Studio on Participatory District Planning15.-19. March 2018

Xavier Center for Urban Management and Governance Xavier University, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha

Organised and supported by

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Table of Contents

Context 3

Objectives 5

Agenda 6

Outcomes 10

Summary 15

Learnings 16

Participants 18

Published by:Deutsche Gesellschaft fürInternationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH

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Project description:Land Use Planning and Management

Editor:Felix Knopf, GIZ

Photo credits/sources:Xavier University; GIZ

On behalf ofGerman Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)Division 223 India; South AsiaBonn

GIZ is responsible for the content of this publication.

New Delhi 2018

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In India, 18% of the world’s population are living on 2.2% of the worlds land area. Room and space are scarce. The demand for land, soil and space for all kinds of activities and uses is high. Land as a resource is gaining in importance and value. The question of how to utilize the land and the strategical planning of various uses comes into the focus.

Land use has changed dramatically during the past decades in India. The growing of cities and industres require large areas. Land as a basis for agricultural production, the country’s food security the livelihoods of humans, flora and fauna is shrinking. The existence of healthy, human habitats and the country’s biodiversity are threatened.

As cities and rural areas need to fulfil their diverse functions for society in the future, a waste of land for individual functions or actors urgently needs to be avoided. The efficient and intelligent use of the land as a resource is possible if a consistent spatial planning is applied.

The increased pressure on land resources demands a robust planning and management approach which balances the competing uses of land to ensure sustainable growth of urban and rural regions. The planning and management of land requires a comprehensive governance structure at all levels to steer how and by whom the land is used. A good stra-tegic governance structure that involves all important and relevant stakeholders can create a “spatial intelligence” to enhance the regulatory functions and uses of land. This can reduce potential conflicts of competing land uses even beyond the boundaries of urban areas, where 70 % of India’s population live.

The Department of Land Resources (DoLR) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH are collaborating for a land use planning and management project which aims at developing policies and norms for district spatial planning. Land use planning takes place at different scales, involving a multitude of sectors and interest groups. In India, land use planning is being practiced mostly at the city level, translated into urban masterplans. Less practice is observed at other levels of governance, such as at the local level in rural areas or at larger levels such as regional.

The general objective is to strengthen the overall culture of a democratic and integrative spatial planning on all scales and levels in India. Specifically it is the objective to enable Indian state planning institutions in applying standardized instruments for integrated spatial land use planning and management. Odisha and Tamil Nadu were selected for the imple-mentation of the project. Suggested policies and principles will guide the selected state institutions in developing planning mechanisms and tools such as land use plans for local areas, districts and regions.

Context

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The project develops standard operating procedures and guidelines for collaboration and interface with different departments within the state for spatial planning. This also pro-motes inter-sectoral coordination mechanism among various departments at state level, which is an essential prerequisite for integrated land use planning and management.

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GIZ works closely with the partner institutions in the states to develop principles and guidelines of land use policies, technical and methodological planning instruments as well as capacity building programmes for land use planning. In Odisha, a Note of Cooperation has been signed with Housing and Urban Development Department and Revenue and Disaster Management Department for implementation of the different components of the project. These are: Draft State Land Use Policy, Cross-Sectoral Coordination Mecha-nisms, Capacity Development as well as organisational and institutional development. In order to demonstrate the components for improved land use planning Ganjam District and Hinjilicut Municipality have been selected to prepare District and Local Land Use Plans. As spatial planning is a matter of multiple sectors, scales and actors, various stakeholders of multiple sectors and levels of government and society must be involved in the plan prepa-ration from the beginning. For successful preparation of the plan, women and underprivi-leged groups must be participating in each of the cases. Participation instruments shall take account of differences in education levels among women and men, their time constraints, meeting place preferences, ability and willingness to articulate positions and opinions in public discussions.

