***Delhi and Bombay annually receive 5 to 7 lakh people each, adding to their burden for catering to the growing needs of increasing permanent population. They have essentially to meet the shelter needs of the migrants, apart from all other urban facilities, as also various other social services.***

THE grave crisis facing urban India today seems to be nobody’s concern with the final report of the National Commission on Urbanisation (NCU) submitted to government ten-year-ago apparently gathering dust in the corridors of power.

Today the problems of urban megapolis are compounded by the fact that these cities being the hubs of commercial and industrial activities attract people from far -flung areas of the country in search of work and livelihood.

For instance. Delhi and Bombay annually receive 5 to 7 lakh people each, adding to their burden for catering to the growing needs of increasing permanent population. They have essentially to meet the shelter needs of the migrants, apart from all other urban facilities. as also various other social services.

It is also true that compared to the global urbanisation level of 45 per cent. India's percentage of population living in urban areas — a little over 25 per cent as per 1991 census — is quite low.

The maximum level of 85 per cent is in Australia and New Zealand, followed by 77 per cent in Japan. 75 per cent in Latin American countries and Europe. 66 per cent in CIS countries, 34 per cent in African countries and 32 per cent in Pakistan.

A low level of urbanisation indicates denial of basic facilities to the people and as such the deprived people remain deeply rooted in the backward economic and social environment of the rural society. Obviously. they live in primitive conditions bereft of modernity.

However, from the Indus Valley civilisation to the magnificent cities of pre-history mentioned in our epics, to the grand cities that nave been founded. India cannot but be proud of the contribution made to its evolution as a modem nation by its glorious urban tradition.

Though the Indian civilisation owes much to this tradition. the metropolitan scene today is marked by confusion, neglect and obsolescence. The confusion is now worse confounded due to the multiplicity of authorities created by the government for urban management.

Paradoxically enough, where there is an independent specialised agency it has led to clashes, complication and chaos. Take, for instance, the

case of Delhi where there are authorities like the Delhi Development Authority. Municipal Corporation of Delhi. New Delhi Municipal Council. Delhi Transport Corporation. Delhi Vidyut Board, the government of Delhi and the union government which controls police through the Lieutenant Governor.

This medley of organisations is quite confusing for the people at large as they vie with each other to run their writ. The worse part of the situation is that in many cases of urban improvements, responsibility is not only shirked but nobody knows who is to be taken to task for a lapsed

Large tracts of fertile and agricultural land in rural Delhi have been acquired for industrial or commercial uses, reducing the green land to a wasteland. Oh top of this, urbanisation has uprooted villagers in a way that they have lost their moorings.

Apart from the problems of rapid industrialisation, excessive rural urban migration, inadequate public and private investment in social and economic infrastructure, especially water, power and public transport, and so on most of the urban centres have become victims of unplanned and haphazard growth.

A measure of discipline in land utilisation and timely strengthening of civic authorities enabling them to raise the requisite resources to invest in the required amenities, would have made these cities far more liveable, despite their rapid growth.

The biggest bottlenecks such cities face are shortage of drinking water and lack of public transport. In the absence of public investment in these, there has been a reckless growth of private suppliers with disastrous implications for ecology and environment.

To cite a few examples, while Bangalore is in search of a sibling, urban planners in Karnataka are looking for a suitable site to develop a new city to ease the burden of rapid urbanisation on their beautiful capital. Karnataka needs another urban centre and it is wise not to push the burden on to Mysore.

Not only is Mysore too close to Bangalore to provide adequate relief to the state’s capital but its growth is not going to address the problem of urban dispersal within the state.

North or coastal Karnataka would be a better bet. One can

only hope that the far sightedness of Bangalore's elders will not come up against governmental apathy and that urgent action will be taken to preserve whatever is left of the beauty of what was once famed as a garden city.

The problems that Bangalore faces are not unique to it and are common to almost all urban centres. Indeed, what cities like Bangalore. Ahmedabad. Hyderabad or Pune face is not as much a problem of rapid growth as unplanned and hap-azard growth.

In a prosperous city like Ahmedabad, for instance, the shortfalls of inadequate public transport have been bridged by authorickshaws which use kerosene powered engines with impunity. Not only is subsidised kerosene diverted from poor homes into these three wheelers, but it also pollutes the city harming the health of citizens. No government action is taken because these vehicles are owned by influential people who are able to escape the lethargic arms of the law.

One significant aspect of urbanisation is that the four mega cities of India — Mumbai. Calcutta. Delhi and Chennai — together account for more that one sixth of the total urban population of India.

The question to ponder is why is it that the urban population is gravitating towards big cities.

The answer perhaps lies in the neglect of the small towns. In fact, most of the small and medium towns are devoid of anything that can remotely be described as planning.

The infrastructure of these towns remains primitive forcing the inhabitants to migrate to urban areas in search of livelihood. Both the service and industrial sectors of these small towns are not developed to provide enough employment potential to the growing number of educated youth.

And yet. urban governance in India has been neglected, if not completely ignored. It is visible in the complete mess in which our cities are today. Obviously. India does not have an unambiguously articulated urban policy even after 50 years of its independence. Somehow, we have wrongly over-emphasised the cliche that India lives in villages.

Though factually correct, ii has become a political euphemism to buttress the focus of policy making on rural development.

Even as rural development

remained the basic foci of social and economic policy ever since independence, it was mired in political chaos.

In the process, while plans for rural development did not have the desired impact, cities got preferential treatment in infrastructural development though quite haphazardly. And while these experiments have been going on, the consequences of city-ward movement of millions of rural people were utterly ignored by the powers-that-be.

Today, therefore, the looming shadow of an urban crisis stares at our face. The Nexus between rural progress and urban development has not been visualised in its correct perspec tive.

While the number of small towns with a population of less than 10.000 has come down, this loss has not been made up fully by the emergence of new towns in adequate number.

The census data reveals that there has been a significant increase in the number of big cities and towns in the last decade. But the small towns have an important role to play in our urban system. The smaller satellite towns near big cities help in spatial urban diffusion and the small towns adjoining the rural areas relieve the population pressure in the neighbourhood besides serving other purposes as well.

The emerging trends towards urbanisation, particularly in a more spatially dispersed pattern in the Indian context, is not only welcome, but also a clear indication of success achieved in more diffused economic growth. Such a development involved reduction of labour force in agriculture which contributes less to national income than before and a corresponding increase in the non-farm employment in rural and urban areas.

To the extent this has not been the case, it is clear that urbanisation could not be spurred by the growth of large industries in mega towns. Therefore. India needs decentralised economic development in the country so that there is town dominated urban growth in our states, rather than very big metropolitan cities becoming the focal point of economic growth with all the concomitant ills of urbanisation let loose in the most perverted sense. — APB/PTIfeatures

The writer is former Reader. Delhi University.