Governing India's Metropolises: Case Studies of Four Cities 9780415551465, 9780415551489

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GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES

ii 9 Ú GOVERNING MUSHIRUL HASAN INDIA’S METROPOLISES

Cities and the Urban Imperative Series Editor: Sujata Patel Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Pune This series introduces a holistic approach to studying cities, the urban experience, and its imaginations. It will grasp what is distinctive of the urban phenomenon in India, as also delineate the characteristic uniqueness of particular cities as they embrace change and create ways of experiencing modernities. Taking an interdisciplinary route, the series will assess the many facets of urbanisation and city formation, and explore the challenges faced in relation to regional, national and global processes. The books in this series will present the changing trends in macro and micro urban processes; the nature of demographic patterns of migration and natural growth therein; spatial reorganisation and segregation in urban areas; uneven economic development of manufacturing and services in cities; unequal access to power in the context of formal citizenship; increasing everyday violence and declining organised protest; breakdown of urban family life in juxtaposition with the reconstitution of community. They will trace how new forms of socialities are replacing old forms of trust and solidarity, and how these are being institutionalised in distinct and diverse ways within South Asia.

Also in the Series Growing Up In The Knowledge Society: Living the IT Dream In Bangalore Nicholas Nisbett ISBN 978-0-415-55146-5

GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES

Editors Joël Ruet Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal

LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI

iv 9 Ú GOVERNING MUSHIRUL HASAN INDIA’S METROPOLISES

First published 2009 by Routledge 912–915 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, New Delhi 110 001

Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business ..l Ruet and Ste´phanie Tawa Lama-Rewal © 2009 Joe Typeset by Star Compugraphics Private Limited D-156, Second Floor Sector 7, Noida 201 301

Printed and bound in India by Sanat Printers 312, EPIP, Kundli Sonipat 131 028, Haryana

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-415-55148-9

Contents List of Tables and Figures

vii

List of Abbreviations

ix

Maps

xiv

Acknowledgements

xix

Part A: Themes and Issues in Governance 1. Engaging with the Concept of Governance in the Study of Indian Metropolises Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal 2. A Comparative Overview of Urban Governance in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai Archana Ghosh, Loraine Kennedy, Joël Ruet, Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, and Marie-Hélène Ze´rah

3

24

3. New Patterns of Participation Shaping Urban Governance Loraine Kennedy

55

4. Class in Metropolitan India: The Rise of the Middle Classes Jos Mooij and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal

81

5. Vertical Governance: Brokerage, Patronage and Corruption in Indian Metropolises Girish Kumar and Frédéric Landy (with T. François, D. Ruby and P. Sekhsaria)

105

Part B: Sectors, Programmes, Access, and Publicness in Urban Governance 6. Primary Education in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata: Governance by Resignation, Privatisation by Default Jos Mooij and Jennifer Jalal

135

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7. Assessing Urban Governance through the Prism of Healthcare Services in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai Loraine Kennedy, Ravi Duggal and Ste´phanie Tawa Lama-Rewal 8. From Polarisation to Urban De-integration: Water and Sanitation in Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad Joël Ruet, Keshab Das, Agnès Huchon, and Guillaume Tricot 9. Participatory Urban Governance and Slum Development in Hyderabad and Kolkata Archana Ghosh 10. Reforming Solid Waste Management in Mumbai and Hyderabad: Policy Convergence, Distinctive Processes Marie-Hélène Zérah 11. Thinking the Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai Experience: Emerging Modes of Urban Governance and State Intervention. Joël Ruet About the Editors Notes on Contributors Index

161

183

209

241

270

304 305 308

List of Tables and Figures Tables 3.1

Comparative Data (up to 2006) on Ward Committees (WC)

60

5.1 5.2 5.3

Invited and Invented Spaces for the PDS Utilisation of MPLADS Fund Unspent Municipal Councillor’s Development Fund

113 125 126

6.1 6.2 6.3

Progress in Education Schools in Two Electoral Wards in Hyderabad Schools in Two Electoral Wards in Kolkata

138 145 146

7.1 7.2

Achievements, 1951 to 2000 Public–Private Sector Provision of Healthcare in Urban and Rural India (Percentage Distribution) Primary Level Health Facilities in Delhi

162 163 168

Persisting Problems in Basic Services Provisioning in Wards (by Political Party)

189

7.3 8.1

9.1 9.2 9.3

10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5

Allocations for Slums under Different Programmes Transfer to Hyderabad Poverty Alleviation Fund from MCH Capital Receipt by UCD Department under Different Programmes

224

Main Landmarks Basic Information on Research Methodology Waste Disposal in Hyderabad Cleaning and Sweeping of Roads in Hyderabad Elements of the Advanced Locality Management (ALM) Scheme and the Slum Adoption Programme

245 260 261 262

225 226

264

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10.6 Characteristics and Activities of the ALMs 10.7 Level of Satisfaction with ALMs and Interactions with the Administration and Corporators

265 267

11.1 City-wise Stylised Manifestations of a Common, if Contrasted, Urban Governance Pattern

276

Figures 8.1

9.1 9.2

Channel Followed by Complaints and Proposals for the Improvement of Water and Sanitation Services Receipts and Payments for Slums Income and Expenditure of the UCD Department in MCH

197 223 227

List of Abbreviations AADI ADB AGNI AIIMS ALM ANMs ANS APL BC BEST BJP BMC BPL CAA CAG CAP CBF CBO CDF CDP CDS CDSs CEHAT CEMD CGHS CLPOA CORT COVA

Action for Ability Development and Inclusion Asian Development Bank Action for Good Governance and Networking in India All India Institute of Medical Sciences Advanced Locality Management Auxiliary Nurse Midwives Academy of Nursing Studies Above Poverty Line Borough Committee Bombay Electric Supply and Transport Committee Bharatiya Janata Party Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Below Poverty Line Constitutional Amendment Act Citizens’ Action Group Child and Police Calcutta Bustee Federation Community-based Organisation City Development Fund City Development Plan City Development Strategy Community Development Societies Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes Centre for Education Management and Development Co-operative Group Housing Societies City Level Programme of Action for Street and Working Children Centre for Operation Research and Training Confederation of Voluntary Associations

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CPI CPI(M) CREDAI CSE CSIP CSOs CUDP-III DDA DFID DGHS DJB DM&HO DMC DOCC DPEP DWCUA ESI EYP FB FBH FCI FGD FSI GDP GoNCTD HITEC HMWSSB HSIP HUDCO IDPAD

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (Marxist) Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India Centre for Science and Environment Calcutta Slum Improvement Project civil society organisations Calcutta Urban Development Project III Delhi Development Authority Department for International Development, UK Directorate General of Health Services Delhi Jal Board District Medical and Health Officer Delhi Municipal Corporation Center for Development of Corporate Citizenship, Mumbai District Primary Education Programme Development of Women and Children in Urban Areas Employee State Insurance Empowerment of Youth Programme Forward Bloc Forum for a Better Hyderabad Food Corporation of India focus group discussion Floor Space Index Gross Domestic Product Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy City Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sanitation Board Hyderabad Slum Improvement Project Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development

List of Abbreviations Ú xi

IIPS IIT INC IPP IT JNNURM KEIP KMA KMC KMDA KMPC LADS LF MCD MCGM MCH MCs MDP MHADA MIC MIM MLA MLALADS MMRDA MP MPLADS MSRDC MTA NAFRE NCP NCTD NDMC NFHS

International Institute of Population Sciences Indian Institute of Technology Indian National Congress Indian Population Project information technology Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission Kolkata Environment Improvement Project Kolkata Metropolitan Area Kolkata Municipal Corporation Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority Kolkata Metropolitan Planning Committee Local Area Development Scheme Left Front Municipal Corporation of Delhi Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad Municipal Councillors Municipal Development Programme Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Agency Mayor-in-Council Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen Member of Legislative Assembly Member of Legislative Assembly Local Area Development Scheme Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority Member of Parliament Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Market Traders Association National Advocacy for Right to Education Nationalist Congress Party National Capital Territory of Delhi New Delhi Municipal Council National Family Health Survey

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NGO NHC NHG NRI NSDP OBCs ODA OECD PDS PF PHC PPP PTA RJD RSP RTI RWA SARD SC SC SHG SJSRY SPARC SSA ST TC TDP UCD UHPs ULBs UN UNDP UNICEF UPA VGDS WBIDC

non-governmental organisation Neighbourhood Committee Neighbourhood Group non-resident Indian National Slum Development Programme Other Backward Classes Overseas Development Agency Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Public Distribution System Provident Fund Primary Health Centre public–private partnership Parent–Teacher Association Rashtriya Janata Dal Revolutionary Socialist Party Right to Information Residents’ Welfare Association Society for All Round Development Scheduled Caste Standing Committee self-help group Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojana Society for the Promotion of Area Centres Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Scheduled Tribe Trinamool Congress Telugu Desam Party Urban Community Development Urban Health Posts urban local bodies United Nations United Nations Development Programme United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund Urban Poverty Alleviation Voluntary Garbage Disposal Scheme West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation

List of Abbreviations Ú xiii

WBIDFC WC WHO ZAC

West Bengal Industrial Development Finance Corporation Ward Committee World Health Organization Zonal Advisory Committee

xiv Ú GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES Map 1: Delhi Municipal Corporation Wards, 2002 Elections

Source: Delhi Municipal Corporation and Eicher City Guide; redrawn by Pierre Chapelet.

MAPS Ú xv Map 2: Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad — Wards and Ward Committees, 2002 Elections

Source: Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad and Eicher City Guide; redrawn by Pierre Chapelet.

xvi Ú GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES Map 3: Kolkata Municipal Corporation

D

-

Ward

Borough Raihmys

Source: Institute of Social Sciences, Kolkata and Kolkata Municipal Corporation; redrawn by Pierre Chapelet.

Source: ISS, Kolkata, Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority; redrawn by Pierre Chapelet.

Map 4: Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) Administrative Divisions, and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) Wards and Boroughs

Source: Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. Note: The Mumbai district corresponds to the ‘city’ area and the Mumbai suburban district corresponds to the suburbs (western and eastern). Both districts constitute the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation, or what we refer to as Mumbai.

Map 5: Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) Administrative Divisions, and Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation Administrative Wards

Acknowledgements

T

his book is the main outcome of a collective research endeavour which started in 2003 with a series of informal discussions between a few scholars who happened to spend some time at the French Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) in New Delhi, and realised that they were all investigating urban India, albeit from different perspectives. The project that came out of these discussions ended four years later with a concluding seminar that took place in Delhi in January 2007. As the co-ordinators of this research project, we would like, first of all, to thank our eleven fellow team members for their commitment to our common scientific objectives, and for their patience regarding the administrative constraints inherent in this type of enterprise. The research team that conducted this project is international (it includes Indian, Dutch, French and German scholars) as well as multidisciplinary (involving economists, geographers, political scientists, sociologists and urbanists). Besides the authors of the chapters of this book, the team also included Evelin Hust and François Leclerc, both of whom had to leave the project after one year due to professional constraints, but who contributed significantly to its conceptualisation; Basudeb Chaudhuri, who was a constant source of conceptual clarification and bibliographic guidance; and Pierre Chapelet, who was the webmaster of the project’s website (http://www.csh-delhi.com/UAPG/index.htm), on which the other publications that have come out of the project are listed. Over these four years, our work has benefited from the support of a number of people and institutions, whom we would like to thank here. The project could never have been implemented without the generous grant awarded by the research programme (Action Concertée Incitative) ‘Sustainable Urban Development’, funded by the French Ministry for Research and co-ordinated by Jean-Pierre Gaudin. The CSH has remained the nodal institution of the project, to which it provided additional funding and logistical support. We are grateful to the administrative staff of the CSH,

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who have been extremely resourceful as far as organising workshops and keeping accounts is concerned. Véronique Dupont, Director of CSH (2003–07), was also a member of the project’s scientific committee, and we are very grateful to her for the support she provided in both capacities. Other members of the scientific committee include Alain Dubresson, Pierre-Noël Giraud, John Harriss, Bruno Jobert, Amitabh Kundu and Kuldeep Mathur. We express our heartfelt thanks to all of them for offering stimulating comments at regular intervals. These four years were punctuated by a series of workshops that took place in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Paris. These were crucial moments, spent discussing research objectives, methodologies, fieldwork-related problems, preliminary findings, comparatives perspectives and theoretical frameworks. It gave us the opportunity to submit our ideas to and receive precious feedback from a number of observers or actors involved in urban governance in the four cities we were studying, whom we want to sincerely thank. These include: Jayanta Basu, Trisha Sen Sharma, Debatosh Das Gupta, Pabitra Giri, Annapurna Shaw, Nandita Chatterjee, Tapas Ghatak and Mohit Bhattacharya in Kolkata; Anurag Srivastava, O.P. Mathur, A.K. Jain, Renu Sharma, B.B. Bhattacharya, Amit Prakash, Niraja Gopal Jayal, Amita Singh, Rajib Dasgupta, Ajay Mehra, Purnamita Das Gupta, Michael Koeberlein, N. Sridharan, Geetha B. Nambissan, and R. Govinda in Delhi; N. Sreedevi, K. Srinivasulu, Vinod K. Jairath, P.K. Mohanty, V. Srinivas Chary, Rama Melkote, Sheela Prasad, C. Ramachandraiah, and Rao V.B.J. Chelikani in Hyderabad; Abhay Pethe, Mala Lalvani, Ravi Duggal, Gordon D’Souza, Ajit Karnik, Rajalaxmi Kamath, Ashok Datar, Yazad Jal, Seema Redkar and Amita Bhide in Mumbai. Many of these people made presentations (some of the studies had been commissioned by the project) and we are grateful to them for enriching our knowledge of the complex processes at play. Among our European colleagues, we wish to thank Isabelle Milbert, Bernard Barraqué and Joop de Wit. We thank the academic institutions which offered us the use of their premises: ASCI-CME, Hyderabad, the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, the Institute for Social Sciences, Kolkata, and Mumbai University; in France we benefited from the support of Mines ParisTech and Paris X University, Nanterre.

Acknowledgements Ú xxi

The strongly comparative and collective nature of the project implied decentralised coordination, and three team members, as city co-ordinators, made our work simply possible; for their remarkable efficiency, we want to thank Archana Ghosh, Loraine Kennedy and Marie-Hélène Zérah for their co-ordination of the city teams of Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai, respectively. The very empirical nature of this research also means that a number of research assistants have helped us in our investigations; we want to express our gratitude to all of them. We also thank the students who were associated with some of our case studies. Last but not least, we want to acknowledge and thank all those people who have accepted to offer us some of their precious time to answer our questions, be it through individual interviews or focus group discussions. Finally, one of the main challenges faced by the project consisted of finding a balance between the collective and individual dimensions of our research: the former enriched the conceptualisation of the project, facilitated data collection and made comparisons possible; the latter came out most clearly at the writing stage, when our respective disciplinary trainings resurfaced. This book reflects our achievement as well as our limitations in this regard: some chapters have been jointly written, all of them have benefited from comments by the whole team, but they ultimately reflect their respective authors’ views, as well as shortcomings.

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Part A Themes and Issues in Governance

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Chapter 1 Engaging with the Concept of Governance in the Study of Indian Metropolises Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal

While India is still a largely rural country (72 per cent of its

population resided in rural areas at the time of the 2001 Census), it has been undergoing a steady process of urbanisation and its cities are consistently growing in size. Indeed, in 2007, Mumbai and Delhi were part of the ten largest megacities worldwide, and onetenth of the world’s urban population lives in Indian cities. But by whom, and for who, are Indian metropolises being governed today? This question is central to the research project whose findings are presented in this book. One can identify three major issues that are at stake in this question. The first one concerns the living conditions of an increasing number of people — in 2001, 285 million people lived in Indian cities, and the figure keeps growing.1 Indian urban growth is biased in favour of large cities (Kundu and Gupta 1996; Sivaramakrishnan, Kundu and Singh 2005),2 which face an acute shortage of basic infrastructure (housing, water and sanitation, transport, electricity), resulting in major environmental problems for all city-dwellers, and extremely poor conditions of living for slum-dwellers, who make up between one-fourth to half of the population of megacities.3 1 According to recent United Nations (UN) projections, 29 per cent of the total population (i.e. close to 350 million people) lives in urban areas today (UN 2005). 2 The inadequacy of services and infrastructure also concerns small and medium-sized cities (see India Infrastructure Report 2006). 3 The Census of India, 2001, defines ‘metropolitan cities’ as urban agglomerations with a population over one million (there were 35 in 2001), and ‘megacities’ as urban agglomerations with a population over 5 million (there were 6 in 2001).

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The second issue relates to economic development, since cities (particularly megacities) are engines of growth, engaged in a competition at the national and global level (Sassen 2001). Indeed the high level of growth experienced by India during the past 15 years is closely related to the development of activities located in urban centres, most notably the service sector (information and communication technologies, finance, medical services, hotels, etc.) The third issue is more political in nature (cities have always been the privileged sites of political innovation): what are the channels through which city-dwellers can participate in taking decisions that directly concern them today? This question obviously points to the actual impact of the decentralisation policy which has been implemented since the mid-1990s in an Indian polity that is usually seen as an example of centralised federalism. These issues have been addressed by a number of empirical studies of urban India among which one can distinguish two categories. The first catgory consists of collections of articles in the form of edited volumes centring on one city, which build an image of that city through the academic equivalent of a rich ‘mosaïc’ (see Patel and Thorner 1995b). The volumes edited by Chaudhuri on Calcutta (1990), Patel and Thorner on Bombay (1995a) and Dupont, Tarlo and Vidal on Delhi (2000),4 include chapters dealing with formal and informal politics in the city, the urban political economy, the planning process — in other words, chapters that focus on key elements of urban governance. As such, these volumes tell us about the governance of the concerned cities, albeit in an oblique way. The second category of studies addresses any one of the core issues identified above, often through a juxtaposition of chapters devoted to different cities.5 To mention just a few, one finds old studies of urban politics (Oldenburg 1976, Rosenthal 1976), which suggest that while some things do not change (for instance, the conflictual relationship between administrators and elected representatives in a municipal government), there have indeed been new developments in some other realms (for instance, civil society 4 In this regard, the relative paucity of publications on Hyderabad as a city is striking. The last extensive study was Naidu (1990). 5 Bombay, of course, has inspired a series of studies about its politics (Kaviraj and Katzenstein 1981; Gupta 1982; and Hansen 2001), focusing on the Shiv Sena, a party whose association with and impact on the city is quite peculiar.

The Concept of Governance: Indian Metropolises Ú 5

organisations are largely absent from these studies). Pinto (2000) offers a detailed analysis of the institutional architecture of municipal government, which highlights the weight of colonial heritage in that respect. Hust and Mann (2005) reflect on the scientific relevance and political implications of the concept of governance in a volume that brings together both thematic and city-specific studies. Part of our own research programme in fact grew out of the work presented in that volume, which shares three authors with the present one. Our perspective, with its deliberate focus on the contemporary period, also encompasses local politics and local government, but in relation to social changes and economic transformation. In other words, the particularity of our endeavour is to engage frontally with the concept of urban governance, through a systematic research programme grounded in four cities.

Governance: A Fuzzy Concept? The management of urban affairs, in India as elsewhere, is characterised by a multiplicity of actors, levels of action and types of interactions. We used the concept of governance to conduct our investigations of that complex reality. But governance has all the characteristics of a fuzzy concept: it is ubiquitous, ambiguous and indispensable, all at the same time. First, the concept is ubiquitous. The word ‘governance’ can be found as early as the thirteenth century in several European languages (it was then synonymous with ‘government’) (Hermet 2004: 163), but its current popularity can be traced to a 1989 World Bank publication, identifying a ‘crisis of governance’ as the cause of poor development in Sub-Saharan Africa; governance was here defined as ‘the exercise of political power to manage a nation’s affairs’ (World Bank 1989: 60). The concept has since then increasingly permeated the political discourse, becoming a key word in the doctrine of influential international institutions such as the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (see OECD 1993), the United Nations and the European Union,6 all of which have brought nuances to its definition. 6 In the European Union, the notion of ‘multi-level governance’ has been precisely defined and operationalised since 2000.

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It has also been increasingly used in academic work, journeying among various disciplines and being redefined each time. In economics, the notion of ‘corporate governance’ was discussed as early as the 1930s and later became central in management studies; in the 1980s, governance became a key concept of neoinstitutional economics, referring to the nature of co-ordinations in the functioning of a given sector; more recently, it has been used widely in development economics. Political science appropriated the concept from the 1990s onwards, to explore the shifting role of the state at the local, national and international levels (Gaudin 2002: 37). Second, the current fortune of the concept of governance (as well as the criticisms it has evoked) is certainly due to its intrinsic ambiguousness: it is both prescriptive and descriptive (Chandhoke 2003: 4); in other words, it refers at the same time to a political project and to an empirical reality (Mooij 2006). As a project, governance usually refers, in political discourse, to an improved form of government: as Jayal put it, ‘reforming government is popularly viewed as the central, if not exclusive, motif of governance’ (2007: 127). The normative dimension of governance as a political project is most clearly exposed in the concept of ‘good governance’, first defined, again, in a World Bank publication (World Bank 1992), but later appropriated and variously redefined by other donor organisations, as a set of practices and principles that are supposed to promote more efficient economic development (Kazancigil 2002: 123). The components of good governance include transparency, accountability, the fight against corruption, the rule of law, respect for human rights, decentralisation and public participation. However, governance as a political project is contested on several grounds. First, it is criticised as a vehicle for the neo-liberal agenda being promoted by the World Bank and other international organisations, which can be summed up as ‘rolling back the state’. More specifically, a number of criticisms underline the ‘depoliticizing effect’ of the concept of governance, insofar as it eschews competition, conflict or contention, to promote a ‘technocratic management of politics’ (Chandhoke 2003: 2). Thus Jayal, in a discussion of the contradictions inherent in the good governance agenda, denounces ‘a project for the elimination of politics’ (Jayal 1997: 409), while Harriss et al. criticise ‘a society-centred perspective

The Concept of Governance: Indian Metropolises Ú 7

which…represents a “depoliticised” view of processes of social change’ (2004: 8). Another major concern relates to the democratic credentials of the concept. Does democracy dissolve into governance? The concept avoids all reference to the empirical essence of democracy, i.e., the selection and rejection of those who govern by those who are governed through competitive elections. Indeed the word ‘democracy’ does not even figure among the ‘nine interrelated characteristics’ that define good governance according to the UNDP (namely, participation; rule of law; transparency; responsiveness; consensus orientation; equity; effectiveness and efficiency; accountability; and strategic vision [UNDP 1997]). Chandhoke questions ‘the implications of governance for practices of democratic citizenship’ (2003: 1), while Hermet accuses governance of surreptitiously ‘offering an alternative to representative democracy’ (2004: 170). Indeed the emphasis, in usual definitions of governance, on the essentially vague notion of participation, combined with a conspicuous avoidance of the concept of democracy, suggests a regression of democracy (ibid. 2004: 159) in the name of participation. Thus both authors consider the political agenda of governance as actually threatening a major form of accountability, namely democratic control. In a context where decision-making is not ultimately the privilege of democratically elected representatives — who now have to cooperate with a number of other, non-public actors — governance implies a change in legitimacy principles, and tends to replace an input-based legitimacy (i.e., the democratic nature of the selection process of decision-makers) with an output-based one (i.e., the efficiency of decisions actually taken). In other words, governance implies a managerial, rather than a democratic type of legitimacy (Papadopoulos 2002: 149). But the concept of governance also refers to an empirical reality which nothing else can capture quite so effectively: the fact that increasingly, and particularly in cities, public action is fragmented; that the state is being contested as the main source of decision-making; and that collective affairs are managed through a series of interactions between public and private actors, each being subdivided into a number of categories. In other words, governance, as a concept, does not only promote a particular vision of how cities should be governed; it also describes how cities are governed today.

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The abundant academic literature available on urban governance offers many definitions, which points to the relatively indeterminate character of this concept. Considering a few of these writings will allow us to identify the main theoretical advantages afforded by the concept. First, urban governance implies a reconsideration of the position and role of the government in the management of urban affairs. According to Stoker: governance refers to a set of institutions and actors that are drawn from but also beyond government. [It] identifies the blurring of boundaries and responsibilities for tackling social and economic issues … [and it] recognizes the capacity to get things done which does not rest on the power of government to command or use its authority (1998: 18).

Second, urban governance posits the crucial importance of the economic dimension of cities; thus Sellers defines it as those ‘actions and institutions within an urban region that regulate or impose conditions for its political economy’ (2002: 9). Third, the notion of governance evokes modes of interaction characterised by their horizontality, in which the key words are negotiation, co-ordination, co-operation, networks, and partnerships.7 Thus Dubresson and Jaglin define it as ‘the sum of the coordination processes of organised, public, private, market and non-market actors, aiming at the implementation of collectively negotiated urban projects’ (2005: 338). The concept of urban governance is useful insofar as it is broader in scope than other concepts or theories aiming to make sense of the increasing fragmentation of the decision-making process in cities, such as ‘pluralism’ (Dahl 1961), ‘urban growth machines

7 An interesting attempt at characterising the many relationships that make up urban governance is that of Nick Devas, who distinguishes the following interactions between the twelve types of actors he identifies (the central government and its agencies, the municipal government, utility companies, formal and informal business, rich and poor households, informal and formal civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and traditional authorities): reporting, profit sharing, paying taxes, voting, negotiating, allegiance, liaising, selling services, providing services, stealing services, buying services, regulating, subsidising, taxation, co-ordinating, subcontracting, representing, employing, harassing, belonging, incorporating, supporting, and soliciting support (Devas 1999: 45).

The Concept of Governance: Indian Metropolises Ú 9

or coalitions’ (Logan and Molotch 1987)8 or ‘urban regimes’ (Stone 1989).9 While all three theories do emphasise the role of economic, in addition to political actors, as well as the fact that decision-making is the outcome of negotiation between competing interests, they also imply some stability and institutionalisation of coalitional arrangements. Urban governance, on the contrary, focuses on the dynamic dimension of decision-making processes; it insists on the polycentrism of decision-making; it acknowledges the importance of social movements; and it includes both formal and informal elements, the latter being composed either of the informal role of formal actors — through corruption practices, for instance — or of informal actors, such as non-elected slum-leaders (see Jha, Rao and Woolcock 2005). We chose to use, as a starting point of our investigations, the definition provided by the Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in 1996: Urban governance is the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action can be taken. It includes formal institutions as well as informal arrangements and the social capital of citizens.10

This definition is admittedly susceptible to a number of criticisms. First, its very source raises suspicions regarding the political objectives it serves: the Habitat II conference was organised jointly by the World Bank and the United Nations, and contributed significantly to the popularity of the concept of governance, since it launched a World Campaign for Urban Governance. Second, the definition 8

The literature on urban growth coalitions focuses on the means through which coalitions of political actors and private entrepreneurs build a city’s collective interest (Le Galès 1995: 80) 9 Clarence Stone defines a regime as ‘an informal yet relatively stable group with access to institutional resources that enable it to have a sustained role in making governing decisions’ (1989: 4). 10 ‘Urban Governance Index (UGI). A tool to measure progress in achieving good urban governance’, UN Habitat, Global Campaign on Urban Governance, www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/2232_80907_UGIndex. doc (accessed 7 April 2009).

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completely eschews the notion of power, which points to an irenic vision of social relations (Hust 2005). Third, it is all-encompassing to the point of being vague. Yet we found heuristic value in this definition, precisely because it is all-encompassing and does not rank the various elements of urban governance according to any pre-established hierarchy. We used it as a kind of ‘hypothesis zero’ in our research, insofar as it could be reformulated through a series of questions: who are those individuals and institutions, public and private, who actually plan and manage urban affairs? In what ways do they do so? Whose interests are accommodated, and under what conditions can co-operative action be taken? And more generally, in what ways are interactions between the many actors of urban governance patterned?

Research Methodology These questions appear particularly relevant in the current period — the 1990s and 2000s — when the Indian political economy has been transformed by the impact of two major institutional reforms: economic liberalisation, which opened up new policy spaces for the states (Kennedy 2004) and encouraged the expansion of the private sector; and politico-administrative decentralisation, which redefined the distribution of functions and resources between different levels of government, and promoted local self-government.11 Our starting hypothesis was that urban governance has been transformed by the implementation of these major reforms, and we focused our empirical research on the decade 1995–2005. The four cities that have been selected for this study represent different types. Delhi is one of its kind, both because it is the capital of India, and because it is a city-state (the National Capital Territory of Delhi has its own Legislative Assembly and government), marked by a unique political density. Mumbai and Kolkata, cradles of British colonisation and therefore home to old municipal corporations, are today witnessing a process of considerable restructuring of their economic activities. Their municipal corporations respectively embody the two ‘municipal regimes’ in force in Indian cities, i.e.,

11 For a critical analysis of urban reforms, see Mahadevia (2003) and Kundu (2003).

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the ‘Commissioner system’, characterised by the pre-eminence of the administration over elected representatives, in Mumbai (this is the most prevalent system in India), and the ‘Mayor in Council’ system, which reproduces at the municipal level the system of a parliamentary cabinet, in Kolkata. Hyderabad is a pre-colonial city but a new metropolis whose economic growth and administrative reforms (in addition to its political visibility) are closely linked with liberalisation. In each city, the geographical and institutional perimeter of our investigations was limited to the territory administered by the municipal corporation, excluding metropolitan regions or urban agglomerations. Indeed, a metropolitan government per se has hardly been operationalised in India — Kolkata being an exception with its metropolitan planning committee. For this reason we did not study the recently concluded process of the incorporation of surrounding municipalities into a ‘Greater Hyderabad’. In order to find answers to our broad research questions, we approached urban governance indirectly, through a series of case studies focusing on collective goods and services with regard to whose provision the role of the state has changed, or is changing. These sectoral studies concern physical infrastructure such as housing (through a focus on slum rehabilitation), water and sanitation; social services like primary education, primary level healthcare and the Public Distribution System; and one major urban service, namely solid waste management. This broad set of case studies highlights how the nature of goods and services determines possibilities of change in their respective delivery system. We hypothesised that the extent, modalities and implications of the shifting role of the state, and the redefinition of urban governance, would be most visible through a focus on the demand and supply of these goods and services. Urban governance has political, economic, social, and spatial dimensions — its observation thus requires multidisciplinarity. Our team, made up of economists, geographers, political scientists, sociologists, and urbanists defined a methodology that is essentially empirical, qualitative and comparative. Data collection took place, for the most part, between 2004 and 2006, in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. In each case we grounded our data collection in a number of electoral wards selected with a view to represent the diversity of the city in terms of its administrative status, socioeconomic profile and urban landscape.

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We used a series of qualitative methods: semi-directed interviews, focus group discussions, direct observation of events such as municipal or association meetings, and analysis of official documents (reports on the state of infrastructure, minutes of municipal meetings, description of participative schemes, etc.). Most studies tend to focus on the micro local level of interactions, which is too often ‘under the radar of studies whose analyses of the political dynamics of reform are based on narrower definitions of democratic politics or associational life’ (Fernandes 2007: xxii). Lastly, we integrated two types of comparisons: (i) sectors within a given city and (ii) sectors across cities. While the comparative pattern is not systematic, it is guided by the principle that at least three different sectors must be studied in each city, and that each sector must be studied in at least two different cities. Such comparisons proceed not through a uniform pattern of data collection applied in each sector and in each city, but through a confrontation of case studies oriented by a common set of questions, but distinct in the methods and focus they have employed. This approach, proceeding through a comparative analysis of a series of case studies, enriched our analytical framework by highlighting a series of factors that impact urban governance. And although it did not allow us to rank these factors in a systematic manner, it did promote findings transversal to the case studies and suggested future research avenues. How fruitful, then, did the notion of urban governance, and more particularly the definition offered by Habitat II, prove in analysing the management of local affairs in Indian metropolises? As mentioned earlier, we made use of the all-encompassing nature of that definition, refusing to rank a priori the many elements that compose urban governance. We proceeded, for each sector, through an inventory of actors and initiatives (such an inventory is necessary in a context where official data usually fail to give the whole picture),12 we attempted to trace their interactions with one another and to assess the nature of such interactions. This approach led us, first, to a basic observation: the management of urban affairs today is

12 For instance Mooij and Jalal (Chapter 6) observe that unrecognised schools, which are multiplying, are not mentioned at all in official data.

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characterised by the great number of actors involved.13 Second, this approach highlighted the importance of class (in the Weberian sense) in interactions between actors (for instance, between voters and elected councillors; between elected representatives and bureaucrats; between bureaucrats and neighbourhood associations; between users and providers of services, etc.). And third, considering both formal and informal elements of governance while attempting to distinguish between them revealed a number of power equations at play.

Book Overview The book is divided into two parts: Part A, ‘Themes and Issues in Governance’, consists of a series of chapters reflecting on specific dimensions of urban governance, on the basis of the empirical evidence provided in Part B, ‘Sectors, Programmes, Access, and Publicness in Urban Governance’, which presents our sector-wise case studies. In Part A, Chapter 2 presents the four cities under study: it identifies the key indicators and major variables of urban governance, and highlights contrasts between the four cities. A few consistent features that define political culture in each city are illustrated by subsequent chapters: one can mention, for instance, the strong role of political parties and their sister organisations (such as Nagarik Committees and trade unions) in Kolkata; the greater acceptability of private, corporate actors in Hyderabad; in Delhi, the multiplicity of public actors operating over the same territory, often with overlaps; and in Mumbai, a relatively balanced relationship between elected councillors and municipal bureaucrats. The following three chapters reflect on a few issues which seem, on the basis of our empirical investigations, to be critical in defining contemporary urban governance: (i) the different forms, objectives and justifications of participative processes; (ii) the impact of contemporary modes of governance on the access of different social groups to collective goods and services; and (iii) the intricate relationship between formal and informal elements of governance. 13

One major gap of this research is admittedly the role of the judiciary in urban governance. Courts have come to play an increasingly decisive role in the governance of the cities studied in the past two decades, most particularly in Delhi, and our project initially included a focus on judges and their decisions. Unfortunately we had to forsake this study due to the departure of a team member.

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Chapter 3 focuses on the ‘new patterns of participation shaping urban governance’. Loraine Kennedy first analyses the role of elected councils and civil society organisations (a category which she deconstructs) in contemporary urban governance. Considering the weak formal participation of elected representatives in urban affairs, the actual functioning of ward committees, and the weight of dependency patterns between the central, state and local governments, she argues that the implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) has not, by and large, led to a rupture in the Indian tradition of weak city government. She traces changes in urban governance to economic reforms instead, which have stimulated the emergence of new, ‘corporate’ NGOs and have contributed to the redefinition of relations between the various types of local actors. Indeed, she shows how reforms in the public service delivery systems have led to the emergence of new categories of local actors with whom councillors now have to interact. This chapter thus articulates the macro and micro, political and economic determinants of urban governance. Chapters 4 and 5 focus on the manifestation, in urban governance, of social dynamics, albeit through different lenses. In Chapter 4, Jos Mooij and I discuss the ambiguousness of the concept of middle class in the contemporary Indian context, and argue that the process of ‘middle-classisation’ that is currently taking place in Indian cities has a double face. The analysis of the voice and exit strategies at play in two domains — primary education and local democracy — leads the authors to observe an increased polarisation in terms of practices, combined with a convergence in terms of aspirations. The fact that ‘the middle classes are the vocal classes’ (Chapter 7), and that exit is possible in education but not so much in local democracy, has distinct consequences in the two domains: in education, a new type of institutional segregation is developing; while the exercise of voice in local democracy may lead to an improvement in the quality of local electoral politics, which would be beneficial to all. Chapter 5 focuses on the lower classes, and discusses the evolution of forms of mediation between poor city-dwellers and decisionmakers, through (i) a comparative study of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in Hyderabad and Mumbai; and (ii) an analysis of the implications for decentralisation of the Local Area Development Schemes (LADS) set up for Members of Parliament (MPs) and

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Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in Delhi. Both case studies show how clientelistic practices structure governance along vertical axes linking patrons and clients. Adopting a deliberately pragmatic perspective, Girish Kumar and Frédéric Landy examine the various brokers at work in the actual functioning of the PDS and of the MPLADS, and question their dual role as ‘gate openers’ and ‘gate keepers’. While the PDS study shows that clientelistic practices are an informal, and nevertheless essential, dimension of urban governance, the study of the functioning of the MPLADS shows how this scheme actually formalises clientelistic relationships between voters and their MPs/MLAs, promotes corruption and, in the process, defeats some of the major goals of decentralisation, such as the delegation of decision-making to locally elected representatives and decentralised planning. Finally, Kumar and Landy conclude that clientelistic practices, whether informal or formalised, ultimately disadvantage the poorest city-dwellers. In Part B, Chapters 6 to 10 present our comparative case studies, focusing on five sectors: education, healthcare, water and sanitation, slum rehabilitation, and solid waste management. These chapters offer a wealth of empirical details which both illustrate and nuance the discussions presented in the first part of the book. Each sector is taken as a case study of urban governance, with a comparison between two or three cities. In Chapter 6, Jos Mooij and Jennifer Jalal discuss some of the major changes that have taken place in primary education in the past 15 years: new actors have emerged (first generation learners and their parents, educational entrepreneurs, NGOs of various types); some existing actors have assumed other roles; and new partnerships have been set up. The authors first discuss the governance of the education sector and then situate their conclusions within the larger question of urban governance. The major role of private providers (both for profit and non-profit) calls for a new, regulatory role of the state; the entry of large numbers of so-called ‘first generation learners’ would require new forms of participatory governance to involve the parents of these children; and the increasing role of NGOs demands a policy framework to accommodate this involvement. Such changes in governance are, however, nowhere to be seen, according to the authors.

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Chapter 7 focuses on another social infrastructure, also marked by a strong privatisation process in the past decades: healthcare services. Examining the role of various institutional actors in changes in healthcare delivery, Kennedy et al. show how the respective political cultures of Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai have translated into different roles for the municipal corporations (which have been traditionally in charge of preventive healthcare) in the provision of health services, from a very limited one in Hyderabad to a major, albeit declining one, in Mumbai, Delhi being somewhere in between. The authors also underline the role of international organisations in ‘making public health services selective and target-oriented instead of integrated and comprehensive’. Chapters 6 and 7 converge on two important observations. On the one hand, the governance of the education and healthcare sectors, notwithstanding their large-scale privatisation, remains characterised by a strong trend of centralism: both case studies identify a democratic deficit, evident in the lack of voice of parents and of patients, but also the lack of participation of teachers and doctors in the decision-making process. On the other hand, while the state increasingly delegates these basic services to the private sector (be it corporate actors or NGOs), it has failed so far to accompany this shift by regulating the work of these new implementing agencies, especially concerning the definition of partnerships. Chapter 8 addresses another type of urban service: water and sanitation. Like preceding chapters, it observes a polarisation process underway in the use of this physical infrastructure, which in this case results not only from the increasing role of private actors in the sector, but also from the development of new technologies that allow decentralised management of the resource. Indeed, Ruet et al. emphasise the technical dimension of providing access to water and sanitation on the scale of a megacity, and argue that the degree of urban fragmentation is linked both to technical solutions and to governance situations. This chapter highlights the respective predominance of various actors in the three cities under study: Kolkata remains characterised by the pre-eminence of public actors, especially the municipal corporation; in Hyderabad, municipal councillors are part of the ‘logistic chain’ of water and sanitation delivery in the poorer areas of the city, but NGOs, CBOs and middle-class neighbourhood associations also play an important role in the delivery of these services; and the latter type of CSOs has come to

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prominence in Delhi, along with private entrepreneurs. This variety of situations leads the authors to argue that water is not a public good any more; rather it is becoming a club good.14 Chapter 9, dealing with slum rehabilitation, questions the notion of ‘participatory governance’ through a focus on two major actors in that field: municipal governments and CBOs. Taking political statements about the role of urban local bodies in poverty alleviation seriously, Archana Ghosh scrutinises the actual delegation of functions and the organisational set-up in charge of slum improvement and rehabilitation in the municipal corporations of Kolkata and Hyderabad, as well as their respective financial capability. That budget analysis leads her to observe that the ‘financial dependence of the two local governments on the state and central governments’, i.e., incomplete decentralisation, is a major hurdle in their ability to fulfil their role. Yet she also shows that elected representatives, far from being powerless, are in a position to undermine community structures when they consider them to be threatening. For instance, in Kolkata a rich network of politically-affiliated CBOs (such as Mohalla Commitees, sports clubs, etc.) makes community structures created in the framework of slum rehabilitation (or improvement) programmes redundant; while in Hyderabad, newly-elected councillors have actively resisted the functioning of such structures, lest they ‘jeopardise their authority as people’s representatives’. In both cases, the author observes competing mediation between councillors and ‘community development societies’, which ends up undermining the latter. She concludes that ‘there is a hierarchy of institutions in the decentralisation chain, and that each institution is wary of sharing its power and authority with those at the lower level’. Chapter 10 focuses on reforms in solid waste management — an essentially municipal service — and offers a case study of the functioning and impact of the much-touted public–private partnerships (PPPs). The chapter centres on the role of municipal corporations in Mumbai and Hyderabad, and describes how different types of PPPs are devised for the rich and poor areas of the city in both cases. Marie-Hélène Zérah proceeds with a critical assessment of the technological and social benefits of PPPs, as compared to earlier

14 Club goods are collective goods which are excludable (i.e., access to these goods can exclude some categories of people), unlike public goods.

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forms of public contracting. Observing that the role of municipal councillors, here again, is greater in poorer areas, where they are an essential element of political patronage, she shows that PPPs are not antithetical to ‘vertical governance’. Her case study confirms some of the conclusions of Chapters 8 and 9: while the notion of ‘community participation’ in solid waste management is simply fallacious in slums, where it is just another name for subcontracting the service to private actors, she shows that in better-off colonies it does involve neighbourhood associations in the decision-making process, and can actually stimulate collective action on other issues. Finally, in Chapter 11, Joël Ruet re-interprets some of the political and social evolutions of governance that have taken place, through an economic prism, with a discussion of the regularities observed in the four cities under study: change has been politically driven, and mostly top-down; the position of the administration in governance reforms has been ambiguous; actors have not only multiplied, they have also diversified their respective roles; and there has been a rise in expectations, expressed particularly through the ‘middle class’ voice. Ruet analyses the new modes of public–private engagement that are only partially captured through the notion of PPP, and takes further the discussion, initiated in the previous chapters, of the conversion of public goods into club goods, and the significance of such conversion for urban governance. This chapter, which identifies further research avenues, deals with the normative idea of regulation and links our analysis of urban governance to the larger question of the political economy of Indian cities. As shown by this overview, a few common themes run through the various chapters of the book. The first one could be summed up as a limited renewal of policy mediation in Indian cities, proceeding from three phenomena. The first one is the implementation of the 74th CAA, which gives a new, constitutional status to urban local bodies and to the elected representatives who compose their deliberative wing — but our investigations suggest that councillors are effective as mediators mostly in the poorer areas of each city. The second phenomenon is the newly acquired legitimacy of the private sector, and more particularly of corporate actors, in the management of urban affairs — promoted through the omnipresent reference, in political discourses, to public–private partnerships. However, closer scrutiny reveals that these partnerships are not necessarily different from the older types of subcontracting. The third

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phenomenon is related to social dynamics, and particularly to the increasing assertion of the middle classes, who are getting mobilised around local issues through neighbourhood associations. Corporate actors and neighbourhood associations, both new voices in urban governance, appear particularly capable of making themselves heard and contribute, directly or indirectly, to marginalising the role of elected representatives — a role already limited by an institutional architecture which, in three out of four cities, gives pride of place to bureaucrats. Yet political parties remain major players, not only in Kolkata, where they tend to occupy the whole public space, but also in the other cities: for instance the PDS study shows that all brokers in Mumbai and Hyderabad have a political affiliation, which appears to be an essential resource. In short, policy mediation is diverse, contested and increasingly structured along class lines. The second, related theme is the increasing differentiation of the delivery systems of collective goods and services. On the one hand, differentiation results from the combination of private provision (itself very diverse in nature and quality) and the increasing recourse to targeting in public provision (of PDS, solid waste management, primary healthcare, etc.). Thus, case studies focusing on primary education, healthcare and PDS converge on the observation that the public provision of these services is increasingly reserved de facto for the urban poor. This differentiation in the ‘supply’ of collective services is reinforced by a differentiation in their ‘demand’, defined here as ‘voices’ that have emerged during recent urban conflicts and belong to the middle classes. But the now-major role of private actors in providing basic services like education or healthcare has much reduced the stake of the middle classes in the public provision of these services, and therefore the incentive for them to exert their voice. As a result, collective mobilisation is nowhere to be seen concerning these services, even while clientelism is quite conspicuous. This fact is also linked to the lack of empowerment of municipal councillors, resulting in an individual type of mediation that promotes patronage. In this process, some basic urban services cease to qualify as public goods. Indeed, Ruet et al. and Zérah converge on the observation that contemporary urban governance tends to convert formerly public goods and services such as water, sanitation and solid waste management, into club goods. The increasing role played by private actors (whether corporate actors or CSOs) in service delivery ends

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up defining communities of users largely defined by their paying capacity, which undermines financial solidarity and reinforces social disparities.15 This shift calls for the state to redefine its role; but such a ‘reinvention of itself’ (Kennedy, Chapter 3) at best remains incomplete. Considering that contemporary urban governance is characterised by the multiplication of actors involved in the management of urban affairs, most studies insist on the need for co-ordination, arbitration and regulation — a role that the state seems currently unable to fulfil. Moreover, our investigations highlight a series of contradictions inherent in the state’s interventions in urban governance. There are important contradictions in the sphere of policy-making, the MPLADS being a case in point of policymakers undermining one piece of legislation with another. There are also oppositions between different public actors — one major example being the states’ resistance to a full implementation of the decentralisation policy. Of special concern is the contradictory role of the state vis-à-vis civil society participation, which it seems both to ‘enable’ and to stifle (Kennedy, Chapter 3). Thus, the delegation of programme implementation to NGOs and CBOs, the multiplication of participatory schemes, the definition of new ‘invited spaces’ (Cornwall 2002) for corporate NGOs and middle class neighbourhood associations, contrast with the restrictive interpretation of ward committees or the deliberate undermining of ‘community development societies’ by councillors. The latter example is but one among a series of competitions that seem to structure the complex web of interactions that make up urban governance: the competition between executive and deliberative wings of urban local bodies, in all cities but Kolkata, where the ‘Mayor in Council’ system empowers councillors in a unique way; the competition, in middle class areas, between elected local representatives and neighbourhood associations (again except in Kolkata, where the latter are hardly present); or the competition between traditional and corporate NGOs.

