TIME WE PLANNED A COUNTER MAGNET TO HYDERABAD

-Vishwanath Sista
(PART 1)
1. Consider these facts : nearly 75% of the Telangana urban population
resides in the Hyderabad metro area; nearly 50% of the total population
of Telangana resides in the Hyderabad metro area;
Hyderabad and its surroundings contributes predominantly to the
industrial, manufacturing, IT and services sector and in terms of the GDP
of Telangana
The above are in growth economies parlance economies of scale the
bigger and more the size of urban area -the merrier if economic progress
of the State is to be maintained. It may be noted that agriculture sector
contribution to the economy in respect of Telangana is declining in terms
of economic output and GDP.
2. Limits to Growth: On the other hand, urban planners are cautioning
and suggesting limits to growth in the interest of quality of life in
Hyderabad, and management and administration of Hyderabad. They
say the growth of Hyderabad should be stabilised by directing and
decentralising it elsewhere within the State.
All the previous Master Plans have suggested this decentralisation and
decongestion strategy for Hyderabad metropolitan area starting from
1967. However, the present Metropolitan Development Plan is
surprisingly silent on this and projected Hyderabads future population as
200 lakhs plus (2 Crores) by 2031 with more than 70 lakh employees
residing in Hyderabad alone. This would mean- every 3 rd person in
Telangana would be from Hyderabad.
3. Earlier Master Plans based on London Satellite towns concept:
Beginning with the 1960s most of the Master Plans of Indian cities have
adopted this concept of planned decentralization of economic activities
and dispersal of new population in satellite Towns- based mainly on the
London model, viz., A main city and its urban spread, and a ring of
satellite towns to absorb the new and future developments, separated by
a continuous Green Belt to prevent the overspill of population and
activities into these satellite towns. But unfortunately, the master plans of
our esteemed metro cities like Delhi, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Hyderabad,
the story is similar.
4. Decongestion Committee for Hyderabad:
The earlier Master Plans for Hyderabad suggested for developing a ring
of satellite towns. Later as part of the decongestion strategy, the then
State Government did constitute a Decongestion Committee for
Hyderabad under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary. Their emphasis
was on developing the 7 district towns (mostly headquarters) of
Mehboobnagar, Warangal, Zaheerabad, Siddipet, Nalgonda, Nizamabad
and Suryapet. However nothing much happened and the intention
remained largely on paper.
Similarly, HUDA in its Master Plan intended to develop 4 satellite towns
around Hyderabad at Ramachandrapuram, Medchal, Ghatkesar and
Shamsabad, with a continuous Green Belt separating these Ring
towns. But these were only on paper and all these eventually became
part of the Hyderabad metropolitan area.
5. Green Belts becoming Brown belts:
However, in the Indian context and in practice they have not been
successful and not really able to take off or sustain. This is primarily
because of the huge capital investment required to develop a satellite
town right from land acquisition to infrastructure and housing. Like the
twin cities, they have become coalesced becoming part of the Mother
City over a period of time. In most cases, the Green Belt separating
them eventually became a Brown Belt- and thus over a period of time
the satellite towns or townships lost their identities.
 Fig 2:
Spatial Growth pattern of Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration
Till the late 1980s this was a standardized policy in most of the Master
Plans. Then came 1990s, wherein the era of privatization began. In most
of the Master plans, the concept of satellite towns and green belts were
diluted if not abandoned. Why ?
-Was it faltering implementation of the satellite towns?
-Was it sheer pressure of population growth which happened in other
ways rather than in these satellite towns or the time line thought of in the
Master plans were out of tune with the ground realities?
Perhaps it could be all the above reasons. It all boiled down to
population assignment and planned development. The Question arise is
have these gone kaput in the Indian context ? Yes, by and large these
were non-starters. We plan something, but development comes in a
different way and form.
6. What happened? (The actual scenario)
These concepts were not implemented with any fair degree of success in
any part of India. In the meanwhile, the Planning concepts underwent
change Planning from below gained importance with empowerment of
the local bodies rather than the hitherto Top Down Approach which
manifested itself in the phenomena of District Planning Committees and
Metropolitan Planning Committees coupled with the era of Public
Private Participation and privatization in the 1990s. Planning powers
were given to local bodies by the Constitution of India. It did not
recognize the Top Down Approach of Planning and instead made it
clear to go in for Bottoms up Approach through the third tier of
Governance \, i.e., local bodies. Planning as a sectoral phenomena
gained importance over the physical dimension. Thus, the concept of
satellite towns, Green belts, No-Development zone and restricted
development of settlements all went for a toss. Concepts like
decentralization and devolution has resulted in each settlement vying
with each other to attract development and investments.
7. No Government will or encouragement:
The scenario witnessed is that even the State governments and Central
Governments not possessing the conviction or will and instead
encouraged developments contrary to the concepts of satellite towns
throwing Green Belts, Satellite towns, and twin cities concepts to the
wind!
No investments have really flown into the Satellite towns - be it in the
urban development authority areas or state Government regulated
areas, except for some solitaire area development in the name of
townships. Some main manufacturing industries did come up in some
of the satellite towns, but these were not commensurate with
proportionate residential development and allied facilities or a Town
center. The result, people still stayed in the mother city and commuted to
the satellite towns instead of the other way round!
8. Meanwhile, Bigger and bigger urban agglomerations:
Despite Master Plan satellite towns and Green belt containment
concepts, in the Indian situation, all the cities became bigger, large cities
became metropolises, metros became mega cities and super
agglomerations blurring the administrative boundaries of twin cities and
satellite towns and suburbs. So the circulation network becomes more
and more concentric and centripetal towards the Core city with more ring
roads, radial roads and extension/widening of road network and
assuming a sub-regional connotations-the canvas is becoming larger
and thinner.
Thus we change the administrative boundaries with constitution of
Greater Municipal Corporations to include and administer and service
this growth
9. More and more Planning Authorities and the changing
parameters of Planning:
New Planning and development Authorities are created and they fill in
the canvas called planning area which is for namesake (with the so-
called densities, FSI, population assignments revised time and again to
accommodate the new thrust of urban spread) and leave out certain
areas as Agriculture zone in the name of environmental protection. Even
this distinction is getting blurred with other policies like Integrated
townships policy; Industrial development policy; Information technology
policy; Tourism policy, etc encouraging the great urban sprawl well,
thats a different dimension and another story!
10. Satellite towns - last vestiges of formative years of Indian
Planning?
Satellite towns have been reduced as the last vestiges of the formative
years of planning in post-Independence India. Like London which went
the whole hog of planning and developing Ring towns with specific
legislation and institutional structure in place, these in other words,
require sheer commitment, dedicated and constant funding, promotion
with very user-friendly or development friendly policy, over a sustained
period of atleast a generation to settle down and gain maturity. Times
change, so do concepts. This is true even of planning. Even London
which embraced the bottoms up approach to planning in the early
1970s, is no longer talking of satellite towns. It is talking about the whole
region as an entity and the issue of urban containment.
11. Satellite towns and green belts Has their time gone ?
Looking at the present Planning scenario, it is perhaps not incorrect to
say, this was a concept whose time has gone It would be foolhardy on
part if we still cling to these concepts and instead grapple with the
phenomena of larger and larger urban agglomerations, viewing them not
as necessary evils and perils of planned development. Other models of
decongestion including private sector investment may be needed to be
explored.
(To be continued)