I am writing to the inquiry committee with a copy to
SPA Director as alumnus to ask about the outcome and
follow-up of the SPA inquiry.
The following is the letter I had sent on 28.10.03. I
have not received any response.
-----------
Mr Shungloo (Formerly CAG)
c/o EDCIL House, 18A, Sector-16, NOIDA
Sub: School of Planning and Architecture
Dear Sir,
I am a Planner, alumnus and formerly visiting faculty
in SPA, very much in touch with it. I am writing to
you in three capacities to bring to your attention
information that might be of use in interest of SPA:
· on behalf of clients aggrieved by SPA's
(institutional) consultancy, etc
· as citizen affected by omissions and commissions of
SPA as a premier habitat institution
· as a professional affected by what happens to the
premier academic institution in my profession
All of the following arises from the premise that
institutions like SPA are 'professional custodians' of
lawful, planned development in widest public interest
and well-being of professions charged with this.
In speaking on behalf of clients I need to clarify
that since quitting mainstream in 1997, I work as
consultant exclusively to citizens' groups to advise
them on their settled entitlements in Master Plans and
related statutory regimes. Two recent initiatives of
SPA have directly impaired those of my clients:
(a) In July 2002 a newspaper said SPA was doing for
MCD 'studies' in villages, including Mahipalpur, where
my clients are making efforts since 2001 to secure
implementation of Plan entitlements to development in
/ around the village. They wrote to say they were not
in need of 'studies' (already conducted by DDA and
GoNCTD) that might delay implementation. SPA students,
however, did some studies later and SPA did not even
care to let the villagers know about the 'findings'.
(b) Hawkers in Vasant Kunj have been seeking since
January 2001 implementation of entitlements to space
in markets, etc. In a joint PIL by all classes of
citizens in the area, a project in line with the
hawkers' detailed proposals for Plan implementation to
solve the hawking problem has been assured on
affidavit in 2003. Meanwhile, SPA is doing consultancy
to 'suggest' Plan provisions that already exist.
Developments in this matter make a poignant case of
professional callousness on the part of SPA and I am
enclosing illustrative correspondence at Annexure-1.
In speaking as a citizen aggrieved by SPA's omissions
and commissions, I speak of, on one hand, SPA's
failure as watchdog and, on the other, 'endorsement'
by individuals in it of popular positions.
(a) Failure as watchdog is constantly demonstrated,
such as in the following recent instances:
· In 2000 Delhi Master Plan was taking a beating in
ill-informed "public debate" in the matter of
industries, chronicled in my book Slumming India. SPA
did not guide us to a solution that existed in law,
though a PhD on this was current and faculty
obfuscated the issue in media.
· In 2001 my client groups were demonstrating in
support of the Master Plan. I drew the fraternity's
attention through a letter that ITPI published in its
newsletter and in my coincident presentation at
Planning Commission Round Table. SPA did not engage.
· SPA faculty, in DDA's sub-groups for Plan revision
since 1999, saw nothing till CBI showed it in 2003.
None responded to my open letter about need for
professional stocktaking after the DDA scam, just as
none had responded to one suggesting they structure
their discourse.
· In 2001, I sent to SPA copy of a letter to CM
suggesting making 'bhagidaari' lawful and inclusive by
using it for planned, not ad-hoc, development.
However, SPA was inclined to be bhagidaar not
watchdog, doing flyover art for CM and not, say,
flyover cost-benefit analysis.
· Implementation of 74th amendment, likewise, has had
no benefit of professional debate, with 'senior'
colleagues associated with SPA grabbing opportunities
of "vision documents" and municipal planning projects
without even considering questions about their
constitutionality.
· On GATS also 'seniors' seem to have no clue except
how to make the most for themselves, having ensured
oligarchic control of 'career' space. At a recent
seminar SPA faculty under scrutiny was pontificating
on this serious matter, while admitting they knew
little about it.
· Notwithstanding timely students' work, at no point
has SPA taken a professional stand even on, say,
Public Notices for Master Plan modifications, etc.
(b) A few general issues about unwarranted
professional endorsement are as follows:
· 'Senior' SPA faculty has been 'posturing' as experts
on matters they are not qualified on. A notable
example is of Urban Design (M.Arch) Head calling
himself Planner not only in media but also as
consultant to endorse some NGO initiatives. These NGOs
badmouth Planners.
· Transport Planning Department's property tax study,
Physical Planning Department's hawker livelihood
study, etc, are similar examples undermining
specialization, besides violating consultancy rules,
to endorse (as SPA) rather than evaluate / enrich
'popular' paradigms.
