recent

The recent issue of a large number of notifications under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act was necessitated by the changed legal position after a Supreme Court judgment on the subject and consequent issue of the Land Acquisition (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 1967, it was stated.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brij Mohan, Chairman of the Standing Committee, in a statement said today that 18 more unauthorized colonies had been surveyed by the town planning department of the civic body.

According to Mr. Brij Mohan, on the basis of the survey reports, layout plans of these colonies will be prepared by the department and put before the committee for regularization.

The Municipal Standing Committee is confronted with a ticklish problem-whether to allow large-scale demolition of unauthorized constructions or not.

The Delhi Administration recently set up a task force of 12 magistrates, 500 policemen and 58 vehicles to demolish unauthorized construction from February 3.

Mr. Kishore Lal (Con.) expressed concern that the action contemplated by the Admi

nistration would involve even houses built years ago and which were to be condemned or regularized by the Corporation and not by the Administration.

He reminded the committee of the Lt.Governor's promise that all houses in unauthorized colonies built between 1959 and 1962 would be dealt with by the Corporation. The Administration proposed to take action against other houses under Section 6 of the Land Acquisition Act.

Municipal Commissioner K. L. Rathee said people started large-scale constructions because of the general elections. He had instructed his staff in accordance with an

earlier resolution of the Corporation not to allow any new construction in open spaces.

Mr. Balraj Khanna (JS) accused the comannouncing its mittee of indulging in election stunts by intention of regularizing colonies but doing nothing afterwards. He suggested that the Administration should be approached to stay notices of demolition until the elections were over.

Chairman Brij Mohan said new constructions should not be permitted, elections or no elections, but large-scale demolition of unauthorized houses should be stayed in view of the elections. He suggested that the Administration should consult the Corporation while serving demolition notices to verify the bona fides of houses which the owners claimed to be built before 1962.

Rural Urban Links

The Rural-Urban Relationship Committee a summary of whose report has just been published, has touched on every subject which is either directly or remotely connected with the central question to which it was directed to address itself. Such a report provides a sense of completeness, with nothing of relevance overlooked and every related part falling in its logical place. But there is also a disadvantage from a practical point of view in this kind of survey. Each of the inter-locking aspects is a separate subject in its own right-many of these subjects have indeed been separately investigatedwith the result that when we get to the stage of implementation we find tl at so many selfcontained departments and agencies are involved, and the implications so far reaching that the task seems too immense and complicated even for the first tentative

moves.

Take for instance, the committee's recommendations under regional planning, which presuppose a common plan for urban and rural areas in a well defined region. It is true that life in town and country is inter-dependent, but then consider the range of tasks that are involved such as the dispersal of industries, the passing of appropriate land acquisition laws, the traning of the requisite official cadres for town and rural planning, the creation of job opportunities in the villages, provision of amenities in the rural

Rapid social and technological 'changes have brought new dimensions to the art and science of city planning to which our cities have responded none too-well and have failed to readjust to contemporary conditions demanded by the transition. The tidal phenomenon of transition has been, thus, instrumental only in infecting our cities with the virus of urban blight and obsolescence. The net outcome in the urban scene is nothing else than the degeneration of the city into conglomerated urban chaos. Evidently, there is no panacea for this urban chaos since it is heavily overlaid with physical and socioeconomic disorders. To brand every city with an individuality, personality and philosophical setting, therefore, problems which are the product of urban chaos and transition must be intelligently and comprehensively tackled in perspective dimensions. Urban Chaos

A city is its people and if the city is to survive the city must respond to the rapidly changing requirements of the society from traditional to contemporary. A city is symbolic of civic and technological attainments of a society and if the city is to flourish, it must grow. The urban-rural and interurban migration must be accepted as logical and desirable phenomenon and the people at the helm of affairs must be equipped adequa tely to face this problem and plan according ly. A city can never exist in isolation and is a well knit socio-economic matrix offering diverse opportunities for habitation and generation of activities, thereby, drawing the man out from the village. This sets up an urban web which is knit with great exodus of population from the village to the city in

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toning up administrative efficiency and husbanding revenues. Is this not the season of But the citizen can hardly be promises ? blamed if, in taking note of them, he also casts his eye (and his nose) about, to find for himself how the City and its civic problems have all along been dealt with by whoever is in charge."

quest of bread and, urban glamour and facilities. This renders the city in a state of perpetual urban pregnancy, that is, the city Alumes and corrodes internally which are suicidual to the sophisticated virtues of the city. Such a perpetuation drives the city to develop a kind of tumour calling for immediate surgery and at the same time for logical expansion to ensure rational urbanism and revitalisation. The vulnerability of unending mania of human influx is stratified manifold in the city. Besides the sudden and demisely urgent aggravation of the functions of the city, the socio-economic dependency increases magnanimously accompanied by overcrowding of activities which strains the meagre available infrastructure. The transition from the traditional to contemporary functions of the society slips much beyond the controllable limits, practically nullifying the discernible benefits of urban way of life and the diverse opportunities offered by the city.

