The Role of Cities

Urbanisation and development of cities has been a historic process of considerable significance in the evolution of our civilisation. The Greek City States and the City States in India in the pre-Budhist era and in the period immediately following the birth of Buddha laid the foundation of representative and democratic Government. In ancient India, the word Nagarik (citizen) indicated a man of culture and knowledge and gave a sense of dignity to the inhabitants of the Cities. The Industrial Revolution and the Scientific achievements of modern age in a way were made possible by the existence of

(Continued from previous page) Violations Bureau has been suggested. The study says that the main function of the traffic courts and the enforcement authorities should be as much to create safer and improved traffic conditions as to punish

offenders.

Traffic Advisory Board in Andhra

The Andhra Pradesh Government has set up a Traffic Advisory Board with Mr. M. Narsing Rao, Home Minister, as Chairman. Its other members are Ministers of Finance and Local Administration, the Inspector General of Police, the Commissioner of Commissioner of Police the Home Secretary, Mayors of the two Corporations of Hyderabad and Secunderabad (Mr. Roshan Ali Khan and Mr. S. S. Gupta) and the two Municipal Commissioners (Mr. C. N. Shastri and Mr. Dharam Raj Mathur).

At the meeting of the Board on December 7 it was announced that the Government have sanctioned Rs. 1 lak for improving traffic on modern lines in the twin cities. The Board approved the appointment of a specialist in traffic engineering for dealing with the problem. There was a discussion regarding the financial liability of the two Corporations for erecting the traffic islands, mechanical devices for traffic control and other improvements. The Board sanctioned Rs. 50,000 for traffic propaganda.

large cities. The concentration of population in cities stimulated a sense of companionship, community life and human association in various fields of creative activity of man. Cities have to a large extent provided a forum for the growth of collective partnership in human affairs. Most of our creative arts like music, painting, sculpture and architecture have received great impetus in cities. A large number of our beautiful crafts were nurtured and have flourished in the urban surroundings. Pursuit of knowledge, and research has expansion of education always received encouragement in cities and gave rise to University cities like Nalanda of ancient fame. Even our best literature has sprung from the foundation of city life. Our present culture and the great concept of Humanism are largely the outcome of development of all these civic activities. Problems of Urban Areas

While humanity has benefitted immensely by the boons of city civilisation, at the same time, the latter has brought in its wake unmitigated evils. Cities have developed mostly in two directions, either as the seats of feudal chieftains and now the capitals of States or the headquarters of district administration, or as the centre of trade, commerce and industry. Each of these two classes have problems of their own type. Citi s like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Kanpur and Ahmedabad, which because of their location as a port or otherwise, have developed into the vital seats of our economic sinews, suffer with unplanned or ill-planned town development, lack of adequate housing, over. crowding, deterioration of Community life and morals, and have become a coagulum of slums and natural hotbeds of juvenile delinquency, crime, beggary and prostitution. On the other hand cities like Hyderabad, Allahabad, Lucknow, Patna, Cuttack and Jaipur, which are the seats of administration and power, suffer, in addition, considerably with unemployment, under-employment, lower incomes and indebtedness of their citizens and with the resultant evils arising out of low standard of living.

The Research Programmes Committee of the Planning Commission sometime back had investigations conducted in some selected cities to survey the pace and results of urbanisation. A socio-economic survey of Hyderabad and Secunderabad City area was carried on by the Indian Institute of Economics, Hyderabad, under this scheme. The results of this investigation revealed, among other things the following, which may be taken to be the pattern for almost all cities and larger towns in India :

