New urbanisation policy to be finalised in two months

A fresh urbanisation policy pivoting on 10 principles that focus on designing cities around people and imbuing them with a local flavour is likely to be introduced in the near future, replacing a threedecade-old framework.

A draft of key ideas termed as ‘urban sutras’ for the National Urban Policy Framework 2018 states that cities should be built around clusters of “human capital” instead of treating them like mere agglomerations of land use – residential, commercial and industrial – as being done currently under master plans of various cities.

The document, reviewed by Hindustan Times, also stated that most urban cities are clones of each other and marked by “generic international models”. This results in Indian cities having a uniform “architectural form, unaffected by regional diversity, geographic, culture and history”, it added.

The new urban policy framework – likely to be finalised in the next two months – will be broadly based on the ten urban sutras, a senior government official familiar with the development said. The Centre has set up a committee headed by Sameer Sharma, additional secretary with the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, to draft the policy. Other members of the committee include Sanjiv Sanyal, principal economic advisor with the department of economic affairs, and UN-Habitat country representative Hitesh Vaidya.

The policy comes exactly three decades after the National Commission on Urbanisation, headed by planner Charles Correa, came up with a roadmap on tackling growth in small and mid-sized cities.