Lamenting the poor state of urban planning in India — 40 million people are living in unplanned areas in the Capital itself — Urban Development Minister Kamal Nath on Monday said the Government was looking at transit-oriented development as an option.

“Just in Delhi, we have 40 million people living in unauthorised colonies...over 1,600 unauthorised colonies, according to a survey done in 2007. We are in 2012, I shudder to think (of the numbers) if we were to do a survey now,” he said.

The minister was addressing a conference organised by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.

“We, in India, have the most restrictive FAR (floor area ratio), which even by Asian standards is exceptionally low. This needs to be revised looking at the infrastructure and the location where it can be increased,” he said.

“One of the possibilities being discussed is transit-orientated development, where we can have mixed use and higher and more intensive development. We are looking at transit-oriented development where there is a huge wide road, there is a metro in the middle, so that people can come in metros, go to work, have their entertainment and recreation and sit in the metros and go back home,” he said.

Nath said that since the amount needed to develop urban infrastructure was huge, it was important to develop suitable public private partnership models. He said there was need for States to focus on capacity building for urbanisation, starting from the municipal levels.

We are now concluding the second phase of the urban renewal mission, this will support PPPs. Besides funding, the States will also have to get their act together and ensure that there is adequate capacity building going down at the municipal level,” he said.

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