URBAN PLANNING

India’s largest city, and the eighth largest globally, Mumbai houses more than 1.2 crore people according to Census 2011. The city traffic has a notorious image, with frequent traffic jams being reported routinely in the media. However, the Draft Development Plan for Greater Mumbai 2014-2034 conveys a different story of how the city moves. The plan reveals that more than half of the city uses non-motorised modes of transport such as walking and cycling (51%). 42% of the trips are catered to by public modes of transport, including trains, buses, auto rickshaws etc, while the share of cars, two-wheelers and…

The development of “smart” cities was one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first initiatives upon taking office in 2014. Launched the next year, the stated focus of the Indian government’s Smart Cities Mission is “on sustainable and inclusive development, and the idea is to look at compact areas, create a replicable model which will act like a lighthouse to other aspiring cities.” However, as the Mission’s portal candidly acknowledges, “There is no universally accepted definition of a smart city. It means different things to different people.” Given the myriad interpretations of that term in this rapidly urbanizing, hugely diverse country, it comes…

Gone are the stormy days of bifurcation of the erstwhile state of Andhra Pradesh and the bitter battles over the city of Hyderabad. Today, as Telangana is governed from its centre of power in Hyderabad, neighbouring Andhra waits eagerly for the completion of its planned seat of administration, Amaravati.   In the government’s own words, Amaravati, “the People's capital of Andhra Pradesh, is envisioned to be a city of world-class standards” and one that will provide “cutting-edge infrastructure, comfortable livelihood and immense prosperity”. However, most remarkable about this planned city, being developed from scratch, is the way it has been…

Towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, the Rajiv Gandhi Salai Information Technology (IT) corridor (formerly known as Old Mahabalipuram Road or OMR), became Chennai’s new face. The 45-km long IT corridor stretch that was launched with much fanfare to attract IT industries and thus bring in profit to the government exchequer is even today one of the fastest growing residential localities in the city. But take a guess at how much OMR residents spend on water and sewage every year? Approximately Rs 700 crore or more! For the residents, mostly IT employees living on the 20-km…

Karnataka government has published a draft notification of Common Zoning Rules to be applicable across the state, with the last date for objections being July 30th, 2017. Citizen Action Forum, a Bengaluru-based nongovernmental organisation, has come up with a sample letter highlighting the problems of the new Common Zonal Regulations (CZR) and asking the government to re-consider the new zoning rules that will make master plans irrelevant. July 30th, 2017, is the last date for the objections to be filed. Interested Resident Welfare Organisations (RWAs) can check it out and send it to the concerned department or Chief Minister's office.…

Urban Development Department in Karnataka published a draft notification of Common Zoning Regulations a few days ago. Once implemented, it is applicable all over the state in all cities, and overrules the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) master planning rules. Here's a snapshot that explains how residential areas are going to change once this comes into force. Basically the rule reduces the roadwidth in residential areas of Bengaluru from 45 to 30 feet, to accommodate the daily use category of commercial establishments like milk booths, newspaper stalls etc. The notification has not gone well with the citizen groups fighting commercialisation of residential…

The lesser known 200-year-old Buckingham Canal which was used for navigation once by the Britons is nothing today, but just a canal that carries sewage water within the limits of Chennai, largely due to the poor waste management and rampant encroachments that prevail in the city. The canal flows the entire longitudinal length of the city of Chennai in varying forms and uses. The width of the canal between the Cooum and the Adyar River has been reduced to less than 6 metres, which used to be almost 60 metres in the past. Just on top of the canal runs…

It’s a blazing summer with a drought compounding it. Most of Chennai’s roads are devoid of any kind of tree cover and with the heat radiating from the sky, the buildings, the roads and the vehicles make for a local version of hell. At a time like this, it is with a pang that I read a report of the Municipal Corporation of Madras, dating to 1868. It has, among other things, a page on how the civic body set about creating tree cover along certain roads in the city, thereby qualifying them as avenues. The part of Mount Road…

In the recently undertaken Swacch Survekshan 2017, a cleanliness ranking of cities published by the Ministry of Urban Development of the Government of India, Chennai’s ranking plummeted from 37 in 2016 to 235! Corporation officials have explained this saying that the “independent observation” was done a few days after Cyclone Vardah, which is why there has been a dip in the rankings. However, even if Chennai had scored the same on all parameters as in 2016, our rank would have been 120 for 2017, after Srikakulam (Rank 119, Marks 1198). Moreover, independent observation had a weight of only 25% in the…

On Sunday morning, we did a walk in the Basavanagudi neighbourhood. It was not an “early morning walk” but a walk that started only at 9am after breakfast was done. Just to make it a little easier for everyone. It was a walk conducted for my students in a course I'm teaching this semester on the Everyday City at the Azim Premji University. The open courses at APU are elective courses offered once a week over the semester for students in the Masters Programs in Development / Education / Public Policy & Governance. The focus of the Everyday City course…