70% insitu industries violate dmp2001
How much more of this crap can delhi's master plan bear ? I challenge anybody to show me more than 3 "irregular" industrial areas in Delhi which have 70% or more industrial population. Screw vote bank politics and lets get down to the serious business of development.
BJP asks for industrial development board in Delhi
Express News Service
New Delhi, June 9: THE Delhi BJP today asked the Union and Delhi governemnt to set up a Delhi Industrial Development Board for the regularisation and development of industries in the Capital.
State BJP chief Dr Harsh Vardhan today said that Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit should constitute this body and bring in industrialists, so that there is a time-bound solution for problems faced by industries.
Vardhan said, ‘‘The 28 planned industrial areas of Delhi are in a bad shape, where even the basic facilities are not available. The condition of unplanned areas can easily be imagined.’’
He said the Delhi government has submitted a list of 14 colonies to the Union Urban Development Ministry, though there are 62 such colonies with more than 70 per cent industrial units.
The BJP chief said the Union Ministry’s notification has laid down stringent provisions, which are not possible to implement.
‘‘The government should ensure that the entire work of redevelopment should be done at its own cost,’’ he said.
The government, he said, should ensure that there are adequate arrangements for parking, loading and unloading of goods, pump houses, fire stations, police posts. He also said there should be a power sub-station, green belt, and a garbage disposal plant, as well as a means to tackle pollution.
Sarbajit Roy: DMP2021 reply
Sarbajit's DMP2021 draft Objections / Suggestions
I similarly submitted my objections / suggestions ("O/S") to the draft NCR Plan 2021. There were about 70 such O/S to NCR Plan Draft, the bulk of which I am very reliably informed were frivolous. I was also given to understand that my particular O/S was considered quite seriously, despite the fact that I dashed it off in about 3 hours on the last day. My NCR O/S was essentially suggestions and very few objections.
Since DMP2021 concerns my "quality of life" intimately, I intend to file a detailed, serious and well drafted O/S which I intend DDA / MoUD to consider equally seriously. All too often it would appear, DDA / MoUD treat the Public Notice process as a routine formality that can be glossed over while they get down to their serious business of pandering to vested interests. I shall certainly use this Public Notice process to put DDA / MouD on notice, that as concerned and well informed citizens of India, the Fundamental Rights granted to us under the Constitution cannot be trifled with by any authority of State. To this end, I intend to submit short / topical and well grounded O/S to this Public Notice process. (unlike Planning Experts, I have never bothered to read the Master Plan and dont consider the Plan to be a work of art, or it to be THE document which grants entitlements, I have a stolid workmanlike approach to these things, and I believe our Constitution is more than sufficient for giving you and me all our entitlements)
If you want your O/S to be similarly considered, please be brief, factual and clearly list your Objections and Suggestions.
{DRAFT}
To:
The Principal Secretary and Commissioner
DDA,
Sir,
Please find below my Objections and Suggestions to the Draft Master Plan for Delhi 2021 vide your Public Notice of April 08 2005.
PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS:
1)
2)
3)
CHAPTER WISE OBJECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
Chapter 1 :
Chapter 2 :
Chapter 3 :
Chapter 4 :
Chapter 5 :
Chapter 6 :
Chapter 7 :
Chapter 8 :
Chapter 9 :
Chapter 10 :
Chapter 11 :
Chapter 12 :
Chapter 13 :
Chapter 14 :
Chapter 15 : MIXED LAND USE
OBJECTION NO. ???? :- I object to the entire concept of "Mixed Land Use" on principle. I submit that no non-residential activities whatsoever be allowed in areas designated as "residential" in the Land Use Plan(s). Furthermore I submit that it is evident from para 15.1 of the Draft that so-called Mixed Land Use causes great nuisance and hardship for law abiding residents of planned residential areas and affects their Fundamental. Rights including Right to Life. Furthermore Mixed Land Use evidently represents and symbolises a complete failure of planning or alternatively a failure of enforcement of the Laws of the land, this cannot be tolerated and patent illegalites and violations of Law cannot be now sought to be regularised through the back door of the Master Plan. I submit that allowing Mixed Land Use in any form will engender a lack of respect for the laws of India. I submit that the entire chapter on Mixed Land Use be deleted from the Master Plan.
Alternatively and without prejudice to my above submission I say,
OBJECTION NO ???:- I dispute the statement in para 15.1 of the Draft that Mixed Land Use "suits the present socio-economic needs of a large section of the society and reduces the transportation needs and traffic movement considerably". To the contrary I say that such use only benefits law breakers who are misusing relatively cheaper residential lands for more expensive commercial or industrial purposes and causing considerable traffic problems primarily associated with parking and traffic congestion. I submit that having properly designated commercial and industrial areas with wide roads in reasonably close and well buffered areas close to the residential areas will be equally effacious in serving the socio-economic needs of society as well as regulating traffic movement. In any case I submit that Mixed Land Use is absolutely detrimental to any planned development of Delhi and is thus vires of section 8(3) of the DDA ACT 1956. I submit that any or all references in the Plan to the effect that Mixed Land Use is positive or beneficial be deleted entirely.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I object to the phrase in para 15.1 "In view of the above the following approach is suggested: -" I say "is not the Master Plan of Delhi a statutory legislation and a law of the land?" I submit that this impugned phrase must be deleted from the Plan.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I object to all forms of granting of permissions for "Mixed Land Use" as contained in sub para 15.1 as follows "Non-residential activity on residential premises should be permitted selectively and carefully taking into consideration community needs, environmental impact and provision for safe and easy traffic circulation and adequate parking." On the contrary I say that permitting any discretionary or "case to case" or "selective" MLU is Unconstitutional, arbitrary, unreasonable and high-handed. Furthermore the benificiaries of the MLU process are DDA and the MoUD, and this will unleash waves of "inspector raj" and corruption which these agencies are notorious for. Furthermore there is no enforcement mechanism or any grievance redressal machinery within DDA to handle complaints of residents pertaining to "community needs, environmental impact and provision for safe and easy traffic circulation and adequate parking." I submit that all references to "permission(s)" for Mixed Land Use in any form or manner be deleted from the Plan, including the impugned portions set out in this Objection.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I object to the following sub para in 15.1 of the Draft.
