CHAPTER-III

STATE AND URBAN VILLAGES IN INDIA

Indian cities, since the 1990s have witnessed dynamic transitions as the post- economic
reform era has seen the emergence of high-quality educational institutions, health
facilities, improved modes of transport and communication, diversification of
employment opportunities and increasing cosmopolitanism as people belonging to
different cultural and social backgrounds are living together. All these developments are
putting pressure on the land of the cities, as a result of which they are expanding and there
is a need to regulate their growth. (Shaw, 2012, p-25).

This chapter while attempting to understand the evolution of Indian cities since pre-
colonial times tries to argue four things: (i) Most of the cities which were planned
immediately after independence were dependent on State funding. The cities planned
after 1991, follow a PPP model. (ii) till the introduction of economic reforms, i.e. till
1991, the five year plans were more concerned about promoting policies which would
ensure the provision of housing for the refugees, State led planned development of the
cities, up gradation of slums and employment provisions to the urban poor. After
liberalization of the economy, the plans talked more about upgradation of solid waste
management, drainage, sewerage disposal and ensuring proper sanitization in the cities.
(iii) all the major urban policy initiatives launched by the government have promoted
displacement and gentrification in the cities and fail to directly mention the situation of
urban villages. It is only Rajiv Awas Yojana which for the first time mentions the
development of urban villages but after equating them to slums. (iv) The urban villages
were not accommodated in the master plans before 1991, the talk about providing them
better infrastructure starts only in the post- economic reform era.

To comprehend the unique trend of urbanization that was taking place in South East Asia,
Mc Gee (1991) coined the term „Desakota‟ which is considered as the nearest equivalent
to the term „urban villages‟. He identified 6 main features of a Desakota region (i) In the
pre-World War II period they had a large population which mostly cultivated rice. (ii)
There were areas which were agricultural and were now transitioning towards non-
agricultural activities which often included transport, industry and trading. The family
members are often involved in different professions. (iii) there is intense movement of
the population within the zones. They often travel long distances to reach the city centre.

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(iv) the land use is mixed with agriculture, cottage industry and industrial estates
subsisting side by side. The demand for space is often more in these regions. (v) the
females here often work in the non-agricultural sector mainly as workforces in industrial
sector or in domestic services. These regions also show a shift towards multi-crop
cultivation from mono-crop cultivation. (vi) Finally these areas are ignored by the state
authorities (Mc Gee, 1991, p-16-17). The rules of the urban normally do not apply to
these areas and if applied they are difficult to implement.

This chapter has been divided into three sections. Section 1 would discuss the perception
and structure of the cities in India before, during and after colonialism. The second
portion would talk about the Indian urban policies and analyse how they think about
urbanization in the country and the situation of urban villages. The final portion analyses
the initiatives master plans framed for planning the cities and how they look at these
regions.

Indian City in pre-colonial period

Before the conquest of Britishers, towns and villages were interdependent. The villages
persisted by performing agricultural activities and the agricultural produce was sold in the
towns which consisted of administrators, rulers, traders and artisans. The towns were
often surrounded by walls and inhabitants of the countryside crossed them during
journeys of pilgrimage or in times of calamities such as famines. The development of the
cities was not guided by the State and the early cities served as essential networks of
social and economic activities (Shaw, 2012, p-3). The first instance of planned cities was
seen in the Harappan civilization which comprised of well-planned networks of drainage,
sewerage and a unique architecture. During this era, the cities offered the citizens with
various varieties of goods and supplies of food. (Shaw, 2012, p- 4). In the later centuries,
towns of Taxila, Ujjain, Kashi and Ayodhya came into existence in North India and in
South India, settlements such as Dhulikatta and Konadpur came up specifically in the
Deccan Plateau (Shaw, 2012, p-6).

During the Mughal period, the coming up of cities was a result of political consciousness
and those areas flourished which could provide economic benefits to the traders. Cities
like Lahore, Agra and Delhi were important centres of Muslim imperialism in the 16th and
17th centuries. These areas consisted of all the centres of daily importance for the people
such as religious centres such as mosques and temples, shrines, colleges, gardens and

45
bazaars. In the 18th Century, with the end of the Mughal empire, towns which represented
their power such as Delhi and Agra started declining. New towns such as Hyderabad,
Nagpur, Lucknow started coming up. These were regional powers and people migrated to
these cities in search of work. Panaji, Masulipatnam, Madras and Pondicherry were also
important commercial centres because of the presence of European powers i.e.
Portuguese, Dutch, British and the French respectively (NCERT, 2020, p- 319) As the
Britishers acquired political control over the vast territory on India after the Battle of
Plassey16 in 1757, these cities started declining and port cities specifically that of Madras,
Calcutta and Bombay started to rise and gained in terms of their political and commercial
importance.

Indian city in colonial period

To understand the nature of transformation of the cities in modern India, it is important to

understand their background. A city for the colonial power was a symbol of power and
authority. British colonial rule laid more emphasis on developing and maintaining three
types of cities: (i) port cities (economic control) like Madras, Bombay and Kolkata, which
were essential commercial hubs because of trading activities of the East India Company
and (ii) Hill cities (summer capitals) such as Simla, Darjeeling and Ooty. (iii) Cantonment
areas for military control.