15 This fact does not, however, mean that service delivery is less efficient than before. For an analysis of the social and economic consequences of this ‘double movement of recognition of heterogeneous publics and of differentiation of supply’, see Jaglin (2005: 281).

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This broad overview confirms the heuristic value of the concept of governance in its descriptive dimension: its all-encompassing nature does not, admittedly, reduce the complexity characterising the management of urban affairs; but it allows a somewhat patterned apprehension of that complexity. Indeed, our research offers a vision of contemporary urban governance in India as structured along class lines; as defined by a series of conflicts between various actors; and as organised according to vertical as well as horizontal relationship networks. In other words, governance is very much about politics, insofar as politics is about power equations, conflict resolution and the distribution of resources. Finally, if governance as a political project ‘is a code for less government’ (Stoker 1998: 18), then governance as an empirical reality highlights the need for more government.

References Census of India 1991. 1999. Mega Cities of India: Population Growth, Dispersal, and Characteristics. New Delhi: Registrar General, Government of India. Chandhoke, N. 2003. Governance and the Pluralisation of the State: Implications for Democratic Citizenship. Economic and Political Weekly 38(28): 2957–68. Chaudhuri, S. 1990. Calcutta: The Living City, Vol. II: The Present and Future. Calcutta: Oxford University Press. Cornwall, A. 2002. Locating Citizen Participation. Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Bulletin 33(2): 49–58. Dahl, R. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Devas, N. 1999. Who Runs Cities? The Relationship between Urban Governance, Service Delivery and Poverty. Urban Governance, Partnership and Poverty, Theme Paper 4, University of Birmingham. Dubresson, A. and S. Jaglin. 2005. Gouvernance, régulation et territorialisation des espaces urbanisés: approches et méthode, in Antheaume Benoît and Frederic Giraut (eds), Le territoire est mort: vive les territoires!: une refabrication au nom du développement. Paris: Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD). Dupont, V., E. Tarlo and D. Vidal, eds. 2000. Delhi. Urban Space and Human Destinies. Delhi: Manohar. Fernandes, L. 2007. India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Gaudin, J.P. 2002. Pourquoi la gouvernance? Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.

22 Ú TAWA LAMA-REWAL Gupta, D. 1982. Nativism in a Metropolis. Delhi: Manohar. Hansen, T.B. 2001. Urban Violence in India: Identity Politics, ‘Mumbai’ and the Postcolonial City. Delhi: Permanent Black. Harriss, J., K. Stokke and O. Törnquist. 2004. Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hermet, G. 2004. Un régime à pluralisme limité? A propos de la gouvernance démocratique, Revue Française de Science Politique 54(1): 159–78. Hust, E. 2005. Introduction, in Evelin Hust and Michael Mann (eds), Urbanization and Governance in India. Delhi: Manohar-CSH-SAI. Hust, E. and M. Mann, eds. 2005. Urbanization and Governance in India. Delhi: Manohar-CSH-SAI. India Infrastructure Report 2006: Urban Infrastructure. New Delhi: Oxford University Press and 3iNetwork. Jaglin, S. 2005. La participation au service du néolibéralisme? Les usagers dans les services d’eau en Afrique subsaharienne, in M.H. Bacqué, H. Rey and Y. Sintomer (eds), Gestion de proximité et démocratie participative. Une perspective comparative. Paris: La Découverte. Jayal, N.G. 1997. The Governance Agenda. Making Democratic Development Dispensable. Economic and Political Weekly 32(8): 407–12. ———. 2007. Review Essay: On Governance. Current Sociology 55(1): 126–35. Jha, S., V. Rao and M. Woolcock. 2005. Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Leadership in Delhi’s Slums. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3694. Kaviraj, S. and M.F. Katzenstein. 1981. Equality and Ethnicity — Shiv Sena Party and Preferential Policies in Bombay. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kazancigil, A. 2002. La gouvernance: itinéraires d’un concept, in J. Santiso (ed.), A la recherche de la démocratie. Mélanges offerts à Guy Hermet. Paris: Karthala. Kennedy, L. 2004. The Political Determinants of Reform Packaging: Contrasting Responses to Economic Liberalization in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, in R. Jenkins (ed.), Regional Reflections: Comparing Politics Across India’s States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kundu, A. 2003. Urbanisation and Urban Governance: Search for a Perspective beyond Neo-liberalism. Economic and Political Weekly 38(29): 3079–87. Kundu, A. and S. Gupta. 1996. Migration, Urbanisation and Regional Inequality, Economic and Political Weekly 31(52): 3391–98. Le Galès, P. 1995. Du gouvernement des villes à la gouvernance urbaine. Revue Française de Science Politique 45(1): 57–95. Logan, J. and H. Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mahadevia, D. 2003. Globalisation, Urban Reforms and Metropolitan Response. Delhi: Manak Publications.

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Mooij, J. 2006. From Government to Governance: The Case of Primary Education in Urban India. Paper presented at the 19th EASAS Conference, Leiden. Naidu, R. 1990. Old Cities, New Predicaments: A Study of Hyderabad. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Oldenburg, P. 1976. Big City Government in India: Councillor, Administrator and Citizen in Delhi. Delhi: Manohar. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 1993. DAC Orientations on Participatory Development and Good Governance. Paris: OECD. Papadopoulos, Y. 2002. Démocratie, gouvernance et « management de l’interdépendance » : des rapports complexes, in J. Santiso (ed.), A la recherche de la démocratie. Mélanges offerts à Guy Hermet. Paris: Karthala Patel, S. and A. Thorner, eds. 1995a. Bombay: Mosaic of Modern Culture. Bombay: Oxford University Press. ———. 1995b. Bombay: Metaphor for Modern India. Bombay: Oxford University Press. Pinto, Marina R. 2000. Metropolitan City Governance in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Rosenthal, D.B., ed. 1976. The City in Indian Politics. Faridabad: Thomson Press. Sassen, S. 2001. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sellers, J.M. 2002. Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sivaramakrishnan, K.C., A. Kundu and B.N. Singh. 2005. Handbook of Urbanisation in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Stoker, G. 1998. Governance as Theory: Five Propositions. International Social Sciences Journal 55: 17–28. Stone, C. 1989. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. UNDP. 1997. Governance for Sustainable Human Development. A UNDP Policy Document, http://www.pogar.org/publications/other/undp/ governance/undppolicydoc97-e.pdf (accessed 7 April 2009). United Nations (UN). 2005. World Urbanisation Prospects: The 2005 Revision. Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Welfare of the United Nations Secretariat, United Nations, Population Division, http://esa.un.org/unup (accessed 7 April 2009). UN Habitat. ‘Urban Governance Index (UGI). A tool to measure progress in achieving good urban governance’, Global Campaign on Urban Governance, www.unhabitat.org/downloads/docs/2232_80907_ UGIndex.doc (accessed 7 April 2009). World Bank. 1989. Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth. A Long-term Perspective Study. Washington: World Bank. ———. 1992. Governance and Development. Washington: World Bank.

Chapter 2 A Comparative Overview of Urban Governance in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai Archana Ghosh, Loraine Kennedy, Joël Ruet, Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, and Marie-Hélène Zérah

This chapter describes the key features of governance in the four

cities through an overview of the relevant institutions, reforms and actors. We take as a starting point of our research the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act 1992 (CAA), which defines a new framework of administrative and political decentralisation in the urban context. Since local government is a state subject in the Indian federal system, the states were required to adopt conformity legislations so that the 74th CAA could be implemented. The states have thus played a major role in the decentralisation process from its very inception, and this chapter will repeatedly underline the importance and implications of that role. Yet we will also argue that decentralisation has coincided with and has been related to changes in civil society and society at large, as well as in the economy, and that the increasing number of different types of actors has made a state-centric vision practically obsolete. In terms of the period considered, we shall take as our reference point the first election held in each city under the 74th CAA, i.e., 1995 in Kolkata, 1997 in Delhi and Mumbai, and 2002 in Hyderabad. Hence, we will be broadly looking at the period between 1995 and 2005, even though the larger context of the post-Independence history of each city will bear on our observations. We will first draw a preliminary sketch of each city by evoking its economic profile, regional politics and reform dynamics (Section 1) and then paint a general picture of metropolitan institutions (Section 2). Looking into the major reforms of municipal government (with a dual focus on their administrative and political dimensions), we will contrast their respective achievements in terms of democratic

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decentralisation (Section 3). As changes in urban governance have gone beyond the prescriptions of the 74th CAA, we will then describe other major reforms that have taken place in each city, and identify new actors who have come to play a prominent role in the process through their formal and informal relationships with each other. Here we will consider (i) actors pertaining to the state at different levels (be it the Centre, the regional state and its agencies, or municipal authorities); (ii) civil society actors (NGOs, neighbourhood associations, community-based organisations and networks); and (iii) industry and the corporate sector (Section 4). We will conclude with a focus on key private actors as well as the multilateral actors involved in what we consider are the major changes in urban governance in metropolitan India (Section 5).

1. A Sketch of the Four Cities All four cities are state capitals. They have played a major role in the political and economic history of India, they have been seats of power, centres of modernisation, and cultural melting pots. Their respective histories and identities have been studied and celebrated in a number of recent publications, of which we can here mention only a few: on Delhi, Frykenberg (1986), Dupont, Tarlo and Vidal (2000), Sengupta (2007); on Kolkata, Racine (1986), Chaudhury (1990), Sanyal and Tiwari (1990); on Mumbai, Patel and Thorner (1995), Hansen (2001), Patel and Masselos (2003); and on Hyderabad, Naidu (1990), Baru (2007) and Kennedy (2007).

Delhi Delhi has been the capital city of several empires in medieval and modern India, and this long history can still be read today in the urban landscape of this sprawling city: Old Delhi, in the north, was the city built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1649 and is today a vibrant trade centre; New Delhi, in between Old Delhi and South Delhi, is the garden-city built by the government of British India when it transferred its capital from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911; today this is a high-security area occupied by the central government, political parties, high-level bureaucrats and diplomatic enclaves. South Delhi developed after Partition, which brought huge numbers of migrants from Punjab, and is today a middle-class residential and commercial area. Lastly the Trans-Yamuna area, to the east of

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the city, was developed in the 1990s, first to relocate evicted slum dwellers, and more recently to provide a new residential area for the middle classes. Delhi is a wealthy city, whose economy has been dominated by administrative activities but also, more recently, by the service sector. It attracts a large migrant population in search of employment, which forms the bulk of the unorganised sector (comprising 81 per cent of the city’s workforce in 2000) and contributes to putting pressure on existing infrastructure. Incidentally, 45 per cent of Delhi’s population lives in slums.1 Statutorily, Delhi is distinct from the rest of urban India as it is the seat of the Central government, which plays a significant role in the management of the city’s affairs. Thus, three levels of government participate in Delhi’s governance: the central government, but also the government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD), i.e., a quasi-state endowed with its own Assembly and Council of Ministers, and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) (the borders of the NCTD and of the MCD are largely coterminous). One must also mention that the city includes two other urban local bodies, namely the New Delhi Municipal Council and the Delhi Cantonment Board, in charge of small territories and specific constituencies (the central government and the diplomatic enclave in the former case, Army personnel in the latter case). Thus, while a multiplicity of agencies — often with overlapping jurisdictions — operating in the same territory is a feature shared by most metropolitan cities, it is particularly acute in Delhi. Party politics in the capital city has been dominated since Independence by two parties: the Congress (I) and the Jana Sangh–BJP. One must note here that until 2007 (when municipal and assembly constituencies were delimited once again), the municipal and state levels of government were geographically closer to each other than elsewhere in India, since there were only two councillors for one member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in Delhi, as opposed to six to eight in other megacities. As a result, a strong sense of competition was perceptible between MLAs and councillors, as virtually every councillor could expect to become an MLA. This might explain why urban governance does not seem to have benefited from the fact that occasionally, the three levels of government operating on the 1

All data from Government of Delhi (2006).

A Comparative Overview Ú 27

city territory, i.e., the central government, the gov-ernment of the NCTD and the MCD, have been dominated by the same party (i.e., the BJP in 1997–98, and the Congress between 2004 and 2007); even then political competition remained strong. The major changes that have occurred in the governance of Delhi since the early 1990s are strongly associated with Sheila Dikshit, who became chief minister of the Congress cabinet in 1998, and was re-elected in 2003 after a campaign highlighting her achievements with regard to ‘good governance’. This strong association between a particular political leader and governance reforms is a feature common to both Delhi and Hyderabad.

Hyderabad This provincial city, which was the capital of an autonomous kingdom until 1948, has recently undergone a remarkable change and is keeping pace with national development. Indeed, Hyderabad has been at the forefront of the municipal reforms introduced in the country in the 1990s, drawing state-wide and even national attention to the achievements of Chandrababu Naidu, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader who initiated these changes. During the TDP government’s tenure in office (under Naidu, from 1995–2004), the state’s economic policies had a direct impact on Hyderabad city. The state capital served as a showcase for its pet projects. For instance, one of the central components of the growth strategy consisted of promoting hi-tech sectors and Hyderabad was chosen to be the primary hub, notably in the field of information technologies (IT), in open competition with Bangalore. To make Hyderabad a ‘world class’ city, enormous investments were made in both conventional and specialised infrastructure (roads, water supply and drainage, electricity, telecommunications, educational and training institutes, state-of-the-art industrial estates, an international airport project and computerisation of certain government agencies). As far as municipal politics is concerned, it has been consistently dominated by a local party, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), which obtained a majority in the municipal council in the 2002 elections, with 37 or more than one-third of the total number of seats. The MIM was followed in strength by the TDP and the INC, with 21 seats each, and the BJP with 15 seats. There were two broad alliances, MIM–INC and TDP–BJP. MIM, the single largest party, tends to draw its strength from the ‘Old City’ lying on

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either side of the River Musi where its largest support base, the Muslim population, is concentrated. In the ‘New City’, corresponding roughly to the northernmost part of the city territory (to the east and west of Hussain Sagar lake), votes are fairly evenly distributed between the Congress, TDP and the BJP. As regards larger governance issues, it is significant to note that the MIM has only a marginal presence in state-level politics, making Hyderabad the centre of all its political activity.

Mumbai Mumbai, the prima urbs of India, which rose to an economically dominant position during the colonial period, is the most vibrant and cosmopolitan city in India and has played a significant role in social reforms since Independence. But the city has repeatedly been on the verge of an Infrastructural crisis. The beginning of our period of study is marked by the horrendous riots of 1992–93 (and the March 1993 bomb blasts) that left deep scars on Bombay’s social fabric, and it ends with the floods of 26 July 2005, which blatantly exposed the deficiencies in its basic infrastructure and governance. Between these two landmark dates, Bombay became Mumbai (in 1995), a symbol of the Shiv Sena’s strength in the city’s politics during the 1990s. The city has expanded well beyond its municipal limits and is now part of a huge metropolitan region. The process of deindustrialisation that started in the 1980s with the closure of the textile mills and the contemporaneous rise in real estate prices have reshaped the socio-economics of the city, reduced the share of formal employment and led to a process of gentrification. Mumbai is today the best candidate among India’s major cities to claim the status of a ‘global city-region’ (Scott 2001). Greater Mumbai contributes 40 per cent of Maharashtra’s GDP and 4 per cent of the national GDP, but the city is plagued by infrastructure bottlenecks (notably, public transport and roads) and deficiencies (particularly storm-water drainage and sewerage) as well as acute landholding inequities and a colossal demand–supply gap in housing that forces 54 per cent of the population to live in slums (Census of India 2001).2

2

The highest figure among the larger Indian cities despite its high per capita income (54 per cent of the population lives on 8 per cent of the land).

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The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which administers the peninsular territory, is socially divided between the betteroff ‘city’ and western suburbs, on the one hand, and the working-class eastern and north-western suburbs, on the other (on these dynamics, see Patel and Masselos 2003). The political scene is extremely competitive with the Congress (I), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Shiv Sena competing for supremacy largely around agendas of economic modernisation in the case of the first two and of positive discrimination (in the form of a ‘nationalistic’ preference for Marathis in an otherwise ‘cosmopolitan’ city) in the case of the latter. Political equilibriums are further complicated by the dynamics of coalitions at the state level: the Shiv Sena–BJP coalition dominated state government from 1995 to 1999, and the BMC from 1997 to 2007; from 1999 to 2007, the state government has been governed by the Congress–NCP coalition. In this administratively fragmented and politically competitive context, the vision for a renewal of urban governance first originated from large corporate houses, only to be endorsed later by the Maharashtra government and municipal authorities.

Kolkata After the Partition in 1947, the city of Calcutta underwent rapid transformation from a former colonial capital to a city sheltering scores of migrants from the other part of Bengal, and this became the prime concern of urban governance during the 1950s and 1960s. From the early development of the city on the left bank of the Hooghly river, both the city and the metropolitan area have expanded considerably. Northern Kolkata, earlier a mixed area of palaces and bazars, is now mostly a popular and blue collar area; the central part of the city (the Park Street area), once the seat of the bourgeoisie, has known relative decline until it picked up again after the mid-2000s. The southern part of the city has the richest neighbourhoods (Ballygunge, Tollygunge and Lake Place, for instance) while the city spreads towards the east and south-east with socially mixed and dynamic areas. The most vibrant upcoming enterprises are located there so as to benefit from the proximity of the airport. On the east–north-east are located some of the pet projects of the planning administration, such as Salt Lake City. On the right bank of the river is Kolkata’s twin city, Howrah, from where millions of workers commute daily,

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and which hosts a number of small-scale industries still vital to the economy of the agglomeration. In terms of economic policy, the leadership of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, who took over as Chief Minister of West Bengal in 2004, has been marked by the launch of an industrial development oriented growth strategy that started modifying the governance of the Kolkata agglomeration in a context of national competition. However, in Kolkata, public–private partnerships (PPPs) are mostly limited to some outsourcing of administrative work and to a limited volume of co-contracting in real estate schemes (like the ‘New Kolkata’ Scheme, for instance). There is no attempt to privatise or to enter into formal contractual relationships for the operation of physical infrastructure projects (unlike in Delhi or Hyderabad). The government focuses instead on attracting industrial investment and on industrial policy per se, whose implications in terms of urban governance are not yet very clear. In a context where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]) has been in power in the state continuously since 1967 and almost always in control of the KMC (except between 2000 and 2005), urban governance has not only been state-centric, it has also functioned mostly within the party’s channels. The single strongest challenge to the Left Front coalition, organised around the CPI(M), was posed by an offshoot of the Congress created in 1997, the Trinamool Congress (TC), which has waged a constant war against the Left Front government. As pointed out by Ruet et al. (Chapter 8): in their zealousness to prove their relative efficiency in governance, the CPI(M) and the TC have often ended up sharpening confrontationist strategies rather than bringing about improvements in providing urban services. [...] While the CPI(M) is eager to enhance its urban middle and upper middle class base, the TC has attempted to emulate the CPI(M) style of functioning to ensure a large and committed following among the marginalised sections of society.

The model of a development-oriented state has persisted in Kolkata much longer than in other cities. If that model is changing today, Kolkata remains the city where the state government’s influence is the strongest. This brief overview highlights contrasts in the timing of reforms, and in the type of actors who have been initiating them. In Hyderabad,

A Comparative Overview Ú 31

as in Delhi, urban governance reforms were launched in the mid1990s by chief ministers who built much of their political image on their endorsement of the World Bank inspired ideal of good governance. In Kolkata, changes were more limited, came later, and were much less associated to a single leader, even though here again the state government provided the major impulse. In Mumbai on the contrary, the key developments were initiated by the business community, especially the large industrial houses — we will come back to this point in Section 4.

2. An Institutionally Fragmented Metropolitan Setup Institutional fragmentation is a pattern common to all four cities. Power in federal India has long revolved around a balance between the ‘commanding heights’ at the centre and in the states, rarely percolating down to the municipal level (see Kumar 2006). Urban local bodies (ULBs) have been sidelined by other metropolitan agencies, such as Metropolitan Development Authorities, often vested with powers related to planning and land use, which have been used by state governments to control urban development and interfere in municipal affairs, just like parastatal agencies in charge of transport, water, etc. As a result, the relationship between the city and the state government is dominated by the latter, which compromises political accountability and does not provide the conditions for economic co-ordination. This distinctive institutional context, in which the 74th CAA has been implemented, explains many of the observed failures of the decentralisation policy. The biased relationship between cities and state governments is particularly evident in the budgets allocated to their respective institutions: in financial terms, Indian ULBs are extremely small players, compelled to rely on the state government for grants-inaid and loans, central government schemes and in some cases funds routed from international organisations (Sreedevi 2005; Pethe 2006; Das Gupta 2007; Srivastav 2007). The fact that many sectors are managed by parastatal agencies and not by ULBs implies a loss of revenue for the latter. Existing studies (Mathur 2006) demonstrate that neither the centre nor the states wish to empower ULBs financially. Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata have implemented property tax reforms to improve municipal finances in the past decade, and the establishment and effective functioning

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of State Finance Commissions, as provided for in the 74th CAA and further called for by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM),3 may contribute to financial transfers more in tune with the important functions attributed to ULBs by the 74th CAA. However, the actual impact of these initiatives remains uncertain at the time of writing. Within this general picture, the four cities under study illustrate various degrees of institutional weakness, and we will here simply highlight their respective specificities in that regard. Hyderabad’s pre-eminent metropolitan parastatal body is the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sanitation Board (HMWSSB). It has been an ideal candidate for implementing the recipes recommended by the World Bank since the 1980s and is today a major tool for ‘integrating’ the municipalities in Hyderabad’s surrounding areas (see Chapter 8). Even though it seems unlikely — at least for the next decade — that the HMWSSB will be able to achieve its goal of becoming an overall managerial body capable of satisfying public demand by providing universal and homogeneous water supply to the city and its surroundings, it has been until now a key organisation for keeping this crucial public service in the hands of the state government. In Delhi, the intervention of parastatals at both the state and the central levels results in a series of institutional anomalies. Delhi’s municipality has the smallest portfolio, given that electricity is managed by the Delhi Vidyut Board (privatised in 2002), mass transit by the Delhi Transport Corporation and water by the Delhi Jal Board. Here, unlike in other states, the NCTD has no control over land acquisition and development, both managed by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA), a parastatal set up in 1957 to formulate a Master Plan for the city, which is accountable only to the Central Ministry of Urban Development. Moreover, the NCTD government has no control over the police and maintenance of law and order, which come under purview of the Central Ministry of Home Affairs.

3 The JNNURM is a central government scheme launched in 2005 ‘to encourage reforms and fast track planned development of identified cities [with a focus on] efficiency in urban infrastructure and service delivery mechanisms, community participation, and accountability of ULBs/ parastatal agencies towards citizens’ (Government of India, n.d.: 6).

A Comparative Overview Ú 33

By contrast, in Mumbai, the BMC is the main actor in the urban government framework, even if there is strong institutional fragmentation here too. The BMC is actually the largest municipal corporation in India, both in terms of its budget and its functional responsibilities. The BMC is in charge of public transport, health, education, water supply and sewerage, slum improvement as well as electricity distribution in the island city, a function not included in the 12th Schedule of the 74th Constitutional Amendment. Of all the eighteen functions mentioned in the 12th Schedule, only two, i.e., urban planning (including town planning) and regulation of land use and construction of buildings, are not in the hands of the BMC but are shared with a number of agencies. The most important one is the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA), an apex body of the state government whose responsibility is the planning and coordination of development activities for the metropolitan region (which include other urban local bodies and among them two municipal corporations with a population above 1 million — Thane and Kalyan). The MMRDA also implements large infrastructure projects, funded either by national megacity schemes (water supply for instance) or international agencies. In reality, the MMRDA has been granted wide powers to carry out infrastructure projects in Mumbai and this is in conflict with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). Other parastatal agencies are also actors in this complex framework such as Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Agency (MHADA) and Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC), which has built a large number of flyovers recently and is in charge of developing new transport links. Finally, Kolkata stands out insofar as the metropolitan area and the municipal area (under the main municipality) are not coterminous, as is largely the case in other cities. In 2001, the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) accounted for 47 per cent of the total urban population of West Bengal, but the population of the municipal area represented only one-third of the population of the entire metropolitan area. The setting up of an Urban Development Strategy Committee was — perhaps for the reason stated above — a pioneering initiative launched by West Bengal in the late 1970s, much before other states started giving serious thought to the issue of planned urbanisation. It was aimed at reducing the difference in per capita investment in favour of the ULBs in the non-KMA areas. The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) was established in 1970 as a

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statutory planning and development authority for the area under KMA. Over time, the KMDA became a giant institution for planning, managing and constructing major infrastructure projects and the role of municipal bodies was simply restricted to executing the projects formulated and designed by it. In keeping with the pioneering role of West Bengal concerning the implementation of the 74th CAA, the Kolkata Metropolitan Planning Committee (KMPC) was in 2001 (and remains in 2008) the first in the country. Unlike other metropolitan agencies, the KMPC is a political body: two-thirds of its 60 members are elected from amongst the councillors of 40 municipalities and the chairpersons of 133 Gram Panchayats, Panchayat Samitis and Zilla Parishads included in the KMA. The remaining 20 members are nominated from the central government, state government, and other organisations related to planning and development. The KMDA is the Secretariat of the KMPC. The pre-eminent role of the KMPC, combined with the municipal fragmentation of the Metropolitan area, makes it possible for parastatals to play a major role even in the city with the most empowered municipal structure in the country (see below). Finally, two emerging trends deserve special mention. One, the geographical and demographic expansion of urban peripheries are giving rise to a new balance at the metropolitan level, one that will reduce the political dominance of city centres. Two, private and corporate sector involvement in urban affairs are contributing to the diversification of actors on the urban scene, and bringing in new types of governance relationships.

3. Decentralisation and Democratisation Decentralisation is not necessarily synonymous with democratisation, but debates on the 74th CAA clearly show that the two projects are closely interrelated in the Indian context. While the new avenues of participation opened by the implementation of the 74th CAA (especially the provisions concerning quotas for women, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and the creation of ward committees) and other reforms will be treated in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 4, we will briefly describe the two municipal models in force in the cities, and then evoke, for each city, the various contributions and obstacles to democratic decentralisation — including the involvement of civil society in the management of urban affairs.

A Comparative Overview Ú 35

The dominant municipal model in India is known as the ‘Commissioner system’, also called the ‘Bombay system’. The distribution of responsibilities between the executive (the Municipal Commissioner) and the deliberative body (the Corporation and the Standing Committee), as established by the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act of 1888, gives extensive powers to the Municipal Commissioner. Even though all budget decisions have to be approved by the Standing Committee, the Commissioner takes most of the initiatives related to policy-making and awarding of contracts. In Mumbai, the Commissioner Model has led to conflicts between the two arms of the Corporation (Thakkar 1995), which suggests the vitality of local politics as compared to other cities (especially Hyderabad). For instance, departing from the centralising effect of this model, the Government of Maharashtra introduced quotas for women as early as 1990 and their share of seats in the Corporation has now increased to almost 40 per cent, which certainly shows that democratisation is in progress. On the other hand, the establishment of Ward Committees was delayed till 2000,4 when a decision was taken to create 16 such wards (as against the existing 24 administrative wards). Civil society, represented by three NGOs selected by the corporators,5 plays an active part in the Ward Committees. But its inclusion was a result of the sustained efforts of the city’s NGOs (Navtej 2005). It may be useful to mention in this context a particularly influential NGO, AGNI (Action for Good Governance and Networking in India), a network of active citizens who try to persuade the middle classes to vote and to promote more concerned and honest candidates for public office.6 AGNI is represented in every administrative ward and has a direct relationship with the local administration. Another organisation, Lok Satta (which started its activities in Hyderabad), is making its mark on the city’s civic activism scene. In Mumbai, it strives for the strengthening of local democracy, the creation of a 4

Although the decision to set up Ward Committees was taken earlier. Therefore, a local political leader decided to go to court to ensure implementation. 5 The locally-elected representatives are called ‘corporators’ in Mumbai and Hyderabad, and ‘councillors’ in the other two cities. 6 Many of the Advanced Local Management bodies are offshoots of AGNI.

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Metropolitan Planning Committee and empowerment of the city’s mayor.7 Kolkata has a wholly different municipal regime. The Calcutta Municipal Corporation Act 1980 (which came into effect in January 1984) was the first statute in the country to introduce in the municipal corporation a cabinet type of political executive, directly responsible to the electorate under the Mayor-in-Council (MIC) model. Municipal authority is entrusted to three entities: the Corporation, the Mayor-in-Council and the Mayor. The Corporation is the highest body consisting of elected councillors representing the 141 wards while the Mayor-in-Council consists of the Mayor, the Deputy Mayor and not more than ten other elected members of the Corporation. The Mayor, who is elected by the councillors, nominates members from among the elected members of the Corporation; each member of the Mayor-in-Council is allotted one or more portfolios. Executive power is exercised by the Mayor-inCouncil. The MIC system is a major deviation from the Mumbai model of metropolitan government as it confers power on the elected political representatives rather than the Commissioner who is a stateappointed bureaucrat. However, even though the Commissioner, known as Chief Executive Officer in the MIC model, is theoretically subservient to the MIC, in practice s/he wields enough power and authority to guide the city’s administration and the political leadership. This system has been successful in Kolkata due to one important factor: barring a brief period extending from 2000 to 2005, the same political coalition (Left Front) has been at the helm of the KMC as well as the state government since the inception of the system in 1984. What is likely to happen when two opposing parties are in power in the two establishments can be gauged from the five-year period when the Trinamool Congress was in charge of the Corporation but sat in the opposition in the state legislature. There were major differences between the Mayor and the government on several issues and the state government’s co-operation was conspicuous by its absence in many cases. 7 Lok Satta has a powerful lobby based on a very professional organisation in Mumbai. These ideas have been discussed even at the level of the Chief Minister. However, they also face a large number of opponents among the bureaucrats and CSOs.

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But beyond the MIC system, how democratic is Kolkata’s urban governance? Unlike in Delhi and Hyderabad, where the municipal corporation has been superseded by the state government until recently, in Kolkata municipal elections have been held at fiveyear intervals since 1985. Moreover, women have a stronger representation in the KMC than in other metropolitan cities, even though the proportion of reserved seats is the same everywhere (Ghosh and Tawa Lama-Rewal 2005). There is, theoretically speaking, a three-tier decentralised political management structure, consisting of Borough Committees in the second tier and Ward Committees in the third tier. Apart from 141 wards, the city under KMC is thus divided into 15 boroughs and each of them has a Borough Committee, comprising all the elected councillors from the municipal wards within the borough (on an average 8–10 councillors). As for the formation of Ward Committees, even though it has been implemented in the rest of West Bengal, this has not been done as yet in the area under KMC due to the reluctance of political parties in a context where the CPI(M) already has a network of local committees. Moreover, as observed by Chandra, ‘unlike in other states/regions where civil society is represented by an active group of NGOs/CBOs functioning without any direct political links, such a scenario is nearabsent in Kolkata. Instead, the CPI(M)’s and the TC’s mass organisations function as conduits propagating and reinforcing the message and “ideology” of the concerned party among the wider public’ (Chandra 2004: 24). This sense of limited participation is reinforced by the specific role played by NGOs, which have been involved in the formal areas of governance. Since the early 1990s, under the ODA-supported Calcutta Slum Improvement Project (CSIP), the involvement of NGOs in development projects in the fields of education, health and slum rehabilitation has increased considerably. Now there is a proliferation of NGOs eager to work for and with the KMC. However, a different kind of civil society activism has emerged in recent years, which is challenging the state’s or city government’s decisions in courts of law through public interest litigations, for instance against the violation of environmental norms and regulations, or to represent the poor and slum dwellers displaced in the name of development projects.

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Hyderabad is in this regard a picture in contrast. Here scores of NGOs are involved in development-related activities and in mobilising the people around social and political issues. Some of them focus on political reforms and governance, and have worked together at election time to organise forums where candidates from all parties can sit together and present their agendas. One such organisation is Lok Satta (People’s Power) whose goals include promoting good governance and fighting corruption and the criminalisation of politics in India; recently, it has even formed a political party. A second organisation is COVA (Confederation of Voluntary Associations), an important and well-known confederation of NGOs whose emphasis is on communal harmony and the empowerment of the marginalised and the poor. Recently, corporate NGOs have emerged on the scene, often working in tandem with more established organisations. However, as far as democratic decentralisation is concerned, the l995 law that brought about changes in the Municipal Corporations Act cannot be said to embody the spirit of the 74th CAA. It did not fundamentally modify the existing structure of the local government in Hyderabad based on the ‘Commissioner’ or ‘Bombay’ model. This model continues to prevail in both letter and in spirit. The Standing Committee and the Commissioner are the two main entities in the current framework and they represent respectively the legislative and executive branches of government. One modification of the 1995 Municipal Act provides for a directly elected mayor without really empowering the position. In January 2002, ward boundaries were redrawn and the reservation of seats notified, resulting in the formation of 100 wards which were regrouped into 10 Ward Committees. The councillors entered office the same year as municipal elections were held after a gap of more than 10 years. Incidentally, since the Council’s mandate expired in early 2005, elections have not been held, thereby continuing the city’s poor record for holding regular elections.8 Ward Committees, provided for in the 1995 Act, are supposed to meet once a fortnight. Each Ward Committee’s chairperson is elected from among the ten councillors for a period of one year. In addition to a Secretary (administrative officer), a nodal officer having the rank of an Additional Commissioner has been recently assigned 8

There was no elected body between 1973 and 1986 and again between 1991 and 2002.

A Comparative Overview Ú 39

to each Ward Committee to strengthen its framework. The Standing Committee consists of the chairpersons of the 10 Ward Committees, who elect from among themselves a chairperson to preside over the Standing Committee. The Standing Committee can sanction works up to a limit of Rs 500,000. For higher amounts, it must approach the Council’s General Body for its approval. Despite the existence of a Councillor’s Fund, councillors do not directly handle the details of infrastructure projects, which are approved and executed by municipal departments. Further, the departments themselves can undertake projects only on the demand of politicians in the state government and are dependent on their sanction. It is noteworthy that most of the councillors interviewed expressed frustration and a sense of powerlessness. In Delhi, too, the Municipal Corporation was superseded from 1989 to 1997. Thus when elections to the first Legislative Assembly of the NCTD were held in 1993, the 70 MLAs were the most ‘local’ type of representatives available to the people of Delhi. Elections under the 74th CAA were held for the first time in 1997, and brought 134 councillors — including 46 women — into the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. State and local elections, in addition to the implementation of the much publicised ‘Bhagidari’ scheme, initiated by the Sheila Dikshit government in 2000 and aimed at encouraging people’s participation in the management of local affairs, contributed to a remarkable increase in people’s representation and participation at the ‘local’ level in less than a decade. Yet the implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment has been very limited in the nation’s capital: Delhi has no Metropolitan Planning Committee, and the devolution of functions is far from complete.9 Moreover, since the MCD functions under the ‘Commissioner System’, the Commissioner is much better known than the Mayor (elected from among councillors for a one-year term) whose role is largely honorific. In more general terms, decentralisation in Delhi suffers from a democratic deficit since elected councillors 9

Among the list of municipal functions whose devolution is recommended by the Twelfth Schedule of the 74th CAA, it should be noted that in Delhi, urban planning is under the DDA, water supply, drainage and sewage disposal are under the Delhi Jal Board, while fire services, slum improvement and urban poverty alleviation are under the government of the NCTD (Bakore 2006: 13–14)

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are limited in their action by the institutional set-up and are not close to their constituents. Delhi’s Ward Committees do not respect the spirit of the 74th CAA: what are referred to as ‘Ward Committees’ in Delhi are actually Zone Committees (each zone encompassing about 10 wards). Moreover, ‘Ward Committees’ do not include representatives of civil society, but only councillors and representatives of the various municipal departments. The relative success of the Bhagidari scheme might actually be linked to the lack of proximity which otherwise characterises Delhi’s local politics. This scheme aims to make citizens active ‘partners’ in the management of civic affairs, mostly through the mobilisation of Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs),10 by holding thematic workshops for discussing local problems and evolving consensual solutions with representatives of the MCD, Delhi Jal Board, etc. To conclude, the situations observed in the four cities highlight varying degrees of democratisation within, but also outside the sphere of municipal government. Indeed, the implementation of the 74th CAA has been incomplete so far, and the democratising potential of Ward Committees has hardly been exploited; but we also observe the increasing role of CSOs, within or outside an institutional framework, which somewhat counter-balances these limitations. In this context, it is worth examining the elements of change that have become visible at the ward level with regard to the mediation between citizens and local government. A critical evaluation of the participatory dimension of the 74th CAA (in Chapter 3) in addition to an assessment of the larger elements of mediation in society (in Chapter 5), suggests that the traditional opposition between the Mayor-in-Council and Commissioner models is now less relevant for making a clear and convincing distinction in terms of democratisation between cities than some other factors.

4. Governance Reforms: Actors and Issues The aim of this section is to draw attention to a number of issues that have arisen in the course of each city’s recent progress in urban governance. Setting aside a strictly comparative mode (adopted in

10 Even though Market Traders’ Associations, Industrial Areas, NGOs, etc., are the other participants.

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Chapter 11), we will outline some of the characteristic features of each city during the period of study, which together point to general problems of urban governance in India. In Delhi, governance is essentially administratively and politicallydriven, and even the economic dimension of reforms (like attempts at privatisation) is packaged in political terms. Many political commentators have attributed Sheila Dikshit’s re-election in 2003 to the quality of her governance — most often measured in terms of the infrastructural facilities her government was able to deliver during its first term. But the notion of ‘good governance’, coined and popularised by the World Bank, goes beyond the provision of infrastructure to constitute a quasi-moral injunction, highlighting a series of features considered to be political virtues, such as participation, transparency, accountability and public–private partnerships.11 These notions are not only omnipresent in the Chief Minister’s public statements, they are also central to a series of initiatives adopted in the 1990s, testifying that the government of the NCTD has been sincere in its search for good governance.12 Yet, there is a stark contrast between the sophisticated and sometimes abstract discourse on governance favoured by the Delhi government and the brutality of public action. Indeed, 2006 may be called the annus horribilis of Delhi’s governance: a time when the lack of co-ordination and co-operation between the various authorities 11 The Bhagidari scheme is the flagship programme of Delhi’s ‘good governance’ policy. It can be credited with fostering people’s participation — beyond voting — in the management of civic affairs. It concerns only ‘middle class’ colonies since slums are not covered by the scheme, but the middle classes are the category that votes the least, especially in municipal elections; hence, mobilising them is no mean achievement. 12 Certain initiatives in fact predate the first Sheila Dikshit government that came to power in 1998; but she can be credited with consistency in introducing a series of institutional changes that go beyond the Bhagidari scheme and are meant to contribute to better governance. For example, the Lok Ayukta and Upalokayukta Act was introduced in 1995. The Lokayukta is an ombudsman who deals with complaints against elected representatives (MLAs and Councillors), regarding corruption, nepotism and other unethical practices. In 1997, the Public Grievances Commission was set up through a resolution of the NCTD government and the Delhi Right to Information (RTI) Act was adopted in 2001 (the National Right to Information Act was adopted only in 2005).

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in charge of civic affairs resulted in physical violence against people and built-up areas. When the Supreme Court decided to tackle the question of land-use in the city, the lack of co-ordination between the MCD, the NCTD, the Ministry of Urban Development and the DDA took on a dramatic dimension: shops were sealed or destroyed; people were forcibly evicted from their dwellings and public protests led to several deaths. That year, the institutional confusion — so characteristic of Delhi during the past decade — gave way to institutional chaos. Governability, defined as the capacity to ‘drive public action’ (Gaudin 2002), was extremely bad, if not inexistent: public action on the issue of land use proceeded in 2006 with contradictory statements, repeatedly postponed deadlines and the extensive use of bulldozers. However, this conflict around the implementation of the city’s new Master Plan also reveals that the Bhagidari scheme, which encouraged the formation of RWAs and Market Traders Associations (MTAs), has ultimately allowed the mobilisation of residents and traders against the very government that launched the scheme. The active role of RWAs and MTAs in the conflict (albeit often on opposite sides) shows that this top-down initiative, often accused of aiming at re-legitimising the Sheila Dikshit government, has actually led to genuine collective action by concerned citizens. In Hyderabad, popular participation and the formation of stakeholder groups, e.g., users’ committees, which were designed as central components of most government schemes, largely followed the pattern imposed by international aid agencies in the implementation of their projects. In fact, Chandrababu Naidu’s governancerelated policies and the accompanying economic reforms that buttressed them were consciously crafted to appeal to international donor agencies and private investors (Kennedy 2004). To some extent, the overall policy package covering the period from 1995 to 2004 was quite successful: the state obtained huge loans from the World Bank, even as its share of new private investment increased considerably, notably in service industries. A good example of the method designed to simplify and accelerate public services and, most importantly, to improve the relationship between the government and the public by reducing corruption is ‘e-seva’. It has proved very popular in the areas where it was made available. It is a single-window set-up that allows customers/citizens to pay their utility bills, book seats in AP Transport buses and

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even apply for a passport. An enquiry into this service in late 2002 indicated that a significant proportion of such bills were being paid through e-seva offices. For resource mobilisation, a self-assessment scheme for property tax floated in 1999 resulted in increased revenues for the municipality. Self-assessment was seen as a way of involving tax-payers and dealing with problems of prolonged litigation resulting from non-payment of taxes. Interestingly, RWAs were mobilised to explain the new tax scheme to the people and, in several cases, the members of RWAs opted for the collective assessment of their taxes. However, these reforms did not result in political decentralisation. The fact that the vast majority of Hyderabad’s recent municipal reforms were carried out in the absence of an elected council is particularly telling. Although the councillors have entered office under the new legislation, their scope of action has not changed substantially. In some respects, they may now enjoy even less discretionary power than in the preceding period. Moreover, the official modalities for ensuring people’s participation, designed at the same time as the reforms, have tended to sideline political parties and elected representatives in favour of other types of individuals and groups considered more neutral. This amounts to the marginalisation of locally-elected officials. Evidently, the direct election of the Mayor has also been found to be unsatisfactory, because there is a move to revert to the earlier practice of appointing an indirectly elected Mayor chosen by the councillors from among themselves. When the current Mayor, who belongs to the TDP, was elected in 2002, the state government was ruled by the same party. According to various accounts, the advantages enjoyed by Mayor Reddy came to a sudden halt in 2004 when the Congress came to power in the state.13 This link between city and state politics, and the subordination of the former to the latter is a recurring pattern, as seen above. Ultimately, and despite reforms, there was a marked preference for top-down policies, and even within the ruling TDP there was little by way of policy debate (Manor 2004). Whereas in Hyderabad and Delhi the early moves towards reforms were politically-driven, in Mumbai changes in urban governance 13 This was confirmed by the former Commissioner of MCH who stated in an interview that the Mayor went from being an important actor in the city politics to being a ‘nobody’. (Personal interview, 18 October 2004).

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were a result of the lead taken by the corporate sector. In 2003, a group of leading industrialists commissioned a study by McKinsey and published a document called Vision Mumbai whose objective is straightforward: to provide a comprehensive vision for Mumbai for 2013, with the clear aim of helping it achieve the status of a world-class city. It provides a blueprint for Mumbai’s overall development over the next ten years: what needs to get done to ensure that Mumbai does indeed convert its vision into reality (Vision Mumbai 2003: 32).

For this purpose, six core areas that require action and investment have been identified: economic growth, transportation, housing, infrastructure, finance, and governance. This report was publicised and endorsed largely by the Congress–NCP state government, which recognised the importance of Mumbai for the economic development of Maharashtra, and for unseating the Shiv Sena and the BJP from their positions of power. Consequently, a special secretary was appointed to follow up these proposals, working directly under the Chief Minister who also holds the Urban Development portfolio. In 2003, the Government of Maharashtra appointed its own task-force and later, in 2005, set up a Mumbai Transformation Project Unit (with financial support from the World Bank and the Cities Alliance Programme) to implement its vision. To monitor its progress and ensure timely consultative assistance, a Citizens’ Action Group (CAG) was set up along with the more powerful Empowered Committee. The latter consists of some influential industrialists and Secretaries of State. The CAG includes industrialists as well as ‘prominent citizens’ (among them film and theatre personalities). AGNI, as well as SPARC (Society for the Promotion of Area Centres),14 the main NGO representing slum-dwellers, are represented. Lok Satta is invited to take part in most of the meetings of the Mumbai Transformation Project and interacts regularly with the World Bank and the state government. AGNI and Lok Satta do not support all the reforms proposed by the Vision Mumbai project 14

SPARC is very powerful in Mumbai. It is involved in many programmes of the BMC (Slum and Sanitation Programme) and the MMRDA (in charge of the rehabilitation of slum-dwellers displaced by two transport projects). Its role and its claim to represent the poor is, however, strongly contested by other NGOs in the city.

