NEW DELHI, April 23: There are about 5,000 registered urban planners in the country, which comes to one per every 75,000 urban population. This information was given by the Minister of State for Urban Development Shri Babul Supriyo in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today. He further said that though this ratio may be low compared to that of developed countries, adequacy of urban planners needs to be seen in the context of scale of urbanization in India. ( As per 2011 Census, urbanization in the country is 31% while it is 45% in China, 54% in Indonesia, 87% in Brazil and in the range of over 80% in developed countries).
Shri Babul Supriyo informed that the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) of central government has sanctioned posts of 25 urban planners while 26 states have 1,563 such posts.
The MoS has stated that the Government of India has enacted School of Planning and Architecture Act, 2014 to enable revamping of planning education in the country by revising the course curricula in view of emerging issues of Urban Development and in the context of central government’s initiatives like Building Smart Cities, New Urban Development Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission, Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana, among others.
