India needs more town planning schools to fill up the shortfall of professionals. ?There are 5,000 towns in the country and we have, at present, hardly 3,000 town & country planners. So, there is a demand for another 2,000?, said DS Meshram, president of the Institute of Town Planners, India (ITPI).
With the Jawaharlal Nehru New Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURUM) programmes being implemented in the country, the demand for town planning professionals had increased further, he said. Stating that many of the states do not have planning schools, Meshram said, ?While Gujarat has three schools, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh do not have any.? ?The state governments should take steps for opening of such schools,? he suggested, adding that the ITPI was ready to support them in this venture.
ITPI general secretary Pradeep Kapoor said the Centre was proposing to open four planning schools. Two of them were coming up at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh, while the other two would be set up in eastern and western regions of the country, he said.
The ITPI is now deliberating on the basic qualification for admission into planning schools with a view to increase the number of town & country planners. At present, only BE (civil) and B Arch students and post graduates in geogrpahy, economics and sociology are eligible for doing post graduation in town and country planning. However, recent developments in technologies have brought new disciplines like remote sensing, information technology, demography and communication technology, which have opened broad spectrums and canvas for the planning profession.
Therefore there was a need to allow these disciplines to participate in town planning education, Kapoor said.