Beyond Land Use, The Urgent Need for a Paradigm Shift in India’s Urban Planning for a Viksit Bharat

Beyond Land Use, The Urgent Need for a Paradigm Shift in India’s Urban Planning for a Viksit Bharat

India stands at a historic inflection point. The ambitious vision of a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (Developed India) by 2047—a nation with a $30 trillion economy—is not just a political slogan but a national project of unprecedented scale. This transformation, however, will not be charted in rural hinterlands or industrial enclaves alone; it will be orchestrated, driven, and ultimately housed in its cities. Urban centers are poised to become the primary engines of this economic metamorphosis, the crucibles where the nation’s demographic dividend will be forged into productive capital, and the front lines in the battle against climate change. Yet, as articulated by R. Subrahmanyam and O.P. Agarwal, a profound and dangerous chasm exists between the aspirations for these cities of tomorrow and the antiquated, myopic frameworks used to plan them today. The current model of urban planning, rooted in a 19th-century public health paradigm, is woefully inadequate for the complex, interconnected challenges of the 21st century. To avoid building the foundations of future crises, India must urgently undertake a fundamental rethink of its urban master plans, moving beyond simplistic land-use zoning to embrace a holistic, integrated, and forward-looking approach.

The Urban Imperative: Why Cities Hold the Key to India’s Future

The centrality of cities to India’s future is undeniable across multiple critical domains:

1. Economic Powerhouses: The goal of a $30 trillion economy necessitates massive agglomeration economies, innovation hubs, and dense networks of commerce and industry—all functions inherently optimized in urban settings. Cities are not just containers for growth; they are its active catalysts.

2. Climate Battlegrounds: As a signatory to global climate commitments, including net-zero by 2070, India’s path to sustainability will be largely determined by its urban areas. Cities are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions through energy consumption, transportation, and waste, but they also hold the greatest potential for implementing efficient, large-scale solutions like mass transit, green building codes, and circular economies.

3. Demographic Destinations: With a young population entering the workforce, the demand for jobs will be immense. The vast majority of these new employment opportunities, particularly in the services, technology, and advanced manufacturing sectors, will be generated in urban centers. Failing to plan for this influx is to invite unemployment and social unrest.

4. Vulnerability and Resilience: The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder of the heightened vulnerability of dense urban populations to disasters, both health-related and environmental. Building resilient cities—with robust infrastructure, efficient public services, and adaptive governance—is no longer optional; it is a matter of national security.

In this context, the way India plans its cities is not a matter of municipal administration alone; it is a strategic national priority.

The Colonial Hangover: The Limitations of Land-Use Planning

The genesis of India’s modern urban planning system lies in the mid-19th century, a response to devastating plagues that swept through crowded, unsanitary cities. This public health emergency birthed a planning model focused primarily on sanitation and orderly land use. The legacy of this reactive origin persists in the form of the Master Plan, the primary legal document governing urban development in most Indian cities.

The fundamental flaw of this model is its narrow focus. As Subrahmanyam and Agarwal point out, the Master Plan is overwhelmingly preoccupied with land-use zoning—designating parcels of land for residential, commercial, industrial, or recreational purposes. It operates on a static and backward-looking logic: it projects future population growth based on past trends and allocates land and infrastructure accordingly. This approach suffers from several critical weaknesses:

• Lack of Economic Vision: People migrate to cities primarily for livelihoods, not for better-zoned neighborhoods. Yet, Master Plans are rarely, if ever, derived from a long-term economic vision for the city. There is no process to identify a city’s unique competitive advantages—be it as a logistics hub, a tech center, an educational cluster, or a tourism destination—and then plan land use, infrastructure, and skills development to catalyze that growth. The plan dictates where a factory can be, but not what kind of economy it should serve.

