Module 6: Urban Planning and Design
  Lecture 41: The Modern City in Post-Independent India: the case-study of Chandigarh
 


Chandigarh suffered from socio-political conflicts in the region

  • Explosive growth of the city. According to the 2001 census the population is 9,00,635 and it is growing, not including the satellite cities that have sprung around Chandigarh.

  • To make matters worse, in 1966 the state was bifurcated and two bilingual states were created. Chandigarh was caught between Haryana and Punjab each demanding the city as its own capital. To resolve this predicament Chandigarh was made into a Union Territory3 and was to serve as the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.

The two chambers of the Assembly were now to serve as the legislature for two different states. This led to more population pressure as competing claims were made on the capital. The new unplanned cities are also dependent on Chandigarh for education, health care and other social services. So they have sprung up in the spaces that were to be the greenbelt in the original plan.

3A Union Territory is a sub-national administrative division of India. Unlike the states, which have their own elected governments, union territories are ruled directly by the federal national government; the President of India appoints an Administrator or Lieutenant-Governor for each territory.