The Studio attempted to respond to the need of public participation in spatial planning, involving students to develop and apply adequate methods on a multi-level approach. 20 Master Students of Urban Planning and Urban Management from three different Uni-versities (Xavier University Bhubaneshwar, CEPT University Ahmedabad, CET College Bhubaneshwar) have been selected to participate in this Studio. Tutors participating in the workshop came from CEPT University, Xavier University and GIZ. Inputs from planning professionals and NGOs enriched the Studio.

The expected outcomes were manifold:

1. To involve stakeholders in the planning process, understand specific needs and include specific interests into the plan

2. To showcase to state, district, municipal and village officials how plans at different scales are interlinked

3. To raise awareness amongst students about the importance of involvement of local stakeholder and citizens in planning

4. To spread the idea of district spatial planning by producing demonstration plans

Objectives

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Agenda

Day 1

Bhubaneshwar

Day 2

Chattrapur, Hinjilicut, Sompur, Sikiri, Ganjam District

Day 3

Bhubaneshwar

Day 4

Bhubaneshwar

Day 5

Chattrapur, Ganjam District

Thursday 15.03 Friday 16.03 Saturday 17.03 Sunday 18.03 Monday 19.03

Welcoming and Introduction

Inputs from NGOs

Creation of working groups

Inspection and preparation of Data and Basemaps

Travel to District Headquar-ter, Municipality and adjacent Villages:

- Public Interaction

- Assessment of Land Use

Presentation of assessment by working groups

Plan preparation by working groups

Strategy framing, storyline and final map preparation by work-ing groups

Final presentation and dis-cussion with representatives from Villages, Municipality and District

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Day 1, Thursday 15th March

The Studio started with a welcome note by the hosts Kajri Mishra and Mayank Dubey from Xavier Center of Urban Management and Governance, Xavier University, and addi-tional words of welcome by Felix Knopf and Georg Jahnsen, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. An introduction to the topic of territorial spatial planning and the idea of spatial district planning was then given by Mr. Georg Jahnsen, Project Director of the Land Use Planning and Management project. The pre-sentation was enriched with international examples from Germany, India and Africa. Mr. Jahnsen highlighted the importance of abstraction and focus on a few categories of land use on a regional level, which does not allow to be too detailed. Ms. Kajri Mishra strongly supports this point and states the need to focus on a few aspects of land use for the exer-cise.

GIZ aims to involve all parts of society in land use planning. Instruments and processes of public participation which includes also the most vulnerable groups is yet less tested and applied in most of the states of India. Hearing the experiences of selected NGOs working in the field of public participation and advocating marginalised groups contributed to a better understanding of the importance of participation.

The Urban Development Resource Centre (UDRC) supports grassroots organiza-tions by providing administrative, financial, documentation and other support. It strives to influence pro-poor urban policy and programmes with demonstration of good governance practices. Mr. Bibhu Mangaraj and Ms. Manjari Chatray presented some case examples of land use assessment and community mapping in a participatory manner.

Aaina is a voluntary organisation based in Odisha. Aaina works with persons with disabil-ities, children, covering mostly the rural and tribal population. At the other end, it trains professionals, administrative agencies, government officials and legislators majorly on the topic of persons with disabilities. Ms. Geetika Chandra is advocating for a mind change when it comes to the participation of women in the public domain.

CBM International is a Christian development organisation, committed to improving the quality of life of persons with disabilities in the poorest countries of the world. Mr. Nirad Bag explained how CBM trains government officials to promote accesibility.

Ms. Tanaya Saha (GIZ) further referred to Kollam District Plan as a good example of how to create a spatial vision for a district.

After that, four working groups of the same size were formed, each with an equal distribu-tion of university and gender.

The day ended late with preparation of satellite maps, baseline material for the assessment and understanding the current situation.

The day was enriched with energizers and small exercises on strengthening the team spirit.

