New Delhi: June 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of a major constitutional amendment that was enacted to empower “weak” and “ineffective” Indian municipalities and give them more powers.
The Constitution (Seventy-fourth Amendment) Act of 1992 came into force on 1 June 1993 and contained a list of 18 important functions for state governments to transfer to urban local bodies (ULBs). Prominent among them were addressing issues related to urban planning, water supply, fire and land use regulations, slum improvement etc.
The statement of its objects and reasons read, “The local bodies in many states have become weak and ineffective due to various reasons… As a result, the urban local bodies have not been able to function effectively as vibrant democratic units of self-governance.” “
However, India’s ULBs are nowhere near empowered and, unlike in international cities such as New York and London, Indian mayors have remained mere figures. There is no uniformity in their tenure or elections across the country – it varies from one to 5 years and elections are direct in some states and indirect in others – and in most cities, mayors have limited functional and financial powers. .
States like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand have direct elections for mayors where the people elect them and the term is for five years.
Urban sector experts blame state governments for the poor implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) and describe it as a distraction from important tasks and their reluctance to implement the Act effectively.
Currently, not a single state government has devolved all 18 functions to ULBs, according to the Urban Governance Index 2020 published by Praja Foundation, a non-profit organization working in the area of municipal governance.
according to a report by Bangalore based think tank Public Interest on Municipal Finance, ‘A Municipal Finance Blueprint for India’, 15 commissioned byth Finance Commission and published in 2022, States like Maharashtra have transferred 14 out of 18 functions while Gujarat, Karnataka, Telangana and West Bengal have done 10. Bihar and Rajasthan are among the states that have shifted only 6-7 functions.
While experts say that the 74th CAA needs to be reconsidered. Officials in the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry say it is the municipal corporations that need to focus on streamlining functioning, tax collection and capacity building.
“There is no need to amend 74th CAA States have to devolve powers, the Center can only induce them to do so. Besides, ULBs get funds from the Center and the state to complete the projects,” said a senior official of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, requesting anonymity. “If corporations streamline their property tax collection and other revenue streams, they will become self-sufficient.”
ThePrint has contacted the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for comment. The report will be updated upon receipt of a response.
There is growing demand for reconsideration of 74th CAA
With rapid urbanization, climate change and pollution issues and the use of digital technology in decision making, urban governance experts say it is time to revisit the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992 and address today’s challenges. It’s time to update it.
Prof Debolina Kundu of the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) said structures like State Finance Commissions (SFCs) have been created, elections to local bodies have been regularized to some extent, and the role of ULBs in planning and delivery has been strengthened. has expanded. However, empowerment has been limited in terms of allocation of funds, works and finance, he said.
“In its present form, the 74th CAA does not have the necessary legislative capabilities to respond to the emerging challenges of urban governance for the 21st century, including issues such as unplanned growth of cities, climate change, pollution. And so on,” she said. “With planetary urbanization becoming more usually With the rural-urban binary blurring and people adopting urban lifestyles even in rural areas, it becomes important to revisit the 74th CAA.
According to Srikanth Vishwanathan, CEO of Janagraha – a Bengaluru-based think tank that has worked extensively on the financial health of municipalities – is more important to amend the state municipal legislations that govern the functioning of urban local governments. “A strong local government is essential to meet the challenges of rapid urbanisation,” he said.
74 stressed the need for amendmentth CAA, he added,The use of the word ‘may’ in place of ‘shall’ in the amendment leaves a lot of discretion with the state governments.
“In all the States, the State Governments have set up a variety of parastatal bodies like Development and Regional Development Authority, Water Supply Board and Transport Corporation, which directly supervise the various departments of the State Government besides the State Departments like Police, Public Works Department etc. Let’s report. Who are directly involved in important aspects of governance.
Earlier this month, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs organized the ‘Urban 20’ summit in Gujarat to deliberate on these issues and set an urban agenda, where mayors of 37 cities participated in discussions with over 40 international leaders. participated along with their counterparts from the cities.
‘The mayor is just a showman’
Mayors who participated in the summit told ThePrint that their counterparts in global cities like Paris, London etc had more financial and functional powers.
Indore Mayor Pushyamitra Bhargava said, “Though the mayor system in MP is more effective than some states where mayors do not have long enough tenure and limited powers, there is a need to give more powers to mayors.”
He said: “For effective functioning of civic bodies, the bureaucracy has to be accountable to the elected representatives. Most of the mayors in the country do not have much financial or functional powers and their tenure is also of 1-2 years. The annual confidential reports of the commissioners should be written by the mayors. Transfers and postings are still done by the commissioners and the mayors have no direct say in this.
In cities such as New York, London and Paris, mayors have a lot of financial and decision-making power.
“In peer economies such as South Africa, Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia, urban local governments are more empowered politically and financially. In India, state governments are effectively treating urban local governments as implementing agencies for their projects,” said Vishwanathan.
In India, there are very few states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh – that directly elect mayors with a fixed term of five years.
“In most states, mayors are elected by councilors and have a term of one to two years. Moreover, in most states, mayors do not have adequate financial and decision-making powers,” said Milind Mhaske, chief executive officer of Praja Foundation, a Mumbai-based non-profit organization working in the area of urban governance.
For example, Mhaske said, in Mumbai, the executive wing (of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) Has the decision making powers and not the mayor. “Only in Kerala there is a provision for the mayor to write an annual confidential report to the commissioner (a bureaucrat),” he said.
In the meeting of the All India Council of Mayors held in Indore in May, the mayors of Indian cities demanded uniformity in tenure.
Rajinder Sharma, mayor of the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and general secretary of the All India Council of Mayors, told ThePrint, “One year or two-and-a-half-year tenure is not enough. There should be a time of five years for effective implementation of policies and plans.” In JMC, in 2022, the tenure of the mayor was increased from two and a half years to five years.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)