 Hi, welcome to this show on the Transit Oriented Development, as they call it. And we have a panel of discussions. Let me introduce you to the panel straight away before going to the topic. We have with us Swapna Little, who is a historian, an architect historian. We have Mr. Prem Chandravarkar, who is an architect based at Bangalore. Swapna is joining us from Delhi. Then we have Rajeev Bhakt, who is again an architect and urban designer. Who is also joining us from Delhi. And we have Malt Sri Joshi, who is also an urban planner and an architect. Also joining from Delhi. Then we have Sanjay Srivastava, who is a sociologist, who joins us from London. You know, we can understand the time frame that is there in London. And we have Anuj Malhotra, who is an urban development expert, mobility expert rather, who joins us from Indabad. And Narayan Murthy, who is an architect, designer, planner, who once again joins us from Delhi. Welcome all of you to this show. And as all of you are aware, I mean, this discussion is on the proposed amendments on the Delhi master plan, which is being promulgated by the Delhi Development Authority, and especially on the transit oriented development. So, and just before jumping on to the topic and letting viewers understand what a DOD is, and how would it affect the overall paradigm shift in urban planning in Delhi and also throughout the country. But I think there's one point which I would like to mention before we just start off the discussion. And I think that pertains to the overall development strategy that has been witnessed in the country, especially in the last three decades and where we are finding that the special strategies that we are building are actually turning cities into luxury products. And this is one of the fairest criticism I've come about. Now, if a city becomes a luxury product and as one of the articles that I read pointed out that it would eventually lead to gentrification. Now, if DOD amendments in the Delhi master plan, especially in the, in the DOD leads to gentrification, then what will happen to our sustainable development goals? I mean, to which we are committed to in the urban habitat. And I think there's another, the two more questions that we would like to ponder over. That is, what kind of a city? I mean, we know what is going wrong, but we also ought to know what would be good for the overall trajectory of the urban. I think we'll discuss all those points and we are extremely glad that we have one of the finest people of our country who actually plan cities, design cities. So, yeah, welcome, all of you. And Ryan, straight away, I want to go to you, reach out to you. And can you just explain to, because our viewers would be somebody who hasn't even heard about DOD. And as you've rightly pointed out in your article that many of the architects are also not even aware of the changes that are being brought out in the transit oriented development. And why a transit oriented development? Why transit? Why not a full development? I mean, and how does it come in contradiction with the overall master plan strategies? Well, thank you. I'm on a panel with much cleverer people than me. So you'll have to pardon me for anything that wrong inferences that I do draw. But cities live, exist according to a sort of a plan, a master plan that's made by a group of professionals to try and predict how that city will grow in the near future. This is not something new. I mean, India, this Indian subcontinent is some of the oldest plan cities on earth as it were. Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Dholavira, Lothal, these are all well known examples. So that's a method in which a city tries to figure out how it will be. Now, Delhi has always had a master plan since 1957. We've had a development authority devoted to this called DDA. And that's the kind of thing that's being copied through the rest of the country. I think every city in India now has some kind of a planning body called as something development authority. MMRDA or BDA or KMDA would be examples of the same thing. Now, Delhi always had a master plan since 1957. At some point in the early 2000s when Delhi began to build its metro, people began to realize that these things like the metro are really going to give shape to the city to come. You know, the paths that they choose to take will naturally see the certain kind of growth. At that time, there was a bunch of architects, planners and so on who, recognizing this fact, helped the government write a policy whereby this growth that came along the metro lines or any other transport-oriented line, which is why it's called the transit-oriented development, it could be the BRTS in the city which doesn't have a metro but has a BRTS instead, that they would then see that growth in a logical manner. Logical in a manner which was the parameters which they drew for themselves which they considered desirable were liveable, walkable, equitable. So, it was all about social equity to a certain extent as well as the ease of everyday life that this was about. It recognized the fact that our cities had grown very uncomfortable to live in. You know, they were chaotic, they were congested in certain areas, not dense enough in certain areas. And there were a lot of people who found these cities very difficult to negotiate. So, you do not find any problem with the TODA per se? It's all the amendments that are being brought out. No, not at all. I mean, after all, if you look at cities like London or Paris or New York, they really built around the transit systems, you know, the metro or the tube or whatever it's called in those countries has been the progenitor of the form of the city that we know today in the last century, let's say, because they have some of the world's oldest metro systems. I don't think any architect or planner or any intelligent person who studied the policy has any problem with this at all. The issue has been that, yeah, it was a new policy for India. We are not the same as every other nation in the world. We have a lot of social inequity. We have poverty. So what is the problem? So what is the problem? So what is the problem with David? So when they wrote the TOD, it was a very valiant attempt. The idea was to adapt that system, it's an American thought actually to start with, to adapt that system to the Indian reality, the Indian reality of poverty, social inequality, and the fact that a lot of our cities, despite having master plans on paper, had actually grown very differently from the way that was envisaged in the plan. So therefore, there was a level of experimentation that was recognized and it was fair enough because there was nobody who was intelligent enough who could have thought of this and written it the right way. Now, unfortunately, there's been a lot of tinkering with this transit oriented development policy in the years that have followed. Some of it has been legitimate in that we really don't know how it's going to work. So we need to keep titrating it as we go along. We need to see how does the city respond once the metro is built and then make certain shifts and changes to that policy. And that's master planning for you because it's not static. We are human beings who live in a city. Things keep changing and the master planners recognize that. Now, what has happened very recently in 2019, which a lot of us didn't notice and unfortunately that's the reason why you see a preponderance of architects on this panel. I mean, it's not as of all the citizens of India architects, but unfortunately it's only architects who are able to look at these policy papers and statistics and data and the way these things are written to be able to analyze and translate them into what is the coming reality. So unfortunately, that's the reason why we have a lot of architects. But as it happened, even we architects didn't notice in 2019 that very drastic changes had been made to this transit oriented development policy. Some of these changes removed some of what was considered desirable to have when devising the original policy. Okay, fine. So Prem, are you able to hear? Yes, yes. Yeah, great. So I think just taking from where Narayan lived. I mean, do you also find, is there going to be a policy paradigm shift as far as the urban policy is concerned? Are DODs going to take