Resumen de Industrial townships and the policy facilitation of corporate urbanisation in India
New policy and legislative initiatives in India over the last decade, from the Special Economic Zones Act 2005 to subnational state-level counterparts, have encouraged processes of corporate urbanisation, by facilitating the development of ‘industrial townships’ largely by private actors. This emerging policy architecture places a range of municipal functions, infrastructures and services in the domain of the (private) township, paralleling processes of urban gating and enclave growth worldwide. This paper analyses the relevant policies and laws to examine the role of the state in facilitating the growth of such urban clubs in India and fostering privatised provision of public goods. With few evaluations of the scope and impacts of such urban development in India, the case of Jamshedpur, an early prototype of corporate urbanisation, highlights how such sites may encourage patterns of unplanned and under-provisioned growth around the core.
