The delegations from various mountainous regions of the nation will attend the National Workshop on Mountain Cities-2014 to be organised at Mussoorie by the Indian Mountain Initiative (IMI) on January 19-20 with National Centre for Urban Management and lBS National Academy of Administration as co-hosts.
Important issues pertaining to the planning and development in mountain cities will be discussed in the workshop and the conclusions will be mainstreamed in the mountain cities of India.
According to the NTPC Chair, Centre for Public Policy, Doon University, RS Tolia, urbanisation in mountain States has historically developed as hill stations or pilgrimage locations.Most of these hill stations have a legacy of colonial planning and are still dependent on infrastructure created during those days.
Second wave of urban growth was driven by migration of villagers to nearby towns in search of education and employment which led to growth of few towns as education centres as well.
Majority of the mountains States in India were carved out of the bigger States as the development of these areas was a subject of negligence under the bigger entities.
Formation of new States also led to growth of urbanisation in the capital cities and district head quarters of
these States.
Despite the growth in urbanisation, there are only 20 one lakh plus population in those States and most of these are in the plains/terai part of the States.
As this urbanisation has been a result of growth of small towns which have grown into nearby rural habitations, it has been plagued by lack of master planning, unplanned development of housing, no plans for urban transport and basic necessities, population growth out pacing development of physical infrastructure, disaster prone development near hazardous areas, lack of resources and capacity in urban local bodies and delays due to centralised planning/implementation.
The national urban planning landscape also is dominated by the topography of plains which has led to super imposing ill fitted solutions on these cities. When these small states seek solutions on their own, the market has never perceived them as sizeable opportunity to design unique and economical solutions.
There are pockets of improvements but impact of these is either limited to a small area or soon outstripped by the demand due to lack of future proofing at the planning stage.
The national workshop aims to bring out specific suggestions to influence the National and State Urban Development Programs for a visible change in the provision of urban amenities in the mountain States with an objective to create discourse on sustainable habitats in the mountain States.
The outcomes of this workshop are proposed to be mainstreamed into the 11 mountain States and national urban development, disaster management and environmental and climate change discourses, policies and programmes.