Delhi heading for planned disaster

NEW DELHI: Circa 2021. 23 millionDelhites will live cheek-by-jowl as compared to the current 14 million. 4.5million vehicles will fight for road space from the present 2.2 million. Waterrequirements will jump to 8,349 million litres per day from 3,735 millionlitres. Urban land area will swell from 60,000 hectares to110,000.Welcome to India''s fastest growing city.By thenext decade, Delhites can say goodbye to open stretches, including SafdarjungAirport. Thinly-built areas such as RK Puram, Pusa Institute and large chunks ofDelhi Cantonment are also likely to come under the axe: just some of the drasticsteps envisaged in Delhi''s revised Master Plan likely to be implemented fromnext year."The city must expand vertically. Parts of the old walledcity, and DDA MIG and LIG flats built 30-40 years ago need to be demolished togive way for higher buildings," says DDA Commissioner VijayRizbud.The way out of this urban nightmare: expansion and moreexpansion. Put together by DDA''s Planning and Architecture Department comprisingover 100 professionals, the Master Plan highlights the need for a ''New NewDelhi'' in the National Capital Region.Such an expansion is a "recipefor disaster", warn planners, but Rizbud claims confidently: "Delhi is on theway to becoming another Tokyo or Singapore". "Cities cannot be stopped fromgrowing," agrees road expert Prof Dinesh Mohan.The Plan is to beplaced before Union urban minister Ananth Kumar next week and made public byMarch. DDA''s delay in circulating copies of the draft amongstarchitects and planners has raised hackles. "If they go public after havingfinalised everything, where is the scope for public discourse?" asks ProbirPurkaya-stha of Delhi Science Forum."The plan will be successfulonly if it gives due importance to creating a mixed landscape comprisingindustries, hawkers, people from low-income groups and the middle class.Providing facilities exclusively for the rich and middle class will prove thedeath knell for this city," he says.Town planner Gita Dewan Verma isequally indignant. "The Master Plan is a statutory document of a citizen''sentitlement. The DDA has to explain why provisions made in the earlier plan,providing 5,000 hectares for industries, hawkers and low-income groups has notbeen implemented."Warns Sunita Narain, director, Centre for Scienceand Environment: "With population pressure rising and ground water levelsdropping, we will not be able to survive till 2010."