Splintered subaltern urbanisation in the emerging Punjabi city of Zirakpur
Uneven landscapes of Zirakpur with modern urban housing in the background contrasts with more traditional rural housing . (Picture by Kanchan Gandhi)
To enter Zirakpur, in the state of Punjab, India, is to be greeted by uneven landscapes of both native rural settlements and gated housing societies sitting side by side in the same city. This article investigates these sharp contrasts of urban transformation and how they have been created through Zirakpur’s recent graduation from village to city.
Zirakpur’s recent growth has occurred as it has become established as a satellite city of Chandigarh. Zirakpur lies on the route that connects Chandigarh to both the National Capital Region of Delhi and other parts of Punjab, and thus has benefitted from the trade and relationships that occur along this economic corridor. According to the 2011 census, Chandigarh had a population of 11 million people whereas Zirakpur only had a population of around 95,000. The Municipal Executive Officer of Zirakpur estimates that Zirakpur’s population has now grown to over 3 million whereas Chandigarh has grown at a much lower rate.
Chandigarh and the newly emerged city of Zirakpur are very different cities. Chandigarh was the first planned city of post-independence India and was developed using the modernist principles by Le Corbusier. The city is characterised by an ‘elite core’, where strict building by-laws encourage a low-rise, low-density form and limit the informality common place in most other Indian cities [1]. In practice these controls, coupled with the extensive use of land in Chandigarh for government functions, means that the city is poorly equipped to respond to the burgeoning population growth now being experienced.
Unavailability of land in the free market has encouraged the emergence of dynamic, subaltern settlement patterns in the periphery of Chandigarh spaces where economic, social and transit processes can more freely operate. Zirakpur is an example of a Chandigarh peripheral growth space (other examples include the towns of Kharar, Bannur, Mohali, Lalru and Mullanpur). While drivers of growth in each peri-urban space are different, [2] planning authorities and developers in Punjab have increasingly focussed on satellite cities due to disillusionment with the restrictive metro-centric core of Chandigarh [3]
Zirakpur started urbanising in the late 1990s as huge tracts of agricultural property were converted to urban land and a new city began to grow. Political patronage played an important role, with a number of politicians prominently involved in the early development of this new urban development site. As other developers came on board too the city become a lucrative hub for private capital.
The Infinium by Sushma Developers (Picture by Kanchan Gandhi)
There was, however, no master plan for the growth of Zirakpur until 2008. Private developments have dominated the city, and the absence of coordination or an active role for the state (including in infrastructure delivery), has resulted in what has been described as a messy patchwork of ‘splintered urbanism’. [4] This has included a focus on high-rise residential development which, despite the environmental benefits that higher density living can produce, [5] has often been poorly designed and constructed.
The Tragedy of Splintering
Through this peri-urban development process Zirakpur is fast becoming Chandigarh’s answer to Gurgaon in Delhi. Gurgaon is a high-rise suburb that flanks the low-rise inner city of Delhi, .
Gurgaon has evolved from being a suburb, offering affordable housing options to the people of Delhi, to a massive commercial centre in its own right that does business worth millions of dollars per month. The growth of Gurgaon has, however, been plagued by significant environmental and social concerns including the risk of extreme monsoonal flooding due to a lack of respect for natural drainage patterns. Srivastava (2015) therefore argues Gurgaon is a “tragic” case of urbanisation and its model should be avoided elsewhere in India.
Zirakpur seems, however, to be repeating many of the errors of Gurgaon. In particular, builders seem to continue to be given a free hand by the state to develop vertical group-housing enclaves. Presently, approximately 60-70 builders dominate the building and construction market of Zirakpur, including several who are also Councillors on the local Municipal Council.
A particular concern that has been expressed by the Zirakpur community is the quality of building construction in the city.[6] It has been alleged that a number of developments fail to respond to the earthquake risks identified in the Chandigarh Disaster Management Plan-2031[7] and may also potentially aggravate flooding of estates during the monsoon.
It has also been contended that in some instances it has been possible to procure false documentation in order to certify allegedly incomplete projects. For example, a number of vertical housing societies in Zirakpur have reported significant plumbing concerns, including sewage treatment plants not being connected due to their high operational cost [8]. Sewage management issues have the potential to not just impact those living in the new vertical communities themselves but also risks the outbreak of water-borne diseases (such as jaundice) among villages and slums in the vicinity due to groundwater contamination.