To map out their growth in the urban spaces, the government relied on cartography i.e.
mapping and also by keeping a periodic check on the rise in population by conducting
census (NCERT, 2020, p-322). The trading and administrative headquarters of the
company were set up in all the port cities. In the 18th and the 19th centuries these port
cities, acted as collection depots for Indian exports such as cotton textiles. After England
witnessed industrial revolution, these cities became centres through which raw materials
could be exported from India and English goods could be imported in the country for
consumption. - this economic activity is what differentiated these Indian cities from the
traditional urban settlements. Another important factor which led to the rise of towns in
colonial period was the introduction of railways. Railway stops such as Jamalpur and
Bareilly developed as railway depots from where raw material could be collected.

These walled cities were fortified by the Europeans. The European merchants lived inside
the walls and the Indian merchants who came to trade from various areas lived outside

16
Through this battle, The British East India Company was able to establish its hold over Bengal.

46
them. This segregation led to the framing of new terminologies such as „White Town‟ and
„Black Town‟ respectively. As the railways expanded the cities became more connected
with their hinterland- an area which could provide cheap labour and raw materials. Jute
mills and Cotton mills were constructed in the hinterland. Apart from this India had two
„industrial cities‟ i.e. Kanpur (leather and woollen textiles) and Jamshedpur (Steel).
Because the colonial industrial policies were not equal, no city could rise equally and
contribute to the growth of the entire nation.

It is through these institutions in the cities that colonial domination was exercised over the
natives in a new fashion. However, the need for renewing the older cities was felt only
after the revolt of 1857. The British felt that there was a need to live away from the
„natives‟, in order to secure themselves from further rebellion. Cities like Delhi and
Lucknow were decongested and planned. Central to this planning was the „dual city
model‟. It divided the city into a „civil lines‟ area, which consisted of the houses and
shops for colonial administrators and officials; and a „cantonment‟ area, which was for
the military and military personnel (Parpiani, 2012, p-64). Along with this, there was a
separate area known as the native town where the local people used to live. So, the cities
built or transformed by the British were marked by racial, civil and military segregation.
Further, the buildings in civil lines were built in European style and were located in such
places which made them look different from the local structures and displayed power. For
a longer duration, the major concern of the colonial regime was to maintain cleanliness
and hygiene in the „White‟ areas. But when epidemics such as Cholera and Plague spread,
there was a rising apprehension that these might affect everybody, so maintenance
functions such as laying down of underground pipelines and sanitization activities were
carried out by the colonial regime in the old towns too. Gradually the lines between these
two towns blurred and, the British had to build institutions like municipalities17 and
improvement trusts to solve the basic problems of the people like hygiene by providing
them proper water supply, sanitation and drainage. Proper planning also helped them to
carry on their commercial activities in places like Bombay (Spodek, 2013)

The second category of cities which were built by the Britishers were the hill stations.
These areas were strategically important for the British army as it is from here that troops
could be stationed and rebellions could be instigated against the regional rulers. Because

17
In 1688, the port city of Madras saw the establishment of first Municipal Corporation of India. Following
this, Corporations were established in Calcutta and Bombay in 1726. (Laxmikanth, 2020, p-39.1)

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the Britishers attributed the rise of pandemics such as Cholera and Malaria with heat,
these cold climate hill stations were considered as ideal locations to save the army from
these diseases (Pradhan, 2017). For the Europeans they were attractive locations for
habitation as the climate conditions matched that of England. The construction of schools
colleges, churches and offices here marked the unique European style. In the months of
summer, they often used to shift the offices here. It benefitted the colonial economy too
as plantations such as tea and coffee could be grown here. It was an attractive location for
merchants, lawyers and Maharajas too who could easily afford to build their cottages and
remain close to the British administration.

Within the national movement for independence one can see two contrasting perspectives
on the city and the role envisaged for it in independent India. This contrast is often
understood as one between the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, our two
National leaders. For Gandhiji, a city was an embodiment of evil and corruption and it did
not represent the true essence of Indian civilization. Rather it was in the villages that our
links with the past and traditional ties were maintained. On the other hand, Nehru was of
the view that the village was a major hurdle towards the path of development and
contained nothing but backwardness and ignorance (Prakash, 2002). If India had to
progress, it had to develop the cities by properly planning them. His ideas dominated the
nationalist discourse, especially in the process of post-independence nation building.
Chandigarh was indeed envisaged by Nehru as the modern city symbolizing India‟s entry
into the path of progress and modernity.

In the post-independence period, India, has constructed a number of planned cities such
as Chandigarh, Gandhinagar and Bhubaneswar. Immediately after partition, Jawaharlal
Nehru encouraged a State sponsored and funded the construction of cities for two main
purposes: (i) housing the refugees and (ii) for building industries. In those times fresh
land was taken from the farmers in the villages and cities were built. However, there has
been a shift since 1970s i.e. cities have been constructed mostly in the periphery of the
metropolitan areas and mainly for easing down the pressure on land of the core city. From
the 1990s, there has been an increasing emphasis on building capital cities such as
Amaravati and Naya Raipur for Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh respectively and we also
see that the government has given space to the private companies to come up and take up
city planning and construction. Post- 1990s, such as Lavasa have been constructed as hill
resorts in Pune.

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The post-1947 development of new towns has seen public expenditure being spent on
them and were totally owned by the government, in the post-reform era we see a shift, as
most of the new towns are built through public private partnership or totally through
private initiatives. We also see the coming up of special economic zones.

Analysing the Five-Year Plans18

Urbanization in India does not fall under the Union list but is a state subject. Still the
efforts of the states concerning the supervision of urban areas have been mostly mentored
by the guidelines of the centre which are reflected in the centrally financed schemes and
five year plans. It is on the basis of this rationale that examining central government‟s
perspective with regards to urbanization is essential.

