FACTORS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE OF DEVELOPMENT PLANS IN INDIA

A.K. VINODIAFaculty, Department of Architecture, MITS, Gwalior

Y. P. SINGHDirector, Department of Architecture, MITS, Gwalior

ABSTRACT

After independence, city planning experienced tremendous changes in its approach due to need for resettlement of displacedpersons as a consequence of political changes. Several resettlement colonies were added in the existing cities and many new townswith industrial base were developed. Town and country planning laws were enacted by various states and master plans of manytowns were prepared. Plans of some urban centers are currently in different stages of preparation or approval. Implementation ofthese plans, however, has greatly been poor and they have been criticized to be rigid and static having little regard to investmentplanning efforts and taking very long time in the process of plan formulation and approval. There is a general conclusion that land useplans are needed to guide development of urban centers but it should not only remain an instrument of control but a tool to promotingan orderly development. This paper focuses on the performance of Gwalior Master Plan by analyzing the factors contributing to itspoor performance and suggesting appropriate measures for its future success.

1. INTRODUCTION

Developments plans are one of the major planninginstruments for framing and implementing theplanning policies. Most of the Development Plansare statutory documents and have the force oflaw. However, many times planning policies fail toachieve intended consequences. This paperexamines the reasons for these failings. It is shownthat there are internal as well as external reasonsfor lower performance of the master plans. Thispaper focuses on the performance of GwaliorMaster Plan by analyzing the factors contributingto its poor performance and suggestingappropriate measures for its future success.

2. FACTORS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE

OF DEVELOPMENT PLANS

2.1 External Problems

Weaknesses in the Planning Legislation: Ithas been found that there are inconsistencies andinadequacies in the urban legal framework ofvarious acts related to urban development. Theplan performance and success is directly affectedby these acts. There are several examples andincidences which reflect the weakness and porosityof the acts. Basic lacuna of the urban planningframework is that it suffers from a centralizedadministrative structure and characterized bypolarized emphasis on sector wise economicplanning at the national level and physical planningat the urban settlement level. At no stage of the

multilevel planning spectrum comprising thenation, state, district and settlement, an attemptis made to translate sectoral objectives in spatialterms. The result is that national economicplanning lacks spatial dimensions and settlementlevel planning is done in a piece-meal mannerwithout any spatial economic policy frameworkat the regional (district / state) level. Likewise,though in reality urban and rural areas have closefunctional linkages with each other the institutionalset up for planning and policy formulation is suchthat urban and rural areas are treated as separateentities.

Government Policies: Master Plan is a ring inthe chain of national development process. It hasstrong links with local government to state plansand finally national plans. Changing nature ofgovernment policies and priorities always createan ambiguous scenario of development andmostly resulted into incompletion of projects.There is no special budgetary allocation for themaster plan proposals. The initiation of theprojects depends upon the efficiency of the relateddepartment to prepare detailed project report forbudgetary allocation.

Public Participation: The continued neglect ofmunicipal bodies and emphasis on the role ofspecial purpose agencies has thus resulted in atechnocratic and bureaucratic approach to urbandevelopment and has tended to insulate urban

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Fig. 1 Model for Evalution of Plan Performance

planning from local popular will. Devoid of people’sinvolvement, urban development agencies oftenpursue objectives that are at variance withpeoples’ aspirations.

Lack of Information: Preparation of master planrequires detailed information regarding thedevelopment activities done so far. But most ofthe agencies including Town and Country PlanningDepartment does not have updated information.There is complete absence of centralizedinformation system. So at any point of time itbecomes very difficult to review the planperformance to assess the direction of city’sgrowth. This is one of the major reasons forabsence of interim review.

Weak Financial Base of Local Governments:Another weakness of the local governmentinstitutions in India is that they have been outside

the statutory devolution or funds and are whollydependent on the state government’s supportfor their activities. Finance always acts as key factorfor carrying out works. It has been observed thatmost of the proposals have failed due to lack ofavailability of adequate finance. Changing natureof government policies and priorities are one ofthe reasons for diverting the funds from oneproject to another which leads to incompletion ofprojects.

Community welfare projects which do not havedirect or short term gain are usually affectedbecause most of the implementing agencies likedevelopment authorities and housing boards areautonomous institutions, which only undertakefinancially viable projects.