over the entire planning process in the country as far as urbanism is concerned? Because we've seen a lot many documents coming up. We had the smart cities, then we had the NUPF, which nobody speaks about the National Urban Policy Framework. Is this the policy paradigm shift that you're looking at? It could be, but it has to be looked at together with many other aspects. So for example, the problem with the way the current policy is framed looks only at densities within the influence area of a mass transit line. That means about 500 meters on either side of the line. But you can't just look at densities, you have to look at densities across the city. So for example, suppose you had a city whose traffic networks were already overloaded and you're just adding more density near the mass transit line. You're not going to solve a congestion problem. If you're going to increase densities along the mass transit line, you've got to lower densities in other areas. So the problem with the current policy, it looks as if the TOD is some magic bullet which will solve everything. Whereas if you need a holistic view of the city. So that's one part. And could you just also explain, because as Narayan was mentioning that it would not just be limited to Delhi and then it may be copied in many other cities. Do you feel that sense also prevailing? It could be like, as Narayan mentioned, Delhi was one of the first cities to set up a development authority and that was copied. So Delhi tends to have an influence across the country. Plus being the national capital, every citizen has a stake in it. So that's why someone like me sitting in Bangalore is concerned about what's happening in Delhi right now. Like Metro has been copied everywhere. I mean, despite the fact that many of the cities may not want Metro at all as far as the urban mobility is concerned, isn't it? Yes. Okay. One of the other things that we have in India as we get large mega projects pushed through with sometimes specific interests in mind which are not always looked at in terms of the sort of holistic benefit to the city. I think Sanjay, can you hear here? So we've seen two architects speaking about the TOD but as a sociologist, what is the problem with TOD? Because I've seen so many sociologists writing about it that look, it invites gentrification, it's quite exclusive in nature, you know, all that stuff. So how do you understand this? I mean, especially the amendments. And from a sociological angle, what is the TOD? Just to build upon what Narayan and Prem have just said, I think we need a sense of the larger picture in terms of what's happening in Delhi. So as you mentioned, one of the largest projects since the 1950s in terms of building entirely new cities and new urban development. I say 1950s because that's when the steel project, the steel city project happens. That's the largest state intervention in urban building entirely new cities. It's a smart cities project right now. And I wanted to start with that because I think it is the basis of what the government is trying to do, the state is trying to do in other fields. So what happens in the smart city thing, of course, is that it's trying to change entirely not only the administrative structure of cities, but also the way urban spaces are imagined. And thirdly, how they're to be financed. Because as I'm sure if you know that the smart cities mission is premised on this special purpose vehicle, which asks finances to be raised in a certain manner. The running of the urban governance itself to be organized in a similar manner. That is to take away some of the powers of governance and governmentality from the elected representatives to in effect global consultants. I think that is the larger model in which we need to understand. As Prem was saying that it isn't just about what happens around specific metro line, but the broader sense in which you understand the city. The larger model really has to be understood. The larger context should be understood in terms of the different kind of changes that are being put in place, which are about finance, which is about what elected representatives can or cannot do. I mean, whatever the ills of our system in terms of representatives don't do, there's always a little gap where you can approach elected representatives and get certain things done. And so it seems to me the one, the problem with the TOD is of course, and I think is that I was saying that it is an American model and that itself is not always a bad thing. But what happens, how do you apply to the in an urban context, which is hugely asymmetrical. Do you want a series of cities which are in effect nothing worth, that's what's happening, a series of gated communities, which is what our cities have become. Do you want a city where whatever little public intermingling that happens and tends to reduce the sense asymmetry that cities have, even that disappears. So I think if you want to think about the TOD, then you need to go back to fundamentally what should be the relationship between citizens, any citizen in the state. Because what's happening here, just reading Narayan's article and reading other material that was sent to me is largely, and that's a norm in our urban planning, largely very top down. And in the further deepening of the top down relationship between citizens of the state. And that's been there since almost from Delhi Improvement Trust, which was in 1937, and then it's polished and DDA becomes the urban planning body in Delhi. And that has become deeper. You would think that with globalization, whatever the patitudes people use, that things become decentralized. But I think what has happened right now is a deep centralization, which involves a transformation in what the state is and its association with the private global capital. And that is really going to affect what is happening in our cities. That's one way that I think I just following on from what Narayan and Prem have said. Thanks Ajay. I mean, you really brought out an important element. And before I jump to Sopna, because we would like to know more about the heritage aspect of how it will be affected after the amendments being incorporated eventually in the TOD. I think Mallashree, because she is an urban planner, designer in Delhi. Mallashree, how do you understand the changes that are being brought out? And as would you also like to comment on, you know, I remember KCR used to, very, very, I mean, used to make fun of all that stuff. Look, cities are being governed by the peristals. Actually, the peristals are running the city. And like Sanjeev also pointed out, it's the DDA, not the Delhi government. The poor Delhi government, the Delhi chief minister happens to be just a metropolitan mayor, nothing more than that. And that also, I mean, we can understand how empowered the Delhi chief minister is. So, Mallashree, would you like to bring in that element also? And I mean, how are you viewing it? Yeah, please go ahead. So, I just want to say also that I'm not an urban planner. Yeah, yeah. And if you could just also bring in the contradiction that actually develops between the master plan and the TOD. Yeah. That's something that I'd like to talk about. I'm an architect by training and I've taught city planning and city critic courses at the School of Architecture for several years. So, I come in from, I mean, I come in with a slightly more critical perspective on the TOD. And given that we're talking about it today, I also feel that we need to locate this development somehow within the current crisis. And, you know, we're talking about an outdated idea that we are importing and we cannot do it without localizing it in the time and space that we are in right now. So, many, many say it's an outdated idea. What does that mean? So, I'll come to that. But I mean, I mean that we are bringing in, bringing this in decades after American cities have implemented them. So, just in terms of the time, we are borrowing an idea and we are locating it within a city that is struck by several crises, not least the present one. We are dealing with air pollution. We are dealing with fast depleting continuous urban greens. And we're dealing in Delhi with an extremely poor overall urban quality of life. So, and the current, you know, pandemic will, and it is already intensifying