· Especially problematic is 'Architect-Planner', these
being different professions with conflicting career
goals (as planning sets frameworks that architecture
practice might find restrictive). The 'SPA faculty
Architect-Planner' is more problematic for being more
credible.
· Frivolous, besides un-specialized, media remarks in
name of SPA are also worrying as they undermine public
confidence in the profession and its statutory outputs
like Master Plan to endorse para-professional notions
of development. SPA does not respond to objections.
· The presence of SPA faculty in numerous seminars,
claiming/suggesting they represent SPA, is yet another
manner in which the name of SPA is misused for
endorsement.
I am enclosing a few, almost randomly selected,
letters, etc, about the foregoing at Annexure-2.
I wish to underscore the following amongst processes
in SPA driving the professions to mediocrity:
(a) The general trend is for a student to become
research associate and then faculty and often PhD
scholar to rise in academia. Most full time faculty is
therefore completely lacking in any real-world
experience, except that garnered from moonlighting.
(b) Visiting faculty is invited out of camaraderie
more than for students? benefit. It would be
enlightening to see who is not invited (I?ve not found
space to talk about my plannerly court cases or
'participation' in consultant instead of NGO mode,
both new areas of professional opportunity) and why
other colleges/universities whose faculty SPA invites
do not invite SPA faculty formally.
(c) Specialization is not valued. Departments were not
set up after rigorous need assessment, nor evaluated
for worth. Curricula do not sit in overall framework
defining specialization boundaries and there are huge
overlaps and consequent inefficiencies, and refusal to
coordinate on any level other than personal adds to
obfuscation and unhealthy competition for all things
glamorous.
(d) Consultancy, instead of contributing to academia,
is 'leeching' on it, using student work and even
setting priorities for studios and research. Use of
students' work in projects and papers is common, as is
publication of SPA consultancy in name of Heads who
may not even have read it.
(e) PhD program has become a farce, serving little
more than careerist goals of those participating in it
as scholars, advisers and jurors. An 'assessment' was
lately made, in which I declined to participate as
'drop-out' on grounds of SPA and those it had
appointed for assessment not having shown any interest
in rigour, ethic and responsibility issues I raised
before declining to submit my PhD, after having not
only completed it but also pursued it in real-life
with corporate/village clients.
(f) SPA's Quality Improvement Program for faculty,
likewise, has no meaning, being impossible to design
in absence of mechanisms to identify improvement need.
Student feedback is not garnered in any structured way
and what little is given or taken has biases of
individuals or circumstantial particularities and, in
any case, there is no obligation to consider it.
Student representation on Academic Council, etc, is
tokenist, with no mechanism to ensure effectiveness.
(g) Students are discouraged from interacting with
professionals that faculty does not 'approve' of.
(They are instructed not to talk to me or come to my
meetings, even 'punished' with bad grades, etc, for
choosing to be guided by me on their research, etc).
(h) There is no premium on professional endeavour,
even alumni 'achievement'. That I was not invited to
talk about, say, my book, considered by several
reviewers as rare work, or winning court cases in
which lawyers have evinced interest, was expected,
since my work blows the whistle on 'eminent'
professionals and their paymasters. What was shocking
was SPA did not even felicitate an alumnus who won the
Aga Khan Award ? because a 'controversy' had arisen
due to his big NGO client having literally stolen the
award and an 'eminent' architect on the award jury
being implicated for failure to spot an obviously
architect-designed building.
I am aware my locus standii to raise this third set of
issues is peculiar. You could dismiss my views as
arising out of some angst about 'denial' of mainstream
professional space, or you could accept them as views
of one comfortable in 'dissident' space and hence
advantaged to have rare combination of insight and
objectivity. Should you need grounds to make the
latter choice, the simplest would be that I have been
raising these issues for long. I am enclosing some
letters, etc, about this at Annexure-3.
Lastly, I wish to make clear that I am not writing out
of any expectation of magic. Reform in professional
space is really neither your job nor mine, but of
those to whom professional space and responsibility of
minding it belongs, the young and the committed
amongst mainstream professionals. Your enquiry I
believe provides them rare opportunity and, since June
when I heard about it, I have spoken with several of
them to suggest they view it as such and focus on the
future. I hope they do that and I hope they find the
support they need to do that. I am writing to you,
just as I nag them, only out of long and deeply felt
concern about my SPA to which I owe what I am, proud
Planner.