Since the colonial times, the cities have always been seen as major centres of political,
administrative and cultural power. Urban issues were however not given much attention
immediately after independence. During the national movement for independence one
could see two contrasting perspectives on the city and the role envisaged for it in an
independent India. This contrast is often understood as one between the ideas of Mahatma
Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the two towering national leaders. For Gandhi, a city was
an embodiment of evil and corruption and it did not represent the true essence of the
Indian civilization. Rather it was in the villages that our links with the past and traditional
ties were maintained. On the other hand, Nehru was of the view that the villages were a
major hurdle towards the path of development and inculcation of modern values and
contained nothing but backwardness and ignorance (Prakash, 2002). If India had to
progress, it had to develop the cities by properly planning them. Nehruvian ideas
dominated the nationalist discourse, especially in the process of post-independence nation
building.

Nehru set up the Planning Commission (now National Institution for Transforming India)
in 1950 as he was influenced by the ideology of socialism which focussed on centralized
and uniform development of all regions of a nation. Till 2012, the commission used to
frame five-year plans to attain this vision of equal progress for all.

After independence, most of the people were staying in the villages i.e. the rural areas, so
dealing with the urban did not allure much attention of the national leaders who were
18
They were framed by the Planning Commission from 1951-2012 to ensure balanced economic
development.

49
already pre-occupied with other problems that the nation was facing. The objective of the
first, second and third five-year plans was to achieve economic growth and for which was
thought that if urban areas are developed through the sponsorship of the state, much
capital would be accumulated (Shaw,1996). A huge number of towns and cities such as
Bokaro, Chandigarh and Faridabad were constructed for industrial development and for
housing the displaced who were coming from across the borders. Another main theme,
throughout the initial plans has been the clearance of slums. It was from the second five
year plan (1956-61) that the talk about framing master plans for controlling the haphazard
development of the cities became prominent. It was also proposed that housing facilities
must be provided to the low-income households. However, the urban issues acquire
systematic attention from the third five-year plan (1961-1966). It was recognized that for
the execution of master plans, specialized authorities should be established and also for
balanced regional planning, the industries had to be opened up as far away from the city
as was possible. These first three five year plans are collectively called as the plans of the
first phase by Lalit Batra.

The next three plans namely the fourth, fifth and sixth five-year plans are different in the
way they focussed on the issues and on trying to resolve them. They thus represent a shift
and form the second phase of plans. Somewhere, in the mid-1960s, the elites of the
agrarian society and the residents of the urban areas spoke against the unrestrained
centralization of actions of the State. They asked for further development in their
quarters, rational land management and upgraded living conditions (Shaw, 2007). It was
established that it was important to invest in small towns because the big cities such as
Hyderabad, Delhi and Chennai were witnessing a rise in population which was leading to
a shortage of housing in these areas. The states were given the responsibility to address
the concerns regarding shortage of housing and hiking land value. States were supposed
to build housing for the people falling in the category of low and middle income levels
and Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCo) was established to give
loans to the states.

The policy of in-situ development was considered more beneficial for slums than slum
clearance. The fifth five-year plan resulted in the passing of ULCRA- Urban Land Ceiling
and Regulation Act to control the escalating prices of land. Moreover, it was recognized
that the infrastructure development had to be initiated in the cities with more than 3 lakhs
population. The sixth five-year plan mentioned about properly delivering the basic

50
services to the slums to rescue them from deteriorating environmental conditions. It
further argued for development of areas which had more than one lakhs population i.e.
small and medium towns.

Mid-1980s marked the beginning of the period of liberalization, which meant that the
private sector investment would be given more prominence than the role of the State.
National Commission on urbanization was formed in 1988 and focus was on connecting
economic progress with urbanization. 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (henceforth
CAA) was formulated to ensure the financial and administrative self-sustainability of
civic bodies as Centre could no longer invest funds on the maintenance of the cities. The
policies of urbanization which came up after liberalization thus, focussed on the boosting
private sector.

Initialization of the third phase is marked by the seventh five-year plan. It too like the
previous ones was a tremendous shift as with the opening up of the Indian economy,
various sectors of service delivery were being privatized. It was argued that community
participation was the best way to remove poverty and the private sector should be given
the responsibility of housing. Moreover, for the poor section, it was identified that
employment generation was major area of concern. When the eighth five-year plan was
launched, India as a response to balance of payment crises (Mukherji, 2011, p-484),
finally opened up its economy. So, the eighth plan, representing a neo-liberal shift talked
about connecting the development of urban sector with the growth in economy and also
identified urban poverty as a major issue. It was realized that the municipalities should be
strengthened financially and private sector should be encouraged to invest in the
development of infrastructure. Even in the ninth plan, the underdevelopment of small and
medium towns was attributed to the failure of centrally sponsored schemes and the State
governments were asked to mobilize private sector for their upgradation. The facilities for
providing loans to smaller ULBs was started as it was realized that private sector could
only be encouraged by the larger ULBs and smaller ones would be left behind. When it
came to housing it was decided that the state would facilitate opening up of housing only
for the deprived section.

The tenth five-year plan in continuation of the above plans, pushed for a strong financial,
legislative and administrative set up for the urban areas by pushing for a model of public-
private partnership for ULBs and also market friendly reforms to improve the services

51
and infrastructure. levying user charges, reforming property taxes and pushing for non-
taxable revenues were found the best ways through which ULBs could mobilize their own
resources. Moreover, it was argued that extra financial assistance would be given by the
Centre to the ULBs which showed an expertise in executing these reforms. The building
of infrastructure such as that of solid waste management and sewerage management etc.
were to be given to the private sector according to the eleventh and twelfth five-year plan.

