Urban development and municipal affairs minister Firhad Hakim wants elements of urban infrastructure to be introduced in villages to stall the migration of villagers to the cities.

“By 2040, 50 per cent of population is projected to be in urban areas. The problem is in these peri-urban areas, which are growing automatically to accommodate new settlers without any planning. The need of the hour is planning. We have KMDA (Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority) but we need more urban experts,” said the minister.

Addressing members at the office of the West Bengal chapter of the Institute of Town Planners India (ITPI) in IB Block, the mayor of Calcutta said he had “a dream”. “If we can create urbanisation in between villages, whereby there will be multi-storeyed buildings, health centres and schools — basically all the facilities that people in the cities have, then the villagers can enjoy facilities without having to leave their villages,” he said.

The non-urban areas, he felt, were getting left behind while due to social development, automatic urbanisation was going on. “If we work together, we can tackle this problem,” he said.

He also mentioned a demand of the town planners about vacancies in the government. “We have 50 posts (of urban planners) and we have to fill up those posts and create more posts,” he said, to a round of applause from the audience.

Referring to the urban planners as “my teachers,” the urban development minister pointed out that the government was building infrastructure in the city like the Ma flyover, but complained of unpaid dues from the central government as the reason for the government’s inability to do more. “We have lagged a bit behind due to political reasons, even then we are topping nationwide in several categories, according to central government statistics.”

Md. Ghulam Ali Ansari, principal secretary, urban development and municipal affairs, spoke of more than 700 residential townships that have been developed across the state. “We are trying to check unplanned growth with help from our town planners. The growth that we achieve, keeping sustainability in mind and planning for the next two or three decades, we will be happy if this thinktank of town planners contributes to that,” he said.

The institute, established in 1951, has 24 regional chapters and nine regional centres. The office of the West Bengal chapter was opened in April 1998. Construction was completed in 2006, said chairman of the regional chapter Sharan Kumar Das. There are 9,304 members, he added.

ITPI president N.K. Patel had flown over from Ahmedabad to attend. Author of a book on new townships after Independence, he reflected on the success of Salt Lake, built on a tract of marshy land given by a local land-owning family, in fulfilling housing needs after Partition. “Calcutta should play a role in our urban legacy. West Bengal is one of the top five urbanised states in the country. And Salt Lake is one of the most successful new town projects in eastern India,” he said.

Write to saltlake@abp.in