Supertech demolition and the Noida problem

Source: The post is based on the article “Supertech demolition and the Noida problem” published in the Indian Express on 2^nd September 2022.

Syllabus: GS 1 – Urbanization – problems and their remedies.

Relevance: About the fall of Noida as a satellite town and the rise of the Noida problem.

News: The Supreme Court ordered the demolition of the twin towers in Noida in August 2021 after a long legal battle between the residents and the developer.

About the development of Noida as a satellite town

An acronym for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, Noida was envisaged in the early 1970s. In 1972, the Uttar Pradesh government marked the rural area consisting of 50 villages as “Yamuna-Hindon-Delhi Border Regulated Area” to regulate land dealings in the area close to the national capital. In April 1976, 36 out of these 50 villages were notified as Noida.

The main objective of Noida was a) To decentralise economic activity from Delhi to Noida, b) To reduce migration in the megacity, c) To provide affordable suburban housing for the people of Delhi.

Why did Noida as a satellite town fail, and what led to the Noida problem?

Within the NCR Plan, Noida’s population was projected to be 5,50,000 by 2001 and 1.1 million by 2011. The population that the town achieved, however, was only 3,05,058 in 2001 and 6,42,381 in 2011. This is because,

a) Urban planners in India have worked on the strong assumption that the growth of cities can be perfectly predicted based on population projections, But planners failed to understand growth is not so deterministic, b) Planners cannot decide a geographical distribution of densities or economic classes of people in a city, c) Large parts of Noida were marked as housing lands with high FSI. But Noida lacked the infrastructure that could have supported commercial activities and authoritarian land-use plans prevented the organic development of any new nodes of the market, d) The opening of the Delhi Noida Direct (DND) Flyway in 2001 made the region fail to attract the service sector, e) The region lacks essential elements of urbanity like trade and commerce, institutions.

All this resulted in housing projects have not enough buyers, crashing rents and existing facilities rapidly deteriorating. This is often called the Noida problem.

How do ensure proper urban development?

The Noida problem highlights the unpredictable nature of urban development. So the urban plans can be made implementable only when they are flexible enough to let a city grow around emerging markets. The solution is not more government control, but less control.