Master Plan For Hyderabad A Rs. 11-crore Master Plan, for creation of a number of satellite towns to thin out population and thus relieve congestion is being drawn up for Hyderabad City. These towns will be developed at a distance beyond 15 miles from Mozam Zahi Market, the central point of the city. They will be self suffi. cient and planned on what is called the "neighbourhood unit" basis. Hyde cabad City and its suburbs cover an area of about 80 sqr. miles. On account of unplanned growth many beauty spots have been blotted out, while the trunk roads have carried the town far into the country by long ribbons of unattractive suburban houses and factories. The basic principle of the Plan is to retain what has already come into existence and to fit into its frame-work all the schemes for future development. The Plan also provides for the re-planning of the traffic layout in the city. The present system of internal communications in the city has been allowed 'to develop on what is know as the ChessBoard System of Communications, which is unable to cope with the growing volume of traffic. Improvement is suggested in the direction of having Radial roads and OuterRing roads. Redial roads will serve as connecting links between the important centers of the city, while the outer ring roads will be used mainly for heavy traffic. The Plan also provides for creating social centres and recreation grounds in congested localities. The construction of residential and other building will not be allowed on existing gardens and open areas within the municipal limits. The Plan also envisages the preservation of beauty spots and places of science beauty and creation of parks. Master Plans For Other A.P. Towns Mr. Mehdi Newaz Jung, Minister for Co-operation and Housing, informed the Andhra Pradesh Assembly during question time on December 14 that town planning teams have been appointed to make physical and factual survey of important towns of Andhra Pradesh. The Minister said that physical survey of Hyderabad and Secundera bad had already begun and would be completed within six months. Another team was busy making a physical and factial survey of Vijaywada, Guntur and Visakhapatnam. The survey was nearing completion and a draft plan for each town will be taken up in a month. were Mr. Mehdi Nawaz Jung said these units. also preparing a zoning plan and a plan showing the use of land for each town. A beginning was also made in regard to factual survey. The city unit, the Minister said, was also entrusted with the scrutiny of schemes for housing and public buildings now under construction and also schemes which were likely to be taken up in the near future, keeping in view the various aspects of Master Plan. Development Plan For Bangalore The Bangalore City Improvement Trust Board has initiated a Rs. 10 crore scheme for the development of the city and to relieve the congestion. The scheme provides for forming nine new layouts, including the setting up of an industrial suburb on Hosur Road. It is proposed to form 60,000 new building sites. Mr. V. P. Deenadayalu Naidu, Chairman of the City Improvement. Trust Board, said on December 1 that the scheme was the first acres. A feature of the scheme is the construction of a 38 mile long and 250 ft. wide arterial road, with parks on either side. The road would cost Rs. 40 laks. The City Improvement Trust Board Chairman suggested the formation of a committee consisting of representatives of Government, the Municipal Corporation, the Housing Board, the Railways and the Central Government Industries in Bangalore, for eoordinating and speeding up the work of improvement of the city. He felt the present co-ordination body set up by the Government was not fully representative and it needed to be expanded. Citing the example of Bombay, Mr. Deendayalu Naidu suggested either the Chief Minister or the Local SelfGovernment Minister should be the chairman of this committee. Delhi's Master Plan result, a scramble for whatever land was available had set in, including large speculative buying and cornering of land. Unscruplous persons were likely to take advantage of such a situation and buy up all the land that might be earmarked for residential and industrial uses. On the other hand, the owners of land on which no construction would be permitted, that is, which would be required to be maintained open, would suffer as the values would fall down considerably. It had come to the Government's notice that a large number of persons and firms had bought large tracts of land in Delhi at very low rates from agriculturists and others, had been reselling them in small plots at an enormous profit without proper development, to the detriment of the interests of the community at large. The problem of haphazard construction going on in and around Delhi and the necessity of finding adequate land for economic, civic and sanitary needs of the Capital had also been gone into great by the Town Plan The Union Health Minister, Mr. D. P. Karmarkar, told the Lok Sabha in December that the Master Plan for Delhi was nearing completion and would be announced soon. The Union Government, he said, had authorised the Delhi Administration to commit themselves to an expenditure to the tune of Rs. 15 crore during the current Planning Organisation of the Ministry of Health. period and to incur an expenditure of nearly Rs. 3 crores on what is known as "Land Acquisition