India has one urban planner for 75,000 urban people

NEW DELHI: There are about 5,000 registered urban planners in the country or one per every 75,000 urban population, Rajya Sabha was told today.

Though this ratio may be low compared to that of developed countries, adequacy of urban planners needs to be seen in the context of scale of urbanisation in India, Minister of State for Urban Development Babul Supriyo said in a written reply.

As per 2011 Census, urbanisation in the country is 31 per cent while it is 45 per cent in China, 54 per cent in Indonesia, 87 per cent in Brazil and in the range of over 80 per cent in developed countries.

Supriyo informed that the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) of central government has sanctioned posts of 25 urban planners while 26 states have 1,563 such posts.

The Minister has stated that the government has enacted School of Planning and Architecture Act, 2014, to enable revamping of planning education in the country by revising the course curricula in view of emerging issues of Urban Development and in the context of central government's initiatives like building Smart Cities, New Urban Development Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission, Heritage Development and Augmentation Yojana.