Town Planning in India
Town Planning in India
Town Planning in India
01 Source : www.designingbuildings.co.uk
FOLLOWING ARE
THE STAGES OF 1. ANCIENT INDIA
-INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION
-LOTHAL
TOWN PLANNING
2. MEDIVIAL PERIOD
3. MUGHAL PERIOD
4. PRE-INDEPENDENCE OR BRITISH PERIOD
02
INDUS PRE
MUGHAL
VALLEY BUDDHIST INDEPENDENCE
PERIOD
CIVILISATION PERIOD PERIOD
(16TH-19TH
(UNTIL 1750 (BC) (BEFORE 1947)
CENTURY)
BC)
MEDIVIAL POST
BRITISH
VEDIC PERIOD PERIOD INDEPENDENCE
PERIOD PERIOD
(1760-600BC) (6TH-13TH
(1757-1947) (AFTER 1947)
CENTURY)
03
TOWN PLANNING
SYSTEM OF
INDUS VALLEY
CIVILIZATION
Indus Valley Civilisation also referred to as
Harappan civilization and Saraswati Sindhu
Civilization. It was situated between Indus
River and the Ghaggar - Hakra River ( Pakistan
and North Western India). Mohenjodaro was
one of the major settlements in this area. The
Indus Valley Civilization is often separated
into three phases: the Early Harappan Phase
from 3300 to 2600 BCE, the Mature Harappan
Phase from 2600 to 1900 BCE, and the Late
Harappan Phase from 1900 to 1300 BCE.
Source : academia.edu
04
The cities of Indus Valley Civilization were organized for several reasons.
Firstly, the cities were developed close to the Indus River because the Indus people needed river water to
drink, wash and to irrigate their fields.
Secondly, since the river was so close, the cities were built on giant platforms and elevated grounds for
protection
from seasonal flood .
Indus people also had religious beliefs and an appreciation for astronomy, which is reflected in the
orientation of the city.
05 Source : academia.edu
MAIN FEATURES OF TOWN
PLANNING IN INDUS VALLEY
CIVILISATION
The main features of town planning in Indus Valley Civilisation
are as follows :-
Streets in perfect grid patterns in both Mohenjodaro and
Harappa.
World's first sanitation system.
Individual wells and separate covered drains along the
streets for waste water.
Houses opened to inner courtyards and smaller lanes.
Impressive dockyards ,granaries, warehouses, brick
platforms and protective walls.
Massive citadels protected the city from floods and attackers.
City dwellers were mainly traders and artisans.
All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities.
06 Source : academia.edu
DEVELOPMENT OF CITIES
Cities grew out of earlier villages that existed in the same locality for less than 100 years.
Grew in size and density and were surrounded by various towns and villages.
Cities interlinked with trade and economic activities, religious beliefs and social relations etc.
Vast agricultural lands, rivers and forests by pastoral communities, fisher folks and
hunters surrounded each city
IMPORTANT CITIES
07 Source : academia.edu
TOWN PLANNING IN MOHENJODARO
No fortification.
Major streets In North South direction.
TOWN PLANNING
Intersection at right angles.
Streets within built up areas were narrow.
Distinct zoning for different groups.
IN
MOHENJODARO SETTLEMENT DIVISIONS WERE AS FOLLOWS :
Religious,institutional &cultural areas –around monastery &
great bath in the western part.
North – agriculture & industries
South – administration, trade & commerce.
09 Source : academia.edu
TOWN PLANNING IN
HARAPPA
Citadel mound and lower town surrounded by a
massive brick wall.
Citadel had square towers and bastions.
Large open areas inside the gateway may have been
used as a market or checkpoint for taxing goods
coming into the city.
Outside the city walls a cluster of houses may
represent temporary rest stops for travellers and
caravans.
No division of the society is reflected in the layout of
the city. Since large public buildings, market areas,
large and small houses as well as craft workshops
have been found in the same neighbourhood.
Barrack-like group of single-roomed tenements were
for the poorer classes.