everything. And it puts really under sharp focus the things that we have held dear as urban planners, designers, architects, the kind of things that we've talked about. And one of the things that I thought it really brings under question is this idea of urban density. The TOD is being looked at as a tool to densify or to induce densification in pockets around the, you know, the hubs around the metro stations. What's wrong with technology? So my question is, I mean, yeah. Yeah, one of the arguments is that, look, if a person has to charge a distance of, say, half a mile or one fourth of a mile, I mean, use the carbon footprint. So I mean, what is the problem with that? No, nothing. There's no, there's no. So the thing with these concepts as concepts, of course, as in language, there's no problem with it. We should have mixed use dense walkable areas. But the thing is, we live in a, we live in a city which is already dense, it's poor, and it's mixed. We, I mean, and, you know, and coming back to the pandemic, we're finding it increasingly problematic. And this is a, you know, urban density is a twin edge. So to prevent infections from spreading, and in guys of delivery of service, you know, in the, in guys of the problem in delivering services, the government is also looking at these areas as completely unruly. So there is that one side of urban density that is being questioned. And we don't know how this is going, how we're going to emerge from it. So while we are romanticizing dense urban neighborhoods, you know, like the Jane Jacobs middle class, they don't really exist because in Delhi people live in dense colonies, chocked out of agricultural land outside of the master plan that have been incrementally developed and authorized. These are 50 to 100 squared houses laid out around streets which are 20, 30 feet at best. And they're running at, you know, perpendicular, they have shops on the ground, they have open drains, the balconies barely let in the sunlight on the ground. There are no parks, the plots are built edge to edge. So with a four to five story development, which is, you know, cheek to cheek, you're talking about an FR of five already. You're building. So there's no problem talking about walkability, high density, mixed land use. But when you look around you, this is where Delhi lives today. Most of the cities living outside of the master plan in these dense neighborhoods, which are already now stigmatized with this pandemic. I quickly went over the list of the 43 neighborhoods that have been that are now the containment zones today. And some eight or nine are the ones that I could see which are clearly in the master plan areas. All the others are pasties, urban villages, unauthorized, regularized colonies. So again, not to stigmatize these further, but people are already living in maximum density with no safe access to open areas, open space. How do we talk about TOD in a city like this? If you, I mean, what happens to a homegrown city where this where the state is refusing to intervene with all these concepts like, you know, walkability, etc. The state does not or cannot intervene in these neighborhoods. How do we talk about TOD then? So of course, there is no, there's no idea. There's no problem in a innocent word like walkability, but these questions are redundant in places which are, which have developed despite the state. And for me, there's an added, there's just one more point that I'd like to raise in relation to this question of density. And again, coming back to the crisis at the moment, which is also a crisis of the environment, is the overall question of well-being. When we recover and when we have beaten down this curve, we will have at hand a multiple, like a huge mental health crisis amplified by the fact that our homes have no lights, our workplaces are dense. We don't have enough places to recuperate. We have no parks and forests. And the state-sponsored development on the other hand that we have seen right, you know, at the moment in the recent times has gone from being barely tolerable to outright horrific. I mean, look at East Kidwai Nagar, look at Naroji Nagar, the World Trade Tower coming up there. The high-rise development that DMRC has erected at prime stations like the Okla, these are monstrosities and all of these per se are TOD. They are within or in walkable distance to the metro station. And what confidence do we have in a government to develop a city for the well-being of its people? I mean, look at what we have done at the moment. We have in Kidwai Nagar a multiple basement development edge-to-edge. No big trees are possible in this area because it just stacked with basements. And there is no push to get the residents to take the car even though you're right next to the metro station. So what are we talking about transit-oriented development? I think that's a very relevant point that you've raised. I'm so glad that you've raised that point. We'll come back again once we have a second round of discussion. Yeah. But I think I would like to jump to Anuj. Anuj, can you hear me? Can you just unmute your button? Yeah, great. Yes. So actually Anuj and I, we were together in Leh. I mean, preparing some kind of mobility. I don't know whether it will work or not, ever. So Anuj, I mean, what we just heard from Wallachry, it looks like a mystification. I mean, something mystified. And so would you like to demystify the entire thing? I mean, this entire TOD planning and how is it different from the current process of planning, please? Yeah. Sure. Thank you so much. Yeah. A couple of interesting points raised by Ms. Joshi and also Sanjay Ji and Prem Ji, which I would like to kind of, I mean, I felt like jumping in at that point. But I want to sort of also respond to some of the points that they were making. Interestingly, I would very strongly say that it is very unfortunate that TOD is read as a policy which brings in FAR. And that is the whole point of contention, which I clearly read. What does that mean? Please try to explain that in more simple terms. I will just explain. So FAR is basically a floor area ratio, which means that how much you can build on a plot of land. And say, for example, in a 100 FAR or a 150 FAR, you can typically build about five-story, four to five-story building. And in a 500 FAR, you could easily go up to 20, 30, 40 stories or even higher. So that's the main thing about FAR. And that is primarily because there is a certain area of land on which you can build. And you can't build less than that. It's particularly a one hectare land. So any land plot which is above one hectare will confirm, will have the TOD regulations applied to them. Less than one hectare, you can't apply TOD regulations. So what I was saying is that unfortunately, and it is very unfortunate actually, I would like to use that word, that TOD is equal to FAR right now in most of the minds of planners, architects and general fraternity. I would say that has been a huge loss in communication in terms of the TOD communication. And that responsibility, I think it is the responsibility of all the planners, all the government officials, everybody who had been involved with TOD, including me, maybe I've also not communicated enough that it's not about FAR. FAR is just one incentive that one gets on a larger plot. That's all. But if you look at all the other principles of TOD, which are hugely beneficial, and that is precisely what TOD was and has been conceived. Now what is TOD? Let me also please say, I think I completely, like Mr. Narayan Murthy completely said all the points, but some of the two, three points I would like to add here, which Murthy sort of did not say. One is that the most important point is that the TOD gives the flexibility of coming right up to the road and right up to the footpath line, which says that you can build to edge, you can remove your sit back. Now setbacks as you can see typically in Delhi, let me give you an example. Let's say an example of Dwarka. Now Dwarka has 45 meter roads. Now Dwarka has 45 meter roads, meaning from boundary wall to boundary wall, it is 45 meter. But if you actually see the distance between building line to building line in Dwarka is actually 100 meters. Now what that means is that a person who is living in the balcony of one of the towers cannot actually