Re: [mpisgmedia] GATS (& USAID-sponsored Delhi LAPs & JNNURM)

--- poonam prakash
<pprakash.spafaculty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Global retail corporations are aiming to use
> international trade agreements to challenge local
> land use and zoning regulations, according to an
> alarming new report from Public Citizen.
> "Any local laws that apply height and size
> restrictions to big box retailers that impacts a
> foreign service operation could constitute a GATS
> market access violation," Public Citizen reports.

>
http://www.newrules.org/retail/news_slug.php?slugid=328

===========

Thanks Poonam.

In plannerly terms, this is about releasing
use-activities from the purview of Development Code.
In case of commercial use this is not just about
allowing malls but also about complementary ploys like
the commercial / mixed-use fracas playing out in
photo-copy of industries PIL to aid substitution of
local service providers, mall-molls paradigms of
designer hawker markets on public streets to dilute
small trade entitlements to planned space, etc. The
same logic drives so-called metro property
development, built-up / in-situ slum housing,
so-called redevelopment of industrial areas or urban
villages, etc. It is clearly revealed in the ludicrous
so-called area-specific byelaws and Local-area-Plans
to make area-specific-byelaws for Local-Area-Plans.
(and the social-security and quota businesses are all
about humane-facing the underlying distortions in land
use allocations).
Hence my question of August to DoC about whether the
GATS offer (then not available) assumed present law or
presumed the proposed USAID municipal law (then up on
MCD website for Delhi) and the queries after JNNURM
was announced (in PMO press-release the same day as
papers reported that US Congress had differed with US
Senate decision to remove cap on HB1 visas). I have no
doubt that DoC has made illegal offers for GATS and
the JNNURM does no more than commit us to
de-legitimizing the existing planning framework (and
planning profession). Given the specifics of Indian
planning law this is as much about sovereignty as
about equity and I consider the failure of the
anti-GATS/WTO groups to mention, let alone capitalise,
on the connection between GATS and JNNURM amidst so
many brazen happenings across urban India evidence of
their ineptitude, if not worse.

There was a LAP report in ToI on Sunday (text below, I
could not find it on the web edition). I felt really
bad for the participating senior citizens (see the
pic, if someone can scan and post, please do). Some of
them looked like the generation of my parents, the
generation that reminisces about partition and
freedom-struggle, the generation of continuity &
conscience keepers. I wonder what local-area crisis in
Vasant Vihar drove them to participate in
pilot-project for something that has no basis in the
Constitution of India and is outright promotion, even
presumption, of a USAID-sponsored Municipal
Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2005, that pilots the
USAID-made municipal model law to enable GATS and more
and for replication of which a prima-facie
unconstitutional JNNURM (tender) has just been
launched ? with, to boot, chaps that are no gentlemen.
(Chief Town Planner of MCD misrepresented himself as
member of Board for Enquiry and Hearing for MPD-2021
on 03.10.05 and did not have the grace to leave the
dais even after I pointed that out; EFN Ribiero has
been pronounced guilty of professional misconduct by
Council of Architecture at end of November (in some
other matter); he was also consultant to the
USAID-sponsored MCD Bill (while simultaneously being
principal general consultant to MPD-2021) in his
capacity as Director AUMDA (which also recruited the
young professionals that worked on MPD-2021) and the
fact that his is one of three firms to be piloting /
promoting the USAID Bill is arguably a case of
continuing misconduct; Sudhir Vohra was also
consultant, in both individual capacity and as his
firm, to the USAID Bill (after some engagement with
MCD / Rakesh Mehta in the matter of non-architects
sanctioning building plans, purportedly on behalf of
Council of Architecture, in which he was then on
committee for professional conduct matters and after
CoA had named him as its nominee for discussion with
MCD); on 30.05.05 Vohra also used his opportunity to
depose before Lok Sabha Standing Committee examining
functioning of DDA to plead the case for dismantling
DDA and empowering MCD. I could go on about these
not-gentlemen, but why be unduly unladylike!).