We can thus say that it was in the 1960s, that urbanization as an issue became important
to the government. The plan of the first phase was a direct response to the urgent need to
economically develop the nation and provide shelter to refugees who were coming from
both sides of the border. As the leaders were not able to provide jobs in the villages, the
people chose to migrate to the urban areas. Here, they had to reside in the slums as the
accommodation were not affordable. It was only with the third five-year plan that
specialized agencies were set up for the implementation of the master plan though the talk
about them can be traced back to the second five-year plan. It is with the argument for
balanced development raised by the agrarian elite that the first shift in the plans came. In
the plans of the second phase the authorities started to argue for in-situ development when
it came to the question of slums. The last shift came when India was facing a balance of
payment crises because of which it became difficult for the government to deliver
services. To deal with this it talked about uplifting the constitutional and financial status
of the municipalities and encouraging private sector participation.

When it comes to understanding urban policies in India, scholars have studied the five
year plans made by the government and usually divided them into two phases: pre-
liberalization and post-liberalization. Developing the cities was always a concern for the
State after attaining independence, but their significance has greatly increased with
liberalization. After 1991, the government emphasized on developing the cities, as these
were the areas which could attract foreign investment. It also recognized the fact that our
cities were ill equipped to deal with the challenges posed by the pressures of liberalization
and globalization and there was a strong need to upgrade them. To achieve this, concerns
were raised for uplifting the status of ULBs, which are bodies responsible for
administering the cities. In the post liberalization period, four major schemes have been
launched by the government for the cities. These are: Mega City Scheme (MCS),
JNNURM, AMRUT, and SCM. A common feature of these schemes is that the Centre

52
has played a dominant role in the framing and execution of these policies. All of them
have also argued for encouraging public-private partnership in the required sectors.

Urban Schemes and Urban Villages in India

Policies and programmes are framed within a particular intellectual and ideological
framework and supported by a set of presumptions regarding the complication to be
resolved and the preferred mechanisms to solve that problem. It can be said that a public
policy is a point of entry to the structure that shapes the problem and suggests specific
solutions.

As already discussed, in era before the introduction of economic reforms the urban
policies saw state planned development, housing for the refugees, emergence of slums,
industrialization, stress on the land in metropolitan areas and unemployment among the
poor as the main concerns regarding urbanization in the country. To resolve these issues,
planned cities like Faridabad, Rourkela, Chandigarh, Bhillai etc. were developed.
Government institutions such as National Buildings Organization and Ministry of Works
and Housing were started to frame guidelines for institutions like Mumbai Metropolitan
Regional Development Authority, Madras Metropolitan Development Authority and
Delhi Development Authority authorized with the agenda of developing designed cities,
framing master plans and acquisition of land.

The second phase saw the coming up of policies such as Integrated Urban Development
Program, Sites and Service Scheme, environmental Improvement of Slums and Integrated
Development of Small and Medium Towns. For the poor in the urban areas the schemes
talked about controlling the land prices for which they passed ULCRA- Urban Land
Ceiling and Regulation Act, in-situ development of the shanty towns and also by opening
Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) to provide housing

The third phase led to the launching policies to remove housing shortage such as National
Housing Policy, to reduce unemployment Nehru Rojgar Yojana, to provide basic facilities
to the urban poor and families of low income level line Urban Basic Service for the poor,
National Slum Development Programme, Urban Reform Incentive Fund and Prime
Minister‟s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme. This period also witnessed
the constitutionalization of municipalities through the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act
which improved their financial status.

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Post 1991, the discussion changes and construction of upgraded infrastructure is observed
as a problem which needed urgent attention for which schemes such as Rajiv Awas
Yojana (RAY), JNNURM, Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation
(AMRUT) and Mega City Scheme (MCS) and were launched. MCS was focussed
towards five cities namely Bangalore, Chennai, Calcutta, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Out of
all these policies JNNURM was the single largest centrally sponsored scheme launched
for urban areas after independence.

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was a large scale
city development programme that was inaugurated by the United Progressive Alliance
(UPA). It was launched, initially, for a period of seven years, i.e. till 2012, but its duration
was extended and it ran for almost 10 years till 31st March, 2014. The Manmohan Singh
led government at the Centre launched JNNURM in 2006- the first largest centrally
financed urbanization policy. It was sub- divided into four components: (i) Urban
Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and (ii) Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP).
These two were targeted towards the development of 65 mission cities. (iii) Urban
Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) and (iv)
Integrated Housing and Slum Development Scheme (IHSDP) were meant for the
remaining non-mission cities.
(Source:[Link]
(1).pdf last accessed on 23rd March, 2023).

The JNNURM was proposed as a major shift in the approach of the Indian state towards
urban areas. The timing of the policy is significant as it was seen as a response to the
problems posed both by rapid urbanization as well as the attendant issues of social
welfare and equity in the context of a liberalized economy. The policy was presented by
the government as a solution to both sets of problems.

Taking the census of 2001 data, Indian cities were classified by the JNNURM into three
types on the basis of their population- Category „A‟ comprising of mega cities, Category
„B‟ consisting of cities with population above one million but less than four million and
Category „C‟ constituting cities with less than one million population but considered
significant for a number of reasons. I would now explain the term „urban renewal‟ has
been specifically used in the mission.

