Abstract:
Bihta is a town near Patna, Bihar. It is located around 28 km west of Patna. The historic city of Patna in eastern India is one of the major cities on the banks of the mighty Ganga. The city faces extreme pressure on its services and is geographically constrained to grow in all directions. According to CityMayor's Foundation, Patna was India's fifth fastest-growing city during 2005-2010. Metropolitan citiesare progressively interlinked and dependent on secondary cities to boost trade, Investment, and localeconomic development. According to UN-Habitat, Satellite Towns are one such spatial category, called secondary cities surrounding the large urban metropolitan region. Bihta is emerging as the Satellitetown of Patna. The Satellite town (also known as Sub Town) of Bihta hosts the campus of several prominent educational institutions of Bihar including IIT and NIT Patna, IT parks, etc. besides several social infrastructures and government offices of various line departments. The present study unfolds the urban overload of Patna through the objective analysis of different urban services and infrastructures and finds how the urban overload of Patna shapes the functional and spatial structure of Bihta. Thereafter the present study makes an attempt to establish the potential of Bihta to become a satellite town of Patna and this is done through the objective analysis of relevant aspects. The present study further provides planning interventions based on the learnings of various satellite towns in India. To sum up, the present study documents the narrative of urban overload of a geographically constrained metropolis and recommends a set of evidence-based planning interventions for a satellite town after establishing its potential as a satellite town.
