The long pending Master Plan of Delhi 2041 is most likely to be approved in the near future and this has been announced by the Chief Minister of Delhi, Rekha Gupta, which is likely to give the capital a new long-term roadmap concerning its urban infrastructure. The news is timely because the current planning framework, the Master Plan 2021, has already lapsed and the city is currently without a new statutory blueprint on how to spearhead its high-speed development and expansion of infrastructures.
Addressing one year of her government in a public event in south Delhi, Gupta said the government had been striving to achieve a vision-based developmental agenda and insisted that the new master plan would soon get the requisite clearances. After the notification, the Master Plan 2041 will become the main document that would influence the land use, the housing policy, infrastructure planning and environmental protection in the national capital over the next 20 years.
The plan is the work of Delhi Development Authority (DDA) that was submitted to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to get the consent of the city in solving some of its fiercest urban problems. These are increasing population density, housing crises, traffic jams, environmental strain and the pressing need to have more sustainable forms of growth. The impending approval is viewed by officials and city planners as critical in putting the real estate industry, infrastructure agencies and investors back on their feet since the last plan expired with no form of direction.
It is likely that Master Plan 2041 will focus on the concept of transit-oriented development, mixed-use land development, the redevelopment of older colonies, and organised urbanisation of the outer villages. It is also aimed at ensuring that there is a balance between economic growth and the environmental sustainability with emphasis on the preservation of the green cover, better waste management systems and a better system of integrating public transport. In the case of a city that is expected to experience remarkable population growth in 2041, this type of coordinated planning is considered important in order to avoid uncontrolled growth and the overloading of infrastructure.
In the event, Gupta also pointed at continuous infrastructure investments in the order of tens of thousands of crores in Delhi, comprising of metro expansion, roads, sewage systems, parks and village development projects. These initiatives, she opined, are in line with the greater vision that is being sought to institutionalise by the new master plan.
Urban experts hold that after being officially accepted and followed, Master Plan 2041 will offer not only a regulatory certainty, but also open up new development prospects, impetus towards planned redevelopment and reinforce long-term sustainability visions of Delhi. With the ever-changing social and economic landscape of the city, the nod towards the plan is a beginning of the epoch of the development of the city and how it will adapt and modernise to grow up to 2041.
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