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Day 2, Friday 16th March

The entire group started the field trip in Hinjilicut Municipality, Ganjam District. After the introduction at the meeting hall in Hinjilicut by the Chairman and other Officials, the working groups split up, and went to their respective areas. The table below shows the stakeholder interaction of each of the groups.

District City Village Sompur Village Sikiri

District Magistrate

District Planning and Monitoring Unit (DPMU)

Chairman

Executive Officer

Tehsildar

Block Devel-opment Officer (BDO)

Sarpanch

Revenue Inspector

Elected representa-tives of Panchayat level

local enterprise owners

villagers

Sarpanch

Revenue Inspector

Elected representa-tives of Panchayat level

local enterprise owners

villagers

Working groups had meetings with the mentioned stakeholders at the different levels to understand the current situation, collect relevant data and information and to understand the requirements from them. The students led the discussion with the officials and were able to get important pointers needed for their work during the workshop.

In the next phase, the four groups went around the areas to do a broad-brush assessment of the current landuse and spatial planning of each of their assigned areas. Each group was accompanied by a mentor to guide them with the questions that they had to ask, data that was required for the workshop, and make a reconnaissance survey of the existing spatial condition.

Day 3, Saturday, 17th March

The prime agenda of the day was to guide the students towards the process of approach-ing the plans at the different levels and present the first cut by the evening. The groups presented their field visit story and learnings from discussions with villagers, village admin-istrators, municipality officers and district level officers.

A spatial analysis of the respective area was prepared, complemented with statistical data such as figures of land cover, economic structure and livelihood. The tutors stressed the

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importance to already come up with first proposals rather than limiting themselves to the analysis. Hence, Proposal plans have been prepared for all the levels, which led to a vivid discussion on how the proposals at the different levels could be interlinked.

Day 4, Sunday, 18th March

An introduction by Saswat Bandyopadhyay (CEPT University) on planning practices in India at different levels of administration marked the beginning of the day. Subsequently, a group was formed with one representative of each of the working groups to develop a broad story for the final presentation. The aim was to achieve coherence of the four working groups in terms of form (scale, categories, colours, etc.) and content as well as to prepare a good sequence of the presentation for the following day. Some proposals of the working groups had an influence on the plans of other levels, which had to be adjusted accordingly. All working groups made new plans according to the default standards given by the tutors.

Day 5, Monday, 19th March

On the final day of the workshop the students were asked to present the outcomes of the Studio before the District Magistrate and other stakeholders at Ganjam District Headquar-ter, Chattrapur. After the welcoming by the District Magistrate and a short introduction by Felix Knopf (GIZ), the working groups presented their findings and proposals in the order from village to town and district level. All proposals were later pinned on a board called the “pool of ideas” which was left with the district authority. The works of students were largely appraised by the District Magistrate and other stakeholders, and further suggestions were desired to be applied through the GIZ-LUPM project.

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Both the concept of a regional scale for land use planning and spatial planning in a partic-ipatory manner were relatively new to the participants. The main challenge was therefore to gain a common understanding of the task in general as well as motivation and a strong sense for the task of each working group. This could not be achieved completely on the first day, but after inputs and continued discussion on the following days, all participants were at the latest on the day of final presentation on the same page.

During the field visit on day 2, students had to understand the present context as well as the future expectations from the stakeholders within a few hours. The students were able to grasp and interpret very well given the circumstances and the short time span. They have also spoken to citizens and villagers to comprehend the issues that they face along with managing expectations of the officials. The students were the main drivers of this entire process, and they managed to perform quite well. Given the diverse background of the participating students it was a very fruitful interaction between themselves to understand the current scenario, lead the discussions that they had, find relevant data, manage expecta-tions of the officials and at the end grasp what was required of them during the workshop. This resulted in four presentations by the working groups with a quite holistic assessment of the situation including relevant solutions that also had links to other levels. Here, the multi-scale approach was already taking shape.

A summary of the assessment is given below.

