Privatisation is OK, but no compromise on public land: Planners

According to the City and Industrial Development Corporation (Cidco), a well-documented development plan is a useful instrument for inviting public participation in the development effort.

Similarly, the document is important to provide a commentary on policy guidelines, which would be useful to those responsible for implementation.

Section 22 of the Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act, 1966, envisages the clear designation of particular land areas for particular uses.

An implicit assumption is that most of the land is privately owned, requiring the planning authority (Cidco in case of Navi Mumbai) to indicate specifically which areas are to be acquired for public purpose.

In case of the satellite city, all the land is to be publicly owned by Cidco. Since each area is taken up for intensive development and released to occupants, the land use for that area will remain substantially frozen, open to modification only under the time-consuming and difficult procedure set out in the act.

However, in other areas where development is not immediately contemplated, the town planning authority should clearly enjoy a certain degree of freedom and flexibility in planning so as to modify its plans to suit the changing circumstances.

However, urban planners have a different story to tell. Kedarnath Ghorpade, the former chief planner of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), who has been living in Navi Mumbai since 1984 and has virtually seen the city grow, feels that the planners designed the satellite city for end stay, but it didn’t happen.

“Cidco’s planning has been up to the mark. The only area where it failed is in anticipating the growth of the city and their visualisation. But, Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation which is now the administering authority for the city, does not know planning at all. No one is bothered about the amenities to be provided considering the rising population such as wide roads, schools, gardens, sewage system, among others. The ever-increasing vehicular population has not been taken into consideration while providing the amenities and everybody wants to go vertical,” Ghorpade said.

He added that privatisation should be promoted, but in the wake of that, public space should not be compromised.

“I see urban planning as a business between public and private space. Instead of looking at giving enough space for parking, implementing proper solid waste management system and providing other amenities, the authorities are falling prey to the manipulation by the real estate sector, which can prove to be a deterrent for the city’s development,” Ghorpade opined.

While concluding he said people are living in a democratic set up, so public representatives and corporators must have the knowledge and be trained enough to comment on the city’s development.

Echoing similar feelings activist Sandeep Thakur said even though Navi Mumbai needs wider roads for proper traffic management and to avoid congestion, there should be sufficient open spaces.

“In Navi Mumbai, the developers are forcing the change and the planning authorities have virtually become developers’ facilitation centres since they do only what the developer wants. Also, the real estate market is agog with talks about increasing floor space index (FSI). In my opinion, we should not talk about increasing FSI when many areas still need development,” Thakur added.

Noted developer and NMMC corporator Kishore Patkar is of the view that what Navi Mumbai needs today is underground parking and other basic amenities which are lacking.

“Navi Mumbai does not have a contingency plan to counter natural calamities. It should also have mono rail and elevated road facility. It should make use of the vast coastline by developing a water transport system. For all these changes to happen, we first need to change our outlook and mentality,” feels Patkar.