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Meeting urban challenges

30 October 2009

Ten years from now, by 2020, more than 50 percent of Bhutan’s population is expected to live in towns. We are fast catching up with the global trend. By 2030, at least 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in towns and cities. What is different for Bhutan, however, is, more than half of its population is going to live in towns barely five decades after urban planning began.
Today, even as urban planners say that there is an acute shortage of human and financial resources, 35 towns are being planned and built. More are likely to be planned. But only two of them – Thimphu and Phuentsholing – have sewage lines and treatment plants, which are crumbling and stinking. To cap it all, only 20 percent of Thimphu’s municipal area is connected to the Babesa sewage treatment plant. And many parts of Phuentsholing town are not connected to sewage lines.
Solid waste management and disposal system has been put in place only in 13 towns. To cap it all, the landfill sites are already overflowing. Then, some of our major towns are already grappling with traffic congestion.
We are looking at these glaring urban challenges against the backdrop of an environmentally rich society with clean air and water, and untainted verdant mountainsides.
Our towns lack community spaces and recreational facilities. Even in Thimphu, which has an enviable structure plan drawn up at a huge cost, so-called green zones are increasingly being gobbled up by monstrous structures. On the fringes of the mainstream urban communities, squatter settlements are mushrooming, defying plans.
We are talking about these challenges against the backdrop of rapid expansion of at least 20 towns and ever-increasing rural to urban migration. Even as the towns are bursting at the seams, villages are abandoned and farmland laid fallow. This phenomenon is directly flying in the face of our national priorities like cultural preservation and food self-sufficiency.
If Bhutan should remain a cultural oasis, our villages must be saved at all costs. Urban development is inevitable, but the towns are not going to define the Bhutanese way of life. The breakdown of traditional social links and communal affiliations is going to cost Bhutan dear in terms of happiness. The underbelly or Thimphu and Phuentsholing, for instance, tells us how Bhutanese towns cannot be uniquely Bhutanese.
However, having come thus far towards urbanization, there cannot be looking back. We must move forward with a conscious policy to build the Bhutanese towns with the Bhutanese character.

Ten years from now, by 2020, more than 50 percent of Bhutan’s population is expected to live in towns. We are fast catching up with the global trend. By 2030, at least 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in towns and cities. What is different for Bhutan, however, is, more than half of its population is going to live in towns barely five decades after urban planning began.

Today, even as urban planners say that there is an acute shortage of human and financial resources, 35 towns are being planned and built. More are likely to be planned. But only two of them – Thimphu and Phuentsholing – have sewage lines and treatment plants, which are crumbling and stinking. To cap it all, only 20 percent of Thimphu’s municipal area is connected to the Babesa sewage treatment plant. And many parts of Phuentsholing town are not connected to sewage lines.

Solid waste management and disposal system has been put in place only in 13 towns. To cap it all, the landfill sites are already overflowing. Then, some of our major towns are already grappling with traffic congestion.

We are looking at these glaring urban challenges against the backdrop of an environmentally rich society with clean air and water, and untainted verdant mountainsides.

Our towns lack community spaces and recreational facilities. Even in Thimphu, which has an enviable structure plan drawn up at a huge cost, so-called green zones are increasingly being gobbled up by monstrous structures. On the fringes of the mainstream urban communities, squatter settlements are mushrooming, defying plans.

We are talking about these challenges against the backdrop of rapid expansion of at least 20 towns and ever-increasing rural to urban migration. Even as the towns are bursting at the seams, villages are abandoned and farmland laid fallow. This phenomenon is directly flying in the face of our national priorities like cultural preservation and food self-sufficiency.

If Bhutan should remain a cultural oasis, our villages must be saved at all costs. Urban development is inevitable, but the towns are not going to define the Bhutanese way of life. The breakdown of traditional social links and communal affiliations is going to cost Bhutan dear in terms of happiness. The underbelly or Thimphu and Phuentsholing, for instance, tells us how Bhutanese towns cannot be uniquely Bhutanese.

However, having come thus far towards urbanization, there cannot be looking back. We must move forward with a conscious policy to build the Bhutanese towns with the Bhutanese character.

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