Abstract:
The urban population in India is growing very rapidly which is resulting into limitless
expansion of the cities. The outgrowth which is generally uncontrolled and unregulated
in India is resulting into continuous conversion of fringe areas into low rise low density
urban areas in a sprawled manner. Providing infrastructure and services in these
areas is the prime challenge faced by the Municipalities as these areas are usually
seen expanding continuously at a very high pace. As a result of this sprawled
development, coping irregular densities with efficient infrastructure services becomes
very challenging.
Water Supply being a merit good must be provided to everyone irrespective of its
development or operation and maintenance costs. In peri-urban areas where
substantial number of population is spread unorganized over a large area, the cost of
development and operation and maintenance of Water Supply shoots up but the cost
recovery is very less which makes the whole system very inefficient and
unsatisfactory. Even after infrastructure being a major issue, none of the Master Plans
ever talk about infrastructure oriented density distributions to address the issue at its
root.
The study focuses on developing a framework for balanced and complementary
infrastructure development and density distribution by taking the case study of Bhopal.
The methodology adopted for the study follows a city level assessment of Water
Supply infrastructure and density distribution of the city. After assessing the density
and infrastructure, an administrative zone in the city has been identified with low
population density and lacking infrastructure facilities in the peri-urban areas of the
city. The zone, then, has been further assessed in terms of its existing infrastructure
and population density trends and the mismatch is identified.
The study mainly identifies the issues with the conventional system of planning, that
is, development preceding infrastructure and aims to provide an alternative way of
development by proposing infrastructure first, followed by density distribution to
increase the efficiency of the Water Supply infrastructure.