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Focusing on Urban Renewal
Urban renewal, an American concept, refers to a city rejuvenation program, which might
or might not include the participation of the private sector. In the United States, the term
was initially used for programs which dealt with eradicating sub-standard housing
structures and providing the American people with better housing conditions. With time,
the term was borrowed by other countries and its meaning has widened. It began to be
used for the programs related to city improvement, upgrading of city centres, rejuvenating
certain parts of an area etc. In general, it means improving the life of the urban people
based on the analysis that quality of life has degenerated because of a number of factors
like industrialization, modernization, technological advances etc. It involves redesigning
of or restoring some parts or the entire city.

There are three major components of urban renewal: redevelopment, rehabilitation and
conservation (Keskar, 1989, p-68-69). The process of redevelopment of the city involves
large scale demolition of the existing structures, which in turn is followed by the process
of rehabilitating the displaced families. Thus, redevelopment is always followed by
rehabilitation. At the same time, there might be structures in the city which are considered
architecturally, historically and culturally important and need to be conserved, thus,
making conservation an essential component of the process of urban renewal. So, it can
be defined as a process through which the city areas are rebuilt and made more adaptive
to the future needs of the citizens and the government (Prasad,1989). The talk about urban
renewal, normally, involves the concern for renewing the old city areas. It is perceived
that because of industrialization, the people migrating from rural to urban areas chose to
settle down in the major urban settlements of the city. Due to this, these city areas began
to get overcrowded and the city, in search of space to accommodate the demands of the
population and for further industrialization, embraced the fringes and started expanding.
As a result, the fringes became important and started attracting public and private
investment, which led to the neglect and deterioration of the inner city areas. The inner
city areas were thus characterized by dilapidated housing structures, bad provision of
civic amenities, economic decline, congestion and inadequate transport facilities.

The process of city expansion and urban renewal has been different in the western and
non-western countries. In the western countries, in the early stages of industrial growth
the congestion of the cities was controlled by developing the peripheral areas and
dispersing the population here. As a result, the concentration of high density of

55
population in the core areas was kept under control. However, in the non-western
countries, the peripheral areas were developed to disperse the population, but even then
the problem of concentration of high density of population in a particular area was not
solved. With time, in some cases, even the peripheral areas were infected with high
density population. In India, the concern for urban renewal, which was raised by the
Committee on Urban Land Policy in 1965, has revolved around the renewal of inner city
areas like Shahjehanabad of Delhi, Busttee areas of Kolkatta or Bhadra region of
Ahmedabad which were facing the problems of overcrowding and congestion due to
rising pace of urbanization which lead to more migration of people and rise of slums. The
Committee also recognized that the responsibility to renew these areas would fall on the
municipalities. The debate got more intense in the 1980s, as it was realized that with the
expansion of our metropolitan cities, there was a need for rationalizing our land use
patterns (Biswas, 1989, p-52-53).

Based on the comparison with the experience of the western cities, we can see that the
mission uses the term „urban renewal‟ in a much broader sense. It assumes that, it is not
only the old city areas which have degenerated with time, but the entire city faced such a
problem. The Indian city lacks sustainable infrastructure and is not fit enough to
accommodate the rising population. They are growing in a haphazard manner, becoming
congested, have inadequate transportation facilities, face problems of sewerage disposal,
bad governance, poor garbage collection and recycling and have pockets of squatter
settlements where people working in informal sectors are living in unhygienic conditions.
At the same time, the cities were playing an important role in integrating the Indian
economy with the world economy and there was an urgent need to make them more
investor friendly and attractive for foreign investment. So, the urban renewal projects
under the mission involved the promotion of urban beautification projects like riverfront
development projects, widening of the roads for proper movement of all the sections of
people, clearing the cities of unwanted squatter settlements and providing good sanitation,
sewerage and solid waste management services. Urban renewal of old city areas was to be
financed by the mission under this component which included decongesting these inner
city areas by relocating the industries, widening the narrow streets, replacement of old
water pipes and renewal of sewerage, drainage and old solid waste disposal systems.
However, cities have actually not paid much attention to the renewal of the old city areas,
as will be seen in the next section.

56
The beautification projects undertaken under the name of renewing the cities have caused
large scale displacements of the poor and the villagers as it involved acquisition of land.
The most famous of them has been the dislocation caused due to the Sabarmati Riverfront
Development Project (SRDP) and redevelopment of the Bhadra area in Ahmedabad.
SRDP was launched in 1997; and then the project got additional funding after the
introduction of JNNURM. A number of markets and slums like the Khanpur Kharivadi
and Gujari Bazaar have been eliminated under the scheme. Another case is of West
Bengal, where many slums in different parts of Kolkata were demolished under the
pretext of widening the road and constructing buildings for residential purposes. These
people were rehabilitated under the BSUP component in Nonadanga, an area which lies in
the periphery of the city and here again they were marked as illegal encroachers (Guha,
2012). In Nanded, under the pretext of developing roads by widening them and
developing the premises of the Gurdwara, about 2900 properties were demolished till
2008. The livelihoods of the rickshaw pullers and hawkers were destroyed in the process.
Though in some cities like Surat the infrastructure projects (except BRTS) did not have to
face the problem of land acquisition as their town planning laws earmark land for the
development of infrastructure under which land is voluntarily surrendered and not
forcibly acquired by the government, but in cities like Kochi, the sewerage and road
widening projects have faced considerable opposition from the people who had to lose
their lands. Due to this the projects have remained incomplete. Again in Bangalore, a
JNNURM project which targeted construction of houses for the poor by constructing
three story buildings was opposed by the residents of Bhuvaneshwarinagar as it
threatened their entitlement to land. Again the Vadodara Municipal Corporation under the
title of “beautification of the city” by making it “slum free” eradicated many slum clusters
in Kamatipura and Kalyannagar. Many of the residents were promised relocation under
the BSUP component but the same was not achieved. A sewage treatment project (to
check pollution of Ganga) in Varanasi was met by opposition from Rashtriya Swabhiman
Andolan as it involved the acquisition of land of the Goshala site in Goithaha. Another
case of protests against land acquisition surfaced in the city of Dehradun during the
execution of transport projects in the area, namely, “improvement of intersection project”.
The execution of this project was met by opposition from the local shopkeepers, whose
shops and markets were eradicated overnight by the authorities and their land acquired.
Moreover, proper compensation or alternative sites were not provided to them by the
government even after the promises for the same were made (Mittal, 2014). Under the