10 Source : academia.edu
Basic house plans
Single room tenements
Houses with courtyards
Houses - rooms on 3 sides opening into a central
courtyard
Nearly all large houses had private wells.
Hearths ( brick- or stone-lined fireplace or oven
often used for cooking and/or heating) common in
rooms.
Bathrooms in every house with chutes leading to
drainage channels.
First floor bathrooms also built.
Brick stairways provided access to the upper floors.
Houses built with a perimeter wall and adjacent
houses were separated by a narrow space of land.
Granary with areas for threshing grains.
Burnt bricks mainly used for drains, wells and
bathrooms.
Sun dried bricks used mainly for fillings.
Timber used for flat roofs and as frames or lacing for
brickwork.
11 Source : academia.edu
HARAPPA’S DRAINAGE
SYSTEM
Wells and reservoirs - drinking and bathing.
Wells were lined with specially-made wedge shaped Bricks to
form a structurally sound Cylinder.
Ropes were used to lift the water out, probably with leather or
wooden buckets.
Some neighbourhoods had communal wells.
Bathing platforms with water tight floor & drains [open Out to
larger drains in streets ] provided in rooms adjacent to the wells.
Drains and water chutes in the upper storeys were often built
inside the wall with an exit opening just above the street drains.
Tapered terracotta drainpipes were used to direct water out to
the street.
Many houses had distinct toilets, separate from the bath areas.
Commodes were large jars or sump pots sunk into the floors and
many of them contained a small jar.
Drains covered with baked bricks or dressed stone blocks.
Garbage bins were provided along the major Streets.
12 Source : academia.edu
TOWN PLANNING IN
LOTHAL
In 2350 BC Harappans based around Lothal and
from Sindh tried to expand their settlement and
create a planned township on the lines of greater
cities in the Indus valley.
The remains dating from 2440 to 1900 b.c. are of a
mature and thriving Harappan culture while those
belonging from 1900 to 1600 b.c. represent the late
Harappan culture in its state of decline.
13
Lothal planners engaged themselves to protect the area
from consistent floods.
The town was divided into blocks of 1-2m high platforms
of sun-dried bricks, each serving 20–30 houses of thick
mud and brick walls.
The city was divided into a citadel and a lower town.
The rulers of the town lived in the acropolis, which
featured paved baths, underground and surface drains
(built of kiln-fired bricks) and potable water well.
Lothal engineers accorded high priority to the creation
of a dockyard and a warehouse to serve the purposes of
naval trade.
14
While the consensus view amongst archaeologists
identifies this structure as a "dockyard," it has also been
suggested that owing to small dimensions, this basin
may have been an irrigation tank and canal.
The dock was built on the eastern flank of the town, and
is regarded by archaeologists as an engineering feat of
the highest order.
The warehouse was built close to the acropolis on a
3.5m high podium of mud bricks. The rulers could thus
supervise the activity on the dock and warehouse
simultaneously.
Facilitating the movement of cargo was a
mudbrick wharf, 220m long, built on the western arm of
the dock, with a ramp leading to the warehouse.
Throughout their time, the city had to brace itself
through multiple floods and storms. Dock and city
peripheral walls were maintained efficiently.
All the construction was made of fire dried bricks, lime
and sand mortar and not by sun-dried bricks as bricks
are still intact after 4000 years and still bonded together
with each other with the mortar bond.
15
VEDIC PERIOD
In this period, vedas as well as books were wrote on town
planning.
16 Source : academia.edu
CHANAKYAN
ARTHASHASTARA
According to Chanakya’s Arthashastra, a city should be located in
the central part of the country so as to facilitate trade and
commerce.
Its shape should be circular, rectangular or square as would suit
the topography. There should be water on all sides.
There should be a wall around the town, which should be at least
six dandas high and twelve dandas wide. Beyond this wall, there
should be three moats of 14 feet, 12 feet and 10 feet wide to be
built four arm-lengths apart.
The main roads should be eight dandas wide and other roads
four dandas wide.
There should be one well for every group of ten houses.