1. Housing conditions are very unsatisfactory and civic amenities like protected water and electric lighting far below modern standard. 2. The size of the average household is 6.57. 3. Indebtedness exists in a large scale, comprising substantially of unproductive liabilities, the main creditors bring the private money-lenders. The cooperative movement has made a lower headway in urban areas than in rural areas. 4. Very few residences have separate kitchen, bathroom or drainage. A great deal of filtered water is wasted on gardening, but sufficient quantities are not available to the poorer classes in congested and outlying areas, even through public taps. Large number of residences have only one room each, the number of families living in many of them being four persons or more and in a few even ranging between 7 to 15. 5. Expenditure on cinema shows and tea shops is dis-. proportionately high, and is at the expense of elementary needs of healthy food, clothing and shelter. For cultural and social activities among the middle, the lower middle, the poor and the very poor classes, facilities are non-existent. 6. Under-employment is widely prevalent. 7. Feudal ways of life still persist. 8. Purdah custom is maintained in several ways, particularly, among the middle and upper class families. 9. The joint-family system and the joint-family psychology prevail widely. 10. The ratio as among income, assets and liabilities stand at 1: 69.6: 7.5. 11. Free medical and surgical services are very inadequate and private practice is very costly. 12. Child marriages are few. The spacing between pregnancies is commonly about two years and infant morality works at 24.7 per cent, 50 per cent of the children dying before reaching 12 months. Family planning

facilities are extremely inadequate. 13. The percentage of immigrants works at 16.6. 14. Nearly 20 per cent of the house-holds, which have children of school-going age, do not send them to schools. About 17 per cent of the house-holds have radio sets. 15. The literacy rate is 75.4 among men and 46.7 among women.

Urban Community

A study made by the Indian Institute of Public Administration indicates that urban community is a relatively large, dense and permanent settlement of heterogeneous individuals, with intimate personal relationship altogether eliminated; that human relations are torn asunder into many segments and compartments and that paradoxical situation is created: the coincidence of close physical contact and distant social relations.

Rich Experience of Rural Areas

"The real India lives in rural India' is self-evident because almost 84 per cent of our population lives in villages. The bulk of our agricultural production comes from villages. Rural development thus rightly forms the foremost plank in our drive for economic indepencence, particularly selfsufficiency in food. The raising of the extremely low standard of living in rural areas has to be given the highest priority in the economic planning of the country. The Community Development programme was designed to try and experiment the carrying on of intensive development activities in selected rural areas with the active participation of the people. The State and voluntary agencies provide basic material needs of the area and adequate extension services in the field of development of minor irrigation sources, teaching of the use of proper manures and other modern methods of agriculture. Training of workers and villagers themselves, and formation of organisations like the Vikas Samithis were important features of the programme. The Primary Health Centre, the Block Development Officer, the Social Education Organizer, the Grem Sevak and the Gram Sevika gave impetus to social activities like medical relief, public health, education, school feeding of children and recreational and cultural activities. The experiment has proved immensely successful

and the programme has yielded rich dividends not only in the shape of stimulation of developmental activities in rural areas and creating a consciousness for material prosperity among the villagers, but also in bringing into existence a cadre of workers trained and devoted to the cause of implementation of the programme, which will soon cover almost the whole of the rural population in the country.

Basic Needs of Cities

It is time that attention is also focussed

on the problems of urban areas. Efforts made so far for the improvement of the quality of urban life and the provisions made in the Plan so far towards urban development

are not commensurate with the needs of the

situation. Growing attention has been paid for some time past to the work of slumclearance in cities and improvement of the housing. The problem is however vast and considerable further leeway has to be made up. It is essential that proper attention is paid to town planning and creating open spaces to constitute free lungs in congested areas. New townships have to be created in some of the cities which are growing at an alarmingly rapid rate. It is imperative that no new slums are allowed to come into existence.

Similarly, the problem of water supply and sewage in urban areas is receiving attention. But, at present, only about 15 per cent of the urban population has been provided with protected water supply and only about 10 per cent with modern sewage facilities. It is estimated that it will take at least 15 to 20 years to extend these amenities, involving an expenditure of about Rs. 175 crores, to the whole of the urban population in the country.

