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Rural/Urban Development

ADMINISTRATION OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND URBAN SERVICE DELIVERY

Some Positive Results from Urban Development Initiatives

(i) A tripartite agreement between centre, state and ULGs to join hands for more effective delivery of urban services and infrastructure. This includes a proactive role of centre to guide, motivate, engage, encourage and support states and ULGs to carry out necessary reforms, investments and O & M of municipal assets/services.

(ii) Existence of elected body among ULG‘s and presence of 75000+ elected leaders with wider representation to common men and weaker sections who constitute a link between city government and grass root level and also promote a systematic development of local leadership to have better understanding of urban issues.

(iii) Model Municipal Law, National Municipal Accounting Code and Nagar Raj Bill/Act, Public disclosure law etc, have been brought by centre to guide and motivate states for suitable actions on good governance.

(iv) Capacity building has been taken up using handholding as an additional instrument on pilot basis with the help of partner institutions of GoI. Workshops/seminars, class room training are used as part of CB support.

(v) Centre and states have made efforts to minimize fiscal imbalance through devolution of funds in line with the norms and practice laid down by national finance Commission and state finance commissions. This has minimized discretionary allocation and improved liquidity at ULG level and promoted realistic budgeting and better organization of services/infrastructure.

In view of a typology of disconnect on and opportunities to respond to second turning point in urban development in India and delivery of services and infrastructure, the administration and governance systems and procedures need to be reoriented to manage future urban growth in a sustainable, inclusive, environment friendly and pro poor manner. In this regard some important points that emerge from proceeding analysis to be kept in mind are:

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(i) There is a need to have a comprehensive assessment of urbanization and urban development process in India (as was done by National Commission on Urbanization in 1985) to draw lessons from the follow up of 74th CAA and various policies and programmes implemented during 1985- 2012 and review the sector focus in the light of urbanization prospects across the states and size class of towns in the country.

(ii) Overlapping of roles, responsibilities and functions of concerned ministries and departments at central and state level need to be examined taking into account the recommendation of 2nd ARC, HPEC report on urban infrastructure etc. There can be a core ministry / department of Urban Affairs in centre/state or a model frame-work of cluster of ministries as applied in Germany may also be examined in this regard.

(iii) Devolution of powers and functions to ULGs need to be done in line with recommendations of Second ARC and other committees.

(iv) Partner institutions (parastatals, state agencies and local development agencies) need to be made accountable to ULGs through transfer of respective function or due consultation with ULG or representation of ULGs in their management. Similarly profits generated from the `land‘ may be shared with ULGs as suggested by SARC and XIII FC so as to improve liquidity of municipal finance.

(v) Devolution of powers is needed to the political and executive wing of ULGs in a balanced manner to harness full potential of elected leaders, their mass-contacts at grass-root level. Mayor in council system as exists in west Bengal, creation of committees and sub-committees (Gujarat) etc. may be examined for suitable application.

(vi) Specific norms need to be devolved to create state level municipal cadres along with deployment and promotion policy and recruitment on cost sharing basis by center and state.

(vii) Model Municipal Law (MML) need to be modified taking into account the above points and sectoral developments since 2002 and the potential role of ULG as a mother institution at local level. Modified MML should be placed before parliament under Article 252 of the constitution to ensure suitable follow up at state level.

(viii) State Town Planning Acts too need to be modified in line with advisories of Ministry of Urban Development and Plan formulation Guidelines, National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy 2007, National City Vendors policy and several innovations taken by cities and towns and states in different parts of the country to make urban planning more inclusive and realistic.

(ix) The gap between urbanization and municipalisation need to be attended by timely notification of statutory towns , and timely transfer of colonies and assets developed by partners to ULG‘s , the expansion of city limits on a periodic basis, check on unauthorized colonies and irregular construction along with straight forward rules for regularization.

(x) The small and medium towns (both statutory and census towns) be used to as a focal point to trigger the urbanization process in a balanced manner and operate as a more effective service centre to their hinterland. These can also be identified to promote secondary education and vocational training to a large size of India‘s surplus work force which is likely to be almost half of the global surplus (low skilled) workers in the years to come. This should be taken as an asset and not a liability.