Yours sincerely
Gita Dewan Verma
__________________________________
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SPA Director as alumnus to ask about the outcome and
follow-up of the SPA inquiry.
The following is the letter I had sent on 28.10.03. I
have not received any response.
-----------
Mr Shungloo (Formerly CAG)
c/o EDCIL House, 18A, Sector-16, NOIDA
Sub: School of Planning and Architecture
Dear Sir,
I am a Planner, alumnus and formerly visiting faculty
in SPA, very much in touch with it. I am writing to
you in three capacities to bring to your attention
information that might be of use in interest of SPA:
· on behalf of clients aggrieved by SPA's
(institutional) consultancy, etc
· as citizen affected by omissions and commissions of
SPA as a premier habitat institution
· as a professional affected by what happens to the
premier academic institution in my profession
All of the following arises from the premise that
institutions like SPA are 'professional custodians' of
lawful, planned development in widest public interest
and well-being of professions charged with this.
In speaking on behalf of clients I need to clarify
that since quitting mainstream in 1997, I work as
consultant exclusively to citizens' groups to advise
them on their settled entitlements in Master Plans and
related statutory regimes. Two recent initiatives of
SPA have directly impaired those of my clients:
(a) In July 2002 a newspaper said SPA was doing for
MCD 'studies' in villages, including Mahipalpur, where
my clients are making efforts since 2001 to secure
implementation of Plan entitlements to development in
/ around the village. They wrote to say they were not
in need of 'studies' (already conducted by DDA and
GoNCTD) that might delay implementation. SPA students,
however, did some studies later and SPA did not even
care to let the villagers know about the 'findings'.
(b) Hawkers in Vasant Kunj have been seeking since
January 2001 implementation of entitlements to space
in markets, etc. In a joint PIL by all classes of
citizens in the area, a project in line with the
hawkers' detailed proposals for Plan implementation to
solve the hawking problem has been assured on
affidavit in 2003. Meanwhile, SPA is doing consultancy
to 'suggest' Plan provisions that already exist.
Developments in this matter make a poignant case of
professional callousness on the part of SPA and I am
enclosing illustrative correspondence at Annexure-1.
In speaking as a citizen aggrieved by SPA's omissions
and commissions, I speak of, on one hand, SPA's
failure as watchdog and, on the other, 'endorsement'
by individuals in it of popular positions.
(a) Failure as watchdog is constantly demonstrated,
such as in the following recent instances:
· In 2000 Delhi Master Plan was taking a beating in
ill-informed "public debate" in the matter of
industries, chronicled in my book Slumming India. SPA
did not guide us to a solution that existed in law,
though a PhD on this was current and faculty
obfuscated the issue in media.
· In 2001 my client groups were demonstrating in
support of the Master Plan. I drew the fraternity's
attention through a letter that ITPI published in its
newsletter and in my coincident presentation at
Planning Commission Round Table. SPA did not engage.
· SPA faculty, in DDA's sub-groups for Plan revision
since 1999, saw nothing till CBI showed it in 2003.
None responded to my open letter about need for
professional stocktaking after the DDA scam, just as
none had responded to one suggesting they structure
their discourse.
· In 2001, I sent to SPA copy of a letter to CM
suggesting making 'bhagidaari' lawful and inclusive by
using it for planned, not ad-hoc, development.
However, SPA was inclined to be bhagidaar not
watchdog, doing flyover art for CM and not, say,
flyover cost-benefit analysis.
· Implementation of 74th amendment, likewise, has had
no benefit of professional debate, with 'senior'
colleagues associated with SPA grabbing opportunities
of "vision documents" and municipal planning projects
without even considering questions about their
constitutionality.
· On GATS also 'seniors' seem to have no clue except
how to make the most for themselves, having ensured
oligarchic control of 'career' space. At a recent
seminar SPA faculty under scrutiny was pontificating
on this serious matter, while admitting they knew
little about it.
· Notwithstanding timely students' work, at no point
has SPA taken a professional stand even on, say,
Public Notices for Master Plan modifications, etc.
(b) A few general issues about unwarranted
professional endorsement are as follows:
· 'Senior' SPA faculty has been 'posturing' as experts
on matters they are not qualified on. A notable
example is of Urban Design (M.Arch) Head calling
himself Planner not only in media but also as
consultant to endorse some NGO initiatives. These NGOs
badmouth Planners.
· Transport Planning Department's property tax study,
Physical Planning Department's hawker livelihood
study, etc, are similar examples undermining
specialization, besides violating consultancy rules,
to endorse (as SPA) rather than evaluate / enrich
'popular' paradigms.
