IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES FOR TOWN PLANNING SCHEMES: BHOPAL

Abstract

Town planning schemes are the standard instrument and are an effective tool for achieving the planned development as envisaged in the city's development plan. This responsibility is handled by the Development authorities of the respective states. The role of town planning schemes becomes important for developing a city. For sustainable planned development of cities and towns, the development must be taken care of by following such schemes. These schemes guide the urban development on the right path with innovative strategies and plans for building the city's future aspirations. However, it has been observed that the implementation of town planning schemes in Madhya Pradesh needs a proper robust mechanism that cuts down avoidable delays and restructures the implementation strategies to get the fast planned development while maintaining various stakeholders' interests involved the scheme. Various researches have highlighted the reason behind the success and failure of these schemes. Challenges like lack of proper implementation mechanisms, lack of public participation, issue of trust and faith over the government intention, and low acceptability of land deduction/contribution method or plans have been observed. This study analyses the issues related to implementing town planning schemes in Madhya Pradesh by assessing their own town planning schemes and studying other state's mechanisms used for better implementation of T.P schemes executed in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi & Maharashtra. Best cases of town planning schemes at the international level have also been used to compare and analyze to understand the town planning schemes better. Various Research articles, books, and reports related to town planning schemes have been analyzed to identify the issues, problems, solutions, and suitable strategies for better implementation. Bhopal's already implemented town planning scheme has been studied to find the ground level bottleneck and actual issues faced by landowners and the Bhopal development authority altogether. To enrich the study with the views, opinions, and suggestions of the officers involved in the whole process, an initial primary survey was conducted with selected stakeholders by drafting a suitable survey questionnaire. This exercise has been intended to find out the actual loopholes of the schemes, which occur during the implementation of schemes, and fulfill the purpose of this research. The data collected through the online web-based survey questionnaire, literature review, and detailed study of the Aerocity T.P scheme in Bhopal help tremendously to formulate strategic recommendations, which are going to be helpful to speed up the implementation of T.P schemes in Madhya Pradesh. These suggestive recommendations will open the door for the hybrid development model, which ensures the maximum willful participation of all involved stakeholders and helps Madhya Pradesh lead among all states in the successful implementation of T.P schemes.