Urban planning committee recommends creation of 500 healthy cities

The report comes after the country witnessed massive shortage of health infrastructure during the first and the second wave of the pandemic

“A central sector scheme, 500 Healthy Cities Programme, should be launched for a period of five years wherein priority cities and towns would be selected jointly by the states and local bodies,” an advisory committee on reforms in urban planning capacity in India said in its report, launched on Thursday. NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar headed the committee.

“It is a matter of concern that despite huge investment, our cities still face many efficiency-and sustainability-related challenges. None of our cities feature among the top 50 cities in many global rankings,” Kumar said in the report.

“The need of the hour is incisive, insightful planning – in the absence of which neither investments nor actions would be able to yield long-term solutions,” he said, adding that the unplanned urbanization could result in serious downsides. The 14-member committee was set up in October last year.

“Covid-19 revealed the dire need for planning and management of our cities, with an emphasis on the health of citizens. Issues like lack of availability of serviced land, traffic congestion, pressure on basic infrastructure, extreme air pollution, urban flooding, water scarcity and droughts indicate a deep and substantial lack of adequate urban planning and governance frameworks,” the committee has said in the report.

The Aayog has urged all stakeholder ministries, state governments and the city governments to review this report and build upon it further to create strategies for immediate, mid-term, and long-term actions.

India is the second largest urban system in the world with almost 11% of the total global population living in Indian cities. Government expects urban growth to contribute to 73% of the total population increase by 2036.

As per the committee, states and union territories need to expedite the filling up of vacant positions of town planners and additionally sanction 8,268 town planners’ post as lateral entry positions for a minimum period of three years and a maximum of five years to close the gap.

The report has further suggested the constitution of a high-powered committee to re-engineer the present urban planning governance structure with focus on clear division of roles and responsibilities among various authorities and appropriate revision of rules and regulations.

According to the report, concerted measures must be taken at multiple levels to strengthen the role of the private sector to improve the overall planning capacity in the country.

“These include the adoption of fair processes for procuring technical consultancy services, strengthening project structuring and management skills in the public sector, and empanelment of private sector consultancies.