The United Nations World Cities Day on October 31 is expected to greatly promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization and contributing to sustainable urban development around the world.
The adoption of the day is essential in developing a culture and a consciousness about the importance of cities in our daily lives. It is unfortunate that, for too long, the negative aspects of cities and urbanization have dominated the public policy, highlighting the accumulation of poverty, inadequate housing, traffic congestion, pollution and insecurity in the streets.
This year, the United Nations has selected the theme ‘Innovative Governance, Open Cities’ to highlight the important role of urbanization as a source of global development and social inclusion.
Innovation is a creative idea or act of conceiving and implementing a new way of achieving result or performing work. Furthermore, innovation in public administration also entails development of new policy designs and new standard operating procedures by public organisations to address public policy problems.
Of the 121 crore Indians, 83.3 crore live in rural areas while 37.7 crore stay in urban areas, as per the 2011 Census. The absolute increase in population is more in urban areas than in rural areas. The level of urbanisation increased from 27.81 per cent in the 2001 Census to 31.16 per cent in the 2011 Census, while the rural population declined from 72.19 per cent to 68.84 per cent. Of the total population of Odisha, 83.32 per cent live in rural areas and 16.68 per cent in urban areas. As per the Slum Census 2011, India recorded a 37.14 per cent decadal growth in the number of ‘slum’ households.
Almost two-thirds of statutory towns in India have ‘slums’ and a total of 13.75 million households live in them. Census 2011 data reveals that 36 per cent of households in informal settlements do not have basic facilities of electricity, tap water, and sanitation within house premises. As per Census 2011, over 27 per cent of urban residents live in rental accommodation, most of which is informal.
Most low income residents do not enjoy security of tenure over their land and housing. A recent State-wide estimate by a technical group on urban housing shortage says there is a shortfall of about 4.10 lakh housing units in Odisha. Besides lack of affordable housing leads to slums in many parts of the State. It is further estimated that approximately 3.60 lakh affordable dwelling units would have to be added in the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack region exclusively to accommodate the growth during next 10 years. The lIG and EWS sections count more than 90 per cent of the total housing shortage. Now, over 30 per cent of Bhubaneswar’s population lives in slums. According to a BMC report, the total slum population is 3,08,614 and total household units are 60,612. Increase in land value, cost of construction and lack of affordability for the people are the major reasons for the shortage of housing in Bhubaneswar. It has been observed that there are more numbers of HIG and MIG housing in the central part of the city and also in the periphery. Compared to this, lIG and EWS housings are very few.
Urban human settlements require a more inclusive approach to planning and land management to sustain all the people who live in the settlement. The Government of India has formulated the National Urban Sanitation Policy, National Urban Transport Policy and National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy in view of rapidly increasing urban population. The Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission launched in December 2005 and the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat approved recently address issues relating to sustainable urban development.
A national policy is required on urbanisation which will ensure a balanced urban growth. It is necessary to provide proper infrastructural facilities to the people and address the problem of growing slum and squatter settlements. New areas need to be carefully planned through the system of master plans and zoning regulations.
Better town planning is necessary along with strict enforcement of laws which restrict unplanned An innovative trend in Government offers tremendous opportunity for good governance in our country. Governance is the enabling environment that requires adequate legal frameworks, efficient political, managerial and administrative processes to enable the local Government response to the needs of citizens. For a better public administrative mechanism, it is important to have innovations in public institutions. It has to minimize procedural delays and reduce the administrative burden, thereby enhancing public satisfaction and increasing efficiency and effectiveness of public administration. In our constitutional system, every person is entitled to equality before law and equal protection under the law. In a federal democracy, decentralization of power is viewed as necessary to empower people in rural and urban areas to improve their living condition. The empowerment of the local levels of administration would foster confidence and enable more individuals even outside the bureaucracy to come forward to handle community needs. Following the 74th amendment to the constitution, constitutional status has been vested upon urban local bodies (UlBs) and specific civic responsibilities allocated to them. Schedule 12 of the constitution provides a list of subjects under the purview of UlBs. The list includes urban planning, regulation of land use, construction of buildings, roads and bridges, water supply, sanitation and solid waste management, environment, and the provision of urban public amenities and conveniences.
India has, over the past years, directed its development pathway to meet its priorities of employment, economic growth, food, water and energy security, and poverty alleviation. However, emerging challenges of climate change impacts, increasing inequities, and lagging human development indices are well recognized by both the citizens as well as the government. It is time to plan and design sustainable urbanization. The advantages of urbanization are enormous and they can contribute to the solutions to many of the problems the country is facing today. Sustainable urbanization and innovative governance can create jobs and offer better livelihoods, increase economic growth, improve social inclusion, protect local and regional ecosystems and reduce both urban and rural poverty.
(Dr Praharaj is a faculty member, Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)
