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Transforming Our Cities



On May 09, 2014 The Collaborating Chambers, EMBARQ, IITB, Nagar, TISS, UDRI, WeSchool and Mumbai First jointly organised a talk by Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia titled "Transforming Our Cities". The talk was held at the BSE International Convention Hall in Mumbai.

Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia is a well known economist and Chairperson, Board of Governors, the Indian Council for Research on international Economic Relations (ICRIER), heading its research programme on urbanization. She was also Chairperson of the High Powered Expert Committee on Urban Infrastructure and Services (HPECUIS) during 2008-2011. The Report on Indian Infrastructure and Services by the HPECUIS addresses the issues of urban governance and suggests ways to bring about urban reform. Dr. Ahluwalia is Member of National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council and is on the Boards of a number of premier research institutes in India. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in the year 2009 for her services in the field of education and literature. She is married to Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and lives in Delhi. Dr. Ahluwalia received her BA from Presidency College, Calcutta University; MA from the Delhi School of Economics; and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research has focused on industrial development, macro-economic reforms, and urban issues in India.

The talk was based on her book 'Transforming Our Cities: Postcards of change'. The book talks about the issues facing Indian cities and the positive changes that have been experienced in recent years. The book presents case studies of success stories across India, and documents their processes. These changes were first documented by Dr. Isher Judge Ahluwalia in a series of monthly columns, 'Postcards of Change' in The Indian Express and The Financial Express in 2010. Dr. Ahluwalia provokes researchers and concerned citizens to ask what are the 'right' circumstances that led to these successes, and what it would take to replicate them.

Structural transformation of Indian economy
The urban population of India increased from 26% (217 million) in 1991 to 31% (377 million) in 2011, and projected to reach 40% (600 million) by 2031. Despite this evidence of rapid urbanization, the "Gandhian notion that India lives in its villages lingers on ...". In India 50% of the population is dependent on agriculture even though agriculture contributes less than 15% to the GDP. The reason is primarily because industrialization in the manufacturing sector has been slow, and whatever growth has taken place in manufacturing has not taken place in employment-intensive sectors.

Dr. Ahluwalia is a strong advocate of urbanization and industrialization, and feels that India's future is in its cities. She goes on to say, "The economics of industrialization is incomplete without an understanding of urbanization. Planning for urbanization has to go hand in hand with industrialization and change." India is in urgent need of structural transformation of the economy along with a political discourse towards planned urbanization.

Currently the urban population (30%) occupies merely 3% of the total land area of the country. Industrialization, hand-in-hand with agriculture, creates a balanced economy which is symbiotic and sustainable. Dr. Ahluwalia states that the task is "to create a rural-urban synergy rather than a rural-urban divide." By 2031, cities with population of 1 million and above will increase from 53 to 87. It will be extremely important to empower these new cities with policies so they can address their urban issues at the local level. Greater decentralization of power and devolution of finances to the local governments will be required to enable them to undertake urban development.

JNNURM
Under the Constitution of India, the principle responsibility of urban development lies with the state governments. The 74th amendment of 1992 assigned a part of the responsibility to the local governments. The Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) helps state and city governments to fulfil their mandate for urban development. The JNNURM has four schemes:
1.       Urban infrastructure and governance
2.       Basic services for urban poor
3.       Urban infrastructure development in small and medium towns
4.       Integrated housing and slum development programme

JNNURM has been a catalyst for urban development in many cities in India. The foremost contribution of JNNURM has been in bringing the urban agenda to the forefront and directing attention to urbanization and its challenges and opportunities. Many cities have taken advantage of the JNNURM scheme to transform themselves for the better. More than 50% of the funding has been for projects in drinking water, sanitation, drainage, and solid waste management. Due to the central government-driven, top-down approach of JNNURM, it has met with limited success in affecting significant urban reform.

Case studies
Dr. Ahluwalia presented some very inspiring examples of urban transformation, of cities that give hope and lessons at the same time. The case studies covered as wide a range of issues as sanitation, biodiversity, heritage conservation, power supply, water supply and waste management. Dr. Ahluwalia broadly classified the case studies into the following categories:
1.       Planning
2.       Role of IT
3.       Water
4.       Wastewater management
5.       Solid Waste management
6.       Transit

Surat transformed itself into one of the cleanest city after the plague, and also implemented e-governance quite successfully. Magarpatta near Pune, developed a unique form of development with rural-urban partnership, paving the way for urban growth. Malkapur in Maharashtra is the first town in India to provide 24X7 water supply to its residents. Rajkot and Pune have used technology and innovative use of man-power to reduce and reuse waste. The success of Ahmedabad's Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) has become a benchmark for future public transportation projects. Apart from these other examples of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Indore, Bhopal and other cities are equally inspiring. With these success stories of urban transformation, we may not have to necessarily look west-ward, having enough lessons within the country. These case studies will be more relevant since they show the way forward by working within the Indian system.

Conclusion
The author talks about the challenges facing Indian cities and how things might get bad to worse in the future. But at the same time she shows us some hope by focusing our attention to some cities within India who have beaten the odds and successfully transformed themselves, in turn raising the quality of life of the people. In spite of all that is wrong in our county, including corruption and a failing system, if the right mix of people, ideas and intention are brought in one place, great things can be achieved, achieving nothing less than miracles.

Comments

Bharat Singh said…
It should be an interesting book to read. Sitting way across in the US, I am concerned of the blind following of western urban concepts and solutions being blindly accepted by Indian cities. Specially all the racket about sustainability. With the formalizing of shared space into components for public and private modes of transportation, we may be making our cities less sustainable by removing the multiple use of those spaces. We need an Indian solution to an Indian problem. And not just harping on bringing TOD/mass transit/formal waste managment/green tech to Indian cities
19:57
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