It is a region that covers 55,144 sq km, boasts some of the country’s biggest and most important cities, Delhi, Noida, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, is home to over 46 million people, according to the 2011 census. It is one of India’s most important economic corridors.
Experts said this could ease some of the contentious issues related to regional planning and administration. Politically, it also makes the BJP accountable for all that ails the national capital. For instance, ahead of these elections, Delhi (under the Aam Aadmi Party) and Haryana (under the BJP) traded charges over the quality and quantity of water in Haryana.
Jagan Shah, CEO of The Infravision Foundation and former director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs, believes that Saturday’s result present a unique opportunity for solving the interstate issue, which has a direct impact on both the quality and quantity of the water the capital receives.
Shah, under whose tenure NIUA was drafted to draw up Delhi’s Master Plan-2041, said, “There are many issues including those related to environment and forests that never got implemented because of the tensions between different state governments.”
NCR, he pointed out, is the world’s largest de facto contiguous urban region but with a high degree of variance in standards of living. “So the regional plan talks about standardisation and seamless integration, which can finally be put into shape.” To be sure, both Delhi master plan and the regional master plan have been waiting to be notified for more than three years by the Centre.
The National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) was established in 1985 under the NCRPB Act of 1985. Its legal mandate included preparing a plan for the development of the National Capital Region, coordinating, and monitoring the implementation of the plan and evolving harmonised policies for land use control and infrastructure development to avoid haphazard development.
Shah added that in recent years, land pooling in Delhi was stalled due to vested interests from other states but now there is an opportunity where Delhi being the national capital can be developed with sufficient housing and infrastructure with other NCR cities acting as satellites around it. “But for all this, you need political will, and I fear if there are no visible changes in five years, then nothing will happen.”
R Srinivas, formerly town planner at the union ministry of housing and urban affairs’ town and country planning organisation said that with BJP at the helm, there should not be any delay in notifying the NCR regional master plan along with the Delhi master plan. “People have suffered a lot even though work had started in 2017.”
As for the Yamuna, he added, accountability must be fixed with the political class irrespective of political alignment and with the BJP now in power in all the states, there cannot be any excuse for lack of coordination. “Work should begin on a war footing to clean the water.”
He also cited the major issue of agriculture residue burning that is one of the contributors to the poor air quality that affects the whole region. “If the BJP ruled states are able to contain the issue of crop fires, then Punjab too will be forced to act.”
Both Shah and Srinivas however, pointed that with the MCD under AAP’s control, there might be still the possibility of incongruence in implementing some of the decisions made at the higher levels of government.
Not everyone agrees that things will change because the BJP is in charge everywhere.
AK Jain, former planning commissioner of Delhi Development Authority, said regional coordination in the NCR Planning Board was not held up due to political reasons, but because of systemic weaknesses. “The NCR Planning Board and Delhi Development Authority being under Centre’s control have the responsibility of planning, and the subject of land have always been under the Centre and not the state government in Delhi. So, the AAP government had no role to play here.”
The Delhi government, he said, doesn’t even have a town planning department like other states do. Even autonomous organisations such as NCRTC and DMRC, which are responsible for connecting NCR towns, are under the Centre and not under the Delhi government, he added.
Jain said the real issue is that the NCRPB Act lacks teeth and focus.
“The Board cannot take any action against a constituent state or agency if they don’t comply with the plans laid out for NCR. The 20-year planning period is anyway too long because the ground situation changes every couple of years, but the plans remain stuck in time. These regional plans should be for five years.”
Jain also advocated for dedicated and autonomous verticals for each sector such as an NCR transport corporation looking at mobility between different towns and cities, and a similar one for healthcare, water supply, housing, and other public services. There could be one for air pollution too, he said.
“Air pollution requires special focus in regional planning because it is not restricted to certain towns and cities. “
