21 ST CENTURY INDIAN CITY CONFERENCE

1. 21ST CENTURY INDIAN CITY CONFERENCE ARE WE STUCK WITH THE 74TH CAA? Professor K C Sivaramakrishnan Chairman, Center for Policy Research - India www.cprindia.org 26-27 March ’13 | Bangalore

2. THE NUMBERS FROM THE 2011 CENSUS Source: Census of India 2001 & 2011,

3. HAVE WE COUNTED ALL? • Determining the “Urban Frame” for 2011 Census on the basis of 2001 Census and jurisdictional changes up to December 2009; Frame frozen for the Census • The three fold criteria for Census Towns – size (5000) density (400 sq.kms) and 75% male working force in non-agricultural employment; an item used only in six of hundred countries - Partha Mukhopadhyay (PM) • Of the 2544 settlements identified as new Census towns at least 70% met the criteria in 2001 itself: Population, at least 30 million (PM) • The case of the “missing towns” “unacknowledged urbanization”, “subaltern urbanization” (Pradhan, PM et al) • The phenomenon of statutory towns: whichever place the States so define (company towns, project towns, industrial townships and now SEZ) 2

4. URBAN PLACES AND MUNICIPAL CLOTHING • All do not wear: of 5161 urban places (2001) only 3886 are municipal • Per FC III, 109 Corporations, 1595 Municipalities and 2182 Nagar Panchayats • Balance of 1275 presumed to continue as villages or covered under some state law. In 2011 total urban places is 7935; non-municipal urban places likely to be more • Census also provides size based six fold classification. Figures available only for 2001 except Class I. • Class I 100,000 plus 594 in 2001 475 in 2011 • Class II 50,000 plus 496 “ - • Class III 20,000 plus 1397 “ - • Class IV 10,000 plus 1563 “ - • Class V 5,000 plus 1042 “ - • Class VI Upto 5000 232 “ - 3

5. CENSUS AND THE 74TH CAA STAND APART • Census definitions do not determine governance structures • Even before 74th CAA, states had different criteria • For a Corporation 2 lakhs population in Karnataka and West Bengal, 3 lakhs in Maharashtra and 5 lakhs in Tamil Nadu • For a Municipality 25,000 in AP and West Bengal, 30,000 in Maharashtra and 50,000 in Karnataka • For a Nagar Panchayat, by whatever name called, 10 to 20,000 • 65th CA Bill mentioned size criteria: 74th CAA did not • States also prescribe revenue potential as a criteria • Urban or Municipal area whether large, small or transitional is what the State notifies 243 P (d) • Similarly, village is what is notified as such 243 (g) 4

6. ODDITIES GALORE! • Between Census, notified urban places, entities under the 73rd and the 74th and the state propensity to bypass any policy or prescription, oddities abound • All that Census defines as “Urban” is not “Municipal” e.g. NOIDA, Bokaro Steel City, six census towns within the NCT of Delhi with population ranging from 1.8 to 2.8lakhs • Kharagpur, Renukoot, Obra, etc. towns with 50,000 plus have no municipal set up • What is Municipal need not meet Census criteria; e.g. several Municipalities / Nagar Panchayats in UP, Uttarakhand; Dugadda Municipal Board (UK) 2998 • Proviso to Article 243 Q in the 74th CAA introduced as a Govt. amendment allows the States not to set up municipalities in industrial townships • This escape clause actively seized upon and promoted for the SEZs, Delhi-Mumbai transport corridor etc. 5

7. ODDITIES GALORE! (contd..) • Panchayat coverage better: 6.4 lakh villages as per Census: Village Panchayats usually for a group of villages : 2.39 lakhs Village Panchayats (FC XIII) • Average population per Village Panchayat : varies from 5 to 30,000 • The 73rd and 74th CAA sought a “Rudraksha mala” of elected local bodies, rural and urban, to be strung across the entire country. • Venkatachaliah (2002) and Moily Commissions (2007) as well as Parliamentary Committees urged such coverage including for scheduled areas. • Yet the beads lie scattered and the string is broken • State and Departmental preferences have prevailed over Constitutional stipulations 6

