The Karnataka Economic Survey 2021-22, which was released on Friday, highlights the need for a new urbanization policy for the state. It suggests the government amend the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act and draft a new township act to facilitate large-scale development and to develop satellite towns.
“Master plans need to be prepared for 198 towns. The master plan for Bengaluru for 2031 needs to be expedited since the 2015 master plan expired six years back. Regional plans need to be prepared for all planning authority area, and the city/town master plan should be based on regional plans. Karnataka needs an additional 300 town planners, apart from the existing 120 town planners,” the report said.
The report asks the government to conserve regions from urbanisation based on Karnataka’s ten agro-climatic zones, Western and Eastern Ghats. “It should list the towns that need to be self-contained and that need to be expanded based on detailed study. The proposed policy should act as a guide to industrial and tourism policy, which generally ushers urbanization/ sprawl and floating populations. Added to this, the Kalyana Karnataka Region has not had any prospective plans for decades and huge amounts of funds have not resulted in visible development. Without an urbanization policy, the state is regionally imbalanced,” the report said.
Karnataka has been preparing the comprehensive development plans (CDP) and has now reinforced them with GIS-based master plans. “The reach of CDP is till the planning district (PD) level and each PD constitutes 15 to 20 wards. The development control happens through bylaws and sub-division rules and regulations. There is no detailed intervention of the CDP at the ward level when it comes to infrastructure. Hence a new planning methodology needs to be evolved that could prepare/ revise action plans at the Ward level,” the report mentioned.
The report suggested that the action plan should be based on improvement, development, conservation, preservation of the various components of the ward.
Acknowledging the ramifications of climate change, the report underscored the need for a regional plan for Kodagu, which has rich biodiversity including terrestrial eco-regions, marine eco-regions, distinct freshwater ecoregions and sacred forests.
“Avoid extending the conurbation limit as far as possible and to go in for high-raised buildings or regeneration of towns. There are conflicts between the people engaged in tourism and urban development and environment activists. Especially in Kodagu, there is reduction in paddy cultivation and there is human-animal conflict. There are incessant rains in varied seasons as well as floods and land sliding. Overall, climate change is significantly visible. This calls for clear-cut guidelines for development with strong development control to suit the hilly area and that could emerge only out of an eco-regional plan. In an ecologically sensitive area, strengthening of existing roads is preferred when compared with constructing new roads. The land revenue act needs to be amended at least for the Western Ghats (Kodagu in particular) where the land tenures are complicated,” the report elaborated.