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Is India Aiming for Urban Sustainability?

Published 27th October 2010 - 10 comments - 6763 views -

India moving rapidly along its growth – development axis is faced with rising urbanization and growing pressure on resources especially in its urban areas. The ‘National Mission on Sustainable Habitat’ has enumerated specific steps to integrate comprehensive urban planning and sustainability concerns.

Need for Urban Sustainability
India began city planning and urbanization early- almost 4,500 years back, with the Indus valley Civilisation. The cities of Mohen jo Daro and Harappa were amongst the world’s earliest and most unique examples of urban design. In modern India however, development has somehow not kept pace with the growth of towns and cities. The size and vulnerability of informal settlements, generally built in fragile areas, such as coastal zones, flood-prone plains and ravines, and geologically unstable slopes, greatly increases their vulnerability to climate change.

To address these issues in cities, Govt. of India recently approved the “National mission on Sustainable Habitat” as one of the eight missions announced as part of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). The Mission promotes energy efficiency as an integral component of urban planning and urban renewal through application of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC), Urban Waste Management and Sustainable Transport system. To achieve the Mission on Sustainable Habitat, the need of the hour is sustainable development of urban areas.

Background to urban development in India
The number of people living in urban centres continues to grow, as India’s rate of urbanization gallops at roughly 31%. According to the India-Urban Poverty Report 2009 , the absolute number of people in urban cities and towns has gone up substantially. The rapid pace of urbanization and the resultant increases in populations has also significantly increased the overall vulnerability of urban areas to dangers of climate change. There are major challenges: from livelihoods to access to sanitation and health facilities, issues related to water and energy, civic amenities, waste disposal, growth of slums and the inadequate resources available with the municipalities.

Actions taken for Urban Sustainability
To address the issues and challenges posed by such rapid urbanization and to work towards a sustainable habitat, Government of India as also several state governments have initiated several state level and national level programmes. Some of the key ones are listed below:

Energy efficiency measures

  • Energy labelling programme for appliances launched in 2006 by Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) 
  • Promotion of Energy saving devices like CFLs, through “Bachat Lamp Yojana” and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) credits.
  • Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) 2007 which addresses the design of new, large commercial buildings to optimize the buildings' energy demand by BEE
  • Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Sources (MNRE) Solar buildings program which provides incentives to energy efficient buildings
  • National Green Building Rating System through ‘Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA)’ model
  • Haryana state government has notified several energy efficiency measures e.g: use of Solar Water Heating, CFLs in public buildings, construction of energy efficient buildings
  • Himachal Pradesh has mandated solar passive concepts in public/govt. buildings
  • Thane municipality has done exemplary work on street lighting, incorporation of SWH in buildings , bio-methanation
  • Tariff incentives in West Bengal ,Karnataka, Rajasthan on use of renewable energy

 Urban Waste Management Measures

  • Public Private Partnership (PPP) models for urban waste management in some cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad etc have helped these cities to successfully implement waste management interventions
  • The National Environmental Policy 2006, provides implementing viable options for PPP for operation of hazardous and non-hazardous waste disposal activities

 Modal shift to Public Transport

  • National urban transport policy has specific emphasis on extensive public transport through Metro Rail Transport in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Metro Bus project in Bangalore etc
  • Maharashtra state government announcement of congestion tax to discourage use of private cars in cities

 Apart from the above mentioned government initiatives; several voluntary initiatives have been rolled out in collaboration with international organisations to support and promote sustainable habitat. Some of these are: 

  • US Green rating initiative (LEED) being implemented in India by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) led Indian Green Business Centre (IGBC) through which several buildings across the country have been rated.
  • Global program on energy efficiency through building retrofits. There are about 40 participating cities across the world including Delhi and Mumbai from India.
  • Eco Housing in Pune, a joint program of Pune Municipal Corporation and USAID
  • Environmental building guidelines & regulations for Hyderabad, an initiative by Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) and The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI). 38 Building regulations and guidelines have been developed for addressing the issues of energy efficiency, urban waste management, water & waste water management, urban mobility etc
  • Environmental building guidelines and regulations for achieving energy efficiency in Bangalore by TERI, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) supported by REEEP, Vienna. A set of 9 guidelines have been developed and the same are now integrated in the building by-laws of Bangalore under this project to achieve energy efficiency.
  • Asia Pacific Partnership Project on clean development and climate – Under this initiative, TERI and BEE have collaborated with the US Dept. of State to propose a design framework for“High Performance commercial buildings in India” . The project findings are being integrated into the building by-laws of Haryana, Kolkata, Bhopal, Ahmedabad and Shimla.
  • "Integrated solar city” being developed in Gujarat by Clinton Foundation and Govt. of Gujarat.
  • Eco-city project by German technical Cooperation (GTZ), Ministry of Environment & Forests (MoEF) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) which has tried to comprehensively address all the issues of urban sustainability under one umbrella.

Though the above mentioned projects, programmes and initiatives help partly in achieving the goals of the Mission on sustainable habitat, they still don’t address the issues of urban sustainability holistically. So, there is a need for integrated development of urban sustainability programme which addresses all the issues of energy efficiency, urban waste management and modal shift as enumerated in the National Mission.

