The State capital of Odisha will celebrate its 70th Foundation Day today. It was on April 13, 1948 that first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had laid the foundation stone of the city.
The modern city of Bhubaneswar was designed by German architect/planner Dr Otto H Koenigsberger in 1948. Before that, the old Temple City of Bhubaneswar developed around the lingaraj Temple.
Initially, the city was designed for 40,000 people. The population of Bhubaneswar was only 16,512 and increased to 38,211 in 1961. The city registered population growth of about 131 per cent during the decade 1951-1961 owing to the shifting of the Capital city of the State from Cuttack to Bhubaneswar during the year 1954. The decadal growth was higher by 176.07 per cent in census year 1971. In subsequent decades, there has been a steady decline in its population which was reduced to 107.8 per cent in 1981, 87.74 per cent in 1991, 57.46 per cent in 2001 and 29.27 per cent in 2011. As per provisional reports of Census India, population of Bhubaneswar in 2011 is 8, 37,737.
Bhubaneswar is an urban agglomeration coming under category of Class I UAs/Towns. The total population of Bhubaneswar UA/Metropolitan region is 886,397.
In the city 62.96 per cent of households have access to tap water (from treated source) within premises. 86.53 per cent of households have access to electricity. 72.29 per cent of households having toilet facilities within premises. 68.95 per cent of households waste water outlet connected to drainage. The BMC area has 377 slums where 3.09 lakh people live in 60,126 slum households.
In 1951, the area of the city was 25.9 sqkm with population density of 638 per sq.km. In 2001, the area increased to 135 sqkm and the population density increased to 4,800 per sqkm. However, in 2011, the area remained the same with 135 sqkm while the population density increased to 6,205 per sqkm. During 60 years from 1951 to 2011, population increased 50 times whereas the area increased five times and the density increased 10 times. However, during the last 10 years, the the area remained the same, whereas population increased by 30 per cent and the density also increased equally by 30 per cent.
The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) prepared first Comprehensive Development Plan in 1994 and revised in 2010. Due to absence of comprehensive development plan, there was haphazard development with excessive pressure on infrastructure. Further, due to non-implementation of previous Comprehensive Development Plan of 1994, activities and functions with high economic potential have been poorly managed resulting in mixed land use instead of a systematic development in the Bhubaneswar Development Plan Area.
The current Comprehensive Development Plan targets share of land use for residential, commercial, industrial, institutional, water bodies, environmental sensitive zones and other utilities to be achieved by the year 2030. However, no Annual Action Plans in line with such targets have been prepared by the BDA for implementation of the respective Comprehensive Development Plans. Further, it is required to prepare the Zonal Development Plan for the purpose of development as well as the stages by which any such development would be carried out. In the CDP of Bhubaneswar, 14 zones were earmarked and the BDA entrusted preparation of ZDPs to the IIT, Kharagpur stipulating its completion by July 2012. The IIT, Kharagpur submitted the ZDPs for four zones and completed survey work for another three.
Besides, there are unauthorised development and construction in the master plan area of Bhubaneswar. Several such observations have been made by the CAG Audit Report of March 2012. There are violations of parking space in high rise buildings. In the approval of building, some plans have been done without provision of approach road and also there are violations of maximum prescribed FAR values which adversely impact city and zonal development. Higher the FAR values permitted to be built, higher is the pressure on land for various infrastructure like water supply, sewerage system, solid waste disposal, road capacity, etc. Besides, there is lack of follow up action after issue of conditional approval for high rise building plans. The grant of conditional approval without adequate and effective inspection and follow up action led to constructions without the requisite NOCs from State/local authorities and without development of required infrastructure.
There are some residential houses used for commercial purposes in the city. 29 out of 51 houses allotted under 2001 -02 HIG Housing scheme at Jaydev Vihar were fully or partly used for commercial purposes. Audit also noticed that in eight cases, the basement/stilt floors approved for parking purpose were being used for residential as well as commercial uses such as show rooms.
The open spaces, parks, recreational areas are inadequate and not properly organised in the city. The city experienced a very rapid spatial as well as temporal unsustainable growth. The ecologically sensitive areas like the Bharatpur reserve forest and the Chandaka wildlife sanctuary have also been influenced to a great extent by this process of urban growth of Bhubaneswar and consequent changes in land use/ land cover pattern.
Due to rapid growth, the fringe areas have remained under threat of unplanned and unsustainable development practices. Now, time has come to review the spatial growth of the city so that the development takes place without ignoring the conservation and management strategies for the areas in urban fringe having ecological and environmental or any other form of conservation values. The BDPA is prone to natural disasters like cyclones, earthquakes and urban flooding. It is necessary to reduce the consequences of natural disasters by planning, preventing and preparing community development plan. Besides, the green belts/plantation is to be planned to cater the environmental functions including microclimate control, pollution control and improvement of the city environment.
Planning is a continuous process involving not only plan preparation but also plan implementation. The city needs to be developed in a controlled manner with proper Zonal Development Plan. During zonal development plan, details such as encroachments of Government land, traffic congestions and residential needs of the zone should be considered. Besides, the success of land Use Plan lies in its execution. Care needs to be taken for the preparation and implementation of the Zonal Development Plan to prevent haphazard growth and squatter settlements. This will help in managing urban growth and ensure planned development of the city.
(Dr Praharaj teaches in Department of Architecture, College of Engineering and Technology, Bhubaneswar)