Fatima, Sheema <br/><br/>
Disposing land in Patna: Bureaucratic evasion and urban planning as negotiation 

 - Economic & Political Weekly  
 - 61(6), Feb 7, 2026: p.89-96 
<br/><br/> The prolonged absence of a functioning master plan is not simply a failure of institutional capacity but a practice embedded in Bihar’s sociopolitical and agrarian-rooted reality that informs landed elites’ spatial practices in urban areas. Hence, urban planning operates less as a technocratic, rational process and more as a historically contingent and socially negotiated practice mediated through caste and bureaucratic networks. Drawing on land acquisition records, legislative debates, housing schemes and court judgments, the paper shows how land acquisition was prioritised while consistently deferring formalisation of binding planning frameworks. –Reproduced <br/><br/>https://www.epw.in/journal/review-urban-affairs/disposing-land-patna.html<br/>