf.org.in/cue/saic/

The sprawl has followed revoking of the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (ULCRA) in 1999, which led to possibility of accumulation of large parcels of land by the developers. These lands were purchased on the city’s periphery. Their prices would not have sky-rocketed if they were not brought within the municipal limits. Once a few real estate projects come up in the newly extended boundaries of the city, the municipal government is forced to put in at the least roads, which then pushes up the land market prices benefitting those who have accumulated lands in the newly extended city limits. Ricardian principle of land rent states that as more and more lands are brought in use, the price of best lands increase as some uses are ready to pay more for central or best location. Thus, new land supply not necessarily reduces land prices, but on the contrary increase the land prices. Thus, the new real estate projects on the city’s periphery comes at high prices than expected while the city sprawls and makes it all the more difficult for the municipal government to invest in infrastructure. But, the high-end real estate projects that come up cannot wait till the municipal water and sanitation network comes in. They invest in their own; septic tanks for sewerage and groundwater mining tube-wells, the latter leading to depletion of ground water.

Affordable Housing and Planning

If the city has already sprawled, what needs to be done. The obvious answer is refill, as the New Urban Agenda suggests. But, these refills also come at high costs as the land prices have already increased on account of sprawl. The refill therefore does not address the requirements of low-income housing in the city. The land prices going up makes all plots precious and hence are not available for squatting by the poor. The first phase of informal settlements’ or slums’ development in the cities have been on the public lands. Post enactment of the ULCRA, the private lands were brought by the owners under informal settlements to avoid their acquisition under the act in case these were categorised as surplus. At least, informal housing was possible within the city limits. But, post revoking of ULCRA, this option has gone for the low-income households. The informal settlements then developed on the sub-divided agricultural lands outside the municipal limits. The CUE study of Bombay Hotel area is one such informal settlement that developed in 2000s (See http://cept.ac.in/UserFiles/File/CUE/Working%20Papers/Revised%20New/31CUEWP%20-31-Bombay%20Hotel.pdf). The circumstances of its development is also unique, but, we do not go into this at the moment.

The infill in the sprawled parts of the city would be affordable for the low-income housing unless public lands are made available and the municipal government decides to use these for this purpose than selling them for raising finance. Consequently, the Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) schemes under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and recent Affordable Housing schemes are all largely outside the city limits or on the periphery of the extended city limits. Already, the economic segregation has happened through the land market logic. In cities with social segregation, another layer of segregation is added to the economic segregation. Can such divided city structures be undone now through urban planning interventions? What would such an intervention be?

The New Urban Agenda talks about relating spatial planning with socio-economic goals. It also talks about doing away with segregation in the city on the class, caste and religion basis. The pathways to such an city future is more public housing at affordable rates than leaving housing to the market.

Provision of ‘Housing for All’ will require first of all lands available at affordable rates. Land price escalation due to urban sprawl does not help. In particular, the poor prefer locations near their place of employment and would prefer in-situ redevlopment in case of slums or central location in case of new housing. Does urban planning have mechanism for the same? Yes, in the case where Town Planning Scheme (TPS) mechanism is used, under which a certain percentage of private lands are acquired by the planning authority in lieu of providing infrastructure. These become the public lands, used for raising finance and also for public housing. This mechanism is useful if it is used with the right spirit. All depends on the orientation of the state government in using such lands for low-income housing. Availability of a mechanism does not mean that it would be used. In Ahmedabad, such public lands – these are called lands reserved for Socially and Economically Weaker Sections (SEWS) lands – have been used for the purpose. But, not always. A great amount of such lands have been encroached upon for other uses.

As mentioned earlier, planning often comes much after the developments have already taken place. The permissions for formal real estate projects are given even when the TPS is in draft stage. The informal developments happen whether there is TPS or none. When the TPS comes to an informal settlement, the land appropriation for public purpose can lead to significant demolitions. In instances where informal developments have already happened, a new mechanism of planning has to be introduced; it has to be flexible and negotiated solution. These have to be tripartite negotiations, between the occupants, the planning authority and original landowner. Hence, urban planning automatically would not lead to the goals of the New Urban Agenda or the SDG 11. There has to be inclusive governance mechanism in place for urban planning to play a transformative role for equitable cities.

In all, there are multiple challenges to be faced if urban planning has to meaningful and address SDG 11 of inclusive and sustainable urban development. I have not discussed here the issues of resilient and safe cities, as this would be another article. It is clear from this discussion that urban planning as practiced now will not rise upto the challenges of urban development in the present state of Indian cities. Planning has to be redefined; its mechanisms have to be redefined and associated legislation need to be modified to truly address the requirements of creating habitable cities that would respond to the socio-economic needs of the current population. Do we have this courage to be self-critical and bring about much needed reform in urban planning approach and mechanisms. If yes, the urban future in India is bright.