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but they are clearly active as important stakeholders in the process. They put forward the claims of a section of the middle class and are otherwise actively engaged in issues such as urban services, control of space and action against hawkers, which are major issues in Mumbai. They are the spokespersons of a rising middle class demanding a greater voice in the city’s affairs and eager to play a role in reshaping space and discourse in Mumbai (see Fernandes 2007; Zérah 2006). In this context, groups representing the economically weaker sections of the population are marginalised. The Vision Mumbai initiative is thus open, to some extent, to debate. For instance, there was strong opposition to the demolition of slums in 2005. At this stage, the ‘Vision’ seems to be more a ‘bundle of projects’, most of them prepared with a traditional approach, than an integrated strategy. Nevertheless, this exercise signifies an alliance between the state (as well as the central government), the business class, the elite and experts to reshape policies concerning the city of Mumbai and its suburbs. In this context, the role of the local government is quite limited. Finally, in Kolkata, the West Bengal government introduced a policy of public–private partnerships as an integral part of the reform process. It is a strategy aimed at mobilising investment that fits in with the World Bank’s ‘good governance’ agenda. At the same time, as far as services go, although this ‘outsourcing’ appears new, it is in practice a continuation of the infrastructure-focused and expenditurebased approach typical of the Indian developmental state (see Ruet 2005). The revival of interest in industrial development is the most significant change in the government’s policy and the state is now passing through a phase of transition from agriculture-oriented growth to industrial development. New institutions have been formed with the objective of facilitating this trend. The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), the West Bengal Industrial Development Finance Corporation (WBIDFC) and the Housing and Industrial Development Corporation were created for the specific purpose of financing and building urban infrastructural and supporting industrial growth, inviting foreign capital and engaging the private sector in infrastructural development. However, it can be argued that by doing so there is hardly any deviation from the long-established administrative tradition of adding to the number of existing institutional

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structures and government agencies. It is even more interesting to note — as indicated in the interviews15 — that local industrialists tend to believe that the government is likely to favour either international companies or Indian companies from other states so as to avoid dealing with companies that have too much local political clout. Although the government is allowing new actors to participate in governance, it is trying to keep control of the process by favouring non-national actors, with less politically entrenched stakes. This reluctance to open up the decision-making process is analogous to its determination not to decentralise decision-making to Ward Committees, which have not been set up in Kolkata. From a broader perspective, the new tempo of industrialisation vigorously pursued by the state government has generally had serious repercussions on governance in the areas under KMA. The acquisition of agricultural land for setting up industries is bound to lead to large-scale displacement of agricultural labourers. This, in its turn, will increase migration to the city, which had come down significantly during the last two decades. The ‘Vision 2025’ document prepared by the KMDA and approved by the KMPC in 2006 has not taken these new developments into consideration when projecting population growth in the KMA areas and Kolkata city. Thus, urban governability in the state as a whole and in the Kolkata metropolis in particular, will face further challenges in the near future.16 The ‘good governance’ package assumes that popular participation, political and administrative decentralisation and (up to a point) promotion of economic development go together. Has not this assumption been proved wrong on various counts in the Indian scenario by the experiences of Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and 15 Interviews conducted by Joël Ruet, 26–27 December 2004, with three of the top ten industrialists of Kolkata. 16 The larger question of land is one that we could not cover in our research. Of course, it is not limited to Kolkata. Competition for land exists in industry, the IT sector and other services, as well as residential construction. A key evolution from the 1990s onwards is the acquisition of land for private purposes on a massive scale, ensuring a land-based, capitalistic accumulation, where the state, which has the power to enforce land laws and evict transgressors, has been a necessary ally of the private parties (see Huchet and Ruet 2006: 414).

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Kolkata? The issues we have focused on in the different cities raise general questions about the future of urban governance in India as a whole. Delhi’s case highlights the ambivalent impact of participatory schemes, in terms of empowerment of various social groups and the governability of the city. Hyderabad’s reform process shows that even those reforms that are explicitly inspired by the good governance ideal do not require decentralisation and do not necessarily advance that agenda. Mumbai’s case illustrates the elitist trends that characterise the current dynamics of liberalisation. Lastly, Kolkata’s patchwork reforms, confined more to procedural changes in administrative procurement than to the claimed ‘public–private partnership’, is anyway quite far from any serious political reform. This draws attention to the problems generated by long-delayed democratisation reforms in a large part of the country.

5. The Role of the Corporate Sector: Beyond ‘Public–Private Partnerships’ This last section will focus on the growing role of corporate actors in a situation where the role of multilateral agencies has also increased. One must distinguish two processes here: one, corporate and multilateral actors have come to play a role in policy-making, particularly through their intervention as an assertive interest group or even as consultants (as was mentioned with regard to Mumbai); two, they have also come to play an increasing role in the provision of services. International development agencies have been present in all four cities for several decades, but their presence intensified in the 1990s. In varying degrees, they have left their mark on service delivery systems and influenced administrative patterns. ‘Public–private partnerships’ (PPPs) has been one of the buzzwords of reforms promoted by these international agencies, which were meant to create a space for the corporate sector, be it international, national or local. But an examination of the situation in the four cities suggests that PPPs appear rather to be tools in the hands of the state in its efforts to keep a grip on the economy, and have not really fulfilled the purpose for which they were conceived (such as bringing investment in infrastructure, for instance). Since the 1980s, the Andhra Pradesh government has been working closely with several international organisations, many of

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which have taken up projects in Hyderabad. To cite a few: the World Bank (Municipal Services for the Urban Poor, Indian Population Project VIII, and a Water and Sanitation Programme with UNDP), UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) (Report Card on Civic Services in Hyderabad and Centre for Good Governance), and UN-HABITAT and Cities Alliance (City Development Strategy). These projects and the accompanying training programmes have undoubtedly had an impact on urban governance with the introduction of new norms in service delivery. PPPs received a boost in the 1990s under the Naidu government’s Vision 2020 political project (Government of Andhra Pradesh 1999), which outlined strategies for redefining the respective roles of the public and private sectors in society and changing the interface between the bureaucracy and the people. During the TDP’s reign as well as in the current Congress-led government, PPPs have been used to promote infrastructural development (e.g., HITEC City, the new international airport run by a private consortium and the planned metro system) in the metropolitan region with the aim of promoting economic development. In Delhi, the privatisation of electricity distribution in 2002 was presented as a proof of the Congress government’s commitment to the economic dimension of the good governance agenda. However, PPP was merely seen as an instrument and was not considered a well thought-out economic policy based on an analysis of the optimisation of provision, operation and finance in a given sector, as advocated by the World Bank. Private participation in water-supply systems was envisaged later as managerial involvement of the private sector in the supply of water pipes, preferred to a form of privatisation that involves ownership transfer. The failure of this project, strongly opposed by a coalition of NGOs and residents, has made the government cautious about pursuing the agenda of privatisation in basic services. Unlike Delhi, Mumbai has a long-established tradition of private sector involvement in the provision of physical infrastructure (for instance, in the supply of electricity in the suburbs) and much experience in cross-subsidisation (for instance, in the ‘city’ area, between transport and electricity) to allow more generalised access. The privatisation cell in the BMC has concentrated on mobilising real estate, in relation to the development of social infrastructure. It started by targeting surplus land in hospital complexes in a project

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intended to increase the floor space index, with one-fourth of the space going to modernised public hospitals and three-fourths to other commercial activities. This project has not received much political backing from the city’s corporators and has also faced opposition from several NGOs who have resorted to legal means to halt the process. Further, the policy of outsourcing in vogue in the health sector, combined with decreasing public investment, is leading to the privatisation of a sector previously very well managed by public authorities. The role of ‘public–private partnerships’ remains marginal in Mumbai, if considered in terms of investment. It is rather a term used to describe new institutional arrangements. In the solid-waste management sector, for instance, it is used mostly in the suburbs and is closer to traditional forms of subcontracting (see Chapter 10). The recourse to private participation has in fact most often involved partnerships with CBOs (in slums), neighbourhood associations (in residential areas) and NGOs. In slums, the process is institutionalised and mostly concerns solid-waste management (the Slum Adoption Programme) and provision of toilets (the Slum and Sanitation Programme). In both programmes, the CBOs and NGOs have clearly defined tasks and financial responsibilities. The discourse on ‘good governance and participation’ and the fact that the World Bank finances the Slum and Sanitation Programme played a key role in this delegation of responsibilities to the communities concerned. For residential areas, the BMC has recently designed a new policy to institutionalise the loose network of Advanced Locality Management (ALM) groups in order to encourage the setting up of Local Area Citizens Groups. These groups will be officially registered with the Corporation, will have a memorandum of understanding to provide a range of services in their areas and will be in charge of deciding the means to achieve this objective. They will thus become the official providers of these services. Nevertheless, there are two areas, not covered by our research project, where the private sector plays a very significant and structural role. Those are the numerous projects related to transport infrastructure (the sea-link bridge in Mumbai and the metro in Delhi for instance) and the real estate industry. This trend, observed in all four cities, is linked to the tremendous rise in land value, which

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translates into a multiplication of opportunities to ‘develop’ slums (see Chapter 9). Finally, in Kolkata, the City Development Plan states that the KMC will enter into a number of public–private partnerships with private agencies engaged for the construction, management and other services required for infrastructural development in the city. The PPP projects will be implemented at the headquarter, borough and ward levels, and a cell has been created under a senior officer of the KMC to look after the entire initiative. However, in the case of infrastructure projects, the KMC semantically prefers to go in for ‘joint ventures’ (the definition of PPPs anyway being ever-changing and blurred both among practitioners and in the literature). Its own contribution to such ventures is the prime and expensive land that lies in its possession. Thus, there are several projects in the pipeline that have elicited the interest of private parties because KMC is ready to part costly land. Inspired by the Mumbai slum rehabilitation model (intended to decongest the central areas of the city), in 2006, the Mayor of KMC announced PPPs for slum development in the city. The Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) approached the Mayor with a proposal to decongest slums in prime localities and build integrated low-cost housing complexes. According to the KMC Commissioner, the CREDAI proposal was being considered along with a joint-venture housing formula under which low, medium and high-income group apartments would be developed on a cross-subsidy basis. However, the Mayor faced a severe political backlash not only from the Opposition but also from his own party colleagues in the Corporation, as a result of which the plan has been shelved for the time being. This overview of the different scenarios relating to PPPs in the four cities underscores a few recurring features. First, decisions regarding PPPs have always been taken within the larger political context of reforms, rather than on the basis of an economic analysis of the optimisation of provision, operation and finance in a given sector, as favoured by international agencies. Second, privatisation, which was presented in the 1990s as a way of attracting investment, is increasingly presented by state governments as a way of attracting management skills. Regarding private participation in service delivery, we can assume that this approach is meant to lighten, to

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some extent, the financial burden of delivering services, as well as to cope with the rise in public expectations. Indeed, in three of the four cities we have studied, civil society has become more vocal in stating what it expects from the public service provider, even while the state’s capacity to deliver has not improved.

Conclusion During the last decade, urban governance has come to involve an increasing number of actors, institutions and reforms. Yet, this overview points to the continuing importance of top-down, politicallydriven dynamics in three of the four cities under consideration. Major changes in urban governance were initiated by the state in the case of Delhi, Hyderabad and (more recently) Kolkata. In Delhi and Hyderabad, the appropriation of reforms by the concerned actors, be it civil society or the corporate sector, suggest that they will survive political change. In Kolkata, it is too early to assess the durability of these changes: the reforms (mostly economic) have been state-led and state-controlled so far, as is the established tradition in West Bengal. Mumbai stands out: here changes were mostly initiated by large business houses, and later received a stamp of approval from the political class. But in all the cities (albeit to varying extents), the pursuit of the ‘good governance’ ideal has largely had the effect of sidelining councillors — which raises questions about the importance of decentralisation, at least of its political dimension, in the evolution of urban governance in India.

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52 Ú GHOSH, KENNEDY, RUET, TAWA LAMA-REWAL, ZÉRAH Chandra, Medha. 2004. Bridging Everyday and High Politics — the 74th CAA and Inclusion in Kolkata, India, http://www.sasnet.lu.se/ EASASpapers/31MedhaChandra.pdf (accessed 8 April 2009). Das Gupta, D. 2007. An Analysis of Municipal Finance in Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Government of Delhi. 2006. Delhi Human Development Report 2006: Partnerships for Progress. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Dupont, V., E. Tarlo and D. Vidal, eds. 2000. Delhi: Urban Space and Human Destinies. Delhi: Manohar. Fernandes, L. 2007. India’s New Middle Class. Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Frykenberg, R.E., ed. 1986. Delhi Through the Ages: Essays in Urban History, Culture and Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ghosh, A. 2007. Urban Governance in Kolkata Actors, Policies and Reforms. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Ghosh, A. and S. Tawa Lama-Rewal. 2005. Democratization in Progress: Women and Local Politics in Urban India. New Delhi: Tulika Books. Government of Andhra Pradesh. 1999. Andhra Pradesh: Vision 2020. Government of India. n.d. Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission Overview. New Delhi: Ministry of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation and Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, http://jnnurm.nic.in/nurmudweb/toolkit/Overview.pdf (accessed 8 April 2009). Hansen, T.B. 2001. Urban Violence in India. Identity Politics, ‘Mumbai’ and the Postcolonial City. Delhi: Permanent Black. Huchet, Jean-François and Joël Ruet, eds. 2006. Globalisation and Opening Markets in Developing Countries and Impact on National Firms and Public Governance: The Case of India, Report and Case Studies. New Delhi: Centre de Sciences Humaines of New Delhi (CSH) , Centre d’Economie Industrielle (CERNA), London School of Economics (LSE) Office, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), and European Union (EU). Hust, Evelin and Michael Mann, eds. 2005. Urbanization and Governance in India. New Delhi: Manohar and CHS. Kennedy, L. 2004. The Political Determinants of Reform Packaging: Contrasting Responses to Economic Liberalization in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, in R. Jenkins (ed.), Regional Reflections: Comparing Politics across India’s States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Kennedy, L. 2006. Decentralisation and Urban Governance in Hyderabad. Assessing the role of different actors in the city. Governance and Policy Spaces (GAPS) Series, Working Paper 8, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. ———. 2007. Regional Industrial Policies Driving Peri-urban Dynamics in Hyderabad, India. Cities 24(2): 95–109. Kennedy, L., and M.H. Zérah. 2008. The Shift to City-Centric Growth Strategies in India. Perspectives from Hyderabad and Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly 43(39): 110–17. Kumar, Girish. 2006. Local Democracy in India: Interpreting Decentralization. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Manor, J. 2004. Explaining Political Trajectories in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, in R. Jenkins (ed.), Regional Reflections: Comparing Politics across India’s States. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Mathur, Om Prakash. 2006. Urban Finance, in India Infrastructure Report 2006. 3i Network. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Naidu, R. 1990. Old Cities, New Predicaments: A Study of Hyderabad. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Navtej, K.B. 2005. Ward Committees in Mumbai – Functions, Finances and Practices. Paper presented at the IDPAD Seminar on ‘New Forms of Urban Governance in Indian Mega-Cities’, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Patel, S. and J. Masselos, eds. 2003. Bombay and Mumbai: The City in Transition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Patel, S. and A. Thorner, eds. 1995. Bombay: Metaphor for Modern India. Bombay: Oxford University Press. Pethe, A. 2006. Analyse This: Deciphering the Code of Mumbai Budgets. Paper presented at the workshop on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Mumbai’, Mumbai University, 23 February. Pinto, Marina R. 2000. Metropolitan City Governance in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Prud’homme, R. 2005. Financing Mumbai Investment Needs. Note for the World Bank and the Mumbai Transformation Project. Racine, J., ed. 1986. Calcutta 1981, The City in Crisis and the Debate on Urban Planning and Development. New Delhi: Concept Publishing. Ruet, Joël. 2005. Privatising Power Cuts? Ownership and Organisational Reform of State Electricity Boards in India. New Delhi: Academic Foundation. Sanyal, B. and M. Tiwari. 1990. Policies and Institutions in Urban Development: The Story of the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority. Economic Development Institute of the World Bank, Washington. Scott, A. J., ed. 2001. Global City-Regions: Trends, Policy, Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sengupta, R. 2007. Delhi Metropolitan. The Making of an Unlikely City. New Delhi: Penguin Books.

54 Ú GHOSH, KENNEDY, RUET, TAWA LAMA-REWAL, ZÉRAH Sreedevi, N. 2005. Finances of Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad. Paper presented at the Workshop on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Hyderabad’, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, 20 September. Srivastav, A. 2007. A Brief Financial Appraisal of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Tawa Lama-Rewal, S. 2007. Delhi in the 1990s–2000s: Good Governance and Bad Governability. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Vision Mumbai. Transforming Mumbai into a World-class City. 2003. Bombay First and McKinsey. Mumbai: Bombay First. Zérah, M.-H. 2006. Assessing Surfacing Collective Action in Mumbai – A Case Study of Solid Waste Management. Paper presented at a Conferernce on ‘Actors, Policies and Urban Governance in Mumbai’, Mumbai University, 23 February. ———. 2007. Urban governance in Mumbai. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January.

Chapter 3 New Patterns of Participation Shaping Urban Governance Loraine Kennedy

C

entral to the notion of urban governance is the idea that different stakeholders — elected and unelected, powerful and weak, organised and ad hoc — participate more or less actively in the affairs of the city and in setting the agenda for future developments. This framework explicitly recognises the role of non-state actors, who have become more engaged in civic activities in recent years as a result of both top-down and bottom-up processes. Agendas promoting good governance, public–private partnerships in service delivery and popular participation in development projects emerged on the global scene at more or less the same time, gaining momentum throughout the 1990s. Regardless of their origins (e.g., multilateral lending institutions, social activism), all these agendas aim to open up decision-making processes that were formerly the prerogative of politicians and bureaucrats, and make public service more efficient, more transparent and more accountable. At the same time, India has been undergoing economic reforms that have introduced new norms and references (e.g., cost recovery and fiscal rigour) with regard to urban management systems, and have given rise to new modalities of service delivery involving new actors. This is the backdrop for this chapter, whose primary goal is to extract some general findings about new patterns of participation on the basis of this study of four cities, viz. Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai. Taking the early 1990s as our starting point, we asked whether new actors have emerged in urban governance and if so,

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in what capacity they participate. What is the rationale underlying their inclusion in decision-making processes or service delivery? To what extent has the role of existing actors changed, and what explains this change? How do different types of local actors interact with each other and what is the nature of their respective relationships with the state government, which is the predominant ‘urban’ actor in many of India’s states? For analytical clarity, I make a sharp distinction in this chapter between municipal government and the overarching state and union governments, although these are overlapping spheres, in order to focus on changes occurring at the local level. Finally, the notional state occupies a crucial place in this analysis of new patterns of participation, not only because theoretically we recognise that the state considered is the prime enabler of civil society (Chandhoke 2001: 243) but because privatisation, including the delegation of ‘public’ services to private actors, can be construed as a new form of interventionism (Hibou 1999). Like states elsewhere, the Indian state is re-inventing itself, a process that requires it to define new forms of engagement with lower levels of administration via a process of decentralisation, and with other types of actors theoretically schematised as ‘civil society’ and ‘the market’. Whereas most studies focus on a particular aspect of participation or a particular set of actors, the design of this research project and the polysemantic nature of the ‘governance’ concept at its core have compelled us to favour an interdisciplinary, multisectoral approach. Hence, this chapter deals with various forms of participation, which have different objectives and are justified on varying grounds. Section 1 starts by examining local elected councils in view of highlighting the principal changes that have taken place. Although they are not ‘new’ actors, their mandates have been considerably expanded, and their profiles have changed due to mandatory reservations. The next section deals with CSOs, such as NGOs and neighbourhood associations, who are emerging as increasingly influential local actors, as well as CBOs. I briefly examine the various ways they participate — directly involved in service delivery as co-producers or stakeholder representatives in the framework of programmes designed to increase participation. Lastly, new patterns of private sector participation are examined. It is argued that economic reforms, and the liberal ideology that underpins them,

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are influencing current governance patterns and giving rise to new ‘corporate’ NGOs, and redefining relations between different types of local actors. The chapter high-lights the tension between democracy, as an organising principle for public life, and the governance agenda, which legitimises the participation of non-elected local actors.

The Formal Institutions of Democratic Decentralisation Elected municipal councils are the first category of local actors examined. Given that these actors are not new, the focus here is on ways that their role has changed in the period under study. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) was ratified at the beginning of our study period and constitutes a crucial backdrop to this enquiry in that it provides a common framework for decentralised local government across the country. State governments were required to modify their municipal legislation to ensure conformity with the amendment. The latter was expected to change the manner in which locally-elected representatives participate in local governance in at least four ways: by instituting mandatory elections; by extending the mandate of municipal councils, notably through the addition of new functions (listed in Schedule 12 of the Constitution) and a more systematic access to funds (via state finance commission recommendations); by modifying the sociological and gender makeup of the councils through reservations; and by decentralising local government deliberative processes through the creation of Ward Committees at the sub-municipal level. Organising elections may appear to be a minimum requirement for empowering local councils, but the fact is that polls have been extremely irregular even in some of India’s largest cities, and sitting councils have been superseded on numerous occasions by state governments (central government in the case of Delhi). For instance, Hyderabad has experienced frequent and sometimes long gaps between elections since the early 1970s, periods during which the city was administered by a Commissioner, nominated by the state government. Even after ratifying the 74th CAA and amending its municipal legislation in 1995, the government of Andhra Pradesh postponed local elections until 2002, the first since 1986. This is

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a reminder that the even the formal participation of elected representatives in urban affairs cannot be taken for granted.1 The mandatory reservation of seats in local government for women and historically disadvantaged groups is arguably one of the most remarkable features of the 74th CAA. Opening up elected office to new social/gender groups is a crucial step toward achieving greater diversity in political institutions. Citing democracy’s many intrinsic qualities, proponents of these reforms argue that modifying institutions in this direction is a desirable goal even if it does not translate automatically into greater effective representation of the interests of these groups nor modify noticeably the policy agenda. Indeed, in one of the rare studies of its kind, Ghosh and Tawa LamaRewal (2005) found that increased representation of women on municipal councils in India’s four largest cities did not translate in the short-run into concrete and measurable differences with regard to the content of local policy decisions. As for an expanded mandate for urban local bodies in the wake of the 74th amendment (Article 243W), most studies confirm that devolution of functions has remained on paper (Ghosh and Tawa Lama-Rewal 2005; Pinto 2000; Baud and de Wit 2008). Ironically, even the Model Municipal Law released in 2003, a decade after the amendment by the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, does not explicitly integrate the new responsibilities outlined in the amendment, and reverts back to a more conventional conception of ‘core’ municipal functions, viz., water supply, sanitation and garbage disposal, with the notable exception of ‘preparation of plans for economic development and social justice’ (Government of India 2003, Art. 47).2 In particular, the Ministry does not consider urban poverty alleviation as belonging to the functional domain of the municipality, whereas it does figures in Schedule 12 of the 1 At the time of writing (November 2007), elections to the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad were on hold once again. The official reason was the need to redraw electoral ward boundaries in the context of the creation of Greater Hyderabad, which merges 12 surrounding municipalities into the existing corporation. The decision was taken by the state government in July 2005 and is being implemented despite the fact that 75 per cent of the municipal corporators had voted against it. See The Hindu, 5 August 2005, Hyderabad edition. 2 For a critical analysis, cf. Sivaramakrishnan (2004).

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74th amendment. So although state governments can be rightfully criticised for not expanding the jurisdiction of local bodies, at least some of the fault lies with the central government, from where they may be taking their cues. Arguably the most serious breach of trust with regard to the sincere application of the 74th amendment lies with the financial devolution. Indeed, insufficient revenues have long been considered one of the major weaknesses of local bodies, and the constitution of a State Finance Commission (under Art. 243-I of the CAA) was intended to ensure that transfers did not depend solely on the discretion of the state government. In practice, this entity has not proved effective, for the state government can simply choose not to act on its recommendations; this has happened both in Maharashtra (Pethe and Lalvani 2007) and in Andhra Pradesh (Sreedevi 2005).3 Delhi appears to have fared somewhat better, since the proportion of total revenues of the Delhi government recommended for transfer to the DMC (10.5 per cent) by the Second Finance Commission was effectively transferred (Anurag 2007). By keeping a tight hold on its purse strings, the state government can effectively curtail the scope of action of the municipalities, which find themselves trapped in a vicious circle. The model law states in Article 49 that a municipality must first perform satisfactorily its core functions, and then only undertake other functions, ‘subject to its managerial, technical and financial capabilities’ (emphasis added). This is a weighty caveat given the known weaknesses of local bodies, and one that can be seen to perpetuate the status quo rather than contribute to any meaningful decentralisation.

A Second Tier of Local Government The creation of Ward Committees at the sub-city level represents a significant feature of the CAA. It has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of elected councillors by facilitating interaction with different branches of the administration through regular meetings, and to favour greater participation of citizens and neighbourhood groups. However, guidelines were not provided regarding the size, 3

This is in sharp contrast to the national Finance Commissions, whose awards are accepted by the union government.

60 Ú KENNEDY Table 3.1: Comparative Data (up to 2006) on Ward Committees (WC) No. of No. of electoral Municipal elected No. of wards in corporation councillors WCs each WC Delhi Hyderabad Kolkata Mumbai

134 100 141 227

12 10 15∗ 16∗∗

4–16 10 7–11 8–19

Population of WC (approx.)

Press Membership, allowed in addition to in WC municipal officers meetings

1,100,000 MC 363,000 MC, MLA 305,370 MC 745,000∗∗∗ MC, 1–3 NGO/ CBO per ward without voting rights

Yes No No No

∗: These indicate Borough Committees, which for all practical purposes resemble WCs in other cities (cf. infra). ∗∗: In Mumbai, 16 WCs have been formed out of a total of 24 administrative wards, according to the following breakdown: 9 administrative wards = 9 WC; 3 small administrative wards in the island city = 1 WC; 12 administrative wards = 6 WC. ∗∗∗: Varies from 450,000 to 1,000,000. Sources: Kennedy (2006); Tawa Lama-Rewal (2007a); Zérah (2007a); Sivaramakrishnan (2004).

Notes:

membership and specific functions to be evolved to Ward Committees. As a result, each state government has crafted its own rules and there is considerable diversity even among the four cases examined here.4 One of the most egregious differences between them is with regard to the demographic size of Ward Committees (see Table 3.1). Although the spirit driving the creation of an additional tier of government below the municipal council was to make it more accessible to the population, the tendency has been to limit their number. West Bengal was one of first states to constitute Ward Com-mittees and define an elaborate procedure for their functioning. The 1993 Act made provisions for forming a Ward Committee for each ward, comprised of the elected councillor and nominated members, whose exact number would depend on the population of the ward, but with a minimum of 7, and a maximum of 17.5 Although the legislation 4

For information on other cities, see Sivaramakrishnan (2004), also Baud and de Wit (2008). 5 Kerala, the other state in India with a strong communist presence, has put in place similar arrangements, and its experiments at democratic decentralisation are considered a model for the country.

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regarding Ward Committees has been applied in other cities in the state, it has not been made operational in Kolkata. Opposition from elected councillors, irrespective of their party affiliation, is the main explanation for this (Ghosh and Basu 2007: 21), on grounds that it would weaken their control. For the dominant CPI(M) party, the Ward Committee appears no doubt as a redundant entity in view of the fact that the party organises its own ward-level body, the Nagarik Committee, which conducts monthly meetings. Hence, ‘in most areas where the WCs were formed they were practically the extended part of the ward level formation of the ruling party outfit. As a result, people could not differentiate between the WC and the NC’ (ibid.: 22). Another possible reason for non-implementation is the existence of an intermediary entity between the ward and the Municipal Corporation, called a ‘Borough Committee’, comprised of 8–10 wards. Finally, in 2002, when the Trinamul Congress controlled the KMC, the state government threatened to withdraw financial assistance unless Ward Committees were formed. This led to a halfhearted attempt to form WCs in 75 wards, ‘most of which did not function at all’ (ibid.: 21). What is apparent from our studies and from the growing literature on this question, the Ward Committees are not an ‘invited space’ for citizen participation (Cornwall 2002); except in Mumbai, and then only in a restricted way,6 CSOs do not partake in Ward Committee deliberations. What this forum does offer to elected representatives is an additional opportunity to interact with administrative personnel and follow up on the diverse projects undertaken in their constituencies. In Delhi, it was observed that councillors were able to assert themselves more forcefully vis-à-vis the bureaucrats than in the more formal House meetings, where councillors, when presenting their requests, ‘are literally obliged to look up to [the Commissioner], who will then answer by looking down on them’ (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007a: 8). In Ward Committee meetings on the contrary, the councillors faced zone-level officials representing all MCD departments around a table and the session was presided by the chairperson (elected from among the ward’s councillors) (ibid.). From this account, it is seen that Ward Committees do enable elected 6 The NGOs or CBOs are co-opted by the majority party or coalition, since it is the latter who chooses which organisations can participate in the Ward Committees. Even then, they can only participate in deliberations and cannot vote (see Navtej 2005).

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representatives to participate more meaningfully in local government, although the scope for decision-making and discretionary spending is more limited at this level. Similar observations were made in Hyderabad, although it was remarked that the local councillors’ fund (a fixed amount budgeted for each ward) tended to serve as a substitute for deliberation and debate among councillors, encouraging them to take an individualist approach to urban problems: ‘[this practice] deprives city politicians the opportunity to bargain and build coalitions, and to gain a better understanding of the city as a single organic entity’ (Kennedy 2006: 29).

Factors Shaping the Local Government’s Scope of Action With regard to the relative autonomy of elected representatives vis-à-vis the bureaucracy and the state government, their effective capacity to participate in the management of the municipality and in the planning of its future, a qualitative comparison of the four case studies revealed considerable variation among the four metro cities, although these remain difficult to assess.7 Several explicative factors were identified: at the broadest level, political culture and specific elements of each city’s history and geography were seen to carry considerable weight in explaining contemporary patterns. Second, the specific functions of each of the four municipalities vary quite substantially and hence the local government’s scope of action. Third, and this is related to the first set of factors, overarching political institutions and in particular the city’s relationship to the state government appear to play a determinant role in shaping local government capacity in the governance equation. I will briefly examine these three factors. Delhi’s unique position as the nation’s capital city naturally influences its governance structure, and limits in many ways its scope for autonomous decision-making. Two government entities are situated ‘above’ the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD): the union government, whose seat is located in the city and who 7

We leave aside issues of the individual willingness of councillors to participate, and the effective outcomes of collective deliberation on the quantity and quality of city services, both of which are fraught with methodological difficulties.

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maintain control over some key functions such as law and order (the police force) and land development (via the Delhi Development Authority), and the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GoNCTD), which has its own Assembly and a Council of Ministers, making it almost identical to an Indian state. Since the MCD and the NCTD cover roughly the same territory, there is a strong potential for overlap in jurisdictions although in principal, functions are clearly divided between the three government entities and a number of parastatal agencies such as the Delhi Jal Board (water supply and drainage). As a consequence, MCD’s scope of action is more limited than that of most corporations.8 Moreover, as Tawa Lama-Rewal points out, there is fierce competition between the various types of ‘local’ representatives since there are only two councillors for one MLA in Delhi, as opposed to six or eight in other megacities (2007a: 3).9 Hyderabad stands apart from the other cities in the study, not only by its lesser demographic size and its recent graduation to the status of a metropolitan city, but more significantly by its lack of an urban government tradition. Although Hyderabad is an old city, founded in the late sixteenth century, it did not have a city government per se until the 1930s. Being the capital of an Indian or ‘Native’ state, it did not undergo experiments in local government, such as those that took place in Madras and other colonial cities from the late nineteenth century onwards. In 1960, a decade after its integration into the union, the separate corporations of Secunderabad and Hyderabad were merged, and local elections began to be organised, albeit with frequent interruptions, as mentioned above. Given its history and the apparent unwillingness of the state government, regardless of the ruling party, to share power with an elected body in its capital city, it is perhaps not surprising that Hyderabad’s council emerges as the least empowered of the four.10 In contrast, Mumbai and Kolkata both have more established 8

For instance, slum improvement and urban poverty reduction, functions usually devolved to municipalities, are the responsibility of the NCTD. 9 Following the new delimitation of wards undertaken for the 2007 municipal elections, the proportion is now four councillors for one MLA. 10 This appreciation was formed primarily on the basis of information collected in the field, including interviews with councillors and officers, observation of meetings at different levels, and interviews with local scholars and notables.

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traditions of city government, although Kolkata too has been a victim of supersession by the state government, as has Delhi at the hands of the Government of India. In contrast, since its legal foundations were laid in 1888, Mumbai has been superseded only once by the state government (Pinto 2000: 4). In addition to the impressive longevity of local government institutions, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) enjoys a more extensive political mandate than other large cities in India. In addition to the standard statutory functions attributed to local bodies such as water supply, public health and street lighting, the corporation provides and maintains a public transport system, electricity distribution,11 and tertiary medical care. Reflecting these wide-ranging responsibilities, the BMC encompasses seven statutory authorities, including the Improvements Committee, the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Committee, the Education Committee, each of which has its sphere of jurisdiction and powers. In contrast, in some cities key functions such as water supply have been turned over to autonomous agencies, which are not directly answerable to the municipality. Notwithstanding the BMC’s extensive mandate, it is plagued, like the other metro cities, with problems of overlapping jurisdiction with supra-level agencies, such as the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA), the agency in charge of metropolitan planning (Pinto 2000). The regional political system structures, in many ways, governance patterns at the local level. In West Bengal, for instance, although the dominant party of the ruling coalition, the CPI(M), has regularly organised elections since coming to power in 1977, local representatives are subordinate to party cadres, who centralise local demands and channel them upwards (Kumar 2006). In the event that the state and city are ruled by different political parties, as has occurred in Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad in the course of the period under study, the state government may find it difficult to resist the temptation to curtail the corporation’s scope of action, in order to weaken its opponents. Hyderabad presents a unique case wherein the dominant political formation, the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), has its electoral base in the city, and cannot hope 11

In the island city only.

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to hold power at the regional level. This situation has no doubt contributed to the reluctance of the ruling party in the state to devolve powers and responsibilities to the municipal corporation.12 A major finding of this study then is that recent attempts at decentralisation, most notably through the 74th amendment, have not resulted in substantive changes in the way that elected representatives participate in local government, i.e., their scope of action and their relationship with state government. Fundamentally, there has not been a rupture in the predominant tradition of weak city government.13 However, the environment in which local councillors operate has changed, most notably the emergence of new categories of local actors who are participating in one way or another in urban governance. In part, this change is a result of what Harriss calls the ‘new politics’, emerging out of India’s economic liberalisation, built around CSOs rather than political parties, and community-based movements rather than labour organisations (2007: 2717).

The Different Faces of CSOs There is wide consensus about the proliferation in recent years of CSOs on the local scene, but the significance of their increased presence, for instance with regard to their stake in urban governance and their contribution to enhancing democratic participation, remains a subject of debate. This section aims to explore some of the emerging trends thrown up by our case studies with a focus on processes underlying new patterns of participation in local decision-making and service delivery. What are the objectives of CSOs? What is the justification for extending opportunities to them?

12

It may also explain its recent decision to create the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, which by incorporating a dozen surrounding municipalities effectively eliminates the MIM’s chance to maintain its control over the council. 13 Incidentally, these results are consistent with those from recent studies conducted in rural areas, evaluating Panchayati Raj institutions. See, for example, Jain (2005) and Kumar (2006). Chhibber cites a study conducted at a 30-year interval (1966 and 1996) in selected blocks of Gujarat, Maharashtra and UP, wherein local elites were asked about local government’s autonomy and power; the results showed very little change over time (1999: 35–36).

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Voluntary organisations have long been involved in providing services in India, even during the colonial period, most notably in the fields of education and health.14 What has changed is the growing institutionalisation of NGO participation in policy implementation, if not in deliberation. According to most accounts, it was during the 1970s and 1980s that NGOs first experienced extraordinary growth.15 The idea that the public sector should delegate the implementation of some development projects to NGOs, to improve efficiency and public accountability, progressively gained acceptance. Promoted inter alia by international lending agencies, this evolution afforded opportunities for patronage from both within and without India and spurred phenomenal growth of NGOs, making India the ‘NGO capital of the world’ (Kudva 1996: 1, cited by Katzenstein et al. 2001: 248). In general, the presence of NGOs and other CSOs has become more conspicuous with the advent of the good governance agenda in the 1990s. In the field of strategic urban planning, whether aimed at social sustainability or economic growth, it has become widely accepted throughout the world that local stakeholders should be involved in some capacity with decision-making (Stren 2001).16 Their involvement is often organised through NGOs for practical reasons, and at times for expediency. That such norms are being embraced in India is evident from the design of the government’s flagship urban policy, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM): each eligible city is required to hold stakeholder consultations as part of the process of elaborating a City Development Plan. Our studies revealed various patterns of civil society partici-pation in urban governance, differing in terms of scope of action and rationale. The three main types of categories of actors are: neighbourhood

14 For instance, charitable organisations linked to religious groups have worked for decades in combating diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis, sometimes on their own, sometimes in partnership with government. 15 Kudva speaks of a dual emergence of NGOs during this period: ones that were critical of the government’s performance and new ‘technocratic, managerial’ NGOs (1996: 6, cited in Katzenstein et al. 2001: 249). 16 The World Bank in particular contributed to promoting stakeholder participation in development and service delivery, in order to make governments more responsive to the poor.

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associations, NGOs and CBOs. Grosso modo, they correspond to three types of participatory ‘rationales’ respectively: co-production of services in view of greater implication of the middle classes in improving the urban environment; policy inputs and service delivery by organisations closer to the people and with specialised knowledge of local problems; involvement of the urban poor in co-production of services and ‘ownership’ of schemes aimed at slum improvement or poverty alleviation. All types of co-production also respond to an economic rationale, which is to cut costs or recover costs from users, a theme discussed further in the last section. One type of private voluntary organisation that has gained prominence in recent years is the neighbourhood association, sometimes originating as a housing society, and often taking the form of an RWA. The motivation of such spatially-based organisations, which are often quite homogeneous socially, is usually to improve the local urban environment, mainly by bringing pressure to bear on the administration. Typically their collective action pertains to garbage collection, street-lighting, water supply, drainage, street cleaning, although they may be active in organising cultural events as well. Present mainly in upper and middle-class localities, RWAs are often managed by retired professional people who use their social networks among well-placed bureaucrats to accelerate public works or improve service levels in their areas. With the exception of Kolkata, our collective research clearly indicates that these neighbourhood associations are forging a new role for themselves in the urban governance equation. In many cases, this has been the direct result of an ‘invitation’ from the government. In Delhi for instance, discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, the government solicited participation from residential associations through the Bhagidari scheme, aimed at making citizens active ‘partners’ in the management of civic affairs. This has put them in regular contact with municipal departments and agencies in charge of urban services and maintenance, and given them a limited consultative role in the decision-making process (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007b). Similarly, the aim of the Advanced Locality Management (ALM) Scheme in Mumbai was to form partnerships with residential associations, although the scope was narrower as it pertained specifically to solid waste management (collection, segregation, compost) (see Chapter 10). ‘Empowered’ by the experience, some RWAs and ALMs have become more vocal in

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municipal politics, mobilising their ‘constituencies’ around particular issues (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007b; Zérah 2007b). Not only do these schemes encourage and support civil society participation in the delivery of services, through co-production or overseeing of works, they bestow a certain legitimacy to collective action initiatives undertaken by associations, which may represent in fine very narrow interest groups. As Tawa LamaRewal remarks in her study of the Bhagidari scheme (2007), one of the major limitations of this new mode of participation is that it excludes the most precarious sections of the urban population, the slum-dwellers. Indeed, to the extent that these schemes focus on improving relatively more affluent areas of the city, they may exacerbate spatial inequalities, unless countered by enhanced efforts in working-class localities. As recent research has shown, the urban poor often suffer from multiple deprivations in the city (Baud and de Wit 2008), most notably the absence of property rights, all of which restrict their effective access to public services (See Chapter 5). Another critique of the new RWA activism is that it can undermine the authority of elected officials. Indeed, in some cases, these organisations explicitly assert their objective to replace traditional elected representatives, whom they accuse of ineffectiveness and corruption. In Hyderabad for instance, in August 2007, a federation of RWAs signed a memorandum with the commissioner of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation instituting regular meeting between the RWAs and the administrative officials responsible for their localities. More significantly, the agreement empowered RWAs, ‘on an experimental basis’, to directly undertake sanitation works (drainage) and maintain street lights and municipal parks in their areas. In announcing the agreement in its newsletter, the association that spearheaded the mobilisation stated its hope that ‘this practice of direct democracy, would reduce the role or the interventions of the middlemen, i.e., the political representatives, where they are not needed’ (Tarnaka Times 2007: 1). This example illustrates the extent to which some voluntary organisations have embraced the concept of stakeholder participation, understood its newfound legitimacy and seized opportunities to assign to themselves a key role in civic affairs. NGOs are another major type of organisation involved in service delivery, often specialising in specific sectors (e.g., health, education, poverty alleviation), and working out of specific localities. As mentioned above, NGOs are mobilised extensively for the

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implementation of government policies and schemes, a role that has become increasingly institutionalised, even though individual NGOs come and go. One rationale for this delegation is that NGOs have greater knowledge of the target populations and the ground realities in the areas where they work. Governments have come to recognise the expertise of established NGOs, who understand the complexities of the sectors in which they specialise; in these cases they are often involved in consultations with the government and external aid agencies. In Andhra Pradesh for instance, the government recently engaged an NGO that specialises in health issues to train its civil servants, in addition to community-based ‘volunteers’, who would be involved with implementing social programmes. NGO personnel are considered to be more effective than bureaucrats because they are more ‘committed’; recall that in theory at least, they are voluntary organisations. In reality, as critics point out and NGOs themselves readily admit, the justification is also financial: NGOs are cheaper than the government machinery (cf. infra). NGOs are frequently perceived as legitimate representatives of local communities, although many are not membership organisations and tend to be skewed in favour of educated and affluent social groups (Harriss 2007). In recent years, a number of cities have organised strategic planning exercises, for example through UNHABITAT and the Cities Alliance, and these were conducted in consultation with NGOs, recognised as legitimate spokespersons for civil society. As indicated in Table 3.1 above, NGOs are allowed to participate in Ward Committees in Mumbai, although they do not vote, and similar measures are being discussed in other cities in the context of ‘Ward Sabhas’.17

Reaching the Target Population: Community-based Organisations (CBOs) In addition to delegating programme implementation to NGOs, the state also solicits their help to identify project beneficiaries, and 17

Hyderabad’s City Development Strategy (elaborated in the framework of UN-HABITAT and the Cities Alliance), which involved stakeholder consultations, recommended including 20 representatives of civil society in each Ward Ccommittee to encourage greater public participation. Provisions to include NGOs in Ward Committees were included in West Bengal’s legislation.

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to set up community-based structures, as part of its policy design. Such CBOs constitute a relatively new category of local actors and, to the extent that they represent the poor and the marginalised, their civic participation is considered fundamental to the good urban governance agenda. In the 1990s, the formation of stakeholder groups, such as users’ committees, was a central component in the design of many development schemes, intended to ensure popular participation in decision-making and promote a sense of ‘ownership’ of the scheme among the beneficiaries. Direct participation was supposed to increase awareness and thereby generate demand for better services. This trend illustrates once again the role of the state as an ‘enabler’ of civil society participation, but it should likewise be recalled that if the state can create new structures, it can also prevent them from being effective, either by design or through sheer negligence. Indeed, the rationale for creating ‘apolitical’ communitybased bodies for development projects has been criticised as both ineffective and regressive (Chhotray 2007). As for the deliberate negligence of state-initiated structures supposedly representing marginalised stakeholders, a recent example from Hyderabad is emblematic. In the late 1990s, the central government revamped its urban poverty alleviation schemes (re-named Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana) to include the creation of neighbourhood groups and community development societies. Through these structures, community-based local leaders were supposed to emerge, in order to oversee the implementation of the schemes and help to identify beneficiaries (see Chapter 9 in this volume). The scheme was implemented in Hyderabad and community structures were created, but when they reached the end of their 3-year term, the state government failed to organise the election process that would ensure their renewal, and they lapsed.18 This negligence suggests the fundamental ambivalence of the state with regard to sharing its decision-making powers, and is indicative of the degree of local democracy and openness that exists in the political system. 18 When questioned about this inaction, officers in the municipality (Urban Community Development Department) suggested that the community-based leaders were seen as being too political and therefore a potential threat to the political establishment.

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Similarly, a vast network of health ‘link volunteers’, who had been mobilised to participate in the implementation of an internationallyfunded project on population control, was allowed to dissipate once the project funding stopped. The NGO that had been selected by the government to set up the structures confirmed the problem of sustaining them once the project money was over and the material and non-material incentives were discontinued. Notwithstanding, there are narratives of successful government–NGO–CBO cooperation, such as Pinto describes in the case of resettlement of slumdwellers in Mumbai: ‘Communities have organized themselves, particularly the downtrodden and disadvantaged, like slum and pavement dwellers, and in concert with NGOs and government have solved their problems’ (2000: 212).

New Norms and References Accompanying Economic Liberalisation Although it is tempting to attribute the private, for-profit sector’s participation in urban governance to India’s economic reforms, it should be recalled that economic actors have always played a predominant role in the city, although their influence is often indirect, through market forces or through informal channels of influence, e.g., traders and shopkeepers organisations, real estate speculators and developers, private firms through their productive investments and employment, etc. Notwithstanding their local influence, it is nonetheless true that these actors are always subordinate to macro-level conditions, i.e., the institutional arrangements that ‘make collective action possible, determine much of the thrust of that action, and shape the linkages between elites and the remainder of society’ (Sellers 2002: 8). Until the reforms of the early 1990s, large sections of India’s economy were centrally managed from Delhi and industrial investments in particular were strictly controlled, including the geographical location of factories, the scale of production and the scope of foreign trade. In that context, public sector investments were the main driving force behind India’s growth (World Bank 1997), and the state the principle economic actor. Today, at the behest of the state, private capital, domestic and international, is progressively taking over the commands and there can be little doubt that this evolution is replete with repercussions for urban governance.

