Democratising planning in Indian cities By the People, for the People, of the People

Delhi is on the verge of receiving its next master plan, a blueprint that has a bearing on how it evolves over the next twenty years and addresses the myriad challenges it faces. When the draft master plan is released for suggestions, the residents will only have a few days to read, comprehend and respond to the complex and imposing document. Several contradictions exist to the well-imagined preparation of the planning process.

A recent study by Main Bhi Dilli campaign and Indo-Global Social Service Society (IGSSS)titled ‘Assessment of People’s Awareness on Delhi’s Master Plan 2021-41’ revealed that 80 per cent of the residents have not heard about Delhi master plan, and 0 per cent know how to use or access land use map. They have no awareness of how to give suggestions or raise objections on the master plan, nor the knowledge of which agency prepares the plan. None of the respondents have read the last master plan report, and the majority think it is Delhi Government and not Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which makes the master plan.
The case is not particular to Delhi; this is typical to any city in India. Public engagement in the planning process is viewed as a hurdle with minimal tokenistic consultations. The mandatory suggestion and objection phase does not create adequate spaces for people to critique, offer feedback, or share their collective needs and aspirations. Consequently, it becomes rather late to include and alter anything in the penultimate stage. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that over the last hundred years of urban planning(or the lack of it), only expert-led city planning has worsened social inequalities and made cities increasingly unliveable and exclusionary, turning their backs on its people and the workers that make the cities.

Public engagement in the planning process is viewed as a hurdle with minimal tokenistic consultations. The mandatory suggestion and objection phase does not create adequate spaces for people to critique, offer feedback, or share their collective needs and aspirations. Consequently, it becomes rather late to include and alter anything in the penultimate stage

Perceptions & failures of the conventional Master Plans

There are several challenges that the conventional top-down master planning framework poses. First, it has the inherent weakness of being a ‘master’ plan. The misnomer signifies that planning remains far from ‘Janta Janardhan’. Expert-driven mechanisms that leave out the nuances and lived realities of the people and prefer straight lines and maps that look more planned. Second, the master planning process is viewed often from the lens of implementation’, with the naive assumption that all plans designed by experts are for wider social benefit. The multiple planning agencies, the diverse land use – ownership patterns and above all the lack of data makes implementation a near impossibility. Third, planning is assumed to be a non-partisan and objective process, where objective and rational decisions are taken. However, this also is a deeply contested socio-political process that makes it imperative to engage with. Fourth, what distinguishes Indian cities and cities in the Global South is the ever-pervading informality. Let it be living or working conditions, the informal constitutes the dominant majority, and state-led planning has only tried to remove the informal practices-often labelled as zoning violations or encroachments. This leads to further marginalization of the urban poor and worker groups. Fifth, the development plans remain undermined and irrelevant. Rather than cynically viewing urban planning as an apparatus in the arms of the State and viewing Indian cities as unplannable, we wish to place the focus on the importance of planning by people.

Urban planning and people’s ‘inputs’

The DDA act of 1957, cites Development as – “with its grammatical variations, means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land or the making of any material change in any building or land and includes redevelopment;” – devoid of meaning of social purpose that betters residents lives and living conditions. The DDA Act 1957 does further mandate the invitation for people’s suggestions and objections, but only when the draft is ready, with little scope of participation post that late stage. The Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines, though marginally inclusive says at every level of this process, public participation, and representation in the form of Focus Group discussions and consultation is necessary but does not set a mandate for peoples’ contribution. Well-meaning officials and consultants like National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) with support of DDA appointed as in the case of Delhi, though having taken a few steps to involve public participation in the process; these are only a few rare exceptions. They have released an online google form asking for people’s five ideas of how they ‘’envision’’ their city for the next twenty years, but, these steps, though well-intentioned seem inconsequential in the challenge of urban planning as we see in Delhi. As concurred by the assessment report, none of the Delhiites surveyed knew of the master plan process, none had visited the DDA website – leave alone filling up the google form in English, a language that only a minute section of the city and its elites speak.

Way forward

Public engagement in the process of making the plan is critical in ensuring that plans are taken seriously and implemented with people’s participation. The global south examples, though from diverse socio-cultural milieu offer many interesting lessons for us to learn and borrow from. The creation of urban policies in Brazil and other Latin American countries in the last thirty years is one of the best examples of the efforts of citizens to make city planning democratic and transparent addressing the social inequalities. The City Statute of Brazil brings to fore the importance of ‘social function’ of planning and need for ‘a path to plan, produce, operate and govern cities subject to social control and participation’. In another context, in our south-east Asian neighbour Singapore, public engagement is becoming a norm in the planning and redevelopment process. In 2001 for the Concept Plan — the first time the public had been involved at the concept planning stage.
To make people co-creators in this process, in the immediate for Delhi, DDA needs to lead the way to conduct awareness workshops on MPD41 at zonal and councillor ward level as a governance unit and help prepare people for the ‘feedback and suggestion’ phase. These units must also then be transferred forward as Local Area Plans that are not twenty-year plans but smaller locality plans that are implemented by active community and people’s collectives for smaller durations of five years. Whilst ensuring democratic participation in the implementation, social inclusion considerations for marginal populations must not be left for later – all the groups such as informal sector workers, homeless, people with disabilities, women, trans people, children, youth, and elderly must be identified first and their spatial needs recognised. Master plan documents need to be more accessible, and available. These should be exhibited in locally available walk-in zonal centres where citizens and youth engage with the process of city-making. The documents and maps produced must be available in local languages. The process need not be overly dependent on Information, and Communication Technology or else public participation will be limited to Twitter shares, and Facebook likes. At the policy level, nationally, we need a shift in policy perspective about the relationship between citizens and city planning policy, from one where citizens are the recipients (objects) of public policy to one where citizens are the focal point (subject) of the policy, with spaces of institutionalized engagement both in the preparation and in the implementation of plans at the city level. As the largest democracy, Indian cities need to set an example and convey that however messy and complicated, that Democratic Planning: By the People, for the People, of the People – is the mantra for us
to follow.