The Master Plan and The Slaves

Context: 

Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa, stressed at a recent Urban-20 City Sherpas’ meet that a master plan is crucial for any city to manage urbanisation.

About Master Plan:

• A master plan is an instrument of governance for urban local bodies (ULBs). 
• The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has recommended that master plans in cities should be revisited for the improved governance of cities. 
  • The National Mission for Clean Ganga has been advocating such a step to protect urban water bodies.

Challenges with the Master Plan: 

• Outdated: The concept, configuration, and rationalities of the master plan are rooted in template legislations drafted in the 1950s. 
  • The master plan’s archaic conceptions and institutional structures have not evolved to accommodate contemporary sensibilities and imperatives, such as environmental protection that can be linked to 1974 when the Water Act was enacted.
• Limited Scope: The master plan is simply a spatial plan of land-use allocation supported by bye-laws and development control regulations. 
  • Thus, it essentially embodies a spatial vision for cities.
• Institutional Rigidity: Urban local bodies (ULBs) are heavily influenced by the master plan’s spatial vision, hindering their ability to adapt to new demands and stifling institutional innovation.
• Inadequate Coverage: A significant number of urban settlements in India lack master plans, leading to ad-hoc approaches and challenges in effectively managing urban growth and development.
• Constraints on Programmatic Plans: The statutory and spatial nature of the master plan can pose constraints on programmatic plans, particularly those associated with spatial issues like the protection of water bodies. 
  • The master plan’s rigidity may not adequately accommodate emerging demands and sensibilities of urban governance.
• Inadequate Coverage: According to NITI Aayog, around 65% of urban settlements in India do not have master plans. 
  • The lack of a standardized and mandated spatial planning framework means that many urban areas operate without a comprehensive plan for regulating urban growth, leading to ad-hoc approaches and challenges in governance.

Suggestion:

• Reimagine Urban Planning: Recognize the limitations of the master plan’s archaic conceptions and institutional cultures. It is important to acknowledge that the master plan may not be able to serve the expanded scope of urban governance and explore alternative approaches.
• Learn from Experiences: Look to the experiences of Indian cities where innovative bye-laws have been used to supplement the shortcomings of the master plan. 
  • The lessons learned from these experiments should be translated into policy thinking and inform future urban planning practices.
• Prioritize Urban Planning Capacities: Give priority to addressing the incapacities highlighted in the NITI Aayog’s 2021 report on urban planning and governance. 
  • This includes elevating the attention given to spatial planning as a profession and investing in urban planning education.

Conclusion:

• Given the era of planetary urbanization and the increasing demand for effective spatial planning, the central government should collaborate with the states to reconsider and reform the spatial planning framework in India. 
• This would involve exploring comprehensive approaches such as Gati Shakti and Model Rural Transformation Acts to meet the evolving needs of urban areas.

News Source: The Hindu