The palace should be in the central part. It should face either
north or east.
Temples should be located in the center of the town.
17
CHANAKYAN
ARTHASHASTARA
Some interesting extracts relating to Town and Country planning in
Arthashastra composed by Chanakya in the Maurya period is given below:
Town, which is congested, should be freed of surplus population, which
should then be housed in a new location. The towns should be so located
as they would be in a position to help each other.
There should be a ‘sangrahan’ among ten villages, a ‘sarvatik’ among two
hundred, a ‘dronamukh’ among four hundred and a ‘sthaniya’ among eight
hundred villages.
People who come to stay at the time of a new settlement or those who
come to reside later in this new settlement should be exempted from
payment of taxes for some years.
Dams should be built over rivers and nalas. Temples and
gardens should be provided.
Arrangements should be made for looking after the aged, the children
and informal persons.
Cereals and wealth will grow if the agriculturists are kept busy. Attempts
should be made to protect and increase quarries, forests and canals.
18
1. DANDAKA 2. SARVATOBHADRA
Streets are straight and cross each other at This type of town plan is applicable to larger villages
right angles at the center § Village has 4 gates on and towns, which have to be constructed on a square
four sides sites.
Village is rectangular / square According to this plan, the whole town should be
Width of the street varies from one- five danda fully occupied by houses of various descriptions and
2 transverse street at the extremities have inhabited by all classes of people.
single row of houses
The village offices located in the east.
The female deity/ Yama devata-located outside the
village and the male deities in the northern
portion.
19 Source : academia.edu
3. NANDYAVARTA 4. PADMAKA
This plan is commonly used for the This type of plan was practiced for building
construction of towns and not for villages. of the towns with fortress all round.
It is generally adopted for the sites either circular or The pattern of the plan resembles the petals
square in shape, 3000 – 4000 HOUSES of lotus radiating outwards from the center.
The streets run parallel to the central adjoining The city used to be practically an island
streets with the temple of the presiding deity in surrounded by water, having no scope for
the center of the town. expansion
“Nandyavarta” is the name of a flower, the
form of which is followed in this layout.
20 Source : academia.edu
5. SWASTIKA 6. PRASTARA
Swastika type of plan contemplates some The characteristic feature of this plan is that the site
diagonal streets dividing the site into certain may be either square or rectangular but not triangular
rectangular plots. or circular.
The site need not be marked out into a The sites are set apart for the poor, the middle class,
square or rectangle and it may be of any shape. the rich and the very rich, the sizes of the sites
A rampart wall surrounds the town, with a increasing according to the capacity of each to
moat at its foot filled with water. purchase or build upon.
Two main streets cross each other at the center, The main roads are much wider compared to
running south to north and west to east. those of other patterns.
The town may or may not be surrounded by a
fort.
21 Source : academia.edu
7. KARMUKA 8. CHATURMUKHA
This plan is suitable for the place where Chaturmukha type of plan is applicable to all towns
the site of the town is in the form of a bow or starting from the largest town to the smallest village.
semi-circular or parabolic and mostly applied for The site may be either square or rectangular having
towns located on the seashore or riverbanks. four faces.
The main streets of the town run from north The town is laid out east to west lengthwise, with four
to south or east to west and the cross streets run main streets.
at right-angles to them, dividing the whole area The temple of the presiding deity will be
into blocks. always at the center
The presiding deity, commonly a female deity, is
installed in the temple build in any convenient
place.
22 Source : academia.edu
BUDDHIST PERIOD
During the period of emperor chandragupta maurya, kautilya and
chanakya was the chief minister who wrote the famous “arthashastra”, a
treatise of town planning. Features stated in it were:
23 Source : academia.edu
MEDIEVAL PERIOD
Early medieval town was dominated by church or monastry & castle of lords.
Roads generally radiated from church plaza& market plaza to gates with secondary lateral roadways
connecting them.
Streets were used for pedestrian while wheels were restricted to main roads.
Masonry was the usual construction, although wood frame filled with wattle & clay & roofed with thatch for
comparison the medieval dwelling .