8. CONFLICTING AND PERVERSE INCENTIVES • A mind set: “become urban but stay rural”: How? • Depending on the cost and funds available make a choice e.g. for electricity, load on urban basis, but apply rural tariffs • For land acquisition, compensation on urban basis but for use, avoid planning regulations • Cost recovery concepts are urban and should be kept at bay • The rural-urban dichotomy further aggravated by CSS; • During 2009-10 Rs.75,000 crores spent on NREGA, IAY, NRHM, NRDWP, Gramin Vidyut etc. • Urban with JNNURM including UIDSSMT was less than one-tenth i.e. Rs.6200 crores 7

9. CONFLICTING AND PERVERSE INCENTIVES (Contd..) • Out of 5161 urban places only 65 under UIG and 639 out of the rest included in the UIDSSMT programme; of this 136 are Class I, 157 Class II and 192 Class II towns • States keep looking for more attractive name tags • The Tamil Nadu Story: • In June 2004 (Jayalalitha) 566 town panchayats were reclassified as Village Panchayats to enable them to receive more grants and assistance. • In July 2006 (Karunanidhi) they were reconstituted as Town Panchayats. 8

10. THE OUTLOOK • Nothing to be gained by a large number of municipal bodies; better to have a higher threshold of population (50,000) and revenue potential • For Class IV and below 74th CAA is not a useful label; besides 12th Schedule is illustrative and not size sensitive • People generally not enthusiastic about becoming municipal. Yet in many states municipalities have survived not because of their value but the efforts to reclassify them have been absent. • There are at least 100 towns in the country with a population of less than 20,000 regarded as municipalities. • Little distinction between them and the Nagar Panchayats; • For that matter little distinction between Nagar Panchayats or Class IV, V and VI towns and Panchayats 9

11. THE OUTLOOK (contd..) • These so-called urban settlements (2837 as of 2001) may have a better chance if they are part of the Panchayat regime; also get the benefits of aggregation at the Panchayat Union or the Zilla Parishad levels • Tamil Nadu and some other states have been urging the revisiting of the 74th Amendment to have an integrated two-tier or three-tier set up with links between the different levels. 10

12. THE MEGACITY REGIONS • If the 74th CAA has meant little for the smaller towns it has meant much less for the larger ones, in particular, the megacity regions. • An exhaustive study of five megacity regions, probably the first of its kind of Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad clearly confirm their demographic dominance, economic importance (10.3% of India’s GDP) and their political prominence (41 MPs, 218 MLAs, 14 to 23% of the respective state electorate) • Yet these large city regions are challenged by administrative multiplicity, multiple legislations, multiple service providers and multiple territorialities • Problems of metropolitan regions are not the same as those of an individual city; metropolitan level or dimension has been missing in the mindset of the Government and also the public 11

13. THE MAGACITY REGIONS (Contd..) • The Metropolitan Development Authorities following the Maharashtra and Kolkata initiatives commenced with a mandate of metropolitan wide planning and coordination; eventually they succumbed to the temptations of project execution. • The MPC under Article 243 ZE provides a good conceptual framework for a metro region but in composition its design is flawed; ignores multiple and non-municipal territoriality and prescribes a membership dominated by Municipal Councilors and Panchayat Chairpersons; space for political, business and social spectrum very limited • The MPC has been a non-starter; in Kolkata it was 5 years late; has had a short life of two terms and has not been revived; in Mumbai it came 10 years late and has lingered without a clear mandate 12

14. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE:SOME SUGGESTIONS TO PONDER • Revisit 74th Amendment and related state laws • Consider higher threshold for Municipalities and Corporations • Consider an integrated 11th and 12th Schedules, make them size sensitive and mandatory • Revisit DPC, MPC, status and composition • A Common Zilla Parishad, not a Zilla Rural Parishad • Redesign the MPC as an entity for metropolitan governance • Improve the existing MDAs and use them as building blocks • Address long pending problems internal to municipal units such as authority and accountability of elected representatives within the Municipalities ; devise more integrated ways of participation at different levels; not a simplistic arithmetical arrangement • A partial list to ponder and discuss 13

15. THANK YOU sivarama@cprindia.org