National Commission on Urbanisation

The understanding of the urban challenge reflects adequately and eloquently in the draft proposal submitted by Inhaf in 2018 to the Government of India to set up the second National Commission on Urbanisation (NCU-2).

The first NCU was set up and worked in the mid ‘80s by the Prime Minister of India, to produce a report in order to give a vision for India’s urban development. Numerous problem areas in India’s urban trajectory were identified and solutions outlined. However, not all of them were actionable and the report was criticized for not being thoroughly grounded in India’s empirical reality. Urban India today has undergone radical changes and the country needs a new actionable philosophy in order to tackle its challenges. INHAF’s advocacy for NCU-2 therefore was based in the understanding that new alternatives need to be imagined to India’s present urbanization trajectory.

The suggested new National Commission on Urbanization, while addressing the urban challenge squarely, looked beyond immediate problem solving as an exercise in perspective building, future gauging, visioning and a society imagining initiative: (a) Looking into the future with the knowledge of the past and the understanding of the present (b) Conceiving responses based not only on the problems and the symptoms but also on the diagnosis and analysis of the causative factors (c) Not to be weighed down by the reality and practicality of what can be done, but also governed by what is required to be done, while going beyond problem solving, to shaping a desired future, and (d) Seeing the entire thing in the societal perspective, in the ‘people’ context, and not divorced from their culture and not alienated from their belief patterns. The effort needs to be directed not only towards the city as a “place” but the city as “people”, as a modern “society”, as well.

Gujarat State Commission on Urbanisation

Gujarat state is one of the fastest growing economies in India compared to the rest of the states in the country. While keeping its double-digit growth momentum, Gujarat state needs a guiding vision to give appropriate direction to its urbanization policy. Moreover, a long-term strategy which can straddle high economic growth and inclusive and participatory development needs to be formulated. INHAF hoped to support such policy interventions through its proposed Gujarat State Commission on Urbanization.