e-Dialogues | Urban Design
Cities after Corona: A one on one discussion with Amogh K Gupta, Chairperson, SPA- Delhi Senior Journalist Abhilash Khandekar sits down with Amogh K Gupta, Chairperson, School of Planning and ArchitectureDelhi, to get the urban planning expert’s insights into how the pandemic is going to reshape the cities and the direction of urban development in the future
India has been under lockdown for almost two months now. It needs to reopen its economy and de-escalate further load on its poor citizens. What is the way forward?
We need to address the fact that India has never focused on rural centric development at par with urban development. This has become more than apparent with the massive exodus of migrant workers from cities back to their homes in rural areas. These people had moved to cities for more employment opportunities and since now those opportunities have been taken away, they are going back. They are moving back to their native homes despite
40 June 2020 | www.urbanupdate.in
state governments putting efforts and arranging basic amenities for them. We must think about why they are still opting to move back. I believe that despite getting free accommodation, food, etc., these people have still opted to move back to their rural homes as they don’t feel safe in the cities that they help build. Now, once the lockdown is lifted, industries would only operate at reduced capacity. When these businesses will operate at full capacity is uncertain as a big chunk of the laborers who have gone back to their rural homes are of the mindset of not returning to the city. Looking at it objectively, we have four months. The district authorities need to survey the population that has returned to their native lands and categorise them as ’skilled’ or ‘unskilled’ labor, as they were in the cities. Based on this data, stable employment opportunities must
be generated. I say ’stable’ because I believe MNREGA is not a stable option for them. Government must look into ways to develop entrepreneurial skills in these people who have migrated back. If the case is that the labor doesn’t return to cities, won’t it effect the economic cycle?
It will affect the economics of the city, and thus the country, no doubt. However, if we look at it objectively, these laborers routinely migrate back to their native lands every year around this time for harvesting. However, this unexpected migration has dented the economy due to the circumstances. Now with this forced migration, people will be hesitant to move back to the major cities, cities they helped build. Why don’t we develop ways so that these rural areas retain a certain part of the population?
