New Delhi: Delhi Development Authority, with the assistance of National Institute of Urban Affairs, has started the process to prepare the Master Plan for Delhi's development till 2041. Urban planners say that the new vision document should be realistic and a mechanism should be put in place to ensure that it is implemented, unlike the master plan it succeeds. 

Master Plan of Delhi 2021, experts concur, has largely been a futile exercise due to reasons ranging from multiplicity of civic authorities to lack of enforcement and implementation. "MPD21 hardly got implemented because local residents did not agree with what was planned or proposed," pointed out KT Ravindran, urban designer and former chairman of Delhi Urban Art Commission. He now advises public consultations while preparing MPD41. "People must have say in the planning process," said Ravindran. 

Urban planners felt the necessity for a detailed ground-level study in localities before any plan straddling two decades was prepared. "Such detailed work studies of local areas was the basis of the first master plan of Delhi, notified in 1962," recalled Sanjukkta Bhaduri, professor of urban planning, School of Planning and Architecture. 

Bhaduri also stressed the need to have strategic guidelines for the implementation of the master plan and dovetailing the monitoring process of the implementation into the plan itself. "Time is a very big factor in the successful implementation of MPD41," she argued. "A timeframe should be determined for the implementation of the plan's provisions and necessary approvals for meeting the needs of the master plan should be acquired within stipulated deadlines." 

One failure that planning experts highlight is the inability of civic and government agencies to come up with the Local Area Plans (LAP) as mandated by MPD21.