"2) In case of new developments, planned mixed residential and non-residential activity should be introduced right at the time of the preparation of the layout plans along with the planning of Commercial Centres for which appropriate provision of parking, circulation and services be kept in view. Norms for parking and commercial use on different floors be specified." I say that this para is most poorly drafted and makes no logical sense. Furthermore, why does not the Master Plan include a new category called "Mixed Land Use" where all sorts of commercial, industrial and lal-dora activities like diary farming etc can be permitted? I submit that by "regularising" misuse of all sorts of non-residential activities within planned residential areas, the Master Plan will be patently vires of numerous laws inclusing the Constitution. I submit that this impugned sub para be deleted from the Plan entirely.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I object to the following phrase under 15.1 of the Draft "3) Notified provisions made in the earlier plan may be continued within the overall framework of the approved plan. I say that any previous provisions concerning change of land use may be vires of various Indian Laws and be liable to be challenged appropriately, hence the Plan cannot be used to regularise any past misdeeds on part of the Authority. I say that all misuse of Planned Land Use must be demolished / prosecuted as provided for in the DDA Act. I submit that this impugned phrase be deleted entirely from the Plan to address my concerns.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I object to the phrase "Mixed use may be permitted on residential plot facing streets/road of minimum 18.0 mts. ROW in regular residential plotted development with the prescribed development norms, such streets should be notified and given wide publicity." I submit that this impugned phrase be deleted entirely from the Plan to address my concerns.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I object to the phrase "Bungalow Areas of Lutyens’ Delhi and Civil Lines, government housing, institutional / staff housing and areas of heritage and national importance shall not be covered under the Mixed use Policy." I submit that this impugned phrase be deleted entirely from the Plan to address my concerns.
OBJECTION NO ???:- I
OBJECTION NO ???:- I
OBJECTION NO ???:- I
Chapter 16 :
Chapter 17 :
Chapter 18 :
Views on the dmp2021 draft, online debate
We programmed "Delhi Master Plan 2021" into our news reader and sent out our little spiders to trawl the web. Everytime our spider discovers relevant news - without an exclusionary robots.txt file - our clever little spider caches and upload the files to this blog. Isn't technology great? Here are a few examples of what Delhi'ites think of the new dmp2021 draft.THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF WHAT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED ON THIS WEBSITE. - NO DDA BASHING ON THIS BLOG
We are concerned with the Master Plan 2021 and not DDA. - SarbaJit
Planning a Future that was Yesterday
Jagan Shah
Whoever said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions must have been thinking of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which would “make Delhi a global metropolis and a world-class city, where all the people are engaged in productive work with a decent standard of living and quality of life in a sustainable environment” but, alas, could not imagine the means by which such future can be secured.
Delhi is fortunate to have a legislative instrument called the Master Plan, which determines the quality of our collective urban future but it is unfortunate that the authority to frame that document rests solely with the DDA. The DDA has the dubious reputation of being one of the most corrupt organizations in the world, probably because it is also the largest real-estate developer in the world, and the agency that has failed to stem the burgeoning chaos that plagues the capital city despite—one might even suggest, because of—two previous master plans dated 1962 and 2001.
Presiding Over Horror
Burdened with responsibilities that it is unable to shoulder, the DDA has happily presided over the un/making of our present: a vast fragmented metropolis where rich and poor are divided by concrete and barbed wire and the homeless abound on every street, a lawless city where women, children and the old must fear for their lives and the law-abiding citizen withdraws from civic life, a corrupt city where lives are traded for a buck and public goods are sold to the lowest bidder, a sick city where the sewers are too few and too full, and the water is polluted, where the air is rent with the noise of clamoring self-interest and the ground is beaten by the soles of the numerous unemployed, a defaced city where the past can be cheaply erased and the future cheaply bought, and a city on the brink of disaster, where homes and workplaces can burn like tinder and collapse like a pack of cards.
The transformation of this misbegotten present into a happy and sustainable future requires a Herculean effort, beginning with the comprehension of what it means to create a democratic city, where the needs of the individual are in consonance with the common weal. The Master Plan needs to be a lean document that expresses the public’s desire for an equitable and sustainable future and the aspiration of a society that can nurture and avail in all respects of the best talents, the best products and the most worthy ideals that the world has to offer, that takes stock of the means available and budgets their use in an anticipatory manner, and that sets clear targets to be achieved by relevant agencies.
In lieu of fresh ideas to deal with a new world, a broadness of vision and a holistic understanding of modern life, the DDA constantly withdraws into familiar territory, trying to control the future rather than to facilitate its becoming. Rather than learn lessons from the single success of planning and implementation that Delhi can boasts of today—the Delhi Metro—our premier planning agency snatches at the opportunity to claim that everyone’s favourite success story will become the backbone for the redevelopment of the whole city. With typical bureaucratic fervour, it wants to ride on the efforts of others, rather than internalise the lessons of the Metro: that a leader with an able organization of workers can achieve great things if they are given the freedom and the wherewithal. The Delhi Government has facilitated the work, the work has been done by the metro people, but the DDA wants to reap the profits.
