Urbanisation growth in India slow, claims expert
The decadal growth in urbanisation in the country has been slow, there is immense pressure on “million plus” cities and plenty of scope and opportunity to get urbanisation right by following the policy to incentivise urbanisation in a decentralised manner in several cities.
This was pointed out by eminent urban professional Ramanath Jha, who has served as an IAS officer in the Maharashtra cadre and is now devoted to urban development. He was addressing a discussion on “inclusive and sustainable urban growth” organised here on Monday afternoon by Madhya Pradesh urban administration and development department.
Among those present were senior bureaucrats, town planners, architects, journalists and representatives of civil society organisations.
Mr Jha focused attention on the need for smaller cities and said a population of two million is maximum that should get into a city for that would be ideal and manageable. To drive home his point, he said that in big cities incomes are higher but living standards for a vast section of the population are poor. We cannot avoid rapid urbanisation, he said. For example, he said: “We should break big cities into small self-sufficient pockets and to ensure there is equitable distribution of housing, other facilities and services, the state and Central grants for proper implementation of urban plan must go up and even private sector participation should be encouraged in an area like water supply.”
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