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Liberalisation has transformed the business environment and India’s regions are competing to attract investment. Large cities have come to be seen in a strategic light, as the primary growth engines — a transition that has been all the more ‘natural’ in that it follows a global trend. In recent years, policy-makers in Delhi and in India’s states have started focusing their efforts on enhancing the economic potential of their largest cities and creating the conditions that private investors seek (Kennedy and Zerah 2008). It is useful for the purposes of this volume to recall that for some authors urban governance has a crucial economic dimension, and it has been defined as ‘actions and institutions within an urban region that regulate or impose conditions for its political economy’ (Sellers 2002: 9). In countless ways, economic compulsions are shaping urban governance in the four cities we studied, whether by directly influencing urban reforms aimed at improving management and financial strength or by revising delivery patterns of urban services.

Private Sector Participation in Service Delivery The direct participation of private sector actors in the delivery of ‘public’ services is on the rise in India, as elsewhere in the world, and there is growing acceptance in decision-making circles, and to a certain extent in public opinion, that the private-sector has a critical role to play, especially in sectors such as healthcare and education, where it already surpasses public supply in many places. Although this trend of private-sector supply of services marks a rupture of sorts, it is necessary to relativise its importance from an international perspective: whereas examples abound from Latin America and Africa of private firms securing concessions for supplying water, sanitation and electricity services, a similar trend has not as yet taken hold in India. Although, for the time being, India has not privatised public services in a significant way (Zérah 2005) numerous local experiments are in progress in various sectors.19 For instance, in water and sanitation, private enterprises are involved in developing various types of infrastructure in both Mumbai (via World Bank 19

Regarding road transport, many cities’ services are in the hands of private operators; in Kolkata for instance they make up almost 80 per cent of the transport service providers.

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sponsored projects) and Delhi, in response to local demand for alternative water systems.20 Indeed, chronically insufficient public supplies of drinking water force city-dwellers to supplement with alternative sources, as studies over the years have shown. This amounts to a de facto privatisation of the costs of supplying drinking water, and the inadequacies of other public services are being similarly compensated by private arrangements. The cost borne is inevitably higher for weaker sections of the population (Zérah 2000). As the chapters in this volume dealing with education and health confirm, the private supply of health and education is a fact of life largely accepted by the middle and upper classes, whose demands for private facilities have driven this trend. There is now the idea, partly propagated by lending agencies, that the government should target its services to the poor, since this group remains dependent on it. Throughout the 1990s, there has been a growing tendency in Indian cities to outsource or otherwise shift the burden of basic urban services like street cleaning and garbage collection to the residents. This still-gradual shift is in part a consequence of the perceived failure of the state to provide these services in sufficient quantity and acceptable quality, but other considerations like budgetary constraints also weigh in favour of subcontracting services to private parties or co-producing them with the city-dwellers. According to the municipal authorities in Hyderabad, where the most farreaching experiments in outsourcing and co-production of street cleaning have been observed (in 2004, 75 per cent of Hyderabad’s total area was covered by private contractors), outsourcing allowed tremendous savings in personnel costs.21 During the same period, the municipality opted for outsourcing in some other departments too, such as tax collection, and has taken up the practice of issuing

20

Ruet and Zérah (2007) see a possible paradigmatic shift in the development and organisation of these actors, as compared to the classical forms of management delegation and/or privatisation of assets attempted worldwide in the 1990s. 21 In 2004, the personnel costs for the outsourced area (75 per cent of the total area) was less than Rs 18 crore, compared to the Rs 42 crore for the remaining 25 per cent covered by municipal employees. Interview with the Commissioner, Hyderabad, 18 October 2004.

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temporary employment contracts, including for nurses in the urban health posts.22 Low-skilled employees like sanitation workers and security guards are now systematically hired on a contractual basis. Incidentally, the administration does not directly recruit individuals but relies on intermediaries to hire and manage the employees. Although private contractors are supposed to be monitored, field studies indicate there is widespread dissatisfaction among employees due to various problems, including late payment of salary, belowminimum wage rates, absence of weekly holidays. Experiments in outsourcing and co-production in Hyderabad and Mumbai are analysed in more detail in Chapter 10 of this volume.

Corporate Social Activism The 1990s also witnessed the emergence of a new civic actor in the form of corporate sector service organisations. India’s economic reforms contributed to this development by creating conditions for rapid growth of private firms in certain sectors, such as IT, which tend to be strongly integrated with global markets. Regardless of whether they are Indian or foreign-owned, these firms are influenced by global corporate culture and its increasing attention to social responsibility. In some cities these ‘corporate NGOs’ now occupy a central position among non-governmental service organisations, and work closely with government in solving urban problems, including those related to service delivery. Perhaps more significant, they are increasingly and prominently involved in setting the urban agenda.23 The rest of this section examines evidence primarily from Hyderabad, a somewhat extreme case perhaps, but one that illustrates a growing trend. ‘Corporate NGOs’ emerged in the late 1990s in Hyderabad in a political environment singularly favourable to public–private partnerships. To promote development, the Telugu Desam Party-led government mobilised corporate sponsorships, drawn largely from the state’s ‘indigenous’ capitalists, notably with the creation in 1998

22 Significantly, this policy decision, strongly opposed by the municipal employees unions, was taken in the absence of an elected council. 23 In Bangalore and Mumbai most notably, corporates have taken the leading role in carrying forth urban reforms.

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of the Naandi Foundation.24 The Foundation solicits individual and corporate financial support for carrying out various development initiatives, such as the school health clinics, and assisting the state government in implementing such programmes as the Mid-Day Meal scheme. The success of these schemes depends largely on the generosity of private firms, who are mobilised through various social networks. Apart from Naandi, other corporate actors have created their own development organisations, which arrange, for instance, medical camps and run training programmes for school drop-outs. From the point of view of these organisations, the ‘rationale’ is the desire, on the part of the founders, and their employees, to ‘give something back’ to the society. It is a fact that the two most visibly active organisations (Dr Reddy’s Foundation and Satyam Foundation) are the offspring of regionally-based corporations. Not surprisingly, this trend has been greeted with concern by ‘traditional’ NGOs, who criticise such initiatives for being piecemeal. There are suspicions about the sincerity of the firms involved and resentment about the ease with which corporate NGOs approach even high-ranking government officials and the privileged treatment they enjoy in their midst. Sustainability is a major concern expressed by critics: how will these programmes be maintained when corporates withdraw their support? They contend that if high-performing, high-profile corporate projects allow the government to withdraw from the scene, then only the private sector will be left to assume complete control. In effect, many critics suspect that profit is the main driving force behind corporate generosity; like free Microsoft software, it is a gift that reaps benefits for the giver. Notwithstanding the critiques, some corporate NGOs have shown their willingness to work hand-in-hand with traditional NGOs, identifying localities with special needs and targeting specific groups. This was the case in Hyderabad recently, when a corporate foundation decided to extend the timings of municipal-run primary healthcare clinics in order to better serve the needs of the working population.

24

The chairman is Dr K. Anji Reddy of Dr. Reddy’s Lab, one of India’s most successful pharmaceutical groups. Other members of the board include the chairmen of the Nagarjuna Group and Satyam Computers. See www. naandi.org (accessed 16 September 2005).

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Conclusion The aim of this chapter was to analyse new patterns of participation shaping urban governance. I started by examining existing actors, the local elected representatives, in an attempt to gauge the impact of the 74th amendment. In the cities studied, it has not had the intended effect with regard to empowering municipal councils, neither in terms of functions nor finances. In many instances, the municipality’s capacity to act has not appreciably increased, and its relationship with the state government continues to be characterised by dependency and subordination. In our cities, Ward Committees do not provide ‘invited spaces’ for CSOs, except in Mumbai and then only in a restricted manner. However, the constitution of Ward Committees has to some extent strengthened the position of elected representatives vis-à-vis the municipal administration, by ensuring more frequent interaction and some distance from the ‘high politics’ of the general body meetings. There was considerable variation among municipal governments with regard to their effective participation in the management of the city, and their relative autonomy vis-à-vis the bureaucracy and the overarching state. Ultimately, a city government’s specific history, the functions it has been assigned over the years and its overarching political institutions were seen to be the main factors explaining contemporary patterns. Despite the dominant discourse about decentralisation and its advantages, there is a good deal of inertia in both institutions and mentalities. Although the functioning of formal democratic institutions remains an important parameter for evaluating the evolution of governance patterns, this study suggests that more significant changes are taking place with regard to non-elected local actors, in particular civil society organisations. Except for Kolkata, we have observed enhanced participation on the part of neighbourhood associations, NGOs of different kinds as well as CBOs. The latter are often formed ad hoc in the framework of government-sponsored schemes. These three categories correspond roughly to three types of participatory rationales, which tend to overlap: co-production of services in view of greater involvement of the middle classes in improving the urban environment; policy inputs and service delivery by organisations with specialised knowledge of local problems; implication of the urban

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poor in co-production of services and ‘ownership’ of schemes aimed primarily at slum improvement or poverty alleviation. All three categories have been empowered by the state, but their interactions with the state vary in important ways. Although the elites have always mobilised their social networks in order to pressure the local administration into solving their problems, new partnerships are institutionalising their participation in governance and there are indications that they are now emerging as autonomous actors. NGO participation has been institutionalised for a longer period. They are recognised by the government as legitimate representatives of civil society, for instance in consultation processes that have become the norm in strategic urban planning exercises (including proposals for JNNURM). Initiatives creating CBOs also reflect new norms about participatory democracy and good governance, but problems of sustainability and their perceived challenge to conventional political institutions have limited their development in most places. It is becoming generally accepted in decision-making circles that good governance must be inclusive, with inputs from a wide range of stakeholders, but the degree to which such stakeholders can be effectively involved ‘will depend on how well civil society and other groups are engaged with municipal institutions, and how much power and effective authority these institutions command’ (Stren 2001: 206). This is a critical point: as long as municipal government is weak, it is hampered in its ability to effectively engage with civil society, even supposing that it is willing to do so. This may explain why the centrally-sponsored JNNURM gives first priority in the list of mandatory reforms to be undertaken at the state level to the implementation of decentralisation measures and the ‘meaningful association and engagement of ULBs in planning the function of parastatal agencies as well as the delivery of services to the citizens’.25 In the last section, I discussed the broad repercussions of economic liberalisation on governance, including the introduction of norms for urban management. Budgetary constraints put increasing pressure on local bodies to reduce spending and justify new modalities of service delivery, based on cost-recovery principles. During the 1990s, cities increasingly outsourced basic urban services like street 25

See page 12 of the Mission Overview on the JNNURM website: http:// jnnurm.nic.in/defaultud.aspx (accessed 17 November 2007).

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cleaning and garbage collection to private contractors or to residents’ associations. In Hyderabad, even more central functions, such as tax collection and municipal healthcare services, have been contracted to private parties. In this same city, a new civic actor, the corporate NGO, has emerged and is working with both government and conventional NGOs to address problems in specific sectors. Like other NGOs, the sustainability of their actions is an important concern, and critics fear that in the long run their participation will favour wholesale privatisation of public services.

References Baud, I. and J. de Wit, eds. 2008. New Forms of Urban Governance in India: Shifts, Models, Networks and Contestation. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Chandhoke, N. 2003. The ‘Civil’ and the ‘Political’ in Civil Society, in C.M. Elliot (ed.), Civil Society and Democracy: A Reader. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chhibber, P. 1999. Democracy without Associations: Transformation of the Party System and Social Cleavages in India. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Chhotray, V. 2007. The ‘Anti-politics Machine’ in India: Depoliticisation through Local Institution Building for Participatory Watershed Development. Journal of Development Studies 43(6): 1037–56. Cornwall, Andrea. 2002. Locating Citizen Participation. IDS Bulletin 33(2): 49–58. Ghosh, A. and A.M. Basu. 2007. Urban Governance in Kolkata: Actors, Policies and Reforms. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Ghosh, A. and S. Tawa Lama-Rewal. 2005. Democratization in Progress. Women and Local Politics in Urban India. New Delhi: Tulika. Government of India. 2003. Model Municipal Law. Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, http://urbanindia.nic.in/moud/ legislations/li_by_min/Model_Municipal_Law/indexmml.html (accessed 8 November 2007). Harriss, J. 2007. Antinomies of Empowerment. Observations on Civil Society, Politics and Urban Governance in India. Economic and Political Weekly 42(26): 2716–24. Hibou, B., ed. 1999. La privatisation des États. Paris: Karthala, Collection Recherches Internationales.

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Jain, L.C., ed. 2005. Decentralisation and Local Governance. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Katzenstein, M., S. Kothari and U. Mehta. 2001. Social Movement Politics in India, in A. Kohli (ed.), The Success of India’s Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, L. 2006. Decentralisation and Urban Governance in Hyderabad: Assessing the Role of Different Actors in the City. GAPS Series, Working Paper 8, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. Paper presented at the Workshop on Actors, Policies and Urban Governance, held at ASCI-CME, Hyderabad, 20 September 2005. ———. 2007. Regional Industrial Policies driving Peri-urban Dynamics in Hyderabad, India. Cities 24(2): 95–109. Kennedy, L. and M.-H. Zérah. 2008. The Shift to City-Centric Growth Strategies: Perspectives from Hyderabad and Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly 43(39), Special Article: 110–17. Kudva, N. 1996. Uneasy Partnerships? Government–NGO Relations in India. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley. Kumar, G. 2006. Local Democracy in India: Interpreting Decentralization. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Navtej, K.B. 2005. Ward Committees of Mumbai – Functions, Finances and Practices. Paper presented at the Indo-Dutch Conference on ‘New Forms of Urban Governance in Indian Mega-Cities’, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 10–11 January 2005. Pethe, A. and M. Lalvani, 2007. Analyze This: Dechipering the Code of ‘Mumbai’ Budgets. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Pinto, M. R. 2000. Metropolitan City Governance in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Ruet, J. and M.-H. Zérah. 2007. An Alternate Approach to the Water Supply and Sanitation Infrastructure in Urban India. Unpublished mimeo. Sellers, J. M. 2002. Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sivaramakrishnan, K. C. 2004. Municipal and Metropolitan Governance: Are they relevant to the Urban Poor? Paper presented at the Forum on Urban Infrastructure and Public Service Delivery for the Urban Poor, Regional Asia, sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and the National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, 24–25 June, http://wwics.si.edu/topics/docs/ACF34F34C4.doc (accessed 6 July 2006). Sreedevi, N. 2005. Finances of the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad. Paper presented at the Workshop on ‘Actors, Policies and Urban Governance in Hyderabad’, 20 September 2005, ASCI-CME, Hyderabad.

80 Ú KENNEDY Srivastava, A. 2007. A Brief Financial Appraisal of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Stren, R. 2001. Local Governance and Social Diversity in the Developing World: New Challenges for Globalizing City-regions, in A.J. Scott (ed.), Global City-Regions: Trends, Theory, Policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Tarnaka Times, September 2007. Tawa Lama-Rewal, S. 2007a. Urban Governance through the Prism of Primary Level Health Services Provision: A Study of Delhi. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. ———. 2007b. Neighbourhood Associations and Local Democracy: Delhi Municipal Elections 2007. Economic and Political Weekly 42(47): 51–60. World Bank. 1997. India: Sustaining Rapid Economic Growth. A World Bank Country Study, Washington, DC. Zérah, M.-H., 2000. Water: Unreliable Supply in Delhi. New Delhi: Manohar and CSH. ———. 2005. Towards an Improved Urban Governance of Public Services, in E. Hust and M. Mann (eds), Urbanization and Governance in India. New Delhi: Manohar and French Research Institutes in India & South Asia Institute. ———. 2007a. Urban Governance in Mumbai. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. ———. 2007b. Middle Class Neighbourhood Associations as Political Players in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly 42(47): 61–68.

Chapter 4 Class in Metropolitan India: The Rise of the Middle Classes Jos Mooij and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal

I

t is almost a cliché to say that India’s appearance and image (internationally as well as its self-image) have changed dramatically in the last fifteen years. Instead of being associated with rural poverty, India is now associated with high rates of economic growth, a booming information technology (IT) sector and, particularly, an increasingly expanding middle class that consumes and behaves like elites and middle classes elsewhere in the world. Considering that cities concentrate many of the defining features of the middle classes (wealth, white collar jobs, educational institutions, and shops), the middle-classisation of Indian cities seems a foregone conclusion. Indeed, the changing urban landscape testifies to the increasing influence of a better-off, consumerist, western-oriented section of the population: malls replace small roadside shops (Voyce 2007); restaurants and multiplexes mushroom all over the city; cows, cycles and scooters progressively disappear from the roads and are replaced by luxury cars (Baviskar 2007); apartment complexes multiply, communities are increasingly gated (Falzon 2004), even while slums are slowly but surely driven towards the periphery (Dupont and Ramanathan 2009). In urban India, the rich are more and more visible, the poor less and less so.1 In this chapter, we will critically examine this alleged process of middle-classisation: what are the class dynamics within urban India? Is a process of middle-classisation really taking place? And if 1 This seems contradictory to Mike Davis’ compelling account of the ‘big bang’ of urban poverty (2006). What we argue, however, is not so much that the proportion of poor people is decreasing, but that the city is being reconstructed in such a way that they become less visible.

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so, what does this mean? As mentioned in earlier chapters, our research took place in four metropolises — Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai — and it is on the basis of insights acquired in these four cities that we will try to answer these questions. We will investigate the class dynamics within urban India by focusing particularly on two domains: primary education and local democracy. Both domains have witnessed important changes in the last decades, and class dynamics have played themselves out in different ways. These case studies allow us to investigate the rise of the middle classes, and to illustrate the diverse forms that the middleclassisation of Indian cities currently takes. In our analysis, we will discuss the effects of these processes of middle-classisation on the provision and quality of education and democratic spaces. In so doing, we will use Hirschman’s theoretical distinction between ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ (Hirshman 1970) since this framework allows us to relate class issues (whose exit, whose voice?) to changes in the form, provision and quality of schools and local democracy. The concept of a ‘middle class’ is essentially ambiguous, and its definition is the object of a large debate among scholars working on India. One may say that just like ‘governance’, the idea of a ‘middle class’ is both indispensable and risky, for it refers at the same time to an empirical reality and to an ideological project. As an empirical reality, the middle classes are usually defined in terms of income levels (Sridharan 2004) and consumption patterns (Deshpande 2006). Other, more contested criteria include the type of occupation (manual vs non-manual), level of education (English medium vs others), place of residence (rural vs urban), and caste/ religious identity (Hindu upper-castes vs others). Depending on the criteria used, the middle classes are estimated to comprise between 6 and 26 per cent (Sridharan 2004: 414) of the total population.2 In other words, they constitute, in strictly relative terms, the elite.3 2 Nijman (2006) also mentions the Centre for Industrial and Economic Research and the National Council for Applied Economic Research, two research centres based in Delhi, who respectively estimate that 34 per cent and 54 per cent of households belong to the middle class category. 3 The wide gap between these two figures underlines the ambiguousness of the notion of middle class in the Indian context: if we are referring to the top 6 per cent (in terms of income level) of the population, then ‘the middle class’ is clearly a euphemism for ‘the wealthy’; but if we refer to the top 26 per cent, then the lower middle classes are very much part of the picture.

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As an ideological project, however, the middle classes are the new ‘moral majority’ (Deshpande 2006): even though they are far from being the most numerous socio-economic category in India, they occupy a hegemonic position insofar as they represent what India wants to be in the twenty-first century: educated, upwardly mobile, with a westernised consumption pattern (but not necessarily westernised values). Yet the middle classes are more than just the rich: they are ‘increasingly differentiated’ (Deshpande 1997: 303), and constitute an essentially open, heterogeneous, expanding category. Hence the need to distinguish, as does Fernandes (2007), between the ‘new middleclasses’, i.e., the new rich — those for whom economic liberalisation has meant big salaries and a completely new lifestyle — and the other middle classes. This ‘new middle class, in effect, is the social group that embodies the realizable potential of a liberalizing Indian nation’ (ibid.: 206). The concept of a middle class is thus inherently equivocal, as is, by extension, the concept of ‘middle-classisation’. Given the elite nature of India’s middle class, middle-classisation can be understood as a process of social polarisation: the upper segments of the middle classes become richer, indulge in more and more lavish consumerism, and isolate themselves in gated communities, while the poor become poorer, perhaps not in absolute terms but certainly in relative terms. The notion of ‘middle-classisation’ can, however, also refer to a different process. Although the middle classes comprise only a minority of the population, their worldview, aspirations and values are influential far beyond themselves. As several authors (e.g., Fernandes and Heller 2006) have argued, the middle class discourse has become dominant and its position a hegemonic one. Middle-classisation, hence, refers not only to a process of sharpening dividing lines, but also to a process of blurring them. It is this Janus face of middle-classisation that we hope to illustrate in this chapter, since our case studies suggest that middle-classisation translates into sharper social polarisation in terms of practices, at the same time as it leads to a homogenisation of aspirations. As social laboratories, Indian cities are a privileged site of observation of this process.

Middle-Classisation and Education Education is a useful entry point to understand middle-classisation in metropolitan India. This is so for at least two reasons. First, education

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is one of the mechanisms through which class reproduction takes place. As will be argued below, the existing educational system in India reflects India’s class division, and the Indian elite and middle class are comfortable with this and make active use of it. Education is a domain in which class dynamics play themselves out very visibly. Second, education is no longer something that is meant for and interests the elite only. At present, lower income groups also regard education as one of the main avenues towards upward social mobility. In other words, many of those who do not (yet) belong to the middle class try to seek entry in this class for their children by investing in education. A study of education, therefore, illustrates the agency of people who do not belong to the middle class to change that situation, and thereby, one of the dimensions of the process of middle-classisation. One of the ways we approached our study of urban governance was to look at the demand and supply of services. The importance of education can then hardly be overlooked. There is an increasing demand for education and there is also a rapidly expanding supply. Much of this comes in the form of private schools, as will be shown below.4 Education in India has always had important class dimensions. Initially, this was mainly a matter of access. For a long time, access to education was, by and large, restricted to the better-offs in society. When India became independent in 1947, there was a small minority of less than 20 per cent of the population, comprised mainly of upper-caste men that had gone to school. The Constitution that was drafted at the time of Independence intended to put an end to this form of exclusion. In practice, however, not much changed and for decades access to education remained largely restricted to the better-offs. This situation, as Weiner (1991) argued, fitted the mindset of the elite and middle class with their notions of social rank and hierarchy. According to him, the Indian middle class tends to differentiate between the children of the poor and their own children: ‘between children as “hands” and children as “minds”’ (ibid.: 188) — a distinction that clearly gives a lower status to manual activities than to intellectual ones. From the late 1980s onwards, however, the situation changed somewhat, and universalisation of education became more prominent 4 Studies were undertaken by Jennifer Jalal in Delhi and Jos Mooij in Hyderabad and Kolkata. See also Chapter 6 of this book.

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in the policy agenda. A major push came with the introduction of a large integrated scheme, the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), introduced in 1994, initially in a restricted number of districts (and not in metropolitan India), but expanded in the course of time. In 2001, the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA, ‘education for all’) was introduced. Implemented all over India, it focuses on the upper primary (class 6 and 7) years of schooling. Both DPEP and SSA are, first and foremost, attempts to get all children to go to school. Other changes include the adoption of the 84th Constitutional Amendment in 2002, making free and compulsory education a fundamental right for children up to the age of 14. All this reflects the new and currently widespread view that education should be for all. This, however, does not mean that education has become an equaliser in Indian society. On the contrary, the system continues to divide, albeit in different ways than in the past. This can be easily illustrated by referring to the extreme diversity in outcomes. On the one hand, the Indian educational system produces a highly skilled labour force that is able to find employment in the Silicon Valley on a large scale. Since the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of welleducated young Indians have left India to work in the IT sector in the United States.5 This development has even raised some concerns in developed countries about the international competitiveness of their own higher education system as compared to India.6 On the other hand, although most children, at some point in their childhood, do go to school, drop-out rates in India are high. Only two-thirds of the children who start attending school complete five years of education (Govinda and Bandyopadhyay 2007: 39–40), and even if they do, their performance in studies may be appallingly poor. A recent report by the NGO Pratham states that almost half the rural children in class 5 are unable to read a class 2 text (Annual State of Education Report 2006). So, while restricted access is no longer the main mechanism dividing the privileged and the underprivileged, educational quality is.

5

In the 4-year period 1999–2002, more than 250,000 H-1B visa were issued to Indians. After 2001, the number came down, partly because of tighter security requirements, but also because of the further development of offshore outsourcing (Pandit 2004). 6 See, for instance, National Centre on Education and the Economy (2007).

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Educational quality is directly related to the different kinds of providers of education that co-exist in India. The main administrative categories are government providers (educational institutes funded and managed by the government), government-aided providers (funded by the government, but privately managed — with varying degrees of government intervention), and private providers (privately managed and privately funded, mainly on the basis of fees paid by students). There is enormous variation in the quality of education offered by these different providers, and this, to a large extent, reproduces the educational divide. In urban areas, the existence of these distinct providers and the increasing relative importance of private schools is more prominent than in rural India. This is so because the high concentration of people allows for more schools per square metre, and therefore more choice, and the aspirations of parents and children are linked to the global, modern world, of which education is obviously a part. While figures are hard to provide (see also Chapter 6), it has been calculated that the increased enrolment in urban India is almost completely on account of the private sector (Kingdon 2007).7 Private schools come in various shapes and sizes. At the top end are some very well endowed so-called international schools, with large campuses, a swimming pool and other sports facilities, AC buses to and from the school, sometimes with residential facilities, and annual fees that range between Rs 50,000 and Rs 100,000 (i.e., 1000–2000 Euros). These schools are for the Indian upper classes and children of non-resident Indians. At the other end, there are small private schools that do not charge more than Rs 50 per month per child, but the facilities provided by these schools are usually very poor. Private schools are, therefore, not only for the ‘haves’, they also cater to less wealthy segments of the population. The quality of government schools is often poor, especially at the primary level when other (private) schools are also available. However, within the category of non-aided schools too, there exists a lot of variation. While some enjoy a reputation of being very good, and attract elite and middle-class children, others are poor, like ‘normal’ government schools. But the main difference between 7

This is so because unrecognised schools form a significant proportion of all private schools, but these schools are not included in official school statistics.

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almost all private schools (whether cheap or expensive) and government schools is that in the former the medium of instruction is usually English — or at least that is what they claim — while the latter teach in the vernacular language. For the urban middle classes, it would appear on observation that private education is a must. Middle-class families are not only willing to pay a high fee, but also (illegally) donate large sums of money to the schools of their choice, in addition to sending their children to expensive private coaching centres. The latter can cost more than Rs 35,000 a year (these centres conduct an admission test and accept only the best students). The benefits that these families are trying to seek are multiple. The first is command over the English language. In an increasingly globalising world, proficiency in English is an imperative for the Indian middle class. This is also argued by Scrase, who quotes members of the Kolkata middle class according to whom ‘English is not only important in getting a better job, it is everywhere in social interaction. If you can’t speak it then you are a nobody’ (2004: 1). Fluency in English has become part of the Indian middle-class identity. It is ‘a form of cultural capital that serves to secure their middle class status’ (ibid.: 3). Simultaneously, it sets them apart from the others, since, just as the English language unites educated Indians from different regions and cultural backgrounds and connects them with the rest of the world, it excludes all those who have not been part of this educational system (Ramanathan 1999). The second benefit that is sought is a well-paid job or admission in a prestigious institution for higher education. Both are not easy to acquire. The job market is very competitive, and so is access to some of the colleges and universities or IIMs and IITs. Very good marks or grades in the exam taken and a high rank in the district or state list are necessary. The third benefit that is sought has to do with cultural capital. As Lakha argues, ‘amongst the middle class, education has now become an important requirement for a boy to find an educated partner, and for a girl to seek a professional husband’ (1999: 258). Many poor people in the cities also send their children to Englishmedium private schools. Almost all the parents we spoke to in the course of our study expressed the wish that their children do better than them. In one group discussion in Hyderabad, for instance, women stated:

88 Ú MOOIJ AND TAWA LAMA-REWAL Education is very important for livelihood and employment, and to be independent. We are suffering. We don’t want our children to suffer. They should do better than we do (Group discussion BS Makhta, Hyderabad, 25 September 2005).

Many of the poor parents we spoke to were willing to make huge financial sacrifices for their children’s education. When we casually commented to a couple (the father was a painter, the mother did not work, and they lived in a lower-class neighbourhood in Hyderabad) that they spend a lot of money on the education of their children (according to their calculation Rs 3,250 per year, for two daughters), the father replied that ‘if necessary, we will eat less’. This kind of attitude is not exceptional. Coaching classes, as mentioned above, are important for the upper and middle classes, but they are also required by poor people, In Delhi and Kolkata, we got the impression that virtually anyone who could afford it (even, if barely) hired private tutors. In a part of old Kolkata, we once held a discussion with a number of mothers living in an illegal colony next to the railway tracks. Men in this colony work in the unorganised sector, and many of the women work as maidservants in Salt Lake City, a middle/upper class area close by. Except one (of the five we spoke with), all were illiterate. They had learnt to write their names only through their children who had gone to school. The women told us that as maidservants they earn between Rs 500 and Rs 1000 per month. The tuition fees vary between Rs 100 and Rs 200 per month per child. Ironically, the money thus earned by the mother is largely paid back in the form of a tuition fee to a teenage child — again, often living in Salt Lake City! Free primary education, as the 84th Amendment specifies, is, hence, a bit of a misleading, perhaps even a contradictory concept. The move towards universalisation of education has come with great costs, most urgently felt by the poorest people. But it is clear that many poor people hope that their investments will eventually pay off. In our interviews, many people were reluctant to express exactly what kind of expectations they held for their children. In a group discussion in Kolkata (Ward No. 122, 12 May 2006) for instance, some mothers said that they want their children to continue studying as much as possible. They think their children will complete education at least up to the secondary level. After that the children will hopefully get some sort of job, better than what they (the mothers) are doing. But the mothers are not sure about what they will ultimately get.

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Investment in education remains a risk for lower-class people. Nevertheless, many do invest, and it is probably not an exaggeration to state that the educational divide is being challenged intensely by millions of individuals. En masse, poor people express their desire to be included in the educational system and benefit from it. This demand is, however, not articulated in terms of a political critique of the system, but expressed individually, essentially voicing a desire to be included in the middle class. Unfortunately, however, what most people manage to achieve is inclusion in that part of the system that functions only inadequately. In our research, we came across several sad stories of parents who made considerable sacrifices to send their children to English-medium schools and tuition classes, only to find out ten years later that the level of English being taught in the schools was so poor that their children were not only not learning the language well, but as a result also unable to pass exams in other subjects. The polarisation that exists in the educational system is no coincidence. In fact, the poor quality of many schools catering to the lower classes is causally linked to the existence of the other market segment, the better quality schools for children of elite and middleclass households. Hirschman’s framework (1970) is useful to explain this relationship. Well-to-do parents are often quality-conscious. They will opt to ‘exit’ when schools are not performing. They will choose another, often more costly, school that offers better quality in their view. It can be argued that this exit may not be a bad thing. In case they ‘exit’ from a government school, it may free resources for the less well-to-do. In case of an exit from a private school, it may lead to an impulse towards improving the school. In actual practice, however, this does not appear to be the case because, as Hirschman stated, the ‘exited’ schools lose those parents ‘who would be the most motivated and determined to put up a fight against the deterioration if they did not have the alternative of the private schools’ (Hirschman 1970: 46). It is therefore much more likely, and the pervasive lack of accountability in the Indian government schooling system bears testimony, that their exit may lead to a further deterioration in quality. In the private school system, these parents probably will use their voice to improve the quality of education. Voice, according to Hirschman is more likely to oppose deterioration of services that are already of fairly high-quality than of the lower quality services.

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Hirschman argues that this is especially the case if the density (and therefore degree of choice) of high-quality services is less than that of low quality services. This is definitely the case in India: the number of low-quality schools (both private and government) is large, while the number of schools that supposedly offer high-quality education is much less. But another relevant factor to keep in mind are the investments made to get into the private schools: high fees, donations, additional tuition classes to make sure that the children qualify the entrance exams. All these factors create not only an entry barrier, which serves to exclude the less wealthy parts of the population, but also an exit barrier, and therefore a premium on raising their ‘voice’ in case of dissatisfaction. There are, thus, two different mechanisms that contribute to reinforce the polarisation that exists within the education system. Both mechanisms are not exclusively ‘urban’, but given the higher degree of choice in the cities, their effects are likely to be stronger in urban than in rural India. To conclude, a focus on education highlights several important facts about class-related processes in urban India. First, the differentiation that exists within the educational system reflects wider processes of class differentiation and segregation. In the context of urban housing, Waldrop observed that ‘[t]he demand among poor people to be treated as equal citizens is paralleled with the demand among the middle class for more segregation (2004: 110).’ This also holds true for education. The moment universal education comes within reach, the wealthier sections of society withdraw from the public system. Second, the lower classes are challenging their exclusion from the educational system on a massive scale, but, rather than being a political movement fighting for a change in the system, their demand expresses itself exclusively in the form of an individual desire for upward mobility, and to become part of the middle class. Third, given the exit and voice strategies, the differences in quality of the various kinds of schools catering to different social classes are likely to be exacerbated.

Middle-Classisation and Local Democracy Our second entry point into the forms and implications of the middle-classisation of Indian cities is local democracy, which has been renewed in the past decade in at least two ways. First, the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA), adopted in 1992 by the

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Indian Parliament and implemented by the Indian states from 1994,8 has been promoting a process of democratic decentralisation. Second, there has been a rise in civil society engagement in urban governance, which intensified more or less in the same period. At first glance, it seems that the class dynamics that play themselves out in these two processes are quite different. The first would give voice primarily to the lower classes, through the combined effect of the system of electoral quotas imposed in the 74th CAA and the voluntary withdrawal of the elite and middle classes as voters in local elections. The second would enable primarily the elite and middle classes to influence urban governance. We will argue that this interpretation holds some truth but that it is also too simplistic. In actual practice, the two processes have some important interconnections and the middle classes dominate both spaces, although in different ways. To start with democratic decentralisation, the 74th Amendment suggests two different avenues of enhancing democratic participation: (i) the greater inclusiveness of elected municipalities, and (ii) the creation of participative structures. The legal status of these two avenues and their effectiveness on the ground are very different. Greater inclusiveness is achieved through electoral quotas, through a system of reserved seats for women (one-third of all seats), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) (in proportion to their local demographic importance). Being mandatory, this provision had to be included in the conformity legislations adopted by the states in 1993–94, and some states actually introduced electoral quotas for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) as well. The establishment of new participatory structures was prompted by the 74th CAA’s recommendation to create Ward Committees in all cities having a population over 300,000. This provision, meant to increase the proximity between elected representatives and their constituents, was left to the discretion of the states, and the overwhelming majority of them interpreted it in a manner that simply ignores its inherent potential for fostering participation: indeed, out of the four metropolises studied here, none has Ward Committees on the ward scale. ‘Borough Committees’ in Kolkata, just like ‘Ward Committees’ in Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad are in fact clusters of electoral wards, representing a population ranging from 240,000 8

The 73rd CAA, adopted at the same time, defines the rural part of that policy, often referred to as ‘Panchayati Raj’.

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in Mumbai to 1 million in Delhi, where councillors and municipal bureaucrats debate not-so-local issues, and civil society groups are present only in Mumbai, in the form of three NGOs selected by the local councillors (see Chapter 3). Thus, the principles of inclusion and participation have been diversely put into practice in different states and cities. The relevant question to ask in the context of this chapter is what impact has this had on the representation and power of various social classes, and particularly on the middle classes? The implementation of electoral quotas for women, SCs, STs (and OBCs) has doubtless contributed to altering the profile of elected councillors in terms of gender and caste/community. A recent study of reservations for women in the Municipal Corporations of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai shows that the proportion of women councillors had never gone beyond 9 per cent before the implementation of the 74th Amendment, while it reached 42.5 per cent in the Kolkata local elections in 2000 (Ghosh and Tawa LamaRewal 2005: 103). In terms of class, however, the same study, based on a survey of all women councillors and 50 per cent of the male councillors in the four cities, suggests that a majority of councillors actually belong to the middle classes. In Delhi and Kolkata, the majority of the councillors are graduates; in Mumbai, most are educated up to Class XII; in these three cities, the majority of the councillors know English; the majority of male councillors run their own business, while the majority of female councillors are ‘housewives or social workers’, i.e., they depend financially on their family; lastly, in all cities but Chennai the majority of councillors have a monthly household income over Rs 10,000 (ibid.:76–78), which situates them in the ‘expanded’ middle class, in terms of Sridharan’s classification (2004: 411). 9 More data is obviously needed, on the profile of SC and ST councillors, as well as on the profile of all councillors prior to the implementation of quotas, in order to get a more precise picture of the evolution of the socio-economic profile of locally elected representatives, particularly regarding the role of reservations. But the data mentioned above suggests that the increased representation of women, SCs, STs, and OBCs does not 9

The figures are 13 per cent in Chennai, 77 per cent in Delhi, 61 per cent in Kolkata and 66 per cent in Mumbai.

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necessarily translate into lower representation of the middle classes in municipal corporations. Yet the middle classes seem to have exited local self-government, in both its welfare and procedural dimensions. On the one hand, the middle classes have completely forsaken a number of collective goods and services provided by urban local bodies, particularly primary level healthcare and primary education (see Chapters 6 and 7). On the other hand, the electoral behaviour of the middle classes is characterised by massive abstention, which seems to be growing with time. Here again data is hard to come by,10 which points to a general lack of interest among political scientists for politics at the local level in India. But one can infer the gradual exit of the middle classes from local, urban democracy11 from the available evidence that urban residence and a higher income increasingly correlate positively with electoral abstention. Indeed, the level of participation in general elections has been, since 1991, consistently lower in urban than in rural constituencies (53.1 per cent and 58.9 per cent respectively in 2004) (Jaffrelot 2008). The voting pattern in India is now characterised by the fact that the poorer, less educated sections of the population vote the most (Yadav 2000: 133) and in the local elections that took place in 2007 in Mumbai and Delhi, the highest levels of abstention were found in the richest colonies (Tawa LamaRewal 2007b; Zérah 2007 ). However, as stated at the beginning of this section, political participation can take other forms than those specified in the 74th CAA and the greater involvement of the middle classes in ‘associational activism’, as compared to the poor (Harriss 2007: 2719), might counter-balance their relatively low involvement in elections. Moreover, new participative schemes have been set up

10

State Election Commissions created in the framework of the 73rd and 74th CAAs supervise local elections and publicise their results. Prior to the implementation of the 74th CAA, municipal elections were organised by the concerned municipal corporations, whose record-keeping has been poor. It is thus extremely difficult to access data concerning municipal elections held before 1995. 11 The low voting rate in municipal elections (65 per cent in Kolkata in 2000, 43 per cent in Mumbai and 45 per cent in Delhi in 2002), which is always lower than for Assembly and Parliamentary elections, contrasts with the strong participation in local elections in rural India (Yadav 2000: 123).

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in a number of metropolises in the last few years, such as the Swabhimana forum started in 1995 in Bangalore by the then Chief Minister, the Advanced Locality Management scheme created in 1997 by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, or the Bhagidari scheme launched in 2000 by the Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. Indeed, governments at all levels have appropriated the discourse on good governance, which gives pride of place to this kind of participation. The conception of community participation as a means to a more effective management of local issues had been put in practice through a series of schemes as early as the 1980s in India, but these schemes were then mostly aimed at slum-dwellers; they were part of ‘slum development’ (see Chapter 9). What is new here is the fact that the schemes mentioned above explicitly target middle-class residents, whom they invite to contribute to a more efficient management of local affairs through their active involvement. These new participative schemes usually rely on neighbourhood associations — variously called Road Associations, Advanced Locality Management (ALM) groups, or Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) — as their main mobilising structures. Even though these neighbourhood associations are limited to middle-class colonies, and despite the fact that they are most often formed on the basis of self-selection and co-optation (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007a), they have, over the past decade, acquired legitimacy as actors of urban governance.12 This can be attributed to a number of factors: (i) the new status of participation as a defining virtue of good governance; (ii) the support offered by local and state authorities; and (iii) the sociopolitical profile of their active members, translating into a number of resources that allow them to successfully appeal to the media and to the judiciary. Indeed the mobilisation of neighbourhood associations seems today to go beyond the explicit objectives of the schemes that spurred them in the first place, and give the middle classes a new voice in local affairs. The ‘city’ pages of the English press in all metropolises regularly report their demands and achievements, notably these associations have been important actors in major conflicts on land use, such as the one that shook Delhi in 2006. 12

Even in Hyderabad, where no participative scheme on the lines of Bhagidari or the ALM has been launched, RWAs have become prominent actors in urban governance.

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Such conflicts reveal the clout of neighbourhood associations and suggest that they have developed avenues of political participation that are parallel to, but by no means less effective than, voting. If we now turn to the nature of decisions taken at the municipal level, it becomes clear that middle-class interests seem to be served well. The argument most often heard (in interviews and press statements) to justify the middle classes’ massive electoral abstention is that slum-dwellers, who are much more numerous, are the vote banks of politicians; and that politicians, having been elected mostly by slum-dwellers, neglect their other constituencies. Thus neighbourhood associations have a very negative discourse on party politics, especially at the local level: they feel neglected by elected representatives, whom they consider corrupt and inefficient. While several studies have documented the relative protection afforded by (especially local) representatives to slum-dwellers (Jha, Rao and Woolcock 2005; Edelman and Mitra 2006) facing the threat of eviction, the percentage of municipal expenditure devoted to services that de facto cater exclusively to the poor, such as primary level healthcare and primary education, suggest that the poor are not a priority for local authorities.13 In fact, a number of governance reforms recently implemented by urban local bodies favour, directly or indirectly, the middle classes. Thus, e-governance, adopted in Hyderabad in 1999 and more recently in Delhi, obviously benefits those citizens who have easy access to a computer. Property tax reforms, adopted in both cities, have also played a role in the increasing assertion of the middle classes on the local scene, albeit in a less straightforward manner. Property tax is the main source of income for most Municipal Corporations,14 and its mode of calculation has been reformed in Hyderabad in 1999, in Delhi in 2004 and in Kolkata in 2006. In Delhi, this reform evoked strong protests by Resident Welfare Associations and the mode of calculation finally adopted did take

13 For instance, in 2004–05, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi devoted 2.51 per cent of its total expenditure to ‘medical and public health’, 1.24 per cent to ‘Mid-day meal expenses’ and 0.05 per cent to ‘education’ (these figures exclude salaries) (Srivastava 2007: 26). 14 In Mumbai, octroi (a tax that has been abolished in the other three cities under study) is also a major source of income (Pethe 2006).

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their objections into account, giving them a strong sense of their efficacy as a collective actor. When the reform started being implemented, RWAs in Delhi, as in Hyderabad, adopted a new role in property tax collection, either spontaneously or after an agreement with local authorities. For instance, in Delhi, RWAs set up kiosks to explain the new calculation method to local residents; they distributed forms and helped elderly residents to fill them out; in some cases they even collected filledin forms and deposited them with the local Citizen Service Bureau of the Municipal Corporation. In Hyderabad, ‘RWAs were mobilised to help with explaining the new tax scheme, and in several cases at least the members of the RWAs decided collectively on their assessment’ (Kennedy 2007). Thus, property tax reforms have provided RWAs with a double, major incentive to further assert their voice on the local public scene: they have realised the efficacy of their protest and they have created a role for themselves in the collection of a major resource of local authorities. Some RWAs have gone one step further: in Hyderabad, some RWAs now mention on their letterhead the total amount collected from their members as an argument in support of their importance (Kennedy 2007); in Delhi, some RWAs are demanding that they be entrusted with managing a part of the tax thus collected to take care, by themselves, of tasks such as the maintenance of local parks, boundary walls, etc. Thus RWAs have been asserting the link between representation and taxation that is so often missing in Indian politics (Mehta 2003: 139); their active role in the ‘fiscal relationship’ (ibid.: 142) between middle-class residents and local authorities leads them to express their heartfelt concern for accountability (in the strictest sense of the term). These facts, in combination with the generally negative discourse of neighbourhood associations on party politics, suggest that neighbourhood activism may lead, beyond ‘socio-spatial separation’ (Fernandes 2007: 13), to some kind of political insulation.15 Indeed, these associations can effectively compete with locally-elected representatives: they act as the spokespersons of local residents, advocate their interests, contribute significantly to collecting taxes, and assert their expertise on local issues.

15

On this subject, see Dupont (2004) and Das Gupta (2007).

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Yet the year 2007 has been marked by a new engagement of neighbourhood associations with local politics, through their active involvement in the municipal elections that took place in Mumbai in February and in Delhi in April.16 The observation of these two experiments shows that the relationship of the middle classes — invoked by neighbourhood activists as their constituency — with electoral politics is more complex than their derogatory statements may suggest. In Mumbai, the torrential rains of the summer 2005 seem to have spurred the realisation that even residents of rich colonies are dependant on, insofar as they have to bear the sometimes disastrous consequences of, public policies such as urban planning. Thus, even the neighbourhood associations of posh colonies participated actively in the city’s municipal elections, and one of the most prestigious wards of the city, Juhu, distinguished itself by selecting and supporting an independent candidate from among ALMs activists, who was finally elected as the local Corporator (Zérah 2007). In Delhi, two federations of neighbourhood associations selected and supported 32 ‘people’s candidates’, some of whom were regularly reported upon by the English dailies. While the two initiatives differed in the profile of their members, both voiced a strong but constructive criticism of the practices characterising local elections, be it the role of money in the selection of candidates by political parties, the buying of votes through the distribution of money and goods, or the indifference of middle-class voters. ‘People’s candidates’ promised to consult local associations on a regular basis; to inform their constituents about their use of the ‘councillor’s fund’; to report every year on their achievements, and more particularly on the status of completion of the works they had promised to undertake during the electoral campaign; and to step down at any time of their term if found incompetent by a majority of the voters in their ward. In other words, they advocated more transparency, more accountability and more participation in local elections (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007b).