Failure of Urban Governance: The salient issuesin urban governance which have been identifiedare:

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• Decentralization below the municipal level tothe wards and mohallas has not yet been fullyachieved;

• The link between urban management anddecentralization on the one hand, and thedistrict planning and governance on the otherhas not been established in operational terms;

• Co-ordination and rationalization of inter-institutional relationship has to be effected forbetter results between the municipalauthorities and the urban developmentauthorities, town and country planningdepartment, -housing board, pollution controlboard, public health engineering department,etc;

• There are inconsistencies and inadequacies inthe urban legal framework municipal laws,town and country planning law, districtplanning, etc;

• The powers, functions and authority given tothe mayors, mayor-in-council and the localbodies as a whole are not adequately defined;

• Planning capacity, human resourcedevelopment, financial management is notdeveloped as a result of which these areoperating inefficiently;

• There is a pronounced lack of role of the civilsociety and the urban poor in formulation andimplementation of civic plans;

• Overall there is a lack of accountability andtransparency;

• The cities are not yet fully equipped to takeup physical planning functions;

• Given the lack of experience in formulatingand implementing poverty alleviationprogrammes, the central / state programmesin this respect suffer from lack of data,convergence, and quality of work andcommunity participation;

• Modernization and upgrading of systems andprocedures in city management throughequipment, skill-enhancement and application,and updating manuals and codes have notbeen carried out to meet the current andemerging challenges;

• Functional reorganization of and delegation ofpowers to the departments in the cities arenecessary to enable them to perform better;and

• Basic element of improved financialmanagement has to be initiated.

Multiplicity of Authorities: The host of agenciesthat were created to deal with specific componentsof urban development resulted in multiplicity ofauthorities. This phenomenon exacerbated theproblems relating to urban development andmanagement. The division of responsibilitiesamongst the agencies was not clearly defined anda number of issues relating to overlapping areasof interest cropped up. There is no single authorityto look into totality of services and functions of acommunity. The agencies whose functionalresponsibilities overlap after work at cross-purposes with each other. This lack of co-ordinationamongst agencies results in considerable wastageof resources and delay in execution of projects.

Intra and Inter Agency Coordination: As perthe present structure, all information, importantor insignificant, relevant or irrelevant and useableor unusable, flows from the top in a pyramidalfashion to the Municipal Commissioner. Since thereis no proper MIS, useful information is often lost inthe overload of all kinds of other information, muchto the detriment of the quality and timeliness ofpolicy decision. At present, together with thecorporations, there are state agencies alsooperating in the same urban space, independentlyof the ULB. There are the urban developmentauthorities, state housing boards and the townand country planning departments, etc. Similarlythere are central government agencies. Theactivities of all these agencies have impact on thesame or the peripheral urban space, which affecttheir spatial pattern and future growth direction.The Corporations only have an operationalrelationship with these agencies with no controlor influence over the outcomes of their activities.The eventual responsibility for civic servicesultimately devolves to the city authority.

2.2 Internal Problems

Plan Process: Development plan preparationprocess usually lacks in many areas: lack of

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commitment in government policies, intensivesurveys, regional approach and publicparticipation, Absence of zonal or detailed plans,phasing and prioritization, Identification of sourceof fund, distribution of works among variousimplementing agencies, accountability andcomplete absence of feedback mechanism andinterim review

Problem Assessment and Proposals: Masterplans are prepared with the objective of sustainingorderly growth of the city along with solving theexisting problems and assessment of futureproblems and prospects. The failure of problemassessment leads to the failure of master plan itself.Many development plans has failed to addresssome of key issues of their jurisdiction. This canbe categorized under following sub-heads:

• Problem usually not addressed: ignorancetowards Environmental aspects & energyplanning;

• Problems addressed but not emphasized: i.e.social aspects, conservation, urban design,etc;

• Contradictory proposals: Sometimes planproposals stands against each other; and

• Over ambitious proposals: Inclusion of suchprojects which may not be executed withinplan period due to less priority, publicopposition, funding, scale, demand, etc.

Change of Land Use: Master plan is a flexibledocument it has provision of changes in land usein the course of development. For this, directorof town and country planning has beenauthorized by the Act. But for permitting anychange director must have to prepare an interimdraft plan to analyze the possible impact ofproposed use on the existing area and also onthe over all directional growth of the city. If it seemsto be recommendable, than further process ofinviting objections and suggestions are carried out.And finally it is required to publish modified plan.

