Delhi and the circle of unreason

Manila’s NCR has been developed as a gateway to the world. Japan has created the Tokyo Metro Government as a regional system

Even as Delhi seethes with confusion and anger over the sealing of unauthorised commercial establishments, a seemingly small but ticklish and persistent tug of war has emerged once again between the governments of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, two of the four states forming the National Capital Region (NCR). The two are not allowing each other’s commercial transport vehicles into their territories, in the manner of two feudal lords clashing over terrain. The issues may appear relatively insignificant, but it needs to be debated in the context of plans to organise urban centres in the NCR as counter-magnets to arrest the seamless and unplanned growth of Delhi.

Four questions beg immediate answers in this context. First, the concept of NCR — an innovative one for India in the early 1960s and replicable in other growing metropolises as well, was the baby of the Congress-led central government. Why then is the Congress-led central government remaining a silent spectator — despite the union ministry of urban development having a stake in whatever happens to urban Delhi — when a Congress-led Delhi government is engaged in an avoidable turf war? Second, Delhi has great stakes in the NCR currently, so why has it chosen confrontation over solutions to petty managerial questions like transport, which will make the NCR viable? Third, UP has set up Noida and Greater Noida at a site that will give it a vantage point in terms of connectivity to the Capital, the country and the world, so why has it not taken steps to strengthen this connectivity? Finally, an NCR Planning Board was set up in 1985 and it still exists. But what planning has it done in two decades to make the NCR a reality?

Indeed, given the politics of callousness, administrative inefficiency and corruption, there are no easy answers to these questions. However, solutions to problems arising out of urban expansion and growth, which are integrally tied to India’s economic growth, have been sought by other countries through the concept of metropolisation of urban planning. NCR in USA, for example, includes the states of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, apart from Washington DC. The Canadian capital, Ottawa, is situated between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec and is integrally linked to both. The NCR of Manila has been developed as the gateway to the world. It consists of 13 cities and 4 municipalities. Japan has created Tokyo Metro Government as a regional system encompassing the suburbs, and Seoul too has a similar system. Obviously, these are run without the turf wars like in Delhi.

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In conceiving a Delhi-pivoted NCR, comprising an area of 33,578 square kilometres (skm), including Delhi (1,482 skm), seven districts of Haryana (13,413 skm), five districts of UP (10,853 skm) and Alwar district of Rajasthan (7,829 skm), comprising a population (2001) of 11.5 million with an average decadal growth of about 29 per cent in the last three decades, more than a cushion for the national capital was planned. For, the dispersal of population meant the dispersal and disaggregation of concentrated economic activity, and the greater dynamism of urban centres located in other states. Obviously, the drawing board exercises remained unrealised and the NCR cities, far from developing infrastructure, declined further. The economic boom and consequent employment potential generated by the setting up of industries in 1970s and ‘80s evaporated, as most of the industries closed down and the unemployed population and small entrepreneurs moved to Delhi. Nearly 45 per cent of migration to Delhi was due to the economic pull.

In order to relieve Delhi of additional pressures, the NCR Planning Board had suggested remodelling the pattern of settlements in NCR to enable them to play their assigned role.

Far from heeding such advice, political leaders have been engaged in petty games. The Congress leadership has to understand that it would gain greater respect and political mileage with a non-partisan and magnanimous approach to this issue. This would, in fact, show

Mulayam Singh in a bad light.

The writer is director, Centre for Public Affairs, Noida