CDP-II: Does it display vision of city development?

 

By Kartik Lokhande 

Vision is a dream with deadline. It also implies that unless there is well-directed action, no dream can assume the status of a vision. When it comes to city development planning, one has to think along this line. Else, whatever has been done, or is being done, becomes nothing but a fraud on city’s development and future generations.
As far as Nagpur city is concerned, ‘inadequacies’ and ‘weaknesses’ became features of City Development Plan (CDP)-I and city-level reform agenda. Smart and well-intentioned planners take a leaf out of such experience, and make the course correction to ensure a better future. In the context of city development planning, this action can be described as ‘urban correction’. To tread this path and revise response to various issues, one has to develop a vision. That vision evolves on the basis of experience so far, identification of issues and areas of response, and elaborate thinking as well as explanation of comprehensive expressions used in ‘Vision Statement’.
In case of Nagpur city, Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has formulated its ‘Vision fo the City’. It is available on NMC’s website. It states, “As a result of workshops and numerous consultations with NMC officials and stakeholders in Nagpur, the vision for Nagpur is emerging as follows: The growth nucleus of Central India; an eco city that provides adequate, equitable, sustainable access to urban services for all citizens; a city that is safe, livable and promotes growth of its citizens.” However, it also adds that this is “Nagpur city’s vision statement in the City Development Plan (CDP).”
Here, it becomes amply clear that the civic leadership and administrators have not understood, or are not willing to understand, the importance of the concept of ‘vision’. It surprises one as to how could they ignore what has been stated in the toolkit for Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The toolkit has a separate chapter on ‘City Vision, Development Goals and Strategies’. In the chapter, it is mentioned clearly, “While the ‘Vision Statements’ are typically encapsulated in a few comprehensive sentences, the articulation of the vision in itself can be more elaborate.” It points out the distinction between a ‘Vision Statement’ and a ‘Vision’. But, in NMC authorities’ understanding both appear to be the same. With such a mess in thinking, one cannot expect CDP-II to evolve in a manner as to do justice to the aspirations of the citizens divided into various stakeholder groups.
Then, how to formulate ‘Vision’ for city’s development? JNNURM toolkit provides the answer. It has specified seven steps for vision formulation -- review the SWOT (outcome of the city assessment), identify potential stakeholders, explain the SWOT to stakeholders in a workshop setting, let the stakeholders think through and answer some questions, collect and group similar ideas to develop sectoral visions, develop draft ‘City Vision’, and finalise the ‘City Vision’ and get it approved by potential stakeholders.
The questions that the stakeholders are supposed to answer in workshop, also have been specified. These questions are: What would you like the future of the city to be? What are the most important attributes of the desired future (employment, infrastructure, poverty reduction, etc)? What is different about your vision of the future from what you see today? Which are the elements of the SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) that you think must absolutely be retained, or must be improved/changed?
As far as CDP-II is concerned, the process for preparing it has commenced already. Many do not know of it yet, as it has not been publicised widely as was expected under JNNURM guidelines. Still, as per the document of consultant Crisil Risk and Infrastructure Solutions Limited (CRIS), a ‘kick-off meeting’ for preparing revised CDP or CDP-II was conducted on September 2, 2013 and an inception report was submitted to Ministry of Urban Development and NMC on September 30, 2013. Besides, it goes on mentioning that CRIS ‘has carried out focused consultations with select stakeholders of the city’. Besides, CRIS document claims that it has ‘completed’ city-level assessment and SWOT analysis.
On that basis, CRIS arranged for the first city-level workshop on revised CDP in December 2013. The stated agenda of the workshop was ‘to provide city-level assessment key findings and issues, and further to discuss on vision for the city’. During that workshop, about which only a few stakeholders were aware, the consultant made presentation on general profile and demography of the city, population projections till the year 2041, sewerage and sanitation, solid waste management, water supply, traffic and transportation, municipal finance, etc. Most of the ‘findings’ were based on data provided by agencies concerned. Then, there was a brief review of ‘First generation CDP’.
More interestingly, in the said workshop, CRIS aimed at conducting a ‘Visioning Exercise -- Group Discussion and Strategy Formulation’. It asked the groups to take up certain exercises: Identify the key issues for the assigned sector, key suggestions for the assigned sector, tentative project if any, time-frame for implementation wherever possible. And, surprisingly, the agency gave a time of ‘20 minutes’ for discussion and ‘10 minutes’ for each group leader to present views.
Understandably, this irked Mayor Prof Anil Sole, Municipal Commissioner Shyam Wardhane, and some of the stakeholders present there. For, in the said ‘visioning exercise’, the agency had itself assigned the sectors and was just interested in tentative projects and suggestive time-frame for implementation ‘wherever possible’. No sane person would agree that a span of 30 minutes is adequate for formulation of a vision or strategy for a city as big as Nagpur with a population of over 25 lakh!
If efforts are being made to formulate ‘vision’ for the city in such a casual manner with touch-and-go approach, how could the Nagpurians tolerate it? The first and foremost task in formulation of vision for a city, as prescribed in JNNURM toolkit, is review of SWOT or outcome of city assessment. On NMC’s website www.nmcnagpur.gov.in, the SWOT analysis or outcome of city assessment has not been made available. Neither the consultant agency nor the NMC authorities has shown enough interest in reaching out to people with SWOT analysis. The only thing available on NMC’s website under the head ‘New City Development Plan’ is a proforma titled ‘Stakeholder suggestions for preparation of revised CDP for Nagpur city’.
This hints at efforts of some to ‘impose’ upon the city of over 25 lakh, a vision of a few. If the city development is planned on the basis of an ‘imposed vision’, CDP-II will not compensate for the failings of CDP-I.
How can one expect people to give suggestions for revised CDP if they are not informed about outcome of the CDP-I? This is just one instance of how the procedure laid down in JNNURM toolkit has not been followed. But, there are other instances too...

(Tomorrow, how laid-down procedures/steps have been by-passed)

People’s Paper, People’s Vision

The report ‘CDP-II: Will it compensate for CDP-I’s failings?’ published in the CityLine issue dated February 26, evoked several welcome reactions from the people of Nagpur. ‘The Hitavada’ received many congratulatory phone calls.

Being the People’s Paper, ‘The Hitavada’ has been highlighting various issues of larger interest to the city of Nagpur. On a wider canvas, the newspaper has been campaigning for ‘urban correction’ to press for better planning of development in cities. While highlighting the case of preparation of CDP-II for Nagpur city, it is the effort of ‘The Hitavada’ to educate, inform, awaken, and prepare the people of Nagpur to participate in the process of formulation of vision and CDP for their own city. ‘The Hitavada’ wants people to become stakeholders in city development, in true sense.

-- Editor 

Published in The Hitavada CityLine on February 27, 2014