Making TOD Implementable in Indian Megacities : From theory to practice

India’s unprecedented decadal growth and the emergence of 6 megacities with a population over 10 million calls for solutions that go beyond the paradigm of traditional planning. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is widely acknowledged as the solution to sprawl, longer commute distances and carbon emissions– problems that are typical of rapidly urbanising economies. TOD encourages high density, mixed-use living environments that bring live, work and leisure closer to transit, thereby eliminating the need for personal vehicles and thus promoting active travel. However, TOD has largely been a buzzword in Indian policy documents for over a decade, as the country still awaits its first fully implemented TOD project. In 2016, the Ministry of Urban Development(MoUD) released the National TOD Policy as a guideline for all states to formulate policies. The states of Jharkhand and MP now have a policy framework in place, while cities like Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bangalore have attempted to incorporate TOD in their Masterplans. However, these policy frameworks only dictate universal principles of urban design as ‘special norms’ for TOD Influence Zones (typically delineated as either nodes/circles of 500m radius around metro stations or corridors of 500m on both sides of Bus Rapid Transit Systems). Replicating urban design guidelines in the name of state policies without contextualisation does not help enable TOD as implementable projects. Multiple reasons are attributed to the colossal failure of TOD policies. Firstly, normative Masterplans lack the dynamism that can adapt to demand, and often tend to dissociate themselves with on-ground realities that impede TOD implementation in a democratic manner. Delhi’s TOD policy attempted to address this issue by devising appropriate institutional setups and bottom-up land assembly mechanisms. Despite these steps, not a single application has been received for pooling land under the TOD scheme since its notification in 2015. Secondly, a blanket policy across all 271 metro stations having significantly different urban conditions is unlikely to fructify without a context-specific action plan. Recognising this gap, Delhi’s modified TOD policy (2019) pushes for a phased implementation of TOD on selected nodes instead of the city as a whole. This welcome move is not only an opportunity to identify nodes with high potential but also determine a distinct vision for each node, that will aid in the city’s image-making process. Using Delhi’s approach of identifying priority nodes for TOD, this paper aims to explore similar mechanisms for other cities to follow suit. It advocates streamlining the process of selection through development of a robust set of indicators that classify nodes into categories of high, medium and low potential and assist policy-makers in decision making. The methodology involves a study of 10 nodes in Delhi on the basis of various parameters such as quantum of land available for redevelopment, land ownership, size of plots, availability of government-owned land, etc. Consequently, a series of indicators are identified and weightages are assigned based on relationships established with their locational context. One of the key conclusions that the paper aims to arrive at is a set of observations on the scope of TOD in densely populated core-city regions versus the sparsely developed peri-urban regions. Broad thumb rules for the development of these nodes as Strategic Investment Districts may help public and private players understand market forces and work out the economics for such projects. The paper however, is limited to establishing only physical indicators that may be applicable to most megacities in India. The actual feasibility of TOD projects also depends on state laws and local land assembly mechanisms which are city-specific and beyond the scope of this paper.