On Saturday night I had posted for the antics of VP
Singh, Kuldip Nayar & co about JNNURM (which, per-se,
only de-legitimises the planning profession) the
comment that even pimps would have more grace. On
Sunday I saw this item naming two among those that led
from the front the purportedly professional discourse
on GATS (which opens up planning services via
architectural firms, such as EFN Ribiero & Associates
and Sudhir Vohra Consultants are) charting the rules
for whorehouse games, in home turf of Nayar(he is
ex-MP btw, misrepresented as MP in the news reports of
JNNURM antics). Today, to mark start of the Hong Kong
Ministerial, VP Singh & Co is addressing the anti-WTO
march to Parliament (where our independently stinging
media has informed us that questions can be raised at
a price, but not whether WTO-GATS were mentioned at
all!).

well, I am just a planner and our *stake* in the
affairs of the world has long been confined to our
designated ivory-tower by those that define
*stakeholders* (I have yet to figure out how and why
they do that) in their endless subjugation of the
professions, in which JNNURM and GATS are the latest
assaults. I am more distressed by the SToI report that
has given me a bout of intermittent jaw-drop. If the
following is what planning is going to be in
another-world-that-all-are-making-possible, I prefer
to gracefully knit real dutch-stockings and stuffed
toys!

=========ToI, Sunday 11.12.05, p.4

Vasant Vihar stands up to speak and protect its stake


pic: view of 17 (people) participants, nearly all
senior citizens, of Vasant Vihar RWA

caption: WE TOO HAVE A VOICE: Vasant Vihar residents
mince no words during the first meeting with
stakeholders under MCD's local area planning.

Box: HOW LAP WILL UNFOLD
* Focus areas for planning after interaction:
Pedestrian safety, water, unauthorised settlements,
parks and recreational facilities
* Focus groups of residents to study specific issues
* E F N Ribeiro Associates, consultant for preparing
LAP for Vasant Vihar, to gather views of other
stakeholders like market associations, schools, etc.
* Land-based survey to take stock of buildings, roads
and services, completed
* E F N Ribeiro to return to stakeholders with Draft
LAP by mid February
* Document to be sent to MCD for approval

By Ambika Pandit/TNN

New Delhi: From water shortage and encroachments to
parking, noise, lack of recreational facilities and
insecurity due to JJ clusters - Saturday was the day
for Vasant Vihar residents to do some plainspeaking
about their colony before municipal officials and
experts at the first interactive session of the Local
Area Planning (LAP) initiative of the MCD.
LAP is part of the new draft of the building byelaws
of the MCD. It involves working out plans for
micro-level redevelopment of colonies with the
involvement of stakeholders under the broad guidelines
of the master plan.
Saturday's session set the ball rolling for creating a
local plan for Vasant Vihar: A part of a pilot project
on five colonies, Vasant vihar is in the category of a
'planned residential colony'.
In the presence of MCD's chief town planner V K Bugga,
deputy commissioner (south) Ajay Kumar, MLA Barkha
Singh, architects and urban planners, including Sudhir
Vohra and B R Balachandran, the residents spoke their
minds.
B B Vohra, a senior citizen, raised the issue of water
shortage and illegal boring. Another resident, V K
Bansal, revealed that out of 23 tube wells in the
area, about 14 have gone dry. As a solution, A M
Ahluwalia from Vasant Marg emphasised the need to put
up an effluent treatment plant and recycle used water.
Encroachments, illegal construction and corruption
were discussed at length. Colonel Garg complained that
all the morning walkers got to see was stray dogs,
cows and encroachments on the pavements. The problem
of excessive traffic due to the presence of 19 schools
in the area and encroachments by some embassies in the
back lanes was also raised.
Anusuiya Bhardwaj, another resident said it was a case
of "infrastructure breakdown". "The multi-storey
buildings are responsible for this. The new byelaws
should ensure that people stick to the building plans
and every builder must create parking in the
basement," she asserted.
"It is impossible to decide how much parking a
particular shop or office should be allowed in the
markets," said Vandan Bhatnagar from B-Block. Her
husband promptly proposed an alternative mode of
transport like electric bus that could ferry the
residents around the colony.
Another resident, Sanjana Raj, highlighted the need
for developing the existing parks and creating leisure
space. A sports complex and a community centre were
among the ideas thrown up.
Romesh Chopra, president, Vasant Vihar RWA, said
renewal was possible through a change in the thinking
of the MCD, its team of planners and the people.
But 84-year old Colonel (retd) J M Chaudhary, who
lives on Poorvi Marg, had the last word. "Plans have
come before too. To ensure success, we have to first
root out corruption," he said.


===
nb: (habitual techno-legalese, worth nothing in these
liberated times)
the reference to master plan in para-2 is bunkum. even
if MCD Act Amendment is pushed through, this sort of
thing will be impermissible under DD Act. and the
not-gentlemen chaps seem not to have told the lady
that wants conformity with sanctioned plans, in
para-7, that under their new dispensation the
sanctioned plan is self-sanctioned by architect and
has no sanctity, frame of reference for penalties
being the (area-specific) byelaws!



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    • From: Nalini Thakur
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