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Godavari Riverfront Development Project, in Nanded, Maharashtra, 150 households have
been evicted from Gadipura, Navghat, Govind Ghat, Mominpura and Karbala. Some of
them have been resettled in site no.34 which is again a relocation site on the outskirts of
the city. The houses constructed lack proper sewerage system and are far away from their
work places. They again have to change their employment and pay extra commutation
costs.

Hence, one can argue that in the pre 1990s, the urban villages did not attract much public
policy attention. They came on policy radar only after 1991 but the failure remains in not
directly addressing their concerns. In other words, the urban policies at the national level
in India have not recognized the troubles of urbanized villages and have mostly equated
them to squatter settlements.

The post economic reforms urban policies of India are the primary reasons of
gentrification currently being witnessed in the country. In 2002, the government of India
launched the 10th five-year plan, following which Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban
Renewal Mission was initiated in the country. It was the single largest centrally funded
post-independence urban policy in the country. The policy was not only funded by the
central government but also had the aid of international agencies. The policy in many
cities, under the name of „city beautification‟ caused complete eradication of the slums
and the utilization of their lands for private investment.

Moreover, in 2012, Rajiv Awas Yojana was launched to prevent the proliferation of
slums by creating a space for private investment to come in slum rehousing. This policy
gave ample space to the private investors to take over the lands in the slum and
rehabilitate the displaced slum dwellers in multi flat buildings. This led to gentrification.
The launch of Smart City Mission has led to the creation of gated communities in most
parts of the country furthering the process of gentrification.

State boards and urban villages

The cities of India are planned using several devices: (i) master plans which contain local
area plans and zonal plans. The aim of these proposals is to foster balanced development
of an urban area which is increasing in size and swallowing up the nearby villages. The
intention is to arrange the land use in a way that the people are dispersed to the vicinity.
The Delhi Master Plan, 2021 introduced the concept of local area plans. Under this
classification, stakeholder participation is ensured at the ward level which encourages

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public participation. For small and medium towns regional plans are used to plan the
areas. Out of all these categories, master plans of new cities have been studied as they
remain the key instruments for city planning in India.

Under the approach of master planning, the land is adequately divided by the architects to
be utilized for several purposes such as industrial regions, office areas, residential use,
hospitals, gardens, parks, roads, parking, universities, colleges and schools. The ULBs
such as Municipal Corporations or Municipalities and the parastatal agencies are handed
over the charge of execution of the master plans. To understand the approach, it is
necessary to comprehend its origin and how the planners were influenced by this stream
of thought.

Construction of new cities is not a new phenomenon for India as it has seen State led
initiatives in the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial era. It was during these times
that symbolic cities such as Jaipur, Kolkata, Delhi or Chandigarh were built. Recently,
new cities are built as capitals such as Amaravati and New Raipur as new states are being
formed. (Kennedy & Sood, 2016) which means since time immemorial politics and the
construction of new cities is inter related. In the contemporary times, the construction of
new cities is an opportunity for real estate developers and political leaders to leave their
mark. We then see the launch of initiatives such as „100 Smart cities‟ as a solution to the
rising problems of urban growth.

In the recent decades, many state governments have started framing development policies
for larger city regions which are more capable of attracting global flows of capital for
which they start leveraging their land resources specifically in the peri-urban regions. Sri
City near Chennai, Cyberabad on Hyderabad‟s western periphery and Manesar near Delhi
are prominent examples of this phenomenon.

After independence, new towns and cities were built to fulfil three purposes: (i) to resettle
the refugees who had migrated in large numbers from Pakistan. To create sufficient
housing and employment for them, suburbs of Delhi, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar and
Kolkata were developed. This also helped in dispersing the population from the core city
areas. (ii) State capitals like Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar and Gandhinagar were built for
administrative purposes. (iii) Towns of Bokaro, Durgapur, Rourkela and Bhailainagar-
Drug were upgraded for the establishment of heavy industries and power projects (Shaw,
2012, p- 18). These cities have now grown, engulfed their neighbourhoods and have

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become cosmopolitan in their outlook. After the economic reforms, the new town
development in India can be categorized into three categories- cities which are largely
financed by the government with parts of it being given to the private sector such as
making of a master plan, or areas of water supply or sewerage management. (ii) Cities
which are totally privately financed.

It must be noted that the villages in the privately planned towns such as Lavasa, have
been left out of the development planned and have been used as centres which could
accommodate informal residential and retail sectors. (Vedula, 2022)

Nevertheless, the concern about urban villages in the country started in the time of
colonialism when Herbert Baker and Edward Lutyens were designing Delhi in 1912. The
villages in the city were divided in two parts: (i) Khasra- known as the agricultural land
and (ii) Abadi- the residential areas. Together, the two were called the „revenue village‟.
In the initial days, the land of both Khasra and Abadi regions was acquired and used to
construct railway station, University Campus and Parliament‟s building. The remaining
land was used for rehabilitating the refugees (Sheth, 2017).

