Education and Research in Human Settlements
Times of India I Published on: Apr 7, 2025
Image credits: Times of India
Ahmedabad: Demolition work began on Monday at the Navrangpura bus stand, which was built in 1962-63. It was designed by the master architect Charles Correa. The civic body began this hectic work at what was intended by Correa to be “a prototype for other bus stain the country”.
Read the full article here Demolition begins at Correa’s iconic Navrangpura bus stand
“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 1986 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi appointed Correa as Chairman of the first-ever National Commission on Urbanization. Their mandate: to take a holistic overview of the urban situation across the country, so the Government could develop new policies on issues crucial to India’s future. Over a period of two years, the Commission visited all the States and Union Territories of India, meeting with the key leaders of the State Governments and concerned citizens and NGOs. The Commission submitted its Interim Report in 1987, and a year later in 1988, presented to the Government of India its Final Report of 14 volumes, covering a wide range of issues – from identifying new growth centers to squatter housing, to the provision of public transport. Major thrust of the report was the issue of Urban Poverty to Urban Form, to the Governance of our cities.
Towards the mid 19th century, the British started developing a twin city to Hyderabad which they called Secunderabad – a pun on the more logical name of Sikanderabad (i.e., City of Alexander) and also a facetious allusion to their Public Schools where the term ‘Secundus’ identified the younger the brother of a senior pupil). HussainSagar Lake is located in between the twin cities, and In a 1974 report on a Heritage Policy for Hyderabad, Correa had suggested that this lake should be developed as a carefully designed conurbation that would provide the infrastructure and recreation facilities needed by the population of the twin cities. In 1988, the Government accepted the concept and requested him to act as an advisor to the project.
Governmental delays in the implementation of the plan prepared by the Correa Committee for the Mills (See Bombay’s Textile Mills in TASK FORCES) allowed a certain section of private mill owners in the mid-1990’s to defy the Government’s decision and negotiate with some powerful politicians to find a way by which they could circumvent the Section 58 notification. This led to considerable public outrage and agitation – during which the UDRI mounted a public exhibition to help articulate the crucial issues for the general public. In the meanwhile, a group of concerned citizens took legal action (called Public Interest Litigation, or PIL) against the State Government, questioning their action – or rather, in-action. The judgement passed by the Bombay High Court backed the public viewpoint and reinstated Section 58; but the mill-owners took the matter to the Supreme Court in Delhi and got the order reversed
This scheme was prepared for an invited competition for about 3 km along the waterfront in Cochin harbour, a beautiful stretch of land, which till then was undeveloped. The brief specified the preparation of a master plan and urban control drawings for a large number of diverse usages, including office and commercial space as well as residential accommodation for a wide spectrum of income groups. This scheme tried to integrate all these diverse elements into a coherent urban image that could become the symbol for the city of Cochin. What was emphasised was public promenades along the water’s edge, at two different levels, so that the cascading steps formed natural amphitheatres.
This is a vibrant new city centre – energised though the interaction of the many diverse activities it contains. There is a wide spectrum of land-uses, ranging from apartment houses and office buildings, to restaurants and shops (some located in a large air-conditioned shopping area, and others in the narrow bazaar-streets one finds throughout India).
The elements that unify all these diverse uses are the pedestrian streets that traverse from one end of the site to the other, climaxing in an open-air kund at the focal point at the centre of the main plaza. From this plaza, steps connect down to the pedestrian streets between the buildings at the Northern end of the site. Facing south, at the other end, are the apartment houses. The non-air-conditioned market is in the form of a series of stepped-back terraces, so as to increase cross-ventilation. The air-conditioned shopping centre is organized around a central atrium- and anchored by the presence of two large Department Stores at either end.
Combining shops, a wedding hall, a multiplex, offices and apartments, this City Centre in the heart of Salt Lake City in Kolkata, provides community and public spaces, both covered and open-to-sky, that are at the scale of the city, and open to all its citizens.
The system of dams now under construction in Karnataka will raise the level of the Ghataprabha river, submerging part of the existing town of Bagalkot under water. Hence the Government of Karnataka’s decision to develop New Bagalkot, presently under construction about 10 km further along the National Highway. This new town being developed for a population of 100,000 persons, will not only house the displaced inhabitants from the existing town, but is also expected to become the major new growth centre in the region, attracting the distress migration which is otherwise gravitating to other already overcrowded cities like Bangalore and Hubli. This assignment provided the opportunity to try and apply some of the same principles discussed in the planning of Ulwe (Affordability, Replicability, etc.) to a small town, far more typical of urban growth in India, using an approach that generates flexible street patterns analogous to the existing town of Bagalkot – as also to most traditional Indian towns that have grown naturally and organically over a period of time. Furthermore, as will be seen, in this approach, the composition of any particular sector does not have to be pre-determined by the planners, but can be decided from time to time, as the town grows, depending on actual demand.
The Central Business District of New Bombay, consists of three interconnected nodes, with Waghavli Lake in the centre. The southernmost of these three nodes, Ulwe, has an area of 1580 hectares. On this land, the Development Plan envisages a population of about 350, 000 people, with an estimated work force of just over 140,000 persons. Our assignment involved three tasks of preparing the Master Plan, the urban design controls, and demonstration housing for 1000 families. The project seeks to address the crucial issues of Affordability and Equity, with crucial emphasis on mass transport, coherent urban form, and housing patterns which use space as a resource.
In the crowded centres of Indian cities, pavements are used intensively: during the day they are crowded with hawkers so that pedestrians are forced onto the road, blocking the traffic lanes. As evening falls, the hawkers gather their possessions and go home – to be replaced by people unfolding their beddings for a night’s rest. These night people are not pavement dwellers (who are another group altogether), but mostly domestic servants and office boys who have to share a room in their places of work where they keep their belongings and use city pavements for sleeping. This allows them to economise on their living expenses. Furthermore, on hot sultry nights, sleeping outdoors is a more attractive proposition than the crowded airless room: that they have to do so under unhygienic conditions with the public walking right amongst (and over) them is truly reprehensible. This project in 1968 recommended to the Bombay Municipal Corporation an experimental modification in one of the city’s principal streets (Dadabhai Naoroji Road) in order to deal with both the hawkers during the day and the sleepers at night. What was proposed was a line of platforms 2m wide & 0.6m high, with water taps placed at approximately intervals of 30m. During the day these platforms would be used by the hawkers – thus clearing the pavements and the arcades for pedestrians. (The platform would also act as a safety barrier between pedestrians and vehicular traffic). In the evening, at about sunset, the taps would be turned on and the platforms washed clean by municipal sweepers. They would then provide convenient otlas (platforms) for people to sleep – out of the path of any pedestrians walking home at night.
The conceptualisation, along with colleagues Shirish Patel and Pravina Desai, of a new strategy for restructuring the city of Bombay by opening up the mainland directly across the harbour in an area where many key location decisions had already been taken regarding the provision of new docks, a major industrial belt, the highway system to the rest of the state, and so forth. In 1970, after the idea had gathered sufficient support, the State Government accepted the plan, notified the 22,000 hectares for acquisition and set up CIDCO (the City and Industrial Development Corporation) to design and develop the new urban centres, to be called New Bombay.