and Development Scheme". The Minister said the Government's decision to acquire about 35,000 acres of land in Delhi for the execution of Master Plan was intended to ensure its planned development which would also help prevent further speculation in land transactions. This land was proposed to be acquired for Delhi's requirements for residential, commercial and industrial housing and also the requirements of local bodies like the Municipal Corporation, Delhi Development Authority and Government Departments. The proposed large-scale acquisition and development of land in urban areas would help stabilise land prices, set right the imbalance between the extent and quality of future urbanisation, promote housing on cooperative basis and also serve as patent instrument for planned and rational growth of ueighbourhood areas. The problem in Delhi in this regard had been particularly difficult. Mr. Karmarkar said the increase in population and growth of Government activities, trade and commerce had led to a tremendous increase in the demand for land. As a It had been pointed out by town planning experts that the land prices in the periphery of the Capital had gone up nearly five times. during the last five years and the speculative values would still go up if not checked. The present housing shortage in Delhi had been estimated at 12,00,000 units. The annual additional requirements would be of the order of 20,000 units. The town planners had estimated that for the next 15 years, that is till 1972, the requirement of land in the interests of economic, civic and sanitary requirements of the expanding population of Capital would be of the order of 34,000 arces which include about 25,000 acres for housing in the low and middle income groups, hospitals, schools, colleges and other necessary public amenities. The Two Delhis The Master Plan for Delhi, it is understood, has recommended the ending of two cities and seeks to bring together Old and New Delhi together by creating a new civic centre, which will be near the Ramlila Grounds. Nearby will be sited multi storeyed buildings for business and professional offices. According to the planneis, no se(Continued on next page) Picture showing the inauguration of the Rapid Gravity Filter Plant of capacity 10 million gallons per day at the Kilpauk Water Works, Corporation of Madras, on 12th November 1957 by Hon'ble Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, Vice President of India. This Plant has been designed, supplied and installed by "PATERSON" system for purification of drinking water for Madras City and is the first of its kind incorporating Hydraulically-operated Sluice Valves for central control of the Filter. A view of the Valves is given below. The Paterson Engineering Co. (India) Private Ltd., 21, Theatre Road, P. O. Box 680, Calcutta-16. Grams: "CUMULATIVE" Phone: 44-3044/45 Water Supply Greater Calcutta's Water Supply Plan The W. H. O. Mission under the leadership of Prof. Abel Wolman, which was in Calcutta for about a month in OctoberNovember last, before its departure from (Continued from previous page) rious effort has been made to bring the Old and New Delhi together. Even after the Independence the construction has been such as to accentuate the identity of two cities. A few years ago the ancient city wall between Ajmeri Gate and Delhi Gate was replaced by the huge commercial buildings which in character belong to New Delhi. There is, however, a gap near Turkman Gate and the planners visualise it as a link between the two cities. The civic centre will be flanked by the headquarters of the Municipal Corporation, the fashionable shopping centre of Connaught place and new commercial buildings proposed to be built in the gap between the Laxmi Insurance Building and the Turkman Gate. The Ramlila Grounds are to enlarged by tealigning Asaf Ali Road. be The front of the old city will be given a face-lift through the construction of multistoreyed residential buildings north of the Asaf Ali Road. The planners have recommended that these structures should be so oriented that they do not act as barrier between old city and New Delhi. South of the Civic Centre, multi-storeyed residential buildings will replace single storeyed houses. The density will be 200 persons per instead of 30 to 40 at present. The land west of Minto Road is proposed to be developed for business and commercial offices. Another Industrial Estate acre Calcutta gave to the newsmen on November 12 its following tentative observations on findings, although inquiries and studies were not till then complete : 1. The environmental sanitary situation in the Greater Calcutta area is many years behind the standard reached by more developed countries, in respect to desirable full provision of sanitary facilities to all of the population. 2. The provision of filtered or otherwise safe drinking water is inadequate to a serious degree and has been so for many years. Because of this inadequacy, hundreds of thousands of people are driven to a variety of unsafe sources of water for daily use. 3. The sanitary removal of human wastes from continuous daily contact with people is now provided for much less than 40 percent of the people of the area under review. 