Comprehending Urbanization, Urban Schemes and Urban Villages in Contemporary India
March 2023 | Ashima Gupta
I Introduction
Most of the population of the Global South would be migrating from the villages to the cities in search of more opportunities in terms of employment, better educational and health facilities and physical infrastructure in the 21st Century. A distinctive feature of urbanization in Asian countries has been the rise of mega cities, which means that most of the economic activities and urban population of these countries is concentrated in a few large cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Chennai, Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, etc. They have been functioning as prominent actors in the global economic system. The emergence of these cities in competition with the cities of the West has shifted the attention of scholars towards understanding them. Indian cities are also predicted to witness rapid urbanization during this century. The McKinsey Report, “ India’s Urban Awakening: Building inclusive cities, Sustaining economic growth” released in 2010 notes the fact that India’s urban population grew from 290 million in 2001 to an estimated 340 million in 2008 and it could soar up to 590 million by 2030. It also projected that Indian cities would create 70 percent of net new jobs in 2030 and produce more than 70 percent of Indian GDP and drive a near fourfold increase in per capita income across the nation.
These cities have also experienced a construction boom as industries, residential accomodations, malls, factories, highways and offices of multinational corporations are opening up not only within the city but also in its vicinity (Shaw 2012). In other words, Indian cities have undergone drastic changes in their demographic composition, economic activities and landscape in the post- liberalization era that started in the 1990s as they have attracted high foreign investment and largely contributed to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. All these things are increasing the population of the city and the pressure on the land of these areas is increasing. As a consequence, the population is dispersing outside generally because of the availability of cheaper housing and more green spaces. This has led to urban sprawl, i.e., haphazard growth of cities and inclusion and planning of these areas within the city is becoming essential.
While expanding, these cities engulf a number of villages within themselves. The agricultural land of the farmers is taken away either by the government or the real estate agents, but the residential areas known as ‘abadideh’ in Hindi remain in place. These traditional village-like residential settlements within a well- developed city are then called ‘urban villages’. However, expansion of cities is not the only reason for the creation of these urbanized villages in India where they are also formed, when new planned cities such as Chandigarh, Rajarhat in Kolkata, Electronic City in Bengaluru, Navi Mumbai and Lavasa in Pune are constructed for different purposes on the periphery of metropolitan areas.
The understanding of urban villages in developing countries is way different then as they are understood in the developed countries such as America, where they refer to a planning design. In East Asian countries these places are a result of urban expansion. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen and Guangzhou are examples of cities in China which are swelling up and enveloping the farmlands of the hamlets in the vicinity. These newly acquired farmlands are then used for constructing residential, commercial and industrial start-ups (Cenzatti 2014). The closest equivalent term to urban villages is “Desakota” as framed by Mc Gee in order to understand the distinctive model of urbanization emerging in South East Asia. By this he meant zones that are a mix of agricultural and non-agricultural activities.With time, these villages have degenerated in terms of access to service delivery and overall infrastructure.
Studying urban villages today is of immense importance as analyzing them provides important insights towards the nature of urbanization in cities of developing countries and also these are the areas that are witnessing dynamic changes and crisis in terms of environment, land use changes, service delivery and governance challenges.
In this paper I answer three major questions: (i) What have been the problematic issues of urban areas in India, according to the five-year plans and urban policies and what have been the ideological shifts in addressing them? (ii) When does the condition of urban villages gain policy attention? and (iii) How have master plans of planned cities tried to solve the problem of urban villages?
