Gujarat - Serious concerns for Small & Medium Towns

Urban renewal is the synonym of slum demolitions in larger cities of the state. They are relocated at far off places at the cost of the governments and expected to resettle at new places under the pretext of making the state 'slum free'. May the metropolitan cities exert enough pressure 'off' from public land but there would be missing people to service new developments.

In the small and medium towns the concerns have been just on getting the infrastructure like road, water supply and drainage, which are costly and tough to implement by the local body alone. Lack of funds and ability to plan for future for the small and medium size town is serious concern for the towns existing in the Gujarat state. The state at present through its publically formed company and mission is addressing the issue of planning and arranging for the funds concerning the small and medium towns. Irrespective of the plans and projects towns would now have developed roads, water supply, drainage etc with the help of central and state government. But the concern is for the management and operational efficiency of the towns. Though GoG has started planning for the urban reforms, but without serious technical support and man power available for the planning, execution and monitoring the developments the local bodies would be failing in future.

The huge gap of technical manpower interms of planners, engineers and management experts in the town above 1 lac population would be stumbling road block for the urban renewal efforts for the state. Its seriousness can be judged from the absence of communication between the authorities and state, lack of peoples involvement in the projects and centralization of decision making.

The power of 74th amendments in the urban local bodies are hardly being employed in Gujarat. May be there is similar condition persists in other states of country. But since Gujarat has always been front runner of the urban management, an serious thought from the state machinery and local management is required.