The Centre’s plan for a hundred smart cities is laudable, because the challenges of urbanisation call for the execution of the idea. But, alongside, regulators and urban planners have to change their mindsets, writes Sunil Mantri
One visionary feature of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s powerful and inspiring efforts to ignite a national resurgence towards all-round development is undoubtedly his path-breaking plan to transform the urban landscape of the country through hundred smart cities.
Rapid urbanisation is vital for the future development of the country. Within the next 15 years, India’s urban population will cross 600 million. Our existing towns and cities, bursting at the seams with crumbling infrastructure and services stretched to the limits, will be unable to cope with fresh influx of migrants in search of shelter and livelihood leading to further makeshift human habitation.
This is the appalling scenario of urban decay that the next generation will inherit, unless we take immediate action to avert the future shock, by creating many more cities, integrated township projects and sustainable people-friendly urban habitation.
A major benefit of such developmental activity is that it will have a multiplier effect on the economy as a whole. The real estate development and construction industry contributes as much as 5.9 per cent to the country’s GDP by generating jobs across the spectrum of highly skilled, skilled and unskilled professions and creates demand for steel, cement and a variety of manufactured products.
From a national perspective, therefore, the Prime Minister’s grand vision of rapid urban development will have the immediate impact of reviving the economy across the board. The challenge now lies in executing the idea at the ground level and transforming the Prime Minister’s dream into concrete reality. The truth is that all is not well in the urban development sector. Many a far-sighted integrated township development project has fallen prey to bureaucratic roadblocks, archaic rules and regulations and the inability to distinguish between fly-by-night builders and genuine real estate developers of mega-township projects.
A persistent misconception prevails in the minds of public sector urban development bodies and officials regarding the ground realities prevailing in the sector. Unfortunately, even quasi-judicial authorities like the regulators have of late been exhibiting a disinclination to acquaint themselves with the intricacies of the real estate integrated township development business and the role being played by big and reputed developers with the proven track record of having successfully created thriving integrated townships and even cities.
A crucial area in which official myopia leads to serious losses and grave injustice relates to the procurement of land, which is the basic and essential raw material in the real estate development industry.
Recently, a front-ranking company recognised internationally as a pioneer in the field of real estate development in India, has been harshly penalised by the regulator for a perceived infringement of generic rules that may be applicable to other industries but are wholly incompatible with the business practices of a large scale integrated township development industry.
The company’s promoters, incidentally, have been recipients of some of the country’s highest civilian awards and honours and credited with having played a catalytic role in ushering in the era of business process outsourcing in India, and creating what is indisputably India’s first hugely successful integrated township, now being planned to be converted into a smart city.
This is the city of Gurgaon, an integrated township covering almost 4,000 acres, which was procured entirely through the ‘willing buyer and willing sellers’ approach. Today, four decades after it was born, Gurgaon is a thriving metropolis with a population of over 1.5 million (as per 2011 Census figures), that contributes 71 per cent of the total exports of the State of Haryana and 50 per cent of Haryana’s contribution of direct taxes to the Union Government. The irony is that the promoters of the company which brought Gurgaon into being, have now run afoul of a regulatory authority that is blissfully unaware of the modus operandi of how land is assembled to build mega cities of the future.
Unlike in the case of small plots for individual buildings or housing colonies, mega integrated township projects require very large stretches of compact and contiguous land, running into thousands of acres. Only visionary developers, with the courage and capability to take huge risks can venture to procure such vast tracts of land. Due to the small and fragmented land-holdings pattern prevailing in the chosen location, there are myriad numbers of individual plot owners. The process of negotiating with each land-holders has to be conducted through a series of intermediaries and never directly.
Given the complex challenges and ground realities prevailing in India, replete with archaic land laws and numerous impediments to procurement of huge parcels of compact land, amounting to nothing less than a couple of thousand acres, it calls for a Herculean effort that can only be undertaken by developers of proven experience with a deep understanding of the intricacies of the business of mega real estate township developments.
Any direct approach by a well-known developer causes a sudden upsurge in prices which invariably will threaten the financial viability of the entire project. The Prime Minister’s mission to make a hundred new integrated smart cities and townships is not only eminently feasible but also a vital necessity. But to be successful and cater to future generations, there has to be a conscious and clean break from past approaches. For that to happen, there has to be a drastic change of mindsets at all levels of policymaking — bureaucratic, political, judicial, and in the media and the public at large.