The Indian Express | Panel submits report on changing urban development paradigm

Apr 05,2023

A high-powered committee formed in 2022 to look into ways to change the way urban development is looked at submitted its report to Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday.

“Met Sh Keshav Varma Ji, chairman of High Level Committee, to refine urban development for a paradigm change announced in Union Budget 2022-23 & Dr PSN Rao of School of Planning & Architecture in my office. They presented me with a copy of the High Level Committee report,” Puri tweeted on Tuesday.

According to sources, the committee has made recommendations to augment the capacity for urban planning in cities and take up 25 cities as examples.

“The govt led by PM @narendramodi Ji unleashed the most comprehensive, planned urbanisation program undertaken anywhere in the world in 2015. The High Level Committee is another step to redefine the urban space & spur the next level of reforms in the sector,” Puri said in another tweet.

In 2021, an advisory committee of NITI Aayog had looked into reforms in urban planning capacity and found it alarming that about 52 per cent of statutory towns lacked “any kind of master plan”. The report had found that “not even one planner is available per city or town in the States’ town and country planning departments”. It recommended states and Union Territories to expedite filling vacant planner posts and sanction an additional 8,268 town planners’ posts.