Hurdles in forming cadre of town planners

CHENNAI: The proposal on a common cadre of qualified town planners is facing a hurdle. The Commissioner of Municipal Administration (CMA) has questioned how the scheme will be implemented without amending the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act, 1920.

Currently, the recruitment for cadre of town planning inspectors and town planning officers is done as per the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act, 1920, and governed at the level of urban local bodies or at the level of the CMA.

It is learnt the CMA has questioned how the proposal of deputation of town planning staff will be taken cognizance of, without any amendment to the acts and rules. This comes after Chief Minister Edapaddi Palaniswamy had announced the creation of a separate cadre of town planners at the State-level and formation of separate service regulations with the Commissioner of Town and Country Planning as the cadre controlling authority.

The need for common cadre of town planners has been mooted as Tamil Nadu, which is one of the most urbanised States in the country, has been functioning without proper service rules and qualified planners and as a result, accountability could not be fixed for planning lapses.

The move also comes in the wake of the Union government urging the State government to file a status report on the employment of qualified town planners under Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) in the urban local bodies.  The Fifth State Finance Commission has also suggested the creation of the common cadre of planners.

Interestingly, the CMA has also questioned whether the creation of common cadre will be an abrogation of basic tenets of the Constitutional Amendment 74, which mandates all powers to be decentralised to urban local bodies, of which town planning forms a part.

However, sources defended the common cadre of town planners and said it was not an abrogation,  but an aid to local bodies to usher in well-planned settlements.

Presently, in municipal corporations, municipalities and town panchayats, there is no qualified town planner. Even the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, which is considered to have qualified planners, seems to have been relaxing service rules to promote unqualified professionals.

Sources also said that once the common cadre is established, it will give way to professionalism as planners will gain exposure to different kinds of development and planning resource. A common cadre is also being established since the  CMDA has been functioning for the past 25 years without service rules. It was in 1992 that the CMDA amended the service rules, which govern recruitment and service of the staff for the city’s top planning agency.

But failure to notify the rules has led to occasional bending of the rules and also confusion in the service rules.

Ushering in transparency

The move to have common cadre will usher in transparency and stop planners from being kept idle on non-performing projects, sources say