Participatory Planning in Plan Preparation

Delhi is a large city-state with area of 1483 sq km and a population of 16.7 million where more than two third of its area as urban. Rest of the area is fast urbanizing. For a city like this the planning process is challenging and magnitude of problems is enormous. It should be noted that Municipal Corporation of Delhi initiated projects of preparation of 'Local Area Plan' for 36 wards through various planning consultants to address planning issues and problems on identifying the ground realities. Development in Delhi is guided by the Master Plan 2021 and various Zonal Development Plans. The increase in urban population as a whole and increased migration to Delhi has led to a number of planning and development issues as land are a scarce resource in Delhi bounded by other states having their own development controls and guidelines. In order to counter the ill-effects of urban problem diagnosis and rational planning model, the planners and policy makers of Delhi started to engage public in various states of planning and plan implementation in various forms and degrees. The engagement of public in planning has stated long back in 1962 when the first Master Plan for Delhi was prepared. Even after 50 years of planning for people the planners and policy makers thought for evolving planning with people approach in planning and this culminated in Delhi in the form of concept of Local Area Plan. In 2005, pilot project for the preparation of Local Area Plan got initiated and got completed and the result was not satisfactory and again in 2010 pilot project for the preparation of Local Area Plan started and by 2012 it got completed. It should be noted that Delhi is one of the Indian city to have a Master Plan for controlling urban growth and development. The need of the people and demand for the development goes hand in hand and this lead to the participation of the public in the plan making process so as to entertain their grievances and make them partner in the development.