Failure of Projection: Master plans are basedon the future projections. All the area undervarious uses is provided as per the futuredemands which are derived from the populationprojection. In case of Gwalior Development Plan -

2005 was made its proposals assuming theprojected population of 12.5 lacs up to 2005 andit was estimated that population may reachedupto 10.5 lacs up to year 2001. But it fails in thepopulation projection, as per the census 2001Gwalior urban area experienced the population of9.8 lacs with lowest growth rate and it is supposedto be reached around 10.5 lacs up to year 2005.While in some cases actual population was higherthan the projections i.e. Jaipur, Bangalore, Indore,etc.

Lack of Skilled Manpower: Most of thegovernment organizations related to planning anddevelopment has shortage of staff which resultsdelay in work. There is tremendous shortage ofskilled manpower to carrying out the taskefficiently. Refreshers training for advancedknowledge are almost absent.

Lack of Modernization: This is observed thatmost the department related to planning andexecution has poor physical appearance and un-organized working atmosphere. Skill knowledgeand efficiency of staff are not keeping pace withthe growing advancement in this field. Use ofadvanced technologies like GIS and computerizedworking has not been initiated in most of thedepartments. Town and Country PlanningDepartment has only one computer used onlyfor daily correspondence. Draftsman’s are still stickwith the drawing boards only, their knowledgeabout computer application is not appreciable.

3. MEASURES FOR IMPROVING PLAN

PERFORMANCE

• There is need for removing inherentinadequacies and ambiguities in the Acts whichoften lead to different interpretations and todelays in developmental activities. Thepurpose of the analysis must be to bring aboutmodifications in the acts which would impartfacilitative qualities to the legislations andminimize those provisions that merely control,prohibit and restrict urban development;

• The roles of various agencies concerned inthe development management of the cityshould be clearly defined. Various related Actsshould be altered / amended to make the roles/ functions of nagar nigam, development

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authorities, housing board, Town and CountryPlanning Department, etc; clear. This wouldensure that there is no overlapping of roles,functions and also that no important functionsare missed out. After the duties andresponsibilities of agencies are defined it shouldbe seen that there is co-ordination betweenthem;

• A Monitoring Committee at local level shouldbe established which would do the necessarymonitoring for Development Planimplementation within the stipulated timeframe, co-ordinating among variousorganizations and review the works done;

• Land is the most critical component for anydevelopment work. The sluggishnessexperienced in terms of implementation of planproposals is attributed to lack of landacquisition and absence of financial resources.Hence, land management poses a greatchallenge to urban planners. Innovativetechniques should be thought off to procureland in such a way which would be beneficialto the authority as well as owner. Few suchtechniques are listed below:

- Land Pooling Technique

- Public Participation;

- Negotiated Land Purchase;

- Transfer Development Rights; and

- Purchasable Development Rights

• The availability of resources especially from thebudgetary sources is limited and the demandfor investment on projects is very high, it hasbecome essential to tap land as a majorresource. For funding such projects some ofthe models / examples in different forms beingused presently for various types of urbandevelopment projects are described asfollows:

• Use of FAR for raising fund for development

- Land banks;

- Land sharing;

- Recycling of land for shifting of industries;

- Levy of vacant land tax;

- Development charges;

- Fee for change of land use;

- Creation of Urban infrastructuredevelopment fund; and

- Charges on provision of Access.

To develop realistic and effective urbandevelopment plans. To do this the following stepsare needed:

• Spatial development plans. (Perspective / fiveyears / Annual);

• Resource mobilization plan. (Sources of fund);

• Defined institutional mechanism forimplementation. (Accountability);

• A set of comprehensive and simplifieddevelopment management and promotionrules and regulations which can be easilyunderstood by the public; and (LegislativeGuidelines);

• A mechanism to involve the publicparticipation especially the poor, socialdisadvantaged groups, women, NGOs andCBOs in planning process;

• The plan formulation exercise must becompleted within a specified time period andthe time schedule for the plan preparation,public notification, and approval must bestatuary prescribed in the relevant act;

• The periodic review and revision of the planare very essential component of the planningprocess and mid-term review of the plansshould be under taken at regular intervals toimpart flexibility to the planning process andnecessary statuary provisions to be made inthe relevant act in this regard;

• Application of the concepts of land swaps, landpooling, town planning (TP) Schemes,accommodation reservation transfer ofdevelopment rights, etc; which are innovativeplan implementation techniques, should beexplored and relevant act may be amendedto accommodate such practices;

• Latest techniques and tools like remotesensing aerial photography, geographicinformation system (GIS) and other must beutilized for the preparation of development

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plan and continuous updating the growthpattern.