In the field of sanitation, until modern se-. wage system is developed, scavenging arrangements should be vastly improved. A considerable amout of field research has been done in this respect for rural areas which, with suitable modifications, could be utilized for urban areas as well in the transitional period. Proper housing for scavengers and improving their conditions, should receive high priority as part of sanitation schemes. Public Health Facilities

Public health facilities, particularly for

fighting communicable diseases are of a fairly advanced quality in urban areas. There is however room for some improvement and the objective should be to eradicate Malaria, Cholera and smallpox in as short a period as possible. possible. The most dreadful disease taking a heavy toll of life causing utmost misery in urban areas is Tuberculosis. Fight against T. B. has to be carried on by intensive B.C.G. campaign and by providing additional beds and adequate facilities for domiciliary treatment. The concept of treatment of domiciliary treatment with adequate supply T. B. has undergone a radical change and of drugs and spplemental diet can go a long foreseeable period. Leprosy is another diway to eradicate this scourge in reasonably contributes in a large measure to the beggar sease, which is a curse of urban areas and population of cities. With modern methods of treatment, this disease can also be conquered by the establishment of leper homes and by providing increasing facilties for outpatient treatment at the leper clinics.

In recent years, there has been a growing consciousness among philanthropists, local bodies and other voluntary organisations to provide increasing facilities for Maternity services. Even so, infant mortality is still very high in our country. There is thus room for further improvement of Maternity and Child Health services in cities Facilities for imparting education towards the need for planned parenthood and in the techniques of family planning are also negligible at present. Family Planning service should be integrated with Maternity and Child Health services with adequate facilities for sterilisation and supply of contraceptive appliances.

While the hospital services in the cities need considerable improvement to provide adequate number of beds to meet the full needs of the population served by them, out-patient services are extremely inadequate and need substantial enlargement. Full Employment

There is considerable under-employment in cities. Facilities to provide full employment, particularly to women and educated classes will go a long way to reduce the misery, which is the lot of a large section of the lower middle classes, suffering at present

under a substandard quality of living. Establishment of craft homes, Women's workshops, Social Education Centres, further educational institutions and evening Colleges would go long way to provide jobs to this class of people, and at the same time meet some of the important civic needs.

Cultural and recreational activities, besides cinemas, in many of the cities are deplorably lacking. There is need to construct good closed and open-air theatres, Community Centres and recreation halls. Similarly, construction of closed and open-air stadia to

provide necessary facilities for the develop

ment of games and sports is essential for the healthy growth of the youth and for building up traditions in national sports.

Juvenile delinquency, crime, prostitution and beggary are on the increase in most of the cities. Suitable legislative and ameliorative measures have to be taken to eradicate these evils, which are an ugly spot on the fair name of cities. Facilities for useful and productive occupations and moral and material rehabilitation of these classes have to be given an important place in the programme of urban community development.

Many of the cheap type of hotels, restaurants: cinemas have become the source of deterioration in health and morals of people living in cities, Improvement of these public places should receive a much greater attention than it does at present. Programme of Urban Community Development

Any programme of development in urban areas has to be based on the active participation of the people. The rich experience gained in the field of community development in rural areas during the last few years would be a great asset in working out a programme of urban community development. The basic approach will have to be the same, although the problems to be tackled and solutions may differ. The existing machinery of State Governments, local bodies and voluntary organisations will have to be utilised. At the same time, new official and voluntary organisations to catre to the needs

creation of a cadre of paid and voluntary workers and to provide proper training facilities for them. The administrative and financial aspects of the programme will have to be studied by experts in order to evolve an efficient machinery of trained personnel to implement the programme and fairly elastic and expanding resources to meet the cost of additional services.

A Plan

A Plan will have to be drawn up to cover the whole of the urban population of the nity development. The next year, i. e., the country by a programme of urban commulast year of the II Five Year Plan might with advantage be utilised to conduct a few pilot projects in the country. Some of the Municipal Corporation have already taken up such pilot projects at random. The Delhi Municipal Corporation has done some extremely useful work in this field with the help and cooperation of the Ford Foundation. work done by the Delhi Corporation Pilot project would pave the way for the promotion of such self-help projects and securing the active participation of the citizens in this programme. It would be possible to pool the experience of all pilot projects and evolve a fairly uniform but elastic pattern for urban community development.