• Administrative Myopia: Urban growth in India is increasingly occurring beyond municipal boundaries, in peri-urban and rural fringes. However, Master Plans are typically confined to the administrative limits of the city, creating a planning vacuum in the very areas experiencing the most dynamic and often chaotic growth. This leads to sprawl, inadequate infrastructure, and a disconnect between where people live and work.

• Ignoring Carrying Capacity: The traditional model pays scant attention to the natural resource budget of a city. It does not rigorously assess the availability of water, the capacity to handle waste, or the limits of the local ecosystem. Planning for millions of new residents without a parallel plan for securing sustainable water sources or managing air quality is a recipe for ecological and human disaster.

Blueprint for a Modern Urban Planning Paradigm

To bridge the gap between 19th-century tools and 21st-century ambitions, India’s urban planning must evolve into a multi-disciplinary, integrated process. The Master Plan must be transformed from a rigid land-use map into a dynamic, living document that synthesizes several critical plans:

1. The Foundational Economic Vision Plan:
Planning must begin not with population projections, but with an economic question: What do we want this city to be in 20 years? A structured economic visioning exercise should identify key sectors for growth, assess the city’s comparative advantages, and outline a strategy for job creation. This economic vision then becomes the primary driver for all subsequent planning. Population projections should be based on the jobs likely to be created, not just historical trends. This provides a credible, forward-looking basis for determining infrastructure needs, housing demand, and land requirements.

2. The Integrated Resource and Environmental Management Plan:
Every city must operate within its ecological means. This requires:

• Natural Resource Budgeting: A detailed assessment of water sources, energy needs, and waste assimilation capacity. The plan must then mandate demand management measures, such as water recycling, green building standards, and waste-to-energy plants, to ensure sustainability.

• Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (CAP): As frontline actors in the climate crisis, every Indian city needs a CAP with two pillars: mitigation (pathways for low-carbon growth through renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable transport) and adaptation (building resilience to climate impacts like heatwaves, floods, and sea-level rise through resilient infrastructure, early warning systems, and nature-based solutions).

• Mandatory Air Pollution Management Plan: With Indian cities dominating global pollution indexes, a targeted plan to tackle air quality is non-negotiable. This must specifically address the transportation and construction sectors, major contributors to the problem.

3. The Regional and Inclusive Development Plan:
The future of urban India is polycentric and regional. The planning process must break free from its administrative silos.

• Regional Planning: Economic and infrastructure planning must encompass a larger functional region, including smaller satellite towns and the surrounding rural hinterland. This allows for a more rational distribution of population and industry, leveraging the affordability of smaller cities for large manufacturing while connecting them to the economic dynamism of larger hubs.

• Empowering Smaller Cities: The Viksit Bharat vision cannot be realized through a handful of megacities alone. Smaller cities have a crucial role to play, especially in hosting manufacturing and absorbing the bulk of the urban population surge. They require tailored, regional plans that connect their growth to larger economic corridors.

4. The Sustainable Mobility Plan:
Transportation is the lifeblood of a city and a primary determinant of its productivity, liveability, and environmental footprint. A standalone Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) is essential to shift the focus from building roads for vehicles to moving people efficiently. The CMP must prioritize the development of high-quality, integrated public transport systems (metro, bus rapid transit) and safe, accessible infrastructure for non-motorized transport (walking and cycling), actively nudging citizens away from private vehicle dependency.

The Path to Implementation: Overcoming Systemic Hurdles

Recognizing the need for a new paradigm is the first step; implementing it is the greater challenge. This transformation requires systemic changes:

• Legal and Regulatory Overhaul: Existing town and country planning acts are designed for the old land-use model. They need to be amended or replaced to mandate the creation of integrated master plans that incorporate economic visioning, resource budgeting, and climate action as legal requirements.

• Capacity Building and Education: India faces a severe shortage of urban planners. The current educational curriculum in planning schools often remains steeped in traditional methods. A massive effort is needed to modernize pedagogy, producing a new generation of planners skilled in economic analysis, environmental science, data analytics, and participatory governance.

