Sanjeev Sanyal makes strong pitch for better urban governance, infrastructure.
India’s economy is likely to grow in double digits this year as well as next year, Principal Economic Adviser Sanjeev Sanyal said on Tuesday, before making a strong pitch to fix India’s cities.
city in trouble
“Some of our cities in peacetime did not have roads like Kabul during the war. Vietnam’s per capita income is similar to that of India, but Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi are fundamentally better-run cities than our cities,” lamented Mr. Sanyal, comparing it to ‘shockingly’ in some of India’s tier-three cities. from ‘bad’ roads and municipal services.
“When I was young, I used to think that we are a poor country so our cities are in this crisis. 30 years later, we are very rich as a country, but our cities are still poor, despite the occasional airport… we are not quite clear on what we want from our cities,” he said.
While the infrastructure in Mumbai and Delhi is ‘relatively better’, Mr Sanyal said the next generation of reforms should focus on infrastructure within the city and better municipal services such as garbage collection.
“Many of these old masterplans, the planning and ideas inspired by Le Corbusier that we still teach at the SPA (School of Planning and Architecture) and other institutions, first of all, we need to throw them in the trash. We need modern planning principles. The need is to teach them, ensure that our municipalities understand and build modern cities,” he insisted.
He suggested that the focus of urban reforms should shift from proper governance structure to putting someone in charge and giving them what needed to be done.
“It’s not that poor people don’t know what to do with world class infrastructure. The reason why the rich get rich is because they have access to good infrastructure. If you give the poor access to world class infrastructure If we do, they too will become rich,” said Mr. Sanyal while interacting with industry leaders at the CII East India Summit.
Referring to the need to build world-class infrastructure in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and the north-eastern states, he said, “The best solution to poverty is access to good infrastructure in some parts of the country.” .
Arguing that the government’s focus on supply-side reforms and capital expenditure amid the pandemic would keep it in good stead, he said it was important for the economy to be resilient to adjust to the post-COVID world.
“I think you will find that this year, we will reach double-digit growth and it is very likely that we will reach double-digit growth in the next financial year as well,” said the former Golbal strategist at Deutsche Bank.
He said, “We have also made politically difficult reforms like agricultural laws, which may be postponed, but I must say that broadly speaking, we are committed to reforming agriculture, albeit with some changes at the edges. The system also needs to be cleaned up to enable timely enforcement of contracts, emphasizing on the judicial system,” he said.
Emphasizing that the reforms from 1991 to 2021 are about regulation and withdrawing the state from things it should not do, Mr. Sanyal said that the reforms of the next thirty years should focus on what the Indian state should do. What should it do for its people, which includes providing reliable infrastructure?
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