I give three arguments in this paper. Firstly, according to the Five year plans the major issues till 1991 of urban areas were that of building housing for the refugees, ensuring planned development of cities, slum upgradation and problems of employment among the urban poor. After 1991, problems of upgradation of infrastructure in cities such as sanitization, sewerage disposal, drainage, solid waste management, transportation facilities start to surface. Secondly, Rajiv Awas Yojana is the only centrally financed urban policy which talks about developing the infrastructure of urban villages but it also at the same time equates them to slums. All the other urban policies continue to neglect these areas. Thirdly, in the initially planned cities, these areas were not included in the master plan approach and were governed by different building bye laws. Due to this, illegal encroachments, congested development, degraded infrastructure in terms of sanitization, solid waste management, drainage and sewerage disposal could be seen in these areas. After 1991, the master plans of newly planned cities have included these areas within them and talked about the need for their infrastructural development but often treated these areas as sites where the new service class could find cheap accommodation This paper is divided into two sections. Section I would first trace the trajectory of urban policies in India and reflect on how they talk about urbanization and urban villages. The second part will look into the initiatives taken by the local bodies through master plans of planned cities towards these areas. This will help us in mapping out the shifts regarding the perception of these areas since independence.
II Area of Research
The pertinent research area for this research is urban studies which involves comprehending urban planning, spatial spread of cities, evolution of new urban areas and institutes to govern them, crises faced by them in terms of environment, problems of service delivery such as water, roads, electricity, solid waste management, drainage and urban politics. The following research objectives have been framed with regard to all these matters .
III Objectives
- To understand the nature of urbanization in planned cities of India post- liberalization.
- To apprehend the way urban policies post 1990s have perceived the condition of urban villages.
IV Methodology
The paper relies on qualitative methodology. To understand the perspectives of the policy makers and our leaders towards urban areas, a textual analysis of the Five-Year Plans and urban policies has been attempted. Apart from this, the official documents of Ministry of Urban Development and other relevant Ministries have been scrutinized. To understand the state level initiatives towards urban villages, the master plans of a few planned cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, etc., have been analysed. A case study approach has allowed me to study the urban villages in their natural setting. The use of secondary sources such as books and newspaper reports has also been done.
V Five-Year Plans and the Debate on Urbanization
Urbanization in India is a state subject but the attempts of the states regarding the management of cities have been largely guided by the central guidelines reflected in the Five-Year Plans and centrally financed schemes. It is for this reason that studying central government’s ideas regarding urbanization is important. On the insistence of Jawaharlal Nehru, Planning Commission (presently NITIAYOG) was set up in 1950 and was given the task to ensure uniform development in all aspects in all parts of the country. To achieve this objective, it used to formulate Five-Year Plans. Though the making of Five Year Plans has been discontinued from 2017, they form an important document to understand the initial deliberations on the question of urbanization in the country.
In the initial years of independence, addressing the urban problems was not the dominant concern of the national leaders as maximum of our population was living in the rural areas, i.e., the villages. The idea behind the first three Five-Year Plans was two-fold: (i) to accumulate capital through state sponsored development of urban areas which would help in achieving economic growth (Shaw 1996) and (ii) to provide housing to the refugees who were coming in large numbers from across the border. These concerns for economic development of the nation and rehabilitation of the refugees resulted in the construction of number of new cities and towns such as Bokaro, Faridabad and Chandigarh specifically in North India. The plans were also obsessed with slum clearance. The Second Plan concentrated on developing master plans for organized development of cities and proposed that low income households should be provided with housing facilities. It is only in the Third Five-Year Plan that addressing urban issues acquires logical and systematic attention. As a result of this plan, new authorities for facilitating the implementation of master plans were opened up. It was also recognized that the new industries need to be established far away from the cities so that balanced regional development could be ensured (Batra 2009).
The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Plans which fall in the second phase show a shift as in the issues it is concentrating on and how it tries to resolve them. In the mid- 1960s, the agrarian elite and the urban residents criticized the excessive centralization of state actions. They called for more development in their areas, better living conditions and rational land management (Shaw 2007). It was found necessary that the small towns had to be invested in, as the population in the large cities such as Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad was increasing which was creating a housing shortage. To deal with the problem of rising prices of land and housing shortage, the states were made in-charge and Housing and Urban Development Corporation was set up to provide loans to state so that they could develop their infrastructure and create housing specifically for the low- and middle-income groups. For slums it was recognized that in-situ development is important rather than slum clearance. The Fifth Plan largely talked about measures to control land prices which were escalating. This led to the formation of Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (ULCRA). It also talked about the need to develop the infrastructure of the cities which had a population of more than three lakhs. The Sixth Plan focussed on ameliorating the environmental conditions of the slums by ameliorating the basic service conditions of these areas. It also talked about the development of small and medium towns specifically which had a population of about one lakh.