16

In Hyderabad, where municipal elections are due in 2008, Lok Satta, an NGO specialising in governance issues, has launched a ‘Vote Hyderabad campaign’ on the lines of the ‘Vote Mumbai campaign’, through the internet.

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It is important to note that the middle classes thus engage with local elections in a manner which is quite different from the lower classes. Using Ahuja and Chhibber’s distinction, one could say that neighbourhood associations, unlike slum associations for instance, engage with local politics not as ‘clients’ (there were few attempts at lobbying parties and their candidates), but as reformers, going one step further in the ‘civic duty’ mode described by these authors as characterising the elite’s political participation (Ahuja and Chhibber, n.d.). Beyond the electoral outcome of these experiments (none of the ‘people’s candidates’ was elected in Delhi, while in Mumbai the one candidate supported by ALMs won) the involvement of neighbourhood associations in the electoral process is significant in several respects. One, the favourable attitude of the press and their own expertise at using the media mean that these initiatives and the discourse that justified them, albeit confined to a minority of associations, were amplified and could reach a large number of people, thus increasing the possibility of re-awakening the interest of middle-class voters in local politics (Zérah 2007).17 Two, these initiatives express an attempt by neighbourhood associations to connect their own concerns to a much larger area than the neighbourhood; they reveal a tendency not to secede from local democracy, but on the contrary to use it as a platform to define public interest. Indeed, a close study of the discourse of neighbourhood associations (through their press statements, their correspondence with various authorities and their public interest litigations) would doubtless reveal an attempt to ‘rise in generality’ (Boltanski 1990), i.e., a shift from ‘nimbyism’ to an attempt at redefining their interests in terms of the general good.18 Three, the engagement of these associations with local elections points to the resilience of democracy as a source of legitimacy even among the middle classes, 17 The low rate of participation observed in these elections seems to contradict this point, but in Delhi at least it might be due to factors other than the middle class’ participation, such as the ban on ration cards as an identifying document. 18 For instance, protests against the future route of the Delhi Metro are often justified on grounds of noise pollution — i.e., a nuisance that affects not only local residents, but all passers-by as well — even though they are being led by people whose views, more than hearing, will be affected by it.

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and it is part of the ‘internal’ democratisation process that these associations are currently undergoing. Neighbourhood associations are thus increasingly trying to conform to democratic norms and procedures (they organise secret ballot elections at regular intervals, keep minutes of their meetings and make them available to their ‘constituents’, etc.) (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007b). Finally, these recent experiments suggest that ‘new politics’ — ‘a politics built up around voluntary organisations in civil society rather than political parties, around new social movements…rather than labour organizations, and…forged in communities rather than in workplaces’, according to Harriss’ definition (2007: 2717), is not necessarily cut off from ‘old politics’; it points at the possibility for local democracy, notwithstanding its uneven development, to be a site of political innovation. Coming back to Hirschman’s framework of analysis, one could say that the voice of the middle classes, through neighbourhood associations, has been increasing recently as far as urban politics is concerned. One important reason being that exit proved impossible: the Mumbai deluge in 2005, and to a lesser extent the fierce conflict between supporters of zoning and advocates of mixed land-use in Delhi in 2006, showed that exit was simply not an option The many invocations of ‘the common man’, ‘ordinary citizens’, or ‘Delhi/ Mumbai people’ in the middle-class discourse cannot hide the fact that neighbourhood associations represent, both in a descriptive and substantive sense, only a limited proportion of the population. Yet it would be an oversimplification to sum up the current situation as a case of ‘elite capture’ of democratic spaces. Here again, there is a distinction between practices and aspirations. While a focus on practices suggests that different modes of political participation are appropriated by different classes — to put it shortly, the poor vote, strike and demonstrate, while the rich lobby, petition and litigate — attention to the micro-local level of politics, which is too often ‘under the radar’ (Fernandes 2007) of observers, points to some convergence as far as aspirations are concerned. On the one hand, the recent engagement of neighbourhood associations with local elections, and more generally their self-designation as ‘honest taxpayers’, point at a definite frustration with their impression, however fallacious, of not being represented by the elected decision-makers. On the other hand, the issue of the quality of electoral politics, and particularly the denunciation of corruption, is of prime concern to

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the poor, who are the worst affected by it. Indeed a recent survey of aspirations concerning democracy in India showed that ‘the “increase in corruption”… is considered the most ugly [character of democracy] with about 43 per cent of respondents, almost equally among all classes, ranking it at the highest’ (Desouza 2007: 39). In fact, a few recent initiatives have had RWAs and slum-dwellers jointly fight for more transparency in public decisions, particularly through the use of the new Right to Information. For instance, in Delhi, in 2005, the NGO Parivartan got RWAs to join the Right to Water Campaign, representing mostly the concerns of the poor, against a project of privatising the distribution of water. These initiatives are undoubtedly too recent and too few to be taken as a sure sign of change; however, they suggest that (i) even while it is important to critically analyse the agenda of ‘new politics…the politics of new social movements, of civic activism and of NGOs’, it is equally important not to idealise the ‘old politics of the labour movement and of programmatic political parties’ (Harriss, Stokke and Törnquist 2004: 8); and that (ii) there is a blurring of lines between the two. In other words, to use Partha Chatterjee’s now famous distinction, one currently observes a willingness of ‘civil society’ to engage with ‘political society’ (2004), notwithstanding the severity with which the former judges the latter. Indeed, and perhaps optimistically, one can hope, considering the hegemonic character of the middle classes (Deshpande 1997, 2006), that the fact that neighbourhood associations are appropriating the role of watchdogs of local democracy will have some impact: the middleclassisation of cities could lead to a stronger emphasis on the need for accountability, transparency and participation in local politics — a fact that would benefit all sections of the population.

Conclusion In this chapter, we have tried to investigate the apparent appropriation of cities by the middle classes, and move beyond the thesis of an elite capture of educational opportunities and democratic spaces, towards a more nuanced analysis of the class dynamics at play. As we said, both the concept of a ‘middle class’ and that of middle-classisation are inherently equivocal. Our two case studies show that, while practices are undoubtedly polarised along class lines, aspirations do seem to converge to some extent.

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Hirshman’s theoretical framework has led us to emphasise voice and exit strategies. In the case of education, the combination of ‘exit’ (the middle classes from low-quality schools) and ‘voice’ (exercised by the same classes in private and often more costly schools), results in certain schools improving their quality (as determined by the parents/public) and others continuing to slide down the quality slope. Class differentiation is, therefore, not only reflected in the schooling system, but also in the quality dynamics within this system. In the case of local democratic spaces, the situation is different. Although one may say that the middle classes exit local electoral politics to some extent, we have also argued that a complete exit is impossible. This means that the middle classes continue to make an effort to have their voices heard in the electoral arena. This may lead — although we are still referring to fledging experiments — to an improvement in the quality of local electoral politics, since some of the urban middle-class activism focuses on accountability. In the case of local democracy, class differentiation has, therefore, not led to the same kind of institutional segregation as we have observed in the sphere of education. This diagnostic reveals our attempt to eschew the moral posture that characterises much of the current writing on the Indian middleclasses. There is no doubt, in our view, that middle-class activism is predicated on middle-class needs and interests (or the perception of middle class needs and interests by the middle class). However, what exactly the outcomes will be, i.e., whether these will benefit the middle classes exclusively or others as well, depends on the sphere of these activities. In education, the lower classes (and the schools these children attend) do not benefit at all from the collective middle-class tendency to exit government-run or low-quality schools. In the sphere of local democracy, however, it remains possible that middle-class activism will, in the long run, benefit others as well.

References Ahuja, A. and P. Chhibber. n.d. Civic Duty, Empowerment and Patronage: Patterns of Political Participation in India. Unpublished paper. Annual State of Education Report 2006. 2007. New Delhi: Pratham Resource Centre. Baviskar, A. 2007. Cows, Cars and Rickshaws: Bourgeois Environmentalist and the Battle for Delhi’s Streets. Paper presented at workshop on The

102 Ú MOOIJ AND TAWA LAMA-REWAL Middle Classes in India: Identity, Citizenship and the Public Sphere. Delhi: Institute of Economic Growth. Boltanski, L. 1990. L’amour et la justice comme compétences. Trois essais de sociologie de l’action. Paris: Editions Métailié. Chatterjee, P. 2004. The Politics of the Governed. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 2006. Are Indian Cities Becoming Bourgeois at Last?, in M.E. John, P.V. Jha and S.S. Jodhka (eds), Contested Transformations: Changing Economies and Identities in Contemporary India. Delhi: Tulika. Das Gupta, K. 2007. A City Divided? Planning and Urban Sprawl in the Eastern Fringes of Kolkata, in A. Shaw (ed.), Indian Cities in Transition. Chennai: Orient Longman. Davis, Mike. 2006. Planet of Slums. New York: Verso Publishers. Deshpande, S. 1997. From Development to Adjustment: Economic Ideologies, the Middle Class and 50 Years of Independence. Review of Development and Change 2(2): 294–318. ———. 2006. Mapping the ‘Middle’. Issues in Analysis of the ‘NonPoor’ Classes in India, in M.E. John, P.V. Jha and S.S. Jodhka (eds), Contested Transformations: Changing Economies and Identities in Contemporary India. Delhi: Tulika. Desouza. P.R. 2007. The Indian Commonsense of Democracy, http://www. rfgindia.org/publications/democracy.pdf (accessed 7 April 2009). Dupont, V. 2004. Socio-Spatial Differentiation and Residential Segregation in Delhi: A Question of Scale? Geoforum 35: 157–75. Dupont, V. and U. Ramanathan. 2009. The Courts and the Squatter Settlements in Delhi – Or the Intervention of the Judiciary in Urban ‘Governance’, in I. Baud and J. de Wit (eds), New Forms of Urban Governance in India: Models, Networks, and Contestations. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Edelman, B. and A. Mitra. 2006. ‘Slum Dwellers’ Access to Basic Amenities: The Role of Political Contact, its Determinants and Adverse Affects, Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies 18(1): 25–40. Falzon, Mark-Anthony. 2004. Paragons of Lifestyle: Gated Communities and the Politics of Space in Bombay. City & Society 16(2): 145–67. Fernandes, L. 2007. India’s New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Fernandes, L. and P. Heller. 2006. Hegemonic Aspirations: New Middle Class Politics and India’s Democracy in Comparative Perspective. Critical Asian Studies 38(4): 495–522. Ghosh, A. and S. Tawa Lama-Rewal. 2005. Democratization in Progress: Women and Local Politics in Urban India. Delhi: Tulika. Govinda, R. and Madhumita Bandyopadhyay. 2007. Access to Elementary Education in India: Country Analytical Review. Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE), http://www. create-rpc.org/pdf_documents/India_CAR.pdf (accessed 7 April 2009).

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Harriss, J. 2007. Antinomies of Empowerment: Observations on Civil Society, Politics and Urban Governance in India. Economic and Political Weekly 42(26): 2716–24. Harriss, J., K. Stokke and O. Törnquist. 2004. Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Hirschman, A.O. 1970. Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Jaffrelot, C. 2008. ‘Why Should We Vote’? The Indian middle class and the functioning of the World’s Largest Democracy, in C. Jaffrelot and P. Van der Veer (eds), Patterns of Middle Class Consumption in India and China. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Jha, S., V. Rao and M. Woolcock. 2005. Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Leadership in Delhi’s Slums. World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3694. Kennedy, L. 2007. Assessing Urban Governance in Hyderabad. Strong Reforms and Weak City Government. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Kingdon, Geeta Gandhi. 2007. The Progress of School Education in India. Global Poverty Research Group Working Paper Series, No. 71, http:// www.gprg.org/pubs/workingpapers/pdfs/gprg-wps-071.pdf (accessed 7 April 2009). Lakha, S. 1999. The State, Globalisation and Indian Middle-Class Identity, in M. Pinches (ed.), Culture and Privilege in Capitalist India. London and New York: Routledge. Mehta, P.B. 2003. The Burden of Democracy. Delhi: Penguin. National Centre on Education and the Economy. 2007. Tough Choices or Tough Times. Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. Washington: Jossey-Bass. http://www.skillscommission. org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf (accessed January 2008). Nijman, J. 2006. Mumbai’s Mysterious Middle Class. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(4): 758–75. Pandit, Savita. 2004. The Changing Role of India and Indians in the U.S.High Tech Sector. Directions Magazine, http://www.directionsmag.com/article. php?article_id=635&trv=1 (accessed January 2008). Pethe, A. 2006. Analyse This: Deciphering the Code of Mumbai Budgets. Workshop on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Mumbai’, Mumbai, 23 February. Ramanathan, R. 1999. ‘English is Here to Stay’: A Critical Look at Institutional and Educational Practices in India. TESOL Quarterly 33(2): 211–30.

104 Ú MOOIJ AND TAWA LAMA-REWAL Scrase, T. 2004. The Hegemony of English. Paper presented at the 15th Biennial Conference of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Canberra. Sridharan, E. 2004. The Growth and Sectoral Composition of India’s Middle Class: Its Impact on the Politics of Economic Liberalization India Review 3(4): 405–28. Srivastava, A. 2007. A Brief Financial Appraisal of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Tawa Lama-Rewal, S. 2007a. La démocratie locale dans les métropoles indiennes. Les associations de résidents à New Delhi. Transcontinentales. Sociétés, idéologies, système mondial 4 :131–44. ———. 2007b. Neighborhood Associations and Local Democracy: Delhi Municipal Elections 2007. Economic and Political Weekly 42(47): 51–60. Voyce, M. 2007. Shopping Malls in India. New Social ‘Dividing Practices’. Economic and Political Weeely 42(2):2055–61. Waldrop, A. 2004. Gating and Class Relations: The Case of a New Delhi ‘Colony’. City and Society 16(2): 93–116. Weiner , M. 1991. The Child and the State in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Yadav, Y. 2000. Understanding the Second Democratic Upsurge: Trends of Bahujan Participation in Electoral Politics in the 1990s, in F.R. Frankel, Z. Hasan, R. Bhargava and B. Arora (eds), Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Zérah, M.-H. 2007. Middle Class Neighbourhood Associations as Political Players in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly 42(47):61–68.

Chapter 5 Vertical Governance: Brokerage, Patronage and Corruption in Indian Metropolises Girish Kumar and Frédéric Landy (with T. François, D. Ruby and P. Sekhsaria)

Transparency and accountability are two major and popular

characteristics of ‘good governance’.1 However, the fact that private actors’ and people’s participation is more important in urban governance does not automatically imply that more transparency and accountability are achieved; on the contrary, the addition of new actors in the ‘big game’ of urban governance under the liberalisation process creates new opportunities for hidden transactions and corrupt practices. Sometimes donors and experts simply look the other way. Thus, while listing the ‘roadblocks undermining reform initiatives’, Savage and Dasgupta (2006) cite weak links with citizens, lack of incentives, fragmentation and overlapping of roles, etc., but miss an important hurdle: corruption and clientelism. It is a major interest of this book that the methodology chosen by most authors is an empirical approach listing all the actors intervening in the studied sector. This highlights behaviours that do not really prevent liberalisation and decentralisation as such, but that can flourish on that new terrain and eventually hinder fair and sustainable urban governance. Corruption and clientelism are key elements of urban space because they are based on territorial aspects: identity links, power and personal relationships are often attached to an area, be it an electoral constituency, an administrative ward or a more informal neighbourhood or community network. Corruption in developing countries does not concern only top officials and big business contracts; in small but diverse ways, it 1

See for instance www.unescap.org/pdd/prs/ProjectActivities/Ongoing/ gg/governance.asp (accessed 12 January 2008).

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also affects the common person in his or her day-to-day life. It is often explained by economic factors: because civil servants receive a small salary (or erratic payments, or even no salary at all in bankrupt states), they are alleged to be in need of some extra income, in the form of a bribe or commission. Such an explanation, however, is not convincing because it cannot explain ‘high-level corruption’ in developed countries where top civil servants are well-paid. Nor can it explain corruption in countries such as India, where the average wage of a civil servant is seven times the per capita GDP (VaugierChatterjee 2001; Das 2001). A more sociological approach is therefore required in order to understand phenomena that have more to do with the absence or presence of a specific moral economy. This chapter argues that corruption cannot be understood without examining sociopolitical practices such as patronage and brokerage that are traits of everyday Indian life, more specifically in metropolitan settings, where complex clientelistic relationships intertwine due to numerous interpersonal and intergroup networks. In the first section, the interrelations between patronage, corruption and brokerage are enquired into, with reference to the Indian case. Two case studies illuminate clientelistic systems in metropolises by addressing, beyond sectoral views, more general urban issues: taking the case of the public distribution system (PDS), the second and third sections describe the obstacles faced by the poor inhabitants of Mumbai and Hyderabad seeking access to subsidised goods through, or in spite of, brokers who screen access to ration cards. The other case study, in the fourth section, shows that the Member of Parliament (MP)/Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Local Area Development Scheme (LADS) in Delhi increases patronage relationships to the advantage of the local elected representatives. Finally, we argue that porosities blurring the boundaries between state and civil society or between state and market reinforce a vertical segmentation of society — along the lines of ‘linking social capital’,2 2

According to the World Development Report 2000–01 published by the World Bank, linking social capital refers to ‘the vertical ties between poor people and people in positions of influence in formal organisations (banks, agricultural extension offices, the police)’, http://web.worldbank. org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/0,,content MDK: 20195989~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:336992,00.html (accessed 3 April 2006).

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patronage and community — that constitutes what we call ‘vertical governance’. Vertical governance refers to the sum of practices and interrelationships of the various actors taking part in the management of the city that have a dominant vertical pattern. This pattern stretches across the spectrum of social classes and groups due to the weight of patronage, community-based identity and ‘linking social capital’ (Woolcock 2001). At first glance, the concept of linking social capital captures well these vertical relationships connecting people within a hierarchy, and it allows us to go beyond Putnam’s (1993) somewhat egalitarian view of social capital. The phrase, however, appears to be an oxymoron since ‘social capital’, in Putnam’s words, includes solidarity, trustworthiness and the like, between peers. On the contrary, vertical relationships include differing levels of power, that were first (and quickly) described by Bourdieu (1980) as relations, that is (influential) connections. This chapter focuses on this vertical dimension which crosses the horizontal perspective of social capital and contributes to the building of an urban space.

Patronage, Corruption and Brokerage: Three Interlinked Notions ‘Patronage’ is defined as ‘a system of interpersonal and non-market exchanges of goods and services outside a legal framework, between agents endowed with unequal resources’ (Briquet and Sawiki 1998: 2, our translation). Its three key elements are ‘personalisation, reciprocity and dependence’ (ibid.: 7). Basic inequality makes patronage a fundamentally vertical, social relationship between the dominant and dominated persons or groups. Indian society appears to be a rather favourable terrain for patronage, since it is segmented into communities based on caste, religion and regional origin, all of which tend to inhibit any strong class solidarity. The progressive dislocation of the interrelationships of the caste system (Deliège 2004) in the face of new activities and social mobility has made the link between class and caste more tenuous. Social mobility inside the community and intercommunity alliances create possibilities of links between the poor and the rich, the destitute and the powerful. Similarly, people linked by the solidarity born out of regional origins may belong to contrasting classes. Thus is created a verticality that has been precociously underlined in village studies

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(Srinivas 1962) and that the present research, in urban settings, shall also emphasise. ‘Corruption’ is a word commonly associated with ‘patronage’, since both often go together in society. Following J.G. Padioleau, Médard (1998) argues that instead of separating the two notions, one should bring them under the same umbrella concept of ‘corruption’. Thus, he distinguishes ‘economic corruption’ (corruption in the usual sense) from forms of ‘social corruption’, such as nepotism, casteism or patronage. There is an economic dimension even in social corruption, but it cannot be reduced to it. Social corruption also includes a ‘personal variable’, which is based on the social identities (kinship, regional origin, etc.) of the people involved, while economic corruption can be entirely anonymous. In our opinion, such a dual definition, of economic vs social corruption, is simultaneously heuristically fruitful and practically confusing. It is fruitful because it allows one to address two notions by linking them up analytically — patronage usually works through economic corruption, and both are opposed to the bureaucratic ideal type à la Max Weber and to the model of the modern state. However, it is also confusing because practically speaking, in daily life, individuals can encounter these two phenomena in two opposite ways. Patronage usually gives access to goods or services that would have remained out of reach without clientelist links. Economic corruption can allow the same, but it may also be considered an obstacle to this access, especially in the case of goods and services that are officially public and free, but actually delivered only through the payment of bribes. Seen from this angle, patronage is a facilitator, whereas economic corruption is often a hurdle. This paper shall show, however, that patronage often negates universality as a principle of public action when it works as an obstacle for those outside the clientelist network. On the other hand, corruption can provide access to services that are otherwise highly restricted. Such ambiguity is to be found in a common figure, present in many societies and developing countries (as well as elsewhere), namely, the broker (or middleman/agent/dalal, etc.). A broker may have two contradictory functions. On the one hand, s/he can be a ‘gate opener’, giving access to an otherwise unreachable service — often through patronage. On the other hand, s/he can be a ‘gate keeper’, refusing access to those who do not pay (adequate) bribes. Simply put, the ‘gate opener’ has more to do with patronage, whereas the

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‘gate keeper’ is linked to economic corruption — but the boundaries between the two are quite blurred since the gate keeper can also turn away those who do not belong to the clientelist network. This chapter shall illustrate this ambiguity by bringing into focus the key role of an often neglected urban actor: the broker.

The Public Distribution System: Not So Public At first glance the PDS may appear to be a poor entryway for research on urban governance, given that this service of supplying subsidised foodstuffs is managed by a state department, without any official intervention from an urban actor (municipality, corporator, etc.). Nevertheless, it is shown below that ‘pulling the research thread’ of the PDS enables the coming out of a good part of the metropolitan fabric and reveals important characteristics of urban governance. Fieldwork on PDS was conducted in Mumbai and Hyderabad (2004–06). With a sample of 60 households, just one area — Sultan Shahi — in Hyderabad’s Old City was studied. In Mumbai, two slums were selected: Gilbert Hill in Ward K west (Andheri West) and Antop Hill in Ward F north (Matunga East). A more cursory study was conducted in a well-off area (Parsi Colony in Matunga). Except for Parsi Colony, all these areas are inhabited by low-income groups, but the majority of the settlements are legal or notified. Another demographic feature is that they are mostly inhabited by Muslims. At the national level, PDS is a huge machinery managed by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The FCI supports agricultural prices in surplus-producing areas through government procurement, and also supplements food consumption by subsidising rice, wheat, sugar (and kerosene) across the entire territory (Landy 2008). At the local level, PDS in urban areas has ‘ration shops’ as outlets, where households get access to the subsidised items through ration cards in two colour combinations: white and yellow for Below Poverty Line (BPL) households in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra respectively; pink and saffron for Above Poverty Line (APL) households. The type of card determines its holder rights to different monthly quotas and prices. It is, however, well known that in India access to subsidised food and kerosene through PDS is not being provided properly (Mooij 1999; Asthana and Medrano 2001; Mahendra Dev et al. 2004; Patnaik 2004). The PDS is not ‘public’ enough in two senses: not

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everybody has access to it and ‘privatisation’ of the system through stealthy appropriation of resources has occurred in favour of ration shopkeepers, traders, corrupt officials and politicians. For households, access to ration shops is blocked by several hurdles. First, procuring a ration card is itself difficult. In Hyderabad, 15 per cent of the sample households had no ration cards. In Mumbai, the situation was even worse: one-third of the sample in Gilbert Hill were without ration cards. Besides, in Hyderabad, only 18 per cent of the card-holders belonged to the BPL category. Among households covered in the study at Gilbert Hill, none had BPL cards, and only 1 per cent in case of the households surveyed in Antop Hill.3 A ration card is also required as proof of identity for opening a bank account, getting registered on electoral rolls, etc., it is explicitly mentioned on the card itself that the document should be used for rationing only. Even the rich need a ration card for renewing their passport or getting a driving licence. A ration card is a fundamental tool of survival for the poor who live in slums or illegal/informal settings because it is a certificate of residency: it not only provides access to food but also facilitates access to urban public services for the not-so-poor and physical access to the city for the poorest. Getting a card means that the risk of expulsion and slum clearance is reduced. It is all the more crucial for Muslims, since it ‘proves’ their Indian nationality. These multiple uses have overshadowed its role of subsidising consumption (Jenkins 2004). That this document is a necessity for the poor has induced many people to take advantage of their helplessness. In Hyderabad (and in the posh Parsi Colony in Mumbai), bribes are rarely paid for getting a card, unlike in Mumbai slums. There, obtaining a card can imply paying illegal brokers anything between Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,000 or even more, depending mainly on whether the household deserves the card or whether papers need to be forged. The reasons are all linked to inward and outward, real and imagined migration. In order 3

The eligibility criterion of BPL is not fixed. Thus, in Hyderabad, a household with annual family income less than Rs 11,000 is considered to below the poverty line, in Mumbai, a family with annual income below Rs 15,000 is treated as a BPL household. The threshold limit is clearly too low given the relatively high level of wages earned in megacities. At the same time, some households are so destitute that they are definitely below the poverty line and yet do not even have a BPL card.

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to check the entry of immigrants (especially, Indian Muslims and Bangladeshis) into Mumbai, restrictions on the delivery of new ration cards were imposed in 1995–96 by the then Shiv Sena–Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Maharashtra in the name of its ‘sons of the soil’ ideology. Second, increasing Indian emigration to Gulf countries has made ration card ownership even more necessary in order to get a passport, causing the ‘price’ of a card to soar. These reasons do not apply to the same extent in Hyderabad. Till the bombings of 2007, intercommunity tensions were less visible during the period under study, and the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), a Muslim party, was dominant at the municipal level, unlike in Mumbai where the Corporation was held by the BJP–Shiv Sena. Moreover, the proportion of native Muslims is higher in Hyderabad than in Mumbai where migrants converge from all four corners of India. Again, emigration to the Gulf is probably less prevalent in Hyderabad than in the globalised port-city of Mumbai. ‘By getting a ration card, you can become a citizen of this country for 3,000 rupees,’ a BJP corporator told us in Mumbai. From the viewpoint of access to food, bribes to be paid for getting a card represent a hurdle preventing the delivery of a service that is officially free. But for the aforementioned corporator and others fearing immigration, bribes represent a facilitator that allow easy access to an officially restricted nationality. Public, fair price shops are mostly run by private dealers. Sale prices and profit margins are officially fixed by the government. In the area studied in Hyderabad, shopkeepers do not appear to cheat customers on prices but on quantities delivered. In Mumbai, they do both. The shopkeepers complain that their official income is very little, especially when compared to the inflated real estate prices in megacities. Shopkeepers face another important problem when grain is supplied from the government warehouse: 2–4 per cent of the contents of the official bags are usually missing. The ration shop is only one link in what we call a ‘corruption chain’. Officials must get back the bribe they paid to the higher authorities for getting lucrative posts; hence they cheat the godowns-in-charge. The latter must compensate themselves by cheating ration-shop dealers, who in turn reclaim their losses by cheating the consumer, who then becomes the ultimate loser in the entire bargain. Doing away with such a bribe-based system appears unlikely since everybody involved in the supply chain has a vested interest.

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Formal and Informal Actors in the ‘Patronised Distribution System’ Elected (or Partly Elected) Actors In Mumbai, the PDS is located at the point of intersection of two political axes. Since the elections of 2004, it has developed mainly as a departmental programme along a vertical axis dominated by the Congress party from the central to the state levels. It does, however, have a horizontal dimension as well since the Corporation dominated by the BJP–Shiv Sena is not just a mute observer. Municipal corporators are members of the Food Vigilance Committee chaired by an MLA in each of the five rationing regions of Mumbai– Thane. The co-existence of these two dimensions is a source of mismanagement and disagreement for structural (it is not easy to manage such a complex departmental system by maintaining it only at the municipal level) as well as political reasons. This probably explains why these ‘regional’ vigilance committees have not held a meeting since 2002. In Mumbai, there is no provision for vigilance committees at the level of the ration shop (nor at the state level). In Hyderabad, these committees exist at the state, district and circle levels, but at the ration shop’s level they do not really seem to work. It is noteworthy that ward corporators are not invited to these committees because, as one chief rationing officer argued, too much weight is not given to a single political party. (Rather, all political parties are invited, and play a key role in food committees.) There appears thus to be no confidence in the ‘representativeness’ of representative democracy at the local level. The civil supply administration seems to work according to the legacy of times when municipal corporations used to be non-elected entities, favouring the bureaucratic structure of the local ration-shop system without officially allowing any control by the elected representatives. At present, in either of the cities studied, no local committee appears to work. This acts as an obstacle to collective complaints being made in a formal arena. Clearly, the major factor preventing the proper functioning of any food committee is precisely the malpractices in the PDS. Why would a corrupt system be interested in ensuring transparency? That no supervisory committee exists is

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thus both a cause and a consequence of corruption.4 The complaint boxes and books that are kept in ration shops provide people other formal means of voicing their grievances. But to a large extent, these remain empty, and not only because many people are illiterate or not literate in the local language. Thus, ‘invited spaces’ (institutions provided by the government), to use the terminology of Cornwall (2004), or ‘“state fostered” civil society institutions’ (Jenkins and Goetz 2003), are not efficient arenas for public participation. Demands, suggestions and complaints must therefore be voiced in ‘invented spaces’ (endogenous arenas confronting the authorities) (Miraftab 2004), either collectively (demonstrations organised by a CBO/NGO) or individually (by approaching a notable or powerful acquaintance for mediation) (see Table 5.1). Table 5.1: Invited and Invented Spaces for the PDS Invited space (limited) Individual voice

Complaint box and books

Collective voice

Vigilance committees

Invented space (dominant) Mediation from a notable or an acquaintance, clientelism, etc. Demonstration, rasta roko, etc.

In such a context, the local representative (ward corporator/ councillor) can play an important role by assuming any one of his/her three identities: an elected representative; a ‘big man/woman’; or a member of the vigilance committee.5 We have seen that the third identity is marginal in importance. As for the first, the councillor’s place in the Corporation is of little official use since the municipal system have almost no links with the PDS. What about his/her power by virtue of being a notable? There are 100 corporators in Hyderabad municipality, and 227 in Mumbai, and a good part of their power does not come from their assignment through the 1992 constitutional amendments, but from their social position — that

4

However, as a Samajwadi Party Corporator complained to us, neither the Government nor the officials are afraid of vigilance committees, considered well infiltrated and controlled by them. 5 The first identity corresponds broadly to the Nehruvian idea, the second is what the developmental state actually worked out, and the last is what the ‘good governance’ agenda pushes for (Joël Ruet, personal communication).

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they were elected at all was very often a result of their accumulated social capital. A corporator can represent mediation that transfers upwards the ‘voice’ of the people on various issues, including the PDS. His/her representativeness is, however, considered weak for two reasons. One, the institution is too new for people to have gotten accustomed to using it. Two, the constituencies are too large, constituted by people belonging to many communities: in Antop Hill (Mumbai), very few people know even the name of the corporator — they often quote the name of their MLA; in Sultan Shahi (Hyderabad), many of the Muslims do not approach their representative at all for s/he belongs to the BJP and is a Hindu. However, if a corporator does not intervene in favour of the users, it does not mean that s/he has no role in the PDS: for example, s/he can set up someone from his/her clientele in ration shops and even in rationing offices or, as we shall see, protect a broker collecting bribes from the users. All in all, councillors tend to intervene in PDS matters more as local notables than as members of the Municipal Corporation. Even though corporators often have little real power in matters that are their assigned official responsibility (see Chapter 3), their informal role in urban governance is evident. In order to undertake a general appraisal of their actions in urban governance, one should therefore take into account their involvement in all the ‘informal’ activities of brokerage, mediation and patronage.

The Users: An Ambiguous and Limited Mobilisation All users are not victims of the system.6 Many conceal the death of a grandfather or the marriage of a daughter to keep their monthly quota ‘intact’, or lie about their gas connection in order to buy subsidised kerosene. This is one reason why it is difficult to improve the PDS: although people feel cheated or disadvantaged, many prefer at the same time to bypass rules and regulations themselves, and, consequently, are reluctant to articulate demands. They are either constrained by an uneasy conscience or, more likely, aware of what 6 In India, ‘even the poor, low-status and weak can sometimes benefit from their own adequately competent manipulation of political and administrative systems’ (Harriss 2006: 209).

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they can lose individually and ignorant of what they can gain by raising a collective voice. We should recall that the redistributive effect of PDS is much greater compared to other forms of subsidy, such as for electricity or fertilisers where the richest benefit the most. Moreover, unlike issues taken care of by the Bhagidari scheme in Delhi, where the middle class is the interlocutor, the fact that mostly poor people are concerned with PDS does not provide such a important agenda for the government. In terms of gender, men and women are equally concerned by the PDS issue. Even if it is women mostly who buy rations, sometimes men also go to the ration shop. Both are therefore ready to discuss the topic. But mobilisation depends on households’ interest in the PDS. Well-off households with APL cards or at a time when cheap grain is available in the free market, are not ready to fight for a better PDS. This is one reason why raising the poverty line is so crucial (Patnaik 2004): its ridiculously low level, especially in Mumbai, prevents many poor people from getting BPL cards and acts as a strong brake on popular mobilisation. Now, in the absence of support from NGOs in many areas, the poor are helpless if they are not backed by the middle class, which is the only group with the material means to fight: go on strike (including on hunger strike) and lodge formal complaints (see Chapter 4).

The Filtering Intermediaries (Agents) These are people, men and women, who can be seen roaming in front of the rationing office, introducing themselves as ‘social workers’. They claim that they provide some much-needed help to poor immigrants who happen to be either illiterate or, in Mumbai, cannot read Marathi and are therefore unable to fill forms. Agents, however, act as screeners in two ways: first, they are a red herring, preventing users (or inspectors) from finding out who the corrupt bribe-taking officials are; second, officials use these agents as a shield between them and the users so that they can maximise bribe collection without even having to give ‘discounts’ to users more or less personally linked to them. On the whole, agents are much less ‘fixers’, unlike in Manor’s (2000) analysis on rural Karnataka, than impediments who prevent access to a public service. Corruption here is based on the simple ‘logic of toll’, i.e., making money (de Sardan 2001: 65).

116 Ú KUMAR AND LANDY Redistribution of a Rs 8,000 bribe in Mumbai: Typist: Rs 500 (+ Rs 50 for stamp) for forging a card. Agent: Rs 2,000 Rationing Officer: Rs 6,000, then distributed by him between: Rationing Officer: Rs 4000 Assistant rationing Officer: Rs 1,000 Inspector: Rs 1,000 Source: Author’s field research.

The role of ‘agents’ must be analysed as within a system: the ‘corruption chain’ includes various types of officials who have to pay for their posting (see box above), users, ration-shop keepers and political parties (since the ‘bottom-up’ system culminates in party financing).7 Like in Western Africa, this system is based on the behaviour of ration officials that, which should not be considered exceptional (contrary to the norm) but falling under other, unsaid, norms (de Sardan 2001). It is commonly argued that the distinction between formal and informal economy (organised/unorganised sector) is dubious given the numerous symbiotic linkages between the two and the boundaries that get blurred in many activities. What happens in rationing offices proves that the formal sector not only often cedes its place to informal and illegal practices, but also that these illegal practices take place in the very places where the ‘formal’ should dominate, namely, the state’s spaces. PDS is only one of the numerous examples in India and elsewhere of what can be called an oxymoronic ‘informal state economy’ (Bayard 2006: 108). At this local level therefore, we do not find any clear demarcation between the state and the market (due to the leakage of goods), nor between state and civil society (due to the corruption-driven ‘privatisation’ of the state and, as we shall see below, the ambiguous role of local associations). A mixture, of all that constitutes ‘the actually existing state’ (Harriss-White 2003: 74), also referred to as the ‘shadow state’ (ibid.: 89): not a ghost state with no actual existence, but a part of the real state, attached to it like a shadow. We argue that PDS, though not a municipal subject, is a good lens 7

However, no investigation was conducted on this latter issue.

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through which we should look at urban governance. It functions in a city managed by urban dwellers for urban dwellers, and far from being a centralised monolithic system, PDS contains plenty of ‘faults’ that civil society can penetrate — for better or for worse. Illustrating the concept of a ‘porous bureaucracy’ (Benjamin and Bhuvaneswari 2001), PDS blurs the distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ actors, as well as between ‘collective’ and ‘individual’ interests, between what is ‘legal’, ‘licit’ and ‘legitimate’, etc. This can be seen in Mumbai in the manipulation of space and time in a ration office: many of the steps necessary to get a card are taken in the front yard of the ration office rather than inside the building itself and only after the official closing time — that is, clearly beyond state-drawn boundaries.

Political Society Political Parties: Clearly an Unclear Role In the yard of the Matunga rationing office, a female agent told us: ‘In this office there are eight female agents, including three who come every day. There are three agents with the Congress or the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), three with the Shiv Sena, and one each in the Republican Party of India and the Samajwadi Party’ (personal communication). A male agent introducing himself as a ‘reporter’ in the Matunga office works for the Akhil Bharatiya Sena (a rival faction of the Shiv Sena). Three other men are said to be with the NCP. In short, there is not a single agent without political affiliation. Manor’s (2000) analysis of the multiple roles played by ‘fixers’ (read agents) and their importance according to the various sociopolitical regimes prevailing in the states of India is quite stimulating. Why are ‘agents’ so visible and numerous in Mumbai, and much less in Hyderabad where bribe-taking happens on a lower scale? Manor underlines the bipolar political structure of Andhra Pradesh, a state that witnessed the long dominance of former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who was a ‘partisan “control freak”’ (ibid.: 15). According to Manor, such a situation is not favourable to fixers, whereas Mumbai, with its political multiplicity, offers a more fertile ground for agents. (More sociological and ethnological

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approaches, however, are necessary for providing fully convincing explanations).8 In Mumbai, the two Congress parties (the Congress-I, and its offshoot, the NCP) deploy a similar strategy to that of the MIM in Hyderabad, i.e., soliciting Muslim votes. The region’s vote bank is broadly divided along communal lines. But this analysis is not only very sketchy and requires elaboration, it also does not reveal the actual role of political parties in the daily lives of the people. What has been written about the CPI(M) in West Bengal is probably true here, but in a more nuanced manner because no party has a quasimonopoly: Roy and Banerjee describe the ‘politics of middleness’ (2006: 4255), which goes in both directions: upwards is what we can call ‘the springboard party’, without the support of which access to public goods is difficult; downwards is what we call the ‘umbrella party’ that protects intermediaries such as agents and other parasites. It remains to be seen what interest a party could have in protecting a shopkeeper or an agent. At the lower levels, PDS does not seem to be an important source of funding, even if a part of the agent’s income may be transferred to his or her protecting party. It is more likely a means to control the votebank. More fundamentally, there is a cleavage in India between politicians and their electorate, and between the administration and citizens. This gap is bridged by a network of political brokers with whom PDS brokers are linked (Ruet, personal communication; Corbridge and Harriss 2000). Is this not a recurring and rather central element of Indian governance? Lastly, if we follow the distinction made by Harriss-White between ‘patrimonial, populist or clientelist forms of state politics’ (2003: 78), PDS would appear more clientelist (attached to votes) than populist (since few people benefit from the working of the system) and perhaps even patrimonial (since a lot of the money taken is redistributed in order to ‘water’ many individuals). But more research is required in order to understand how force, compulsion and cheating do not prevent people from casting their votes voting 8 There are thus many exceptions in the correlation Manor tries to establish between the prevalent socio-economic conditions and the political management styles of the ruling parties and leaders, on the one hand, and the importance and number of fixers, on the other. The possible links between ‘macro’ and ‘micro’, between political science and socio-ethnological approaches, between ‘small and big corruption’ are critically debated with regard to Africa by Copans (2001).

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(with a secret ballot) for political parties’ candidates, rather it induces them to do so.

Community-based Organisations (CBOs): What does ‘Community’ Mean? In Mumbai, we found a good number of Mahila Mandals (women associations) whose members have been long settled in slums. In Antop Hill, the woman presiding over the Mahila Mandal is an NCP worker. Interestingly, she is also a member of the Building Repair and Development Board (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority). Likewise, in Matunga, an ‘agent’ protected by the NCP happens to be the president of the local Mahila Mandal. This shows that women who occupy leadership positions in local associations are often affiliated with political parties. The important number of women among such ‘agents’ proves that the supposed virtues attributed to women by a good part of the literature on development do not hold true (Goetz 2007). There is no gender determinism in ‘good governance’. Another politically incorrect observation concerns the role of CBOs. It is a paradox that in India (as elsewhere), the general narrative showers praise on CBOs as potentially key actors in decentralised and participatory development, whereas ‘community’ is often used as a euphemism for ‘religion’ or ‘caste’. On one hand, CBO means democracy and equity; on the other, it may mean communalism and segmentation.9 From their importance in the agents’ modus operandi and the CBOs’ strategies, we can conclude that political parties play a key role in the daily lives of people, not as much directly as through the mediation of institutions.10 This role of political parties has possibly been reinforced by some recent political manoeuvres that 9 There is no place here to discuss whether, more positively, it is a form of class organisation if the poorest communities’ struggle (in an urban context) to become autonomous with respect to their earlier ‘dominant castes’. Whether communalism percolates this struggle would consequently appear as a related but distinct question. 10 As Briquet writes about South Italy, ‘in this case clientelism brings together groups rather than individuals; more exactly it brings together groups by the mediation of individuals who control them through clientelist exchanges. Here parties play a key role: through them, and through organizations linked to them, individuals get access to public resources, they get in touch with state institutions, and in this framework are defined the main characteristics of their political commitments’ (1998:20).

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accentuate vertical governance at the expense of decentralisation. In the following case study, the main actors are neither brokers like the PDS agents nor intermediate institutions of so-called civil society, but politicians themselves acting at the core of patronage systems. These are two aspects of the same reality, two types of actors in vertical governance.

Perpetuating Patronage or Deepening Decentralisation? Rolling Concerns on MP/MLALADS and Urban Governance Our second case study deals with a local area development scheme for MPs and MLAs enacted in December 1993, known as the Member of Parliament/Local Area Development Scheme or MPLADS (its state version, MLALADS, came later). The 73rd and 74th Amendments, passed one year earlier, were an attempt to bestow constitutional status on rural and urban local bodies, whereas the new scheme was aimed at facilitating the participation of MPs in the decision-making process in the management of public goods at the local level. This section seeks to interpret the contradictory concerns of the Indian state in simultaneously facilitating both urban governance and MPLADS.11 First of all, MPLADS give discretionary powers to national/state legislators to select any infrastructural project for their respective constituencies. Discretionary power, it may be emphasised, not only negates the institutional decision-making process but also strengthens personalised competition for power which, in turn, perpetuates a patron–client relationship between the people and their elected leaders. Second, by shifting the focus of debate from issues of national importance to matters of local concern, this scheme lowers the dignity of the country’s highest representative body. 11

The MPLADS entitles Members of Parliament (both houses) to get projects worth Rs 20 million (initially it was Rs 10 million) implemented annually in their constituencies. Aimed at facilitating participation of MPs at the local level decision-making process in the management of public goods created/improved under the auspices of MPLADS, this came as a sequel to the ‘Joint Parliamentary Committee Report on Facilities and Remuneration for the Members of the Parliament’. The scheme provides guidelines along with a list of project/works to be taken up. See, Parliamentary Debates, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, 23 December 1993, as cited in Sezhiyan (2005:3).

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Third, it leads to role reversal among parliamentarians since, by becoming party to the implementation of projects, MPs lose moral authority to exercise control over the executive. Fourth, under this scheme, MPs are not accountable to any organ of the state. Finally, given its structure, MPLADS seem to simply bypass institutions of decentralised urban governance and, in fact, relegate the idea of decentralised planning to the background. How should these rolling concerns regarding both urban governance and MPLADS be explained or interpreted? Taking the cue from Riggs (1961) typology of prismatic societies (that refers to post-colonial societies where deep-rooted traditional mindset/ practices still determine the behaviour and decisions taken by a modern bureaucracy), it can be argued that such overlaps reflect the limits of administrative reforms in traditional societies where ‘actual official behaviour…does not correspond to legal statutes, …often they insist on meticulously following some technical provision of laws and rules, while at the same time overlooking others — usually those relate to general terms and objectives...’ (cited in Arora 1988: 111). Seen from this perspective, it appears that the political class in India was not sure that if the bureaucracy would take into account the felt needs of the people, hence the recourse to MPLADS. It can further be argued that MPLADS was conceived as a strategy to widen the scope of the interface between higher-level representatives and their grassroots electorates. From their personal experiences, politicians were convinced that a traditional society like India required the services of mediators (Reddy and Hargopal 1985; Manor 2000; Kumar 2006) in order to connect the ordinary people with the organs of the state. In short, to get the work of the masses done. As a matter of fact, elected representatives, with their networks, have already been playing the role formalised through MP/MLALADS. (and its counterpart at the municipal level). What is more, it has also been argued that, with the unfolding of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, India has become a multilevel federal polity. MPLADS has conferred the role of financial mediator to higher-level representatives.