End of Imagination (to quote a phrase)
Faced with a primarily intellectual challenge—how to anticipate to future—the DDA finds itself crippled by lack of imagination, a chronic condition that afflicts most State-supported establishments in India. Not surprisingly, given the daunting nature of the scene in 2021 for which the MPD is meant:
Delhi in 2021 will have 23 million inhabitants living on 1483 square kilometres that comprise the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). The NCT (read Delhi) will be ensconced within a National Capital Region (NCR) which covers either 33,578 sqkm or 30,242 sqkm (the website of the National Capital Region Planning Board states both figures, vaguely ascribing the difference to “the remaining five tehsils of Alwar”). To support this population, we will need 1150 million gallons per day of safe potable water (we presently have only around 650); will need to somehow deal with 920 million gallons per day of raw sewerage, where we presently have capacity for 512; will need to find the supply of 6448 megawatts of electricity (were we presently have about 2352); and will have to deal with 10207 tons per day of solid waste (where we are only able to deal with about 5543 today). We are already suffering from infrastructure problems that the DDA coyly admits “could become a cause of crisis.” We will need to build around 10 lakh new houses, whereas we are already short of 1 lakh houses, and more than half of these will be “small dwelling units” for the poor, whose needs the DDA has completely disregarded for the last five decades in its incessant bid to serve the rich. We have over 1 million literate unemployed people and the number is fast growing. Our roads might still be choked with personal vehicles that serve only 20% of our population while the remaining 80% will continue to depend on public transport. Even the Metro will only serve about 15% of the city’s area when complete and we are only beginning to link it with other modes of transport. As if this was not enough, we have to try and preserve the over 1500 monuments that are not even officially listed yet, as well as design a strategy for making buildings that are sustainable as well as meet the demanding aesthetic standards of a globally aware society.
Anti-migration, Anti-poor
The DDA’s response to this continuum of crisis is basically a land-use plan, a colour-coded map of the city demarcating how land should be used, pursuing a zoning strategy that the DDA itself wishes to overlook with the new strategy of promoting mixed land use. The plan document is a litany of regulations and development controls—how much area you can build to what height and with how many parking spaces, stuff that is more relevantly stated in the building bye-laws—and insidious clues to how the propertied class can further augment their wealth. It calls this statement of prohibition “an elaborate set of do’s and don’ts” whereas it ought to be a statement of what can be done, how the citizenry of Delhi can build the tantalizing future that beckons us. Thus it reacts in a pathological way—displaying the anxiety of a schoolboy sitting unprepared for an exam—by wanting more laws and regulations. In the process, it further deepens the already entrenched system of arbitrariness of rules and grants discretionary powers to government officials (mostly within the DDA) at every step. The DDA would build a world class city with Aurangzeb-like medievalism and mediocrity.
In fact, the only ‘people’ who find mention in this document are those who the guidelines provided to the DDA by the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation refer to as “the poor people who migrate from the hinterland.” Neither the Ministry nor the DDA can muster up enough respect and dignity to recognize that it has always been the migrants who infuse the city with new creative energy and maintain the momentum of growth. Rather than devise a plan that would harness their energies and incorporate them as productive citizens, the DDA sticks to a paternalistic attitude towards citizens in general. The brunt of its condescension is borne by the majority of the city’s population, the urban poor and the law-abiding working class and the plan’s success is made a condition of their “will and willingness to adhere to discipline in the use of land, roads, public space and infrastructure.”
The entire Master Plan document is a grudging acceptance of the existence of those who live in crowded slums and ghettoes without public services, regardless of the fact that it is the DDA that has presided over the creation of these slums and colonies. Despite the fact that it is these people who do the cleaning, washing and other menial jobs that sustain our daily lives, and it is their communities that generate close to 2020 crores every year, they are clubbed together under such inane euphemisms as “small enterprises”, “petty trading activities”, “unorganized trading activity”, and “informal sector units.”
Perhaps it is this institutionalised mean-mindedness that continues to drive our most productive populations to the suburban townships around Delhi, and we might find that Delhi becomes a suburb of the NCR rather than the other way around. Gurgaon’s and NOIDA’s gain is Delhi’s loss. While the DDA’s lack of imagination is driving away the educated elite, the city continues to attract lakhs of poor migrants seeking a better life. Rather than absorb them into a society and a space that had done so for centuries before the DDA arrived, and was always the richer for it, the DDA’s Delhi will only shun them and dehumanise them.
The DDA notes the Ministry’s guideline that “affordable housing has to be brought within the reach of economically weaker sections and of new migrants to the capital” but disregards the real economics of shelter. It is shocking that, when Indian society is abuzz with the issues of economic self-reliance and global economic leadership, the plan is devoid of hard cost calculations. Instead, the DDA peppers the document with vague references to enhancing ‘Public Private Partnership’, thereby making room for its infamous bedfellow, the real estate mafia. MPD2021 is not a plan but an elaborate smokescreen to hide the illicit partnerships that have made DDA richer and the city poorer.
Blind Envisioning
There is no sense of urgency and purpose to MPD2021, only endless projections of data as stand-ins for the future. It is a declaration of good intentions that carries no conviction and no expression of the deep changes required to respond to Delhi’s emergence “as an international centre of education, health care, tourism, sports and business.” That the DDA is unable to grasp the import of such dramatic changes as the “liberalization of the economy, entry of multinational companies in the consumer sector, improved telecommunication system, increased per capita income and the purchasing power of the people” is evident in its blatantly regressive intention to eliminate all “new major economic activities, which may result in the generation of large scale employment related inflows.” It intends to “promote hi-tech and low-volume–high-value-added industries” and to “encourage modernization and technological upgradation of existing industries required for day-to-day needs of the people of the city” but will do so by building more district centres and community centres and by systematically selling off all industrial lands to hoteliers and commercial developers under the garb of ridding the city of polluting industry. Instead of preserving Delhi’s heritage by molding the new city around it, the master plan favors “blending [heritage] with the new and complex modern patterns of development,” suggesting that our monuments will become mere embellishments for ubiquitously flashy urbanism. Heritage conservation is supposed to work “within a framework of sustainable development, public-private and community participation and a spirit of ownership and belonging among its citizens” but there is no acknowledgement of the clique-ism, opportunistic connoisseurship and rapacious tourism-development that has deprived the citizens of immediate access to their heritage.
