Community participation in urban road infrastructure redevelopment: Indian scenario

Urbanisation is an international phenomenon and intrinsically linked with the development of a country. For successful and sustainable urban redevelopment planning and implementation, participation of the local community needs to be strategically planned, as its members have an existing usage pattern of the infrastructure and surrounding areas and can be categorised as an important group of stakeholders. Urban road projects traverse a larger area and affect diverse and multiple groups in the community. In India, the practice of community participation for urban redevelopment projects is still at a nascent stage. Research discussed in this paper adopts a case study approach to understand the dynamics of effective community participation for road redevelopment projects in an Indian context. The paper discusses global research in this area and adoption of community participation in case studies of two urban road redevelopment projects in India. The findings show that the structure of public consultation and the parameters to be considered are different for urban road projects planned for core urbanised areas and peri-urban areas. After due consideration of these parameters, community participation should be strategically planned and implemented by the promoters of these projects.