• Greater transparency should be developed inthe interest of public awareness andcoordination; and

• Appropriate management information system(MIS) and data base should be developed byState and Central Government to assistplanners in developing realistic plans andprogrammes.

The implementation should be given utmost

importance by the planners and decision makers.

Once the action plan is prepared several steps were

required to ensure that the plan implementation

will achieve their intended objectives. The plan

implementation should be examined under the

heads given in Fig. 2.

• Organizational System: This should be well

established with defined responsibilities and

Fig. 2 Framework for Plan Implementation

functions. Proper committee should be

formed for inter-sectoral coordination, and

responsibility and accountability should be

earmarked. The field officers and staffs should

be clearly identified and necessary training

should be given for required job. The system

of reward and intensives can be applied In

order to motivate the field efficiency. Lack of

infrastructure in many offices is a serious bottle

neck. There is need to create basic

infrastructure for carrying out efficient working

atmosphere;

• Phasing of Plan: Most of the developmentactivities failed due to the shortage ofresources like money, manpower andmachines, it is prudent that plan should bephase out over a period of time with well-defined activities to be taken during thespecified time limit;

• Scheduling and Specifying: After phasingthe plan, a time table of events for a particularphase should be designed scheme wise undereach sector. This may be in form of bar chart,and each bar may be broken into pre-projects,implementation and operational phase;

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• Clarifying Authority, Responsibility and

Relationships: After scheduling, variousactivities, authorities and responsibilities of theconcern department should be adequatelydefined. Together with these, the inter-sectoralrelationships should be categorically indicated;

• Manpower and Logistic Support: For eachscheme, planning for placement of optimumnos. of persons should be done keeping inview the work load and nature of job. Needfor vehicles, plants etc. should be well-plannedso as to ensure their availability will be in thetime;

• Designing Resource Flow: The plan shouldinclude the resource flow line department,bank, people’s contribution and other sourcesso as to help in assessment of availability offund;

• People’s Participation: Once the linkagesare established to take up the work at ground,it becomes important to ensure link with thepeople. It may require formation ofbeneficiaries groups, and their registration andtraining to some of the key persons who willbe closely associated in the actualimplementation;

• Control System: This stage primarily aimsat designing and establishing a control systemso that management at different levels is notonly direct and control the project but alsotake corrective measures. Control systemshould look into specifying the suitableindicators, earmarking the responsibilities atthe appropriate level to monitor the indicatorto take necessary corrective measures;

• Management Information System: It is asystem that collects, store and process thedata and provides useful information forplanning, controlling and decision making. Theimportance of MIS is felt in the emergingcomplexity of development which requirescollection of large data, its analysis andtransmission of data in the form of information

at various levels of planning, implementation,monitoring, control and evaluation of

programme; and

• Planning for Smooth Termination of

Project: The termination of the projectnormally takes place when the required

activities are completed by the departments.But it is relevant and important in the light of

future maintenance and proper use bycommunity to realize its optimum utility. In

this context this becomes necessary toprovide useful training to people to look after

the project after its completion for itssustainable use.

4. CONCLUSIONS

It is highlighted that the growth potential and

special functions performed by urban area suchas marketing, industrial, tourism and institutional

need to be explicitly recognized. The planningexercise should aim at guiding the activities of

public agencies as well as private and the growinginformal sector while keeping the large interests

of the society in view. The above discussion clearlysuggests that the improvement in plan

performance is based upon various factors. Theplan can achieve great success only when all the

aspects related to plan preparation as well as itsimplementation is being adopted adequately and

urban development management system worksefficiently.

REFERENCES

Review of past master plan and performance evaluation ofplanning and development agencies, Gwalior. Publisheddissertation by A.K. Vinodia, MURP, IIT, Roorkee, 2005.

Gwalior Development Plan 1991 and 2005,

UDPFI Guidelines Volume I & II, Institute of Town PlannersIndia, New Delhi.

Changing role of planning agencies and local bodies: Implicationsfor good governance, Jamal H. Ansari, SDR, Vol. 8 No. 4 July-August 2001

Integrated district planning, Author: D.N. Gupta

R. Shankar, Ashutosh Joshi, A. K. Vinodia, “an appraisal ofperformance of planning and development efforts of Gwaliorcity”, (SDR), vol. 13 No. 03, May-June, 2006

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