communicate to anybody who is living across the road. Not just that, he cannot communicate to anybody who is walking on the footpath, right in front of his house. Now that is a very large distance for anybody to read anybody. And adding to that is the fact that places like Delhi, there is a lot of streets which are underlit, there is a huge crime which exists. I mean the Nirbhaya crime is a very, very important example here. I mean nobody even knew that there is a lady being picked up and there is something happening in the bus. There is crime. So what I can understand from this question is that the building should come on the edges, is it? Yeah, one is that the setback if we have the removal of setback like you see in the old cities of Delhi, like you see in major very much developed cities of New York, London, you can see anywhere, there is no setback. What will happen to air, light and all those things that I saw? You have the road. So you basically get all your air light from the road and it's actually something that we over and over discuss with the fire department because fire department is the most crucial department, they come to the rescue of the services. So as soon as the building is lit up, then that is where the fire department becomes more easy to access the building if they are right on the street. If they have to cross the boundary wall, they are absolutely not done. So that was point number one. Second is building on the edge and having active frontages. Now active frontage is something that most of the cities actually make it safer. I mean what do you see getting across from the station? You see vibrancy, you see a lot of vendors, you see a lot of markets which are actually open 24 hours. I mean the markets near the railway station never sleep, they have never slept. But that is the point we are making that you can always live and work at the same place because you can have the shop in the bottom and you can live on the top. That's typically what you see in Gujarat cities. But I think it's nothing that we are doing. But Anuj, I think that is what has been proposed in the new amendments. So what is the problem then? No actually those are being deleted in the new amendments unfortunately. Oh those are being deleted, okay. Yes, so that is why we are actually discussing this is because if you delete those amendments then we are back to square one. Oh okay, great. I'm glad that you brought this too. So those are the things. Now if you allow me one more minute I would like to respond a little bit to what Ms. Joshi also said. Now I agree with Ms. Joshi on a lot of points and I disagree with her in a lot of points. She is absolutely right and most of us are absolutely right that yes there are very dense areas in Delhi and actually they are gasping for air, literally. And it's a lot of density. You see Uttam Nagar, you see East Delhi, they're like hugely built up. What do they lack? They lack open space as Ms. Joshi also pointed out. Now what the TOD does? You know TOD gives you that opportunity that you may or may not build 500 FIR, that's not the concern. The concern is that with TOD you are able to actually re-amalgamate your plots, reconfigure them and give that 20% or 30% open space that TOD mandates. So 20% goes to the roads and 30% goes to the public space so 50% of the area is actually meant for public use and not as opposed to right now which is 50% is in private hands. That's the main difference. Thanks Anuj for pointing that out. Rajiv, are you there? I'm right here, listening to everybody. So would you like to contest what Anuj said because he said quite interesting things about the mobility aspect. And one more thing that I would like to point out to you is because you know NAUA is responsible for the master plan. They are the ones who are actually working on it. And now with this TOD, do you think, I mean is it not a kind of contradiction between two different agencies working or do you find a contradiction between the master plan and the kind of TOD that is happening? So I'll try to answer that question. There are issues between the master plan and the TOD policy because there are two different things coming from two different sources. We are trying to implement TOD in an existing city and in an existing master plan. I'll discuss that in more detail but I'd like to go back a little bit to what Sanjay and what Moultrey said and I do agree with a lot of their points. I think we must understand these words FAR and density because density in the sense in which TOD is used means the number of people living in the area. And the basic thinking and logic behind transit oriented development is that the largest number of people should be accommodated close to transit nodes so that they have access to public transit systems. They're encouraged to take public transit systems and we reduce the amount of private transport in the city which one assumes will reduce pollution, will reduce congestion and have several other effects. This is the basic principle and we must not conflate the words density and FAR. And this is slightly important here because FAR is a proportion of the amount you can build on a piece of land to the area of the land itself. It is therefore assumed that the higher the FAR, the higher the density will be. Now these are funny technical words and we shouldn't get too worried about the technical words. What we should understand is that FAR is perhaps inappropriately being used as a tool to try and increase densities and it is not often happening. And that has to do with something which we haven't discussed yet which is the monetization of land. And this is a very tricky concept because the current TOD policy is trying to monetize the land because the government in its sort of thinking needs to justify the cost of the land on which it is allowing development to happen. In doing so it has used a very blunt instrument for a very fine surgery and it has brought in FAR as a very sort of blunt tool as I said which merely says you can build a lot. It merely says you can build a lot and this is supposed to sort of counterbalance the cost of the land where all of this development will happen. Now that's monetization. Now if we are attempting to monetize things, what typically happens and this is why what Maltry said is so important is that the kind of development which happens around these sort of high density transit nodes tend to be far higher end. They tend to be expensive. They tend to be high end. The apartments tend to be bigger. The shops tend to be high end because those are things which recover the money better and faster. So what that actually does is that the transit oriented development in this form becomes a tool for the elite. It becomes a way for developers and development to happen which essentially assists those who need it the least, who are the elite, who are the wealthy, who are the privileged. And typically areas of Delhi and I'm assuming and I know this to be the case in many other cities of India, the people who need it the most, the underprivileged, the poor, those who live in slum like settlements, those who live in informal settlements and urban villages. Those who will take the metro. Those who will take the metro. Assuming they could afford it because the other part of TOD and TOD in Delhi is the metro is rather expensive. As a result of which the people who are actually using the metro, the very large will be the middle class or are people who have to pay fairly exorbitantly for their metro fare. A bus system is probably far more appropriate in Delhi towards transit oriented development. So this concept of monetization actually becomes a divide between the rich and the poor and TOD then becomes a tool to essentially facilitate the wealthy and facilitate expensive rich developments in the city, leading to larger and larger urban divides. And it is it is fairly unjust from that perspective. And this will answer your original question, because the master plan of Delhi like any master plan is supposed to be a planning exercise to benefit the largest number of people in the city. It is an overall planning exercise which takes into account densities takes into account populations takes into account economic differences and attempts to make an overall document which benefits the entire