Shimla Development Plan not suitable for prize city of Himachal
CPI(M) Leader and Former Deputy Mayor Tikender Singh Panwar said today that State government prepared Shimla Development plan to favour the builders and real estate and it not suitable for the prize city of Himachal Pradesh. In a letter shoot to Chief minister Jai Ram Thakur former deputy mayor said that plan was prepared by the Ahmedabad based agency. Fortunately for the benefit of the citizens of Shimla as well as Himachal Pradesh, this plan has been found to be ill-conceived, and probably illegal by the National Green Tribunal.
We, a group of town planners and city makers, have been following the development of the plan since it was made public. It has been our view that the plan is not suitable for the prize city of Himachal – Shimla. Indeed, we are certain that if such a plan was allowed to be implemented, the entire city would be ruined and become like Gurgaon. The Plan does not have any understanding of the mountain topography, architecture, geology or history and culture of Shimla.
It is widely accepted by the global community as well as the United Nations that such large scale interference with the cities of ‘today’ must follow the guidelines issued by the UN to follow the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposed Shimla Master Plan which has been luckily rejected by the Green Tribunal lacked people’s participation and was more of a top-bottom exercise. It has violated elementary principles of planning the world over like preparing first an environmental and physical zonal plan, as it should have been, the Shimla Development Plan is merely a land-use plan for the benefit of builders with variation in open, green and core areas, that are too decided arbitrarily, without having any scientific, geographical or cultural basis.He said that it was expected from Chief minister to given to the new vision of Shimla using personal leadership as a result of the actions of the Green Council, Shimla has another chance, you could be instrumental in making it an exceptional place in India and the only city to follow the UN SDG criteria. He wrote that Chief minister should completely revise the Shimla Development Plan. Former Mayor that he and town planners have summoned a team of experts who have built cities and townships even in war-torn regions of the world. There is a tool that we have created that could be universally applied to the environments of mountain towns. The process for a new vision for Shimla could begin with a presentation to Chief minister and to the urban development department as to how they could have citizen participation in the new vision of Shimla.
