Reinvent the wheel

Piled up, the number of reports, studies and task force-produced tomes on urban regeneration in India would easily make a roadblock. This impressive collection however suffers from one bias 8211; in favour of big, extensive, complicated solutions. There8217;s no doubt India8217;s cities and towns need some solutions of this kind. But solutions that are deep in imagination but small in scale are also needed. And just how effective they can be is demonstrated by a city that rarely figures in rarefied forums for urban planning. Indore, as the Sunday Express reported, now has a bus transport system that would seem exotically wonderful to citizens of Delhi and Mumbai.

This small city was served by the typical creaking vehicles/boorish state employees combination till recently. It now boasts of Tata-made buses that are comfortable, spacious and manned by people who know the meaning of 8220;service8221;. It makes profits 8211; Rs 1 crore since the launch of the service in February 8211; and preparation time was less than a year. These mini miracles were made possible by the local district collector making two decisions: he won8217;t accept the current system and he would involve the right kind of private partners in the project. Money is not a problem in India when thinking is right 8211; Indore8217;s new bus service is being funded in part by the Centre8217;s urban renewal mission.

The other heartening thing about the Indore story, which has got the World Bank interested, is that those keenest to learn are also non-metro cities and towns: Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Jaipur, Kota, Udaipur, Rourkela. These urban centres and hundreds of others throughout India boast plenty of private wealth 8211; look at the mutual fund investment patterns recently. Their residents are no less keen on first-rate services than those in big metros. Indore shows that with a little imagination they may even get it faster than big cities.