[Reader-list] Decoding Planning Process in Jamshedpur

[kalyan nayan]

The first effort in modern town planning may be said
to have originated by the appointment of Sanitary
Commission in 1864 in three presidencies, under
directions from the Royal Sanitary Commissions
nominated by the British Parliament in 1859. The work
of the Sanitary Commissions was gradually taken over
by sanitary Eng. And Health departments of the state
under directions of special committees or Boards
constituted for the purpose. 
With growing exodus towards cities from the villages
had started taking unmanageable turns, mostly in
search of jobs, due to rural plight, new measures were
sought to improve the condition of cities in colonial
India. City Improvement Trusts (CIT) was created and
they were entrusted with the work of town improvement
schemes.
First CIT was created for Bombay in 1898.
Interestingly Hyderabad IT came into existence by a
firman issued by Nizam to improve the sanitation and
general improvement of the city.
With this background Jamshedpur can be considered as
pioneer in planning thought. The very idea of
comprehensive plans came late to India, given the fact
that Calcutta Improvement Trust saw light of the day
in 1911, and it was still the makeshift idea of
regulation that was gaining ground. The first general
plan for Jamshedpur came into operation in 1909
itself. It was also a novel attempt in terms of the
idea of preemptive planning. In the 1920s Temple plan
was developed to cater to the small needs prevailing.
The interface of the colonial state with the
management of the steel town was negligible. It was a
de facto steel zamindari of the Tatas. But the ideas
that were experimented in Jamshedpur had its roots in
the Institute of Town Planners and English Garden City
Association (GCA) and the City Beautiful Movement in
America. In fact it was the extensive traveling in
these countries that has convinced J.N.Tata to take
measures so that the proposed township develops into
one of the ideal industrial cities.
The activity of planning has been given a spurt by the
GCA. Later on it came to be known as Garden Cities and
Town Planning Association in 1909. Three of the early
Jamshedpur planners had strong linkages with this
association. Temple was a regular contributor to the
Journal of the Town Planning Institute. 
But every planner thought about Jamshedpur from the
company’s perspective. It was the ‘rationality’ which
guided their concerns. The idea of scientific planning
was implicit in the documents. Ironically, the
majority who was going to inhabit the townscape were
not given its place in the documents. The giant labour
population was completely neglected. The plans kept on
talking about roads and streets and gardens whereas
this concentration of labour was left unprovided for.
It was guided by the industrial outlook and ideas were
implanted from west by these planners. 
Patrick Geddes one of the pioneers in this field once
expressed the relation ‘Folk-Place-Work’ as the true
objectives of any town improvement scheme. This
meaning is completely missing from these documents. A
general discourse of well fare is evident but on
minute reading it becomes clear that it is nothing but
a cosmetic touch.


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