• The Urban development in India after independence is haphazard in manner and needs to be reworked.
• The upcoming plans should strive to bring proper planning and strategy for holistic urban development.
• Some of the schemes for Urban India are

Smart Cities:

• Smart Cities Mission of the Government is a bold, new initiative. It is meant to set examples that can be replicated both within and outside the Smart City, catalysing the creation of similar Smart Cities in various regions and parts of the country.
• The core infrastructure elements in a smart city would include:
  • Adequate water supply
  • Assured electricity supply
  • Sanitation, including solid waste management
  • Efficient urban mobility and public transport
  • Affordable housing, especially for the poor
  • Robust IT connectivity and digitalization
  • Good governance, especially e-Governance and citizen participation
  • Sustainable environment
  • Safety and security of citizens, particularly women, children and the elderly, and health and education.

AMRUT:

• The scheme was launched by Prime Ministerin June 2015 with the focus to establish infrastructure that could ensure adequate robust sewage networks and water supply for urban transformation by implementing urban revival projects.
• Rajasthanwas the first state in the country to submit State Annual Action Plan under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation.
• The scheme Housing for Allby 2022 and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation were launched on the same day. The scheme is dependent with public private partnership model.
• If required, various other schemes like Swachh Bharat Mission, Housing for All2022, along with the local state schemes like that related to water supply and sewerage and other infrastructure related schemes can be linked to AMRUT.

Swachh Bharat Scheme- Urban

• Under the Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs the Government has launched a behavioural change scheme ever witnessed in India.
• It aims to make India open defecation free by 2022 the 150 anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi.

Problems associated with Urbanisation

Urban Sprawl:

• Urban sprawl or real expansion of the cities, both in population and geographical area, of rapidly growing cities is the root cause of urban problems. In most cities the economic base is incapable of dealing with the problems created by their excessive size.
• Massive immigration from rural areas as well as from small towns into big cities has taken place almost consistently; thereby adding to the size of cities.

Overcrowding:

• Overcrowding is a situation in which too many people live in too little space.
• Overcrowding is a logical consequence of over-population in urban areas. It is naturally expected that cities having a large size of population squeezed in a small space must suffer from overcrowding.
• This is well exhibited by almost all the big cities of India.

Slums and Squatter Settlements:

The natural sequel of unchecked, unplanned and haphazard growth of urban areas is the growth and spread of slums and squatter settlements which present a striking feature in the ecological structure of Indian cities, especially of metropolitan centres.

Transport:

• With traffic bottleneck and traffic congestion, almost all cities and towns of India are suffering from acute form of transport problem. Transport problems increase and become more complex as the town grows in size.
• With its growth, the town performs varied and complex functions and more people travel to work or shop.

Water:

• What is one of the most essential elements of nature to sustain life and right from the beginning of urban civilisation, sites for settlements have always been chosen keeping in view the availability of water to the inhabitants of the settlement.
• However, supply of water started falling short of demand as the cities grew in size and number.