city. Now when TOD happens it is a it is a policy which tends to look at itself and maybe rightly so every policy needs to look at itself to develop as well as it can, but it is simply then overlaid on top of the master plan. So what happens is areas of land which are close to these transit oriented developments tend to get built very large. And for our viewers who don't understand I think the architects in this group will understand very clearly an FAR of four or five, which is what is proposed for TOD is actually a lot of development. It's a lot of very large tall buildings. If I just if I may just ask you because they've said one hectare, say for one hectare if there's an fire of five, how many stories can you just jump up? Well, that's the answer to that is actually a combination of things. What that means is you can build five hectares of and when you combine that with setbacks, which is the distance which is often given from the boundary wall, when you combine that with high restrictions and many other such regulations, typically in my mind, if one told me five FAR, I would be thinking nothing less than 50 or 60 floors, perhaps even higher. The last FAR I developed in my office, which we worked on with an FAR of four, and our buildings went up to 45 floors in order to accommodate it. This is what we're looking at. Five would be even higher. These five is a very, very high. We've already seen the police headquarters coming up right in. And that's where I want to bring Sopna. Thank you so much for really listening to all the views. And I think I remember a discussion with you when we were doing the talk at the Central Vista and you said, you know, this entire Central Vista is our heritage. It's not a colonial heritage. Sopna, can you just explain to our viewers what is all about heritage? I mean, why is it so important for all of us? I think it's been very helpful to have the groundwork laid by all the other experts who really talked about what the TOD is and what, more importantly, what are these amendments that are coming in? And I'm looking, let me look specifically at the amendments just to keep it brief. And what it does is that the previous policy as articulated had actually exempted certain areas from this policy, which have now been brought back because those clauses have been deleted. And these areas were very crucial. One is the so-called Luckians-Bangalore zone, which is that New Delhi, low density, low rise, green spaces, that area. And so let me talk about that first. Now there, this is going to have a big impact because we have been heritage experts have been saying for a long time that, in fact, we were looking forward to the new master plan. Actually, planning for heritage areas and more defining them, defining their characteristics, defining what can and cannot happen from a heritage point of view. And that is the problem because a policy like this then will not look at heritage. And it has, and as we said that that's what the task of the master plan was, but if you can completely ignore it by overlaying this particular policy, then that goes. And as I have mentioned before, many times, Luckians-Bangalore zone is important. It's got not only iconic architecture, it's got those public spaces, those green spaces, which we as a city tremendously lack right now. The other exemption is very interesting also the LDRA, low density residential areas. Many of these are actually are urban villages. And what people don't often realize is that these are also often, these are in fact are some of cities oldest areas. Mahiroli, it's a very old area. Khidki, Hozrani, these are old areas which are rich in heritage. So these and they require legislation planning, which is of a very, very different kind. So this one size fits all kind of policy might be to very, very deleterious effects in these areas. And these are the kind of exemptions that should be looked at this whole business of FAR. Now, one of the things that has been changed in this amendment is that earlier it was seen that the higher this zone of densification along the mass transit lines would absorb what we call the TDR, which is transferable development rights that it would enable us to keep densities low in these crucial heritage pockets by transferring those rights. We could incentivize people to keep low rise developments, low density developments by transferring those rights elsewhere. And this would was supposed to be an absorption zone for those TDRs. Now that also has been, that has been deleted now. So these are the ways in which I think the amendments that are coming in are going to impact heritage negatively. And of course, last but not least the regulated zones of the monuments. I mean, I don't even need to go into that. It's quite obvious that the kind of development that is emphasized might have, you know, give the thin edge of the wedge to completely ignore things like, you know, the regulated area which is around national monuments or state protected monuments. Thanks. I would like to hear more from you because I think Prem spoke the least. So Prem, are you listening to me? Yes, yes. Yeah. So, you know, there's something very interesting that Narayan pointed out. And before I jump to Narayan, I think something which is, I mean, I'm a bit concerned about that. And that is actually Narayan said that I couldn't get the feel who is at the driving seat. According to Narayan, it's a bunch of bureaucrats. Do you think it's that naive? Do you not think it's basically the kind of policy paradigm that we are witnessing a kind of nexus between like what do you mean when you speak about land monetization? It's the big corporates, what Sanjay also pointed out. Or we just keep it to, you know, a few bunch of bureaucrats are displaying the shots. I mean, how do you take it? And please take your time. I think it's more than just a bunch of bureaucrats. This position is a key. Two aspects. One is the way land markets are structured and the other, yeah, the other wording of these amendments. If you start with land markets, they are notoriously inefficient in India. They're corrupt, they're opaque, they're inefficient and that causes a distortion at prices so that land values in the large Indian cities have no relationship to median incomes. So actually, if you try and sort of map that to median incomes, you find that let alone capital value, even any rental values that ensue 50 to 60% of the population cannot afford to officially locate themselves on a land use plan. And they're pushed outside the system. Now, the poor in the Indians, you have to realize survive because master planning is weak, both in ideation and implementation. And that gives them the space for the informal systems of tenure that allow their survivor. And we're talking about a majority of the population here. So the problem is when you start pushing paradigms that extend the reach of formal master planning without recognizing this marginalization, you're going to get an increasing contestation over space, which is going to turn increasingly violent. And I think we're beginning to see the first signs of that violence already. Where can we just cite an example? Pick up the newspapers, the kind of violence we're seeing is because of the frustration of people who are being marginalized. And that's the only way you can express yourself and mark your presence now for many people in the cities through violence. From there, I'd like to go to the specific wordings of these amendments. If you look at the original language under TOD, there were a lot of public interest goals that were identified, like creating safe spaces, increasing affordability of housing, extra space for pedestrians. I mean, there's a long list. I can go through it. Practically, all of that is wiped out in the new language. And the new language is just about efficiency. It's about FAR. And some fairly overt language on financialization of land is introduced. And I think I should quote here. It says, TOD is an innovative urban paradigm that involves leveraging existing and upcoming public transit infrastructure. TOD is also an important strategy for unlocking the latent economic and land values in the city. And under the TOD policies, development plans for these TOD zones are invited from private developers. So actually we have public