The New Indian Express 11.06.2010
Lack of planning hits growth of TN cities
CHENNAI: The development of cities across Tamil Nadu has hit a roadblock due to lack of appropriate planning and infrastructure and this will affect the growth of the State, according to town planners.
Shivakumar, secretary, Indian Institute of Town Planners, TN chapter, on Thursday said that the planning of cities like Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem and Tiruchy has been done haphazardly and surprisingly most of them were still instructed to follow the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority's (CMDA) development regulations.
"Each city is geographically different and should follow regulations which suit them but they still follow the development regulations of CMDA after a circular was issued by the then Chief Secretary L K Tripathi," he said.
Interestingly, there are master plans for the TierII cities but they are yet to be implemented. "Its been more than 2030 years since the plans were submitted but the government is yet to issue a notification," said K R Thooyavan, an Urban Planning Consultant and retired Chief Planner of CMDA.
According to Dr Thooyavan,the State government has woken up now and is incorporating all master plans in district development plan. "Currently, the State Planning Commission is reviewing formation of Metropolitan Planning Committee and District Planning Committee as per the 73rd and 74th amendment under the 12th Schedule," he said.However, he said that the district planning committees should include qualified town planners. Currently, under district planning there was no role of a town planner.
According to private planning consultant K M Sadanandh, the real issue is the lack of town planners. He said that TN required about 600 town planners in 2010 to meet the demand of both government and private sectors, which meant one town player for every 1,00,000 population, according to an estimate. "Even CMDA which currently requires about 100 planners, has employed only 40 qualified town planners," he rued.
Dr Abdul Razak, professor of Town Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Anna University, felt the shortage could be resolved if there were more universities offering town planning courses. He felt Anna University, which offered a master's degree in planning should start a bachelor's course too.
Meanwhile, with the sudden spurt in the population in cities, there has been a growth of slums. To control this, plans should focus on social, physical as well as economic aspects of the cities.
Sadanandh said the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) should be expanded as it was being done in other cities like Hyderabad and Delhi.
