Obituaries of cities are a constant in India’s urban landscape. Every few years cities are declared dying or dead. The sentiments reflect the spectre of a tense future for urban India. The year is split into seasons of crises. Cities gasp during the winter due to air pollution. Summers are heralded by water scarcity and monsoon arrives with live telecast of floods in cities. And potholes bridge the weeks between monsoon and winter.
Every ‘seasonal crisis’ is followed by a parade of alibis. Air pollution in the National Capital Region, for instance, is blamed on stubble burning. When a partial drought results in a shortage of drinking water in Pune or Mumbai, the fault lies with the rising numbers of migrants. Floods, like the one seen in Bengaluru, are described as ‘extreme weather events’ and blamed on that global phenomenon called climate change.
Typically in the Indian context, the political rhetoric converges on centre-state blame games and failures in governance are presented as a function of poor allocations. Earlier this week, the World Bank released a report on what needs to be done and what it would cost. The 78-page report, dotted with data and prescriptions, says, “India will need to invest $840 billion over the next 15 years—or an average of $55 billion per annum—into urban infrastructure if it is to effectively meet the needs of its fast-growing urban population.”
There is no disputing that urban development needs higher allocations—it is manifest in the ratio of allocations in the states and the Centre. The chaotic state of urbanisation, where habitations mushroom without infrastructure, though, is not the outcome of just poor funding. The translation of allocations into outcomes rests on the architecture of governance. The current state of sub-optimal outcomes stems from political and administrative fault lines.
The Constitution of India states that urban development is a state subject – and governments state this in Parliament with uncommon religiosity. That said, the biggest programmes and allocations for urban development emanate from the Union Government. The 74th Amendment to the Constitution promised the transfer of funds and functions from the Centre and states to local governments. In over a quarter of a century, the promise has been waylaid by politics. As the late Vilasrao Deshmukh once said, the states do to local governments what the Centre does to states.
The divorce of authority and accountability has left urban India trapped in a systemic dystopia. Every five years, citizens of Mumbai vote to elect councillors in municipal elections. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation of Mumbai is the largest and richest municipal body with a budget of over Rs 45000 crore. How empowered is the body? The budget is presented by appointed officials. The 227 elected corporators can scarcely define how the money is spent.
The overarching power of allocations remains colonial and lies with the state government under the regional town planning act – and this is true for municipal corporations in many states. Indeed, the latest RBI report on municipal finances reveals there was “no distinct rise in overall municipal revenue in India, which remained broadly unchanged from 1946-47.” Much depends on the munificence of states and the Centre.
There has been no dearth of grand announcements. The UPA government came up with the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission in 2005. The CAG Audit informs how that movie played out. The 2014 manifesto of the BJP promised the creation of 100 new cities. What was a smart futuristic idea morphed into a ‘smart city’ programme for 100 cities. How has it panned out? In seven years, 100 cities received Rs 30,751.41 crore, out of which Rs 27,610.34 crore was spent. Of the 7822 projects worth Rs 1.90 lakh crore, the cities tendered out only 4085 projects worth Rs 66,912 crore have been completed. Cities lack funding and the capacity to execute.
Definitions matter, for they define outcomes. There are towns and cities, and then there are Census Towns – areas with a minimum population of 5000 which fall between rural and urban definitions. In 2001 India had 1362 Census Towns. The 2011 Census informs that the number of Census Towns has grown to 3892. In 2015, the Urban Development Ministry under Venkaiah Naidu asked states to convert the Census Towns into urban local bodies. In 2022 the Census Towns illuminate systemic sloth and remain a symbol of unplanned urbanisation.
The embedded bias in the political system has rendered urban India a lesser constituency. This is despite the fact that urban India accounts for nearly 480 million or 35 per cent of India’s 1.4 billion people. Urban India contributes 60 per cent of India’s GDP – and ostensibly the bulk of the average monthly GST collections of Rs 1.4 lakh crore.
Urbanisation is a known force multiplier for social development and economic growth. The dividends though will follow only if urban development is enabled. This calls for systemic empowerment of elected urban local bodies, redesign of the architecture to realign authority and accountability and, most importantly, the induction of political ownership of promise and onus of failure.
Shankkar Aiyar Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India
shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com