Conference Proceedings : “JANASEVANA” National ... - UN HABITAT

has been a feature of mature industrialization, the permanence and effective declines
are now much more numerous.
On the other hand, in developing countries, while the root cause may be present,
viz. the change of industry or resource use and globalization changes in economic
location, in developing countries we see impoverishment and implosion of cities and the
corresponding throttling of growth and explosion of other cities.
This economics must be seen in tandem with the globalization effects on urban
areas. This is the rapid and continued rise of urbanization, more than half the
population of the world lives in dense urban areas. And owing to the rise of poverty, the
rise of slums or shanties or USS is increasing at even a greater rate. We are well on
the way to becoming a Planet of Slums.
6 INDIA
As India is a close neighbor I would like to make a few remarks on the Indian
situation.
First the bleak aspect. With globalization, the problem of inner city breakdown
has got worse in India. At the time that the WTO became operational India had 34
million workers in the Textile Industry. Almost all these persons lived in city centers.
This number has to drop very sharply to a fraction of this under global change. It means
that the city centers have large unemployed but skilled pools of labor. There are many
such industries rabnging from glass, leather to small industrial goods in India.
Secondly the success. The successes in India are based on two key features.
One is that the Indian Constitution requires Planning to be at the Local Government
level. That is the highest permissible level of Planning. While it may be difficult for
Centrist Planners to accept, it is actually quite workable for a private sector approach.
The other key feature is the existence of a Federal Prize pot of over a trillion Rupees,
regularly re-filled, called the Jawaharlal Nehru Trust Fund. The local based projects
may apply for grants under this fund and a 50% grant is given quite regularly. There is
intense competition for these grants by the private (including citizen) sector.
For the development of a strong domestic sector this example may be studied.
There is the further recent plan termed “The President’s Plan for the end of slums in five
years”. It will take a couple more years at least for the contours of this solution to
become plain. However it will probably become a third feature on which urban
development will take place in India. This plan is based on a sophistication of the REEL
program well known in Colombo.
___________________ Dr Darin Gunesekera
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