investment, which has gone into creating this public transit, which is being leveraged for private profit. And the high land values, which are actually come out of distorted land markets more than anything else, are used as an excuse for needing higher FDRs. So we got to realize that we start with a paradigm of planning that is extremely elitist that produces huge degrees of marginalization. And in the way this current policy is worded, we are just extending that, exacerbating the problem by a factor of multiple factor. I think, thank you. Before I reach out to, because we are really running short of time, and I will try to reach out to everyone who's left for the second round. But I think Sanjay, I would like you to really intervene here. You know, all this speaks about land monetization. One, and with the vision that look, private capital is going to come and really going to take our woos off. And that's how this development trajectory is going to actually advance. But we have seen the pandemic and we are also witnessing post pandemic what is going to happen. It's delinquency of the buyer. I mean, you know, when we speak about in political economy, I mean, where is where the people who are going to come back and really going to invest in. So I mean, do you think it's a fool's paradise? Or I mean, is there some substance to the entire vision that is being developed? Well, Sanjay. Yeah. I mean, I'll just comment on the broader context of vision, the TOD is embedded. You know, I mean, I think it's, of course, it's important to think about what private capital does. But you know, since I would say since 1947, the most significant displacement without any compensation has been done by the state. Not by private capital. We need to think about that. The state works for the private capital, yeah. The state creates the conditions for land markets to be created. In fact, in Delhi, I mean, it is a state that I fear historically much more than private capital. India has historically been the largest land speculator of anywhere in the world. If you could buy land at agricultural rates, please then put 10 years, 20 years and sell them at enormous market rates. So the problem of unauthorized colony so called is actually a state created problem. It is not necessarily a problem that private capital is done. So once I'm not, I'm not, I'm not advocating sort of a fee for all private development, but we need to understand nature of our state as well. And, you know, and the fact that the formal and informal in India completely connected. So I think that whilst it is quite true that we should be wary of how private capital and particularly our global consultancy company, which we deeply embedded now in the urban railing sectors in the real estate sector near function. I don't think we should, and I probably wouldn't have said this, said this 15 years ago. We should, we should be sort of deeply, we should go overboard in terms of thinking about the, that everything that private capital does is essentially bad. The history of Indian state is a is a horrific history. And what what happened in 1960 that a small state elite in effect captured most of resources. So I think we need to think in our public discourse, we need to also recognize that the larger public discourse is not about people like us nine people like us saying that there is a much greater acceptability amongst a larger public for good or bad that the state has failed us. Right. So why, why do people think like why do people think that PPP is public private partnerships and build in a tollways are much better shopping malls are great things. I think we need to understand that firstly, and then see what is to be the balance after all anyone who is actually concerned about what neoliberalism does would first of all argue that we need to work out what the state should not do. That is the issue is not what the state we should we should need to work out what should the state maybe the state shouldn't be running, maybe should be constituting the health sector, maybe should not. It may sound very kind of sacrilegious, maybe state the state shouldn't be running private airlines, maybe give you know. So I think when you're thinking about cities, it's really important it seems to me to work out. If you're really interested on the deleterious effects of what private capital does, you should think about what the state should not do. And now right now what has happened is that the state has increasingly transformed itself with through the social and private capital into large corporations. But do you think is it also because of the fact that you know when I brought in that aspect of the delicacy of the buyer, so you know there's huge amount of capital lying, I mean there's nobody, I mean there's no offloading taking place. So I mean is state facilitating that? I mean don't you think so? Historically it's always been true if you look at Gurgaon, when the change of land uses large amounts of agricultural land would change. So without the state you cannot have private capital functions. So what is the alternative? Well I think the alternative is to, I mean as I said I would not have said this perhaps 10-15 years ago. But to work out what we should ask private capital to do and what we should ask the state to do. Because often there is tendency for many of us including myself to be completely dismissive of say private capital. Historically in a country like India the state has done terrible, I mean I think most of our urban problems have been due to the manner the state has functioned as a monopoly speculator of land. So we need to work out what that should be. So Sanjay, I mean I would like Narayan to really come to it. What Sanjay is professing is that look it's not the problem, I mean if I could make it very simple. It's not problem of the master plan, it's the master plan in itself. I mean if I could make it that linear. So I mean what is your take on it? And you know we were in keto for the Habitat 3 with John Kloss, I mean the executive director came from streaming saying that look we have to go back to the basic. And the basic cement to get rid of this whole business for less of a free market economy in the cities. So how do you really place this argument what Sanjay is building up? I mean it's very interesting that what he is describing. See what's happened is that this has gotten to a very technical conversation. I don't know how much of the audience who are lay people are going to be able to follow it. But between the six, seven people here very interesting facets have been explored. A lot of it unfortunately is in English and a lot of it has been in very technical language. But this is the matter of everyday life. This is what the citizen actually undergo sees. Sanjay is an extremely interesting thesis and equally if you look at each of the facets of what everybody else has said over here. All of that together makes the composite picture of what a city is or what a city should be. So that is a very interesting thesis that actually it's the state which has meddled far too much. To paraphrase from what Sanjay was saying as well. Do we need our state, our master planning authority to be talking? Prem recounted to us the exact words of the policy. And words being used were all about monetization. They were about leveraging value. Okay now leveraging value is something we expect private capital to talk about. And the checks and balances are provided by the state. Which doesn't allow them to go beyond a certain level or limit which is in the public interest. When the state starts talking in this language then the citizen is left bereft. And really when master planning was first conceived of it was actually more, I'd say a paternalistic idea that the state would watch over the development of a city and keep it to the straight and the narrow of what actually benefits the larger segment of society. Unfortunately our state has gotten to running airlines as well as become a developer of cities and therefore this whole dichotomy that comes in. One thing that I want to bring it back to is a lot of the conversation has been around Delhi even though Prem is sitting in Bangalore, Sanjay is sitting in London and I wish more of us were sitting in other cities. But this is actually not about Delhi. DDA is the first body