- Shri Prabhat Kumar
I welcome you to this consultation on urban governance based on Praja Foundation’s two year study across the country. The Foundation initiated the study with a view to understand the implications of the Constitution 74th Amendment Act; the challenges faced by city governments and explore policy changes for better urban governance.
(I recall that there was a conference, similar in objectives, to the present one five years ago. The London School of Economics, which incidentally is my alma mater as well, had organised an Urban Age conference on Governing Urban Futures in partnership with the National Institute of Urban Affairs. The discussions were moderated by Dr Jagan Shah, then Director of NIUA. I have not heard of its recommendations for Indian cities.)
This conclave is refreshingly different from other conferences where papers are presented and speeches are made by experts. Here we start from empirical evidence of the state of affairs in urban governance in about two dozen states across the country; evidence that is non-discriminatory and incontrovertible.
As succinctly stated in the working paper, our goal post for urban governance should shift from ‘smart city’ to ‘smartly governed city’ by influencing policy changes at structural and systemic levels with a view to democratise city governments and improve the delivery of services to the citizen.
I believe that the fortune of human civilization is going to be largely defined by the character of our future cities. Humanity has reached a special milestone in becoming majority urban species in 2007. India, however, still remains a majority rural country, but the quotation that ‘India lives in her villages’ may not be true after about 20 years.
The current state of Indian cities is evidently failing. In many ways, they represent the worst aspects of urbanization. The dire and unbearable conditions of our cities have been a result of piecemeal and small-scale interventions to worsening conditions over a long period of time. They are a result of a complete lack of long term strategic governance thinking. Some say that many of these cities will collapse in the next few decades if the current trend of short- term and quick fix style of thinking continues. Some say that we don’t really understand urban living as we are essentially village folk. Perhaps after we lost Mohenjo-Daro and Pataliputra, we have forgotten how to govern our cities.
Cities represent both the finest and most terrible aspects of humanity. Our cities may be full of poverty and overcrowding but they also offer the best way to rise above poverty. Cities may be centres of environmental degradation but they represent the best way for human beings to share resources efficiently and equitably. Cities are important destinations for education, culture, commerce and industry. They are the best places for enhancing creativity and innovation.
The universal concept that governs the mandate of locally elected authorities (and their powers and responsibilities) flows from the principle of subsidiarity. It is accepted that the process of decentralization requires concerted efforts in capacity building. Besides, participation through inclusiveness and empowerment of citizens should be the underlying principle of decision making, implementation and follow up.
I said that this conclave is different from other conferences. Praja has developed a repository of the status of implementation of 74th Constitution Amendment Act. The objectives of this consultation are, as stated by Praja, identifying common problems and barriers and initiate the way forward in urban reforms.
It goes without saying that there is an urgent need to transform the way Indian cities are governed and managed, to make them more democratic, transparent, accountable and responsive to the needs of the citizens.
In my view, issues of urban governance are more political in content and consequences than other matters. Professionals like me are marginal in the process of reforming urban governance. A change in the mindset of the political community is a precondition for reforms.
For long, urban local government has been politically considered as a less significant government. In comparison, rural local governance is better regarded. Some say that it is because of lesser urban representation in the Parliament and state legislatures.
Of the total 542 Lok Sabha seats, less than a hundred are prima facie urban in nature. In state assemblies, 25% of total seats (3,700) may be urban but this varies across states. According to this view, issues relating to the governance of cities and implementation of the spirit of 74th Amendment are not as vigorously debated in legislatures as they should be.
Perhaps, the 74th Amendment has been derailed by successive governments both at the Union and state levels. Sadly, in the absence of a robust political view about urban governance reforms, it is not likely to move forward.
Having said that, I think the demand side has also been weak because of citizen apathy and lack of interest on matters of urban governance. For instance, in Jamshedpur people do not want municipal governance and prefer to be managed by a business house. Therefore, there seems to be an urgent need of building a credible body of public opinion on the subject.
I think a word about small cities would not be out of place here. The small town is very often more neglected because it is less visible and more complex to understand. It also needs good governance for providing basic infrastructure and absorbing the migrants from the surrounding rural areas.
There are about 4500 urban centres in the country carrying a population of around 480 million urban inhabitants (total population 1370 million). Of these, there are 52 cities that have more than 1 million people accounting for about 180 million people. This means that the remaining 300 million urban people live in small and medium sized urban centres.
Generally there has been a bias within urban studies against small towns. The idea of the ‘urban’ has always been seen to be manifested in the big city. Large investments in big cities are justified as engines of development and growth. The big city is glorified while the smaller cities are more manageable and also have more intimate relationship with their surrounding regions. I will, therefore, suggest that in our deliberations, we should not forget the special needs of small and medium sized cities.
I would end with the hope that these deliberations creatively investigate the link between urban governance and our capacities to engage with and shape the future development of cities. I hope this conclave would act as a step-up forum for exchange and debate amongst hundreds of policy-makers, academics, urban designers, administrators and representatives of NGOs and local community groups. I hope it becomes the foundation of an Urban Renewal Network to consolidate the present unorganized and fragmented voice of the people. I hope the political community sits up and listens to them.