The Tale of India’s failing cities

 

Economist Lant Pritchett had over 15 years ago, coined the term ‘flailing state’ for India that I quote stood for “a nation-state in which the head, that is the elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level remain sound and functional but that this head is no longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its own limbs”. Indian cities are unfortunately following a similar path where they are not just flailing but are failing in many aspects of governance. Viewed as engines of economic growth, our cities are gasping for better governance. The Oxford Economics Study in May 2024 ranked 1000 largest cities in the world where New York, London, San Jose, Tokyo, and Paris garnered the top five spots, whereas 91 Indian cities included in the study fared poorly on quality of life, environment and governance indicators where cities like Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Chennai ranked from 350 to 500. Indian mega cities did not create other smaller engines of growth and employment in secondary cities like those in the United States, Europe and China.

Last year Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, published the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) 2023 that outlined the challenges and concerns of local governments in the cities of India. The report shared that at least, 39% of India’s capital cities did not have an active master plan, most Indian cities had only limited control over financial matters like taxation, borrowing, and budget approval, with most of them requiring state government approval in most cases. Governance also impacted owing to the lack of autonomy and powers of Mayors (mostly not directly elected in mega cities and did not have 5-year tenures).

A slew of measures to realize the positive impact of urban agglomeration in terms of growth and employment were brought in, with not much impact on the ground. The first focus on cities was through the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNURM) launched in 2005 to reform cities through planned development, which was in 2014 replaced with the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). The change in nomenclature did not do much towards the fulfilment of the missions and its intention. In fact, in the last decade or so, most mega cities of India have seen the expansion of the cities into the peri-urban areas and into rural areas. The cost of unsustainable urbanization has meant further intensification of distress migration.

Presently city governance is centralized and co-managed with other agencies (parastatal bodies). This despite the 74^th Constitutional amendment act of 1992 which directed states to devolve 18 functions including urban planning, construction and maintenance of roads, solid waste management, water supply and other amenities, however no major city of India has completely devolved all functions. A recent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) study of India’s recent performance audit reports on the implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment in Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand, showed that around 1,437 municipalities did not have elections on time to their city councils. With no proper elections, lack of accountability mechanisms and autonomy, India’s cities continue to suffer from the lackadaisical functioning of its first-mile democratic connection (city municipal councilors).  

In fact, India’s 1.4 billion citizens are increasingly concentrated in its cities where the push to leverage its demographic dividend is very high. The cities need sustainable urbanization policies that focus on economic growth and equity, where empowered and resilient city governments are invested in the growth of the city and can manage their resources sustainably.  An effective way to do this would by empowering the mayors (case in point New York city) in cities where councilors report to the mayor and together they are able to create better, sustainable city-level policies that work in tandem and are solving challenges at the city-level in real time.