Widening gap between rich and poor
It is observed that many a times, with a vision of slum free
cities, the existing slums in the vicinity of multistoried residential complexes and business offices are demolished
and are rehabilitated outskirts of the city in undeveloped land area. Such a
scheme is carried out without completion of construction and provision of basic
facilities like water, electricity, health and education amenities and
economical transport services. This leads to
social unrest creating further
hurdles in the project completion.
Physical isolation of rich and poor habitats is not the
solution to the problem as it tends to aggravate social inequality . Urban planning should include growth of entire city
population, slum dwellers being a major component who need more attention and
priority allocation. Where it is imperative to have physical separation of such
communities to safeguard environmental quality and to avoid overstraining of
existing services, strengthening
connecting routes and development of
neighbourhood villages may help in accommodating displaced or influx of population
in a sustainable environment. This will
reduce wide gap between urban and rural growth and will also ensure sustainable living conditions to
those staying in the city. Hence the inclusive urban planning cannot be bound
to city limits but should encompass the neighborhood region.
Combination of two
aspects of inclusive phrase.
Integration of environmental, digital and social aspects in
planning and inclusion of equitable development of all sections of society thus
forms a basis for sustainable urban development . This task
requires careful planning, detailed time-cost schedule and coordinated
efforts of all parties in the entire lifecycle of project from its planning to
implementation stage. As discussed
earlier, it is generally observed that ambitious dream projects for urban
development get delayed over long period due to lack of coordination between
separate departments responsible for sanction and execution. This increases
cost and project becomes financial burden without delivering desired benefits.
Fortunately, technological advances and digital revolution
have provided many economical and effective options for better coordination and
project monitoring without need of
physical presence and manual operations.
It is now possible to administer the entire project with web portal services for video
conferences, data capture with
electronic gadgets and sensors, data transfer, storage and analysis from remote
control centre. IBM, Siemens, Microsoft, Hitachi and similar software giants
have started working on development of smart world leave apart smart building
or smart city.
However, it would be
wrong to apply these concepts in prevailing Indian conditions. This is due to
various reasons. Economic disparity in
population, low education level in
majority of population, necessity of manual operations to provide jobs to
unemployed unskilled people, high cost
of automation systems and their infrastructural requirements as compared to
manpower cost.
India has to develop its own methodology to incorporate
strength of its manpower, use of IT
enabled services to the extent possible
and convenient and preserve environmental quality without aggressive
exploitation of natural resources. It is necessary therefore, to have better
interaction in experts in various fields at local level
to evolve sustainable growth model
suitable and specific for inclusive urban development for each city in India. Dr. s. V. Ranade,
Dnyandeep Foundation, Sangli
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