The era of liberalization started in the mid-1980s, in which the role of the State was reduced and investment through private sector was encouraged. Emphasis was laid on linking urbanization and economic development and in 1988, National Commission on Urbanization was set up. It was discovered that the Centre could not provide funds for the development of the city and the civic bodies had to be made self-sustainable. Consequently, the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts (CAA) were passed in 1993 to strengthen the financial status of these bodies. The emphasis of the Five-Year Plans then, was also on encouraging the coming up of private sector and urban policies, launched post liberalization (as will be discussed in the following section), do favour this approach.
The Seventh Plan, which marks the beginning of the third phase, is a considerable shift from the previous plans as the Indian economy was opening up and privatization in various sectors was being encouraged. The housing responsibility was shifted to the private sector. Removing poverty by community participation was discussed. Generating employment for the poor was also identified as a problem. Before the the launching of the Eighth Plan, India opened up the economy as a response to the balance of payment crises. This neo-liberal shift was reflected in the eighth plan which recognized urban poverty as a problem and talked about linking urban development with economic growth of the country. Need was also felt to financially strengthen the municipalities by allowing them to mobilize corporate sector to invest in the infrastructural development of their areas. In the Ninth Plan, it was also recognized that centrally sponsored schemes for development of small and medium towns have largely failed and the impetus of this was now largely transferred to the state governments who would mobilize the private sector for raising finances for their development. The difference between smaller and larger urban local bodies was also identified. It was observed that the larger Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) would be able to attract private investment but not the smaller ones. So, provisions of providing loans to the smaller ULBs were made. It favoured creating platforms for self-employment and for housing, it focussed on creating housing only for the most deprived section of the society.
The Tenth Plan again pushed for strengthening of legislative, financial and administrative structure of the cities by encouraging the public-private partnership model for ULBs and market friendly reforms for the betterment of infrastructure and other services. It was considered necessary to focus on the development of urban infrastructure. The ULBs were supposed to mobilize their own resources by reforming property taxes, levying user charges and increasing the non-tax revenues. If the ULBs were able to implement these reforms, the Central Government would provide extra financial assistance. The Eleventh and the Twelfth Plan focussed on ensuring that the private sector participation is encouraged when it comes to infrastructure building such as sewerage management, solid waste management, etc.
We can thus see that urbanization for the first time catches the eye of the government in the 1960s. The First Three Plans were largely a response to the immediate need to develop the country economically and provide residence to refugees who were migrating from across the border in millions. The inability of the leaders to provide employment in the rural areas led to the migration of people who could not find affordable accommodation which led to the formation of slums and there was an argument of slum clearance. Though the Second Plan talked about the importance of master plans, proper institutions to implement them were only installed during the third plan. The first shift came because of the demands of the agrarian elite who argued for a balanced development. In the second phase, government started to focus on the in-situ development of slums. The final shift came at a time when the country faced balance of payment crises and was unable to provide services at the grass-root level. To cope up with this it encouraged private sector participation and upgrading the financial and constitutional status of municipalities.
VI Urban Policies and Urban Villages in India
Policies are formulated within a specific ideological and intellectual framework and based on a set of assumptions regarding the problem in question and the suitable mechanisms to resolve the problem. A public policy is thus the entry point to the framework that shapes the determination of the problem and proposes specific solutions. Only such an analysis will allow us to mark the continuities between policies and discern whether there are shifts, and understand the nature of such shifts, from one policy to another.