Disregarding the Ministry’s demand for “complete coordination” between the different stakeholders of the plan, the DDA serves up over 180 pages of stale text—“which seem to have been photocopied from earlier plans and put together by some junior engineer,” as Delhi’s former LG Mr. Vijay Kapoor informed the audience at a seminar on the subject recently—produced by twelve subgroups whose reports form the bulk of eighteen dull and uncoordinated, repetitive and uninspiring chapters. It is a cause for worry that the group of around 200 bureaucrats, politicians, DDA officials and “experts” that formed the DDA’s unworthy think-tank did not hesitate to put their names to the shameless acknowledgements of past failure, the mind-numbing convolutions of logic and the disgusting admissions of hapless ineptitude that mark every page of this co-called plan. Alibis for failure are embedded in the plan, as the responsibility for implementation of any of the plan’s recommendations almost never rests with the DDA itself but with other agencies of the Delhi Government.
Left Hand Oblivious of the Right
It is ironic to find that the DDA seems to function in a void and in isolation from clearer minds in its allied organizations. Where it might be expected that there is a sharing of ideas between the DDA, which is planning for Delhi, and the Planning Board for the NCR, it is obviously the latter who might have greater know-how in this field. The clarity with which the master planning exercise can be described is amply demonstrated in a recent advertisement (16th May 2005) posted in the national dailies by the Urban Development Department of the Government of Rajasthan in association with the National Capital Region Planning Board. The advertisement calls for consultancy services for the development of “a global city”:
“The objective of developing the New Town is to attract investment in the State by developing city infrastructure and facilities at par with international standards to meet the investor’s perception and requirements.
Consultants are required to develop detailed “Strategy and Action Plan” [to] cover all aspects of planning, development, financing, phasing, marketing & management along with institutional, financial, legal and administrative mechanism (including corporate organisation structure) for implementation of the new town. The strategy should essentially ensure techno-commercial success of the new town and highlight solutions to all impediments in implementation of the strategy.
The strategy and action plan should be based on benchmark studies of the world class business cities, with reference to their infrastructure and facility standards… should consider making the proposed new town, an intelligent city by providing IT based services on different public interfaces…[and] would also include providing IT enabled services for different sectors like industry and trade, education, health, etc. The strategy needs to bring out possible configuration of each cluster city eg. IT city, Bio-tech City, Trade City, Dry Port City, SEZ, Entertainment City etc. to make it self-sustainable. Options available for water supply, power and other infrastructure required for sustaining the new town should be evaluated in respect of all sub components, and suggest suitable strategy for the new town. The strategy should also work out the cost of development of the proposed new town with possible financial mechanism for all components of new town development with particular reference to alternative models of public, private and joint sector partnership and appropriate institutional framework.”
If the DDA is judged by the same consultancy requirements that are advertised by its associated agency—it is, in effect, a consultant preparing the Master Plan for ‘a global city’ Delhi—then MPD2021 would not pass muster. Maybe the Ministry of Urban development and Poverty Alleviation, if it wishes to be true to its own name, ought to state the needs and the standards expected with the same clarity. Otherwise, it ought to consider appointing a different consultant, who can produce a lean and mean document supported by capable agencies and efficient processes that can ensure its timely and total implementation. Unable to imagine a capital city for 21st century India, the DDA produces a tome that reveals its encyclopaedic ineptitude. Behind the flimsy slogan of “world class city” hides an inability to grasp the problem itself.
Dim Prospects
By the year for which this master plan is intended, India will be an urban nation, whose capital city will have to represent all the vitality and beauty that such a society will hopefully create: the generosity of spirit and the affluence of ideas, the respect for the world and consideration for every human being, and the desire to make a beautiful and peaceful world where every individual can reap the fruits of democracy. In an urban future, the nation will be its cities, and such cities must be created with a clear sense of purpose.
Only a confused agency can even consider the negative option that it poses oh-so-cleverly: “The choice is between either taking a road to indiscriminate uncontrolled development and slide towards chaos or a movement towards making Delhi a world-class city, if handled with vision and care.” If the future of Delhi is decided by the DDA, it looks like we’ll be sliding towards chaos.
(The writer is an architect, historian and Director, Urban Futures Initiative)
Hurtling Towards Chaos
Chitvan Gill
A city is an index of the greatness of a nation, a culture, a civilization. The great ages of man have all been recorded as an urban phenomenon. The realisation of the essential human desire to reach beyond and create a world where the spirit could accomplish its creative endeavour is rooted in an urban age. India has a long and remarkable record of urban creativity stretching back to the earliest ages of human settlement – the urban civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro is only the beginning of an extended chain of some of the most splendid cities and architectural achievements the world has known. Nor, indeed, has the idea of the great city been alien to the modern Indian mind after Independence. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru recognized the centrality of the urban aspiration in history, and it was precisely this realization that led to the formulation of Delhi’s first Master Plan in 1962.
Since then, however, Delhi’s urban history is a history of shame and of decline. For over four decades, Delhi has been hurtling towards an increasing chaos rooted essentially in a failure, both, of planning and of plan implementation. If the first Master Plan had the beginnings of a vision, this had been fully extinguished well before its projected ‘completion’; the Second Master Plan was little more than a sightless ‘revision’ of that failed enterprise. Both these Master Plans were undermined by continuous and cumulative failures of implementation, by hundreds of arbitrary and imprudent amendments, and by the wanton regularisation of the most flagrant violations. Their successor, the Master Plan 2021 (MPD 2021), is worse, abandoning the very possibility and pretence of a coherent and integrated vision of a city that strives for greatness.
Delhi’s Master Plan has to be able to imagine and construct a capital city for 21st Century India. In the voluminious document that is the MPD 2021, tucked away innocuously in the ‘Introduction’ is a single, altogether banal little paragraph that spells out the DDA’s vision for Delhi in the 21st century. Nothing could be more telling or demonstrative of DDAs intentions for the future, articulated in an unfounded aspiration to transform Delhi into a ‘world class city’, without the slightest idea about what this would entail. A plan that does not understand the import of spelling out a vision that will shape our urban future, the future of our nation – what hope, what assurance, could be derived from it? MPD 2021 looks into the future and reconstructs a failed and unimaginative past - where is the glory, where is the dream that is to be realised, which is to be the capital of this emerging superpower?
