Relevance: GS-1: Developmental issues, urbanization, their problems and their remedies

Relevance: GS-2: Issues relating to the development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Human Resources

Key Phrases: World Bank, 'World Air Quality Report, 2021', 'Census cities', ‘business as usual approach, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), Principle of Subsidiarity, NITI Aayog study (Urban Planning Capacity in India).

Why in News?

• Recently, the World Bank identified the five “critical issues” Indian cities are facing:
  1. Poor local governance
  2. Weak finances of cities and town
  3. Inappropriate planning leading to high costs of housing and office space, among the highest in the world in our big metros
  4. Critical infrastructure shortages of everything from water to power to transportation
  5. A rapidly deteriorating environment.
• The World Bank observed, nothing has changed, except for India’s urban population numbers, which are steadily increasing.
  1. Between 1960 and 2020, India’s share of urban population has nearly doubled, from 18 per cent to over 35 per cent.
  2. In Covid-hit 2020 alone, which witnessed the greatest human migration in the subcontinent since partition when millions of migrant workers abandoned cities and trudged hundreds, even thousands of kilometres to their rural homes, urban population still rose by 2.32 per cent over 2019.
• Recent 'World Air Quality Report, 2021' revealed - India’s cities are among the most polluted in the world, with 13 of the world’s top 15 most polluted cities in India. And the national capital of Delhi leads the world rankings.

The issues faced by Indian cities are highlighted in the Editorial.

1. 'Census cities' based definition is biased towards agriculture based urbanisation:
   • India’s urban sprawls have increased. But these are largely that unique Indian phenomenon, “census cities” — where a majority of the population derives its primary income from sources other than agriculture.
   • The Census of India classifies them as urban. These census towns do not, however, offer anything close to the standards of civic amenities and services one associates with a modern city but are simply biased towards the modern concept 'Agri-based cities' prevailing in Western societies.
2. COVID exposed faulty urbanisation —' Hidden inequalities, Marginalised Vulnerabilities and unplanned sprawling' :
   • Lack of infrastructure exposed by the Covid pandemic.
   • India’s cities bore the brunt of the virulent first and second waves of the Covid pandemic, with cities accounting for almost 60 percent of the cases.
   • The painful brunt played out across prime-time news television screens and newspaper headlines for all to see — people desperately scrouging for ambulances, hospital beds, ventilators, oxygen cylinders and even the initial (and since discarded) medical treatments.
   • Even the crematoria and burial grounds were loaded beyond capacity.
3. Remove phenomenon of "‘business as usual approach" and Nation need to plan for the "New Normal”:
   • Need for a paradigm shift in thinking and approach, from the apex policy level to how our cities are managed and run.
   • Currently, on the operations and development front, cities come at the bottom of the pile in India’s political/power pecking order.
   • If the national government is at the top, followed by the state government, then the urban local bodies. At every step, from finances to resources, patronage trumps practical requirements.
4. Fossil fuel fuelling 'unsustainable urban climatic conditions ' :
   • India’s dependence on fossil fuels and the hectic pace of construction in our cities — private sector mortgage lender HDFC (not to be confused with the bank) alone lent ₹2 trillion towards home purchases last year, almost all of it in urban areas — massive particulate pollution is the result.
   • Further, with very low availability of non-polluting mass transport, and millions of poorly maintained vehicles on the roads, the pollution problem is taking the shape of an urban apocalypse.
5. According to National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) estimates, if the “old normal” continues then:
   • The demand-supply gap for clean water will increase 3.5 times the 2007 level to 94 billion litres per day by 2030.
   • In the same period, the demand-supply gap in sewage treatment doubles to 109 billion litres per day.
   • The demand-supply gap in solid waste management quadruples to 82 million tonnes per annum.
6. Huge pressure on urban infrastructure in near future :
   • The availability of rail-based mass transit in cities is estimated to increase from 990 directional route kilometres in 2007 to 1,990 directional route kilometres by 2030, by which time the demand would have risen to a whopping 8,400 directional RKMs.
   • And the shortfall in affordable housing units will have risen to 38 million units by then.

What are the key solutions suggested by the Editorial?

• Align key stakeholders:
  1. Important to align stakeholders across governments and bring multiple silos with overlapping authorities like urban planning, financing and budgeting, and service delivery at one place.
  2. Top to bottom approach must be replaced with the Principle of Subsidiarity.
• Promote Sustainable financing:
  1. Most urban local bodies continue to depend largely on revenue sources like property taxes, while banking on State and Central projects to fund specific infrastructure projects.
  2. The capacity to reimagine revenue and finance sources at the local body level is almost absent.
• Expand municipal bonds based financing:
  1. For instance, Over the last three years, only three cities — Hyderabad, Lucknow and Ghaziabad — have managed to raise municipal bonds — a primary source of funding for civic infrastructure worldwide — and that too, for a grand total of ₹795 crore.
  2. Lack of specific policy and rigid regulations hurting the growth of bond based urban financing.

Conclusion

• India’s uncontrolled urbanisation is a threat to our future as well as the planet’s. But it is also an opportunity.
• Cities can be engines of growth, transforming the economy and with it the lives of the people.
• But to make that happen requires massive effort and a radical change in approach.
• A NITI Aayog study (Urban Planning Capacity in India, September 2021) found that 65 percent of the 7,933 urban settlements do not have any master plan at all! We cannot have a viable future without planning - now start working - for it.

Source: The Hindu BL

Mains Question:

Q. India’s policies on urbanisation are lofty in outlook, ambitious on intent but grimmest on outcomes. Critically examine this statement with special emphasis on the National Urban Policy Framework, 2018 in the country.