Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
'India's Urban Awakening'
warned that India was in 'a state of deep inertia about the urgency and scale' of necessary
urban reforms. It said that India's infrastructure required capital expenditure investment of
$1.2 trillion by 2030 in roads, railways, water supplies, sewage, drainage and affordable
housing. That was equivalent to $134 per capita, but only $17 was being spent in 2010, a
figure that was likely to double to $34 on current trends. China, by comparison, spent $116
and New York $292 in 2010. 'Despite the perilous state of many Indian cities and the im-
pending wave of urbanisation, there seems to be comfort with the status quo, resistance to
change, and a lack of recognition of the urgent need for change,' said the report. Like many
such dire forecasts about India's future, the report hit the headlines for a short time, but has
been forgotten in the three years since it was published.
Current performance shows that there is no chance of such a massive programme being
implemented without basic changes in the way India is governed. The report said that, con-
trary to public perception, there need be no real shortage of funds to build the infrastruc-
ture, provided various sources were tapped. This would include developing government
land and introducing realistic property taxes and user charges that could provide the gov-
ernment with market-value revenue from real estate as values increased, plus private sector
participation. The report was not explicit about the sensitive politics that would be required
to accomplish this, but it was in effect calling for a total change in the relationship between
developers and governments so that maximum payments stopped going to politicians and
political parties with smaller amounts reaching the government and city authorities.
One of the report's authors, Ajit Mohan, hinted at what this involved in a
Wall Street
Journal
blog in 2011 when he wrote that 'in a political system built around patronage, and
where the rapid rise in the cost of elections forces political parties to look for substantial
sources of funding from private interest groups, chief ministers and state leaders are re-
luctant to devolve power over such decisions to city governments and systematic urban
planning processes'. He added that 'in the arbitrariness of urban land allocation lie power,
wealth, and the possibility of political patronage'.
5
Nandan Nilekani, one of the founders and a former chief executive of Infosys, the
Bengaluru-based information technology company, who went on to set up India's country-
wide personal biometric database, traces the post-independence story in his book
Imagin-
ing India
. Tracking the decline of city institutions, he says that political power was 'ampu-
tated at every level' and, in the absence of powerful elected bodies, 'city resources became
strictive laws, 'a pork-barrel politico could not have had it better!'