In Delhi, Delhi Development Agency (DDA)- a parastatal agency was given the authority
to frame master plans for the city and manage its growth in the 1950s. This body was also
responsible for acquisition of agricultural lands from the villagers for developing the city.
Anyhow, the farmers here after independence did not bend to the demands of the
government and argued for non- acquisition of residential areas which led to the
government acquiring on the land meant for agriculture. These traditional residential units
were then called urban villages in Delhi. This tells us that, in post-independence period,
non-constitutional bodies such as DDA are made responsible for negotiating the
acquisition of land between the government and the villagers. To give an example of this,
the DDA has taken away the lands of the Munirka, Jwahar Heri and Masjid Moth in the
1950s and used it for constructing industrial centres and housing. These villages were
generally not considered in the urban design by the urban planners. It is interesting to
notice that these areas did not have any building codes till 1962. Because of this, they
suffered constant neglect and eventually degraded into areas having deteriorated
infrastructure. In areas such as that of Haus Khas, it has been possible for the migrant
labours, students and low-income groups to get housing and also minor commercial units
have got a chance to open up here. Often it is seen that commercial complexes, illegal

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housing and new leadership comes up in these areas as a lot of time i.e. 15-20 years exists
between the notice of acquisition of land and its actual acquisition. (Sheth, 2017). The
provision that special regulations would be made for this areas, came up in the Master
Plan, 2021. It was argued that building bye laws would govern the construction activities
in these areas. As put forth by Pati (2022), villages in Delhi have grown in an unforeseen
manner mainly because of two reasons: (i) they were coming under specific building bye-
laws which means there were specific laws which were guiding the construction activities
here and (ii) located in the vicinity of the city they witnessed extensive land grabbing
because of the construction activities. With the passage of time, their condition continued
to deteriorate and they began to look like unauthorized colonies- a word used for slum
and shanty settlements which are locations for urban poor.

Following Chandigarh, Bhubaneswar was the next planned city of independent India.
Here too the administrators ignored the villages and in many villages such as in Nayapalli
some areas have remained underdeveloped and the villagers themselves have taken
initiatives to develop or preserve these areas. In planned cities such as Gandhinagar
peripheral control acts were framed to regulate the expansion of the city. These acts have
been constantly violated in cities, where the population grew within the city leading to
stress on the infrastructure and these villages saw the upcoming of illegal encroachments
which further degrades them. In other words, the consistent ignorance of the government
of these areas by not including them in the formal planning arrangement leads to their
unplanned development and eventual degeneration.

The logic behind the purpose of constructing cities changes in the 1970s. It was observed
that the new cities should be built on the periphery of the existing metropolitan cities as
they were seeing a rise in population. This would help in dispersing the population from
the core areas.

The Navi Mumbai Project was the first project which was initiated reduce the pressure on
land in Mumbai by dispersing it outside. The population pressure on Mumbai was leading
to congestion and collapsing of infrastructure. The regional government tied up with the
elites of the area and thought about building Navi Mumbai. They established the City and
Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra (henceforth, CIDCO) for its
execution. Rapid transformation was seen in 57 villages of Navi Mumbai (Shaw,2004, p-
121) because of its integration with the city.

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Because the construction was not according to the building bye- laws the development
authority CIDCO in their master plan, considered the villages to be in the informal sector.
It is because of this situation that the new city had planned nodes which consisted of sites
having informal settlements. This also mean that these areas did not have basic services.
The surrounding areas of these congested villages were held by the affluent political
leadership and often given for ransom. The authorities did frame certain schemes
concerning returning of land to the population.

Planning a new city is a challenging exercise for the city governments too as they have to
look into the financial aid, skilled human resources, suitable location of the city and the
consultative process and whose needs would the new city cater too. The villagers of
Panvel, Uran and Thane showed reluctance in giving up their lands for the construction of
Navi Mumbai and protested against the authorities. In many areas such as in Vashi and
Kotukbandh urban villages, the population has increased and these areas have
deteriorated into slum like conditions (Chaterji, 2013). The real estates have taken up the
land so that middle income groups can be provided with accommodations.

There were two schemes which were started by the government to fulfil this purpose: (i)
Twelve and a Half Per cent Scheme and (ii) Gaothan Expansion Scheme. The former was
for the landowners and the latter was meant for the project affected people. Under the first
scheme, the landowners were returned 500 meters of land at double cost. 30 percent of
land was kept for social services and basic amenities in the residential zone. Under the
second one 10 percent of land was reserved and returned to the farmers. Out of this,
drainage, open spaces and roads were built which would help the villages and the other
half was handed over to the project affected people. Urban villages in Navi Mumbai can
be said to have been created from these two schemes.

Although, the master plan of Navi Mumbai argued for the fuller integration of the original
villages in the city and for the provision of social and physical infrastructure in these
areas, this did not materialize. They wanted the urban villagers to be fully active in the
social and economic life of the city, thus making them easy to adapt to the new urban
setting. After 25 years, of execution of the project the villages are being engulfed by the
development nodes which are rapidly growing. In the villages near the developmental
nodes, multistore buildings are coming up and the real estate agents or outsiders are
buying lands for infrastructural projects. In Vashi Gaon maximum of the land has been

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taken away by the private developers (Shaw: 2004). In Bangalore, the haphazard growth
in the peripheries had led to ecological damage and engulfment of villages (Nair, 2007).