implementing it. But this is a national policy, the national transit oriented development policy. The second part is that in this country the DDA is actually a precursor to most things. It's a progenitor to most things. Delhi is the first city that had a metro. Delhi is the first city that had a BRTS. Delhi is the first city that had a master plan. Delhi is the first city that had a development authority. What do you find? Every city in India picks it up and aids it. So the fear is that if Delhi dilutes the idea of the transit oriented development the good parts of the transit oriented development, not what Marjini spoke of which is to one extent anything that we do has a good side and a bad side which is what the citizen is concerned about. He is really concerned about how are we improving the quality of his life as planners, as architects or as the state. So there are these two facets to it and that's the reason why I said that this is a work in progress. This was meant to develop as it went along. We are trying to pick up a foreign concept and suit it to our city but again equally it's not so foreign a concept. You know things that Anuj spoke about like I is on the street. The building up to the street edge. That is what Jaisalmer is. That is what Udaipur is. That is what the cities of Gujarat are. That is what the cities of Tamil Nadu are. I think we just have to keep the time constant also in mind. But Maltri are you there? Can you hear me Maltri? Yes, I am there. Great. So I think very quickly if you could respond to what Narayan said and also when we speak about how do we look at the whole slogan of right to the city. We discussed so much about sustainable development goals and right to sleeping the ineligible right of our citizens. But the whole process is so opaque. Yes, first back to Narayan's point about well-lit cities, eyes on the street etc. Great undeniable concepts. How do they land on a city that's already built? We are not going to be able to shift building blocks within Dwarka. What do we really mean when we are you know so let's not I mean and if the if the visual if if the imagination is has been so detailed I would like that this communication is visualized and presented to the public. There is no idea how these developments are going to land in heritage areas in like Swapna mentioned urban villages. If the vision is so distinct I think the visualization should follow but it doesn't. It never does. And the the opacity of this process and this imagination is exactly the point of this development. I don't think we should be naive about how this the amendments have sort of added up to hollowing the policy. That's really the whole point you know and we need to be very critical of it exactly as a process and not as an end document. We've seen a lot of and there is a test case we've seen some terrible cases play out already. So why are we giving the state such a long you know such a long sort of rope? Why are we not looking at the evidence that we already have on the ground? Please look at Naroji Nagar the 7GPRA colony cases that has already been planned. What has it done to heritage? What has it done to greens? What has this done to what has it done to walkability and all these things that we talk about? Why are we not seeing a proof of concept? So I think we don't need to critique the policy in the imagination that it ought to have or how it has been in the experience of cities in Europe. We need to look at it as a hollow document that it is and that's really very much the point of it if it's talking in terms of financialization or in terms of economics and has taken away the kind of public imagination and the livability then we really have something to worry about. So I mean I think we need to push back and ask the government to look at this as you know as you know like you said the right to the city, who are we building this for? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rajiv, are you there? Thank you. So just two questions I mean because you know you're running short of time as well I mean you really stretch the time beyond what we should have. One is what is an optimal density as mentioned? I mean what would be an optimal density? And second which may not be like directly linked to you and just answer that because and deliberately I'm posing this question to you because you are a city planner. I mean how do you bring in the people what Sanjay also mentioned I mean because after all the city belongs to the people. Well just a small correction I'm an urban designer and a planner is somebody slightly different, very close but slightly different. To answer your first question what is the ideal density and the answer is I couldn't tell you. There is no ideal density, there is no one density and this point must be understood across the board which is one of the problems I think many people and many experts are having. It's attempting to be a blanket policy which gives a single mode of development to the whole of Delhi to the whole of India if this policy is adopted across many cities and that's rather disastrous we cannot have ideal densities our cities are rich and different and historic and you know that has to be worked out with a lot of thinking and study from area to area with a great deal of sensitivity and that's a word which I think is missing in the current policy because it is a little insensitive to history it's a little insensitive to sensitive parts of cities as in Delhi particularly now but possibly into the future and I think the second part of your question part of it is what isn't what Maulshri said I think a lot of planning as a process in India and urban design it tends to be couched behind numbers, couched behind terminology and I think it is imperative for the planners and for the urban designers and the architects to visualize to show these visualizations to the people to show them what they will lose or gain both may happen in different ways which is one. The second part which I think hasn't been discussed too much on this particular panel is that planning and urban design all over the world I mean this coming from wanting to sort of compare ourselves to many places in the world planning and urban design is moving away from top heavy systems it's moving into systems of what in India is often called local area planning where we go and talk to the people area by area find out their aspirations find out what they want and include and incorporate those in the master plan but rather than it being a top heavy system where a state or a government or a sort of an organization on top goes and makes this one sort of master plan in their sort of wisdom it does not negate the master plan it does not negate the urban designers their points of view will be taken into account as well and they are sort of educated experts in the subject but we have to ask the people and the TOD policy and asking the people what they want and what they need and such an exercise hasn't been negated at all I wish we had more time over to brought the 74th constitutional amendment also here but you know we can't start the time Anuj, before I go to Subna just to conclude this discussion are you there Anuj? Yeah so I mean your I mean maybe two minutes what else do you want to add for what you said just before I mean apart from that well let me just say because I've been hearing everybody and it's kind of interesting that a lot of things that are being said are kind of hinged to TOD policy otherwise if they were not TOD policy I mean those things are still true I would say like for example talking about visualizations to begin with talking about land monetization the recent point with Rajiv just made you know about talking to people doing the local area plan I mean those things are with or without TOD I mean you need to do it but are we doing it I mean that's the question we all should be asking actually was it done till now it hasn't been so I think we need to distinguish things a little bit so that we can do a little more clearer kind of demand in the way we are asking for things like these are not bad demands actually these are very valid demands but like for example the visualization now I would like to add here that definitely TOD needs to do that TOD does not end at just being a policy what is being conceived