Why should heads of state unveil municipal projects?
Getting the President and PM from New Delhi to Bengaluru and Kochi is a move in the wrong direction
Last week, both the President and the Prime Minister inaugurated metro lines: Pranab Mukherjee came to Bengaluru and Narendra Modi went to Kochi. Some people criticised the PM for not sharing the stage with E Sreedharan.
The criticism misses the point. The question we ought to ask is just why do we need the head of the Indian state and head of the Union government to inaugurate what are essentially municipal projects. The fact that they did inaugurate them reveals just how disempowered our city governments are.
Like water supply, garbage collection and street lighting, urban transport is a municipal matter. If anyone argues that the bus routes and bus stops in Bengaluru, Kochi or Coimbatore should be decided by a civil servant or political leader in New Delhi, we are likely to ask that person to get his head examined. So why is the metro any different? Oh, it involves spending a lot more money than bus routes, which is seen as the reason why the Union government must get involved in municipal matters. That begs a question: Why can’t city governments raise the money required to spend on their own essential infrastructure?
Metro rail shouldn’t even be a matter for the state government: it is and should be a municipal subject. Why is it not? Well, because the framers of the Constitution paid insufficient attention to municipal governance—ironic, considering Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad and Vallabhbhai Patel cut their political teeth in municipal councils— and the 74th amendment that is the basis of urban local bodies is imperfect. Mayors of Indian cities have little real power. Municipalities depend on the state and Centre for funds and political direction.
While Union Finance Commissions have consistently done well to devolve funds to states, very few states have professionally-led and effective finance commissions. This leaves municipal (and rural) governments at the mercy of the chief minister for funding. Cities are both cash cows and orphans: the taxes that they generate go off to New Delhi and to state capitals, and disproportionately little comes back to them. They are orphans because they do not have enough assembly or parliament seats that will give them a stronger voice.
Bengaluru could easily double its revenues if it were to introduce paid parking on a fraction of its roads. Yet it is content to seek more grants from the state government than mobilise its own resources. Nehru, Patel and Prasad started in municipalities and went to New Delhi. That’s why getting Mr Mukherjee and Mr Modi from New Delhi to Bengaluru and Kochi is movement in the wrong direction. Nitin Pai is director of the Takshashila Institution, a centre for research and education in public policy The views expressed are personal