For India to fulfill its aspiration to be a developed nation sans poverty, its urban areas need a dramatic makeover. While a lot of effort has been made, we also need to do a few things differently.
From the polluted and large slum dwellings in many cities, with inadequate basic services, they will have to transform into well-planned urban spaces where the needs of the working class are reasonably met in terms of clean water, sanitation, housing, education health, livelihoods, access to credit, and so on.
Urban public transport also must be seen as a priority to address excess private automobiles beyond the carrying capacity of cities. Waste to wealth must become a compulsory reality.
Slowing urbanisation
India is bound to be more urbanised in the years to come as that is where new opportunities emerge on a much larger scale. There is a slow down in urbanisation pace post-Covid and it is time to reflect on the reasons for it. Workmen need better lives with wages of dignity for cities to sustain. Infrastructure alone is not enough.
While many rural growth points will grow to become urban like, better planning can save us the disaster of haphazard census towns without basic amenities. A lot needs to be done differently. What are some of the most pressing priorities for urban areas?
Pressing priorities
First, urban governance needs an overhaul as top-down cosmetic changes attempted through Jawahar Lal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission and Smart City Mission and other initiatives, do not provide answers to many challenges of urban living. Local communities must be active leaders of transformation and not passive recipients of largesse.
There is a disconnect between decentralised community action and its ability to influence planning and implementation in urban areas. We must go back to the drawing board and create direct election to sub-ward unit or Bastis, in urban areas. Social capital in some rudimentary form exists at the Basti level and not at the large Ward level.
Leaders from below
We need people from below, in the governance of urban areas and not just leaders and municipal bureaucracies from above. We need to mobilise the women and youth at Basti level for a constructive engagement with urban services.
Facilities like recreation, culture, sports, discussion platforms, work sheds, can all facilitate the coming together of citizens at the last mile.
Second, we will need handholding at the last mile through professionals and Community Resource Persons who link households to public services and institutions like banks, markets, and so on. The last mile facilitation even in establishing basic identity, Aadhaar, waste disposal, etc., goes a long way in getting the migrant communities fully on board for urban governance.
The Rurban Mission
Third, we need to invest in emerging urban areas from rural India by creating basic infrastructure at par with urban areas. The National Rurban Mission was trying to do this in 300 identified growth points from rural areas, which had agriculture marketing, tourism, artisan activities, etc. as the core growth point.
The Rurban Mission had developed basic standards of public services for such regions. It has even worked out the regulatory needs that can provide a unified and convergent governance institution for such emerging areas. Seventy per cent of Rurban Mission activity came through convergent resources and only 30 per cent was the gap funding.
We need to revive the Rurban Mission and provide more gap funding as existing programmes have committed resources that are often not available for local action. Each of the 300 Clusters has prepared a detailed Cluster Action Plan and it is time we invested more in such planned processes.
Fourth, census towns have unregulated services and that makes improvement difficult. We need strong public action with community consent to free up encroached spaces for better planned urban living. It will call for a Master plan for every census town that creates urban spaces that are sustainable.
Prioritise public transport
Fifth, public transport prioritisation cannot be on the back burner. Time has come to regulate construction activities and automobile addition to already over provided urban spaces. Far too many private cars and less public transport is a recipe for disaster. Shift to electric alone will not be able to address the challenge of pollution in urban areas.
Construction also needs scientific restraint in over-crowded and over polluted areas. Areas with Air Quality Index (AQI) consistently above 200 for most part of the year, need decongestion and not re-development. Open parks and spaces need to come up where old structures are demolished.
Sixth, urban local government finances need attention. The current public finance resources are heavily in favour of central and state governments and very few buoyant resources are with local governments. Under the circumstances, time has come to earmark as per a formula, for urban areas, based on the revenue that they generate. There must be consistency of financing for sustainable activities like education, health, sanitation, and other essential municipal services. Per child cost norms need to be adopted for a more equitable distribution of resources.
Housing policy
Seventh, the housing needs of urban agglomerations need a new policy on vertical multistoried housing for the working class in urban areas. Such efforts will also need a long-term vision of maintenance and upkeep. It is time rental housing is attempted on a larger scale. Urban infrastructure and basic service guarantees for the working class can compromise India’s rate of urban growth and economic progress.
Eighth, the working class needs better public infrastructure for schools, health centres, hospitals, nutrition, and livelihoods. Given the fragility of urban living, migrant communities need more understanding and support. Easier access to basic services and public transport can improve their life experience. Children from such communities require opportunities for human development.
We need to re-configure the urban ask in terms of its preparedness to provide a basic minimum quality of life to those who flock to cities in the hope of higher wages and better lives. Governance reforms are as important as untied financing for local decentralised community action.
All the top 10 urban municipal corporations assigned their success to community participation. We need much more community action. Scientific evidence ought to determine the carrying capacity of cities and we need to respect the recommendations of the scientific community for more sustainable cities.
The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. Views expressed are personal