• Strengthening Local Governance: Effective, integrated planning requires empowered city governments with financial resources and technical expertise. The devolution of powers and funds to Urban Local Bodies, as envisaged in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, remains incomplete and must be prioritized.

Conclusion: From Reactive Zoning to Proactive Visioneering

The call from NITI Aayog to “rethink the master plans” is both timely and critical. The choice before India is stark: continue with a planning model that reacts to problems of the past, or embrace a visionary approach that proactively shapes the cities of the future. The outdated land-use plan, a relic from the colonial era, is a straitjacket that will constrain India’s ambitions. The alternative—a dynamic, integrated, and economically-grounded planning framework—is the necessary foundation for the vibrant, sustainable, and resilient urban centers that will power a truly Viksit Bharat. The time for incremental change has passed. The cities of tomorrow must be built on the drawing boards of today, with a blueprint that is as ambitious and complex as the future they are meant to create.

Q&A Section

Q1: What is the primary criticism of the current Master Plan system in India?

A1: The primary criticism is that it is an outdated system overly focused on static land-use planning, derived from a 19th-century public health context. It projects population growth based on past trends and simply allocates land for residential, commercial, or industrial use. Its major flaws are:

• Lack of Economic Vision: It is not driven by a long-term economic strategy for the city, ignoring what will actually drive job creation and growth.

• Administrative Myopia: It is confined to municipal boundaries, ignoring the dynamic urban growth happening in peri-urban areas.

• Ignoring Ecological Limits: It fails to conduct “natural resource budgeting” to ensure the city’s growth is sustainable within its water, energy, and environmental carrying capacity.

Q2: How should the urban planning process begin, according to the new proposed paradigm?

A2: According to the new paradigm, the planning process should begin with a structured economic visioning exercise. Instead of starting with land-use maps, city planners, economists, and stakeholders should first answer the question: “What is this city’s economic purpose in the next 20-50 years?” This involves identifying key economic drivers, competitive advantages, and a strategy for job creation. This economic vision then informs realistic population projections and becomes the foundation for determining infrastructure, housing, and land requirements.

Q3: What is a “Climate Action Plan (CAP)” for a city, and why is it essential?

A3: A Climate Action Plan (CAP) is a city-specific roadmap for tackling climate change through two parallel tracks:

• Mitigation: Outlining pathways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as promoting renewable energy, enhancing energy efficiency in buildings, and transitioning to sustainable public transportation.

• Adaptation: Building resilience against the unavoidable impacts of climate change, such as designing infrastructure to withstand floods and heatwaves, creating green buffers, and implementing early warning systems.
  It is essential because cities are major contributors to emissions and are also highly vulnerable to climate impacts. For India to meet its national climate commitments, its cities must be at the forefront of the action.

Q4: Why is regional planning important for smaller cities?

A4: Regional planning is crucial for smaller cities for several reasons:

• Economic Integration: It connects smaller cities to the economic ecosystems of larger hubs, allowing them to specialize (e.g., in manufacturing) and benefit from shared supply chains and markets.

• Managed Growth: It helps manage urban sprawl by planning for infrastructure, transportation, and housing across a functional economic region, preventing the chaotic growth that often happens at city fringes.

• Viksit Bharat Inclusion: Major manufacturing and economic activities requiring large, affordable land can only be accommodated in smaller cities. Regional planning ensures these cities are prepared for this growth and are not left behind in India’s development story.

Q5: What are the key systemic changes needed to implement this new urban planning approach?

A5: Implementing this new approach requires foundational shifts:

• Legal Reform: Amending or replacing outdated town planning acts to legally mandate the creation of integrated master plans that include economic visioning, climate action, and resource management.

• Educational Modernization: Updating the curriculum in urban planning schools to equip the next generation of planners with skills in economics, environmental science, data analytics, and regional governance.

• Empowered Local Governance: Strengthening Urban Local Bodies with greater financial devolution and technical capacity so they can effectively create and implement these complex, integrated plans.