In 1961, census commissioner Asok Mitra wrote down the definition of a town: its population should be above 5,000, its density above 400 persons per square kilometre, and three-fourths of its male working population must be engaged in fields of work other than agriculture.
That definition still largely stands, but India’s towns and cities are falling apart. Traffic, waste management, law and order, water, sewage—the farther we go from the capital of the country or a state, the worse these get.
Many see overcrowding as the problem, but this is simply not so. Even small Indian towns with low densities of population are badly run, while Tokyo, with many more people than our largest cities, has none of the problems that afflict urban India. This was true even when Japan was at the income-per-head level that we are today.
What explains this? Some commonly cited reasons can be struck off. Poor civic sense can’t be blamed, as Indians adapt just fine to rules and norms once they move overseas.
Lack of funds cannot be an explanation either, given how large Indian public budgets have grown. We have spent huge amounts on infrastructure, including some vanity metro rail projects that, barring a few very well-used routes, do not justify the expenditure.
Nor is lack of state capacity the drawback. Roads keep getting relaid with tarmac over and over.
The real reason is that Indian cities are run from the state level, with almost no incentive for any electorally accountable administration to run them well. State governments depend on votes from a widely dispersed base and the state of urban spaces is rarely an election issue. This also means that little information on civic dysfunction reaches state administrations.
Take the case of Bengaluru. Home to 20% of Karnataka’s population, it generates about 60% of the state’s revenues. For any chief minister of this state, the rational thing to do is use this money to please rural voters ahead of urban ones.
Similarly, residents of Gurugram in Haryana cannot rely on a virtuous cycle of service delivery and accountability at the city level, since it is the state government based in Chandigarh that holds the power to make a noticeable difference. When it comes to smaller cities, this problem of sketchy information and weak incentives worsens.
An administration can do a good job when it has a strong and functional loop of responsibility for specific functions, the authority to perform them and accountability for outcomes. Unfortunately, city administrations in India lack this loop.
The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments of 1992 tried to devolve power to rural and urban local bodies, but left it up to state governments.
It is little surprise that more than three decades later, the country’s Comptroller and Auditor General found that only four functions—control of crematoriums, stray animals, street lighting and slaughterhouses—had been devolved with full autonomy, while 14 others, like roads, water, civic planning, etc, remained in the hands of state governments. Nobody likes to give up power.
So, in Indian cities, a state-appointed municipal commissioner, usually an IAS officer, holds the executive, financial and administrative power for most city infrastructure and operating functions.
Police powers also lie with the state-appointed police commissioner. Schools are run by the state education department. State-run entities like water boards and development authorities manage other important aspects of local governance.
Finances are rarely ever devolved and state finance commissions are typically not even appointed, let alone their recommended allocations being followed. City mayors, if they exist, are rarely elected regularly. Few urban residents know of this post. And our towns and cities keep falling further into disrepair.
What is the solution? A top-down approach would be another constitutional amendment to fix the 73rd and 74th. It would make the principle of subsidiarity mandatory. This demands that a function sits at the lowest level capable of evaluating costs and benefits. Sanitation, for instance, would go to the city level, while highways would be under the state administration.
We must let funds and accountability follow functions. This calls for properly devolved tax revenues based on a transparent formula for tax sharing, routine elections of city governments and expanded space for the latter to levy local taxes within well-defined bounds. This would fix the system across the country, but it may be a political challenge to get such a far-reaching constitutional amendment passed.
A more viable approach may be to accomplish all of the above at the state level instead of through a national bill. This way, success in one state could strengthen the idea’s appeal among others and the political establishment across the country may notice the benefits of devolving responsibility, authority and accountability.
An important argument here is that no chief minister holds power forever, but local strongholds are common. If politicians get greater autonomy to develop their local areas, reversals of fortune at the state level need not spell doom for them. They would have an opportunity to demonstrate excellence in governance and administrative skills in urban spaces.
If chief ministers with their own urban bastions begin to view devolution as an insurance policy, rather than dilution of their power, they might push for what urban India needs and find other state leaders following suit.
The authors are, respectively, founder-director, Foundation for Economic Development, and an economist.