In the northern periphery of Kolkata, a new township Rajarhat has been constructed by
West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) to reduce the
pressure on land in the core city. New housing structures and business districts are built
up here to fulfil the purpose. Malls, higher educational institutions, hotel chains and
residential accommodations have been constructed on the land of the farmers. It was
thought that the urban villagers which were named as „service villages‟ in the master
plan, would provide affordable accommodation to the new working class which comes in
the city. The villagers could also work as housekeepers, drivers, cleaners and servants in
the city for the service class (Kundu, 2016).

The Naya Raipur master plan argues that the villages falling within the master plan would
be upgraded with the same civic amenities as would be given to rest of the city. This
would help in speedy integration of the villages with the rest of the city. The Indian
Express 2012 reported the forcible acquisition of land, and inadequate compensation to
the farmers. In most of the cases in the city the farmers have approached the courts
through civil society organizations such as Nayi Rajdhani Prabhavit Kisan Kalyan Samiti.
The organization often complained about the unilateral role of the collector and forcible
fixation of land prices by the government.

Amaravati, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh has a similar story to tell. It is being built
with by the Government of Andhra Pradesh in partnership with International Enterprise,
Singapore to be built in the land of 25 villages. It is the first outsourced capital city of free
India. Some other examples of planned modern cities in India are that of Sri Ganganagar
city in northernmost end of Rajasthan, Dispur-the capital of Assam, Gujarat International
Finance Tech City in Ahmedabad (under smart city project), industrial planned city of
Kaushambi in Ghaziabad, New Chandigarh in Punjab- a planned smart city, Palava in
Maharashtra – under smart city project and Trans Ganga City in Uttar Pradesh.

We can thus observe that the authorities have made attempts for the integration of urban
villages in the developmental plans yet they have been seen as locations which can give
cheap housing to the informal sector which eventually comes to live here on the land has
been utilized for the project affected people. Most of the acquired land has been used for
constructing office complexes, food chains or residential accommodations by the real

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estate developers. Moreover, in India dealings with the urban spaces, has seen a mixed
policy response from the centre as well as from the State. While most of the urban
policies in India have flown out from the Centre, no central guideline had been made for
the states to deal with urban villages. Which means that it has been left to the states to
look after them. Master plans of Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Bangalore have prescribed
special development control regulations for the urban villages and designated them as
special areas. In other cities urban villages have been simply ignored and not included in
the development policies which ultimately leads to their deterioration into slums.
Ignorance of these areas in the planning documents often leads to their exploitation by the
property dealers.

However, it is not only in the Master Plans of India that urban planning failures have been
the most evident. Philippines has Desakota, China has Chengzongeun are areas which
have emerged out of the urban-rural continuum. Other familiar spaces are Ghettos (where
only one community is present often living in unhygienic and congested conditions) in
New York, Rio De Jenario has favelas and Paris has banlieus. All the urban plans of these
areas, came up with a vision to build just and equitable cities.

These villages gained importance in the post-liberalization era, when the zones in the
master plans of various cities failed to cater to the needs of housing for the informal or
cheap labour and small enterprises. Specifically, in Delhi, these areas came live in action
as they were suitable for serving as godowns such as Ghitorni or garment factories such
as Lado Sarai and some could even provide hotels under budget. In 1990s, as service
sector rose, the demand for blue-collar workers also increased and these villages provided
them with cheap housing. In Delhi, however, the communities living here were able to
retain their traditional way of life by maintaining their kinship relations. They were able
to retain a healthy social life.

These villages are built with cheap materials, are densely populated, have mixed land-use
pattern which allows them to have commercial, residential and industrial functions in the
same region. They were never meant to cater to a huge amount of population and many of
them have unsuitable sewerage and drainage system which often causes flooding.

Conclusion

The urban issues have not got much attention by the successive governments both at the
Centre and at the state level and it is during the third five-year plan that problems of

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urbanization come into forefront. When it came to dealing with urban areas, the Centre
continued to play an important role in urban policy formulation. From independence till
the introduction of economic reforms, the authorities tried to sustain the rural identities of
the people living in the urban villages by exempting them from building bye-laws. These
acts led to negligence, and these areas became congested and saw the coming up of illegal
encroachments. After 1991, the planners have included these areas in the master plans to
assist in their development. However, the first two decades after 1947 have a distinctive
place in understanding the urban policies as it was during this time that a number of
towns and institutions were developed by the government to aid urban growth.

Mostly the governments have responded to the pressures of urbanization by trying to

control the growth of the metropolitan cities by planning, by upgrading the infrastructures
in the small and medium cities so that they could act as counter magnets to the large
cities, designing new cities to cope up with the pressure on the land and to provide the
rural areas with urban like facilities to control migration of the people.

The public-private partnership has remained a dominant way of launching and executing
projects in the cities specifically those related to infrastructure. The entry of private sector
in planning cities is a recent thing as can be seen in the case of Lavasa and Amaravati.

There is a stark difference in perception in which these villages were viewed in colonial
times and in the post-independence era. In colonial times they were majorly seen as sites
of revenue collection and maps and surveys were used to capture the developments. In
post-colonial times master plans were used to understand these villages and in those plans
they were largely seen as sites which could hinder urbanization and were of little value. In
Nehru led Congress government‟s vision, urbanization was essential for development and
value of land was determined by how urban it could be. Gradually, specifically in Delhi
these villages became areas where unattractive things could be placed such as informal
labour shelters, small scale cottage industries. They were often put under differential
building by-laws guiding the construction activities here but they were gradually
forgotten by the administrative officials and institutions governing the entire city.

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