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K.V.Abdul Malik
Town Planner, Kozhikode &
Member Secretary, CDA
Town & Country Planning:
Challenges and
responses
T
own Planning, the human
endeavour to tinker with
the space that he lives
in; aiming at congenial
living environment has
gone ahead a lot from
arrangement of physical
objects around to a very
complex socio-political
activity. The profession
has seen overwhelming changes during the last
three decades due to various happenings in
the economic, political and social arena. The
fraternity has responded to these happenings
reasonably well imbibing the socio-economic and
political dimensions into the thought process.
However, the transformation from an engineering
/ architecture oriented development process
to a strategy based socio-political activity has
been rather slow. Some of the major factors that
necessitate such transformation are discussed
here in brief.
LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation and
Globalisation) has become the new economic
mantra. Our Country has responded early to this
trend by replacing the famous and time tested
economic model, Nehru - Mahanalobis model
with Narasimha Rao – Manmohan Singh model
in the New Economic Policy in 1991. This has
brought about sweeping changes in all walks of
life in the Country. The loosened control regime
and easiness in trans-boundary transactions have
empowered people with broader opportunities
and exposure to state of the art urban systems.
The present day middle class urbanite in India
is exposed to international standards and has
higher aspirations about his living environment.
At the same time, the unbridled play of market
forces leaves the weak and marginalised
unattended. This calls for a very high degree of
social inclusion in the development process. So,
the planning process has become a balancing
act catering to the living standards, needs of the
urban middle class and ensuring social inclusion
of the weak and marginalised.
The development in technology during the
last three decades, especially in Information
Technology is amazing and has totally changed
the way we understand change itself. On the one
side, development in Geographical Information
System, Global Positioning Systems and
refinement in Remote Sensing Technology has