Can India’s Cities be Saved?

From the late 70’s onwards, Delhi’s urban landscape began to change with increasing rapidity. The largely “colony” nature of its suburbs was altered by the steady inflow of migrants and the size of the city grew. Soon slums became more and more ubiquitous and traffic busy and chaotic. Almost in the blink of an eye, or so it seemed, the Capital became a thriving destination for the middle class, students and skilled labour but at the same time began to resemble an ungovernable mess with poor roads, water and power shortages and thoroughly inadequate sewerage.

Not everything could be put down to the masses arriving from states like Rajasthan, UP, Bihar and elsewhere. Large land packages were usurped by local mafia with the active blessing of the city’s ruling politicians who saw benefits in creating captive vote banks that would make their hold on political power near permanent. The Delhi Development Authority, which owned most of the land in the city, became either a helpless bystander or a corrupt participant in the illegal occupation of public land. Migrants with no papers and at risk of eviction became indebted to extractive slum bosses.

In his much-needed book “India’s Blind Spot – Understanding and Managing our Cities”, Devashis Dhar fulfils a vital task by turning the spotlight on India’s patchy urbanisation and the crying need to develop and adopt strategies that streamline growth of cities and towns in a rule-based and equitable manner. It is indeed a surprise that the obvious woes of our cities and the distressing state of municipal corporations has not received the attention that they demand. It does seem obvious that managing the next urban revolution is crucial to India’s growth story and may well be the differentiator between political parties and leaders who recognise the challenge and those who fail to deal with the rising tide.

Dhar has Master’s degrees from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at Singapore as well as the Harvard Kennedy School and his experience with the Niti Aayog sharpened an analytical and questioning mind and he offers a 360 degree view of urbanisation and practical solutions to guide policy makers. To begin with, he puts the finger on the nub of the problem, pointing out how ill-considered low floor area ratios led to not only poor utilisation of land but created artificial shortages. Mumbai’s property developers are known for imaginative implementation of FAR, with a wink and a nod from authorities, to carve out space where seemingly none exists. Similarly, there was an over reliance on “master plans” that sought to set 5-10 year timeframes and were out of date almost from the day they were issued. Large tracts of land, like the ones held by DDA, were either unused or lost with little accountability.

“A misdirected approach to urban land has left our cities weak on basic service provision, twin issues of vacant housing units and housing shortage (mainly for the economically weaker sections), rampant slum growth, high environmental degradation, financially bankrupt ULBs and unfettered peripheral growth, among others,” writes Dhar, putting things in a nutshell. On the one hand governments failed to secure land in their possession and on the other rigid rules created housing shortages. The legacy of several post-Independence decisions, often influenced by a “control mindset”, meant that land held by public enterprises and entities like the railways and defence lies utilised. This can literally be a case of sprawling gold courses amidst of ugly urban sprawls.

Dhar discusses more recent initiatives that aim to resolve what he calls a “knot” in the land markets such as the national land records modernisation programme launched in 2008 to computerise land records. The Niti Aayog’s draft land titling act can prompt states to consider their own legislations as Rajasthan has providing for provisional and final land certificates. Odd as it might sound, registering a title, as is the common practice, may not be enough to secure a buyer’s interests. The survey of villages and mapping with improvised technology in village areas (SVAMITVA) is an important initiative to survey non-agricultural inhabited land in rural India that would lead to grant of property rights.

The urban land ceilings act (ULCRA), legislated in 1976 at the height of socialist influence among India’s political elites, imposed “…tight ownership ceilings, ranging from 500 to 2,000 square meters…Anyone who owned more land than this was made to surrender it to the government for a paltry compensation,” Dhar notes. Again, the rules only resulted in claims for exemption or encouraged graft. “Thus essentially, the land market was distorted, since neither could the government buy excess land nor could the sellers sell in the open market.” Other laws such as those dealing with tenancy were so draconian that owners preferred to leave their properties locked rather than put them on rent out of fear that they may never get them back.

As noted earlier, FARs and other restrictions prevented the upward growth of cities resulting in lack of housing for the average citizen. Delhi’s Lutyen’s zone is rightly hailed as a green miracle but thousands of government bungalows and tacky housing for junior and mid-level officials has taken thousands of acres out of the reckoning for anyone but this thin slice of the city’s residents. All others have been flung to the peripheries, which ironically enough, have become costly real estate due to burgeoning demand. In Mumbai, entities like the port trust land on the eastern seafront has been unavailable to the city for decades and the 28 km stretch is only now becoming accessible, perhaps as a new CBD (central business district).

Dhar correctly identifies the intersection of data, technology and urban development as the key to future development that promotes a balance between public spaces, residential areas, business activities and government buildings. As we have seen with India’s national digital stack, data and technology can not only help leapfrog severe deficits but even prove to be path breaking. The benefits of digitalisation have now become more evident, gaining adherents as the utility of the Aadhar identity for accessing welfare benefits and as a simple proof of identity was established. In a future that is more demanding, not just in terms of population but also challenges such as climate change that call for a resilient infrastructure, Dhar’s commendable efforts should focus attention of all stake holders in the India journey.

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