TN short of 600 town planners: report

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Town planners in the state has urged the Tamil Nadu government to reform state town planning departments and said the state needs 600 planners to meet both government and private sector needs.

A report, prepared by Institute of Town Planners India – Chennai Chapter and submitted to the state government, said that the state requires about 600 planners to meet both government and private sectors’ needs that is one planner for every 100,000 population.

Interestingly, the global trend is one planner per 5,000 urban residents.

The report said Chennai Metropolitan Development Area (CMDA) would need 100 planners, whereas, it has employed just 40 which is only 40 per cent of its actual requirement. Surprisingly, there are only nine Town Planners for the rest of towns or cities in Tamil Nadu.

Interestingly, Tamil Nadu is the most urbanised state in India with 44 per cent urban population and 16 per cent of the population live in Chennai Metropolitan Area and generate 26 per cent of State revenue, the report said.

“Town Planning has been practiced in Tamil Nadu since 1920, whereas, there is lack of qualified Town Planners in Town and Country Planning Department (DTCP), CMDA, Corporations, Municipalities and other local governments in Tamil Nadu which leads to slack in the appropriate development of infrastructure and other civic amenities due to the engineering approach in Town planning, Urban development and Infrastructure provisions without long-term planning visions,” the report added.

“Out of 70 Town Planners posts in DTCP, 47 are filled up. Out of them, 44 are not qualified. One post of additional director, five posts of joint directors, 13 posts of deputy directors and four posts of assistant directors totaling to 23 are vacant,” the report stated.

“Similarly, in CMDA against 84 sanctioned town  planners posts, 27 posts are kept vacant. Among the serving  personnel of 72, thirty two are unqualified,” the report added.

The report also stated that CMDA is not implementing the recommendations of The National Building Code of India 2005 regarding organisation and enforcement, permit and inspection. “CMDA refuses to permit registration of Town Planners as professionals to approve proposals as per NBC 2005 and practice as ‘Licensed Town Planners’,” the report added.