Construction Processes • Green Building • Smart Cities • Well Being

Increased Urbanisation Affects the Lacking of Basic Necessities 

January 11, 2022
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The need for better planning and implementation of sustainable measures to curb the problems due to urbanisation

Author- Anjali Kumari

According to Research gate,  at the time of the  2001  census, the population of the metropolitan area of Bangalore was  5.7  million, which is added by a  transient,  or  ‘floating’ population of approximately  1-2  million. When ‘Greater  Bangalore’ –  the integrated city core and eight surrounding municipal areas –  is taken into account, the city’s population exceeds 7–7.5 million people.

Bangalore is currently ranked as  India’s third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area.  However,  it is important to note that the population of the metropolitan area can be difficult to determine because of the transient nature of the slum population. Squatter settlements, which account for 15–20 per cent of the city’s population,  are principally located on the city’s periphery.  The highly congested city centre has few areas of land able to accommodate such housing.

The integration of Bangalore into the global economy has been the leading driver of the city’s population growth over the past  20  years.  Between  1951  and 1971 the city doubled in population and in the decade that followed,  the population almost doubled again. It has been estimated that approximately 61 per cent of this growth was due to rural-urban migration.

Bangalore highlights a number of characteristics typical of mega-cities in the developing world.  One of these characteristics is the city’s very high rate of population growth (now 3.35% per annum, down from 4.9% in the 1990s). This ranks Bangalore as one of the fastest-growing cities in Asia. The number of Low-income buildings has increased owing to the increased urbanisation. A large number of people are living in small spaces. People are facing health issues due to poor ventilation and lack of sunlight in the houses. 

Diarrhoea, upper respiratory infections, the common cold, fever, tuberculosis, and dengue fever are major public health problems in Bangalore and their incidence is closely related to the general living conditions of the urban poor and the level of access they have to adequate water and sanitation services.   The  NGOs working in the health sector argue that the government and its agencies have not dealt adequately with these health-related problems because the public health system has the ‘wrong’ focus. There is, they argue, a preoccupation with the provision of family planning and welfare services,  and the treatment of disease, at the expense of addressing underlying health issues.

A 2017 survey by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy suggested that only 2.72 per cent of the city is available as open space. With a population of 8.4 million, 19.31 square kilometres out of 709 square kilometres is available as open space which accounts for 2.2 square kilometres of open space per person.

A survey conducted by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in November 2019 shows that there are about 4,247 homeless people in the city. According to a report, BBMP is struggling to find land or buildings to build night shelter homes. People are refraining from renting out their buildings as night shelter homes.

Indigent senior citizens in the Bengaluru Urban Zone are unable to access old age homes. Private old age homes either demand a hefty amount of money or only admit medically fit people. Bengaluru Urban Zone has two old age homes funded by the government but they are not necessarily meant for indigent senior citizens. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, states that it is mandatory to build at least one old age home in each district which accommodates at least 150 indigent senior citizens. On June 1, 2021, the Karnataka High Court remarked that the state government has failed to set up old age homes for indigent senior citizens in the districts of Karnataka. The government has failed to implement the provisions of the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Citizens Act.

A.N. Yellapa Reddy, an environmentalist, said that the problem can be resolved with population control and by generating more employment opportunities. It has been found in numerous studies that the most unemployed people are the residents of the cities. Government should also implement laws to encourage sustainable housing and build environment-friendly cities. He added that the decreasing number of open spaces in Bangalore is because of increasing urbanization and a lack of proper planning. Public playgrounds are being replaced with buildings. Karnataka Town Country Planning Act (1961) suggests that there should be at least 15 per cent open space in the city. The development plans proposed in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2005, presented a similar idea but it was never implemented.

source- Vecteezy

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