NEW DELHI: India’s cities are not poised to handle urbanization well and a survey reveals several systemic inadequacies in urban governance that could affect public service delivery.
The Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) 2016 by civil society group Janaagraha released Tuesday looks at 83 governance parameters based on the City-Systems framework, shows that Indian cities score between 2.1and 4.4 on 10, as against the global benchmarks of London and New York, which score 9.3 and 9.8respectively.
The figures show imply that Indian cities need to strengthen their city-systems like quality of laws, policies and institutions significantly to improve service delivery and thereby, deliver a high quality of life to citizens.
Thiruvananthapuram retained its number one position in 2016 . Pune came in at second, up two ranks over 2015 and Kolkata, third, same as 2015. The biggest gainer in 2016 was Bhubaneswar, which jumped eight ranks over 2015 to the 10th spot.
The major issues plaguing cities are similar across cities and include absence of tiered and participatory spatial development plans (SDPs) – Regional, Municipal and Ward Level, with Delhi being an exception. Also lacking is institutional capacities to effectively implement SDPs and absence of design standards to guide execution of city projects