The realisation of the importance of the 21st century is only understood in terms of “limited scope… for pure new urbanisation”. “Limited scope”! Centuries ago the city of Rome planned and executed tasks that defied the imagination, and were triumphs of engineering. In our modern age the DDA can only conjure up a collapse of the imagination.
MPD 2021 reflects the utter intellectual bankruptcy and incompetence of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), which is responsible for planning and realizing this city’s future, and it must now be urgently understood that Delhi cannot be left in DDA’s hands. India’s capital will have to be re-imagined again.
A Master Plan must first conceptualize the city’s future, then cover all aspects of its planning, development, financing, phasing and management, along with institutional, financial, legal and administrative mechanisms for the realization of this future. If it is to create a ‘world class city’, it must be based on benchmark studies of infrastructure and facility standards in such cities. But MPD 2021 has its sights fixed firmly on a set of reverse calculations: population projections define demands for particular inputs; the Master Plan projects some numbers on these, and then articulates the hope that they will be variously met.
But alibis for failure are already embedded in the proviso that the success of the plan depends on “the people” and their “will and willingness to adhere to discipline in the use of land, roads, public space and infrastructure.” The DDA, obviously, as in the past, has little accountability in the event of failure.
It is an alarming sense of unease that greets us as we realise that the entire future, the planned future of India’s capital, has been left in the hands of the DDA. This is the same agency that has presided over our past with a wilful disregard for the enveloping chaos fast creeping up across the city of Delhi. This is the DDA that has given this city the legacy of many thousands of unauthorised, ‘irregular’ and ‘regularised’ colonies – all of them built outside the scope of past Master Plans and of the Law – that are the bane of the city today. Seized by chronic lethargy and corruption, DDA has remained a mute spectator to the mushrooming of illegal colonies of mock palaces, on the one hand, and slums and jugghi jophri clusters, on the other, fuelled by the DDA’s inability to meet even basic targets of housing that it was committed to produce. DDA’s ‘solution’ for sorting out chaos was ‘mixed land use’, a potent instrument for destruction that sounds the death knell of Delhi. Its acts of ‘creation’ resulted in the dull, dehumanised, dreary DDA colonies where high income group housing but barely escape being slums, their vision reflected in these works of utter bleakness. It is this force, this agency that drives the vision that is going to shape the future of Delhi. The failure to manage the city’s resources, its infrastructure, its waste, its population and its creative energies, is everywhere manifest. The most vital need of the moment is, consequently, to realise that the city can no longer be left in DDA’s hands.
India, today, speaks of challenging China’s economic might by mid-century. Chinas ‘urbanisation’ and the potent symbolism of cities like Shanghai are bywords for the dominance of that country. Shanghai was completely reinvented and is today cast in the role of a city that competes only with the best. Yet as our working-age population moves to match the Asian giant, MPD 2021 is completely unable to grasp the significance of the emerging dynamic. For the Master Plan, the hundreds of thousands of migrants that pour into Delhi every year, running its factories, its sweatshops, its ‘informal sector’ enterprises, its innumerable trades and facilities, its domestic services – in the process, creating enormous wealth – are no more than a nuisance, to be pushed away, out of the city, if possible, or accommodated in squalid hovels and slums.
A true vision would have been one that saw the enormous potential of this vast migration. The city’s management would then be about creating more opportunities, ironing out bottlenecks, creating linkages, maximising potential to the utmost. The spin-offs of such a well managed city would bring great wealth to its administration, fuelling even greater possibilities of infrastructure and urban growth.
Managing a city is, in essence, about managing its businesses. MPD 2021 recognizes the enormous impact and opportunities of liberalization and globalization. But Delhi has done nothing to exploit and expand these opportunities in the recent past; rather, it has frittered these away in the rising disarray of the city, in chronic shortages, collapsing infrastructure, and the accumulating filth that forced businesses and productive resources out. The MPD 2021 is no better. Its response is: “no new major economic activities, which may result in the generation of large scale employment-related inflows.” The Master Plan, consequently, puts its faith in exclusionary tactics that it feebly hopes will deflect people to the surrounding National Capital Region (NCR), leaving a sanitised city for politicians, bureaucrats and the super rich. It fails, altogether, to comprehend that a city’s – and a nation’s – greatest wealth and potential lies in its people, if properly harnessed. To do this, however, requires a conception of human resources as an asset and not, as is the case in much of MPD 2021, a nuisance and a burden.
The cumulative impact of MPD 2021’s many provisions is the promise of a city of slums, of all-encompassing chaos and of the rapidly increasing breakdown of infrastructure that has already nudged multinationals, large corporations, productive young minds and lucrative tax-payers into Gurgaon and other parts of the NCR. Where then, is the effulgence of ideas to come from? Where, the coming together of a disparate people, to meet and exchange perspectives that quicken the intellect and excite the impulse to reach beyond what is, and create what can be? These are the lifeblood of a dynamic, evolving city. Without them, the idea of a metropolis is no more than a dying shell. When the creative genius and enterprise of a people are lost, cities, entire civilisations, simply wither away.
To craft a future that reaches into a golden age, citizens need to be rooted in a city where serenity, tranquillity and security are nurtured, for it is these qualities that fuel and generate the conditions, the freedom, to create. The maintenance of urban stability is founded on the simple philosophy of order and organisation. But MPD 2021 is, in effect, a disaster management plan – one that tells us how the administration hopes to cope with the challenge of the sheer, overwhelming, inevitable and day to day expansion of chaos in the city. At the end of all its calculations, all of Delhi’s ‘urbanizable land’ will have been ‘utilized’ to its fullest ‘holding capacity’ – there is, it would appear, no future after 2021; or if there is, it is someone else’s problem.
Delhi is, without doubt, confronted with a great crisis. But crises come with opportunities. It is the small things that make the great possible — God, they say, is in the detail. Small minds, however, cannot generate the necessary attention to detail. The campaign to recover Delhi and restore within it the idea of excellence, will have to be planned by the greatest of visionaries, and, given the urgency and magnitude of the impending catastrophe, such plans will have to be executed on a ‘war footing’. The complex and muddled net of incompetent and compromised agencies of urban management in Delhi are simply not up to this task.