Ganjam District

The DC office meeting was participated by mainly District Planning officer Ganjam, District Planning and Monitoring Unit Officer Ganjam, District Industries Centre Ganjam, A.D.M., D.M. There was a first round of introduction of all participants including District level officers, students group, Professors and GIZ staff. The DPMU staff mentioned that it works with 10 sectors viz. agriculture, agriculture allied activities, rural development, transport, urban development, social service sector etc. Land in the district is majorly government land. There is no criteria for selecting the government land. Majorly the forest land is under government control.

Suggestions

• There are several project proposal amongst the beach side of the district. This includes the ring road surrounding the BDA area, tourism projects etc.

Outcomes

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• The district has potential for development of eco-tourism in the forest areas, devel-opment of an ayurvedic hub (in Kewrapool in the west), development of agro based industries for vegetable processing etc.

• The production zone of vegetables can be the immediate irrigated area alongside the Rushikulya river.

• There are State highways in the region but they are generally of single land or narrow and hence with development may need widening.

Hinjilicut Municipality

Hinjlicut was formed in 1964. Initially it was on 3,500 acres. The 2011 Census recorded the population of Hinjilicut as 24,671, because of which it remained a Notified Area Council (NAC), as the minimum population needed to become a municipality is 25,000. The village of P Ramachandrapur with a population of 456 was merged with Hinjilicut to meet the re-quired population criteria, after which Hinjilicut became a municipality in November 2017. The Greater Hinjlicut Municipality Area (GHMA) has a population of about 56,000 and is the second largest town after Berhampur in Ganjam District. The city acts as a business centre for the population in the surrounding area.

Hinjlicut NAC had a Master Plan which was not implemented and ground realities showed trends divergent to the plan . Industries didn’t come up in land allotted for industries butin some other locations. It was mentioned that industries preferred government owned land as the main criteria for development. The reason for not having a plan even when Hinjlicut was growing fast was the stagnating approval process. The current economy of Hinjlicut is driven by weekly vegetable haat/market and educational institutes. Paddy is one of the major crops of the surrounding area.

The town sees inmigration/ floating population due to its health services, and because of its role as a communication and education hub. Currently there is hardly any government land left in Hinjlicut.

Current status and issues

• Outmigration is due to better paid livelihood. Major outmigration happens as labour to Surat city in Gujarat.

• The Municipality has issues in solid waste dumping and currently the location has been spotted near the river Rushikulya.

• The Municipality needs more cold storage facilities.

• The land values of the plots immediately outside the municipality ranges from Rs150/ sq ft – Rs500/sq ft and inside the municipality it ranges from Rs500/sq ft to Rs10000/

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sq ft. The agricultural land value is Rs 10lakh/ acre.

• Currently the Municipality has been given some consultants to work upon the plan of Hinjlicut and it is in process. The municipality has included villages from the surround-ings of the earlier defined NAC

Village Sompur

The village Sompur has been recently divided into 2 parts due to the inclusion of the northern part into the newly created Hinjilicut Municipality, and the southern part which remains an urban peripheral village. The distance between Hinjilicut to Sompur settlement area is 1 km. It has a population of 699 according to the 2011 Census. It has a Workforce Participation Rate of 32.47%. 98.24% of the workers are main workers, while 1.76% of them are marginal. Of the total 227 workers, 61 are cultivators, while 142 are agricultural labourers .

Current status and issues

• The village has formulated a plan for an electricity grid and it already has ITI establish-ments.

• 70% of its land is under agriculture which includes hill area plantation.

• The agricultural land is utilised for agricultural activities for only 6 months out of the whole year.

• There are issues of water scarcity in the village.

• The vegetable cultivators in Sompur have undergone huge losses due to Cyclon Phailin in 2013.

• There are 2 water bodies in the village.

• Amongst the whole year only 6 months are utilised for agricultural activities and the remaining time of the year the agricultural land is left barren.

