Title - Delhi’s last chance to be a green city

NEW DELHI: The new areas of Delhi, categorized as 'urbanizable areas' in Master Plan 2021, are mainly tracts of farmland dotted with farmhouses. But now that they have been opened up for urbanization, city-based urban planners and architects want the government to take steps before the developers grab the land and turn these areas into another Gurgaon.

Planners see these areas as a "golden opportunity" to place Delhi on the global list of eco-cities. The opening-up of over 60,000 hectares for urbanization to accommodate about seven million people can be a real test for building an alternative city.

Urban planners insist on urbanizing these villages while maintaining an ecological balance. They say that without any guideline, real estate giants will raise huge skyscrapers but with no security for water or power or very less pedestrian space. There are reports of large areas already being bought, leaving little time to make interventions to design a better peripheral city. Planners suggest that the Delhi government prepare a set of guidelines that builders should abide by to create a "sustainable city".

"It is a great opportunity to rectify what has gone wrong. We are not talking about very expensive technologies here. It may actually cost far less if private and public developers adopt these technologies. But once the city develops, there will not be any room for change," says A G K Menon, architect, urban planner and conservation consultant.

Planner and architect Vinod Gupta also stresses that "The development of these fringe areas are the most interesting aspect of Delhi today. Here we have an opportunity to do what has not been done so far. We can study the topography and create norms for builders that will reduce the pressure on the environmental resources quite a bit".

According to Menon, all buildings should compulsorily develop rainwater harvesting structures in the building, orient the buildings depending on the location and use landscape to minimize energy consumption and ensure optimum density of population in the new areas so that the peripheral cities are less resource intensive.

"Rainwater harvesting has been made compulsory. But it should be inbuilt in every new construction in the new areas. Building materials are also important. Look at Gurgaon, they have used so much glass when it doesn't suit our environmental conditions at all. The guidelines should specify eco-friendly building materials that require less energy during construction and will help reduce the cooling or air-conditioning load later," adds Menon.

Planners are also concerned about the optimum population density. It should neither be low density, leading to use of more resources for very few people, nor can it be very high density as "we don't have the infrastructure to support it. We need to know what is optimum", says Gupta.

The director of Indian Institute of Human Settlements, Aromar Revi, also bats for optimum density. "A core principle of sustainable urban design is to plan and incentivize condensed urbanism and contain sprawl. This makes cities more livable because many parts are then walkable, which reduces traffic. It also increases access to jobs as poor people have to travel less, and increases water and energy efficiency because these services don't have to be delivered over long distances."

Revi also thinks many parts of core Delhi are still low density. It will have an extensive Metro network connecting most parts by 2016 "This will enable people to use more public transport, leading to reduced congestion, air pollution and GHG emissions," he says.