“Today, our nation is gradually beginning to realise that the process of urbanisation is much more than just the breakdown of Calcutta, or the overcrowding of Kanpur, or the traffic problems of Bombay—it is a phenomenon of unique scope and dimension, one which is going to change fundamentally the nature of our lives. From it will emerge the central, political, human and moral issues of our times, precipitated by the rising expectations of the millions upon millions of our people who want to find a better future.“

-National Commission on Urbanisation, 1988

Nearly 40 years later the report by the National Commission on Urbanisation (1985-1988)  exists as a mere reflection of itself. It now lingers as faint murmurs within the syllabus for future IAS officers with fragments finding their way into Indian policy but failing to make a significant enough impact, as  its vision remains unfulfilled. 

In 1985 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi appointed Charles Correa as Chairman of the first-ever National Commission on Urbanisation. The Commission, a mix of architects, planners, industrialists, economists, environmental engineering experts and administrators, produced a report that spanned over 14 volumes and 2000+ pages. The Commission was developed in response to an environment that had begun to see urban centres stretched at their seams and a rapidly growing population with limited employment opportunities. It was pertinent to understand and articulate this phenomenon. For the first time ever there was a concerted effort to create a pan-Indian policy on urbanization. The commission thus undertook the task of creating a comprehensive document that addressed the urban situation in India by visiting all the states and Union Territories, meeting with key leaders of the state governments and concerned citizens and NGOs. Urbanisation, defined as a process by which the surplus population of workers in rural areas resettled in centres where non-agricultural job opportunities were available.

The commission had a large task ahead of them. They had to examine the state of urbanisation with reference to present demographic, economic, infrastructural, environmental, physical, shelter, energy, communication, land, poverty, aesthetic and cultural aspects. Identify priority action areas, make projections of future needs and estimate the available resources. A policy framework that addressed urbanisation holistically. The beauty of the commission lay in the way they navigated this long and arduous path ahead of them. 

In the end, perhaps they had a broader set of ideas that overarched the report, a vision that guided the report beyond its terms of reference. This probably drove their commitment to understand the true role of urban India in the national economy. A method to tackle urban poverty. They recognised that cities presented hope for a better future, a space laden with opportunities, and a way to escape pervasive social structures. Amidst a time when the urban elite viewed migrants as the cause of the decay and refused to accommodate them, the commission outlined its importance. There was an influx of people towards major metropolitan hubs for livelihood, or, distress migration. They identified two methods that induced urbanisation- rural prosperity or rural poverty. They emphasised the need to address rural poverty induced migration and necessitated state intervention towards the cause. The rural-urban link or continuum as they phrased it, around which the idea of growth centres was propelled was central to their recommendation. Agriculture, an undeniable facet of the Indian economy, was recognised as so and urbanisation was to be used as an instrument in agricultural and industrial development. The symbiotic relationship between the rural and the urban lay at the heart of urban policy reform. The possibility to create these centre’s arose as the report was one of the first documents to make recommendations that aligned economic policy with spatial planning.  The interim report was submitted in 1987 and the final report in 1988.

A policy document that espoused a decentralised approach to governance, viewed land as a resource, state investment as a way to attract private capital, and emphasized the need to address urban poverty with the same vigour as rural poverty. In a society like ours, to achieve a singular goal, it is necessary to utilize a variety of expertise. Even now all the departments exist as disparate entities. Mr. Correa’s analogy which compared the creation of a machine and its spare parts with the design of streetscape rings true here. A city is a plural entity with multiple moving parts—the social, the economic, and the spatial. Planning as a practice requires this care and forethought where it is viewed as a machine and every new addition needs to be viewed critically.

It is necessary to acknowledge that the report wasn’t just Mr. Correa’s brainchild. Yet, his ideology remains evident within the report. Possibly behaving like a thread which binds the report together, a vision that informed his practice of architecture as well. It stands true to the principles he spelled out himself — equity, disaggregation, pluralism, income generation, participation. The report seemingly never strays from Correa’s thoughts on urbanization. At the core of the report lay the urban poor who never once were pushed  to the margins of the recommendations. The emphasis lay on transforming cities into places of hope, new economic opportunities and not spaces that perpetuated barriers to entry and opportunity. The scale of the project didn’t deter him from his ideological underpinnings.

He recommended planning cities by using spatial hierarchies. The hierarchy enabled the formation of fully sufficient neighbourhoods with employment and accommodation at close proximity. It was a way to allay the burden on public transport, encouraging walking or cycling. An idea that has gained legs as micro mobility. The novelty of the recommendations itself were not that they were  ‘new’ but in the way they were employed. Recycling of land, for example, was proposed as a method to redevelop old factory buildings for newer industries or housing. This idea masquerading as adaptive reuse tends to forego the principle of equitability as old buildings are restored and turned into art galleries, hotels, and restaurants that populate the skyline as shanty towns line the streets. Finally, the model for low-rise high-density housing remained unbuilt. High-rise building projects price out large swaths of people as very few can afford to reside within them and also alienate the ‘bazaar economy’

— the small contractors, masons and so on. The city instead of being a place of hope, a new economic opportunity tends to act as a barrier to opportunity. Mr. Correa’s  architectural style also finds a voice in the recommendations. To build ‘monuments’ or ‘urban events’ around which non-building activities could flourish, a delicate balance.  His vision lay at the heart of all his projects. For example, the City Centre Salt Lake City, Kolkata, a mixed-use development project contained within its pockets of commercial and residential. Social life arranged itself around a structure evidently, a facet of place-making.The everyday is ascertained through the tangible (the building) around which social activity surrounds itself.

In spite of its use at various instances, the report was never implemented. Urban India today remains riddled with issues, a pathological condition of a city persists. Need for shelter, breakdown of public transport, and limited economic opportunities still define life in the city. The commission’s recommendations under the guidance of Correa don’t just exist as a repertoire of ideas but also as a glimmer of hope. The report identifies the relationship between land and people that guides policy decisions unwittingly and laid it bare for everyone to see. The commission’s recommendations never forged an exploitative relationship with land and viewed it as a resource that translated into their policy from tenancy regulations to the planning of a city. The value of the report lies in the production of a remarkable piece of work that aligns itself with a human-centric approach. 

The Commission

The National Commission on Urban Development was created by the Government of India on the 4th October, 1985. On 24th February, 1986, the scope of the commission was widened and the National Commission on Urbanisation was formed. 

Charles Correa (Chairman) Architect and Urbanist

Mahesh Neelkanth Buch (Vice-Chairman) IAS 

Ashish Bose (Member)  Demographer and Economic Analyst

Nilay Chaudhari (Member) Civil Engineer and Environmentalist

Xerxes Desai (Member) Businessman and Urbanist

Boniface G. Fernandes (Member)  Urban Planner 

Cyrus Guzder (Member) Businessman and Urbanist

Vidyadhar Pathak (Member) Urban Planner 

Amit Jyoti Sen (Member) Economist

Kirtee Shah (Member) Architect and Urbanist

Naresh Narad (Member – Secretary) IAS

– Written by Arzoo Gupta, Research Fellow