Vaulting Ambition

The battle for Delhi has begun in right earnest, with both BJP and Congress vying with each other to announce pre-electoral sops. In an all-or-nothing gambit, the BJP has declared its vision for Delhi 2021, via the 'Guidelines for the Master Plan'. Envisaging dramatic policy shifts, the document has been reviled by those who see it as a blueprint for urban chaos but welcomed by those who claim its overall thrust is both progressive and pro-poor.

An advisory to city planners drawing up the capital's Master Plan III, the guidelines have been submitted to the Supreme Court and put on a website inviting public comment. "We want transparency and public participation," maintains Delhi Lt Governor Vijai Kapoor. Broadly, he says, the objective is to check further haphazard growth while taking a humanitarian and pragmatic view of existing violations and opening the doors to redevelopment.

But critics say that congestion will increase if high-rises are permitted, infrastructure and utilities will be overstretched and a premium put on illegality by regularising unauthorised colonies and legitimising mixed land use. Kapoor, however, stresses that the "idea is not to increase building density". Says he: "In fact, the built-up space will be kept at 45 per cent, against 55 for other cities. As for regularisation, perhaps 70 per cent of Delhi's built assets are unauthorised. You can't just demolish them."

Says Professor A.K. Maitra, director of the School of Planning and Architecture: "There's nothing wrong with mixed land use per se, provided it's done in a planned manner, as in Chandigarh. Otherwise—and we have countless examples in Delhi—a heavy social cost has to be paid."

On the issue of unauthorised colonies, city planners don't hold a brief for high-end violations like Sainik Farms which create pleasure environments for the rich and plunder the water table and the green belt. To regularise such violations would be to penalise law-abiding citizens. But low-end violations like jhuggi colonies, they say, come up as a matter of necessity and must be treated rather differently.

Says eminent urban expert K.T. Ravindran: "If you price the poor out of the city, where do they go? Likewise, you've made no provision for small-scale industries. Efforts to force them out of the city led to the loss of two million jobs. There's a huge informal, even parallel, economy in Delhi, which functions in the twilight or 'violations' zone."

However, say city planners, regularising mixed land use must be preceded by intensive planning. "The guidelines are a political announcement, but have to be technically qualified," says Ravindran. Delhi BJP chief M.L. Khurana says all these caveats have been kept in mind. There's no question of regularising Sainik Farms. And mixed land use doesn't mean you'll have a noisy lathe operating next door, he adds.

Maitra says the guidelines include much that's positive: a land acquisition policy which gives farmers a fair deal and ensures that vacant land doesn't fall prey to unauthorised development, redevelopment of derelict DDA and other spaces, a bigger role for the private sector in housing; focusing DDA on housing for the poor and overall supervision of urban development rather than its three-in-one role as planner, implementer and enforcer. The objections to the sweeping policy changes are founded basically in a lack of faith in the administration's ability to deliver, he adds. For instance, there's nothing wrong in approving alterations to DDA flats which do not impact on structural safety—the question is whether the administration can ensure that.

What remains to be seen is how much political capital the BJP is able to make out of its announcement. There's little doubt that, given the intimate relationship between land and politics in Delhi, the guidelines have some political resonance.Says Ravindran: "The unfortunate fact that policy changes have been mooted through the political rather than the planning process is perhaps an indication that planners are insulated from the concerns of the people."