Urban Planning in India

In the second part, she  discusses the Gujarat Town Planning schemes and ends with some thoughts on improving and expanding the practice. It looks like the land pooling mechanism will increase in importance in the post-COVID times as resource-strapped city governments rush to enhance existing and provide amenities such as open space, and health and educational facilities.

Shirley Ballaney is an architect and an urban planner with over two decades of experience in urban planning, policy & development. She has worked in many cities in India and led a wide array of projects ranging from preparing statutory city development plans, town planning schemes and area development plans. Shirley practices as an independent consultant and works for The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, DFID, NIUA and many private consulting firms. Her research interests are land use planning & management, development regulations, heritage and environment.

In this episode, Bimal Patel and B.R. Balachandran discuss why planning in India struggles to deal with the inherent unpredictability of the future. They look at how plans are excessively deterministic and why they take refuge in a "predict and provide" approach. Bimal argues that conventional plans delusively seek stable outcomes, while economies are always in flux. Such attitudes have been the primary reasons for dysfunctional cities. Later in the conversation, they explore a practical and meaningful approach to planning in the face of unpredictability, identifying the critical elements that need to be planned and others that need to be flexible.

Bimal Patel is an architect, urbanist and academic.  He is President of CEPT University.  He also heads HCP which is a multi-disciplinary design, planning and management practice based in Ahmedabad.  Bimal Patel's research focuses on architecture and urban planning, real estate markets, regulatory frameworks and land management. He has won numerous awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1992). In 2019 he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honours.
 
B.R. Balachandran is an urban planner with over 25 years of experience, currently engaged in doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After 10 years at Environmental Planning Collaborative, Ahmedabad, in 2007, he co-founded Alchemy Urban Systems, a planning practice in Bangalore and also served in senior advisory roles at institutions such as CDD Society, BORDA and ITDP.  While engaged in research on post-disaster recovery in the US, he has continued to work on planning projects in India.
 
 

Dr. Bimal Patel, renowned urbanist, discusses with B.R. Balachandran, urban planner and collaborator of Dr. Patel, the need for a paradigm shift in the way we look at city planning in India   They reflect on why city planning in India has been consistently ineffective for several decades and what it will take to change this situation.  Dr. Patel makes a case for a paradigm shift in our approach to urban planning.  The discussion unpacks the paradigm shift into several discrete aspects dealing with fundamental dysfunctions in the planning systems currently followed in most Indian cities.  Each of these aspects will be elaborated in subsequent episodes of this series.

Bimal Patel is an architect, urbanist and academic.  He is President of CEPT University.  He also heads HCP which is a multi-disciplinary design, planning and management practice based in Ahmedabad.  Bimal Patel's research focuses on architecture and urban planning, real estate markets, regulatory frameworks and land management. He has won numerous awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1992). In 2019 he was awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honours.

B.R. Balachandran is an urban planner with over 25 years of experience, currently engaged in doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. After 10 years at Environmental Planning Collaborative, Ahmedabad, in 2007, he co-founded Alchemy Urban Systems, a planning practice in Bangalore and also served in senior advisory roles at institutions such as CDD Society, BORDA and ITDP.  While engaged in research on post-disaster recovery in the US, he has continued to work on planning projects in India.

In this episode, Vidyadhar Phatak in conversation with A. Srivathsan, answers some of the crucial questions about land markets and urban planning. Given the lockdown and with Mr.Phatak in Mumbai and Srivathsan in Chennai, discussion of the conversation first happened over mail and then recorded. Mr.Phatak points out the fallouts resulting from ignoring or remaining oblivious to land as private property and market forces. Further, he explains how planning has implicitly presumed large scale public ownership of land. Things have changed, he explains. After the 1990s that is the post-economic liberalisation era, the planners are compelled to take into account the land market in formulating city plans and in evaluating development control measures.

Vidyadhar Phatak, is one of the leading urban thinkers in the country with rich practice and teaching experience. He is the former Chief Planner of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority and also the former Dean of Faculty Planning, CEPT University. Mr Phatak was the director of National Housing Bank from 2006 to 2012 and also worked on several urban planning reforms as a consultant with the World Bank. Over the last 40 years, he has worked on land markets, land-based Fiscal Tools, urban Planning reforms and housing.
 
A. Srivathsan is an architect and urban designer, and currently Director, Centre for Research on Architecture and Urbanism, CEPT University Ahmedabad. He was previously the Academic Director of the University, and before that taught for a decade and worked as a senior journalist with The Hindu, the national newspaper. His research and writings include the themes of urban history, planning policies and contemporary architectural practices. Srivathsan’s recent work includes work on evidence based affordable housing policies for Chennai, a study conducted for Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission.