Delhi project acts to tackle poverty

Planning, 29 August 2008

The UN's millennium development goals offer "a resuscitation of planning", claims Professor Ananya Roy of the University of California, Berkeley, opening a discussion in the June edition of Planning Theory and Practice. They offer the possibility of rewriting social contracts for the organisation of space, justice and opportunity, she continues.

Compelling analyses of the challenges and local responses are outlined, with governance relationships and structures a central concern. A prime example is the Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group in Delhi, which is described by its director Bharati Chaturvedi. The initiative has sought to forge links between the economic activities of some of the most peripheral sections of the population and local government policy.

The project's focus is recycling, which is the livelihood of the city's waste-pickers and the associated chain of itinerant buyers and junk dealers. Where urban policy tends towards cleaning up the city and segregating uses, Chintan has pursued an alternate vision that sees development being shaped first and foremost by the most marginalised, enabling them to break out of an intergenerational cycle of poverty.

Chintan has developed a detailed knowledge of the waste chain that it uses as the basis of community capacity building. Chaturvedi demonstrates the critical links to municipal policy, legal rights and collective organisation. An important part of Chintan's work has been to organise waste-pickers and junk dealers into coherent groups that can negotiate with local authorities.

The involvement of New Delhi Municipal Council set an important precedent, demonstrating that formal partnerships with such groups offer important opportunities for running a sustainable city. Underlying this are the spatial issues of the supply chain and recycling processes. Network economies relying on many small enterprises that in this case require space for sorting materials raise real challenges for urban design.

As Chaturvedi explains: "Planners do not like allocating space for waste, except as landfills." Councils close down sorting premises unless they are in designated areas, which are often unsuitable for small-scale business. This increasing formalisation threatens to take the business away from the community and makes it increasingly attractive for large-scale companies.

In response, Chintan spent a year collecting data about the amount of space needed for community-based recycling processes and published plan proposals. This was used as the basis of a campaign for space in the masterplan for Delhi 2021, which was finalised last year. Chintan is using this masterplan to leverage national funding for land. Its approach is to work with the contextual resources of the poor to prioritise policy needs not only for economic activity but also for health, education and environmental quality.

Jenny Crawford is RTPI head of research. To subscribe to Planning Theory and Practice please visit www.rtpi.org.uk/member_services/planning_theory_and_practice. RTPI members receive a discounted rate.