Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
On the need to enhance urban resilience
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What prompted you to write this book?
After spending almost half a decade understanding and discussing the travails of rural India, the idea of writing a dense tome on how Indians live in urban India was a tall order. And yet, as I interacted with thousands of Indians living in our cities and recovering from the pandemic, it became evident that life in our cities was challenging. Policymakers in their ivory towers have seemingly lost connection with the daily grind that our urban citizens face, and are unaware of how our cities are becoming unliveable and expensive. Beyond this, as we re-emerge to take our rightful place on the world stage, why do our cities look so unmoored from our civilizational heritage? We need a national conversation around such topics.
In the book, you stress the need to “rethink” how cities should be managed. What are the key issues that need immediate attention?
Every year, some of Mumbai’s priciest real estate sinks under the deluge of monsoonal rain. A similar plight awaits Gurugram in north India too. In particular, land use change, and the push for more infrastructure projects can have a grievous impact, with Bengaluru and Hyderabad seeing their local lakes vanishing, and Delhi seeing the Yamuna floodplain area encroached upon.
We need a different model of urbanisation – our current one seems to keep existing cities in squalor while seeking to expand their dysfunction to our villages in the name of urbanisation.
There are a few elements that can help make our cities more affordable in a transformative manner. Firstly, we need to pursue more economic integration within our cities. We need to fix transportation across urban centres. We need to radically shift our urban realty markets towards provisioning for affordable housing. We must move away from prioritising large cities – breaking them up into separate units if required, to improve governance.
Feroze Varun Gandhi’s new book is on the challenges that Indian cities face. Here, the author and BJP MP talks about the strategies to make metros more sustainable
A large percentage of people in cities continue to live in slums. What’s your take on providing affordable housing?
We need to accept that the role of the government in urban housing is that of being a facilitator as well as one involved in creating the housing stock. One must understand the true nature of our housing market – migration within India is fundamentally cyclical, with migrants moving from rural to urban spaces and back again, depending on seasonality. Our affordable housing initiatives have focused only on permanent migrants to urban areas while ignoring the millions who move with agricultural seasons. Our housing schemes need to cater to both segments. In particular, we need to focus on affordable rental housing. Slum creation is the consequence of a lack of provision for affordable rental housing; slums are created by government and market inaction. Our overall housing strategy needs to be sustainable, with a focus on efficient allocation and correcting market distortions.
Feroze Varun Gandhi 840pp ~1,500, Rupa
Urban flooding, water shortage, air pollution, etc are the new normal for Indian cities and even peri-urban areas. While measures are being taken by government agencies, do you think enough is being done?
Approximately 116,000 infants are likely to have been killed by air pollution in India in 2019, almost immediately after being born, with the deaths caused due to the entrance of PM 2.5 particles in their lungs. In addition, long-term exposure to outdoor and household air pollution can lead to ~1.67 million annual deaths in India. Having faced a pandemic that infects our lungs, it would be foolish for us to continue with an urban planning model that encourages air pollution, weakening our lungs and triggering other noncommunicable diseases (like strokes and cancers). Over the past few decades, India’s track record on climate adaption and mitigation, particularly with respect to urban planning, has been rather dismal – India’s cities are filled with concrete, which turns urban areas into heat sinks and increases costs and infrastructure requirements for cooling. Over time, India’s cities are increasingly losing green cover, and are increasingly hard spaces.
You mention that broadening MGNREGA to an urban locale is the “most natural extension”. Please elaborate.
The idea of an urban employment guarantee scheme is one whose time has come. Even the Supreme Court has weighed in on the debate, stating that the “right to life”, offered under Article 21 of the Constitution, is not simply one enabling individuals to exist but is also broad enough to offer a “right to livelihood” and a “right to dignity”. MGNREGA is arguably an implementation of the “right to livelihood” albeit in a rural context while offering a “Right to Work”. Broadening this to an urban locale is the most natural extension for the Indian state.
Won’t this burden the exchequer?
Given the advent of climate change, we need to enhance urban resilience – much of this will be work driven by municipal corporations (restoring wetlands, cleaning up streams etc) with the use of seasonal labourers. A push for an urban MGNREGA, with a focus on enhancing urban resilience, will help limit future losses to our cities.