Speculative Planning: Agrarian-Urban Transformation in Peri-Urban areas (Case study of Land Pooling Policy, Delhi)

Much of the urban transformation in Delhi, similar to major metropolitan cities of India is taking place on the peripheral/peri-urban boundaries of the city. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has long identified urbanisation of agricultural lands as a key state strategy to undertake planned development in Delhi but its approach has changed over time - shifting from a land acquisition based approach rooted in a comprehensive master plan towards a land pooling policy anchored in a more market-led speculative planning approach. The research aims to understand the shifting role of the state in development of peri-urban areas through examining land pooling policy introduced by Delhi Development Authority. Focusing on one peri-urban village located in Delhi, the study also examines how the policy rolls out in place and over time and how local agrarian relations and equations have a large bearing on the development pattern that emerges in response to state-led land development. There are two bodies of literature that are referred in this research. The first deals with literature on how land is approached in planning of Delhi with a shift from comprehensive master planning to speculative planning. The second literature deals with agrarian-urban/peri-urban spaces, and associated agrarian and socio-economic relations as a result of the turn toward a more speculative planning. The research referred the prominent scholarly works in urban planning that is agrarian/frontier urbanism (Gururani & Rajarshi, 2018), speculative planning (Goldman, 2011), and informality in planning (Roy, 2009). A qualitative case study approach that relied on GIS Mapping, documentation, targeted interviews, oral history, and photographic survey was used in the analysis of case study area. Officials from DDA were also interviewed to analyse the policy components. The research reflects a shift in role of the state from imposing top-down modernist visions through master plans and/or zonal development plans, to a more bottom up, private sector led entrepreneurial development. The research found that tools used by DDA such as formation of consortium (group of landowners, or a developer) to prepare sector plans/layout plans in the proposed sector; tentative sector plans proposed by DDA based on ‘world class city’ vision in the new land pooling policy, seem to facilitate speculation around land, rather than regulating it. Though, the tentative sector plans may not roll out as per the plan as the implementation will depend on factors such as availability of pooled land, caste equation, size of landholdings, type of owner (private developer, village landowner), but they already facilitate speculation amongst the private builders and developers. The research revealed that the willingness of villagers to participate in the policy is dependent on social, economic, spatial, and political factors rooted in local context and unique to agrarian urban areas. For instance, unsustainability around agriculture coupled with land ownership size, ambiguity around certain provisions of the policy, competition between zamindar and private players, caste equation inside the village largely determines the stakes of village landowners participating in the policy or not. Thus, the speculative planning approach raises a question on inclusive, affordable, and accessible housing for poor income groups, even the small land owners inside the village. The research helped to analyse the shifting role of State in Urban Planning, and the entry of private actors acting as individuals or collectives within the new land pooling policy. This helps in understanding the rationale behind introducing speculative planning model in comparison to comprehensive planning previously practiced by the State and its implications for more inclusive and planned development.