Future development in new districts of NCR
The decision of National Capital Region Planning Board (NCRPB) to include three new districts- Bhiwani, Mahendragarh and Bharatpur – to NCR is likely to help entrepreneurs and investors with low-cost investments. The move is also expected to spur the realty growth in these areas.
The addition of three more districts would increase the land availability for the upcoming projects in NCR, which would likely cut down the rate of escalating real estate costs. According to real estate experts, this is a benefit to homebuyers as the expansion of NCR will provide more options for those looking for cheaper residential properties. But if left unchecked, the investors may lead to speculative rise of property costs in the newly added areas.
Lack of infrastructure and development
Over the years, it has been observed that the ‘NCR tag’ has had its impact on several towns belonging to NCR. The infrastructure development in the existing NCR areas (excluding new inclusions- Mahendragarh, Bhiwani and Bharatpur) indicates their growth story.
However, it has been proved in cases of Sonipat, Bulandshahr, Hapur, Mewat, etc. that without proper infrastructure in place, being under NCR is of no benefit to any area. Owing to the poor infrastructure, even after two or more decades of their inclusion, these areas have not been successful in the concept of ‘ integrated and holistic development’. On one side, politicians and bureaucrats say that greater growth of the NCR would help in reducing burden on the nation’s capital, while on the other side, planners allege that states are just setting up towns on the capital’s periphery – termed as ribbon development.
As per the Draft Revised Regional Plan-2021, only 33 of the total 108 towns in NCR have partial sewage system. Only six out of 63 towns in UP, 24 out of 35 towns in Haryana and two towns out of nine in Rajasthan are partially covered. The Plan says that, the NCR is still far from achieving the MoUD benchmark of 100 percent coverage, although it’s better than national average of 12.2 percent.
The NCR has achieved nothing great in case of solid waste generation and management. The region which was generating about 13,199 million tons of solid waste per day in 2011 is expected to generate around 19,238 million tons of garbage by 2021. But the authorities seem not to be prepared to this situation with sufficient landfill sites. The states will also have to work towards getting enough water supply in rural areas.
The absence of better planning and facilities in these areas indicates the failure of the NCRPB in achieving its goal to ‘evolve harmonized policies’ for land use control and infrastructure development to avoid ‘any haphazard development’.
Weak enforcement of NCRPB norms
Lack of coordination between states and poor enforcement of rules meant that economic integration within the region has remained mostly on paper. Due to this, only some NCR towns like Noida and Gurgaon have seen faster development while cities like Hapur and Mewat are still lagging behind.
According to NCRPB norms, the Master Plan of each of the constituent districts have to be approved by the board before the work starts. But this mandate is often violated by the members. But the Board is facing challenges in getting every state on board because it has no control on the local authorities pushing development in their areas. The NCRPB officials have also admitted that it is not easy to go through each of the 180 Master Plans that they receive.
For instance, in the case of Noida Extension, lakhs of middle class homebuyers had to face harassment in 2011 after their properties got embroiled in land dispute since the Greater Noida Authority has not sought the approval of the master plan of the region by the NCRPB. The plan was approved by the Board only last year.
Lack of funds
Sources said that the NCRPB neither has the funds nor the capacity to enforce its mandate. In addition, due to influence of some politicians, some states get more funds for financing infrastructure projects in their area while the others fail. Till March 2013, a loan of Rs 18,994 crore was disbursed by NCRPB, in which a majority of 72% was claimed by Haryana while UP had claimed 11%, followed by Rajasthan 9% and Delhi just 5%.
After looking at the historical growth of Delhi-NCR, it is likely that the newly included three districts may take any of the two ways- either they may see fast-track growth like Noida, Ghaziabad and Bhiwadi or they may end up struggling for long like Sonipat, Panipat and Narela, depending upon the political will on infrastructure development.
