Rakesh Mohan, former RBI deputy governor, tells Forbes India that India needs urban design specialists urgently because over half of the country will be urbanised in the next five decades.
Rakesh Mohan
Age: 62 years
Designation: Director, Indian Institute for Human Settlements
Education: Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics, Pinceton University; BA in Economics, Yale
Career: Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India; Secretary, Department of economic affairs; Advisor to the Finance Minister
Interests: play golf, avid cricket watcher, art lover
Two and a half years ago, people like Shirish Patel [HDFC], Deepak Parekh [HDFC Bank] and Nandan Nilekani [Infosys] got together to discuss setting up something like the IIHS. They asked me to be involved, but at that time I was with the RBI, so I couldn’t be a formal member of the board.
You started your career as an urban economist…
Yes.
For a long period, from 1974 to 1988, I was interested in nothing but
cities — urban economics essentially. My Ph.D. thesis was to do with urbanisation and development; and then I participated in a large
project for the World Bank from 1976-1980 — the City Study. This was
the most comprehensive study done on a city in a developing country,
using Bogota, Colombia, as an example. I then came to the Indian
Planning Commission in 1980 as a senior consultant and for three years
I worked on housing and urban development issues. At that time the
current PM was member secretary of the Planning Commission and he
helped me set up four task forces on urban development.
What is the need for an institution like the IIHS?
For
the next 30 years there is going to be a great re-organisation in this
country. A cursory look at our cities suggests there is a huge need for
experts in planning cities. We [at IIHS] also felt that we need an
institution which does a new kind of degree, so we are developing the
Bachelors of Urban Practice and Masters of Urban Practice. For a
bachelor’s it’s four years and for a master’s it’s two years.
Is the expectation that IIHS will solve the issues of urban planning in India?
We
are not solving the current specific problems related to urban
planning. What we want are better educated people. It’s just like the
government a long time ago started National Institute of Design and it
had a huge effect on design in India, similarly the IITs had a great
effect on the supply of technology in the country. Now you have a huge
stock of highly educated managers and technologists. These schools have
really made a difference to the country in their respective fields.
How is IIHS distinctive from other private universities?
One feature is that we’re clear we must be an inclusive university — right from the beginning. We will have fees that are appropriate but also a huge fund for scholarships. We will be very different from ISB [Indian School of Business], we want to be independent and autonomous. We want to have a research program, want to do advisory services, and the faculty will also be involved in practice with governments, development authorities. There are a great degree of PPPs [public private partnerships] coming up in development — so that’s another distinctive feature. We’re in consultation with MIT, we want to have open courses like they do, and we want to put all our courses online. Read More