24 Source : academia.edu
MUGHAL PERIOD
The Mughal empire is conventionally said to
have been founded in 1526 by Babur
25 Source : academia.edu
Shah Jahan
During Shah Jahan’ rein the architectural development
was remarkable due to his interest and patronage of
architecture.
27 Source : academia.edu
THE CITY FORM‐
MORPHOLOGY The urban infrastructure was laid out in a geometric pattern.
28 Source : academia.edu
STREETS
29 Source : academia.edu
CITY WALLS
The layout of the city walls was based on a
DELHI DARWAZA LAHORI DARWAZA geometrical planning; i.e. to say, a polygonal plan
with gateways. The four main gates were Delhi
Darwaza on south, the Ajmeri Darwaza on the
south-west, the Lahori Darwaza on the west and
the Kashmiri Darwaza on the north.
30 Source : academia.edu
TOWN PLANNING OF The plan of Shahjahanabad reflects both Hindu and
Islamic influences.
31 Source : academia.edu
PRE INDEPENDENCE
PERIOD
When the britishers first settled in india, they found most of
the towns are unhygienic. So they built independent
colonies on the outskirts of existing town.
These extensions were called “cantonments” and “barracks”
for military occupied areas and “civil lines” for the residents of
civilians.
Delhi cantonment known as british colonies.
Colonisation brought urbanization.
Urbanisation led to the rise of the suburb.
32 Source : academia.edu
The introduction of railways in 1853 meant a change in the
fortunes of towns.
The arrival of the railways accelerated urban growth.
Calcutta, Bombay and Madras grew rapidly and soon became
sprawling cities.
As in the case of cantonments, hill stations were a distinctive
feature of colonial urban development.
The founding and settling of hill stations was initially connected
with the needs of the British army.
Hill stations became strategic places for billeting troops,
guarding frontiers and launching campaigns against enemy
rulers.
Hill stations were important for the colonial economy.
33 Source : academia.edu
TOWN PLANNING IN
LUTYENS DELHI
Lutyens’ Delhi was planned on the most spacious
garden city lines with the great avenues decorated
with classical buildings with lush landscape. The
layout of Lutyens Delhi was governed by three
major visual corridors, linking the government
complex with:
Jama Masjid
Indraprastha
Safdarjung’s Tomb
34 Source : archinomy.com
FEATURES
35 Source : archinomy.com
THE ROAD NETWORK
36 Source : archinomy.com
LUTYENS’
DELHI
ZONING
37 Source : archinomy.com
38 Source : archinomy.com
CRITERIA FOR SITE
SELECTION OF IMPERIAL
CAPITAL
The committee which was setup to choose a site
recommended that if the imperial capital is to be
favorably situated to present an effective appearance,
it should be approached along a line of rising ground.
Lord Harding chose the Raisina Hill for locating the
viceroy’s palace because:
1. It was a well-drained.
2. Constituted of slopes and plains between the
ridge and the river.
3. Its eastern and southern margins were studded
with monuments of vanished empires.
4. A broad crescent from Sahajahanabad and Kotla
Firoz Shah, south to Tughlaqabad and the Qutub
with tombs of Safdarjung and Lodhis as well as
Jantar Mantar in the foreground could be viewed
from the site.
39 Source : archinomy.com
POST INDEPENDENCE
PERIOD
The immediate aftermath of Indian independence
LE CORBUSIER
on 15 August 1947 saw millions of refugees enter
India from the newly created, two-part country of
Pakistan.
The years 1947–1965 are very important because it
was during this time that many new towns were
built and key institutions supporting urban growth
for the next several decades established.
In the early post-independence years, these
engineers and architects were primarily foreigners
or Indians trained by foreigners.
Le Corbusier’s arrival in India changed pre-existing
ways of thinking and building.
By 1971, 112 new towns had been built.
The new town that best expressed these multiple
functions was Chandigarh, in Punjab, whose rise
dates back to the immediate aftermath of
Partition in 1947.
