Defining Planningnorms and standards for basic services & amenities

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                                                                           *Jit Kumar Gupta

Norms and standards are integral part of the planning process. No physical planning of any area, place, community and city can be made rational, unless supported and based on the rational, realistic, effective and efficient system of well-defined and well-articulated norms and standards, related to various amenities and facilities to be provided. These norms and standards try to bring objectivity by avoiding subjectivity driven by whims and fancies of planners and other stakeholders. They are also known to promote optimum utilization, cost-effectiveness and efficiency of the available resources by avoiding over and under-provision of basic essentials for any project. They remain demand driven, catering to basic human needs of the residents. These norms and standards remain valuable for serving the public interest and making sure that development remains relevant to the purpose of making human settlements, sustainable, equitable, inclusive and people centric. These standards are used while carrying out the planning, sub-division of land and preparing layout of any area or defining the future fabric of the city. They are in the form of codes or regulations put in place by statutory authorities, pertaining to defining space requirement, population served, usages permitted, facilities to be provided etc. They generally remain population, area and location specific. They form integral part of the legal system/framework, regulating and guiding the development of the area so that communities residing in the area remain self-contained and self-sufficient in the basic day-to day human needs. They are defined following a hierarchy of facilities to be provided in the city and remain relevant to the levels; they are supposed to serve.

Providing access to basic services and promoting social well-being, remains the primary and essential duty of every physical planner, engaged in undertaking the planning of any area. No social well-being can be ensured and achieved without making adequate provision of supportive facilities, amenities and infrastructure in the human settlements. Norms and Standards, defining the essentials for human living in that physical space, remain relevant for improved performance and quality of life in the area besides providing measurement for the provision of social services and public facilities. They also serve as a guide to planners, promoters and developers by defining amenities and services to be provided and included besides serving as a ready-reckoner for the authorities for evaluating any planning proposal, with regard to adequacy of amenities and services in the area proposed for development, before granting statutory approvals.

According to, ‘International Standards Organization’, norms and standards are documents that provide requirements, specifications, guidelines or characteristics that can be used consistently to ensure that materials, products, processes and services are fit for their purpose. Norms and Standards allow technology to work seamlessly and establish trust so that process of planning is able to promote state of art development of any area. Standards ensure consistency of essential services, such as quality, ecology, safety, economy, reliability, compatibility, interoperability, efficiency and effectiveness. Standards codify the latest technologies and remain invaluable source of essentials for the physical planning process. Norms and standards never remain static. They are always evolving and devolving in order  to remain relevant to the prevalent culture, changing needs of the community, technological innovations, socio-economic and cultural development of the area and community. They remain relevant and connected to the size of the city, number of people to be served, services to be provided, prevailing densities, permissibility with regard to build-space, floor area ratio, height, existing physical terrain, physical limitations, available land and legal framework guiding, regulating and defining the social, physical, economic fabric and structure of development. Norms and Standards and their developmental framework, invariably impact and guide, almost all areas of human living and physical planning.

 "Norms" have also been defined, in the parlance of planning, as the socially or institutionally set of values which shape and govern the behavioral pattern of human living including physical and social relations in a given space, "Standards" have been defined as level and quality of infrastructure services that would be required to make the built environment livable, sustainable, functional and desirable.

 Physical planning of cities, towns including their different uses/components, as a process, has been integral part of human history. In large majority of cases, these plans have never been on the same wave-length and platform, because norms and standards defining the land-uses and providing basic

 infrastructure and services were conspicuous by their absence. Accordingly, many such plans failed on the altar of providing adequate and supportive infrastructures and services to the communities, for which they were planned. Communities and cities accordingly, suffered enormously due to inadequate availability of essential and basic services. Planning and development intervention failed in the process to provide an appropriate level of quality of life and also failed to quantify, provide and meet the long-term demand /needs of the essential services for the cities. Accordingly, formulation, defining and detailing of the Planning Norms and Standards became necessary and assumed importance, to manage effectively the urban environment, improve the economic efficiency and the quality of life of urban area.

The main objective of this planning norms and standards remain centric to;

 · Facilitating urban designers, planners and policy makers to identify and forecast essential infrastructure needs of an urban area; as well as help prepare rational and realistic urban plans and programs.

· Enriching understanding of urban form and land use and create synergy and balance between them.

·      Guiding the development and management of physical, social and economic infrastructure services in a planned manners.

·      Working as a tool for standardizing the planning of urban development projects.

·      Defining, qualitatively and quantitively, norms and standards for land use, physical, economic, social, environmental infrastructures.

·      Ensuring conformity of planning with specified standards of development

·      Acting like a control mechanism to make physical development process compliant with the needs of population of the area.

·      Making planning people and community centric.

·      Ensure safety, security, health, comfort, quality of life to the community served and quality of environment.

·      Ensuring adequate provision of the physical, social and economic infrastructure and services on the prescribed and specified norms.

·      Ensuring equity-based access to even the poorest of the poor  of the citizens to the basic  and essential services and amenities.

