NIUA chief says Finance Minister’s emphasis in Budget was on structural reforms rather than operational reforms
in an interview with Hindu Damini NathDirector, National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), Hitesh Vaidya:, discusses the importance of reviewing the approach to urban planning, as mentioned in the budget speech of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. He says that there is a need to revisit the governance of urban local bodies under the 74th Constitutional Amendment.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget 2022-2023 speech announced a high-level committee, five centers of excellence and a rethink on urban planning. How do you see these announcements?
This was the first time an ‘urban’ policy decision was taken in any budget in the last 25 years of my career. That city took so much prominence in the decisions and so much space in his speech that it shows importance. When our cities are growing and we are saying that 50% of India’s population will be urban by 2050, it also shows that we are assuming that India is no longer a rural economy and is moving towards an urban economy. . Unless we start looking at Urban very seriously, we will be missing the bus…. When I look at the budget, I do not see it as a standalone document. I am looking at the last three or four policy instruments. One is last year’s Economic Survey, which talked about focusing on water, sanitation and housing. Then, the report of the 15th Finance Commission, which talked about urban reforms and focused on the own source revenue of urban local bodies. Then, this year’s Economic Survey talked about urban and climate change… and then the finance minister’s announcement that the do-it-yourself approach won’t work.
Has the budgetary allocation shown this focus? Apart from five centers of excellence and enhancement in Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U), where is the funding for reforms mentioned?
There has been an increase of about 37% in the PMAY scheme. There has been an increase in the Smart Cities Mission, which ends by 2023. Therefore, new missions may be planned. Last year’s Jal Jeevan Mission-Urban (JJM-U) has also seen an increase. These new missions, JJM-U and Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, which were also announced six to eight months ago. All these four things have started coming to the surface from now on. Much of the emphasis of his speech was on structural reform, such as modernizing building bylaws, overseeing the urban planning and design process, transit-oriented development, etc. Those areas need to be looked into by think tanks like NIUA. His emphasis was on structural reform rather than operational reform.
What will be the role of NIUA then?
First, we need to come up with strategies and standards. What are those work sites and road maps based on this announcement? We need to come up with an action-oriented road map.
Second, we need to come up with tools and templates that they [States and cities] You can start the experiment. Being an urban state subject, it has to come from states and cities. Sixty-five per cent of the 7,933 urban habitations do not have a master plan. NIUA is working on a masterplan for Delhi, but we want to see what lessons are learned, and we can establish the principles of the plan that other local bodies can start to replicate.
NIUA, based on our learnings from various projects, can be an aggregator or knowledge provider for over 4,000 urban local bodies. We have already started talking to several states about how we can help. Second thing is that as a think tank we talk about resilient cities, child friendly cities, climate friendly cities but one thing we also need to see who will do it after 74th constitutional amendment, how Will do Cities to be governed? I think this is one area where we need to pay more attention – governance of cities, role of urban local bodies. If the 74th Amendment has taken on a life of its own, what’s the new way of looking at it?
Then we need to talk about creating a monitoring mechanism. Now we make policy at the central level, at the state level we have some, and then at the city level we have the master plans. There are no interrelationships. The biggest role for a think tank like NIUA is how do you shape youth for an urban future? We have started to see academic and research partnerships.
Will this require amendment, and what would you say on the state versus central political battle that we have seen in terms of implementation and monitoring of some urban missions?
I don’t think it would require legislative action. I think we need a management intervention… Each mission, for example, the Swachh Bharat Mission, has its own assessment through the Swachh Survekshan; Smart Cities Mission has its own evaluation framework. All of them are providing data in some form or the other.
I think the time has come for us to start coming up with India’s Integrated Urban Assessment Framework. We need to implement management tools. The last diagnostic study of urban in the country was done in 1982, when the last National Commission on Urban was held. has become one informal This is the way to look at how urbanization is taking place. We need an urbanization clinical study – which states are becoming more or less urbanized, which corridors are emerging, what are the different types of clusters – manufacturing clusters, production clusters, knowledge clusters, administrative clusters – and its Based on this, we need to see how our national missions support it. So I think as a think tank, we need to do a clinical study, and based on that, we need to come up with policy controls for future directions of urbanisation.
,