Boosting Infrastructure or Circumventing the Decentralisation Process? A cursory look at the schemes listed under MPLADS reveals that it was an attempt to boost local level infrastructure in the country. Although it lays emphasis on constructing buildings (for schools,

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hospitals, community libraries, etc.), culverts, roads and the digging of wells, etc., funds could also be spent on cultural activities. Originally, there were as many as 23 schemes, besides others which might be arbitrary additions by the union government. Interestingly, most of the schemes falling under this category have also been listed under the eleventh and twelfth schedule appended to the 73rd and 74th Amendments pertaining to the functions of local bodies. The paradox is that institutions of local governance remain plagued by financial constraints12 even as funds released under MPLADS as per the discretion of legislators are yet to be fully utilised. The end result: huge unspent funds, incomplete projects, or the execution of bogus projects and pilfering of public money, as highlighted in several reports including the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General, India’s highest constitutional body for audit and accounts. Other official reports also testify to these facts. As with many other official schemes, MPLADS too has led to new forms of corruption. The Planning Commission sends the MPLADS budget to the concerned state treasury, from where it goes to the district treasury, with the district collector as its custodian. Under the scheme, an MP13 may send proposals14 to the collector who is responsible for their implementation through the concerned district-level departments. In this respect, MPs are not accountable to any organ of the state. And given the apparent overlap, it seems that MPLADS was aimed at blunting the move towards greater decentralisation and thereby overshadowing the purpose of the 73rd and 74th Amendments. 12

Delhi, being the capital city, is an exception since it has the privilege of getting additional externally-funded projects, and the funds allocated for MLAs and city Municipal Councillors are also fairly substantial here as compared to any other Indian city/state. At a glance therefore, a resource crunch does not seem to be an issue for the municipal body of Delhi. However, this is not to deny that the functional boundaries of the latter does seem to be encroached upon by several specialised agencies. 13 The only difference noticeable here is that a member of the Lok Sabha (i.e. the Lower House of Parliament) can spend the MP fund in his/her own constituency whereas members of the Rajya Sabha (the Upper House of Parliament) can spend it anywhere in their state they are indirectly elected from. Over the years, all the states have introduced a similar scheme for their MLAs (and MLCs, wherever bicameral assemblies exist). 14 The cost of a single proposal should not exceed Rs 1 million.

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On the one hand, it has reduced the scope for decentralised planning and, on the other, increased dependence on higher-level political actors (such as MPs). Even if MPLADS is considered an endeavour to create space for higher-level representatives at the local level and, accordingly, complementary to the goals of decentralisation, its implementation has reduced the scope for decentralised planning. The decentralised planning exercise is supposed to be undertaken at the beginning of the financial year (1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008, for instance), while the demand list for implementation of projects under MPLADS, etc. are forwarded round the year to the concerned authorities.

Pampering the Political Class: The Case of Delhi Delhi has certain peculiar characteristics. Considering the area development funds of representatives at all three levels, the Delhi parliamentary constituency is the richest in the country. Under MPLADS, each MP gets Rs 20 million. The area development fund for each MLA is the same in Delhi and, on an average, 10 MLAs are elected from each parliamentary constituency. Added to this are Rs 5 million given to each municipal corporator of Delhi (since 2007, there are two corporators for each assembly constituency). Thus, the total amount available under MPLADS, MLALADS and ward development funds taken together is a whopping Rs 320 million. In one five-year term, therefore, a parliamentary constituency is allocated Rs 1,600 million, a big amount by any means. In all four selected constituencies,15 we found that both MPs and MLAs rely on multiple sources for maintaining contacts with their electorate and to receive feedback, especially on the felt needs that could be fulfilled by utilising available constituency development funds. The multiple sources include party workers, paid/dependent volunteers, political managers, office staff and close confidantes; daily as well as irregular visitors from among their constituents to their offices/residence; and office-bearers of resident’s welfare associations (RWAs). Elected representatives also acquire first-hand knowledge 15 Out of the seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi, four representative constituencies were selected. From these four MP constituencies four Assembly segments were taken. And from these selected Assembly segments, four municipal wards were covered.

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of local problems during occasional visits to the different localities of their constituency. The needs of the people thus ascertained are processed and prioritised in the offices of the representatives. How do they accord priority to the wishlist of their constituents? Practically speaking, all respondents to this question (those who manage the affairs of political leaders, including one MLA we met) usually gave vague replies. When pressed for clarification, they declined to disclose the method adopted for this process. If the criteria for selection of projects is not disclosed and left to the discretion of MPs/MLAs, it can safely be assumed that their decision is largely influenced by the political dividends expected from the area in which a particular project is to be implemented. After all, the area development scheme was designed to help elected representatives nurture their constituencies. Put simply, expected political returns from investments (read, extending patronage by way of sanctioning projects) would most likely be the decisive factor in exercising discretionary power. While it is true that poor neighbourhoods find it difficult to compete with their rich and resourceful counterparts when seeking the attention of their representatives, to say that they stand no chance would be an exaggeration. They are numerically large and numerical strength does matter in electoral politics. Their elected representatives cannot afford to alienate them. But when it comes down to choosing between public goods (schools, roads or the provision of drinking water, etc.) and individual needs, very often (in the case of slum-dwellers) it is the latter that gets precedence. Many slum-dwellers admit to having received personal help from MPs/MLAs (arranging a job for a relative, financial assistance in case of serious illness, using influence with law-enforcing agencies in case of trouble, etc.) and remain obliged to their patrons. Therefore, they do not make demands or, at least, refrain from openly siding with those wanting to put pressure directly on representatives or indirectly through political managers/troubleshooters for sorting out collective grievances related to, for instance, roads or drinking water. Consequently, poor neighbourhoods are left with waterlogged or muddy lanes and choked drainage — a common sight in the slums of Govindpuri, in clear contrast to the condition of roads in Kalkaji, a middle-class colony where the RWA is active. Unlike poor slumdwellers, middle-class voters usually do not seek personal favours; they look for their representative’s intervention in order to get better

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roads or streetlights in their localities. Undoubtedly, the middle classes remain divided according to their individual preferences for candidates, but they matter in electoral politics particularly in megacities like Delhi. Hence, services rendered in their localities are different from those provided in slum areas (for the votes of a large number of poor people can be won with meagre monetary incentives). Yet it cannot be said that concerns expressed through RWAs are always acted upon by MLAs/MPs. As a matter of fact, the so-called partnership between municipal/official agencies and RWAs has already turned sour. Expressing their distrust for political parties, RWAs in several middle-class localities have, in fact, contested against party nominees in a recently-held municipal election (Times of India, 30 January 2007; Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007). The entries in Table 5.2 (below) are an indication of the kind of projects funded under MPLADS. The table does not specify the quantum of money spent against each project (or how much remained unspent). When the nature of projects is juxtaposed with the location, it does however indicate proximity with the felt needs of the people, in particular the middle-classes. This is not to say that amenities like parks are not used by slum-dwelling women, children and old people, though they are often ridiculed by their distant (middle-class) neighbours for doing so. Again, flooring or the construction of a platform in graveyards could be a requirement only in Outer Delhi areas. It is a different matter that the request Table 5.2: Utilisation of MPLADS Fund MP constituency South Delhi

East Delhi

Central Delhi

Outer Delhi

Nature of work done and number (in descending order) High-mast streetlight (44), playground (9), park renovation (3), construction of rain shelter (1), donation for tsunami relief fund (1) Construction of roads, including lanes (19), of drainage system (16), semi-high lamppost (14), street light (11), construction of ghat (1), of park boundary wall (1), gymnasium (1), basement (1) Construction of road (45), of pavement (10), park renovation (2), shade (2), purchase of computer (1), water problem (1), donation to tsunami fund (1) Construction of park boundary wall (5), boring tube well (1), play ground (1), flooring of graveyard (1), platform at graveyard (1)

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for the construction of a boundary wall around a huge old pond (to prevent cattle from falling in) was never entertained — a prime necessity of Najafgarh village (Outer Delhi) that was brought to our notice during our fieldwork. This also confirms how the concerns of the pampered middle-class are entertained while those of poor neighbourhoods are largely ignored.

Prompting Role Reversal MPs being members of the highest representative bodies are expected to deliberate on national issues and oversee the functioning of ministries that discharge their duties through the bureaucracy. But, due to MPLADS, they end up reporting to the body whose functioning they are supposed to scrutinise. They also get involved in local affairs, which is a domain of the local government. Above all, given its nature, the scheme ‘negates parliamentary control over the executive and distorts the role of MPs’ (Sezhiyan 2003). Thus, apart from the reversal of the role of legislators (both at the national and state levels), which goes against the very soul of the Constitution, the so-called area (constituency) development schemes have, to a large extent, failed to meet even their stated objectives. The accumulation of staggering amounts of unspent funds over the years, even in case of municipal councillors who live amidst their electorates (see Table 5.3), is a testimony to this fact. Interestingly, discussions held with legislators and MCD officials led us to believe that, in their perception, there is nothing wrong with the scheme, its shortcomings notwithstanding. From this, it is evident that higher-level legislators (both at the national and state levels) would rather perform ‘executive functions’ than attend to their ‘core legislative functions’. Given the inability of the state to ensure accountability and transparency on the part of the Table 5.3: Unspent Municipal Councillor’s Development Fund

Year 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06

Per councillor (in million rupees)

Total allocation (in million rupees)

6.5 7.5 7.5 8.7

Source: The Times of India, 20 February 2007.

871.0 1005.0 1005.0 1165.8

Unspent (in million rupees) 310.9 129.4 328.5 301.3

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bureaucracy as well as the general decline in the creation and upkeep of public goods, perhaps this was inevitable. ‘Why blame us?’ one former MP asked, saying: ‘We are approached by electorates for troubleshooting. People, even better educated ones, do not bother about what we deliberate on in the Parliament; their sole concern and expectation from us is to help provide better infrastructure, if not creating jobs in the constituency we represent’ (Personal interview, November 2006). This, in a way, calls for a fresh look at the division of responsibilities and authority between the different organs of the state. The issue of financial mediation also does not hold ground if it is recalled that many thorny issues related to two-tier federalism — more specifically, control and sharing of financial resources between the centre and the states — are yet to be resolved.16 Thus, the larger picture that emerges is that of a scheme that has failed to meet its stated objective.17 It even betrays its theoretical foundation, which presupposes that, in developing societies, political leaders need more authority in order to exercise control over the bureaucracy, even at the risk of a reversal of their role. But empirical evidence confirms that powerful politicians get things done in their areas in any case, whereas ordinary leaders are unable to exercise control over the bureaucracy, thanks to loopholes in the scheme and its operationalisation mechanism. Ironically, through this instrument, the state seems to be colluding with those who wanted to undermine the institution of parliamentary democracy in India. After all, it is the Parliament that voted in favour of the scheme and that wants to extend the power to give ‘executive instructions’ to the bureaucracy. This strongly suggests that both the state-as-anorganisation and political leaders are wary of the decentralisation of power (Ruet 2005). It also explains the perpetuation of a top-down approach to development programmes, including infrastructural projects, with very

16 It has also been argued that, with the unfolding of the 73rd and 74th Amendments, India has become a multi-level federal polity, whereas through MPLADs higher level legislators have been conferred the role of financial mediators. 17 From our small sample, the performance of one of the MLAs (from the Daryaganj segment) was comparatively better.

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little concern for the autonomy of local government institutions. ‘Notability’ is ultimately what matters, with brokerage bridging the gap between politicians and the people. In this case, however, there is a preference for middle-class areas: probably linked to a specificity of Delhi where the ‘revolt of the elites’ is stronger than in other cities because of an earlier emphasis on slum vote-banks. In other words, the perpetuation of a patron–client relationship is confirmed in a different form. Political compulsions force the political class to create a democratic space for wider representation with special considerations for weaker sections but, given the traditional mindset of political elites across the political spectrum, they do not carry forward the process of sociopolitical transformation. While this reflects the limits of constitutional intervention, it also affirms the fact that the battle for urban local governance has to be fought in the political arena, and that this would be a protracted battle.

Conclusion Ration shopkeepers, brokers, local party leaders in the case of the PDS, elected representatives and their middlemen in the case of MPLADS, are two clear examples of vertical governance in metropolitan India. Both case studies highlight the need to qualify some dichotomies defined by sociopolitical theories that are heuristically efficient but cannot explain all the nuances, variability and complexities of the ground situation: for instance, it is very difficult to use the concept of a ‘civil society’ considering the porosity of the state, which makes the distinction between state and civil society very dubious. Rather than contrasts or dichotomies, we prefer to emphasise continuums and interlinkages. Hence, the existence of strong links is to be underlined, between lower and middle/upper classes and between other types of strata: these continuums, through relations of brokerage, create vertical governance. Take the case of the PDS. Who are the losers? Clearly, the poor. And who are the winners? Higher PDS officials, upper-level politicians and ration shop keepers, petty officials, truck drivers and owners (‘agents’ also draw their share from leakage and bribes). A great majority of these rent-seekers belong to the ‘intermediate classes’, to quote Harriss-White (2003) — that is, medium and big farmers, small-scale manufacturers and merchants, local state officials, etc., who are the real ‘masters of the countryside’ and remain

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very important players despite the liberalisation wave in India.18 ‘Outside India’s metropolitan cities, the economy is dominated by the intermediate classes,’ she argues (ibid.: 241). But is this not true inside metropolitan cities as well? Our research findings, focused on the daily lives of the people, reveal that though the ultimate ‘winners’ are from the upper classes, the exploiters may belong to the intermediate classes in a manner similar to the countryside and small towns: they do ‘mediate’, redistributing a part of the illegal income taken from the lower classes to higher level bureaucrats, politicians or traders.19 Following Bayard (1989) on Africa, we argue that society in developing countries is less community-based and holist than is usually argued: any society is also a sum of individuals, and the rent-seeking state is therefore made of rent-seekers. Though considering it in terms of a ‘system of social stratification’ (Bayard 1989: 324) is still necessary, analysis must be conducted with an individual-based approach. We argue that it is the conjunction of this individualism co-existing with holism that is a key factor in corruption. This is why tools of neoclassical economics must be applied to the analysis of the state: the ‘rent-seeking state’ is made of individual officials and politicians who are ‘rational optimizers’ (Mooij 1999: 48) and aim to ‘maximize revenue and minimize complaints’ (Wade 1985: 470). But these tools must be combined with a more structuralist analysis, placing these individuals inside social networks that both allow them to maximise revenue and channel their strategies according to certain rules and frameworks. In particular, the system of interrelationships 18 It may be mentioned here that Harriss-White is a critic of Bardhan’s theory (1984) on the three ‘dominant proprietary classes’ in India — namely, agrarian landlords, the industrial bourgeoisie and, professionals and executives. 19 See the concluding chapter of this book by Ruet for a qualification of this argument: in the countryside, over the decades, the power equation has changed from the dominance of classical landholders to ‘commercial’ rich farmers who also happen to have been the political mediators. The question is, have they structured state/local processes to their benefit, or conversely, has the developmental form of the state ‘selected’ those who would ‘modernise’ along with it? In the cities, it is those who have been able to keep pace with social evolution (autonomisation of the lower castes, slum organisations and CBOs, grouping of middle classes into communities) that have derived the largest benefits from the ‘informal state economy’.

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between individuals and groups must be considered through the notion of ‘redistribution’. Redistribution takes place in several directions: upwards, it goes for paying back a service rendered, from client to patron (the agent has to pay for his/her place at the rationing office); horizontally, it is aimed at peers, (extended) family members, etc.; downwards, it maintains links with clients, thereby reinforcing the verticality of governance.

References Arora, R.K. 1988. Comparative Public Administration, New Delhi: Associated Publishing House. Asthana, M.D. and P. Medrano, eds. 2001. Towards Hunger Free India. New Delhi: Manohar. Bardhan, Pranab. 1984. The Political Economy of Development in India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Bayard, Jean-François. 2006. L’Etat en Afrique. La politique du ventre. Second edition. Paris: Fayard. Benjamin, S. and R. Bhuvaneswari. 2001. Democracy, Inclusive Governance and Poverty in Bangalore. Working Paper 26, University of Birmingham. Blundo, Giorgio. 2001. Négocier l’Etat au quotidien: agents d’affaires, courtiers et rabatteurs dans les interstices de l’administration sénégalaise. Autrepart 20: 75–90. Bordieu, Pierre. 1980. Le capital social, notes provisoires. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 31: 2–3. Briquet, Jean-Louis. 1998. La politique clientélaire. Clientélisme et processus politiques, in J-L. Briquet and Frédéric Sawiki (eds), Le clientélisme politique dans les sociétés contemporaines. Paris: PUF. Briquet, Jean-Louis and Frédéric Sawiki, eds. 1998. Le clientélisme politique dans les sociétés contemporaines. Paris: PUF. Copans, Jean. 2001. Afrique noire: un Etat sans fonctionnaires? Autrepart 20: 11–26. Corbridge, Stuart and John Harriss. 2000. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cornwall, Andrea. 2004. Introduction: New Democratic Spaces? The Politics and Dynamics of Institutionalised Participation. IDS Bulletin 35(2): 1–10. Das, S.K. 2001. Public Office, Private Interest: Bureaucracy and Corruption in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Deliège, Robert. 2004. Les castes en Inde aujourd’hui. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. de Sardan, J.-P.O. 2001. La sage — femme et le dovanier. Cultures professionnelles locales et culture bureaucratique privatisée en Afrique de l’Ouest. Autrepart 20: 61–73.

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Goetz, Anne-Marie. 2007. Political Cleaners: Women as the New AntiCorruption Force? Development and Change 38(1): 87–105. Harriss, John. 2005. Political Participation, Representation and the Urban Poor. Findings from Research in Delhi. Economic and Political Weekly 40(11): 1041–54. ———. 2006. Power Matters: Essays on Institutions, Politics and Society in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Harriss-White, Barbara. 2003. India Working: Essays on Society and Economy. Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Jenkins, Rob. 2004. Regional Reflections: Comparing Politics across India’s States. New York and New York: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, Rob and Anne-Marie Goetz. 2003. Bias and Capture: Corruption, Poverty and the Limitations of Civil Society in India, in Marc Blecher and Robert Benewick (eds), Asian Politics in Development. London: Frank Cass. Kumar, Girish. 2006. Local Democracy in India: Interpreting Decentralisation. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Landy, Frédéric. 2008. Feeding India: The Spatial Parameters of Foodgrain Policy. New Delhi: Manohar. Mahendra, S. Dev, et al. 2004. Economic Liberalisation, Targeted Programmes and Household Food Security: A Case Study of India. MTID Paper 68. Washington: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Manor, James. 2000. Small-time Political Fixers in India’s States: Towel Over Armpit. Asian Survey 40(5): 816–35. Medard, Jean-François. 1998. Postface, in Jean-Louis Briquet and Frédéric Sawiki, Le clientélisme politique dans les sociétés contemporaines. Paris: PUF. Miraftab, F. 2004. Invented and Invited Spaces of Participation: Neo-liberal Citizenship and Feminists’ Expanded Notion of Politics. Journal of Trans-national Women’s and Gender’s Studies 1, http://web.cortland. edu/wagadu (accessed 2 June 2007). Mooij, Jos. 1999. Food Policy and the Indian State. The Public Distribution System in South India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Olivier De Sardan, Jean-Pierre. 2001. La sage — femme et le douanier. Cultures professionnelles locales et culture bureaucratique privatisée en Afrique de l’Ouest. Autrepart 20: 61–73. Patnaik, U. 2004. The Republic of Hunger, http://www.macroscan.org/fet/ apr04/fet210404Republic_Hunger.htm (accessed 13 May 2005). Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Reddy, Ram G. and G. Hargopal. 1985. Pyraweekar, ‘The Fixer’ in Rural India. Asian Survey 25(11): 1148–61. Riggs, Fred W. 1961. The Ecology of Public Administration. New York: Asia Publishing House.

132 Ú KUMAR AND LANDY Riggs, Fred W. 1962. Trends in the Comparative Study of Public Administration. International Review of Administrative Sciences 28: 9–15. Roy, Dayabati and Partha Sarathi Banerjee. 2006. Left Front’s Electoral Victory in West Bengal. An Ethnographer’s Account. Economic and Political Weekly 41(40): 4251–56. Roy, Indrajit. 2006. Representation and Development in Urban Peripheries. Reflections on Governance in Ahmedabad Suburbs. Economic and Political Weekly 41(41): 4363–68. Ruet, Joël. 2005. Privatising Power Cuts? Ownership and Reform of State Electricity Boards in India. New Delhi: Academic Foundation and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH). Savage, David and Subhagato Dasgupta. 2006. Governance Framework for Delivery of Urban Services, in Anupam Rastogi (ed.), India Infrastructure Report 2006: Urban Infrastructure. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sezhiyan, Era. 2003. Working of the MPLADS. The Hindu, 24 April 2003. ———. 2005. Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS): Concept, Confusion, Contradictions. New Delhi: Institute of Social Sciences. Srinivas, M.N. 1962. Caste in Modern India and Other Essays. Bombay: Media Promoters. Tawa Lama-Rewal, Stéphanie. 2007. Neighbourhood Associations and Local Democracy: Delhi Municipal Elections 2007. Economic and Political Weekly 42(47): 51–60. The Times of India, 20 February 2007. Vaugier-Chatterjee, Anne. 2001. Du cadre d’acier au cadre de bamboo: grandeur et décadence de la bureaucratie indienne. Autrepart 20: 161–76. Wade, Robert. 1985. The Market for Public Office: Why the Indian State is not Better at Development. World Development 13(4): 467–97. Woolcock, M. 2001. The Place of Social Capital in Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes. Canadian Journal of Policy Research 2(1): 1–17.

Part B Sectors, Programmes, Access, and Publicness in Urban Governance

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Chapter 6 Primary Education in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata: Governance by Resignation, Privatisation by Default Jos Mooij and Jennifer Jalal1

Introduction

A

s described in the earlier chapters, one of the entry points in our study of urban governance was the supply and demand of services. Education is one important service that we studied in three of the four cities (Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata). Our focus was on primary education. Many changes have taken place in the area of education in the past 15–20 years. First, universal primary education is increasingly being viewed as a very important policy objective, both in order to enhance individual capabilities and as a way to stimulate economic growth. This is reflected in the adoption of the 86th Constitutional 1

The fieldwork on which this chapter is based was done between 2003 and 2006. Jos Mooij worked on Hyderabad and Kolkata and Jennifer Jalal on Delhi. The authors would like to thank, in Hyderabad, Mr Venkatesh Roddawar and Mr Praveen Darsha for their help in conducting some of the interviews with parents. In Kolkata, the assistance of Mr Parthasarathi Banerjee has been indispensable. In Delhi we would like to thank Mr Venkat Narayanan, Ms Shipra Bhatia, Dr Anil Roy, Ms Sunita Bhadauria and Mr N.Bhoopathy for assisting in the fieldwork. A special thanks to the education specialists we met in these cities, especially to Dr A.K. Jalaluddin (NEEV), Prof. R. Govinda (NUEPA) and Prof. Geetha Nambissan (JNU) for their expert comments and to the participants at the Actors, Policies and Urban Governance seminar for comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

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Amendment in 2002, making free and compulsory education a fundamental right. The Planning Commission regards education as ‘the most critical element in empowering people with skills and knowledge and giving them access to productive employment in the future’ (Government of India 2006: 45). Second, the demand for education has increased significantly. As the Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE) in India (1999) observed, many parents, also from sections of the population that were hitherto excluded from education, would like to send their children to school. Literacy rates have gone up significantly, which is why the 1990s is labelled as the literacy decade. Third, there has been a rapid increase in the number of private providers of education. Especially in urban India, but also in rural India, many children go to private, often English-medium schools. Fourth, civil society actors have become more prominent in the field of education. There are a number of very large and influential, and a lot of small NGOs that work with or complement the government, or that monitor its progress in a critical manner. Fifth, in order to improve the quality of education and in keeping with the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment Acts, there have been efforts to decentralise school management. Based on fieldwork conducted in three urban centres, the article aims to describe the major changes that have taken place in the area of educational governance. We analyse the new actors that have emerged, the changing roles of already existing actors, and the way in which the government has responded. As we will argue, the emergence of new actors and the changing roles of old actors demand some adaptation, transformation and democratisation of educational governance. And while this is no doubt true for the whole of India, in urban areas, the changes have been faster and the need to readjust educational governance is therefore perhaps even more pressing. How has the government in urban India responded to these challenges? Has its relationship with and attitude towards the other actors changed? This chapter will argue that this has happened only partially and the system of governance has not yet adjusted sufficiently to incorporate the new actors and respond to the new challenges. The larger question addressed in this chapter is, therefore, how, whether or to what extent today’s internationally popular notion of governance, as opposed to government, has become relevant in the context of education in India. As is argued in the first chapter, ‘governance’ can be understood as a concept that refers to a changing

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empirical reality (from command-and-control, towards steering, guiding, facilitation and enabling other actors), or as a political project, promoted by international financial and donor agencies. Both notions throw up different sets of questions. The first relates to empirical changes: to what extent has there been a shift from government to governance? Have there been new actors in ‘governing’? Or are they the same actors who have assumed new roles and responsibilities? Who are they, what roles do they play, and how do they relate to other actors, including the government? In the Indian context, some people have argued that the shift from government to governance has meant a pluralisation, decentring and fragmentation of the state (Chandhoke 2003).2 Can we see this in the area of education as well? Governance as a political project throws up a second set of questions: how should we assess this change? What are the advantages, disadvantages and longer-term political implications? Although both sets of questions are indeed large and complex, and go far beyond the topic of educational governance, the insights presented in this chapter allow for some discussion of these wider issues. In the next section, we will give some background information about education, the main educational programmes and the way in which the sector is organised. The third section focuses on the main actors and their changing roles, while the fourth discusses the way in which the government has responded and the extent to which a new mode of governance has developed. The chapter ends with a short conclusion that brings us back to the larger questions about governance in urban India.

Education in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata In the Indian context, educational governance takes place through the collaborative efforts of the central government, state governments and local bodies. The Constitution of India has made elaborate arrangements for distribution of governmental powers — legislative, administrative and financial — between the union (centre) and the states. As education is on the concurrent list, central government and the state governments are expected to have a meaningful partnership for educational development. 2

See also Gopal Jayal (1997) for a critical interpretation of the political project of governance.

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During the last two decades, some major interventions have taken place. Most of these have been initiated by the central government. The Tenth Five Year Plan recognised education as a critical input in human resource development and in the country’s economic growth. This is reflected in the formulation of clear policy targets.3 In December 2002, the 86th Amendment to the Con-stitution was adopted, making free and compulsory education for all children in the 6–14 age group a justiciable fundamental right. The District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), initially in a restricted number of districts, but expanded in the course of time, was complemented by the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA), which is implemented all over India and also focuses on the upper primary (classes 6 and 7) years of schooling.4 The Mid-Day Meal scheme has been universalised at the primary level. A 2 per cent Education Cess has been levied on income tax, excise duty, custom duty and service tax since 2004 for financing basic quality education. There is little doubt that these efforts have had an impact. In fact, education is one of the areas in which considerable progress can be observed. There was, for instance, a major jump in literacy levels in the 1990s (See Table 6.1). Table 6.1: Progress in Education

Delhi Literacy rates: 1981 1991 2001

62 76 76

Andhra Pradesh State Hyderabad 36 44 60

56 71 79

West Bengal State Kolkata 49 58 69

66 77 83

India

44 52 65

Source: Census of India (1981, 1991 and 2001).

Throughout India, it is possible to discern three main categories of schools: government schools (managed and financed by the 3

These are: (i) all children in schools by 2003; all children to complete five years of schooling by 2007; (ii) reduction in the gender gap in literacy by at least 50 per cent by 2007; and (iii) increase in literacy rates to 75 per cent within the plan period. 4 For both DPEP and SSA, the Government of India receives external support from donor organisations, for whom these programmes are a way of contributing to the Millennium Development Goals.

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government); government-aided schools (privately managed with varying degrees of government involvement, receiving maintenance grants from the government) and private schools (privately managed and often financed on the basis of fees or corporate grants). The latter can be categorised further into recognised (i.e., by a school education board) and unrecognised schools. Additionally, in some cities there is a small category of schools that are run by non-profit agencies such as NGO’s or charitable (religious missionaries) trusts. In most states, a majority of the children go to government schools (including those run by local bodies). At the primary level, in 1995–96, this was 77.4 per cent of all school-going children. The significance of government-aided schools varies across the country. While it is maximum in Kerala, in West Bengal also, in 1995–96 18.8 per cent of the primary and 40.2 per cent of upper primary school children were in a government-aided school. In Andhra Pradesh, these percentages were 4.5 and 7.5 respectively, while in Delhi, 8.8 per cent of the primary school and 11.1 per cent of upper primary school children went to government-aided schools.5 In contrast to most other states, in West Bengal, government-aided schools are in fact regarded as government schools and they are, indeed, fully under the control and supervision of the District Primary School Councils. In many other states they are managed without much government involvement and are regarded as private schools. The number and importance of private schools has expanded enormously in the last few decades. As mentioned before, private schools can be recognised and unrecognised. Since the latter are not included in many statistics, most figures underestimate the role of private schools. In fact, household-based surveys are the only statistics that include enrolment in all kinds of schools, whether recognised or unrecognised. At the time of finalising this chapter, the 1995–96 NSSO report (52nd round) was the most recent comprehensive household-based data set on school enrolment. This set, however, is more than ten years old. In order to illustrate the recent increasing importance of private schools, we therefore 5 All the figures mentioned in these two paragraphs are based on National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) Report (1995–96: A81–82, Table 9C).

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prefer to refer to Kingdon’s calculations about the share of private (recognised) schools in overall enrolment increase (in recognised schools). For urban India, this share was 60.5 per cent in the period 1986–93, and 95.7 per cent between 1993 and 2002. For rural India, this was 18.5 per cent in the period 1986–93 and 24.4 per cent in the period 1993–2002. What this illustrates is that the pace of privatisation increased greatly, and that in urban areas, the increased enrolments seem to be almost completely absorbed by the private sector (Kingdon 2007: 21). The administration of government schools varies in the three cities that we studied. In Delhi, pre-primary and primary education is the responsibility of the local bodies, namely the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the Government of Delhi and the Cantonment Board. The Directorate of Education and Government of Delhi have however, introduced primary classes in some existing secondary and senior secondary schools and converted them into composite schools. In Andhra Pradesh, government primary schools come under the purview of the local bodies, i.e., the Mandal Parishads. In Hyderabad, however, the situation is different. All schools come under the District Educational Officer, and the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is not involved at all. In Kolkata, about 200 schools are run by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, and there are about 1200 government-aided schools coming under the responsibility of the District Primary School Council — a body that does not exist in any other Indian State — in which the ruling parties and the teachers unions are well represented. The influence of the teachers unions is, hence, more formalised in Kolkata than in the two other metropolises. Apart from these formal government schools, all three cities have several kinds of informal schools often run by other ministries or departments and with the help of NGOs. In all cities, and particularly in Delhi and Kolkata, this has led to a large variety of state providers. While this seemingly allows for wider choice, it could also be argued that it has led to a kind of ‘caste system’ with its own unofficial hierarchy within the state educational system.6 6 Interview with Prof. R. Govinda (16 June 2005, in the National University of Educational Planning and Administration [NUEPA], New Delhi).

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Despite unmistakable signs of progress, educational quality remains a major area of concern, both in the government and private schools. Two recent studies bear testimony to this. The first was conducted by the NGO Pratham. Based on a random sample of students from across Delhi, this study assessed basic literacy and numerical skills. The study revealed that 37 per cent of the children between seven and ten years old in government schools were not able to read words. Only 46 per cent was able to read four lines or more. In private schools, this was true for 69 per cent of the children. Of the children admitted in government schools, 52 per cent were able to recognise numbers but could not do anything more than that. In private schools, this percentage was 30 per cent (Pratham 2006). The second study was conducted by Educational Initiatives together with Wipro, and focused on the 142 best schools in five major cities.7 The test results of these elite schools also show a depressing picture. Students seem to be learning mechanically rather than aiming at a true understanding of the concepts. They perform well only when the test questions resemble those in the textbooks. The ability of students to apply what they had learnt to real life situations was very poor (Educational Initiatives 2006). In Delhi, we tried to assess school quality ourselves. Based on a survey in 20 schools (government, private and NGO-run), we assessed quality in terms of teachers’ qualifications and experience, innovative pedagogical practices, additional teachers aids, teacher training and school infrastructure. Not surprisingly, government schools scored better than private schools with regard to teachers’ qualifications and additional training and refresher courses, but worse when it came to teaching aids and infrastructure. NGO-run schools (only three in the sample) scored well in all the above mentioned categories, as well as in the ability to educate children who are physically challenged or have special learning needs.8 Also, in the other cities, we found that many government schools are seriously under-resourced. In the old part of Hyderabad, dilapidation of school buildings is a major issue. There are many schools without buildings. Schooling activities take place in mosques, temples or in buildings of other schools. This sometimes leads to teaching in shifts: one school using the

7 8

Based on the local reputation of these schools. See Jalal (2007).

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building in the mornings and another school in the afternoons. The situation in Kolkata is also very depressing. About half of the schools do not have their own building. Infrastructural improvements under SSA are not possible in schools with rented buildings. Many schools do not have electricity or water connections.

Main Actors in Education: A Changing Scenario New Users of the Educational System: First Generation Learners There is no doubt that nowadays many parents who might not be educated themselves are interested in sending their children to school. Almost all parents we talked to in the three cities expressed the desire to send their children to school. Many of them were very poor. Yet, they were willing to make considerable financial sacrifices to ensure the education of their children. There are two types of expenditure for households sending children to school. The first has to do with fees, uniforms and books. Although government schools are officially free of all such costs, many poor parents decide to send their children to private schools, either because there are no government schools in the neighbourhood, or because parents are aware of the low reputation of these schools, or because they hope an English-medium education (versus instruction in the vernacular language in government schools) will secure a better future for their children. The second type of expenditure has to do with tuitions. While this is prevalent in all cities, we found more evidence in Kolkata and Delhi than in Hyderabad. Tuition classes are typically run by post-graduate ‘professionals’ who have been in the ‘coaching’ business for long, educated (but untrained) housewives, or graduate students who see this as an opportunity to earn some money to pay for their own studies. These ‘extra’ tuitions are meant not only to prepare the children for their examinations but also just to cope with the homework assigned on a daily basis. This phenomenon of a parallel system of support teaching is now part and parcel of the education market. As a result of the interests of the parents as well as government enrolment drives, almost all children go to school during some part of their childhood. The main question that many urban poor parents face nowadays is not so much whether to send their children to

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school, but how to motivate children and how long is it worthwhile to keep them in school. In our fieldwork, we heard several parents of first generation learners complain about the hostility of the teachers and the school environment. Generally, the attitude of the school management is such that parents are considered a hassle rather than an asset. Poor, illiterate parents, are automatically blamed for the poor performance or irregularity of their children. The perspective of the teacher usually is: ‘how can we teach these children, when they come from a family background in which the value of education is not understood’.9 The result is that many children do not feel welcome and comfortable and ‘drop out’. And while in the case of middleclass children, ‘exit’ from one school is followed by admission into another, for children of poor households it often means a complete end to their school career. The mismatch between the new users and the schools is more complicated than just a matter of attitude. Discussions with educational activists running private schools in slum areas made it very clear to us that there is a category of first generation learners for whom the normal schools are hopelessly inadequate. Street- or slum children, for instance, are often relatively old by the time they go to school, which means that they have a lot of life experience as compared to their class mates, even though they are academically less developed. They know they can earn some pocket money by doing odd jobs, and they know the excitement of city life. They have learnt to be independent, sometimes also emotionally. Often, they have first-hand experience with domestic violence or other forms of hardship, and some are violent themselves. Their ability to concentrate on intellectual tasks is limited. The normal schooling system cannot deal with this mindset. These children cannot be ‘disciplined’ the way schools are meant to discipline children, and it is, therefore, no surprise that teachers regard such children as uneducatable. In fact, many probably are, i.e. within the confines of the normal

9

See Mooij (2008) for an analysis of the way government school teachers think about their profession, social status and relationship with others. There are, however, exceptions. In Delhi, we visited several NGO-run schools which have built a healthy rapport with the parents. The parents are regularly invited to discuss the progress of their children or particular sensitive issues. Examples mentioned to us referred to disciplining of children and the screening of a sex-educational film.

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schooling system. It is for these categories of children that some of the non-formal schools have been set up. And they seem to work, at least to some extent. In Kolkata, for instance, it is possible to find overcrowded rooms in which some informal schooling activity is underway, which may be right next to a school of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation that is almost devoid of students.

Private Schools As has already been noted above, the importance of private schools has grown enormously. This has happened all over India, but more so in cities than in rural areas. It has been mentioned in chapter four that private schools come in different shapes and sizes and they cater to different segments of the population. There is an increasing number of unrecognised schools, which do not figure in the official data even though they have become an important part of the educational landscape. With regard to Delhi, Social Jurist, a group of lawyers working for the right to education, estimated that there would be 10,000 unauthorised schools, catering to approximately 600,000 children. While this estimate is perhaps too high, there is a broad consensus that the number of unrecognised schools has increased rapidly over the last one or two decades. Most of these schools offer pre-primary and/or primary education. Examination and certification is sometimes offered through affiliations with other recognised schools. Inspection is totally absent, and according to Social Jurist, many of these unrecognised schools, fail to comply with basic safety norms and other standards.10 In Hyderabad, it was estimated by a senior government official that there would be about 800 unrecognised schools.11 In a street-bystreet survey in the two selected wards, Sultan Shahi and Somajiguda, we found that a majority of the private schools were not recognised (see Table 6.2). In the poorer Sultan Shahi, this proportion was much higher than in the more mixed Somajiguda. This small survey confirms that unrecognised schools are an important phenomenon in Hyderabad. These schools are usually registered under the Society

10

See T.K. Rajalakshmi, ‘Hard Way to Learn’, The Frontline 21(17), www.flonnet.com/fl2117/stories/20040827002604600.htm (accessed 28 January 2008). 11 Interview, Hyderabad, July 2005.

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Registration Act. As in Delhi, they often have an affiliation with a recognised school, so that students can sit for their examination in the other school (although they still appear as private candidates, and pay a higher examination fee accordingly). By far the majority of all private schools in Hyderabad are (or claim to be) English-medium (although there are some Urdu-medium schools as well).12 Table 6.2: Schools in Two Electoral Wards in Hyderabad

Sultan Shahi Somajiguda

Government schools

Private aided

Private recognised unaided

Private unrecognised unaided

Total

6 2

0 0

4 6

12 6

22 14

Source: Author’s survey, 2005.

In Kolkata, primary schools do not have to be affiliated to a particular board (and thereby be recognised). It is only in case private schools go up till class 8 and higher that there is a need for recognition. This means that almost all private primary schools in Kolkata do not figure in official statistics. In our street-by-street survey of the two wards (see Table 6.3), we found no private school in Ward No. 13, the poor over-crowded and commercial area in old Kolkata, but we found many private schools in Ward No. 122. They were usually English-medium schools, but some also had Bengali or Hindi sections. Only one of the four private schools that we visited was a school with more than 300 children. The other three were extremely small, run on the ground floor of the house of the owner–principal, with large nursery classes, but only between 3 and 20 children in total in classes 1–4. Sometimes, the owners do have ambitions to grow bigger. Many parents, however, according to the owner–principals, withdraw their children after nursery to admit them either in one of the government-aided schools or in a more established private school in an adjacent ward.13

12 See Tooley and Dixon (2003, 2005) about private schools in Hyderabad. 13 See Ghosh (2006) about private schools in Kolkata.

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Ward No. 13 Ward No. 122

KMC schools

Government aided

Private schools

NGO schools

Total

1 1

17 5

— 8

2 —

20 14

Source: Author’s survey, 2005.

On the whole, private schools are run for profit, even though, officially, profit-making in education is illegal.14 Tooley and Dixon (2003, 2005) investigated the profitability of 15 so-called budget private schools in Hyderabad (i.e., relatively low fees, catering mainly to poor people). The average annual surplus of these schools came to more than Rs 200,000 (almost 5,000 euros). This was 23 per cent of their income. For the (upper) middle class schools, the surplus/ profit will be much higher. A part of this surplus may, of course, be reinvested in the schools. Even the extremely small private schools we visited in Ward No. 122 gave some income to the owners.15 In fact, they could be called ‘educational sweat shops’: under-resourced, employing teachers on very low wages, having a marginal existence but still providing some profit and income to owners and employees who would be even worse off without. The relationship between private schools and the parents is often limited, but perhaps more than what one would find in a typical government-run school. In Delhi, as also in the two other cities, we found that teacher–parent interaction is often organised through the Parent–Teacher Associations (PTA). Generally, these are used to discuss narrower concerns such as behavioural issues or performance in a school examination. We have, however, come across a few schools (mostly in the upper range of the private schools in Delhi), which have used the creative energies of parents and even grandparents to contribute occasionally to the activities of the school. These activities included story-telling, puppetry, handicraft workshops, neighbourhood teaching programmes (where under-privileged children from the school’s neighbourhood or from slums close by are assisted in their education). These initiatives were often the result of ‘open minded’ principals and active and articulate parents. 14

As per the Unni Krishnan Supreme Court order. See Tooley and Dixon (2005). 15 The salaries of the teachers in many private schools are very low. Even in the most established private school in ward no. 122, the teachers received less than Rs 1,000 per month.

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NGOs16 In all three metropolises, NGOs have acquired much importance in education in the last few years. The developments within these cities are, however, not fully comparable. In Delhi, CSOs working in education, operate on many fronts. Some NGO’s, such as Katha, Deepalaya and AADI (Action for Ability Development and Inclusion), run their own schools; some others, such as Prayas and Pratham, provide informal schooling through bridge programmes for children who have dropped out of government schools; still others such as the Centre for Education Management and Development (CEMD), Society for All Round Development (SARD), along with Katha and Pratham, have adopted some municipal schools to support them through programmes on teacher training and sensitisation towards children with special needs, curriculum/activity planning and material preparation. There is yet another set of organisations which are think-tanks and pressure groups which have lent issue-based support to public movements and campaigns from time to time. In Hyderabad, an important phenomenon is the emergence of a group of NGOs linked to the corporate sector. These new high profile NGOs, are sometimes linked to particular business houses or are patronised by non-resident Indians (NRIs) or local Indian industrialists. Education is not their only area of activity, but some IT industrialists especially have taken a keen interest in the area of primary education. Wipro’s Azim Premji Foundation is probably the most famous example of this trend, but this NGO does not have much of a presence in Hyderadad. But others do. Satyam has two NGOs: the Byrraju Foundation, active mainly in east and west Godavari, and the Satyam Foundation that works in Hyderabad.17 Dr Reddy Laboratories Ltd. set up the Dr Reddy Foundation, which initiated the Child and Police (CAP) project that works with about 60 government schools. The Naandi Foundation was primarily an initiative of the former chief minister, who intended to involve NRIs of Andhra origin in development work in their home state. These NGOs are involved in different types of activities. The activities of the Satyam Foundation are based on voluntary inputs from 16

There are, of course, several other NGO initiatives, in all these cities. The section highlights some of the main trends in these cities, but is not meant to list all NGO activities. 17 This article was written before the Satyam scam came to light.

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Satyam employees.18 The foundation ‘adopts’ schools and the volunteers (i.e., Satyam employees) regularly go to the schools, not to teach, but to interact with the children and to contribute in their informal capacity to a nicer and more exciting school experience. The Naandi Foundation aims to support the government through technical and human expertise. In 2004–05, it took over teachers’ training in Hyderabad district, and it also runs the Mid-Day Meal scheme in the city. It has opened health centers in about 25 schools in the old city.19 The Dr Reddy Foundation started the CAP project, initially concentrating on bringing out-of-school children from Hyderabad’s industrial belts into the mainstream through bridge schools, now it works with government schools to improve the quality of education. In 2005, the CAP project became fully inde-pendent of the Dr Reddy Foundation.20 There are several features that these NGOs have in common. First, they have all made a conscious decision to work with the government and to improve the existing system of government schools — they are not organising a parallel system of schooling. Second, they are all concerned with the quality of education and aim to make education more playful and child-friendly, for instance through the promotion of alternative educational methods. Third, these organisations benefit from the high profile of their founders and/or board members. Apart from being linked with other corporate houses and foundations, even their access to the government is incomparable to that of some of the traditional NGOs. In Kolkata, corporate NGOs are not yet involved in service delivery or in improving the quality of education. The ‘Naandi model’ for organising the Mid-Day Meal programme has been discussed, but has not been implemented. What has happened, however, is the involvement of local NGOs in alternative educational centres. In 1999, a survey was done on Kolkata’s deprived urban children. This survey was funded by the West Bengal DPEP, and undertaken by 50 NGOs under the guidance of Sister Cyril, of the Loreto Day School. The survey found that 25 per cent of the children aged between 5 and 9 years and 29 per cent of the children aged between 18 From http://www.satyam.com/mediaroom/pr1dec04.html (accessed 19 January 2007). 19 See http://www.naandi.org/Education/. 20 See http://www.capfoundation.in/.

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10 and 14 were not in school. Since then, under the SSA programme, informal schooling centres have been set up in Kolkata. There is an umbrella body, the City Level Programme of Action for Street and Working Children (CLPOA) co-ordinating the programme (Shikshalay Prakalpa — school project) with the government and more than 60 NGOs, which together run more than 440 such centres. The NGOs hire local unemployed yet educated people to run these schools. These ‘teachers’ receive some training and teaching aids (a trunkful of material) from Loreto. According to people involved in the NGOs that are part of Shikshalay Prakalpa, the need for such informal schooling is urgent. It is not that there are no formal schools around — in fact in Ward No. 13, we observed that some of the government schools are starved of children while the informal schools have over-crowded classrooms — but the main problem is the mismatch described earlier. Many of the children who attend in the informal schools are working children. They may not get much support from their parents, they may not feel at home in a normal school, or they may not have had a birth certificate. Some have never been admitted, others have dropped out of mainstream schooling. Sometimes, NGOs try to get them (re)admitted in the mainstream, but often they do not succeed. Altogether, it is clear that there is a huge need for such alternative schools in Kolkata, and for NGOs who can run them. At the same time, however, like their counterparts in rural West Bengal, they are terribly under-resourced.21

Government Responses and Changes in Governance The previous section focused on some of the new or increasingly important actors in the educational landscape. How has the government responded? Based on the nature and role of the various actors, it is possible to distinguish at least three different challenges that the government faces. The first relates to the accommodation of the parents of first-generation learners. What kind of role should these parents be given in educational governance? To what extent are and can they be included in the processes of consultation and participation? The second relates to regulation of private schools. The expansion of private schools and the huge diversity in quality raises 21

See the Pratichi Report about SSKs in rural West Bengal.

