Need for town planning course stressed

There is a need to introduce courses in town planning in the engineering colleges of Orissa to cater to the manpower requirement of urban planning in the future, said AK Panda, secretary, urban development, Orissa government.

Apart from introducing courses in town planning and urban management, the need of the hour is to start orientation programmes for the town corporators and councillors, provide training to the officials of the local bodies and also to the existing town planners, he added.

He pointed out that the government, civil society and other stakeholders need to bring the public on board for effective implementation of town planning measures and stressed on the need to utilise the different tools of urban planning to ensure that every citizen of the town is benefited. Panda was speaking at the east zone conference on Recent Trends in Urban Planning and Development Control, organised here by the Institute of Town Planners, India (ITPI) Orissa in collaboration with its Orissa chapter. Speaking on the occasion, DS Meshram, president, ITPI said, “Orissa needs 60-70 town planners for urban planning and the state needs a school on town planning to meet the manpower requirement. ITPI has already set up two schools of town planning in Viajyawada and Bhopal and two more schools are in the pipeline.”

“The emerging trends in town planning suggest that the exodus of population from the rural to the urban areas is on the rise and by 2051, every second Indian is projected to live in the urban areas. The town infrastructure needs to keep pace with the growing migrant population in urban areas and this can only be achieved through planning intervention”, he added.