The planning commission hasn’t had an urban planner in its ranks since 1996. Can you believe this?

Well, that is a cold fact revealed by someone who should know - Pronab Sen, advisor in the plan panel and chief architect of the approach paper to the 12th five- year plan. The admission comes at a time when urban India is rapidly expanding. 

“The planning commission has not had a qualified urban planner since 1996 and we are still making (urban development) plans,” he told to a gathering of civil society members in New Delhi on Friday.

That is why, he said, urban planning had been reduced to planning roads, sewerage, lighting and other such things. “We are not good at even these things.”

He went on to add, “It is a serious issue and we have already paid a heavy price. We continue to do so. To the best of my knowledge, we have two urban planning institutions but they don’t produce the kind of urban planners that are needed.”

Reacting to Sen’s statement, Miloon Kothari of Housing and Land Rights Network, a Delhi-based thinktank, told Governance Now that this was a shocking revelation and probably explained lack of vision in the approach paper for the 12th plan. “The skills that an urban planner brings are absolutely critical in a rapidly urbanising country”, he said.

No wonder a recent report by London-based thinktank Economic Intelligence Unit said last month that Mumbai, the financial capital of India, was one of the world’s worst cities to live in. Mumbai was ranked 116 in the survey of 140 cities around the globe. Delhi did not even find a place.