The municipal corporations look after the basic issues of the citizens across the country. They cannot suspend their operations. The municipal staff cannot work from home. The civic bodies must clean the drains, which are outdated, to ensure that the cities don’t submerge when it rains heavily. They must also ensure that the cities are beautiful and aren’t choked with garbage. The municipal corporations essentially look after the basic citizen services, which cover all aspects that the people may require from their birth till death.
During 2007-08 and 2017-18, the municipal revenue in India remained stuck at 1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That was one whole decade. The population in the same duration rose from about 118 crore to 130 crore. This decade also witnessed a massive migration to the urban centres from the rural areas. Urbanisation is growing at a rapid rate, while metropolitan cities such as Delhi continue to take the bulk of the load of the migrant population.
The Reserve Bank of India in a recent report cited that while the municipal revenue in India has been stagnant at 1 percent, the same for Brazil has been 7.4 percent, and for South Africa 6 percent of the GDP. The report argued that the weakness in the finance of the municipal bodies reflected in the quality of their services for the citizens.
This calls for soul-searching by Parliament, which created the local bodies along with Panchayati Raj for true decentralisation of power and democracy. There appears a case of the state governments not yet ready to share powers and finances with the local bodies. There are also areas which have overlapping functions between the local bodies and the state governments. At least in Delhi, it’s evident that the city government and the municipal corporations are seen as competing entities. Worse, the municipal corporations in the national capital have been kept financially stressed due to an adversarial dispensation leading the government at the Delhi Secretariat.
The conflict between the Delhi government and the municipal corporations has been going on for several years. This is despite the fact that corporations have sought to raise their revenue from their own sources by creating meaningful assets in the national capital. The Waste to Wonder park, made entirely from garbage, is now a mainstay attraction for tourists in the national capital. The civic bodies in Delhi have brought out such assets in various parts. In fact, the Lok Sabha MPs have been influenced by the initiatives to instal open gyms in community parks.
The fact of the matter is that the municipal corporations project a caring attitude towards vulnerable sections of the people. This was on display at the time of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The municipal schools and health infrastructure took care of the needs of the migrant population and the
poor of the city without compromising on the quality of the services. This requires strengthening the hands of the civic bodies with reasonable fund allocation commensurate to the enormity of the responsibility carried out by them.
The fact that an adversarial government in the state could hurt the financial health of the municipal bodies is also evident. This calls for the constitution of a tribunal to deal with such conflicts between the state governments and local bodies. It should be the mandate of the tribunal to pass the award in a time-bound manner on any conflict between the state governments and the municipal corporations.
In addition, the Centre should explore ways by which municipal corporations can improve their financial health. If other emerging economies such as Brazil and South Africa can improve their municipal revenue, so can India.
Sumeet Bhasin
Director, Public Policy Research Centre
Twitter: @sumeetbhasin