Effective participation in preparation of

Development plans in Gujarat:

Vadodara as a case

Vidisha Gajjar
Associate Professor, Vadodara Institute of Architecture, Vadodara, Gujarat, India

Abstract: Participatory planning is a process wherein the local community are involved with
urban planners to decide about the developmental needs. They work together to produce
plans and these plans have greater chances of effective implementation as stakes are evolved
and conflict resolution during the interactive planning process itself. Involvement of the
people in planning process is advocated for successful implementation of the determined
plans. This paper is an attempt to review the current process of preparation of Development
Plan and involvement of people/citizens in the whole process.

Key Words: Development Plan, Planning Process, Public Participation

Introduction:
The key principle of public participation in urban planning is the effective interaction between
government and citizens. If we look back to the history, public participation gained
importance during king's rule time. The Era of Akbar rule has evidence of it by having 'Diwan-
e-aam' to participate people in any decision making. The CPL or Nagar Raj Bill aims to provide
more involvement with the local wards by constituting Area Sabha’s for general public . The
Area Sabha prioritises the projects based upon the recommendations and outcome of the
meetings in the area. These prioritise projects are then sent to the Ward committees
encompassing many wards of the area.
Public participation is also creating sense of social responsibility. This is held to be the basic
human right and a fundamental principle of democracy. The true essence of people’s
participation is to have direct participation, and not their indirect participation through their
representatives.
In Urban planning terms, Participation is the act of sharing in the formulation of policies and
proposals and therefore providing information by the planning authority and an opportunity
to comment on that information is a major part in the process of participation. Participation
involves discussing in addition to doing and full participation can happen only by active
involvement throughout the plan making process. The term Public refers to the entire
community inhabiting an area for which the plan is proposed.

Public participation in Urban Planning:

For urban planning development in Gujarat, the Gujarat town planning and urban
development Act came in to force from 1976. Urban planning in Gujarat has the two step
process for urban planning, one is to prepare Development plan for the entire city or
development area and the second is to prepare Town Planning Schemes for smaller portion of
the development area. In the entire process of preparation of Development plan and Town
Planning Scheme, certain stages are provided to include citizens in the whole process.

Stages of Public participation in Development plan as per GTPUD Act, 1976

Public Participation in Second revised Development plan prepared by VUDA:
The process has been started in 2004 by VUDA for the second revised development plan. The
process as a whole was carried out as mentioned in the GTPUD Act 1976 but the VUDA also
incorporated certain stages for enhancing the participation by general public. In the due
process, public participation was only carried out twice. The participation was carried out in
accordance with the legal requirement of GTPUD Act 1976 for the presentation of the
development plan.

By studying the public involvement in the whole planning process, it is clear that
 In comparison of the whole VUDA population the public objections and suggestions
received at both the stages are 0.05% and 0.004% which is negligible.
 Major comments that were received by the VUDA pertain to individual level. These
comments only addressed the grievance. The citizens are only raising the objections
not giving any suggestion.
 The primary notification which is published by state government are kept on the
notice board so normal citizen who never visits VUDA remains unaware.
 The notice which is published in Gujarati news papers is of small size column and in
very legislative language, which is according to GTPUD Act 1976 that notice should be
in one or more Gujarati news papers. The size of column is not defined in the act that
is why notice is published too small column that a normal citizen cannot consider the
notice as an important notice. Even the legislative language is not understood by the
normal citizen.

This makes the peoples participation as a token participation without empowering the public
to make decisions regarding how the development in their urban centers is going to take
place. Much less attention is given to specific participatory techniques as required to attain
varied objectives as informing citizens, educating citizens, generating support among citizens
or utilizing citizen input in the decision making process.
The biggest gap in the participatory process is the 'unawareness about the planning process'
and their 'role as a citizen in the process'. The attitude should be not only to inform people but
to take their inputs hence they are the primary unit of the city and the decision which is
directly affect them should have their own opinion for that.

International case studies for involvement of people in the planning process:

Geraldton, Australia : The citizens get motivated to take part in the process and voluntarily
take part to educate other citizens to participate in the comprehensive plan process. Even the
radio and news paper also took the initiative as their social responsibility to make aware the
citizens for participation. Surveys, town hall meetings and small group discussion have been
done and even academia also takes initiative to educate the people. The citizens and authority
together make a goal to develop their city as sustainable city and the successful
implementations become possible because of the participatory decision.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh is comparable to Vadodara in terms of population density

and area. In Pittsburgh the department of city planning is preparing the comprehensive plan
and in that the citizens of Pittsburgh is at central part. The different features of
comprehensive plan divided in 12 different components like open space, traffic, heritage
conservation, education, housing, water supply, electricity, solid waste management etc. The
stakeholders get involved in the component which they concern with and give suggestion/
objection regarding the particular component. All the components get integrated and make
the final plan. The mobile talk shows arranged by the authority people. Focus group, surveys,
public meetings has been for different components.

Comparing both the cases with Vadodara, the awareness generation may be done by different
methods and from different sources. The contents of development plan or town planning
scheme should be explained so the related group of people can comment on the topic/
content in which they are interested. The objections/ suggestion will be raised for heritage
conservation, Vishvamitri River conservation/ development etc. By comparing the
organizational chart of Pittsburgh with the VUDA, it is clearly shown that for effective public
participation advanced technologies and adequate staff is most important. The interrelation
between the departments becomes also very important.

Pulse polio model in India is very successful model to make people aware for a public health
initiative. i.e. pulse polio disease. The Government of India creates awareness to achieve the
100% success. Door to door awareness campaigns, celebrity involvement in campaigning
generate awareness in people.

Outcomes:
I. Development plan should be properly published and advertised through media,
hoarding, social networking sites etc.
II. Public notices should be putted at public places, different ward offices other than news
papers.
III. The views of different associations, NGO’s should be considered while preparing the
development plan.
IV. Seminars, public forums, charrettes should be arranged area/ward wise to educate and
aware the people and make them a part of decision making.
V. People should be aware about all the physical, environmental and socio-economical-
contents of DP.
VI. The view of heritage, art, environmental concern people should also consider.
VII. The academia plays important role in the awareness generation and educating people
so they should be considered.
VIII. The marginalised group like slum dwellers, street vendors and hawkers should able to
participate.
IX. Coordination between development authority and local body is important. Even the
objections/suggestions should not be collected at VUDA office only but it should be a
provision to collect it at ward level also.

Recommendations:
The development plan is prepare for the vision of 20 years and it is revised at 10 years of
intervals. But planning is a continuous process so there should be a department for dealing
with the community at every new project or proposal. The planning should be reactive and
that can only achieve if the separate branch(community development department) is
responsible to work with the public and deal with their issues. Also Urban Development
authority needs to incorporate advanced information, consultation and participatory
techniques to involve people in the Planning process .

References:
i) Kumar, Somesh. Methods of Community participation. New Delhi: Vistaar
Publications, 2003.
ii) Sanoff, Henry. Multiple views of participatory design. ArchNet-IJAR, 2007.
iii) Verma, Richi. "Diwan-e-Aam likely to get back its mughal pathway." Times of India,
April 2010.
iv) Department of city planning, Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh comprehensive plan. 2014.
(accessed April 2014).
v) Upadhyay Shubhranshu, Shrivastav Vineet, Harinarayan. "Public participation in
preparation of development plans." Bhopal: SPA.
vi) Government of India, The Gujarat town planning and Urban Development act, 1976