MPD 2021’s flimsy slogan of “world class city” masks a profound inability to grasp the problem itself. We are hurtling, today, into what is quintessentially an ‘urban age’. The future of nations depends overwhelmingly on how they shape their cities, their urban futures. Great cities need great minds to conceive them, to imagine and design them; great people to construct them. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has none of these.
(The writer is a film-maker and Convenor, Urban Futures Initiative)
A Master Plan for Failure
Chitvan Gill & Jagan Shah
Delhi’s Master Plan has to be able to imagine and construct a capital city for 21st Century India. But MPD 2021 speaks of “limited scope… for pure new urbanisation”. MPD 2021 reflects utter intellectual and imaginative bankruptcy, and it must be urgently understood that the city’s future cannot be left in DDA’s hands. Delhi will have to be re-imagined again.
Delhi is fortunate to have a legislative instrument called the Master Plan, which determines the quality of our collective urban future; but it is unfortunate that the authority to frame that document rests solely with the DDA, which has the dubious distinction of being one of the most corrupt and inefficient organizations in the world, and is the agency that has created the enveloping chaos that plagues the capital city.
Burdened with responsibilities it is incapable of shouldering, DDA has presided over the unmaking of our present, a process MPD 2021 consolidates endlessly. The Master Plan’s ‘Vision’ of Delhi’s future is tucked away into a single, altogether banal, paragraph in this voluminous document, which articulates an unfounded aspiration to transform Delhi into a ‘world class city’, without the slightest idea about what this would entail.
A Master Plan must first conceptualize the city’s future, then cover all aspects of its planning, development, financing, phasing and management, along with institutional, financial, legal and administrative mechanisms for the realization of this future. If it is to create a ‘world class city’, it must be based on benchmark studies of infrastructure and facility standards in such cities. But MPD 2021 has its sights fixed firmly on a set of reverse calculations: population projections define demands for particular inputs; the Master Plan projects some numbers on these, and then articulates the hope that they will be variously met. But alibis for failure are already embedded in the proviso that the success of the plan depends on “the people” and their “will and willingness to adhere to discipline in the use of land, roads, public space and infrastructure.” The DDA, obviously, has little accountability in the event of failure.
A snapshot of the scenario that MPD2021 is meant to address: 23 million inhabitants living on 1,483 square kilometres of the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi will need 1,150 million gallons per day of safe potable water – present supply, about 650; 920 million gallons per day of raw sewerage processing – present capacity, 512; electricity demand 6,448 megawatts – present supply 2,352; solid waste processing, 10,207 tons per day – present capacity 5,543. We are already suffering from infrastructure shortages that even DDA is forced to admit “could become a cause of crisis.”
MPD 2021’s response is basically a land-use plan – a colour coded map of the city demarcating how land should be used – pursuing a zoning strategy that the DDA itself is trying to dismantle under its new strategy of promoting mixed land use. Disregarding the Urban Development Ministry’s demand for ‘complete coordination’ between stakeholders, the DDA serves up 180 pages of stale text which cannot even scratch the surface of the problem, but has the air of desperate firefighting. This is not a plan, it is the faltering management of an inevitable disaster.
Managing a city is about managing its businesses. MPD 2021 recognizes the enormous impact and opportunities of liberalization and globalization; but its response is: “no new major economic activities, which may result in the generation of large scale employment related inflows.” The Master Plan puts its faith in exclusionary tactics that it feebly hopes will deflect people to the surrounding National Capital Region (NCR), leaving a sanitised city for politicians, bureaucrats and the super rich.
What it promises to become is, in fact, a city of slums, of enveloping chaos and of the cumulative breakdown of infrastructure that has already nudged multinationals, large corporations, productive young minds and lucrative tax-payers into Gurgaon and other parts of the NCR
MPD 2021 opportunistically snatches at the Delhi Metro, to claim that the whole city will be redeveloped around it; but it fails to learn the lesson that the Metro has taught us: that a leader with an able organization of workers can achieve great things if they are given the freedom and the wherewithal. The DDA, by contrast, is trying to build a ‘world class city’ through medievalism and mediocrity, through “an elaborate set of do’s and don’ts”
The flimsy slogan of “world class city” masks a profound inability to grasp the problem itself. We are hurtling, today, into what is quintessentially an ‘urban age’. The future of nations depends overwhelmingly on how they shape their cities, their urban futures. Great cities need great minds to conceive them, to imagine and design them; great people to construct them. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has none of these.
(The writers are Convenor and Director, respectively, Urban Futures Initiative)
An edited version of this article was published in The Pioneer, May 25, 2005
DMP2021 vs DMP2001, my blog view
1. I have nothing to do with drafting / undrafting of dmp2021 - I leave that to the experts.
2. I view the MPD2021 blog as a blank canvas where average joe citizens of Delhi like me can collaboratively fine-tune their objections and suggestions, and get criticised and corrected by plannerly experts.
3. Right to information as Gita well knows is one of my hobby horses. Better information means better objections / suggestions.
4. Gita's point about MPD2001 wrt MPD2021 is well taken, Is there any online / electronic version of MPD2001 available? As it is converting MPD2021 draft from PDF files to a reasonably formatted text version is working my fingers to the bone.
5. New Rule in the Blog : DDA bashing not permitted.
Start Blogging : PLEASE :-(
Sarbajit
Public Notices and DDA bashing.
Attributed to Gita, posted by Sarbajit
A distinction must be made between DDA the organisation and DDA the Authority. the latter has all tiers of government and others and appoints committees etc, all under DD Act, and if these act de-hors of the Act, there is no point blaming the former.
Public Notice process is better viewed as safeguard to mind against downsizing of Plan entitlements / solutions rather than as alternative-Plan pushing opportunity. DMP-2021 is not new Plan but Plan revision, ie, rather than commenting on it in a vacuum, it is more meaningful to comment on comparison between DMP-2001 and DMP-2021. (Never mind larger promises of world-classiness and this or that; each little provision of DMP2001 is entitlement and it is the job of planners to cook up larger wholes without
downsizing the parts).
