Our Reporter
Dimapur, Nov. 25 (EMN): Nagaland recorded urban population growth rate of 67.38% as per the Census 2011, which is highest in the country (national average rate of 31.80%), informed Urban Development Director, A Chenithung Lotha, adding that urban centres in the state will be unmanageable if urbanisation explodes at this alarming rate.
Speaking at the “Nagaland urban infrastructure development project” stakeholder consultation meet organised by the Urban Development department at Tourist Lodge, Dimapur, on Friday, the bureaucrat said urbanisation is taking place at a fast pace across the world, including Nagaland.
He said that urbanisation has positive impacts including livelihood opportunities, better healthcare and education facilities, and better communication that enhance quality of life, and at the same time has negative sides like slums, unequal development, traffic congestion, pollution and stress, unaffordable housing, increasing crime rate, etc.
The urban centres, the official pointed out, are facing numerous developmental challenges such as lack of development control, guidelines and tools like master plans and building byelaws, leading to haphazard and unplanned urban sprawl.
Peculiar land-holding system with constitutional conflicts, lack of resources in municipal, fragile geological conditions and challenging terrain pose as challenges to development.
“Due to very low or absence of industrialisation and technological development in our state, it is hardly creating any job opportunities. Our economic base is weak and we are not able to generate sufficient resources that would address some of our urban issues including basic services.
“The state government has been availing centrally-sponsored/flagship programmes such as AMRUT (Water Supply, Storm water Drains, NMT, septage management and green spaces, Swacch Bharat (solid and septage waste management), NULM (skilling and entrepreneurship development), PMAY (urban housing), and Smart City. These various schemes or programmes have not only benefitted our towns but (also) have provided gainful employment to many individuals/urban dwellers,” he said.
However, he said, all these programmes and schemes have its limitations in terms of coverage and funding, therefore, this leads to a conclusion that the demand to create urban infrastructure and the fund availability is a mismatch.
Urban Development Expert and project manager Project Management Unit (PMU), Ranajit Banerjee, in his introduction to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-assisted project, said that people should select the projects and their aspiration taken into account but it should be subject to technical viability and finance.
Dimapur, he said, is a business capital, so the projects need to be maintained even after the completion. “Whatever money is being provided should be spend for construction and maintenance for couple of years,” he said.
Retired Chief Engineer PWD and Technical Coordinator Project Design and Management Consultant, Kahuto Sema, said the nature of project in plain areas such as Dimapur, Niuland and Chümoukedima will be different from that of hilly areas, so this should be considered for any project.
He pointed out that water logging due to poor drainage is an issue in Dimapur. Lack of public toilets and vehicle parking spaces are big issues in Dimapur, he said, adding that it should be taken up on a priority.
He said the public should come forward to maintain the completed projects and those taking care of the projects should be trained.
SMEC team leader Gyanasis Jena said the project is for improving readiness of infrastructure development projects in Nagaland with Urban development department as the implementing agency funded by ADB in 16 district head towns (DTH) in the state.
The project landscape is to prepare city investment plan for infrastructure development of urban sector in 16 DTH, identification of prioritised projects in consultation with citizen and point department, prepare detailed project reports and cost estimation of priority sub projects for planning of size in investment, convergence with GoI flagship programmes in overall financial planning and to strengthen capacity of urban development, municipal affairs and public health engineering agencies.