Urbanization

• Urbanization in India is increasing at a rapid rate.
• In 2011, the urban population was more than 30% and by 2030, it is expected to reach 41%.
• The speed of urbanization poses an unprecedented managerial and policy challenge, yet India has not engaged in a national discussion about how to handle the seismic shift in the makeup of the nation.
• Urban India today is “distributed” in shape with a diverse range of large and small cities spread widely around the nation.
• Indian towns are growing more on the basis of tertiary rather than the secondary sector. It is very ironic that cities in India have developed as a result of the growth of the tertiary sector. The growth in the communication sector, transport, services and construction were the main factors for the growth of Indian cities.
• But in developed countries it is the manufacturing sector which led to the growth of cities.
• Southern India is more urbanizedthan that of Northern and Eastern India. This is because of the historical, socio-cultural and educational resource factors widely available.
• With the introduction of globalizationin India, the development of South India was very high due to high FDI and establishment of various kinds of industries in these states.

• Safe drinking water: According to a report by NITI Aayog, 21 cities will run out of groundwater by 2020. To avoid further worsening of such crisis we need careful urban planning.
• Affordable housing: One of the largest government programmes is to provide affordable housing to citizens. Sustainable urban planning will help to manage land resources in equitable way.
• Urban sewage and solid waste management: In India less than quarter of the waste generated gets proper treatment. For rapidly growing urban agglomerations we need planning to manage this rising challenge.
• Transportation and communication: Sustainable urban planning will provide efficient and eco-friendly public transport facilities to overpopulated urban cities of India.
• Sustainable urban planning will also help in equitable resources distribution and affordable service delivery.
• It will also help in creating sustainable environment and disaster management.

• Planning: The new challenge today is management of rural urban fringe as the expansion of urban fringes is taking place at rapid place leading to Urban Sprawl. There is need of immediate long term planning for sustainable development of areas in fringes.
• Urban sprawl or real expansion of the cities,both in terms of population and geographical area, which has encroached upon the agricultural and forest lands.
• Overcrowding: It’s a situation in which too many people live in too little space. Overcrowding is a logical consequence of over-population in urban areas. It is naturally expected that cities having a large size of population squeezed in a small space must suffer from overcrowding. This is well exhibited by almost all the big cities of India.
• Transport and communication: The future challenge will be linked with the urban transport facilities. Roads are congested; rail and metro network is inadequate resulting into movement within the city being slow and tiring.
• Housing: It has been already observed now the cost of living is too high in metropolitan areas. Crumbling infrastructure in public services has to be managed on far footings.
• Migration: Migration will continue as urban areas act as a center of economic growth. Problem of slums is about to increase and thus leading to health challenges for public health system.
• Solid waste management: In case of waste management issue, nuclear, cyber and plastic waste will create a big challenge for clean and pollution free urban environment.
• Poverty: Urban poverty has a very peculiar character. Street vendors and people in other informal sector, women, children and old age population will suffer most from the deteriorating urban ecology.
• Environmental challenges: growth in man-made and natural disasters is another challenge because of unplanned cities. Urban island effects have already been observed in urban setup. Ex: Chennai flood in 2015
• Service delivery: Urban local government will have to do a gigantic task of timely service delivery as there is paradigm shift in public administration towards new public management.
• Slums & Squatter Settlements: Few of the Asia’s largest slums are in Delhi and Mumbai where unplanned urbanisation led to polluted water, health issues and rising rate of crimes.
• Urban flooding: Floods in Mumbai and Chennai are examples of urban flooding. These are results of unsustainable urbanisation.
• Rising number of accidents: Fires in buildings and deaths in various urban accidents are daily routine in Indian cities.
• Degrading environment: According to WHO report, out of 20 most polluted cities, 14 are in India.
• Urban Crimes : such as human trafficking, sexual assault, and child labour etc.
• Several smart urbanisation measures like Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT etc. are being taken up by the government to address these issues. However, there are various challenges which impede progress such as:
  • Many urban local governments lack a modern planning frameworkwhich limits effective land utilisation and cities’ abilities to grow in accordance with changing needs.
  • 74^thAmendment Act has been implemented half-heartedly by the states, which have not fully empowered the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). ULBs need clear delegation of functions, functionaries and funds.
  • The state governments have not given enough autonomy to ULBsto generate revenues and at the same time, the ULBs have failed to utilize even those tax and fee powers that they have been vested with.
  • On the ‘Smart City’ front, while over 90 ‘Smart Cities’ have identified 2,864 projects, India lags on implementation,with about 148 projects completed and over 70% still at various stages of preparation.
  • Low level of urban infrastructure investment and capacity building.
  • Wide inter-state disparity in urbanization levelsalso poses a challenge to the urban planners. An urban area that has an advanced model of technology but is badly planned, with outdated legal frameworks or lacking a good financial model, will only aggravate the dysfunction in the area.

