Adoption of GIS technology in land use planning for development authority
Need for information generation its collection, assimilation, synthesisation and dissemination for resource base planning
Improvement of resource base of urban local bodies as well as agencies responsible for operation and maintenance of the infrastructure facilities created over a period of time is the most important factor to ensure sustainability of the development efforts. Improvement of the resource base needs specific attention and has to be attempted through a number of initiatives Decongestion of the metro core through development of new settlement areas in a decentralised manner is another important aspect. The State Government and CMDA have adopted a decentralised planning and development approach involving direct participation of elected local bodies. It was observed earlier that some of the projects did not suit the requirements of the beneficiaries in that the design of the same precluded involvement of the target groups. There are many cases where the local needs and priorities were not properly reflected because of lack of involvement of the elected local bodies. However, a gradual emphasis on decentralised planning and involvement of the ULB (Urban Local Bodies) in planning and implementation resulted in CUDP (Calcutta Urban Development for Poor) witnessing an interesting synthesis of both centralisation and decentralisation of the planning and development process in which the local priorities were dovetailed into the metropolitan development planning.
For channeling growth and development of different areas, the Town and Country (Planning & Development) Act, 1979 provides scope for preparation of land use and development control plans. However, the T&CP Act do not provide for working with such parameters that take into account the underground geomorphologic conditions. Even the technical design of the various infrastructure projects like transport and area development have hardly taken into account the geophysical and geomorphologic considerations affecting them. In absence of treatment of such considerations, the recommendations with respect to either identifying new area for growth of future settlements or location of projects in existing settlements may not conform to the requirements of environmental improvement. It is extremely important to find out the carrying capability of both new and existing areas through study of both surface and sub-surface geomorphologic factors, so as to be able to properly direct the urban growth spatially. The absence of geomorphologic parameters in urban planning and development may create environmental problems in many ways. For instance, whereas the solid waste management project directly addresses to improvement of physical environment within the urban areas, the planning and design of the final disposal of solid waste in the form of sanitary land fill has seldomly examined the issues of geophysics and geomorphology and as such is prone to creating environmental hazard in the form of groundwater contamination.
The State is poised for an accelerated growth of industries and many of them are likely to come up within CMA. Industrial growth would, on the one hand, tackle the problem of poverty - one of the environmental ills - in terms of generating income and employment, but, on the other hand, disturb the ecological attributes of healthy environment. While the issue of making necessary provision of infrastructures and services for facilitating the process of industrial growth is beyond question, the necessity of reconciliation between the envisioned industrial growth and the consequential environmental degradation cannot be over-emphasized.
All the above issues, as far as they relate to environment, would call for a holistic approach to the plans and programmes of urban development. Incidentally, the international bodies including the UN agencies and also the national governments, as a part of the agreement reached at the Rio De Janerio conference in 1992, want an explicit focus on the environmental issues and an effective management of environmental improvement measures across the globe. Dealing with many of these issues effectively would require collection, collation and compilation of certain data and information having environmental bearing; a situational analysis of such data and information; defining future policies and strategies for compliance by different departments and agencies involved; and reflecting the strategies in investment plans and statutory obligations under the T&CP Act, 1979. Given that decentralisation is the key to any institutional framework, the involvement of the elected local bodies in design and implementation of environmental policies and strategies would be a sine qua non. The requirement of involving the elected local bodies has been reinforced by the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992 that has devolved a good deal of developmental responsibilities including environmental improvement, to elected local bodies. Each municipality is required to prepare plans for economic development and social justice with due regard to “matters of common interest between Panchayats and Municipalities including spatial planning, sharing of water and other physical and natural resources, the integrated development of infrastructure and environmental conservation”
Adoption of new technology like GIS for proper use of information in land use planning
So far the need for information generation and its importance in planning was being discussed in general. It is accepted that some information is being utilized in planning for an over all perspective but along with this let us also accept that most of the plans failed to use or incorporate the available data or information available with the planners due to some reason or other. The basic deficiency is to visualise the gap in the information system and therefore adopt an ad-hoc plan for easy implementation. To give visuality to the entire system, the concept of spatial planning is must, thereby the geographic information of each locatable parameters of the planning become an essential tool of the process. A specific planning element may have quite a number of information which may be required for consideration in different period of the planning process and there by concept of layers of information is introduced in planning. A recent soft ware technology developed to use such layered information for any specific geographic location is widely accepted among the planners elsewhere and is known as Geographic Information System (GIS). A wise and systematic beginning to the entire planning process can be made by adopting GIS. However this will require a sincere involvement from the decision-makers to promote this technology so that a transparent and information based management system can be evolved.
Decentralision of planning and the role of information system
Decentralisation of planning process is by far the most effective form of planning in recent period. As already mentioned in the previous paragraph, there exists a statutory provision.and once a statutory provision for doing so has been given in the constitution this is the right time for its implementation. The elected members of the urban and rural local bodies may not always have the fullest capacity for such planning, but it can not be denied that they are nearer to the need of the people. Therefore the planning process must evolve from them. The initialsation of the process may be their primary requirement, may be they also need the primary financial and technical assistance for building up their capacity, but the fact remains that only they can utilise the entire system most effectively. The information on land and people along with their uses and habits are extremely dynamic, i.e. progressively changing and require a continuous updating. These information, in an updateable format with a geographic perception of the area becomes an important part of the planning document and the local decision maker feels more comfortable and confident in dealing with such document which has been essentially prepared by them. Development Authorities play an important role in building up their capacity and by sharing their initial financial requirement in adopting new technology like GIS.