As already mentioned, in pre liberalization era, the urban policies recognized housing for the refugees, state planned development, industrialization, emergence of slums, unemployment among the poor, pressure on land in the core metropolitan areas as the major concerns related to urbanization. To solve these troubles, planned cities such as Chandigarh, Faridabad, Rourkela, Bhillai, etc., were constructed. Government organizations such as Ministry of Works and Housing, National Buildings Organizations and Town and Country Planning Organizations were set up to guide institutions such as Delhi Development Authority, Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority and Madras Metropolitan Development Authority, were entrusted with the task of developing planned cities and acquiring land by framing master plans.
The Second Phase led to the launching of schemes such as environmental Improvement of Slums (meant to provide water and other basic services to 11 cities having a population of eight lakhs), Integrated Urban Development Program, Sites and Service Scheme for slums, Integrated Development of Small and Medium Towns for a population below 100,000 were launched to ensure development of small towns. For the urban poor, the policies focused on controlling the land prices by passing the Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (ULCRA) and by providing housing by setting up Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) and focusing on in-situ development of slums.
The Third Phase saw the coming up of National Housing Policy to remove lack of housing/shelter, Nehru Rojgar Yojana, Urban Basic Service for the poor for the urban poor, for women and children of low income families, Nehru Rozgar Yojana for employment, Scheme for Educated Unemployed for Employment Generation in Urban Localities for creating self-employment, National Slum Development Programme (NSDP), Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme and Urban Reform Incentive Fund (URIF) were launched to deal with problems among the urban poor. This period also saw the enactment of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act which provided a better electoral and financial status to the municipalities.
In the post liberalization era, the discourse shifts and building of upgraded infrastructure is recognized as something which needs immediate attention for which policies such as Mega City Scheme (MCS), Jawaharlal National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) were launched. MCS was targeted towards five metropolitan cities: Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad were launched. The UPA launched JNNURM- the largest centrally financed policy in 2006. It was divided into four components: Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP), targeted towards the 65 mission cities and Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Scheme (IHSDP) for the rest of the non- mission cities. The mission did not mention urban villages but some of the City Development Plans talked about them while referring to the development of the inner-city areas. Out of all these schemes RAY for the first time talked about the development of urbanized villages but equated them to slums.
We can say that in the pre liberalization era, urban villages do not gain policy attention. They become the focus of urban policies only after 1991 but still are not directly addressed by them. In other words, the national level urban policies in India have failed to recognize or address the problems of urban villages and have often equated them to slums.
VII State Boards and Urban Villages
The Indian cities are planned using various devices: master plans which consist of zonal plans and local area plans. The objective of these plans is to promote balanced development of a city which is expanding and engulfing the surrounding villages. The idea is to plan in such a way that the population is dispersed to the hinterland. Under the local area plans; a concept which was introduced in the Delhi Master Plan 2021, planning is done through ward levels through stakeholder participation. The idea is to ensure public participation. The other tool used for planning cities is Regional plan which is meant for small and medium towns. Out of all these plans, I have emphasised studying the master plans of new planned cities as this remains the dominant model.
Under the master planning approach, the land is properly segregated by the planners to be used for various purposes in future like residential use, office areas, industrial regions, hospitals, parks, gardens, parking, roads, schools and universities. The Urban Local Bodies such as Municipalities or Municipal Corporations and the parastatal agencies are in-charge of planning and implementation of the master plans.
The talk about urban villages in India can be traced back to the colonial times when Delhi was being designed by Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker in 1912. The villages were marked in two parts: the agricultural land was known as khasra and the residential areas were known as abadi. The two together formed the ‘revenue village’ the land was taken from both the areas and was initially used to build the Parliament building, railway station, University Campus and also for rehabilitating displaced people (Sheth 2017).