Please note: logical culmination of DDA-bashing / DMP-2001 ignoring trends is blind-men-around-elephant local-area-plan style urbanism in care of MCD / GNCTD
multiplicity and its growing bhagidaars.
Gita Dewan Verma : MPD 2021
Delhi Development Authority all Confused
Confusion on Delhi`s land-use norms
Press Trust Of India / New Delhi May 23, 2005
The Delhi Development Authority(DDA) may be the nodal agency for preparing the master plan of the Capital, but it seems the civic body is itself not sure of the land-use norms here.
Unaware of the fact that two plots of land had been categorised for "rural use" under the 2001 Master Plan, DDA awarded contracts to built apartments in Mehrauli and Vasant Kunj to two private construction companies, at a cost of Rs 71.34 crore.
The projects to construct 1,702 residential apartments were to be completed within a specified time-frame.
However, a writ petition was filed in the Delhi High Court, which brought to light the actual land-use status of the plots.
The court in September 2002 ordered the construction work to stop till the land use norm was changed. But by then the damage had been done for the authority.
The civic agency had already paid Rs 1.49 crore as the first payment to Larsen and Toubro Ltd and Ahluwalia Contractors Ltd, which became blocked for more than two years, according to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) tabled in Parliament.
Ahluwalia contractors even filed a Rs 50 lakh claim against DDA, on account of losses suffered by it, owing to the suspension of work.
The land use norm was finally changed from rural to residential in January last year and Larsen and Toubro Ltd asked to resume the work.
The CAG noted that the failure of DDA to ensure conformity with the land-use norms as per the Master Plan before the work was awarded, resulted in the delay in completion of the work, as well as blockage of Rs 1.49 crore paid to the contractors.
It also exposed the authority to claims of losses due to the suspension of work and payment of compensation to the contractors, besides additional liability on account of cost escalation of the projects, the CAG said.
The urban development ministry had directed DDA not to take up any such work in future without obtaining prior statutory approval and to also to make sure that the provisions of the master plan were not violated.
Chapter 16: Land Use Plan
16.0 LANDUSE PLAN
16.1 LAND USE PLAN-2021
The Land Use Plan-2021 has been prepared based on
i) The policies enunciated for different urban activities,
ii) Requirement of additional social and physical infrastructure,
iii) Transportation and work centres,
iv) Restructuring of land uses along the MRTS corridors based on the studies and considering the inter relationship between the urban activities, environment and the image of the city
and
v) Already approved Zonal Development Plans and land use modifications.
In order to control the development, the areas have been designated as one of the 27 use zones identified in the Development Code. These use zones have been classified broadly in ten categories of land uses namely Residential, Commercial, Industry, Recreational, Regional Park / Ridge, Transportation, Utility, Government, Public and Semi Public Facilities and Agriculture and Water Body. The development in these use zones would be carried out in accordance with the regulations as given in the Development Code and respective chapters.
16.2 ZONAL DEVELOPMENT PLANS
The NCTD has been divided in 15 Zones (Divisions). The Zonal Plans of seven zones have been approved and notified whereas the Zonal Plans for the zones ‘G’, ‘H’, ‘M’ and ‘P’ (Narela) are at various stages of approval.
The boundaries of the zones ‘O’, ‘P’ and ‘N’ as given in the MPD-2001 have been modified and accordingly the areas have been computed approximately as given in the table 16.1
Table 16.1:
Zone Zone Name of Zone Area (Ha.)
A Old City 1159
B City Extn. (Karol Bagh) 2304
C Civil Line 3959
D New Delhi 6855
E Trans Yamuna 8797
F South Delhi-I 11958
G West Delhi-I 11865
H North West Delhi-I 5677
J South Delhi-II 15178
K-I West Delhi-II 5782
K-II Dwarka 6408
L West Delhi-III 22840
M North West Delhi-II 5073
N North West Delhi-III 13975
*O River Yamuna / River Front 8070
P-I Narela 9866
P-II North Delhi 8534
* Zone may be redefined in consultation with the concerned agencies.
The zonal plans shall detail out the policies of the Master Plan and act as link between the Layout Plan and Master Plan. The development schemes and layout plans indicating various use premises shall conform to the Master Plan / Zonal Plans. The Zonal Plans of the areas shall be prepared under Section 8 and processed under Section 10 and simultaneously the modifications of land uses shall be processed under Section 11(A) of the
Delhi Development Act 1957. Already approved Sub Zonal (earlier Zonal) Plans in conformity with the Master Plan shall continue for the areas where the Zonal Plans have not been approved. The Zonal Plan in the form of
Structure Plan should be formulated within one year of the finalisation of the MPD-2021.
In absence of a Zonal Plan of any area, the development shall be in accordance with the provisions of the Master Plan.
16.3 SPECIAL AREA PLANS
The Walled City and its Extensions, Karol Bagh and the area in between with contiguous specific use has been designated as Special Area for the purpose of development since it is not possible to develop the old built up area in accordance with the general use zone regulations given in the Development Code. The development within this area shall be carried out as per the norms and regulations as given in the relevant chapter.
Chapter 15: Mixed Land Use
15.0 MIXED USE
15.1 PROVISIONS OF MIXED USE
Mixed use essentially means provision of nonresidential activity in residential areas. In the situation, where in a number of residential areas, commercial activity has already intruded formulation of a balanced policy of mixed use considering its environmental impact and the socio-economic need of the society is of utmost public importance.
On a single premise or in an area, mixed residential and non-residential activity has its positive and negative environmental and socio-economic impacts. It suits the present socio-economic needs of a large section of the society and reduces the transportation needs and traffic movement considerably. However, unless properly regulated and in certain conditions it could have quite an adverse effect in terms of congestion, pollution and general inconvenience to the people of the area. In view of the above the following approach is suggested: -
1) Non-residential activity on residential premises should be permitted selectively and carefully taking into consideration community needs, environmental impact and provision for safe and easy traffic circulation and adequate parking.
