An Evaluation of development plan making process and implementation practice in the Urban development authority

Abstract

After declaration under the section 03 of the UDA Law No 41 of 1978 as urban development area, it is responsible for the preparation of urban development plan to the designated area to achieve economic, social and physical development. Considering the past thirty four years from the establishment of the UDA, 218 urban development areas have been declared and only 42 development plans have been gazette up to October 2012. Some Development plans have taken more than twenty years for the preparation. There is an immense duration gap between the data collection and the finalization of the plan. In this attempt government spends millions of rupees for the preparation of urban development plan. However it is experienced that those development plans have been taken many years for the preparation after the declaration. Furthermore, these development plans are used many resources and have not come up implementation and enforcement due to various reasons. The causes for this situation have been discovered by the study as the effect of adequacy of contextual factors and less guidance for implementation such as less understanding on data collection and use, lack of proper time management staff involvement in the planning process, lack of political acceptability and support for plan making and implementation, less coordination among the private and the government agencies who involved plan preparation. This situation leads to application of non realistic urban development plan making and implementation process. Establishment of a planning finance and monitoring division and introduce a time specified planning process with an efficient planning staff appointed for the preparation of development plan would be supported to reduce the failures in making and implementation of urban development plans. Key words: Development Plan making process, Plan evaluation criteria, implementation success, Qualitative analysis, adequacy of context, guidance for implementation