Conclusion

Rather than hurdling ahead with unmanageable growth, that are cost-effective ways that are easy to maintain and also suit the local character, during modernisation and capacity building of the municipalities. Despite national decentralization programmes and the inclusion of good governance principles in national policies and strategies, India does not appositely consider local governments as important partners in the articulation of action plans. The local governments especially at the municipal and community level should work out strategies that can be implemented effectively at the grass root level.

While planning for an Urban Sustainable city, several aspects like migration, waste management, mobility, health, education and sanitation that are connected at the core to urban planning need to be considered. It is critical to analyse proper urban planning and Urban Sustainability with regards to Vulnerability and risk assessment. The success of the urban sustainability depends mainly on good governance and inclusive development with appropriate funding mechanism in place. Good practices have to be studied and replicated through integrated mechanism for creating sustainable cities at the local level. A joint effort by the governments, civil society and the private sector and an impartial political interest with a national vision only can save the urban centres of India from the challenges associated with climate change and population impact. 

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Comments

Pavani on 30th October 2010:

Nice Post

Joshi Gaurav on 31st October 2010:

You are correct in few ways in your analysis but there was debate many decades ago, infect still on, “what could be optimum size of City?”. There is no clear answer for this. World is talking about Urban Sustainability, but social aspects like safety and security is compromised at high level particularly in fastest growing cities like Delhi, Bangalore, etc. Sustainability should come from within the city. The city should be self reliant in major aspects, for example energy supply through renewable energy & green building projects. All projects in real estate should be comply with green building guidelines and guidelines should be design in consideration with local environment conditions. I saw one report which estimated few millions of city to be planted to make that city green, but when analyzed the area required to grow that trees was equal to the same city!!! So just growing trees doesn’t make city sustainable. Methodical thought says, Self reliance without disturbing natural environmental cycle makes Urban Sustainability in true sense!!!

Komalirani Yenneti on 31st October 2010:

Gaurav, thank you very much comments!! u rightly mentioned and raised about important issues in India. Yes, social inclusion is very important while making city development plans. I would like to mention that physical development with social inclusion can only achieve true sustainable development of a city.

Komalirani Yenneti on 31st October 2010:

@Pavani: thank you very much for your comment

Gaurav on 01st November 2010:

You are right. But how it can be achieved in present scenario in urban areas, which is developing rapidly. There are issues with Police staff per 1000 persons in all tier-II cities.
Why can’t we think of PPP model in Urban security along with Govt Police as regulator to make more efficient and sustainable city!!! I am not talking about border areas which is highly sensitive with country security aspects. Would love to get views and experiences if any has during this directions.

Urmila on 01st November 2010:

As rightly pointed out, the local governments are important partners in the urban planning process and they are the most forgotten during the process.
To add to the list, I believe unorganized real estate sector in India also exacerbates the already unsustainable urban situation. Approvals to new constructions outside the city limits put burden on the existing trunk infrastructure. It also adds to the already deteriorated conditions of the SWM system, public transport and sanitation.
Even though difficult and cumbersome, efforts towards re-organizing the real estate sector will definitely help make urban development a sustainable one.

Anup on 01st November 2010:

In my last visit to China, I came across the concept of ‘City Cluster Development (CCD) Approach’. This concept is very well implemented while doing urban planning for Beijing, Tianjin etc cities.
Instead of planning only for the area within the city limits, CCD approach suggests planning for a clusted of 2-3 cities and the complete area around those cities. Thus, a cluster gets developed and these clusters are connected to each other with supporting trunk infrastructure. This arrangement in turn accomodated migrated people also without making the existing/permanent citizens suffer.
I believe urban planning with CCD approach will definitely contribute to the Indian urban sustainability. I would be glad to know your views on adaption of CCD approach in Indian scenario.

Anushka on 01st November 2010:

@Anup: Good point!
To add to Anup’s point, the urban planning in China is done by taking into account the growth projection for a very long period (mostly 20 years) and once it is done, they hardly make changes to their frozen plans. Of course, the federal system allows China to do so, which is unlike India. But planning for 20 years or similar longer periods will make the urban plans robust enough in Indian context too.

Komalirani Yenneti on 01st November 2010:

@ Urmila: thank you very much for your comments. You have right said about the unorganised real estate sector in India. India has a new concept of “Eco-cities” which you might have already known. It aims at developing the urban infrastructure of the selected cities in India, but I do also think with the physical infrastructure, there is also a need for development of social infrastructure as well.

Komalirani Yenneti on 01st November 2010:

@ Anup: Thank you very much for providing some gud examples of chinese cities. I think some thing like CCD India has this satellite city development. To remove the extra burden on the already exhausted cities, these satellite cities offer further development. I think India need more sattelite citiers rather than CCDs. Delhi is the best case for this concept.  I would also think that the chinese cities are developing vertically unlike in India, where the development is much horizontal. The city outside the limits of the municipalities deprive of the basic facilities and it would put more pressure on providing the physical infrastructure. so making cities develop vertically could also solve the problem. what do you think?

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