• There is a nearby village called Pochlima which has better facilities, such as stone quarries, textile industry and an eye hospital. Villagers go from Sompur to Pochlima for employment.

• The Sompur village has very less education facilities and hence needs more.

Suggestions

• The villagers mentioned that they need cold storage in the nearby area

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• Conversion of anganwadi centres into community centres.

• A ring road connecting all 5 villages in the panchayat would be very helpful. This indi-cates that the current condition does not allow good communication/ transport system between the villages.

• The villagers suggested that 8 to 10 m buffer area outside the boundary of the ponds should be left as these are eco-sensitive areas.

• There is a 3 years Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP). The Block Develop-ment Officer (BDO) looks at the proposal.

Village Sikiri

The village Sikiri is extended over an area of 1200 acres, and has a population of 6229 according to the 2011 Census. The village has a high population of landless workers. The Workforce Participation Rate is 43.52%. While 70.27% of the workers are main workers, 29.73% of them are marginal workers. Of the 2,711 total workers in the village, 625 are cultivators, while 440 are agricultural labourers. 8%-10% of the population is constituted by government employees and the literacy rate stands at 69.34%.

Current status and issues

• The settlement area of the village is very congested and there is a tendency of gradual division of houses with the increase in family members.

• The village has 3 ponds

• The village has no medical facility and suffers from a lack of a solid waste dump site.

• There is a mismatch in the data recorded as 100 % water supply and the reality on ground.

• There is land area of 162 acre which is of good quality but not used as it is not irrigat-ed.

• The Cattle Development Scheme is one of the government projects running in Sikiri.

• The settlement area of the village is very congested.

• Every 20th household has tube wells.

• There is a big gas godown in the village.

• Amongst the government project there are Cattle Development Scheme.

• The firm ITC built community toilets in the village.

• There is a high possibility of the conversion of the village into an urban area due to the

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presence of a high budget highway project near the village.

• There is high possibility of conversion of the village into an urban area due to the high budget project on Highways abutting near the village

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The story of the multi-layered planning approach was taking shape in the further course of the Studio. The team of tutors helped to shape this story and to make the contents of plans more coherent and the form more homogeneous. The participants were able to integrate the suggestions from the instructors with their own ideas. This helped in main-taining a balance between originality of thoughts and pedagogical rigorousness. The idea of the multi-layered planning approach was further strengthened when designing the final day as a layered presentation. This helped in seeing the plans of the villages in connection to that of the municipality, and all three in tandem with the larger district level plan. This helped in making the complete exercise more wholesome. Even before that, the most crucial outcome, which can be counted upon as the success of the Studio was that the public officials at village, municipality and district level, could visualize how they can plan their jurisdiction spatially (on a map), in contrary to their existing practice of budgetary planning. At the same time, the students could convincingly demonstrate the value creation brought by engaging public from the beginning of spatial planning, instead of consulting at the end. This was reflected in a moment, when the Village Sarpanches and Municipality Ex-Chairman referring to the student made proposals, responded to the District Magistrate saying “yes, this is exactly what our people has desired the future land use to be’. This state-ment brought a sense of attainment to all, realizing how well within this short time period, the students had succeeded to depict the need and value of grassroots involvement at the initial phases of planning.

Public officials at district and local levels, students and GIZ team, all had mutually ben-efitted from the workshop. While public officials had very good takeaways which they desired to implement from the land use proposal plans prepared by students, on the other hand, the students collected a good feedback with exposure to ground knowledge and suggestions on how existing schemes can be incorporated in their plan proposals. The GIZ team learnt about the aspirations and recommendations of District Magistrate for Ganjam district development, to be incorporated as part of demonstration plan under the project.

Summary

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Four basic learnings could be taken out of the Student Studio. Quotations from Students and tutors are supporting these learnings. Learnings should be considered before planning the next workshop of this kind.

Better preparation and formulation of expected outcomes

“I feel that the importance of focus, abstraction and simplifcation became obvious. We do not have much time. We have limited data. This limitation should rather make us strong and foster a good outcome.”