2) In case of new developments, planned mixed residential and non-residential activity should be introduced right at the time of the preparation of the layout plans along with the planning of Commercial Centres for which appropriate provision of parking, circulation and services be kept in view. Norms for parking and commercial use
on different floors be specified.
3) Notified provisions made in the earlier plan may be continued within the overall framework of the approved plan. Mixed use may be permitted on residential plot facing streets/road of minimum 18.0 mts. ROW in regular residential plotted development with the prescribed development norms, such streets should be notified and
given wide publicity. Bungalow Areas of Lutyens’ Delhi and Civil Lines, government housing, institutional / staff housing and areas of heritage and national importance shall not be covered under the Mixed use Policy.
15.2 NON-PERMISSIBLE USES
Any trade or activity involving any kind of obnoxious, hazardous, inflammable, noncompatible
and polluted substance or process shall not be permitted.
15.3 PERMISSIBLE USES
Mixed use could involve household industries (as per specific conditions provided in the section pertaining to industries), Retails Shops, Professional Activity and specific other uses as indicated here after:
15.4 RETAIL SHOPS
The following activities will not be allowed under mixed use:
1. Retail Shops:
Building materials (timber, timber products, marble, iron and steel and sand)
Fire wood, coal and any fire hazardous and
other bulky materials.
2. Repair Shops:
- Automobiles repair and workshops
- Cycle rickshaw repairs
- Tyre resorting and retreating
- Battery charging
3. Storage, Godown and Warehousing
4. Junk shop
5. Liquor Shop
6. Printing, Dying and Varnishing
7. Any other activity, which may be notified from time to time.
For other Retail shops, Mixed use in notified streets will be subject to the following conditions: -
i) Mixed use shops only on ground floor upto the maximum of ground floor coverage.
ii) There should be unconditional surrender of front setback, which should not have
boundary and shall be only used for parking.
iii) Parking @ 2.0 ECS per 100 sq.m. shall be provided within the premises.
iv) Cost of development of parking / common parking @ 2.0 ECS per 100 sq.m. in commercial areas shall be payable by the beneficiary.
v) For Master Plan Roads, the premises/ activity areas should be approached from service lane and direct approach from the main road should be discouraged.
vi) Permission of mixed use would be taken from the concerned local Authority and will be subject to payment of conversion charges
vii) The planned character is to be maintained. No encroachments shall be permitted on
the streets.
15.5 PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY
Professional activity would include non hazardous and non nuisance kind of activity based on professional skills where the main premises of the concerned professional like a doctor, lawyer, architect etc. would be separate and only out of office hours services could be rendered from the residential premises. In such cases, on part of the premises on any floor subject to a maximum of 25% of the FAR or 100 sq.m, whichever is less for services based on professional activities shall be permissible.
15.6 OTHER ACTIVITES
The following specific activities may be permitted in residential premises on plots of a minimum of size of 209 sqm. facing a minimum road width of 18 mts. ROW (9mts. in ‘Special Area’ and 13.5 mts. in Rehabilitation Colony).
a) Pre–primary schools (Nursery / Montessori Schools, Crèche etc)
b) Nursing homes
c) Guest houses
d) Bank
Further, the permission of residential land and building for the above activities shall be governed by the provisions of Notified Regulations in this regard except for Pre-Primary school which should be restricted only on ground floor equivalent to the permissible ground coverage.
Banquet Hall
As per the survey conducted by MCD in May 2002 in respect of Banquet Halls it is observed that about 64% of existing Banquet halls are situated in residential use zones, 18 % in industrial use and 18 % in commercial use zones. Banquet Halls, which do not cause hindrance to the general public and provide for parking can be permitted on mixed use streets, where commercial activity is permissible, subject to the following conditions. Banquet hall shall be permitted in Residential and Commercial use Zones with minimum plot size of 333 sq.m, facing minimum 18 mts. ROW roads in residential plotted colonies (13.5 mts. in Rehabilitation Colonies and 9 mts. in Special Area). The ground coverage, FAR, height and basement etc. shall be applicable as per the Master Plan norms for specific landuse in which the premise is situated, subject to the conditions in respect of parking and sanitation facilities, hygienic disposal of waste and appropriate levies /charges laid down by the Authority from time to time.
15.7 INTENDED MIXED USE
i) The quantum of Mixed use Area and its allocation/ distribution for various categories of Residential areas in New Area shall be specified in the layout Plans.
ii) The layout plans would clearly earmark areas/ plots for Mixed use, preferably located opposite/ adjoining designated commercial areas.
iii) The Plan may provide for mixed use on residential plots at appropriate locations grouped together facing 18 mts. ROW roads and above as per requirements. The quantum of area to be worked out and common Parking areas to be marked in the plan.
15.8 CONVERSION CHARGES
Because of conversion of use/activity the conversion fee shall be charged from the beneficiary as decided by the Authority from time to time.
Generic (Comprehensive) reply to MPD-2021 draft
Generic (Comprehensive) reply to MPD-2021 draft
Another work in progress.
Please post your COMMENTS on this page.
Rules of the MPD 2021 blog
Rules of the MPD 2021 blog
Rules:
1. DDA bashing will not be tolerated. This is not a forum for any complaints you have against DDA (Delhi Development Authority).
2. No profanity, flaming, spamming, pornography tolerated on this blog.
3. All posts will be topical, concise and posted in the appropriate place.
4. Use Comments only for the intended purpose. If you feel you can contribute a lot
(ie. more than mere comments) please join the team.
Comment with your details
This blog is an online forum for objections and suggestions on the Draft Master Plan for Delhi perspective 2021. I am administering this blog in cooperation with the MPISG.
To participate in this blog, please leave your name and email address as a COMMENT. Your e-mail address must be a personal e-mail address. (Your e-mail address will be deleted from the comments after your invitation is sent)
I will get back to you with a password that will allow you to directly edit the blog. Like wiki style.
The blog goes online on 8-June-2005, which gives us just 30 days !!!
Sarbajit Roy.
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