actually is that the whole planning needs to move from being a two dimensional document to a three dimensional figure which actually tells people how your city is going to be now that is the aim of TOD actually that's one, number one second is also I would like to bring in this fact very important fact actually that TOD is trying to bring in density from I don't know where I mean it's not from the air like I will tell you my example I'm a middle class guy earning 20 lakhs a year I've been coming to Delhi very frequently I come to Delhi very frequently like I take 18 flights in a month but till date I have not been able to find any accommodation in the last 7 years of my coming to Delhi any accommodation near a metro station or near a transit stop where I can actually go and live or at least rent a place because there is no supply in Delhi there is no supply of one bedroom one and a half bedroom which I as a middle class person can also afford it's not just about those poor guys I mean I also want that living but I don't find it okay now that's one and all the different discussions that we've had with the builders builders are pretty happy to actually build that kind of small unit size and that's what is being in a way is actually that's the one of the requirements that TOD policy also talks about is that a smaller footprint can be built up in a higher density now a person who is actually we are talking about these EWS guys this is the last point last point I want to make is that the auto tour community and the labour and the migrant workers I mean if you look at how much money they are spending on transportation then they are spending a enormous amount of money on transportation unfortunately it's about 50% of their monthly income and that's a huge amount of money me as a person spend about 8% they spend 50% now there is nothing wrong in actually letting them being close to a station Satna are you there because you are really completely here can you hear me I can hear you Satna first here my question the point is we have articulated what we are against as of now we have very interesting discussions from different corners but what are we fighting for I mean for a livable city for a good city what would that good city be and also linking it to the whole concept of heritage and because we didn't have time so we didn't bring in the urban commons how the urban commons would be affected but if you could just touch on that and conclude this discussion yes I think what Rajiv mentioned about diversity it's not just between different cities it might impact it is within a particular city and that's one of the things that heritage brings in for instance if you look at Latian's Bangalore zone New Delhi it's very very different from Chajanabad another planned city but of a completely different era and in term these are very different from the urban villages that I talked about this diversity which should be recognized through heritage in master planning and other kinds of planning these are things that we should be looked at it's not a monument policy it's not a heritage policy it should be planning as such which should take into account these kinds of diversities one may say that Latian's Bangalore zone is very low density it should be densified if you look at the potential for recreation and over the years it's been getting less and less the way the war memorial has taken over a very important place where people used to lounge around the India gate see hexagon or what has happened to it was not so long ago that people used to just relax on the roundabouts now these have become manicured spaces which are completely out of bounds and I think that is a process that keeps happening and that aspect of heritage linked to public spaces I think has to be very strongly defended I think and lastly I mean because that is something really jitters me and this question I posed to Rajiv also how do you or we or all of us link it to the people because after the depository happens to be there amongst the people ultimately it's the people I mean who on the city completely it is the city of the people by the people, for the people in every which way the answer to that is very difficult but we have to look at various levels the state has to be more benevolent I don't think we have an issue with private companies they need constraints, regulations and guidelines as to how to do so and that should be the job of the state and thirdly we need to have people involved in the master planning process which I think has really hasn't happened at all and certainly not in the case of the COD policy I think Prem wants to make a point, then we can conclude or maybe Sanjeev also, Prem can you just give us a very succinct formulation I heard once which has been called the Panchchila of urban development saying that cities should be socially just, culturally vibrant, economically dynamic, ecologically sustainable and politically participatory any paradigm of urban development that does not, urban planning that does not measure up to that we should reject because what we have now is we have these postulations of what a certain proper city should be without looking at the impact on the population whereas we should start with the population and see how it can inclusively negotiate in spatial order Thank you so much and if there's anybody who wants to make a fundamental point which is very crucial to the discussion can just raise the finger and go ahead so we will just finish off this I just want to say one thing in all the things that people spoke of there were a lot of good things spoken about the reason we are all here today is because this new modification removes a bunch of the good things the things that Anuj said, small units the COD policy actually spoke about all the residential units being 700 square feet or less of which half of them were to be only 400 square feet therefore there would have been affordable housing for that lower middle class and that would have been thrown out of the city today so all this goes out these are all going out and that is the reason why we are all here and talking today, what is drastic which is being foreseen what is the policy going to do, it's going to remove all this intelligence, all the equitability all the five punch shields that Prem recounted just now are all disappearing in these modifications and that's a cause for worry Sanjay, just very quickly sorry, go ahead I was just going to say quickly that I think one of the things that's happened and we need to keep this in mind is that the notion of what in the last two decades the notion of the people itself has changed historically the people in India were people who are the margins of society but now the people who are considered the people who should be benefited the most in fact the middle class, so the notion of who the ordinary person has changed, unless we keep that in mind so now the people who complain most that we are being discriminant against is in fact a very privileged group of people so we need to I think keep that in mind and I'll just stop there can I just make the last sort of more dark point here the punch shield principles are great but what happens to them in a hugely unjust city which is completely eroded its environment at the moment we are at the brink of a crisis the question is how do we make these great principles and land in a city like this and that's really the challenge at hand we are not designing from scratch we don't have that luxury anymore Sapna you are raising a finger okay fine, so thank you so much I mean it's been a wonderful discussion though as Narayan pointed out we went from the north to the south east to it but I think that is what was bound to happen with so many architects planners, designers and of course historians and of course social approaches the only person that I missed is from my fraternity from the political fraternity I mean we should have spoken about the 74th constitutional amendment and what not but I think we'll continue to this discussion maybe not in that large ambit but in a smaller ambit where we discuss for 10 minutes, 15 minutes because this struggle is bound to go it has to grow else the cities would be just for a handful of people I don't think that we mean cities to be developed for a handful of people thank you so much