A Comprehensive National Development Plan (CNDP) 2030 was launched in the capital yesterday. The CNDP will act as a guide or a mother document for all the developmental activities in the country for the next ten years. One of the main components of the CNDP is addressing the emerging challenge of rural-urban migration.
At a time when rapid urbanisation has immersed the country’s limited arable land, the need was felt for a plan to formulate a comprehensive national development to guide for the future developments in the country. The CNDP will now enable in the framing of a harmonised plan between settlement and non-settlement areas.
The CNDP will also help the country strike a sustainable balanced use of limited land among different sectors such as industry, settlements, agriculture and environment. It will also address development issues, strategic environmental assessment, development objective and vision, land use pattern and socio-economic patterns, among others.
CNDP for Bhutan will promote balanced development in urban and rural areas across the country leading to maximising Gross National Happiness. While formulating the plan, it will be aimed at reducing the number of important issues like rural-urban migration, social disparity and bring about balanced development for human settlement, economy, environmental conservation and disaster management.
“Rural-Urban migration cannot be stopped. It cannot be imposed on somebody but looking at what is causing it, now through CNDP, those things would be put in place since the main reason people are leaving villages is because of job opportunities, schools and other amenities. As per the strategy if these things are given to the villages, we hope that they will stay back,” said Chado Drukpa the Project Manager for CNDP.
The plan will also look at climatic and topographic conditions of the country and specify what is allowed, what should be done and what kind of development is feasible. The CNDP will look into four aspects of the country through- East, West, Central East, and Central West, and address regional imbalances.
The CNDP is funded and supported by JICA Bhutan and coordinated by the Ministry of Works and Human Settlement.