The social implications are still worse. Basically a man is a part of the entire city populace but paradoxically belongs to no institution whatsoever and is unconcerned to be alone. This creates serious physio-psychological reverberations among the populace of the city which blossom with sadistic schizophere nia and mental imbalances. As such, physical and social setting act as origins of crime and undersirable anti-social deeds, enveloping thereby the city in unforseen physical and socio-economic epidemics. This calls for spontaneous eradication but the problem is so terrifying that the decision makers are frightened, in their quest to evolve suitable prescriptions to rectify

disorders.

Mobility is probably the most vital phenomenon of urbanisation. But the city has become difficult to work in and live in because of difficult manoeuvrability. It will be appreciated that the city populace waste a fair amount of energy and time in commutation and have developed a kind of allergy to slow motion. The peak hour traffic loads invariably paralyse the various system of

transportation. Since the urban infrastructure of transporation of people and goods, at the time of envisaging the city, were, by far, conceived for primitive modes of transporation before the advent of the automobile, the same infrastructure can never be expected to withstand and satisfy the demands of contemporary modes of transporation. Apparently, pedestrians carts and automobiles and numerous other kinds of vehicles are all at War on the same roads. The result is that both safety and efficiency of the urban way of life are harmed. City planners are, therefore, put in a perplexing situation in their effort to cater for high speed urban environment. Every point in the city has to be rendered accessible both by foot and vehicle and the systems of transporation have to be realigned to the requirements of contem-porary technology. The increasing amplitude of journey to work has to be reduced in the time dimension to save enormous time and energy in order to channelise these to fructive plans.

The city of the present day is characterised by mixed land use pattern which was an accepted traditional way of life of the people. Due to the non-availability of urban infrastructure beyond the corporate limits of the city, the more remunerative uses like industry and commerce invaded the envisaged land use, shrinking and overcrowding the residential uses contaminating and polluting the urban environment. The result is that the pressure of surface increased much beyond the bearing capabilites giving rise to serious economic problems like soaring market and rental values of the urban properties in the corporate limits of the city.

The economic potentials of individual and society jointly evidently are insufficient to provide proportionately for the surplus infrastructure so that unplanned and uncontrolled and ever irresponsible growth of the city or change therein have gone to add to the urban chaos.

Quest For Remedy

A city is a living organism thriving on the dynamism of mobility and thus can never be static. However, by ganging the interaction among the various factors leading to

urbanisation a city can be rendered statically dynamic. Since a society will never be great until its cities are great, the role of the city planners has assumed formidable shape in view of prevalent urban disparities and inadequacies. The city planners have, therefore, to be very far sighted by having a searching outlook and dashing approach. Bold and enterprising framework of objectives and goals is the call of the day to prevent any further urban decay and put the indispensable phenomenon of urbanisation on the guided track. There can be numerous approaches to solve this. However, all these can be summed up under two broad headings.

A. Letting the city flourish accompanied by urban renewal which involves environmental replanning, reshaping, and rebuilding in total and perspective dimensions.

B. Transplanting the city which is accompanied by decentralisation of its activites.

Possibility B calls for building new city involving enormous expenditure and complex organisation. Apparently, this approach will be a difficult to follow, at the very outset for every developing economy.

Re-Building, Re-Shaping

Possibility A demands rebitalization of the activities of the city with contemporary bacteriological fermentation. It does not end with fatalism or destinism, but incorporates scientific analysis of the existing urban structure and logical and provocating anticipation of the future socio-economic and civic matrices.

As such the objectives and technical requirements may be formulated with the following goals in view:

The city must maintain its integrity and achieve a unified identity. But it must adapt to the contemporary technology.

Economic revitalisation and stability can help maintain a kind of static dynamism. This virtually requires promotion of industries and commerce in the city.

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