High-level Chinese delegation meets Krishna on urbanisation issues

A high level Chinese  delegation headed by Xia Yong, vice minister, the Legislative Affairs Office (LAO) of  State Council, People’s Republic of China held a bilateral meeting with senior officials of Union Ministry of Urban Development under the chairmanship of  Sudhir Krishna, Secretary (UD), in New Delhi on May 15.

The Chinese delegation is visiting India to understand the issues of Urbanisation including migration, land acquisition, urban slums, resettlement and rehabilitation. Speaking on the occasion Yong stated that China is facing challenge of land acquisition, resettlement and rehabilitation related to Urbanisation. He added that India and China are facing same rates of urbanisation in the post-1990 period and this process has been accompanied by important shifts in their economic and social structures. For this reason China would like to understand the Indian process of urbanisation and related policy issues,” he added.

Krishna pointed out that apart from land acquisition, planning the cities better can help to accommodate more people per sq km. “Measures like high rise buildings, transit oriented development (TOD) and mixed land use can help in augmenting the urbanisation rate without the substantial need to acquire more land. India has developed several legislative, administrative and financial measures to deal with various aspects of urbanisation,” he added.

The secretary said that recently the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in LARR Act, 2013 has been enacted to facilitate land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement. The states have also been given financial aid and policy guidelines for carrying out infrastructure development and slum reforms. He disclosed that the Central Government is giving financial assistance to states for constructing 1mn dwelling units for the poor people during the current five year plan and another 1.5 mn dwelling units during the next five year plan. Also the states have been instructed to reserve 15% FAR/FSI or 35% of dwelling units for EWS/LIG categories in residential projects.