(xi) Strategic importance of metropolitan cities in their economic, locational, cultural and social context needs to be duly recognized. Administrative structure of mega cities , 5-10 million cities and 1-5 million cities may be determined accordingly. In this regard, the mega cities (5 million plus) as suggested by 2nd ARC should be viewed separately than other metro areas. Metro cities can have a separate system of policing, transport and planning as per SARC recommendations. Metro cities should be encouraged to compete with/learn from their counter parts within the country and elsewhere for income/employment generation, productively, IT, Education, tourism etc.

(xii) Urban centers in the country should be brought within a framework of integrated, bottom-up and realistic planning. The District and Metropolitan Planning Committees (DPCs and MPCs) should be established as per letter and spirit of article 243 ZD & ZE and the circulars issued by MoUD, GoI in this regard. DPCs and MPCs should also be used to coordinate urban rural linkages to address jurisdictional and distributional issues for UD and urban service delivery.

(xiii) Water, sanitation and solid waste Management (SWM) should be given due importance in the municipal planning and budgeting in a realistic and normative manner taking into account service level benchmarking and recommendations of XIII FC. Urban Energy, climate change and disaster management should be included in the local agenda of municipal actions.

(xiv) Urban Poverty and disparities in the income distribution need to be viewed in a holistic manner covering slums/squatters and other parts of respective cities/towns along with a city specific vision and strategy taking into account & National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy 2007 and Rajiv Awas Yojana etc.

(xv) Urban transport, Roads and related services need suitable attention to promote MRTS (Mass Rapid Transport System) through Metro rail, BRTS (Bus Rapid Transport system), support facilities such as fly over, over bridges, relief roads, bus stand, parking places, by pass, ring road etc. It should be viewed in the overall context of an integrated public transport system (wherever feasible) at city level.

(xvi) JNNURM and RAY are two most important central initiatives to bridge the gap in the services and administrative procedures. The opinion of states about their expectations from these programmes should be given due cognizance.

(xvii) Fiscal stress at municipal level needs to be attended through (a) Bottom-up assessment of municipal finance to rationalize intergovernmental fiscal transfers/allocation (b) insertion of a municipal list of taxes in the articles 243X of the constitution (c) share GST (once applied) or entry tax and (d) more effective mobilization of municipal own sources (Property Tax and other land barrier taxes and User Charges) along with innovative application of accounting, budgeting, auditing and asset management strategy.

(xviii) Capacity building need to be planned to cover a cross – section of functionaries from intergovernmental institutional arrangements through workshops, seminars, and class-room and on the job training, exchange/exposure visits. It should also cover capacities of urban community to identify issues, own the city and contribute in the delivery of services. As determined by DoPT the funds earmarked for capacity building should be used to create it as a regular activity as per National Training Strategy 2012.

The above points should be included in the intergovernmental policy agenda to respond to the second turning point in urban development in India and initiate a second phase of actions taking into account a detailed evaluation of urban sector initiatives undertaken during the period 1985 to 2012.

The recent data from the census and related information show that urbanization in India in the first decade of twenty first century is emerging as a positive force to trigger economic growth and India is all set to undergo a rapid pace of urbanization during next couple of decades. This needs suitable policies to ensure balanced and inclusive urban growth across the states and across the size-class of towns covering both larger cities for global and inter-state and inter-regional context and small and medium towns in the context their hinterland. However, the systems and procedures to manage urban growth are relatively weak. This provides an opportunity to firm up policies and strategies as was initiated in 1985. In this connection devolution of powers, funds and functions to ULGs are critical for a pro poor, inclusive, environment friendly and citizen centric management system. This includes (a) accountability of partner institutions towards ULG, (b)balance of power between deliberative and executive wings of ULGs (c) measures towards fiscal self sufficiency (through further rationalization of transfers and optimum utilization of own sources of finance) and (d) partnerships and equity in the delivery of services. State governments in this regard, have to reorient their role as a facilitator and partner in the process of urban development. The role of national government is equally important to guide, engage and support the states and ULGs to promote sustainable urbanisation. In this regard it is also observed to have a holistic assessment of intergovernmental roles and responsibilities on urban development and delivery of services to firm up a future plan of action and related strategies.

Source- K.K. PANDEY (Professor, Urban Management), IIPA, New Delhi

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