The making of Chandigarh can therefore be
regarded as an important means to propel the
40 process of decolonization. Source : academia.edu
CHANDIGARH
URBAN PLANNING CONCEPTS
43 Source : academia.edu
The primary module of city’s design is a Sector, a neighborhood unit of size
800m*1200m to fast- mechanized transport and sealed to direct access from the
houses.
Each sector is a self-sufficient unit having shops, school, health centers and places of
recreations and worship.
The population of a sector varies between 3000 and 20000 depending upon the sizes of
plots and the topography of the area.
View of typical Roads and Round-abouts in the city Layout of a typical residential
sector
44 Source : academia.edu
HIERARCHY OF
GREEN AREAS
A Hierarchy of Green Spaces can be
observed in both the layout ranging
from Public Greens at City Level to
Semi-Private to Private Green Areas.
1. City Level Public Green Space
with Artificial Water Body
2. Free- Flowing Green Space,
connecting the entire site
3. Semi-Private Green Areas for
neighborhood pockets
4. Private Green Areas for
Residential Units
45 Source : academia.edu
LEISURE VALLEY,
CHANDIGARH
The Leisure Valley is a green
sprawling space extending
North-East to South-West along a
seasonal river let gradient and was
conceived by Le Corbusier as the
lungs of the city.
Apart from large Public Parks and
special Botanical Gardens, it
houses series of Fitness Trails,
amphitheaters and spaces for
open-air exhibitions.
46 Source : academia.edu
CENTRAL PUBLIC
COMPLEX
47 Source : academia.edu
BUILDING
TYPOLOGIES
The Basic Building Typology is
observed as extremely
Rectilinear with similar
proportions.
In both the developments the
smaller individual Residential
Units are arranged around
central common Green Spaces,
although the shapes are
different.
48 Source : academia.edu
FIVE YEAR PLANS
And major reforms
Considering the urgent need to prevent unregulated growth of the towns, the Five Year Plans laid stress
on the need to undertake town planning to provide for zoning and land use, control of ribbon
development, location of industries, clearance of slums, civic and diagnostic surveys and
preparation of master plans.
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
NITI
11 12 AYOG
2015
2007-2012 2012-2017
INCLUSIVE GROWTH FASTER, MORE INCLUSIVE NATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR
Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar AND SUSTAINABLE TRANSFORMING INDIA a
Yojana GROWTH policy think tank of the
National Rural Employment government of India, established
Guarantee Scheme with the aim to achieve
National Rural Health Mission Sustainable Development Goals
Bharat Nirman
The sheer magnitude of the urban population, haphazard and unplanned growth
of urban areas, and a desperate lack of infrastructure are the main causes of such
a situation.
Source : www.yourarticlelibrary.com/urbanisatiion
52
1. URBAN SPRAWL
Urban sprawl or real expansion of the cities,
both in population and geographical area, of
rapidly growing cities is the root cause of
urban problems.
2. OVERCROWDING
Overcrowding is a situation in which too many
people live in too little space.
53 Source : www.yourarticlelibrary.com/urbanisatiion
3. HOUSING
Overcrowding leads to a chronic problem of
shortage of houses in urban areas.
4. UNEMPLOYMENT
One of the major causes of urban
unemployment is the large scale migration of
people from rural to
urban areas.
6. TRANSPORT
With traffic bottlenecks and traffic congestion,
almost all cities and towns of India are suffering
from an acute form of transport problem.
8. SEWERAGE PROBLEMS
Urban areas in India are almost invariably
plagued with insufficient and inefficient sewage
facilities.
56 Source : www.yourarticlelibrary.com/urbanisatiion
9. TRASH DISPOSAL
As Indian cities grow in number and size the
problem of trash disposal is increasing at
alarming proportions.
Most cites do not have proper arrangements
for garbage disposal and the existing landfills
are full to the brim.
These landfills are hotbeds of disease and
innumerable poisons leaking into their
surroundings.
SUBMITTED BY -
JOHN P JOSEPH
NIKHIL BHUTANI
VISHESH KATARIA