Rains expose flaws in town planning

C Shivakumar



Chennai:

The rains have once again exposed that the extended areas of the city lack basic services as well as proper planning.



Residents in several areas like Velachery, Nerkundram, Ambattur, Villivakkam, Nazarethpet and several other places have to wade through water during the rains and in some places have to be dependent on private water tankers for

water.



The issue could be the failure to prepare detailed development plans for the extended areas by Chennai Metropolitan Development Area, a basic pre-requisite for implementing the Second Master Plan, resulting

in haphazard growth with realtors converting any available land into residential premises.



Surprisingly, Chennai Urban Agglomeration accounts for 25 per cent of state’s urban population but access to basic services is poor in several parts of the newly added areas of Chennai Corporation due to lack of proper planning.



Interestingly, seven years after the Second Master Plan came into being, CMDA has yet to review it. Even the detailed development plans of extended areas like Velachery, Ambattur, Nazarethpet and Perumbakam have yet to be prepared. The DDP was to be prepared with the objective of providing land uses as well as improvement of infrastructure in these areas.



While it is learnt that the DDP for Villivakkam is prepared, it is yet to get the official sanction. Surprisingly, some experts question the need to prepare the DDP for Viillivakkam now.



“The area has been already developed then why should there be a need to prepare a DDP,” says K P Subramaniam, a former professor of Urban engineering in Anna University.



However, the fault lies in the laziness on the part f CMDA

officials who have been focussing their energy on building approvals rather than on planning. This has delayed the detailed development plans.



It is learnt that the access to basic services is poor in several

parts of the newly added areas that constitute nearly 50 per cent of the population of the Chennai urban area.



According to figures available with Express, while the population of Chennai city grew by 11 per cent from 2001 to 2011, the urban areas of the city grew by 32.4 per cent while the extended areas in and around Chennai grew by 71 per cent.



A state planning commission report has stated that many of the urban areas including Chennai, extended areas beyond the core city are exhibiting faster growth and there is a need to prioritize planning, infrastructure provisioning, investments and capacity building efforts in keeping with this emerging urbanization pattern.



However, CMDA has yet to take any effort in this regard. Even the proposal to create Chennai Mega Region to regulate the developments for orderly growth has yet to get the official sanction. A blueprint was already prepared to extend Chennai Metropolitan Area to 8,878 square kilometer and this included the whole of Chennai, Thiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts and the Arakkonam Taluk of Vellore

district.



“We have already written to the government in this regard and are awaiting their permission,” said a CMDA source.



While the expansion of CMA may be pending, CMDA has yet to review the second master plan. Association of Professional Town Planners (APTP) president K M Sadanandh questions the failure of review and monitoring committees of CMDA to meet every three months. The second master plan has six committees. They include Committee on Economy & Employment, Committee on Shelter, Committee on Infrastructure, Committee on Investment, Committee on Land Use and Environment and Committee on Traffic and Transport.



“The failure of preparing DDPs as well as failure to review Second Master Plan has put the entire planning process for Chennai under stake and on top of it we have Authority meeting, which is held without the representation of people’s representatives and tinkers with the land use plan of Second Master Plan,” says Sadanandh.



He says the officials are reclassifying the land without putting any thought on what will be the consequences. “Residential zones are converted into institutional areas, catchment areas are converted into residential areas. The whole planning process is in a flux. It is time either the High Court or the government intervenes to make it relevant,” said Sadanandh