Abstract
In India, urban decentralisation is historically one of the most neglected subjects. Urban local governments received a new lease of life with the 74th Constitutional Amendment which created a third stratum of government at the city level. One of the purposes of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was to take forward the unfinished business of decentralisation. Based on research in Maharashtra, a leading beneficiary under JNNURM funds, this chapter argues that the reform programme, in contrast to its stated objective, has further disempowered the urban local bodies and made them dependent on supra-levels of governance. This, it holds, is due to the highly homogenising frame of governance employed by JNNURM and the Maharashtra government. Decentralisation, thus, merely becomes part of a bureaucratic agenda. Further, it is subverted by local politics and administration. This chapter concludes that the project of urban decentralisation in developing countries like India has to be a political project that situates administrative decentralisation amidst an analysis of politico-economic interests at the local, state, and central levels. A bureaucratic exercise of reform is unlikely to make a dent in the by far stronger process of centralisation.
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Notes
- 1.
JNNURM proposed a total allocation of Rs. 50,000 crore and was expected to stimulate another Rs. 50,000 crore of private investment over 7Â years. This makes it the largest investment in urban development in post-independence India.
- 2.
The Constituent Assembly debates echo this view. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, in particular, viewed the local as being most equated with perpetuation of caste and other traditional inequities.
- 3.
The Bombay Municipal Corporation, with its strong legal legacy, is one such exception. It does not have a long history of suspension; however, over the years, its operational freedom has been curtailed by restricting its financial and functional autonomy. There are such exceptions in some other parts of the country as well, largely owing to historical, institutional legacies.
- 4.
The Twelfth Schedule outlines eighteen functions of local governments: these include urban and town planning, service distribution functions like solid waste management and water supply, and agendas for inclusion like poverty alleviation and improvement of the weaker sections of the population.
- 5.
This Amendment provides for political representation of women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; it conceptualises formation of ward committees—a mode to devolve to sub-ward level; it proposes formation of district planning councils and metropolitan planning councils as inter-local government coordinating bodies.
- 6.
Till 2006, there were nearly 200 different posts and designations which existed in ULBs in Maharashtra. The changes since 1990s have been restriction on number of posts in ULBs, curbs on administrative expenditure as a proportion of total, and shift to caderisation.
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Bhide, A. (2017). Directed Decentralisation: Analysing the Experience of Decentralisation via JNNURM in Maharashtra. In: Jayaram, N. (eds) Social Dynamics of the Urban. Exploring Urban Change in South Asia. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3741-9_5
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