To ease the pressure on bigger cities and create a roadmap for urban development for the next 25 years, setting the ball rolling for sustainable development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called for a focus on creating economic opportunities in tier two and three cities and making them centres of economic activity.During his virtual address to a conference of BJP’s mayors and deputy mayors in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar, Modi said, “Urbanization will happen and the populations in cities will go up. Mayors need to ensure that their cities have economic opportunities. The Union Budget has focused on urban planning. It is important to ensure that planning is decentralised. Everything cannot be done from Delhi.”Modi also talked about the potential of smaller towns and cities as economic centres. He said, “Apart from satellite towns, we need to focus on tier two and tier three cities because these can also be centres of economic activity. Most of the start-ups now are being set up in tier 2 and tier 3 cities. This will ease the pressure on the bigger cities, and economic opportunities in those places will be provided. We should also increase industrial clusters in such places and understand what the opportunities are to be explored.”Modi called for standardisation in urban planning and capacity building, putting an end to casual and ad hoc planning. “If you plan well, you will see good results. We need to have transparency in decision-making and focus on how the urban local bodies can be made self-reliant.”