4. The removal of storm waters is not provided in a considerable part of the populated area, with the result that the people are intermittently exposed to and surrounded by pools of mixed sewage, refuse and street wash. 5. Fly-breading is a persistent public health problem, not only for the reasons above, but because of the pernicious practice of dumping refuse on public streets awaiting collection, poor collection facilities and bad land fill practices. 6. The great deficiencies of sanitary facilities result in the unenviable distinction which the area now has with respect to cholera and other gastro-intestinal diseases. In India the region of endemic cholera falls mainly within the State of West Bengal, with its nucleus in Greater Calcutta and dominantly in bustee population, ill provided with even elementary sanitary facilitics. The cholera situation, therefore, has great significance, not only to West Bengal and all of India, but to the world at large. 7. Because the correction of these heritages of the past, in water supply sewerage and drainage is technologically difficult, organisa ionally complex and financially costly, only two alternatives are available to the Mission— (a) to assume that nothing can be done and that the area be left to live in disease, misery and economic decline, or (b) to start on the long, hard and costly road of rehabilitation of the systems, fully aware that diligence, leadership and revision of many present practices will be demanded. The Mission chose to recommend the second (b) alternative, with the specific suggestions as to action noted below: 8. For interim action, the following steps are essential and possible: (a) Providing safe water in ample quantity to all persons by the rapid extension of filtered water or tube-wells in all areas now unprovided. This effort will be seriously retarded if filtered water supply extensions contemplated for several years and for which tenders have already been received, are postponed for another six to twelve months. This delay would be targic for the people particularly since money for these improvements has been available for several years. (b) Extending sewers at once into all unsewered areas and 'pockets' in sewered areas and eliminating service privies and other excreta disposal procedures which. result in heavy contamination of the immediate surroundings of living quarters. (c) Providing storm water drainage facilities within economic and technological limits. (d) Implementing promptly the exploratory determination of the potential yields and characteristies of the 2,000 to 2,500 feet geological strata for water supply development as standby. Proposals for such exploration have been made for decades and money has been available for their execution. (e) Examining the effect of waste prevention measures at consumers' connection in order to determine promptly, whether such measures would reduce house storage tank wastage significantly. The house tanks should be eliminated as soon as continuous supply of water is made available not only because they are a waste of water, but because they are invitations to secondary contamination of the filtered water. 9. For long range action over the next 5 to 10 years, the following steps are recom mended:-(a) Development of additional source of filtered water supply, with the essential appurtenances for delivery to consumers at the earliest possible moment. This step is the most important action in the entire programme so that continuous 24-hour service at adequate pressures will be made available for the first time in years. A total of 350 million gallons per day will probably be required by 1981 to permit such continuous service of a safe water. (b) Positive early elimination of the unfiltered water supply, which now penetrates throughout much of the Calcutta Corporation area and is regularly resorted to by the general population. In fact, this unsafe supply is available within most houses and buildings, and is undoubtedly used for domestic and culinary purposes. (c) The early safeguarding of the Hooghly river as a continuing source of filtered water for the Greater Calcutta area. This river has shown an alarming increase in salinity at the Palta intake and at an accelerated rate since 1935. Without major supplementation of this river water by fresh water discharges from other sources during dry months, increasing salinity will disbar the use of this water source for weeks at a time—a disastrous eventuality for over six million people. Aside from increasing salinity, problems of nonavailabilty of quantity of fresh water and of inraeasing silt deposition confront the area. The recovery of the Hooghly or the development of alternative sources of water supply must have a first priority in the activity of any responsible Government. Unfortunately, the solution to water supply, salinity, sediment and quantity difficulties, by finding alternative sources should not blind us to the disastrous effect of failure to rehabilitate the Hooghly upon the economy of the whole area. Although this latter aspect may be legalistically somewhat beyond the framework of the reference of the Mission, we would be delinquest in not recognising the great importance of this dying river as the "life-line" for the entire area. Hence early solution and recapture of the Hooghly for all purposes of the area must have emphasis. Else, we may succeed in providing supplementary water facilities for a considerably reduced population. (d) The extension of main sewage collectors to points of ultimate treatment and dispersal to nature. Propo |