KOLLAM: The proposal of Kerala City and State Planning (Amendment) Bill, 2021, which will be presented in the legislature of the State on Monday, seems to seize the power of local government agencies.
The reason quoted for the amendment brought to the 2016 main action is to avoid delays in preparing the master plan and to include steps in spatial planning after natural disasters.
Based on the ‘Rebuild Kerala Initiative’, the government decided to revise the Kerala Law and State Planning, 2016, quoting the need for better urban regional planning, to understand and resist the sudden high-intensity flood impact and other natural disasters.
But a expert has shown that some provisions in the main law for dynamic planning systems (medium-term plans) are removed in the amendment bill.
“Recommendations for eliminating these provisions will not lead to better planning but on rigid and static systems instead of a dynamic planning system.
This recommendation will take the government’s right to the local government (LSG) and oppose the law,” Jacob said Easow, a former additional city planner.
He said that it was contrary to the government decentralization policy.
“Such negligence will not help rebuild Kerala but will lead to further decline from the country,” he added.
Citing an example of stealing the power of LSGs, Easow shows that Amendment No.
33 of the bill added as ‘priority action plan’ is not a plan (other plans are not possible in a plan) but part of the master plan.
Therefore, the ‘priority action plan’ follows the same procedure for its sanctions as a master plan.
It will require a very complicated procedure and must pass more than five offices through the City Office and State Planning State, District Planning Committee, City Head Planning Office and finally the Government Secretariat, and the government must provide sanctions on the plan.
These recommendations will eliminate LSG’s body rights to improve their priorities in their jurisdiction.
“No doubt, this approach is very static, stiff and regulatory in nature.
This will bring congestion in the development process in the democratic system of five years Kerala,” said Easow.
For the purpose of bringing amendments to the main law, a workshop was held at the Institute of Management in the Government on December 28, 2016.
But it could not find part of the main action against decentralization.
A sub-committee was taken to issue a proposal for amendments that function in an unfair way and add a lot of new suggestions, which damage the strength of the district planning committee and the spirit of decentralization, said Easow.