• This phenomenon poses many challenges for development, livelihood and policy making.
• Environmental costs: air pollution resulting from automobile dependency, water pollution caused in part by increases in impervious surfaces, the loss or disruption of environmentally sensitive areas, such as critical natural habitats (e.g., wetlands, wildlife corridors), reductions in open space, increased flood risks, and overall reductions in quality of life
• Unsustainable living: the reliance on automobiles has contributed to reductions in air and water quality as well as the accelerated depletion of fossil fuels
• Lacks basic amenities: Often basic infrastructure like clean drinking water, sanitation, electricity etc are absent from such areas denying decent living conditions to masses and sudden outbreak of diseases which can pose a bigger threat for surrounding areas
• Increased Traffic: Populations will begin to use their cars more often, which means that there is more traffic on the roads, and there is also more air pollution and more auto accidents that you have to worry with.
• Structural changes: Structural changes in land use like commercialization of agricultural land, increases pressure on land and threatens the ecosystem and biodiversity as well
• Community costs: urban sprawl diminishes the local character of the community. Ubiquitous retail chains with extravagant signage and façades are often the first to move into newly developed areas. Small local businesses are often hidden by the visual noise of larger stores.
• Pockets of development: Development by private contractors are limited to certain pockets like gated communities putting the larger population in peril eg. water logging in Gurgaon

• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) as a step towards harnessing the agglomeration economies of the urban centres and making cities engines of growth.
• It envisages convergence across various initiatives such as Amrut, Smart Cities, Hriday (National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and Swachh Bharat.
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for affordable housing with credit linked subsidy.
• Smart cities Mission: It is an urban development programme launched by the government of India with the mission to develop 100 cities across the country and making them citizen friendly and sustainable.

• Quick need to increase connectivity and Infrastructure of the secondary cities. Initiatives like AMRUT, Smart cities, Digital India, BharatMala, PMGSY etc. can play a big role in spreading the manufacturing sector evenly.
• Proper planning of peri-urban areas, increased connectivity to spread out the population evenly. Example: RURBAN scheme
• Policymakers should improve access to telecommunication and post-secondary education in secondary cities. This will help in the spread of service sector to these cities.
• Incentivization for setting up manufacturing industries in underdeveloped areas. Example: National Industrial Manufacturing Zones can be set up.
• Strengthening the allied activities like Food Processing through Food Parks. This will reduce the Push and Pull migration.
• MSME’s are responsible for more than 14 crore jobs in India. Their growth must be boosted in smaller cities.

• India needs to work on achieving the goals set by United Nations under SDG-11 (Sustainable Cities) to be achieved by 2030.
• Need for Comprehensive National urban plan for effective and timely implementation of policies and schemes
• Ensure access for all through adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums, transport systems for all, improving road safety, notably by expanding public transport.
• Give special attention to the needs of those in vulnerable situations, women and children, persons with disabilities and older persons.
• Reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management.
• Provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces.
• Support positive economic, social and environmental links between urban, peri-urban and rural areas by strengthening national and regional development planning
• Substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters, and develop and implement, in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Cities are living ecosystems. They need to be managed accordingly. Rather than going by populist measures or sticking to the original master plans, local solutions to local problems, innovative, in situ and tailor-made solutions should be evolved, adapted and adhered to. Authorities need to be willing to learn, evolve and discard if necessary. The flawed perception of Engines of Growth are tied to big cities must be shed. Secondary cities and the rural areas should be developed to reduce the lopsided spatial development currently happening in India.