In the 1950s, i.e., post-independence, the charge of managing the city’s growth and preparation of Master plans was handed over to Delhi Development Authority (DDA) – a parastatal agency which went on to acquire more villages. But this time, the villagers resisted the taking up of their residential land which led to the government taking only the agricultural lands. These residential units gradually came to be known as urban villages in Delhi. In other words, in post- independence cities, statutory bodies such as DDA have been able to convince the villagers to give up their land and convert it for residential and industrial purposes in order to cater to the needs of the growing population. For example: the urban villages of Delhi, specifically, Masjid Moth, Munirka and Jwahar Heri have lost their land to DDA in the 1950s for the construction of housing. The urban planners of the Capital have normally excluded these villages from the urban design and they have no building codes since 1962 when the first master plan of the city was formulated. As a result of this, they have often faced degradation and neglect and suffer from infrastructure deformities. Many of these villages have given space for the low-income groups, migrant labours and students to acquire housing and for small commercial units to open up specifically in places like Haus Khas. The time gap between the actual notification and acquisition of land is 15-20 years, because of which the area was left ungoverned for a long duration of time (Sheth 2017).
During this time, illegal housing, commercial complexes and new networks of leadership started forming here.
The Master Plan of 2021 however, for the first time mentioned that these urban villages would be brought under special regulations and any construction within the notified areas would be governed by building bye laws.
After independence, the first planned city was Chandigarh. Framed with the objective of providing housing to the refugees and giving an administrative centre to the Punjab, the city was also supposed to be a modern city and not have villages. The city was built in three phases, and the urban villages appear only in the second phase of its development. (Kalia 1987). The LE Corbusier Plan and the subsequent city development plan under JNNURM of the city have continuously ignored the condition of these areas due to which they have deteriorated in terms of infrastructure, i.e., they have no proper drainage facility, no sewerage management, poor solid waste management (some villages are treated as waste disposal sites), no street lights and no building bye-laws. It is here that the major illegal encroachments of the city can be seen. The master plan 2031 is the first plan to recognize all these problems and argue for specific developmental plans for each village.
In the 1970s, we see a shift in the purpose of building of cities. Prior to 1970s, the cities were built to settle refugees, as administrative capitals or for industrialization. After 1970s, It was felt that the pressure on the land was building up in the metropolitan regions because of the rise in population and thus there was a need to build cities on the periphery to disperse the population.
One of the first projects aimed towards dispersing the population from the main city is the Navi Mumbai Project. In 1971, the Navi Mumbai project was launched to ease down the pressure in Mumbai which was becoming overpopulated, congested and its infrastructure was collapsing. The State government along with the business elites of the city conceived the idea of the project and established the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (henceforth, CIDCO) for execution of the project. There are 57 villages within Navi Mumbai (Shaw 2004) which have witnessed a rapid transformation since their integration.
The land acquisition process is often accompanied by protests on behalf of the villagers who are reluctant to give up their lands as can be seen in Thane, Uran and Panvel during the construction of Navi Mumbai The construction of the residential colonies here increases the population of these areas and slowly in some areas they start deteriorating into slums with inadequate infrastructure or basic amenities as can be seen in Navi Mumbai’s Vashi and Kotukbandh villages which have degenerated as they have been neglected by the authorities (Chaterji 2013). The land of these areas which was given to project affected people has been taken up by the real estate developers for building residences for middle income groups and commercial centres. The remaining land, specifically in Vashi has become a slum as low-income groups come and settle here.
CIDCO put urban villages of Navi Mumbai in the informal sector as the constructions mostly did not follow the construction and building guidelines. Therefore, urban villages became the site of informal settlements of the planned nodes of the new city. This also implied that the settlements were bereft of important components required for functioning of the society like basic services. Therefore, since these structures did not conform to new regulations imposed by CIDCO, the New Town Development Authority (NTDA) of Navi Mumbai regarded them as part of the informal sector of the new city. These settlements became islands of congestion with poor services through a political leadership holding surrounding development to ransom. The city however, formulated schemes to return land which was being acquired to the population.
