'Policies required to regulate suburbanisation'

Policy interventions are required to regulate suburbanisation, a process by which city suburbs see an increase in population and consequent demand for resources, experts from different fields said on Monday.

At a webinar on ‘Suburbanisation in India’, organised by the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Prof Arup Mitra of the Institute of Economic Growth pointed to a number of causes within cities that may be causing the outward shift to suburbs. He said forced diversification in rural areas was an important cause of suburbanisation as farmers and rural unemployed view the rural hinterland of cities as a plausible and cheap alternative. He noted that census towns have no urban statutory bodies to guide their functioning but still have urban characteristics. He stressed the need to control the urban sprawl by regulating land use and providing sufficient housing.

Kala Seetharam Sridhar, who studied Indian 140 cities based on satellite data, said Varanasi was the most suburbanised city as of 2015 while Ilkal (in Karnataka) was the least. In terms of employment suburbanisation, Karwar and Faridabad (Haryana) were in the lead, she said.

Vishal R, former director of the Directorate of Municipal Administration, said the continued process of suburbanisation had an effect on the quality of life among other things. He said the issue also involved administrative, legal and financial aspects.

Niranjan Hiranandani, co-founder and managing director of Hiranandani Group, and Bhaskar Nagendrappa of the CREDAI Bengaluru also took part in the webinar.