Selja advocates need to set up town-planning institutions

B D Narayankar

Press Trust of India

Mysore, Nov 17: Rueing that the urban local bodies
were being managed by "amateurs," Union Housing and Poverty
Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja today stressed the need for
setting up institutions imparting education in town planning
and urbanisation.
"There are no such institutions in India that impart
education addressing problems related to town planning and
urbanisation," she said addressing the India Urban Conference
2011 here.
Town planning institutions would churn out experts who
could address town-planning and urban-related problems
professionally, Selja said.
Urban local bodies were being managed by "amatuers" and
there was a need for professionals to take over to solve
burgeoning urban and town-planning problems, she said.
Selja also stressed the need for overhauling the property
tax system as she said the collections suggested many were
evading paying property tax.
The minister stressed the need for Centre-State cooperation
for making India slum-free. "The Central government wants to
make India slum-free through Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY). The
programme envisages Central support to States that are willing
to assign property rights to slum dwellers," she said.
Stressing the need to find ways to make cities more
inclusive, she said urbanisation of cities was creating a
wedge between the rich and the poor.
"There is a dire need to address the issues of faulty urban
land policy and urban planning models responsible for
mushrooming of slums," Selja said, adding current land
policies would need "drastic changes" to address the interests
of the urban poor.
The States need to re-look at the policies of making land
and living space available to the masses in cities, especially
the poor at a much faster rate than the pace of urban
population growth, Selja said.