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the question to what extent the government can, will and should take responsibility to scale up its regulatory capacity. The third is related to the development of a policy towards partnerships. If NGOs become more important in education, what kind of policy framework is used to accommodate and regulate this involvement?

Participation and Consultation All over India, as part of the DPEP and SSA programmes, the participation of parents and ‘the community’ in education has been on the political agenda. In Andhra Pradesh, there was a policy that all government schools should have a school education committee — convened by the headmaster, with elected parents as members.22 This school education committee did not have many powers, but it did decide about the school development funds (with the headmaster and chair of the School Education Committee [SEC] as signatories). Surprisingly, this policy was never implemented in Hyderabad. Government schools in this city did not have a school education committee and all funds for construction work are channelled directly from the bureaucracy to the contractor. In Kolkata, we found that all government-aided schools have a school management committee, and in the period of our fieldwork, an order was issued by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation that all KMC schools should form a school-based committee, consisting of the ward councillor, the head master, five guardian members and one nominee. The immediate reason behind this was the need to monitor the Mid-Day Meal programme, but the School Management Committees (SMCs) were supposed to keep an eye on the ‘smooth functioning of the school’ more generally.23 22 The term of the SECs ended in September 2005. No new elections have been held. The Andhra Pradesh government announced that it wanted to implement Village Education Committees instead, more directly related to the Panchayat system. 23 What is interesting is that the SMCs in Kolkata include the councillor (an elected politician) as a member. In Andhra Pradesh, party politics is not part of the design of the school committees. Yet, also in Andhra Pradesh, party politics played a role, as some of the elections for SEC membership were fought along party lines (based on interviews in Kurnool and east Godavari). Moreover, as Powis (2003) stated, local level stakeholder committees (such as he SECs) helped the ruling party that initiated these (the Telugu Desam Party) in their cadre-building activities.

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During our fieldwork, however, we did not find many examples of active parent consultation or participation in any of the schools we visited. The attitude of teachers is crucial in this respect. If consultation with parents has to happen, and if the participation of parents in school management has to increase, it is the teachers who need to facilitate this. We often found, however, that the interaction between teachers and parents was restricted to reporting academic progress or discussing disciplinary issues. Very few schools organise direct discussion fora for parent–student–teacher interaction and still fewer encourage parental involvement in school activities. There is also a fear among parents of the negative repercussions that complaints against teachers might have for their children. As mentioned above, however, in Delhi our study team found that schools run by NGO’s do fairly well in this respect. While they have the same clientele as government schools, i.e., first-generation learners from urban slums, the attitudes of the teachers were very different. While the government school teachers openly stated that they felt it was a ‘waste of time’ trying to communicate with illiterate parents, teachers of the NGO-run schools were more sympathetic towards the plight of these parents and therefore put in much more effort in trying to establish a rapport with them. A structural difficulty in trying to increase consultation and participation, in government schools at least, is related to the centralised structure of the educational bureaucracy and the lack of voice of teachers and principals. In all three cities that we studied, we found that there are virtually no decisions that can be taken by teachers individually or collectively at the school level. Almost all decisions related to personnel (recruitment, promotions transfers, disciplinary actions, etc.), the content of education (curriculum, textbooks, syllabus, teaching methods, student assessment), school governance (student detention, mechanisms to involve parents) and finance are taken at a level far above the schools (Mooij 2008). Given that government teachers are all professionally trained, it is, in fact, surprising how little decision-making power teachers or school headmasters have, and how this professional group has accepted this situation. Given this centraltisation, it is unlikely that school-level committees can lead to real consultation, let alone participation. An effective parental voice requires that decisions can be taken at the school level.

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Perhaps it can be argued that other actors have come to the rescue of the largely voiceless parents. First, there is the judiciary. The Supreme Court, hearing a public interest litigation about education, ruled that the right to education is a fundamental and enforceable right.24 This judgement sparked off widespread reactions among civil society groups in the country, and concerted efforts were made subsequently to put pressure on the central government to amend the Constitution and to make elementary education a fundamental right. More recently the High Court in Delhi got involved with laying down the rules for nursery school admissions in the city. While this was welcomed by parents who faced discrimination at the hands of private schools, it also sparked off a controversy: most private schools and parents aspiring to admit their children in these schools considered it as too much of judicial interference. Apart from the Courts, there have been other civil society actors putting pressure where the voices of students, parents and teachers have been weak. These include issue-based support groups such as the National Advocacy for Right to Education (NAFRE) and the National Parents Forum, which came together in the late 1990’s to fight for the cause of equal and quality education for all. Surprisingly, these local, civil society initiatives have become quite significant to the process of channelising the voice of parents, while elected representatives (Ward Councillors, MLAs) are conspicuously absent. The role of the latter seems to be, by and large, restricted to ‘putting in a good word’ for a child’s school admission or influencing the decisions regarding recruitment, transfer or promotion of teachers in government schools.

Regulation of Private Schools Looking at the government’s response towards the increasing importance of private education, the most important finding is that there is hardly any, except a silent acknowledgement of the fact that the latter’s role in education is rapidly increasing. In Andhra Pradesh, we came across a few government officials who looked at privatisation as a challenge, and were happy when government schools started to compete with private schools in order to pull children back into 24

This interpretation fits in well with a more general trend in the 1990s of Supreme Court judicial activism that ‘helped to repair and correct the Indian state’ (Rudolph and Rudolph 2001: 132).

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government schools (for instance by introducing ‘English as a subject’ in a lower class and teaching it in a more serious way). Most government officials, however, seem to have accepted the fact that private schools are coming up, and are attracting more and more students. The increasing number of private schools has not led to any form of more systematic regulation. In other words, the reduction of the direct role of the state (as service provider) has not gone together with the enlargement of another role: to regulate, and take responsibility for quality assurance within, the private sector. In West Bengal, private schools lie completely outside the scope of the government. It is only from class 8 onwards, that schools need recognition, and that the educational bureaucracy needs to come in. In Andhra Pradesh, the situation is more complicated because the legal status of unrecognised schools is ambiguous. On the one hand, it is not allowed to run a school without recognition from the government. On the other hand, there is no compulsory schooling in India, which makes it hard to prevent private initiatives to teach children who do not go to a recognised school some basic skills and capacities. Also in Delhi, it was very clear that the expansion of private schooling has not been matched by serious efforts to regulate this segment within the educational system. In all three cities, it was clear that there was no apparent desire to change the educational situation. After all, as several government officials argued, these unrecognised private schools cater to a clear demand. To quote from an interview with a senior educational officer: So far, the government has twice issued notices to these schools (societies which call themselves schools) in Hyderabad, but nothing is happening. What can we do? We cannot deny the right to open a school. If we close them, the parents will start complaining that there is no alternative school. As long as the parents are happy to send their children to these schools, we cannot force these children to go to government schools.25

What this statement clearly suggests is that there is a tacit understanding that the proliferation of unrecognised schools is allowed to take place partly because the government is not able to come up with an alternative that is acceptable to the parents of 25

Interview, Hyderabad, July 2005.

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the children in these unrecognised schools. As a result of this attitude, there is no commitment to move towards a ‘common school system’, in which all categories of schools are supposed to fulfil certain minimum norms and that presupposes a regulatory system securing comparable levels of quality education across the board. There is little doubt that the private educational sector is in need of a more meaningful regulatory framework. How this should be organised is, however, a difficult question. Similar to Tooley and Dixon (2005), we too found that school inspection and school recognition are activities in which officials of the Department of Education can earn an illegal income. Our Delhi team, during an interview with a principal of a government primary school found that school inspectors can in fact be ‘bought’ or ‘silenced’ with either a bribe or a ‘favour’. The poor performance of teachers, mis-utilisation of school funds, informal arrangements related to teacher transfers, physical punishment or other forms of abuse of students by teachers, can all be ‘sorted out’ in an ‘out-of-school settlement’ so to speak. This was cited in the case of a school in Delhi, and it holds just as true for any other part of India. Corruption in this sector is as rampant as in any other — which raises the question of alternative ways of ensuring school regulation, for instance, by a more independent board with a strong representation of civil society actors.

New Partnerships In all three cities we found innovative partnerships being forged in various permutations and combinations. NGOs always played an important role in education, but they are now increasingly seen as partners rather than just watch-dogs. The attitude within the government towards such partnerships with NGOs is mixed. At the highest bureaucratic levels, there is often a positive attitude. There is a willingness to take NGOs seriously and engage them as partners in educational activities. Their small scale is appreciated, and it is thought that this allows them to experiment and develop innovative teaching practices, which perhaps later could be scaled up by the government. The fact that some of these larger NGOs can use their economic power and contacts as leverage means that they can influence the state’s educational agenda. These organisations are consulted now and then, are invited to participate in task forces and can have individual access to the top-most levels of the educational bureaucracy. Although we did not find clear examples of how they have been

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instrumental in adjusting the state-level education agenda, all respondents within the educational bureaucracy — and those who are sympathetic towards these new actors — confirmed that larger NGOs are influential. ‘I may throw them out of my office, but they may find another way’, as one of the top-level bureaucrats in the Department of Education said.26 On the whole, we found the attitude of senior officials in Hyderabad and Delhi to be more open and enthusiastic than in Kolkata. A principal secretary in Kolkata told us that ‘frankly speaking, our collaboration is more like a cohabitation than a marriage’.27 Why he used this particular metaphor is not clear, but the suggestion was: it is not really our preference to work with NGOs. Several people working in educational NGOs in Kolkata, however, mentioned to us that, as compared to the past, the attitude of the government had become much more appreciative.28 At lower levels, we found clear signs of resentment in Hyderabad also, especially in case the NGOs start getting involved in activities that could be considered core tasks of the government. The Naandi Foundation of Hyderabad is a case in point. At the time of fieldwork, it acted as a subcontractor to the government, and was involved in a core government task, namely teacher training. The justification for this was that the NGO would be better and more efficient at doing this job. Not surprisingly, this situation led to some resentment and opposition within the government.29

26

Interview, Hyderabad, July 2005. Interview, Kolkata, December 2005. 28 One of the executive directors of an NGO running a model school, for instance mentioned that ‘Fifteen years ago, we were invited for meetings because it was hard no neglect us. Now the government also wants our advice, and we are asked to participate in committees, on teachers trainings for instance….Also the teachers unions are changing.’ (Interview, Kolkata, September 2003). 29 One senior educational officer complained bitterly about the ‘NGOs which just want our money, but they do not perform well’ (Interview, Hyderabad, July 2005). In our presence, he made a telephone call about a huge sum of money given to the NGO. ‘We have no idea how they spend our money. There is no statement of expenditure. We don’t know whether they contribute anything themselves as per the agreement’, he said. Our point here is not to discredit the NGO. We have no idea whether the officer was right or wrong. We just want to illustrate some of the resentment that exists within government circles. 27

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Despite the growing role of NGOs in education, the government’s response has been ad hoc, rather than systematic. In none of the three cities is there a clear policy regarding partnerships with NGOs. Also, different NGOs had different kinds of arrangements; some even worked without a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).30 Just as the booming private sector remains poorly regulated, the activities and collaborations with NGOs also remain an area without clear policy objectives, and one in which personal networks are more important than transparent policy arrangements.

Conclusion and Discussion We started the chapter by highlighting the fact that, although more and more children go to school, the quality of education remains a problem all over India. The main focus of the chapter was on educational governance in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. We described how new actors have come up, how others have assumed new roles and have become more important. We also analysed the government’s response to these new challenges, and concluded that it has been inadequate. There is little scope for parents to express themselves in the educational system, and teachers and school principals have little room to take decisions regarding school management and finance. There is, therefore, a democratic deficit. Private schools have become much more important, but they too remain largely unregulated. The involvement of NGOs in various educational activities and their collaboration with the government has not yet led to a concerted policy response. In other words, what we see is that while new actors and providers have become more important, the role of the government is not changing accordingly. Quietly, responsibilities are being handed over to the private sector, but without meaningful regulation. The result, in the three metropolises we studied, is an educational sector characterised not

30

One of the leading persons in an NGO in Hyderabad told us that she did not believe in MoUs. The NGO has permission from the government to work in selected schools. Once a year, a meeting is organised in the office of the Director, School Education, in which, she claimed, the annual report is discussed and a new annual plan presented. ‘The minutes of that meeting function as a kind of MoU’ (Interview, Hyderabad, July 2005).

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by coordination, regulation or participation, but governance by resignation and privatisation by default. What does this study of educational governance tell us about urban governance more generally? First, despite the 74th Amendment, educational governance in these megacities can hardly be described as being decentralised. Government schools are still managed in a fairly centralised manner — with little decision-making powers available at the school or ward level. In all three cities, we found little interest from local politicians in educational (policy) issues. Private or NGO activities are not so much decentralised, as uncontrolled and dependent on personal networks. Second, to some extent, some of the more general urban governance characteristics of the three cities are reflected in the way the educational sector is governed. Delhi, with its multiple identities — a state, a city as well as the nation’s capital — offers the most unique set of challenges in the form of contradictions, such as overspending yet under-resourced schools; a large presence of international and national civil society organisations, yet only a handful of them involved with local issues; a willingness to pay (even by the poor), yet education continues to be an under-resourced sector. In Hyderabad, the relatively positive attitude towards corporate NGO involvement in education reflects the forward-looking aspirations of the state government, and its desire to make Hyderabad a world-class city. It also fits it neatly with the tendency of the state government (in any case till April 2004, when the Telugu Desam Party lost the elections) to transfer responsibilities to other institutions as long as they are not lowerlevel elected political bodies. In Kolkata, the power of the teachers unions and political parties in educational governance is much more prominent than in other cities. The fact that there are blurring lines between the bureaucracy and political parties is visible in the existence of District Educational Boards, which control governmentaided schools to a degree incomparable to the other cities. To conclude, this chapter has shown that empirically there has indeed been a shift from ‘government’ to ‘governance’. The number of other private and non-government actors has increased, and their importance has also grown. How we should assess this development is not an easy question. On the one hand, it is clear that the government has failed miserably as a provider, and that, in this sense, the increased role of others is not only logical and understandable, but perhaps also not totally undesirable. On the other

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hand, however, this development has resulted in an almost total lack of regulation — of the standards, norms and rules governing this sector. While the private services may sometimes be only marginally better than the ones provided by the state, the poor are still as vulnerable, if not more so, for these services come at a price and without quality assurance. The regulatory agencies of the state are prone to inefficiency, corruption and other malpractices. At a time when the conventional regulators seem to need another set of regulators to govern them, the judiciary seems to have taken on a stronger (at times interventionist) role in the recent past. The larger challenges that a shift from ‘government to governance’ poses are hence yet to be resolved.

References Anveshi. 2002. Curricular Transaction in Selected Government Schools of Andhra Pradesh. Final Report of the Study Undertaken by Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies, http://www.anveshi.org/images/cu rricular%20transactions%20in%20government%20schools.pdf (accessed 19 April 2009). Boyle, S., A. Brock, J. Mace, and M. Sibbons. 2002. Reaching the Poor — The ‘Costs’ of Sending Children to School: A Six Country Study, Synthesis Report. London: DFID. Chandhoke, N. 2003. Governance and the Pluralisation of the State. Impli-cations for Democratic Citizenship. Economic and Political Weekly 38(28): 2957–68. Chengappa, R. and S. Maheshwari. 2006. What’s Wrong with Our Teaching? India Today, 27 November: 38–52. Educational Initiatives. 2006. Student Learning in the Metros 2006. How Well are Our Students Learning?, http://www.ei-india.com/full-report. pdf (accessed January 2008). Ghosh, A. 2006. An Analysis of Primary Education in Kolkata. Centre for Civil Society (CCS) Working Paper No. 149. Government of India. 2006. Towards Faster and More Inclusive Growth: An Approach to the 11th Five Year Plan. Planning Commission, Government of India, 14 June. Government of NCT of Delhi. 2003. Report on Government of NCT, Delhi. ———. 2006. Delhi Human Development Report. New Delhi: Partnership for Progress and Oxford University Press. Govinda, R. and R. Diwan, eds. 2003. Community Participation and Empowerment in Primary Education. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

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Jalal, J. 2000. Citizens Voice–State’s Response: Strategies for Strengthening Urban Local Governance, Urban India 20(1), January–June: 25–56. ———. 2007. Exploring the Dynamics of ‘Choice,’ ‘Voice’ and ‘Responsiveness’ in Education Services in Delhi. Presented at a seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance’, Organised by Centre de Sciences Humaines and India International Centre, New Delhi, 23–24 January 2007. Jayal, N.G. 1997. The Governance Agenda: Making Democratic Development Dispensable. Economic and Political Weekly 32(8): 407–12. Juneja, N. 2001. Primary Education for All in the City of Mumbai, India: The Challenge Set by Local Actors. Paris: UNESCO. Kingdon, G.G. 2007. The Progress of School Education in India: Global Poverty Research. Group Working Paper Series, No. 71, http://www. gprg.org/pubs/workingpapers/pdfs/gprg-wps-071.pdf (accessed 19 April 2009). Mooij, J. 2008. Primary Education, Teachers’ Professionalism and Social Class: About Motivation and Demotivation of Government School Teachers in India. International Journal of Educational Development 28(5): 508–23. National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration and Ministry of Human Resource Development. 2000. Education for All: 2000 Assessment. India. Country Report. New Delhi. National Sample Survey Organisation. 1998. Attending an Educational Institution in India: Its Level, Nature and Cost (52nd Round, 1995–96). National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), Government of India. Powis, B. 2003. Grass Roots Politics and ‘Second Wave of Decentralisation’ in Andhra Pradesh. Economic and Political Weekly 38(26): 2617–22. Pratham. 2006. Report on School Survey, http://www.pratham.org/aser2006. php (accessed 19 April 2009). Pratichi Research Team. 2002. The Delivery of Primary Education. A Study of West Bengal. Pratichi (India) Trust. Raina, V. 2003. Making Sense of Community Participation: Comparing School Education and Watershed Development, in R. Govinda and R. Diwan (eds), Community Participation and Empowerment in Primary Education. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Rajalakshmi, T.K. 2004. The Hard way to Learn. The Frontline 21(17), www.flonnet.com/fl2117/stories/20040827002604600.htm (accessed 28 January 2008). Rudolph, L.I. and S.H. Rudolph. 2001. Redoing the Constitutional Design: From an Interventionist to a Regulatory State, in Atul Kohli (ed.), The Success of India’s Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilak, B.G.J. 2000. Financing of Elementary Education in India, in National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration and Ministry of Human Resource Development, Education for All: 2000 Assessment. India, Country Report. New Delhi.

160 Ú MOOIJ AND JALAL Tooley, J and P. Dixon. 2003. Private Schools for the Poor: A Case Study from India. Reading: Centre for British Teachers (CfBT). ———. 2005. An Inspector Calls: The Regulation of ‘Budget’ Private Schools in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. International Journal of Educational Development 25: 269–85. UNESCO. 2004. Education for All — the Quality Imperative, Global Monitoring Report 2005. Paris: UNESCO. Wohlstetter, P., K. Briggs and A. Kirk. 2002. School Based Management — what it is and does it make a difference, in Encyclopaedia of Education and Sociology. New York: Routledge and Falmer.

Chapter 7 Assessing Urban Governance through the Prism of Healthcare Services in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai Loraine Kennedy, Ravi Duggal and Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal

The aim of this empirical study is to reflect on urban governance

in India’s large metropolitan cities by examining healthcare services in Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The objective is not a strict comparison of the cities per se, indeed the data sets available are not identical for the three cities, rather the idea is to use a comparative perspective to tease out general findings about the evolution of supply and demand for a given service in relation to a particular governance situation. These three cities are situated in different regions of the country, characterised by distinct political cultures and they occupy dissimilar positions in the urban hierarchy. It will be seen that this heritage contributes in a significant way to explaining the variance we observe with regard to governance between the three cities. Notwithstanding, they are exposed to a common overall policy framework and similar forces are clearly at work in each, reshaping service delivery and redefining the respective roles of different categories of actors. As outlined in Chapter 1, the main analytical focus is on changes that have occurred over the last 10–15 years as a result of decentralisation and economic reform. Before presenting the findings from the city-level studies, we provide a brief overview of the evolution of healthcare services in India over the last few decades. In addition to providing a kind of benchmark, it is a useful reminder that many of the trends we observe are linked to overall conditions in India and not to localised contexts. The subsequent sections compare the functions of each municipal corporation with regard to healthcare services, followed by an analysis of the ways in which delivery systems have been

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redesigned, including the principles guiding the reforms and the actors involved. For each city, we question whether the creation of Ward Committees has resulted in greater participation of the elected municipal councillors (or corporators) in issues related to health services. Finally, we assess the implications of the changes observed within this sector for urban governance.

The Health Scenario in India Given the nature of the health sector in India, several levels of analysis are necessary to grasp current trends: macro, meso and micro. Constitutionally speaking, health is a state subject, but in reality the union government plays a critical role both with regard to policy and to specific programmes, and it constitutes a major provider of funds. In the 60 years since India’s independence there have been remarkable achievements on the health front, as Table 7.1 illustrates. While the evolution of health indicators is generally positive, the public health system has had only limited success in providing basic care to the majority of the population. There is high reliance Table 7.1: Achievements, 1951 to 2000 Indicator

1951

Demographic Changes Life expectancy Crude birth rate Crude death rate Infant mortality rate/000

36.7 408 25 146

1981 54 339 12.5 110

2000 64.6 261 8.7 70

Epidemiological Shifts Malaria (cases in million) Leprosy (cases per 10,000) Small pox (no. of cases) Guineaworm Polio

75 38.1 >44,887 n.a. n.a.

2.7 57.3 Eradicated >39,792 29,709

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Infrastructure Primary healthcare facilities Dispensaries & hospitals (all) Beds (private + public) Doctors (allopathy) Nursing personnel

725 9,209 117,198 61,800 18,054

57,363 23,555 569,495 268,700 143,887

163,181 43,322 870,161 503,900 737,000

2.2 3.74

Source: Adapted from Box 1, National Health Policy (Government of India 2002). Note that some data in column 4 is from years prior to 2000.

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on private, out-of-pocket expenditure on health, which imposes a disproportionate burden on the poor: the poorest 20 per cent of the population have more than double the mortality rates, malnutrition and fertility of the richest quintile (Narayan, n.d.: 17). In addition to inequalities among income groups, there are striking urban–rural disparities, reflected in the fact that out-of-pocket expenses in urban areas are about twice of what the state spends on healthcare in urban areas in contrast to rural areas where the out-of-pocket burden is ten times what the state spends on healthcare (National Sample Survey Organisation [NSSO] 1998). In general, urban areas tend to have much higher levels of access. According to a recent government report, the availability of hospitals per 100,000 urban population is more than six times higher than for 100,000 rural population (cited by Paul et al. 2004: 923). Metropolitan regions like Mumbai corner almost half the public health resources of the state government and also about 40 per cent of private health resources. There remain tremendous challenges in the health sector, too vast in fact for the government to handle on its own. Increasingly, policymakers recognise that the private sector has a crucial role to play. As shown in Table 7.2, in the mid-1980s, almost three-quarters of the out-patient care in rural areas was provided by the private sector, and 40 per cent of in-patient care. A decade later, the proportion of care provided by the private sector rose considerably: to roughly 80 per cent for out-patient care and to 55 per cent for in-patient care. Table 7.2 confirms a general trend towards the privatisation of healthcare services throughout the country, and underscores the convergence of this trend across rural and urban areas. Table 7.2: Public–Private Sector Provision of Healthcare in Urban and Rural India (Percentage Distribution) Rural 1986–87

Urban

1995–96

1986–87

1995–96

Out-patient care Public sector Private sector

26 74

19 80

27 73

19 81

In-patient care Public sector Private sector

60 40

45 55

60 40

43 57

Source: Reproduced from Narayan (n.d.: 20) and Sen et al. (2002), based on the 42nd and 52nd rounds of the National Sample Survey. Note: All figures have been rounded off.

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A second trend, no doubt related to the first is the decline in public investment in public health in the 1990s as a percentage of GDP, from 1.3 per cent in 1990 to 0.9 per cent in 1999: ‘The aggregate expenditure in the Health sector is 5.2 per cent of the GDP. Out of this, about 17 percent of the aggregate expenditure is public health spending, the balance being out-of-pocket expenditure. The central budgetary allocation for health over this period, as a percentage of the total Central Budget, has been stagnant at 1.3 percent while that in the States has declined from 7.0 percent to 5.5 percent’ (Government of India 2002: 5). International comparisons suggest that India would need to invest a much larger proportion of public finance in total health expenditure if it is to improve access to healthcare. India’s equity record in access and health outcomes compares poorly with China, Malaysia, South Korea, and Sri Lanka, where public finance accounts for 30 to 60 per cent of total healthcare expenditure (Duggal 2007b, citing data from WHO 2004). Recognising the ‘stark reality’ of this extremely limited public health investment, in part because of the difficult fiscal positions of the state governments, the national health policy recommends that the union government augment its relative contribution. In view of reaching overall objectives aimed at reducing inequalities, the policy advocates strengthening the primary health sector (to 55 per cent of total public health investment) including better provisioning of essential drugs, because of the greater accessibility it affords for the population, and because it facilitates preventive care (Government of India 2002: 24). Although the general trend towards privatisation of healthcare services is evident throughout the country, there are regional variations, and regional contexts can be expected to affect the local environment of healthcare services in the cities that we have studied. One of the characteristics of Delhi’s governance is the overlap within a given territory of several politico-administrative entities: the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), with which we are primarily concerned here, the government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (GoNCTD or Delhi government), the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) and the union or central government.1 1

Under the central government’s control are major hospitals such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), institutions such as the Indian Council for Medical Research, and dispensaries that cater to the needs of specific clients (i.e., government employees).

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The Delhi government operates through the Health Department, the Social Welfare Department and the Health Directorate whose mission is to co-ordinate the action of the different health services providers (including private providers), to avoid overlaps and to control the quality of services. The crucial need to co-ordinate the work of these different agencies has been the subject of discussions and proposals for the past decade. It was recently decided that the Delhi government would be in charge of all curative healthcare except primary healthcare — which would remain with the MCD along with public health, i.e., preventive care. But from 1999 onwards, the proposed transfer of curative functions from the MCD to the Delhi government has evoked recurring tensions between these two levels of government.2 A division of labour according to the type of medicine was also proposed: whereas the Delhi government would be in charge of allopathic medicine, the MCD would provide only Indian systems of medicine (ayurveda and unani) and homeopathy. However, according to senior MCD officials, this proposal was never strictly implemented. The latest co-ordination proposal, finalised in 2002, is more comprehensive: it plans to make the nine revenue districts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi reference units for the co-ordination of all medical facilities; a chief District Medical Officer will be in charge of coordination, s/he will check the registration of all medical practitioners, nursing homes, etc.,3 and be in charge of total health planning for the concerned district.4 In that scheme of things, all new dispensaries will offer Indian systems of medicine and homeopathy along with allopathy. Whereas the co-existence of different levels of government is a major feature of healthcare delivery in Delhi, the striking thing about Andhra Pradesh is the high proportion of healthcare services provided by the private sector, a trend that started earlier there than in other states. Already in the 1980s, the private sector provided about 70 per cent of in-patient care in the rural areas and 62 per cent in the urban areas, which was the highest proportion in the 2

In 2000, 4 of the 7 hospitals that had been taken over by the Delhi government went back to the MCD. 3 In 2003, a survey conducted by the Health Department found 1,603 illegal nursing homes and only 400 registered ones (Times of India, 14 March 2003). 4 Interview with a senior official of the Health Directorate, Delhi, November 2004.

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country (Narayana 2003: 342).5 With regard to out-patient care, the predominance of the private sector is even more remarkable: 77 per cent in the rural areas and 89 per cent in urban areas. Although various factors have contributed to this situation, it has been noted that Andhra Pradesh government policy has at times directly supported the development of private facilities by providing subsidies and tax breaks. In the early 1980s, an official policy document recognised the role of the private sector and the NGOs in achieving the state’s healthcare goals (Narayana 2003: 355). Reforms aimed at introducing new institutional arrangements and governance practices were also implemented in the 1990s, building on the those started a decade earlier: 6 these reforms included measures to achieve greater financial efficiency in public hospitals through user charges and by contracting out supportive services, and the formation of Hospital Advisory Committees to improve accountability and transparency of public institutions. In the second half of the 1990s, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)-led government implemented significant policy changes, including in the health field. For instance, Andhra Pradesh was the first state to formulate a State Population Policy in 1997, setting clear goals with regard to population growth and family planning. The results have been quite striking: currently the state has the highest percentage of female sterilisations in the country (the contraceptive prevalence rate is 59.3 per cent) (Academy of Nursing Studies [ANS] 2002: 7).7 In Maharashtra, the same trend is underway, but less explicitly: it is the unwritten policy of the state health department that curative care, especially hospitals, should be largely left to the private sector. 5 The corresponding all-India averages were roughly 40 per cent in 1986–87, as shown in Table 7.2. 6 In 1986, the Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad, an autonomous commission for the management of secondary hospitals was created in the framework of a World Bank funded programme. For more information on this reform and its effects, see Mooij and Prasad (2006). 7 Reflecting a more gradual change, the total fertility rate declined to 2.5 children per woman in 1997, which is near the replacement level. These results have drawn much attention in both research and policy circles because they were achieved despite the young age at which women are married in Andhra Pradesh (according to the 2001 Census, 45 per cent of the girls were married by the time they were 19 years old) and low female literacy rates. See ANS (2002).

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It is for this reason that over the last decade or so no new investments in curative care have been made in Mumbai by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which is a major provider of public healthcare. While there is no written evidence of this, our interviews with different stakeholders clearly indicated an arena of conflict between elected representatives and the bureaucracy on these issues. The standing committee of the BMC has been opposing the privatisation of healthcare but the bureaucracy has been promoting this surreptitiously if not vigorously. There are also very large vested interests involved in this policy shift, among politicians, corporators, builders and the private health industry. This is because BMC hospitals are located on large plots, situated on prime property. The deal being offered by BMC’s privatisation cell is that anyone offering to redevelop dilapidated public hospitals will get a floor space index of four, that is, for every 100 square meters the builder will receive 400 square metres for development, of which 100 square meters will be given back to BMC as an equivalent of the existing hospital and the rest would be theirs to develop.

City-level Analysis of Healthcare Services What are the functions of the municipal corporation with regard to healthcare services? Strong variations were observed even on this basic parameter. At one extreme is Hyderabad, where municipal authorities have very limited involvement in healthcare provision and administration is largely in the hands of the state government machinery; at the other extreme, Mumbai’s municipal corporation is in charge of running a vast network of hospitals including four teaching hospitals. Delhi is situated somewhere in between. A brief description of each case follows. As mentioned there is overlap in Delhi: in addition to a few national-level institutions, a number of hospitals, polyclinics, dispensaries and medical colleges function under the Delhi government. As Table 7.3 shows, all these levels of government are involved in supplying primary-level facilities, which usually comes under the purview of local government. The MCD, i.e., Delhi’s largest civic body,8 has a diverse portfolio, managing a series of hospitals, 8 The other two civic bodies — the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and the Delhi Cantonment Board — are also providers of health services for their respective constituencies.

168 Ú KENNEDY, DUGGAL, TAWA LAMA-REWAL Table 7.3: Primary Level Health Facilities in Delhi Types of centres

Nos.

Beds

A. Dispensaries Delhi Government MCD NDMC Central Government Railways Statutory Bodies

166 38 11 68 12 117

NA NA NA NA NA NA

5 2 48

47 32 NA

23 1

301 50

109 6 14

NA 90 NA

E. Health Centre MCD (IPP VIII)

21

NA

F. Urban Family Welfare Centre

69

NA

G. Health Post

28

NA

B. Primary Health Centre MCD Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) Sub-centres attached to Primary Health Centres (PHCs) C. Maternity Hospital/Home MCD NDMC D. Mother and Child Welfare Centre MCD IPP VIII∗ (Maternity Homes) NDMC

Source: Health Facilities in Delhi 2005, Directorate of Health Services, GoNCTD. Note: ∗Indian Population Project, a project funded by the World Bank.

polyclinics, dispensaries, maternity and child welfare centres, mobile vans and PHCs. The MCD is directly involved with both policy and implementation. Within the executive wing, the health department has been divided into three subsections: public health (i.e., preventive healthcare), hospital administration (i.e., curative healthcare) and veterinary services. The deliberative wing has thematic committees that mirror the departments of the executive wing and these municipal committees hold regular meetings. Interestingly, the municipal health department has the largest departmental budget in the MCD. In Hyderabad, healthcare services are largely administered by the state government’s Department of Health. Indeed, Hyderabad city is treated as Hyderabad district for the purposes of administrative organisation, and a District Medical & Health Officer (DM&HO) is deputed to the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) and

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occupies at the same time the position of Chief Medical Officer of MCH. But this officer continues to answer to the district collector and the state government’s line department for health. There is no health committee in the deliberative wing of the MCH, it is a minor player in the overall supply of healthcare facilities in the city. It mainly oversees primary healthcare centres (or urban health posts) and small maternity hospitals, as the box below indicates. In the late 1990s, the municipality redefined its focus area and target group, as part of its participation in the Indian Population Project (IPP-VIII). Following the guidelines of that project, the main objective is to cater its services to target the urban poor, through an extended network of urban health-posts, in particular for women and children, including ante- and post-natal care and family planning. New health-posts were constructed and existing Family Welfare Centres were renovated. Facilities under the purview of the MCH: 5 Maternity Centres (30 beds) 16 Family Welfare Centres (10 beds) 44 Urban Health Posts (out-patient & out-reach services) 5 Dispensaries

In Mumbai, in contrast, the BMC has much greater autonomy vis-à-vis the state government apparatus because of its long history of providing healthcare infrastructure and services. BMC is a major provider of healthcare services and is in charge of running an extensive network of out-patient and in-patient facilities, with a combined strength of 2871 beds (Government of Maharashtra 2001a, 2001b). BMC public healthcare network includes: 4 Teaching Hospitals (including one dental hospital) 16 Municipal General Hospitals 5 Special Hospitals 26 Maternity Homes 30 Postpartum centres, attached to either maternity homes or hospitals 176 Municipal Dispensaries 168 Health Posts for out-patient care and public health activities

Given its strong involvement in the sector, BMC has a certain degree of autonomy with regard to policy issues and financial management. Notwithstanding this, our field studies indicated that decisionmaking power resides with the administration (executive wing)

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rather than with the elected representatives. While technically responsible for policy-making and the sanctioning of budgets, elected representatives in fact have very little control over key decisions within the BMC, and especially in the health domain. Discussions with the various stakeholders indicated that the health department of the BMC is extremely centralised and that corporators can exercise very little influence. One reason is that medical bureaucracies tend to have command structures similar to that of the military, and in fact before independence, the Indian Medical Service was dominated by the armed forces. This history has influenced the organisation of medical services in Mumbai, and elsewhere in the country.

Delivery Systems Design and New Urban Actors Delivery system design has undergone much change in the last 15 years in the three cities studied, although in a gradual manner that has not necessarily attracted much attention. As mentioned above, there is a growing trend towards the privatisation of healthcare as a result of both demand and supply factors. Without always recognising it explicitly, policy-makers and government officials appear to have integrated into their deliberations the fact that the private sector now occupies a critical place in the supply of healthcare. At the same time, economic restructuring in the context of liberalisation has put constraints on state government finances and hence on local government finances, and has led to pressures for cost-recovery in public services. In both direct and indirect ways, costs are being shifted onto the public. For instance, many public facilities lack medicines, as the 2002 national health policy recognises, due to rising costs of drugs as well as inadequate allocations in the budgets for medicines, forcing patients to purchase them from the market.9 Likewise, diagnostic tests are increasingly prescribed to be done outside public institutions, at the cost of patients. In some places in the country, user charges have been put in place. In Mumbai, user charges have gradually been introduced in public hospitals for various services and are now being hiked to virtually market levels in some cases. They were introduced in Andhra Pradesh under the

9

In 2004–05 only 6 per cent of the revenue health expenditure was incurred on medicines and instruments (BMC 2006).

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TDP government in the late 1990s, but later removed when the Congress government came to power in 2004. Within this changing scenario, the public sector remains a major provider of primary and preventive healthcare, mainly immunisation, and family planning services. Often these functions are assigned to local governments, and indeed in both Hyderabad and Delhi, they have been specifically delegated to the municipality, leaving curative care to higher levels of administration. There is a similar tendency in Mumbai also, although the BMC has under its jurisdiction a large amount of curative care infrastructure and personnel. According to a recent survey, in addition to immunisation and family planning services, a sizeable proportion of the population in Mumbai depends on public sector for antenatal care services (40 per cent) and childbirth (48 per cent) (Centre for Operation Research and Training [CORT] 2000). Data from the National Family Health Survey 1998–99 indicates that in Andhra Pradesh almost 60 per cent of vaccinations in urban areas were provided by the public sector (almost 80 per cent in rural areas), compared to 70 per cent in Maharashtra (almost 72 per cent for Mumbai) and 64 per cent in Delhi. In this context, it is useful to recall that public health facilities in the city also cater to people from rural areas, who come in from nearby districts. Apart from financial pressures resulting from economic reforms, externally funded projects have also contributed to inducing changes in delivery systems, such as the imposition of user fees and outsourcing of specific types of services to the voluntary sector. As noted in the first chapters of this volume, non-state actors have become more prevalent in service delivery, and this trend holds for the health sector also. In the study of Delhi, it was observed that two types of actors serve as intermediaries between the people and public providers of health services: elected representatives like Municipal Councillors (MCs) and Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) and civil society organisations like Residents Welfare Associations (RWAs) and NGOs. RWAs are the newest actors on the scene, and although they have been around for some time, it was the Bhagidari scheme launched by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in 2000 that gave them a new status. As a result, their numbers have increased rapidly, to more than 1,100 in 2007. As far as healthcare is concerned, RWAs are a key instrument of communication between local people and

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the municipal administration, in both directions: they inform the administration about local needs, for instance in terms of antimosquito measures; and they convey public health recommendations from the administration to the people. Their role is quite formal in this regard: in each of the 12 MCD zones (each zone encompasses a dozen electoral wards), the MCD zonal health officer, and sometimes the deputy commissioner, holds monthly meetings with RWAs in order to exchange information regarding public health issues. Less systematically, RWAs may also launch local initiatives such as the organisation of an informal ambulance service, or the setting up of a health camp in their locality. In this regard, RWAs reveal a capacity to mobilise local resources (money, the use of private cars, private houses or private furniture, the co-operation of local doctors), which is closely related to their ability to ensure the co-operation of elected representatives, and points to problematic aspects of their recent ‘empowerment’. In particular, the Bhagidari scheme, by giving RWAs the option to compete with councillors as mediators between the people and the government (be it at the local or at the NCTD level), may appear to be a way for the Delhi government to bypass elected (and hence more legitimate) local representatives (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2009). In Hyderabad, the voluntary sector appears to play a significant role in delivery systems, often within the framework of governmentsponsored schemes. At the same time, the private for-profit sector continues to expand, including a remarkable increase in corporate hospitals in recent years.10 Recently, the IPP-VIII programme (1994–2002), funded by the World Bank, left a very strong mark on municipal-level health services, including the types of services provided, the target population, the physical infrastructure, the staffing patterns, and introduced contract-based employment both for medical personnel and non-medical personnel (security, maintenance). As a key component of the project, NGOs were given a central role in implementation: they were engaged to identify ‘link volunteers’ among women in the target population, i.e., slum-dwellers, in order to ensure community participation and ‘ownership’. 11 Although considered successful by municipal 10

Incidentally, Andhra Pradesh is one of the states most actively involved in promoting health tourism. On corporate hospitals see, Lefebvre (2009). 11 The final report indicates there were 8,324 link volunteers.

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authorities and the World Bank (Gill 1999), as well as by some local organisations and health professionals involved with the project, field studies indicated problems of sustainability. The system of link volunteers has weakened since the project ended, and in some cases completed dissipated.12 Although the women involved were essentially volunteers, the IPP-VIII project provided them motivation through monetary and non-monetary means. Where the non-sustainability of the project is perhaps the most striking is with regard to personnel in the new Urban Health Posts (UHPs): many are understaffed, and new positions are primarily on a contractbasis. While this was part of the design, aimed at flexibility and cutting costs, the resulting situation is demoralising for the contract employees, especially because their salaries compare very poorly with permanent public-sector employees. Moreover, a recent study has shown that the inconvenient location and timings of the health posts also hinder their accessibility (Lok Satta 2005). As part of this same IPP project, NGOs were given the responsibility of running some of the UHPs, an experiment that has produced mixed results. One noticeable difference is that although they follow the same staffing patterns NGOs pay doctors and nursing staff (Auxiliary Nurse Midwives or ANMs) much lower salaries than in the public sector and in the private not-for-profit (or charity) sector. It is estimated that NGO-run health posts can be run at half the cost of those managed by the government, and under the new scheme costs are shared between the municipality and the NGO.13 Evidently, the decision to turn over UHPs to the voluntary sector can be partly explained by financial reasons. The cost-recovery principles are shaping service delivery, and partly explain the participation of new actors. It is useful to point out that even before economic reforms took place, NGOs were playing a very important role in providing 12

This was confirmed by Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA), who had helped to identify the Link Volunteers in the Old City through their network of NGOs and CBOs. 13 According to one NGO in Hyderabad, the government run UHP costs Rs 100,000 per month, compared to approximately Rs 50,000 for the one it was managing. The agreement with the municipality was for Rs 19,600 per month, but the NGO complained that the funds were not released in a timely fashion.

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health-care and in implementing specific government programmes. Although financial factors may have come in for consideration, the main reason cited for this ‘delegation’ was the commitment of the voluntary sector (often Christian missionaries), since for some diseases, like tuberculosis or leprosy, patients have to be treated and closely monitored for a long period of time.14 In Mumbai there is a long tradition of hospitals managed by nonprofit charitable trusts. In fact some of the early public hospitals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were originally set up by merchant capitalists and handed over to the BMC. Apart from these, many other hospitals in the city have continued to be run as genuine charities, a tradition that is now changing. Post 1970s, charity hospitals started getting ‘corporatised’, at the same time that there was a massive expansion of private hospitals. Not coincidentally, from the 1970s onwards, the growth of the public hospital sector in Mumbai slowed down and even began to decline in proportion to population growth. Like in Hyderabad, the IPP project (IPP-V, 1988–96) was implemented in Mumbai and focused similarly on improving the quality and availability of health and family-welfare services through strengthening of the service delivery infrastructure. This resulted in a shift towards setting up health posts for providing preventive health services and family planning. Like in other cities where it has been implemented, this project is contributing to making public health services selective and target-oriented, instead of being integrated and comprehensive.15 By the 1990s, curative care was being neglected in Mumbai, most notably by underfinancing such care in public hospitals. The introduction of enhanced user fees in 1998 sounded the death knell for public health services in Mumbai as they had existed earlier. The present BMC bureaucracy clearly favours privatisation strategies, as mentioned above. 14 Interview with Dr P. Hrishikesh, Sivananda Rehabilitation Home, Hyderabad, 7 October 2006. 15 Notwithstanding this targeted approach, public services remain inadequate for reaching the poor in Mumbai. A recent study indicates that nearly one-third of the reported ailments remained untreated and high levels of malnutrition persist amongst children and women in reproductive age group (IIPS and ORC Macro 2000; Hatekar 2003). Like for Hyderabad (Lok Satta 2005), studies in Mumbai have shown that inconvenient location or timings of the health posts hinder their accessibility (CORT 2000; Nandraj et al. 2001).