“This kind of workshop if done at district level needs more preparation in terms of what to ask and what expected outcome we want. The Master Plan and village levels are good enough in Charrette mode.”

“Before the students participate in the workshop, they should be given a clear direction on what is expected from them and what would be the outcome of the workshop.”

“Methods must be improved so that it is clear to the students which methods need to be followed in the next days. That can avoid confusion among the students.”

“Compared to village and city level, district group needed more support as the subject seemed to be very new to them. Initially, it was difficult for them to analyse parameters at that scale which was later reflected when meeting the district magistrate and other officials to enter into an evidence based discussion. Also the officials of the district level did not speak of the district issues much with respect to development concerns in the existing blocks/ taluks. It was only the DM and ADM who spoke about requirements and new projects. It seemed that there was no written vision of the district but it became very clear from the district level discussion that Ganjam district will be one of the foremost growing districts in Odisha in the coming few years.”

Inviting external experts

“Listening to the invited NGOs was an eye opener when it came to see how they manage to make participation happen in their projects.”

“Participation of state officials on few days during the workshop gave the Studio the neces-sary importance. Inputs of Director Town Planning and Director Panchayati Raj were well taken into account.”

Learnings

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Wise and careful selection of students

“Enthusiasm of the students was a driving factor for the workshop to become successful. But from my perspective, some of the students from Xavier’s University were not motivat-ed enough and not always present due to various reasons. The selection of students for this kind of intensive workshop is critical and should be done well in advance.”

“From the students’ interaction, I could also see that there was an imbalance of skills be-tween the different university groups, which didn’t always come together complementarily.”

Applying inclusive participation methods

“Depending on the situation, some groups had intensive interaction with the local com-munity, especially the city group. In other cases, like at the village level, interaction with villagers was hindered by the respective contact point (Sarpanch).”

“The Studio should be for longer. We should be living there for a few days in order to observe the life and understand it better for planning”

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Participants

Name Surname Institution

Shibani Mohapatra   CETSubhashree Das  CETSmruti Samiksha Das CETPrashna Priyadarshini CETRohit Sharma  CETShiva Prasad Rath CETGauri Varshney CEPTYash Mehta CEPTPratik Desai CEPTNaisha Bhavsar CEPTPrasenjit Shukla CEPTTitas Bhowmick CEPTC.S. Karthik XUBJagatjeet Mohapatra   XUBRakesh Kumar Sahu XUBSambit Saurabh Mishra XUBSiddhi Dubey XUBSikil Sibani Mishra XUBVidisha Kandoi XUBAmit Kumar XUBBiswaprakash Kar XUBPooja Mohanty XUBRama Gupta XUBSandeep Kumar Patro XUBShreyansh Rath XUBSome Nath Kar XUB

Name Surname Institution

Sumit Senapati XUBDilshad Ali XUBGourav Pradhan XUBMayank Dubey XUBKajri Misra XUBTathagata Chatterji XUBSaswat Bandyopadhyay CEPTSejal Patel CEPTSwapna Swain CETFelix Knopf GIZTanaya Saha GIZSumana Chatterjee GIZGeorg Jahnsen GIZAlokananda Nath GIZSamita Chatterjee GIZPallab Deb GIZBibhu Mangaraj UDRCManjari Chahatray UDRCGeetika Chandra AAINANirad Bag CBMSiddik Khan CETRanjan Mallick Geo Spatial SolutionAjaya Dutta Geo Spatial SolutionSubhendra Mishra Directorate of Town PlanningPratap Das Panchayati Raj & Drinking

Water Deptt.

Deutsche Gesellschaft fürInternationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbHLand Use Planning and Management (LUPM)3rd Floor, B5/2 , Safdarjung EnclaveNew Delhi 110029Indiageorg.jahnsen@giz.delupm.urban-industrial.in/