The

The whole of the urban population may be divided into units of 50,000 each. Taking the urban population to be brought under the programme at about 60 millions, 1,200 such units will have to be formed for the whole country. In order to complete the 240 units will have to be formed every year. programme in the III Five Year Plan period, This should not be a job beyond the capacity of the Government of India, the State Governments and the local bodies assisted by voluntary agencies. Roughly speaking, each unit may be allotted a sum of Rs. 1 lakh to meet their capital requirements, such as, outpatient dispensaries with facilities for domiciliary treatment in T. B. and leprosy, a Community Centre with facilities for cultural, recreational and sports activities, public baths, water-stands, latrines and other public

50,000 will have to be created. Considerable attention will have to be given to

the

Three-Tier District Administration

Andhra

The Zilla Parishads (District Councils) constituted under the Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads Act started functioning in all the 20 Districts of the State from December 1. They have replaced the erstwhile District Boards.

(Continued from previous page) additional paid personnel, and social workers, cost of training of the paid workers and other voluntary workers, additional expenditure on basic needs like drugs and articles of equipment for the craft homes. The total provision for each Unit will vary from Rs. 3.5 lakhs in the case of units started in the first year of the Plan period to Rs. 1.5 lakhs in the case of units started in the last year of the Plan period, working to an average of Rs. 2.5 lakhs. Thus the total amount required for the 1,200 units will be Rs. 20 crores, i. e. at the rate of Rs. 6 crores for each year of the Plan period for the whole country. This would of course be in addition to the provisions required under Housing, Slum-clearance, Water Supply and Sewage schemes already contemplated in the

Plan.

A Live Problem

It was quite appropriate that the Indian Conference of Social Work at its annual session in Jaipur decided that a Seminar of experts should be organised to discuss the subject of urban community development with particular reference to town-planning, immediate physical and socal amenities, housing and community organisation. It has taken sometime for this project to materialise. It is however not too late and the problem of urban community development is a live problem even after the lapse of considerable time after the Jaipur session. The response from the various organisations and individuals, who were invited to participate in the Seminar, has been extremely encouraging. The contributions received indicate a wide awareness among intellectuals, experts and field workers of the need for taking up immediately a definite programme of urban community development in the country.

The Congress Party has won the chairmanship of all the 20 Zilla Parishads in the State. In Sirkakulam and Krishna districts Congress candidates defeated Swatantra Party nominees by narrow margins of 2 and 5 votes respectively. Communist nominees suffered defeat in Nalgonda and Warangal districts, once believed to be their strongholds. All the Zilla Parishads have a majority of Congress nominees.

With the constitotion of the Zilla Parishads the three tier system of people's institutions-Village Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis at Block levels and Zilla Parishads at district levels envisaged under the Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads Act has been set in motion.

New Panchayats Act

Mr. K. Brahmananda Reddi, Minister for Finance, Planning and Local Administration, on December 14 moving that the Andhra Pradesh Village Panchayats Bill be referred to a Joint Select Committee, said that the new integrated Panchayats Act would democratise the local self-governments units more liberally than hitherto and confer extensive powers on Panchayats in the State. The Bill makes is obligatory for the Government to set up a Panchayat in every village or group of small villages. A number of additional functions and resources have been allotted to the Panchayats. The President will be directly elected by the entire electorate in the Panchayat.

There are at present 14,286 panchayats in all in the State of which 9,490 are in Andhra area and the remaining 4,796 in the Telangana

area.

The Minister said in the three-tier pattern of district administration which was introduced under the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads Act, the Panchayat was the pivotal and the most important

The Bill was referred to a Joint Select Committee of 32. Replying to the debate, the Minister said the Bill was a beginning in (Continued on next page)