Housing assessment for an indian port city

Abstract

Indian ports handle 90 percent of the total cargo by quantity and 70 percent by value. Ports either natural or artificial acts as catalysts for an area's economic and social development by facilitating trade and acting as a centre for communal pursuits. India's enormous shoreline of 7400 km is covered by 200 minor and 12 major ports. Ports become significant employment source since large number of individuals are engaged in port-based activities. Ports have a positive economic impact on the surrounding areas, but on the other hand they also have a number of negative impacts such as land/housing market distortion, traffic congestion, environmental degradation and social impacts on the nearest city (port city). This study particularly focuses upon the land and housing market distortion in port city due to port & its related activities by taking case study of Kandla port. Kandla being the largest port in India in terms of the amount of cargo handled, attracts large number of people to Gandhidham (port city) in order to seek job. ‘Gandhidham’ city faces issues like housing shortage, illegal encroachments by labours/workers and shortage of land for development since the port & its related activities occupy large amount of city’s surface area leading to increase in land prices. Moreover, the city comes under high-risk seismic zone V and prone to earthquake & flood, so this research also looks upon development control regulations for the city as well as special guidelines for port city. The study performs demand supply analysis to identify local as well as industrial housing need in the city and then suitable land parcels for development are identified through land suitability analysis. To address the housing issues in the city, interventions towards housing provision are made by considering the guidelines for the city, land availability and land market condition. The study proposes housing for three target groups 1) housing for local people 2) housing for industrial employees and 3) housing for people living in illegal encroachments.