To build Delhi’s future, learn from past missteps

Why in the News

Delhi’s fourth Master Plan was notified last week, with an emphasis on expanding public transport, ecological restoration, redevelopment, affordable housing and mixed land use. It follows the third Master Plan, which came into effect about 25 years ago when the city’s population was about 14 million, Gurugram and Noida were fledgling suburbs, the first lines of the Metro network were being laid, and a compressed natural gas policy for public transport had been introduced as a pollution-control measure. Another 10 million people have made the capital their home since then, and the air quality improvement of the 2000s and early 2010s has given way to an almost intractable pollution crisis. The third plan’s vision of a more sustainable city was defeated by municipal inertia and a lack of alignment among civic agencies, the Centre and the Delhi government. The contest is whether the fourth plan’s content can survive the same fragmented authority that defeated the third.

What is the Delhi Master Plan?

1. What it is: A Master Plan is a statutory long-range land use document that fixes how land in a planning area may be used, at what density, and with what infrastructure provision.
2. Statutory basis: The Delhi Development Authority prepares and the Central Government approves it under the Delhi Development Act, 1957, which makes departure from the notified land use unlawful.
3. Cycle: Each plan runs for a perspective period of roughly two decades, and the plan notified last week is the fourth in the series.

What has changed in Delhi since the third Master Plan?

1. Population then: The city’s population was about 14 million when the third Master Plan came into effect about 25 years ago.
2. Population added since: Another 10 million people have made the capital their home in the intervening period.
3. Satellite cities were still small: Gurugram and Noida were fledgling suburbs at that point and are now full cities in their own right.
4. The Metro did not yet exist: The first lines of the capital’s Metro network were being laid when the third plan took effect.
5. The pollution response of that era: A compressed natural gas policy for public transport had just been introduced as a pollution-control measure.
6. Two outcomes since: Civic infrastructure in the neighbouring cities has come under acute stress, and the air quality improvement Delhi experienced for much of the 2000s and early 2010s has given way to an almost intractable pollution crisis.

What does the fourth Master Plan propose?

1. Five stated emphases: The plan is built around expanding public transport, ecological restoration, redevelopment of built-up areas, affordable housing and mixed land use, which reverses the outward expansion the earlier plans assumed.
2. A large housing target: It carries an ambition of roughly 40 lakh additional homes by 2047 at affordable rates, to be met on land already inside the city rather than through fresh acquisition at the periphery.
3. Higher permitted densities: Development norms are made more flexible so an existing plot can carry more floor space, which is the mechanism by which the housing target is to be delivered without new land.
4. An end to rigid zoning: The plan records the futility of rigidly demarcating residential and commercial areas, since mixed use shortens the average work trip and lightens the load on the road network.
5. Water bodies get attention: Restoration of the city’s water bodies and the nurturing of green spaces enter the plan as a standing planning obligation rather than as a separate departmental programme.
6. The claimed payoff: Implemented as written, these measures ease the city’s longstanding traffic congestion and improve its air quality.

Why can Delhi no longer grow by expanding outward?

1. Land inside the territory is finite: With limited land available within the National Capital Territory, outward expansion has reached its limit.
2. Existing land must work harder: Better utilisation of existing urban land therefore becomes more important than acquiring new land at the edge.
3. The periphery is already strained: The stress on the civic infrastructure of neighbouring cities shows that pushing growth outward transfers the problem rather than solving it.
4. Density and transport reinforce each other: Environment-friendly transport combined with mixed land use shortens trips, which is where the congestion and air quality gains come from.
5. Ecological health follows land use: Redevelopment paired with the nurturing of green spaces and the city’s water bodies is what connects the land use choice to the well-being of residents.

Why does fragmented civic authority defeat a good plan?

1. Two persistent governance deficits: Municipal inertia and a lack of alignment among civic agencies, the Centre and the Delhi government are the national capital’s most persistent governance problems.
2. They defeated the previous plan: These deficits were the biggest bottleneck in realising the previous Master Plan’s vision of a more sustainable city.
3. Twenty-five years of research say the same thing: Work on pollution, Yamuna restoration, waste management, urban flooding and transport development has pointed consistently to the need for concerted action among departments.
4. Metro expansion depends on four other agencies: A Metro line works best when bus routes, last-mile connectivity, parking rules and pedestrian facilities are designed around it, and each of those sits with a different authority.
5. Land use cannot be separated from drainage: Land-use planning and infrastructure development cannot be divorced from the requirements of curbing water logging.
6. Safety approvals need shared information: Building approvals, fire safety and emergency response require effective information-sharing among construction, fire and municipal authorities.
7. The failures are already visible: Repeated fire incidents, building collapses and the strain placed on the city’s infrastructure during heavy rainfall have exposed the risks of fragmented and overlapping responsibilities among agencies.

Challenges to the fourth Delhi Master Plan

1. Higher density without matching services: Raising permitted density on existing land increases the load on water, sewerage and power networks that are already at capacity. Eg. Under 27 per cent of urban homes in India are connected to sewer lines. Fix. Tie each density increase to a notified infrastructure augmentation plan for that zone before the higher norm takes effect.
2. Affordable housing targets have historically underdelivered: A large notified housing number does not by itself produce units at prices the intended buyers can pay. Eg. India carries an estimated shortage of about 1.87 crore urban housing units. Fix. Use in-situ redevelopment and rental stock alongside ownership housing, on the model of the Odisha JAGA Mission’s land titling.
3. Unauthorised construction outruns the plan: Land use notified on paper is routinely departed from where enforcement is weak, which converts the plan into a document rather than a constraint. Eg. Only about 30 per cent of India’s urban land is properly planned. Fix. Publish a public geographic information system layer of notified land use against surveyed construction, updated annually.
4. No single planning authority for the region: Delhi’s growth spills into Gurugram, Noida and Ghaziabad, which the National Capital Territory plan cannot bind. Eg. Congestion costs Delhi commuters 76 hours a year, much of it on inter-state commutes. Fix. Constitute and empower a Metropolitan Planning Committee under Article 243ZE with a statutory regional land use mandate.
5. Municipal finances cannot fund the plan: Ecological restoration, drainage and transit feeders require sustained capital that city governments do not raise. Eg. Indian cities raise under 0.6 per cent of Gross Domestic Product in their own revenue, of which property tax is only 0.15 per cent. Fix. Modernise property tax assessment and issue municipal bonds against ring-fenced user charge revenue.

Conclusion

Delhi’s fourth Master Plan is a credible blueprint, and its emphasis on compact growth, mixed land use, public transport and ecological restoration addresses the failures of the last 25 years. Its content is not the binding constraint. The fragmentation of civic authority that defeated its predecessor, examined above, is left untouched by it. Delhi has a blueprint for improving liveability, and what it needs is to learn from past failures.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2019, GS1, 15 marks] How is efficient and affordable urban mass transport key to the rapid economic development of India?”