· Especially problematic is 'Architect-Planner', these
being different professions with conflicting career
goals (as planning sets frameworks that architecture
practice might find restrictive). The 'SPA faculty
Architect-Planner' is more problematic for being more
credible.
· Frivolous, besides un-specialized, media remarks in
name of SPA are also worrying as they undermine public
confidence in the profession and its statutory outputs
like Master Plan to endorse para-professional notions
of development. SPA does not respond to objections.
· The presence of SPA faculty in numerous seminars,
claiming/suggesting they represent SPA, is yet another
manner in which the name of SPA is misused for
endorsement.
I am enclosing a few, almost randomly selected,
letters, etc, about the foregoing at Annexure-2.
I wish to underscore the following amongst processes
in SPA driving the professions to mediocrity:
(a) The general trend is for a student to become
research associate and then faculty and often PhD
scholar to rise in academia. Most full time faculty is
therefore completely lacking in any real-world
experience, except that garnered from moonlighting.
(b) Visiting faculty is invited out of camaraderie
more than for students? benefit. It would be
enlightening to see who is not invited (I?ve not found
space to talk about my plannerly court cases or
'participation' in consultant instead of NGO mode,
both new areas of professional opportunity) and why
other colleges/universities whose faculty SPA invites
do not invite SPA faculty formally.
(c) Specialization is not valued. Departments were not
set up after rigorous need assessment, nor evaluated
for worth. Curricula do not sit in overall framework
defining specialization boundaries and there are huge
overlaps and consequent inefficiencies, and refusal to
coordinate on any level other than personal adds to
obfuscation and unhealthy competition for all things
glamorous.
(d) Consultancy, instead of contributing to academia,
is 'leeching' on it, using student work and even
setting priorities for studios and research. Use of
students' work in projects and papers is common, as is
publication of SPA consultancy in name of Heads who
may not even have read it.
(e) PhD program has become a farce, serving little
more than careerist goals of those participating in it
as scholars, advisers and jurors. An 'assessment' was
lately made, in which I declined to participate as
'drop-out' on grounds of SPA and those it had
appointed for assessment not having shown any interest
in rigour, ethic and responsibility issues I raised
before declining to submit my PhD, after having not
only completed it but also pursued it in real-life
with corporate/village clients.
(f) SPA's Quality Improvement Program for faculty,
likewise, has no meaning, being impossible to design
in absence of mechanisms to identify improvement need.
Student feedback is not garnered in any structured way
and what little is given or taken has biases of
individuals or circumstantial particularities and, in
any case, there is no obligation to consider it.
Student representation on Academic Council, etc, is
tokenist, with no mechanism to ensure effectiveness.
(g) Students are discouraged from interacting with
professionals that faculty does not 'approve' of.
(They are instructed not to talk to me or come to my
meetings, even 'punished' with bad grades, etc, for
choosing to be guided by me on their research, etc).
(h) There is no premium on professional endeavour,
even alumni 'achievement'. That I was not invited to
talk about, say, my book, considered by several
reviewers as rare work, or winning court cases in
which lawyers have evinced interest, was expected,
since my work blows the whistle on 'eminent'
professionals and their paymasters. What was shocking
was SPA did not even felicitate an alumnus who won the
Aga Khan Award ? because a 'controversy' had arisen
due to his big NGO client having literally stolen the
award and an 'eminent' architect on the award jury
being implicated for failure to spot an obviously
architect-designed building.
I am aware my locus standii to raise this third set of
issues is peculiar. You could dismiss my views as
arising out of some angst about 'denial' of mainstream
professional space, or you could accept them as views
of one comfortable in 'dissident' space and hence
advantaged to have rare combination of insight and
objectivity. Should you need grounds to make the
latter choice, the simplest would be that I have been
raising these issues for long. I am enclosing some
letters, etc, about this at Annexure-3.
Lastly, I wish to make clear that I am not writing out
of any expectation of magic. Reform in professional
space is really neither your job nor mine, but of
those to whom professional space and responsibility of
minding it belongs, the young and the committed
amongst mainstream professionals. Your enquiry I
believe provides them rare opportunity and, since June
when I heard about it, I have spoken with several of
them to suggest they view it as such and focus on the
future. I hope they do that and I hope they find the
support they need to do that. I am writing to you,
just as I nag them, only out of long and deeply felt
concern about my SPA to which I owe what I am, proud
Planner.
Yours sincerely
Gita Dewan Verma
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing.
http://photos.yahoo.com/