Green Regional Development Plan for Growth Centers in India

Project Summary:

The project aimed to better plan for the growth of peri-urban areas around India’s largest cities. Another 250 million people are expected to move into India’s already-crowded cities by 2030.  This rapid urbanization, coupled with straightjacketed urban land policies, has forced the evolution of peri-urban areas as new townships along existing transport and communication corridors.  Such sprawl threatens urban containment, and therefore environmental sustainability. This green growth implementation program would answer urban planners’ call for improved planning and economic decision-making. The key areas of focus are Bhopal and Indore in Madhya Pradesh, and the sprawl that is happening in between these two urban centers, as well as the Thane-Pune area outside of Mumbai. The program will prepare a comprehensive, green, and smart regional development strategy and plan that will promote sustainable economic development and job creation, include integrated approaches for effective urban-rural linkages, and protect valuable agricultural land. 

List of Activities:

• Reach agreement on the scope of work with Government of India and Government of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra
• Consultative and ground-truth based process of plan formulation for the two States
• Diagnosis of economic clusters, systems of cities, urban growth, and institutional aspects and identify critical infrastructure bottlenecks and strategy for sustainable and green regional development 
• Formulate sustainable and green regional development strategy

Outcomes:

Output 1:

• Draft diagnosis available for discussion 

Output 2:

• Draft development strategy available for discussion and subsequently adopted by the clients. 

Outcomes:

The proposed activity will result in a detailed sustainable and green regional development plan and strategies for the two States, including a range of options for land use, infrastructure networks and other critical investment. The outputs would be the crucial to engage the government partners in developing an implementation strategy which can be potentially funded by the World Bank and other development partners such as Korea. In addition, the proposed activity coupled with the outcomes supported by the KGGTF which supported spatial development options along the Amritsar-Kolkata freight corridor will inform and be critical essential inputs to the work currently planned World Bank’s global effort on spatial and territorial development.

Collaboration with K-Partners and Others:

• Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements will be a valuable partner.  The team plans to reach out to KRIHS and invite them to scoping meetings with state government entities. KRIHS’ experience in regional planning and capital investment programs linked to economic potentials will be highly relevant. In particular, KRIHS has been supporting developing a master plan for Kalyan for the greater Mumbai Metropolitan area and the team will seek to take lessons learnt from KRIHS’ recent engagement with Mumbai and ensure coordination of knowledge and information available. 
• Seoul Metropolitan Government to bring their experiences of planning for Seoul Metropolitan regions and key strategy and implementation of new town developments around Seoul. 
• Korea Transport Institute to promote the integration of land use and transport planning, partnership and strategy.