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Bad planning led to illegal colonies: Kamal Nath
The development of Delhi in the last few decades have been more by default than design, said Union urban development minister Kamal Nath on Monday.
The development of Delhi in the last few decades have been more by default than design, said Union urban development minister Kamal Nath on Monday.
Speaking at a workshop to review the Master Plan for Delhi 2021, organised by Delhi Development Authority (DDA), Nath said the fact that hundreds of unauthorised colonies in Delhi had to be regularised through legislation is a "tribute to bad planning".
"It is not necessarily bad enforcement, it is bad planning. I think, Delhi has had the problem of bad planning and bad enforcement. It is just not bad enforcement. What will you enforce? How can you enforce 1,600 irregular colonies?" Nath said.
"Perhaps we are the only country in the world which had to bring in a legislation, the Delhi Special Laws, saying we are going to regularise it. What is this a tribute to? It is a tribute to bad planning," he said.
Nath said that we now have the advantage of learning and reflecting on the past so that planning is driven by market forces.
"Today, planning has to be driven by market forces. There was an old concept of DDA making a plan, that we will have a community centre here and a shopping centre there. Now you cannot say that there will be a shopping centre here if we can't determine it with market forces," he said.
He said planning for Delhi should be least disruptive and least destructive instead of being 'absolute poetry', which is not in sync with ground realities.
DDA, which is carrying out the process of reviewing the MPD 2021 at present, held the workshop to bring together experts to discuss and deliberate on the future of Delhi's development.
The discussions were divided into four themes - urban form, heritage and development controls, environment and physical infrastructure, shelter with focus on redevelopment and transport with focus on improved mobility.
After the discussions, all suggestions and recommendations by the experts were compiled and a joint draft was prepared.
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