Two most important schemes which were based on return of land to the village people and therefore transferring ownership to the ‘project affected people’ (henceforth PAP) were the Gaonthan Expansion Scheme and Twelve and a Half per cent Scheme. Under the Gaonthan Expansion Scheme (GES) 10 per cent of the total land acquired from a village is reserved for development and eventual return to the villagers. Half of the reserved land is allotted directly to project- affected persons after development and the remaining half is used to make roads, drainage, opens spaces and social facilities which will benefit the village as a whole. The PAPs were considered to be those who have lost a minimum of 100 sq. meters of land or were residing in such land or doing business on such land. The other scheme was the twelve and a half schemes. It was for the land owners who were entitled to this scheme. Under this scheme maximum size of 500 meters was returned to the land owners at double the land acquisition cost. Out of the total of the 12 and a half percent allotment, 30 per cent was reserved for providing basic amenities and social facilities. Thus, the net allotment was 8.75 per cent of the total land acquired. The allotted land would be in the residential zone and would be for residential purpose only. These two schemes were the major two factors which created the urban villages of Navi Mumbai.
The development plan stated that the original villages of New Mumbai were physically not to be adversely affected by the development of the nodes but were instead to be provided with a minimum of physical and social infrastructure and were to be fully integrated into the new urban environment. The New Bombay Development Plan stated as one of its objectives to enable urban villagers to adapt to the new urban setting and to participate fully and actively in the economic and social life of the new city. However, the most striking feature of growth and development of New Bombay is the physical impact of the growing nodes on the urban villages. Interestingly, after 25 years of project implementation a number of nodes are growing and expanding so rapidly that they directly threaten to swallow up the nearby villages. At several locations the multi-storied buildings of a node are within the village periphery. Again, within the villages that are located in the vicinity of an expanding node, land or property is gradually being taken over by outsiders and real estate developers and in several villages, two or three storied buildings are mushrooming and sometimes replacing the old village houses.
This displaces and pushes out the original residents of the village. The case of Vashi Gaon is a good example where only 30 per cent population is original villagers and land has also been taken up by private developers. (Shaw 2004).
Taking another case study as that of Bengaluru, the opening up of residential and commercial units also leads to haphazard growth of the peripheries which leads to engulfing of villages and loss of ecology Here Bengaluru Development Authority, Bengaluru Metropolitan and Rural Development Agency and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagra Palike have failed to control the haphazard urbanization of the area (Nair 2007).
Another prominent township that has been constructed to ease down the pressure on land in the central city by creating new business district and housing units for the people is in the north eastern periphery of Kolkatta. Conceived in 1993, the Rajarhat Township Project, being developed by West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO). The agricultural land acquired from the reluctant farmers has been utilized mainly for residential purposes while the rest of the area is utilized for building up higher educational institutions, malls or hotel chains. The planned area of the township is well developed but the residential areas remained an eyesore. To cope up with the challenge, the master plan of the Township, has integrated these urban villages by calling them service villages which will provide cheap accommodation to the new service class that comes here. Villagers would be engulfed in the informal service sector as the new residents of the township would require servants, housekeepers, drivers and cleaners. Attempts here have been made to integrate the villages in the building activity (Kundu 2016).
We can thus see that attempts have been made to integrate urban villages in the master plans but they have mostly been treated as sites which would provide affordable housing to the people in the informal sector or their land has been given to project affected people. Most of the agricultural land of the villages is being utilized by the real estate developers for constructing food chains, high rise apartments of office complexes.
VIII Conclusion
When it comes to dealing with urban areas, the Centre continues to play an important role in policy formulation. The urban issues do not get much attention and it is only in the Third Five-Year Plan that these ideas about urbanization start to gain some shape. From 1947-1991, the government has mostly in many cities exempted the urban villages from building bye laws so that their rural identity can be sustained. As a result of this, illegal encroachments and congestion has become a prominent feature of these localities. Post 1991, the authorities have integrated these areas in their master plans to aid their development and mostly to serve as sites for providing cheap accommodation to the new migrant workers coming to work in the city.
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