Open Forum

New Dehli, 15 July, 2016

NA’s Naïve Prescriptions For Cities

WHO WILL PROVIDE ACCOUNTABILITY?

By Proloy Bagchi

Niti Aayog’s CEO Amitabh Kant underscored the criticality of cities to pull up the country by its boot straps recently. Primarily, because they are vital to the Government’s missions to boost economic growth and lift the people economically. Be it flagship programmes like Make in India, Skill India, Digital India or Smart Cities, in each one cities play the most important role in rolling them out and accomplishing them.

They are also essential for tracking economic growth, job creation and delivery of good quality life to citizens. According to Kant in today’s world it is not countries but cities which compete for resources and investments consequently, they should become distinct units of governance and economy. Towards that end one needs to track cities’ performances vis-à-vis GDP, job creation, private and public investments and consumption.

Unfortunately, the Janaagraha’s annual reviews show Indian cities in very poor light. While London and New York score 9+ in a 0 to 10 scale, our cities score a poor 4. This non-profit organisation’s aim is to strengthen democracy by working for citizen-participation in urban local Government. Besides, lobbying the Centre to extend the 74th Amendment for more representative local urban Government.

Notably, the Niti Aayog Chief has enumerated four key systems of good governance of cities: One, urban planning and design, two, municipal finances and staffing, three, effective political leadership, four, transparency, accountability and citizen-participation.

True, Kant has come forward with solutions to rectify and overcome shortcomings of our cities along-with the “what” and “how” to achieve it. Wherein, Chief Ministers should attach greater importance and priority to cities along-with paying more attention to them by preparing a blue print for a city’s long-term development for 20-30 years.

At the same time, they should devise a short term plan with sectoral objectives for 3-5 years fixing roadmaps and milestones and allocating responsibilities for delivery which should be monitored to check progress of objectives and, presumably, if necessary, take action for course correction.

Dissatisfied with the current staffing of municipal corporations, Kant feels short tenures for municipal commissioners are not conducive to productive work. He is also against the culture of obtaining officials/officers on deputation from State Governments as it vitiates the organisational culture. “The rolling stock of ‘deputationists’ destroy the coherence of the organisation as the ‘deputationists’ seldom develop any stake in the organisation.

All this is well and good! However, in describing the modus operandi for making cities units of economic growth, the Niti Ayog CEO has missed out one vital link. Namely, he has written about what is wrong with cities and how to go about mending the breaches that have occurred. But he has not said who will go about correcting everything that has gone wrong.

Bluntly, to his “what” and “how” what needs to be added is “who” will accomplish what Kant wants to be done with the cities, critical as they are to the country’s economic progress. According to him, Chief Ministers need to pay more attention to cities. But the reality is that a city administration is already beholden to the State Government for finances. Interestingly, The Economist magazine too opined that Indian local bodies are subsumed in the Government which surrounds them.

Consequently, in this highly politicised environment driven by the art sycophancy, every political animal tends to ingratiate himself with the powers-that-be wherein the larger interests of the city and its people are not all important.

Besides, the Chief Minister has his own agenda – obliging his sycophants, relatives and friends, industrial cronies and construction or builders’ lobbies. Specially, the realtors as they contribute money to the Chief Minister for his personal use or for his Party. A case in point: Bhopal’s City Development Plan has been delayed by ten years due to them.

Resulting, in the World Economic Forum finding these sectors highly corrupt with the mark-up on project costs being as much as 50 per cent. Leading to quality suffering, potholed roads within months of building/relaying, water pipes repeatedly leaking with unconscionable loss of millions of gallons of precious water and sewers breaking down. Sadly, nobody is ever brought to book.

Questionably, in a milieu wherein Chief Ministers are reportedly corrupt political animals who will take care of the cities? Add to this, every individual or organisation has developed vested interests wherein they hardly ever act according to what the general public wants or needs.

That's why in this mess there is no accountability.  Shockingly, one Madhya Pradesh Minister admitted to me that the State had no system of accountability. No wonder, Indian cities are in such poor shape. 

As a result in this perverse processes of planning and design, transparency and accountability – Kant’s first to fourth systems of good governance – are pushed out of the window. There are numerous instances of cities acquiring ungainly sprawls without any concern for urban design or planning, conservation of environment, availability of civic services etc.

The precious commodity of land is distributed using rules or bending them for cronies with deep pockets who have no hesitation in emptying them for favours by politicians. In fact, cities are, milked by Chief Minsters and their cohorts to fill their coffers and/or of Parties they belong to for capturing and/or retaining power.

Therefore, to expect the busy-in-politricking Chief Ministers to actively involve themselves in building citizen-centric cities is a dream that only Kant can see sitting in his Niti Aayog office.

The Aayog’s CEO’s two other key systems of governance – municipal finances, staffing and effective political leadership – also suffer from the malaise outlined above. State politics ensures depressed civic taxes to keep the municipalities always in financial doldrums, read dependent on the State.

Scandalously, vested interests take care of staffing. Deputations are not sinful per se; they are so only when deputation is used to fill posts which can be manned by the municipalities’ own employees. But no, here too sycophancy and politics take over so that political lackeys can be provided with sinecures.

As for political leadership one can only look up to the Mayor who in most cases is the Chief Minister’s or the Party’s man and accordingly is largely ineffective, more so if his Party does not have majority in the Municipal Council.

Clearly, politicians have vitiated the system of governance in the country, including city administrations with only one objective – maintaining status quo so that the system continues to remain a milch cow. Having been part of the system and seen Government functioning at quarters, Kant strangely expects politicians to disturb the status quo to their own disadvantage. Isn’t it naive on his part to do so? ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)