There is a critical role for the state in ensuring compliance to building regulation laws and infrastructure provision to avoid these types of issues. This role is, however, dependent on agents of the government or politics operating with independence from the building industry.
In conclusion - cities writing their own scripts
Arguably small and medium cities are “writing their own scripts” in India and there is a need to study their growth and diversity in a more nuanced way and not just explain them in relation to the mega-cities [9].
In the case of Zirakpur, a script for urbanisation was originally written due to the availability of affordable housing and commercial premises close to the restrictive and expensive Chandigarh. More recently the city has also begun to forge an identity of its own that is attracting new businesses and institutions who want to be located in Zirakpur. This includes a perception not just of lower rental costs, but also of strong connection with elsewhere in India and much less extreme parking challenges.[10]
Flooding in Nirmal Chaya Housing Society post-rain (Picture by Neha Poonia)
The recent concerns with the quality and strategic planning of growth in Zirakpur suggests, however, that Roy’s “informality from above” thesis also forms part of the script for Zirakpur. Roy (2009:84) contends that informality runs parallel with the formal and legal systems of the state. By making exceptions in a system of planning that is “volatile, ambiguous, and uncertain” informality becomes an integral part of the territorial practices of the state.
In particular alleged collusion of the builders with the government has potentially created a “leaky” built environment which is marred by the issues of poor quality construction and seepage problems in most of the housing estates and has led to the production of the litigant citizen. Most Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) in the city are engaged in court battles against their builders for the poor quality housing delivered to them. These issues are not, of course, unique to Zirakpur, with similar challenges being identified in the Indian vertical cities of Gurgaon[11] and Noida[12] too.
Increasing privatisation in cities such as Zirakpur has led to fuzziness between the role of the private developers and the government in the provision of infrastructure. With the simultaneous presence of both old and new developments, and both under-served and well-served communities, Zirakpur has become a compelling example of splintering urbanism. So long as private capital continues to rule large in the city, it may lead to further fracturing of infrastructures and rising discontent among its citizens.
Kanchan Gandhi is a postdoctoral research fellow at IISER, Mohali (India). Her research interests lie in identity-politics, urban studies, disaster and climate change studies. The author would like to thank Dr Anu Sabhlok, IISER Mohali for her support and guidance in conducting this research work. She would also like to acknowledge Ms Subhashri Sarkar and Ms. Neha Poonia for their research assistance in Zirakpur.
[1] Roy A. (2009) Why India Cannot Plan Its Cities: Informality, Insurgence and the Idiom of Urbanization, Planning Theory, Volume 8 Issue1.
[2] Dupont, V. (2007) “Conflicting Stakes and Governance in the Peripheries of Large Indian Metropolises – An Introduction”, Cities, 24(2): 89-94.
[3] Bunnell, T and A Maringanti (2010): “Practising Urban and Regional Research Beyond Metrocentricity”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(2): 415-20.
[4] Graham, S. and Marvin, S. (2002) Splintering urbanism: networked infrastructures, technological mobilities and the urban condition. Routledge
[5] Muggah, R (2019) Cities could be our best weapon in the fight against climate change, World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/cities-could-be-our-best-weapon-in-the-fight-against-climate-change/
[6] Based on discussions with RWA members and residents of Zirakpur
[7] Chandigarh Disaster Management Plan by the Government of Chandigarh - available at http://chandigarh.gov.in/cmp2031/disaster.pdf accessed on November 12, 2019
[8] Based on discussions with the residents of Zirakpur
[9] Denis, Mukhopadhyaya and Zerah (2012) Subaltern Urbanisation in India, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol XLVII No. 3: 52-62
[10] Interview with Mr Bhattacharya, Head of Karnataka Biotech (which has chosen to locate in Zirakpur). Interview conducted on 12 August 2019
[11] Srivastava, S. (2015). Entangled urbanism: Slum, gated community and shopping mall in Delhi and Gurgaon. OUP Catalogue
[12] Bellman, E (2020) India’s ‘Ghost Towns’ Saddle Middle Class With Debt—and Broken Dreams, Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/indias-ghost-towns-saddle-middle-class-with-debtand-broken-dreams-1579189678?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwAR05HVXCiPfoeIGom62VGJlZYwubqrLHj9tTOWVdFlNAljj3_16-BqK0-xc