Defining norms and standards for basic services & amenities;

As already stated, housing does not imply and remains confined to four walls enclosing the social space for a  family, but  has much wider connotations for human living, growth and development. Accordingly housing needs to be supported with all physical, social and economic amenities and services so that all four basic human needs of living, working, culture of body & mind, and circulation are appropriately met with and provided as integral part of housing. Such services include; water supply, sewerage, roads, sanitation, drainage, electricity, healthcare, education, leisure, open spaces, parks, play grounds, shopping, security, fire services etc. Since they are to be provided as integral part of the planning process, accordingly, it will be logical and rational, that they are appropriately defined and detailed. These amenities are generally defined in two distinct terms for housing.

Firstly, these norms are defined in terms of housing as a structure, which aims at make house a home and a healthy and happy place to live besides making it secure and safe. This will include, site, location, materials used in construction, technology used in construction, provision of services, air, light, ventilation, promoting structural safety, availability of  adequate living space, minimum standards of  rooms for human habitations, public health services, circulation, both mechanical & human driven, fire/earthquake safety, water supply/efficiency, sewerage, drainage, landscaping, rain water harvesting, solar energy,  set-backs, height, coverage etc.

Secondly, in the larger context, house is seen as integral part of community, neighborhood and the urban habitat, where it is located. Accordingly, house will have to be supported by amenities which remain relevant and essential for human living and development. These amenities are treated as social amenities/infrastructures and are defined in terms of norms and standards for healthcare, hospitals, dispensaries, education both at school and higher  level of technical education;  entertainment, leisure, shopping, parks, open spaces , play grounds, fire station, police stations, disaster centres etc. Few of these have been defined below. However, these norms and standards are

 defined basically on the following broad parameters considering the level / of city where they are provided. These norms are defined to minimize the use of land; optimize the use of available land; promoting cost-effectiveness; promoting equitable spatial distribution; promoting equity; ensuring universal accessibility; considering basic human needs; prevailing culture; socio-economic status; existing physical terrain; physiography etc. These norms and standards are specified based on following considerations;  

Ø Population Threshold (both minimum and maximum); population proposed to be served.

Ø Capacity – number of users which can be accommodated

Ø Density defined in the Development Plan

Ø Extent of Area proposed to be served

Ø Hierarchy of the infrastructure- city/sub-city/district/NH/housing cluster

Ø Distance required to achieve the minimum population to be served

Ø Services to be rendered and amenities to be provided

Ø Number of beds required- healthcare

Ø Covered/ built area and open space requirement

Ø Parking space required

Ø Accessibility

Ø Location of the facility

Ø Age of the beneficiaries to be catered

Ø Area of the Site

Ø Development controls; permitted height, floor area ratio, height etc.

However, there exists no uniformity in norms and standards, specified and they continue to differ from state to state and even city to city, in intent, content and scope. However, National Building Code; and Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulations and Implementation guidelines (URDPFI), framed by the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, has made an attempt to bring uniformity in the planning related norms and standards in the country, but the objective of uniformity remains elusive. Most of the planning norms and standards detailed out in the URDPFI guidelines have their genesis and basis in the norms and standards specified in the Delhi Master Plans and remain Delhi centric. To what extent these are

based on research, study and analysis, remains a moot question. However, Delhi, being the National Capital, has a different context. Delhi cannot be taken as a role model of planning norms and standards and they should not be blindly copied and pasted. Planning norms need to be defined by each state, logically and rationally, considering their culture, pattern of development and needs of the community. Planning norms will be different for hill states of India and cities having hilly terrain. Planning norms should also be defined for the rural settlements, making provision of the essential services on the prescribed norms so as promote quality of life in these settlements and allowing states to assess the livability in the rural settlements by quantifying the infrastructural gaps in these settlements.

  Planning norms and standards, defining the infrastructures, amenities and services required, as a part of planning process, remain valuable, essential and critical and they need to be quantified both in terms of quantity and quality, to rationalize the planning process and make it effective, efficient and community centric. Since all amenities and services are essentially consumers of land, accordingly they need to be made land efficient. Since India already suffers from low per capita availability of land ( 2.4% global land holding 17.7% of global population); accordingly it will be both relevant and rational, to optimize the available urban land, treating land as the most valuable resource and a gift of nature to mankind and not  treating it as a commercial commodity  for sale and speculation.

 Further, since creation of urban amenities consume lot of financial and other resources, accordingly, it will be logical and essential to make  provision of amenities /infrastructure,  both cost-effective and efficient. Cost-effectiveness can be easily achieved, if the available facilities are put to multiple use. Like running schools/educational institutions in double shifts instead of single shift, which can help in minimizing the number of such facilities by half; lowering the cost of amenities and lowering the cost of imparting education, to make it affordable and cost-effective for majority of Indians. School grounds can be used by the community, as play spaces in the evening, can eliminate the need of providing separate playgrounds at the local level. This would involve undertaking detailed study and analysis of exiting framework and rationalizing it to make them more productive and community focused, requiring least cost. Planning schools and professional institutes and state Departments of Town Planning /Urban Development working jointly can take up this challenge and help redefine the planning norms and standards for making them more rational, realistic, effective and productive.