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A Renewed Role for Municipal Councillors? One of the objectives of this study is to evaluate the relative empowerment of elected representatives, keeping in mind recent reforms aimed at political decentralisation. Since the level of involvement of the local government in healthcare services varies across the three cities, it is not surprising that the role of the councillors also differs. The opportunity to play the role of facilitator and distribute patronage acts as an incentive for elected officials to supervise the functioning of dispensaries, polyclinics and maternity hospitals. In the study of Delhi, it was found that councillors act as ‘vigils, ombudsmen and errand runners’: they take rounds to visit the various dispensaries and polyclinics of their ward and keep a check on their functioning; they report people’s grievances concerning medical personnel’s misbehaviour to concerned senior officials. They also provide recommendation letters to reduce waiting periods in government hospitals. In Mumbai too, where the municipality runs various hospital facilities, it is common for the public to approach corporators to request them to intercede in their favour. In Hyderabad, this was apparently limited mostly to MLAs, perhaps because councillors are seldom members of hospital advisory committees. In general, councillors in Hyderabad appear to have little involvement with healthcare issues, no doubt reflecting the limited medical services provided at the local level. As mentioned above, there are municipal committees dedicated to health in Delhi and Mumbai. In principle, they provide opportunities to the member-councillors to participate directly in deliberations and problem-solving. In Delhi, the MCD’s Medical Relief and Public Health Committee is composed of 10–20 councillors selected for one year by their respective parties. Like other municipal committees, it comes together about once every month to discuss a number of issues. Its role consists of examining recommendations made by the executive wing and making new recommendations. Councillors wanting to open or maintain a particular health centre may submit their request individually and directly to officials in the health department; but the Municipal Health Committee is the privileged site for such demands to be put forward. In Mumbai too there are deliberative committees including a Women and Child Welfare Committee and a Public Health

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Committee. The latter has a role in the certain senior-level appointments, but beyond that it is not proactive in any other significant decision-making process; in particular, it does not venture into the areas of policy-making and planning. The meetings are mostly devoted to discussing complaints received from the different wards about health facilities, medical staff, etc., and they can only make suggestions to the Commissioner for appropriate action. However, in situations of crises/emergencies the public health committee has taken action and put pressure on the administration to execute its decisions. This was evident for instance during the 2005 floods, when the councillors effectively pressured the BMC bureaucracy to provide support quickly to the line staff of the health department, who were in direct contact with patients/victims. But such examples are exceptions, and studies indicate that in Mumbai, like in Delhi, decision-making power resides primarily with the bureaucracy. As for the functioning of the Ward Committees in Mumbai, a preliminary assessment based on discussions with various stakeholders indicates that while they have been active in taking decisions about construction and repair work for roads, water and sewerage systems, health-related institutions like dispensaries and health posts have generally been neglected. Similarly, in Hyderabad, an analysis of the minutes of the Ward Committees’ meetings in two distinct areas of the city indicated that issues related to public sanitation, such as garbage collection, water and drainage, and overall cleanliness were by far the issues most frequently raised by the councillors. In contrast, healthcare issues were almost entirely absent. Clearly, in Hyderabad, councillors are not significant participants in the governance framework for routine healthcare services. As mentioned earlier, the main officer at the MCH, the DM&HO, answers to the state government, as do the doctors, and not to the local government. However, the MCH has recently instituted the Hyderabad Urban Community Development and Services Fund, intended to ensure a sustained flow of resources towards poverty alleviation and slum improvement.16 This is a significant development, which suggests a political commitment to reducing urban poverty and a willingness 16

Its sources include: 20 per cent of the property tax collected annually and 30 per cent of annual per capital grants from the state government, in addition to funds received from central and state governments under various anti-poverty programmes (Sreedevi 2005).

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to direct public services towards the economically weaker sections, and in particular the slum-dwellers.17 In Delhi, a detailed study of administrative archives was used to estimate the degree to which elected representatives, both MLAs and MCs, take an interest in health issues (Tawa Lama-Rewal 2007). The study revealed that Delhi’s MLAs do take an interest, but rather than being involved in policy-making, their interest appears closely linked to political patronage. For instance, they organise health camps and support the creation of health infrastructure. According to a senior official of the Health Secretariat, about 60 per cent of medical infrastructure provision is a result of MLAs’ initiatives. Municipal councillors too have a preference for creating new infrastructure (maternity wards, dispensaries) as these involve formal inauguration ceremonies that allow them to highlight their own role in improving service delivery. An analysis of the minutes of the MCD health department compared two periods of five years each: 1991–96, when the MCD was a purely administrative civic body and 1997–2001, when the MCD became a politicoadministrative institution of local self-government as a result of the implementation of the 74th CAA. It shows, first, that many more items were discussed after 1997, i.e. after the election of the first batch of councillors. Second, a clear contrast appears in the focus of discussions in these two periods: ‘Personnel management’ is the subject of 57.8 per cent of officials’ discussions, but only of 15.9 per cent of councillors’ discussions.18 Councillors’ discussions focus on the opening or upkeep of various types of health centres (21.4 per cent, as opposed to 11.3 per cent of discussions before 1997), and to a lesser extent on their maintenance (6 per cent). These figures indicate that councillors are in fact very keen to create new healthcare infrastructure, like the MLAs, even though, as mentioned above, they also monitor the functioning of existing facilities. On the whole, a constant tension is perceptible between councillors and MCD officials, whether administrators or doctors. Despite their lifeless character, these archives reveal that councillors struggle to assert their authority to define their role in an organisation that did function (albeit differently) without them.

17 18

Approximately one-third of Hyderabad’s population lives in slums. In 2004, the total staff of the MCD amounted to 150,000 employees.

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Conclusion More than most other basic urban services, health and education have been exposed to a privatising trend. This trend has been reinforced and accelerated as a result of economic reforms, but in fact it predates the official adoption of market reforms in the early 1990s. To explain this shift, there are both push and pull factors at work that must be considered. People are attracted to private health facilities because they seem to offer better quality healthcare, and are often more convenient. The shift to private care reflects problems of access, inconvenient timing and an objective deterioration of material conditions within public institutions. With poor working conditions, the morale of healthcare professionals declines and results in poor personal commitment to the service, reflected in the massive defection of experienced doctors and nurses to the private sector across the country. Partly as a result of externally funded projects, public health services, which mostly concern primary/preventive healthcare, are increasingly being targeted to the poor. While this shift can be justified on various grounds — indeed, studies show that the poor use public services more than other income groups — it also raises serious questions about the consequences of this explicit or implicit policy of ‘reserving’ public services for the poor. One can expect that in healthcare, like in education, the defection of the middle classes will lead to a deterioration of services, because of a lack of public ‘ownership’ and the lower capacity of economically-weaker social groups to demand accountability from the administration. In India, as elsewhere, the middle classes are the vocal classes. Moreover, as international examples show, the principle of universal access is a key component to obtaining better health outcomes; the current proportion of public finance in total health expenditure, a mere 17 per cent, is largely to blame for the inequitable access to healthcare in India. Concerning the impact of decentralisation, the 74th amendment does not appear to have prompted greater formal involvement of the municipal government in health services delivery. Other local actors, notably NGOs, have continued to gain importance, in part because of their capacity to enhance community participation, which has become a stated goal of many health programmes, including those aimed at prevention. But delegating services to the voluntary sector is

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also a way for the government to cut its costs. State-level budgetary constraints in the last 10–15 years have led to the introduction of cost recovery principles and outsourcing as means to reduce expenditure. However, to be effective, this new relationship or ‘partnership’ requires the state to evolve new rules and practices, and field surveys suggest this does not always happen. For instance, municipalities do not always make timely payments to NGOs with whom it has agreements. Likewise, by delaying payments to private companies that employ personnel on a contract-basis (an increasing proportion, especially in Hyderabad), the local government creates additional problems for already vulnerable sections of the population. The conclusion is that whereas new models and norms are influencing service delivery design, the state has not necessarily adopted new modes of governing that will ensure greater accountability to the public through more stringent regulation. The amount of attention shown by councillors to health issues varies according to each municipality’s direct involvement in administering healthcare and its control over healthcare infrastructure. For now, the evidence does not support the argument that decentralisation has led to the empowerment of councillors. However, in all cities it was remarked that elected officials could play an effective role in fire-fighting situations like epidemics, floods, riots, public rage in a hospital, etc. — times of crisis when the bureaucracy is unable to control the situation. Generally speaking, elected representatives in Delhi and Mumbai are more implicated than in Hyderabad, and in both cases, there is a constant struggle with the bureaucracy to assert their views. Two factors inhibit a more democratic and participatory decision-making process from emerging: the strong bureaucratic tradition within the health sector, inherited from the military tradition, and the ‘target disease’, i.e., policies that give strong incentives to health workers to focus on specific quantitative targets, making them foot soldiers of the health ‘army’ (immunisation, sterilisation, etc.). This tradition of bureaucratic health management appears fundamentally incompatible with popular participation, and may explain why councillors have not succeeded in playing a more significant role in shaping healthcare policies and service delivery systems.19 19

We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Prof. Bruno Jobert, whose remarks during the final seminar helped us to formulate this idea.

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References Academy of Nursing Studies (ANS). 2002. Expanded and Informed Contraceptive Choice: Assessing Barriers to and Opportunities for Policy Implementation in Andhra Pradesh. Report of the study conducted by ANS, Hyderabad, with support from the Population Council, New Delhi. Centre for Operation Research and Training (CORT). 2000. Rapid Household Survey RCH (Reproductive and Child Health) Phase-II 1999. Greater Mumbai, Vadodra: CORT. Dilip, T.R. and R. Duggal. 2002. Demand for a Public Hospital in K-East Ward Greater Mumbai. Mumbai: Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes (CEHAT). Duggal, R. 2000. BMC Health Care Services: A Cost Analysis, Mumbai: Women and Health Project. BMC: Unpublished document. ———. 2005. Public Health Expenditures, Investment and Financing under the Shadow of a Growing Private Sector, in L. Gangolli et al. (eds), Review of Healthcare in India. Mumbai: CEHAT. ———. 2007a. The Political Economy of Mumbai’s Health Governance. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. ———. 2007b. Healthcare in India: Changing the Financing Strategy. Social Policy and Administration 41(4): 386–94. George, C.K. and G.S. Pattnaik. 2004. Andhra Pradesh State Health Accounts 2001–02. Report submitted to the Department for International Development (UK), Institute of Health Systems, Hyderabad. Gill, K. 1999. If We Walk Together. Communities, NGOs, and Government in Partnership for Health — The IPP VIII Hyderabad Experience. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Government of Andhra Pradesh. 2006. A Draft Health Sector Reform Strategy Document (Based on Medium-term Strategy and Expenditure Analysis and Other Sector-wide Strategies). Draft for discussion, Department of Health, March 2006, http://www.aponline.gov.in/ apportal/departments/departments.asp?dep=16&org=92 (accessed 17 January 2007). Government of India. 2002. National Health Policy — 2002, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, http://mohfw.nic.in/np2002.htm (accessed 21 January 2008). ———. 2007. State of Urban Health in Delhi. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, http://www.uhrc.in/name-CmodsDownload-index-req-getitlid-63.html (accessed 12 December 2007).

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Government of Maharashtra. 2001a. Performance Budget 2001–2003 (Medical Education and Drugs Department). Aurangabad: Government of Maharashtra. ———. 2001b. Performance Budget 2001–2003 (Medical Public Health and Employees Insurance Schemes). Aurangabad: Government of Maharashtra. Hatekar, N. and S. Rode. 2003. Truth about Hunger and Disease in Mumbai — Malnourishment among Slum Children. Economic and Political Weekly 38(43): 4604–10. International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) and ORC Macro. 2000. National Family Health Survey (NFHS- 2), 1998–99 Maharashtra. Mumbai: IIPS. Kennedy, L. 2007. A Weak Link in the Chain. Situating the Municipal Administration’s Contribution in the Overall Supply of Public Health Services in Hyderabad. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. Lefebvre, B. 2009. ‘Bringing World-class Healthcare to India.’ The Rise of Corporate Hospitals, in A. Vaguet (ed.), Indian Health Landscapes under Globalisation. Delhi: CSH and Manoher. Lok Satta. 2005. Report Card Method to Assess the Functioning of UHPs in Hyderabad, India. Project Report, Center for Development of Corporate Citizenship, S.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai. Mooij, J. and S. Prasad. 2006. Centralisation and Concentration of Control and Powers: The Case of Health Policy Implementation in Andhra Pradesh. Working paper, Centre for Regional Planning, Central University, Hyderabad. Nandraj, S., N. Madhiwala, R. Sinha, and A. Jesani. 2001. Women and Health Care in Mumbai. Mumbai: Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes. Narayan, J. n.d. Ensuring a Healthy Future. Report submitted for discussion to National Advisory Council. Hyderabad: Lok Satta. Narayana, K.V. 2003. Size and Nature of Healthcare System, in C.H. Hanumantha Rao, S. Mahendra Dev (eds), Andhra Pradesh Development: Economic Reforms and Challenges Ahead. Hyderabad: Centre for Economic and Social Studies. National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). 1998. Morbidity and Treatment of Ailments. Report No. 441. New Delhi: Department of Statistics. Paul, S., S. Balakrishnan, K. Gopakumar, S. Sekhar, and M. Vivekananda. 2004. State of India’s Public Services. Economic and Political Weekly 39(9): 920–32.

182 Ú KENNEDY, DUGGAL, TAWA LAMA-REWAL Sen, G., A. Iyer and A. George. 2002. Structural Reforms and Health Equity: A Comparison of NSS Surveys, 1986–87 and 1995–96. Economic and Political Weekly 37(14): 1342–52. Sreedevi, N. 2005. Finances of Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad. Paper presented at the Workshop on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Hyderabad’, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, 20 September. Tawa Lama-Rewal, S. 2007. ‘Urban Governance through the Prism of Primary Level Health Services Provision: A study of Delhi’. Paper presented at the seminar on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January. ———. 2009. Local democracy and access to health services in Delhi: preliminary remarks, in A. Vaguet (ed.), Indian Health Landscapes under Globalization. Delhi: CSH and Manohar. The Times of India. 2003. 1,603 Illegal Nursing Homes in the City. 14 March. World Health Organisation (WHO). 2004. World Health Report — 2004. Geneva: WHO.

Chapter 8 From Polarisation to Urban De-integration: Water and Sanitation in Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad Joël Ruet, Keshab Das, Agnès Huchon, and Guillaume Tricot

This chapter discusses issues related to access to basic services

such as drinking water and sanitation in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Delhi. The aim is to shed light on the politics of agency, on questions of urban cohesion through infrastructure services and, more generally, on some aspects of the intersectoral political economy of reforms. For Kolkata and Hyderabad, the empirical core of the comparative study draws upon qualitative and quantitative information collected from inhabitants and users, elected representatives of regions served by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH), as well as NGOs in Hyderabad that focus on water. In Delhi, the survey focuses on a large range ofactors — particularly parastatals but also private and from civil society — that interact with the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) in the very specific context of the institutional complexity of urban governance in this national capital city. In section one, we first show the discrimination that the marginalised sections face regarding access to and quality of services, irrespective of the distinct political culture, political parties and manner of urban governance of each of the three cities: the larger role of NGOs and CBOs in Hyderabad, contrasted with their very limited role in the case of Kolkata, and the role of civil society largely confined to affluent areas in Delhi, which thereby become the focus of the authorities’ attention.

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Section two deals with the qualitative impact of urban governance under variegated forms of action taken by residents’ welfare associations (RWAs): from being very limited in Kolkata, where the system manifests the highest level of ‘publicness’, to Hyderabad where RWAs have served as a watchdog, to Delhi where they have become an important force in deciding whether or not to allow reform of water policies and in sanctioning institutional arrangements. In addition, section two suggests how the ‘go-between’ roles of corporators and RWAs, by turn, does not contribute to an ‘urban integration’ that would be based on a well-defined and institutionalised distribution of roles across actors and zones. On this aspect, Hyderabad shows a process of ‘differentiation’ in the service that contrasts with the official discourse on integration via greater ‘metropolisation’.1 Section three offers a framework encompassing socio-economic paradigms that refer, by turn, to the ‘classical public system’ and its ‘liberalisation’. It contrasts the inequalities that persist within the state-led system, with growing differentiation under increasingly complex forms of governance. Classically, systems of water supply and sanitation have been considered by economic analysis as being a ‘public good’, that is, a system from which even the poor should not be excluded, thus made completely accessible to the general public. However, the practice has been different. But worse, recent systemic evolutions have given rise to the co-existence of different, either developed by collectives or private actors, geographically demarcated by ‘colonies’. This adds to the age-old social discriminations as it provides technical grounds for social exclusion, and thus can explicitly deny access to some categories of people. Water has become what economics labels as an ‘excludable’ service; it has become a ‘club good’ as opposed to a ‘public good’, in the sense that one has to be co-opted to avail the services just like the

1

In Kolkata’s urban area, water is managed by the municipalities; that is, it is as fragmented as the metropolitan area is. In Delhi and Hyderabad, ‘Boards’ (parastatals) build and operate the water network. However, in Delhi the Board’s jurisdiction encompasses — with a few exceptions — the whole metropolitan area, including the peri-urban areas, whereas in Hyderabad, its coverage includes the municipal area, and is extended to four more cities as far as water supply is concerned, but not to ‘Greater Hyderabad’, and especially not the peri-urban areas.

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membership of a club can be granted or denied. Social segmentation occurs, consistent with the idea of socio-economic community, and we argue that this shift in perspective has relevance beyond the question of water. We suggest this by briefly concluding section three by placing water reforms within the larger set of city-level governance changes in the case of Delhi. In doing so, we go beyond the mere sectoral dimension of reforms to consider how these ‘build a case’ for the ruling party. From the ‘publicness’ of Kolkata via Hyderabad’s continuum of voice, to the ‘organised sector’ of Delhi’s urban entrepreneurs, the three cities show an increasing state of ‘advancement’ in this paradigmatic shift.

Access Polarised: Socio-Economics, Agency and Public Response As one examines the modus operandi of decentralisation, issues surrounding the devolution of authority and activities to elected local representatives come to the fore. Here we particularly question the role of administrative boundaries vs social boundaries, and of parties. We inform this question with the cases of poor areas in Kolkata and Hyderabad.

Urban Local Governance and Political Culture in Kolkata In West Bengal, the Left Front (LF) has not only ruled non-stop since 1997, but has also systematically kept any right-wing party and/or the Congress party — established at the national level — at bay. The single biggest challenge to the LF has been posed by a relatively new party, the Trinamool Congress (TC). In their zealousness to prove relative efficiency in governance, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the TC have often ended up their sharpening confrontationist strategies rather than bringing about improvements in providing urban services. For instance, while the CPI(M) is more keen to enhance its urban middle and upper middle-class base, the TC has attempted to emulate the CPI(M) style of functioning that ensures a large and committed following among the marginalised sections of society. However, and as Chandra (2004) states, the inherent party discipline and organisation of both Left and non-Left parties are antithetical to decentralisation. Their impact on the bureaucratic culture of the

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state has also been demonstrated as not being conducive to increasing the ‘accessibility of governance structures for the public’ (ibid.: 24). Our surveys on both service provision and grievance redressal confirm this. It needs to be noted that, unlike other states/regions where civil society is represented by an active group of NGOs/CBOs functioning without any direct political links, such a scenario is near-absent in Kolkata. Instead, the CPI(M)’s and the TC’s mass organisations function as conduits propagating and reinforcing the message and ‘ideology’ of the concerned party among the wider public. These organisations are so strong, widespread and deeprooted that it is not easy to find individual NGOs/CBOs in action in the sphere of urban governance.

Status of Water Supply and Sewerage in Kolkata City Kolkata has the unique natural advantage of abundant surface water courtesy the river Hooghly, on whose banks the city grew. The river fulfils over 90 per cent of the water demand of the KMC. On an average, the availability of water is 205 lpcd (litres per capita and per day) which, along with Mumbai, is probably the highest compared to all cities in the country. During the last 15 years, there has also been a near doubling of storage capacity. This has helped meet demand targets from about three-fourths in 1990 to 95 per cent in 2004. In terms of coverage of households, the recent period, from 2000 onwards, has witnessed far greater improvement; by 2004, it had reached 90 per cent. Despite inadequacies, the KMC’s efficient practices have reflected proactive municipal governance at an infrastructural level.

Access and Quality of Service Irrespective of the claims made by the KMC in terms of near complete coverage of households so far as water supply is concerned, the focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted in two wards (Nos 58 and 137) with sizeable slum and lower middle-class populations, revealed that there were no tap connections in around 15–25 per cent households in four localities. Further, those who had taps at home got water twice a day for about 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening.

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In two other sample wards (Nos 63 and 106) comprising largely upper middle-class households in Gariahat, Fern Road and Nandi Bagan, the water supply and access scenario is relatively better. For instance, except in Gariahat (with a certain slum population) where about 20 per cent of the households still do not have taps at home, Fern Road and Nandi Bagan have hardly any houses without tap connections. These areas also have an average daily water supply of about 8–10 hours, which is considered quite sufficient. Public taps/standposts reveal distinct patterns in terms of regularity of supply and condition of hardware as between slumdominated wards (Nos 58 and 137) and the richer wards (Nos 63 and 106). Expectedly, in wards 58 and 137, irregular supply has been a cause for concern. Further, as has been widely mentioned, many of these public taps/standposts are broken and/or are leaking. The situation was entirely different in the two well-off wards (Nos 63 and 106). Most residents observed that public taps/ standposts were in use and in good condition, neither broken nor leaking. Water supply was regular in these taps. However, in Ward No. 63 in Gariahat, the poorer pockets were again deeply deficient in terms of sanitation and related facilities, to the extent that about 10 per cent of households were reported not to have toilets. Open defecation and use of public toilets were the only options available to them. Almost all respondents complained about drainage overflows during the monsoons and malaria was a permanent feature in these areas. Interestingly, within the same ward, Fern Road presents a marked contrast. Its residents spoke of a ‘modernised’ and ‘scientific’ system of drainage and sewerage, and there was no drainage problem during monsoons. If there is a difference in service across wards based on average income, this distinction actually peaks within wards as per the social structure. The distinction is not an expression of political differences but of real socio-economic disparity. In fact, as water and sanitation is at the same time a capital-intensive infrastructure and a bundle of fine social regulations, a variety of factors explain access. In Kolkata, people in wards comprised largely of upper middle-class households have better access to these amenities. Beyond socioeconomic concerns, issues like affordability of connection and service costs, other explanatory factors have to be considered. Historical legacy, in the sense of early networks of endowment (in the colonial period and choices made soon after Independence still matter

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because this infrastructure has a long-term life), but also tenure status and more generally speaking ‘ruling’ issues like local political regimes, are the long-term explanatory factors. For Hyderabad, similarly, historical legacy is the predominant factor explaining infrastruc-tural disparities across wards, and the socio-economic parameter is an additional one that is superposed at a more local scale. The conclusion to be retained for the purpose of our research, is that, for water and sanitation, as regards provision of infrastructure and access to the service, the issue of local governance the way we look at it — political representation, participation — is a ‘soft’ tool. It cannot replace larger investment programmes that are based on larger city-level or metropolitan area-level political and economical equilibriums (see infra). It it thus interesting to examine local governance where it operates: in agency and responses at the level of grievance redressal.

Agency and Its Response In case of problems, residents contact either the ward councillor or officials at the KMC. When asked who the residents approach concerning issues such as irregular/inadequate water supply, whether for household taps or public taps/standposts, the FGD participants in Tiljala (Ward No. 58) cited only the ward councillor whereas those from Picnic Garden (Ward No. 58) said they went to both the councillor and to KMC officials. As regards the reaction of the councillor/KMC officials, the most commonly observed response was that of indifference or disinterest. In certain cases, only verbal assurances were given, and most residents claimed that nothing was done to sort out water supply problems. Expectedly, in Gariahat’s Ward No. 63, residents responded in practically the same manner as those in Ward No. 58. As mentioned earlier, all these are slumdominated localities. In contrast, respondents in Fern Road (Ward No. 63) and Nandi Bagan (Ward No. 106) sounded quite positive about their experiences in dealing with the borough chairman and ward councillors. They received prompt service whenever they faced any problems.

Issues in Governance: Do Political Parties Matter? In order to assess the popularity and efficiency of political parties in the sphere of urban governance, participants of the FGDs were

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asked to compare the performance of the parties, at least the two main rivals, the CPI(M) and the TC. It is interesting to note that the overwhelming response, cutting across income categories and localities with varying levels of basic service, was: ‘all are same’ or ‘cannot distinguish/compare’. In fact, as shown in Table 8.1, information on the status of a few basic aspects of urban services — namely, water supply, drainage/ waterlogging and the mosquito menace — indicates no major difference between political parties across wards, so far as their role in the delivery/maintenance of basic services is concerned. Though subject to interpretation, the findings are no doubt indicative of the performance of political parties on the ground. Table 8.1: Persisting Problems in Basic Services Provisioning in Wards (by Political Party) Wards in which problems are yet to be solved

Political party Left Front (CPI, CPI[M], FB, RSP) (60) Trinamool Congress (65) Congress (10) BJP (4) RJD (1) Independent (1)

Waterlogging Water shortage/ due to poor or no Mosquito irregular supply drainage menace 30

37

49

17 5 1 — 1

51 9 3 1 1

43 7 3 — 1

Source: Compiled from local (Bengali) newspaper reports, preceding Municipal elections in early 2006. Note: Figures in paranthesis are total number of wards won by the party during the last election.

The absence of any functioning external agencies (NGOs, CBOs or private companies) in these areas establishes, in a real sense, that private sector operations in these services have not yet found a place here.2 That renders the Kolkata experience unique in its ‘publicness’ and all its related contradictions. 2

As observers of India know, this is a real exception in a country where NGOs, CBOs and private water tankers, flourish. This is due to the abundant availability of water in Kolkata and because of the political specificity of the city.

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Urban Growth, Reform Policies in Hyderabad: A Brief Introduction In Hyderabad, the climate is semi-arid. With an undulating topography, the city has a large number of water bodies. Growing at the rate of 67 per cent during the 1980s and 28 per cent during the 1990s, the Hyderabad Urban Agglomeration has faced rapid degradation of its water bodies. The Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB), an organisation under the control of the Government of Andhra Pradesh, is in charge of water supply and sanitation while the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) looks after drainage of storm water and public toilets. The period we studied has been marked by the rule of Chandrababu Naidu as Chief Minister (1995–2004), whose overt policy was to re-legitimate the state within what was one of the poor states of the country by engaging with a state-backed mix of liberalisation as far as the private sector goes and the restructuring and organisational reconstruction of public agencies. Instrumental in this, was the recourse taken to international agencies, and especially World Bank loans. As urban services go, it comprised recourse to local actors, NGOs, CBOs (on solid waste, refer to Chapter 10) as well as a general effort to reform the professional capacities of public administrations (see Chapter 11).

Availability, Access and the Quality of Service Whereas Ranigunj (Ward No. 83) and Seethaphalmandi (Ward No. 99) come under the Secunderabad Cantonment area, Charminar (Ward No. 73) is the most prominent Old City ward. These wards can no longer be called less modern and dynamic. Similarly, the relatively ‘posh’ locality of Red Hills (Ward No. 39) has as many as six slums. Rehmatnagar (Ward No. 29) being close to the industrial area and also the airport has been a fast developing region although, again, it has a strong presence of at least eight slums. FGDs were conducted in the most underdeveloped of slums in any given sample ward. Since 1986, water is supplied in Hyderabad every alternate day for about two hours in what is probably the only Indian city to follow such a practice. Given a population coverage of about 80 per cent for water supply and 71 per cent for household tap connections, it

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seems likely that most persons/households left out could be slumdwellers (who constitute about 25 per cent of the total population) and other poor households.3 The picture regarding household tap connections was mixed: it varied between just about 5–10 per cent (in Kasturba Nagar in Ranigunj and Laxmi Das Wada in Red Hills) to almost 100 per cent in Santhosh Giri Colony in Rehmatnagar). In every slum, people complained that the surroundings of public taps and handpumps were unclean and leakages in taps and pipelines were quite common. Claims of modernisation notwithstanding, access to sanitation facilities remains the most neglected aspect of urban governance. The FGDs provide a pointer to the pathetic state of sanitation in slums. In Mecca Masjid Camp (Ward No. 73), Laxmi Das Wada (Ward No. 39) and Kasturba Nagar (Ward No. 83), hardly any house has its own toilet. The inhabitants manage with a few community toilets; in Laxmi Das Wada, there are two such toilets for almost 500 households! In Seethaphalmandi, over 90 per cent households in slums such as Pandavula Colony do not have individual toilet facilities; many often prefer defecating in the open to using the poorly kept community toilets. The situation is especially pitiable for women in these areas. Slum-dwellers in Rehmatnagar have been lucky, however. Most households have managed to get individual toilets through government support.

Agency and Response In addition to government and ULB functionaries, the important role played by civil society in Hyderabad in ensuring the delivery of basic services, including water, sanitation, drainage and environmental hygiene, has been widely noted. Apart from larger CBO-led campaigns, RWAs and the media (particularly, print media) have also contributed to the efforts in a proactive and responsible manner (for details see, Caseley 2003: 3–10). This is a distinguishing aspect of urban governance in this city, quite different from Kolkata.

3 This data concerns MCH. The figures drop in the surrounding municipalities (43 per cent in the surrounding municipalities taken as a whole).

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It is interesting to note that, in all the five wards surveyed, respondents were positive about the role played by local Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs), Members of Parliament (MPs) and, particularly, ward councillors. Irrespective of party differences, local representatives have tried to work towards solving problems relating to water supply and, especially, providing households with tap connections. However, in Ward No. 29 (Congress) and Ward No. 83 (Telugu Desam Party [TDP]), respondents pointed to the lack of co-ordination between MLAs and councillors whenever they belonged to different parties. What was clear was that, except for Ward No. 99, in all other slums there were serious complaints regarding the lack of interest shown by MCH functionaries who often ignored requests and delayed processes. Even in Ward No. 29, where tap connections were finally provided to almost all households in Santhosh Giri Colony, the RWA and the councillor (as well as her sons) had ‘struggled’ in the face of MCH inaction for years.

Issues in Governance That councillors and ward committee members, in co-operation with local MLAs, have been helpful, active and concerned with ward-level problems was an important opinion voiced across different slums. Interestingly, individual sample wards, as represented by different political parties, expressed similar satisfaction over performance. For instance, Ward Nos 73 and 39 were glad to have Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) representatives, while Ward No. 99 had a good experience with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor. Further, as regards MCH staff, while some described many of them as ‘lethargic’, no one mentioned their asking for bribes or extra money for services provided. It was widely held that MCH staff was not ‘corrupt’. The respondents emphasised that several NGOs and the RWAs have played an excellent role, including acting as a watchdog for delivery of basic services.4

4 Though of course, and in accordance with the long timeframes required to develop water infrastructure that we underlined above, this ‘watchdog’ role remains at best limited to putting localised political pressure to ensure that day-to-day operations and maintenance deadlines are respected.

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From Popular Neglect to ‘Popular Governance’? We asked the people for their recommendations and suggestions to improve municipal governance in general and services in particular. In Kolkata, a plethora of ideas/opinions came forth. Two specific observations need to be made regarding these popular views. First, while residents from poorer (or, in terms of services, relatively disadvantaged) localities insisted on a more accountable/attentive (even ‘punishable’!) agency, those from well-off areas looked forward to a ‘modernised’ and ‘friendly’ governance structure. Second, there was only a weak case made in favour of privatising services. In Hyderabad, various stakeholders within urban governance bodies functioned reasonably well, although MCH staff could be more responsive to problems in slums. What, then, is the problem? Pattas and pucca houses hold the key to solving all impending problems, observed almost all respondents across the sample slums. The lasting solution to providing basic services ensuring efficiency and equity lies in residents’ access to pattas and pucca houses, as in better-off, formalised residential areas anywhere and elsewhere in the city. In a substantive sense, these observations from the field, though not blind to the deficiencies and social biases of the state, defy the much-hyped neo-liberal prescription of privatising basic services to ensure good governance in cities. In fact, there are deeper structural issues concerning the legal status of dwellings and improving opportunities for a better livelihood for the urban poor. These are persistent problems and need a different kind of intervention, preferably mediated through a democratically accepted process and a system of governance from which the ‘state’ will not be absent. This could provide the foundations for ‘neighbourhood democracy’, however difficult it may be. The next section looks at such a model, and its limits, with reference to Hyderabad.

The Elusive Path from ‘Publicness’ to ‘Neighbourhood Democracy’ In this section, we relate policies of modernisation and the reorganisation of water services at the metropolitan scale with issues concerning the de facto broadening and differentiating of lower-level

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areas of governance. In doing so, we suggest that the nature of the debate not only invokes intra-statal issues of technical co-ordination, but also the inter-community contrast between very uneven levels of ‘neighbourhood democracy’. Along with Delhi, Hyderabad provides an example of RWA development. In contrast with Delhi, though, this development in Hyderabad juxtaposes (and conceptually collides!) with a stronger state-led aim to ‘metropolise’ the management of water.5 This encounter highlights the contradiction and dialectics of urban governance in India today, between a state that does not necessarily abandon its ‘reformist’ aim and a centrifugal tendency that develops faster. The steady pace of urban growth in Hyderabad and its periphery calls for a thorough reorganisation of community services, starting with public utilities. What are the changes taking place today in the general policies regarding this sector? It is not quite clear to what extent the present government, headed by the Congress party, is following the liberal agenda set by N. Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP government. By all appearances, plans to make Hyderabad a world-class city have been kept alive even after the 2004 election. The regime-building project to ‘metropolise’ water by including the neighbouring municipalities in the Board’s jurisdiction is on. Meanwhile, the government would like to reduce social inequalities by implementing special programmes for slum-improvement and by paying heed to the citizens’ demands. However, we have shown that corporators in these areas serve essentially (and at best) as local level ‘buffers’ or ‘go-betweens’ to implement the municipal policy of providing uniform service to the entire population. They help paper over the cracks that exist in actual service delivery. The question we raise is, to what extent can differential treatment in providing access to water and sanitation, resulting from a dialogue between the various protagonists, serve as the basis for socio-urban integration? The definition for the latter that we assume here is provided by Sylvy Jaglin and, according to her, includes spatial equality (functional and territorial diversity, in addition to provision of equal access to urban resources), social equality (redistribution and a guaranteed, minimum living wage 5 In Delhi, it is already institutionally so; however, the next section shows that in practice the DJB has somehow de facto ‘given up’ its role by allowing a myriad, albeit local, private operators.

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for all) and inclusion in political life (desegregation, participation and democratisation). A complete analysis in the case of Hyderabad is provided in Huchon and Tricot (2006). While the next section will encompass the socio-economic issues, here we will focus on the latter aspects. To highlight these, we compare two municipal wards in Hyderabad: Somajiguda and Sultan Shahi. We chose these two wards because they are urbanised areas with very different traits: the urban fabric is mostly of recent origin in Somajiguda, which is characterised by dynamic commercial activity, while Sultan Shahi is a part of the Old City consisting mostly of residential areas.

Political Will to Homogenise/Modernise the Service: Integration of Municipal Services into a Single Entity for the Whole City? HMWSSB has been the subject of numerous administrative reforms and schemes introduced during the last few years. These were intended to rationalise its services through more efficient division of work, to provide greater satisfaction to consumers and to make the most of the technological tools available for better management and to ensure greater transparency. In the Old City, the first phase of the Krishna canal inter-state water project has made it possible to increase the supply of water. Again, we find here, as in Kolkata (and somewhat less successfully in Delhi) a focus on infrastructure and quantitative supplies at the city level, paying far less attention to local demands. While keeping major decision-making powers in its own hands, the HMWSSB has started outsourcing some of its operations (Chennai would be the other city in India to have ventured thus). In particular, as a part of its efforts to recover unpaid bills, downstream operations at the consumers’ end have been outsourced to private agencies starting from August 2006. The strong influence of international institutions is evident in the introduction of ’benchmarking’ and the practice of taking private sector assistance. Private sector involvement in billing operations also has certain similarities with the outsourcing of garbage collection by the MCH. Already in 1999, there was mention of the possibility of fusing all the municipal areas into one single entity. In April 2005, a new

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project for integrating areas under separate municipalities led to the birth of ‘Greater Hyderabad’.6 The main argument advanced by its promoters is the need for optimum co-ordination of the city’s planning and development. There is also the question of strengthening the capacities of the surrounding municipalities. Indeed, it should be pointed out that institutions in Hyderabad are better managed than those under the purview of municipalities in the outlying areas. In that sense, the debate is ‘typical’ of the 1970s and 1980s discourse on the metropolisation of the administration. There is, however, a great deal of local opposition to the proposal. In the first place, elected bodies and local authorities are not ready to give up their posts, prerogatives and decision-making powers. Second, most civil society groups, such as the Forum for a Better Hyderabad (FBH),7 are opposed to the project and see it as violating the spirit of the 74th Amendment and decentralisation laws. The Forum also condemns the ambition, fired by the creation of Greater Hyderabad, to turn Hyderabad into a ‘Megacity’: its size would certainly attract more funds but could also lead to greater, hitherto unknown problems and crises. Unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, civil society is contesting the underlying presumption of the legitimacy accorded to the ‘technocratic’ vision of metropolisation. It also puts the burden of proof on the state. This contestation, more generally, articulates a demand for carving out some political space for — and for structuring — what concerned actors call ‘neighbourhood democracy’.

Neighbourhood Democracy Joining hands to ensure that individual complaints are attended can sometimes lead to group action. Lodging individual complaints for a problem that affects an entire street or even a locality is generally considered ineffective by residents. Moreover, some residents may not be used to dealing with officials and may prefer to seek the help of an intermediary closer to them.

6

The state government issued G.O. 704 to this effect on 20 July 2005. Representation to the Hon’ble Chief Minister on Greater Hyderabad, 1 August 2005, Vedakumar for FBH. 7

Water and Sanitation Ú 197 Figure 8.1: Channel Followed by Complaints and Proposals for the Improvement of Water and Sanitation Services (when not dealt with by HMWSSB or MCH)

*..........

"""......... INTERACTION

' "' ' '

." ' . b

PROPOSALS ......... .....................

. . . ... ...'. .

Representatives of

..........

...........

I

Users

1

d INDMDUAL COMPLAINTS ........ F

JOINT COMPLAINTS

According to the results of our survey, joint complaints account for 46 per cent of the total complaints in Somajiguda and 71 per cent in Sultan Shahi. Lodging a complaint in the conventional manner is less common in Sultan Shahi, where the practice is to approach the nearest intermediaries with the grievance. In Somajiguda, joint complaints are probably lodged at the level of the locality or building because a large proportion of the population lives in apartments and housing societies. Thus, any problem common to an entire street gives rise to formal discussions among the residents and a group, usually consisting of men, is delegated to meet the concerned officials or some other local actor. The very fact of being approached as a community leader contributes to the emergence of these individuals as public figures. Armed with a certain degree of legitimacy in the form of a political mandate or as representatives of an association, these people are no doubt driven by personal motives but are generally considered to be effective as intermediaries for resolving the problems at hand.

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Such intermediaries could be conveners or secretaries of associations, recognised officials and even individuals appointed in the past during the implementation of Urban Community Development (UCD) programmes.8 They are to be found in slums, in particular where they regularly organise meetings to discuss local problems. They also have access to UCD officials, who consult them whenever the need arises. Such leaders are also present in Somajiguda, but here they act in a more informal manner and do not intervene directly in the resolution of problems related to water and sanitation. Another type of leader is to be found among members of local associations. For example, members of the Gangaputra caste in Sultan Shahi have formed a society of their own. They have several offices and organise celebrations on the occasion of festivals and other community functions. The society also attends to problems faced by community members regarding water. Small local associations of this type, based on locality, religious and caste affiliations, or other commonalities are quite numerous. Lastly, people with political power can also serve as go-betweens. A final observation on the nature of these collective complaints is that they tend to diminish as income levels rise. John Harriss comes to the same conclusion in his study of Delhi: ‘It is clear that people — especially poorer people — most commonly undertake problem-solving together with their neighbours’ (2005: 4). To add to what we discussed in section one, there exist grades of autonomy in the formalisation of ‘voice’, from being very limited in Kolkata (or even near-absent outside ‘political society’ as Chatterjee [2004] puts it, conveyed through a party in a society where grassroots NGOs are relatively absent), to a continuum of structures in the case of Hyderabad, to Delhi’s RWAs which have gained political autonomy under the Bhagidari scheme (see infra and Chapter 3).

Arrangements of Residents’ Associations: Joint Representation and Common Equipment By forming associations, residents join hands and institutionalise the two methods available to them to improve services — namely, joint

8

Group interview conducted on 30 August 2006, in the presence of Mrs. Laxmi, in charge of UCD projects

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representation and common equipment. Further, their collective nature increases the pressure exerted on their negotiating partners and can create economies of scale. Residents of such localities seem to complain directly about minor and individual problems. For example, the president of Uma Nagar Association circulates the telephone numbers of HMWSSB among residents of the area.9 The Greenlands Association, in contrast, does not act as an intermediary and does not have very good relations with HMWSSB, according to an office-bearer. It concentrates mainly on the problem of garbage collection. The inhabitants of BS Maqhta resort to other, less institutional, channels. In Somajiguda, the representative role of associations tends to play out in opposition to the elected corporator, competing for legitimacy and representation. Voluntary workers openly question the democratic nature of the ‘traditional democratic machinery’ and describe themselves as ‘social workers’. Meanwhile, office-bearers of the Greenlands and Uma Nagar RWAs are dismissive about the role of politicians. The Uma Nagar Association, it would seem, has no contact at all with the corporator. The latter is said to be interested only in areas that can win votes and there are not enough residents in this locality to constitute a vote bank. In contrast, the president of the Bela Colony RWA supports the corporator and has promised that the residents of the locality will vote for him in the elections. Residents’ associations can also be more directly involved in the improvement of local services, by participating in the planning stage. The construction of a new sanitation network in 2002 in the Methodist colony and Uma Nagar is a good example of this type of action. Two-thirds of the cost of about Rs 600,000 was borne by the government while the remaining amount was raised by the residents themselves, with a contribution of Rs 1,600 per household in Uma Nagar Colony. By paying a part of the cost of establishing their local sanitation network, these colonies forward their right to co-rule and co-organise the service, even if as a consequence of land’s legal status, the infrastructure does not belong to the community but to MCH.

9 Here we refer to several sub-localities and their RWAs. Geographically speaking, Bela Colony’s RWA belongs to Sultan Shahi; Methodist Colony and Uma Nagar Colony belong to Somajiguda.

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In 1998, an attempt was made to promote the exchange of ideas on improving urban services by setting up a forum for a ‘Green Hyderabad’ as a platform for consultations. Its message to MCH was clear: ‘We have to pay taxes. We would like to know what you will do for us in return. So how can we help you to improve your service?’ The organisers wanted to clearly define their priorities, and in this process, traditional political channels were bypassed. The forum brought together 120 associations to discuss ‘urban governance’, unfortunately, no solutions emerged from this initiative.

On Spatial and Social Equality, and Urban Integration Despite its stated objective of improving integration of the water and sanitation sectors, HMWSSB’s plans to extend its effective jurisdiction over the entire metropolitan area have not yet been realised. It seems unlikely — at least in the medium term — that it will be able to fulfil its goal of becoming an overall managerial body capable of satisfying public demand by providing universal and homogeneous supply. In fact, our observation of on-going urban processes in the wards under study gave rise to the hypothesis that there is interaction between urbanised spaces and the diversification of supply, and that this diversification increases in keeping with the rhythm of urban population dynamics and the extension of networks. In the case of the fieldwork we conducted in Hyderabad, this can be explained mainly by the fact that public utilities cannot ‘for the time being’ fulfil public demand in terms of quality and quantity in rapidly developing areas like Somajiguda or in the more distant suburbs. Consequently, the rationale behind the differentiation of supply would appear to be a tool for adapting to the diverse requirements of an urban society that no single public utility can satisfy (Jaglin 2005). In the current situation the municipal corporator plays a pragmatic role in the ward’s public affairs, but s/he does not have enough latitude to play a truly political role. In both localities, Sultan Shahi and Somajiguda, the corporator strives to ensure that areas not fully assimilated in the network are brought up to the required level by supporting their demand for decent basic infrastructure. In the Old City, the corporator is a decisive link in the long chain representing

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the public utility’s logistics, especially where its daily operations are concerned, because s/he acts as a catalyst and a conduit for both individual and collective complaints. In Somajiguda, in contrast, the system of RWAs is more dominant as a means of satisfying the residents’ higher than ‘average’ demands. The residents of this area also make more frequent use of the services set up by the public utility to guarantee the satisfaction of its clientele (water tankers). More than ever before, management of infrastructure will require different levels of actors to communicate people’s demands and provide external stimulation to make responses to users/consumers more flexible and efficient. Thus, residents’ associations, municipal corporators and the Board’s sections in different localities have every reason to continue to coexist. As a result, the public utility, if it does not want to take the place of all the actors involved in urban governance, will have to find new methods of negotiation, recognition and assimilation of stakeholders in the institutional structure. It would be useful to explore the consequences of this at the social level. According to Graham and Marvin, extending the infrastructure networks to all parts of the city is a necessary step towards ‘integrating urban spaces’ as far as social aspects are concerned (Graham and Marvin 2001). In Somajiguda, this is evident at the neighbourhood level because concern for urban amenities is the foundation on which all other collective activities are based and it encourages ‘social bonding’ through the formation of RWAs. But is the city’s techno-spatial organisation based on varying levels of service a specific factor responsible for urban fragmentation? (May et al. 1998) Provision of water and sanitation networks is not likely to bring about any socio-urban assimilation between disconnected areas like Sultan Shahi, Somajiguda and the outlying districts of Hyderabad because there is no social interaction between their inhabitants with regard to the management of this infrastructure. As for people who feel neglected by the authorities, surveys show that this feeling is not limited to differences in the level of access to water and sanitation facilities but is founded on pre-existing socio-economic disparities. Differentiation in the systems and modes of advocacy tend to reinforce this, despite ‘modernising’ policies being formulated. A good explanation for this (apparent) paradox can be found below in

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a study of the ‘economic’ nature of water provision and the political economy of reforms, which completes the truncated narrative of ‘neighbourhood democracy’.

On Public and Club Goods: Water from the Closet of the Developmental State to a Liberal Interface A misnomer, ‘liberalisation’ in India, and especially of the so-called water sector, has not so much consisted of privatisation or even a relaxing of regulations. It has de facto been characterised by the multiplication of economic or economically impacting actors, and not by a re-regulation of pre-existing actors. Regarding urban governance, the previous sections suggested that ‘liberalisation of the water sector’ consisted of a particular form of enlargement of both the informal and formal space of governance. As compared to Kolkata’s ‘publicness’ and even to Hyderabad, Delhi witnessed the entry of urban entrepreneurs who developed their services, with a specifically higher degree of structuring, according to the demands of the emerging middle class.10 Both entrepreneurs and middle-class associations thus emerged in tandem and have played a proactive role in the governance of water systems at large — public as well as decentralised. There was enough momentum in cities like Delhi to generate systemic changes in infrastructure and, consequently, in the redistributive structure. This is all the more noteworthy since the city’s policy-makers, throughout the developmental state sequence, had perceived the state regime as politically-driven, industry-unfriendly and, wary of urban and demographic growth. From this picture, it would seem liberalisation has led politicians to comply with more sections of the citizenry.

10

By ‘urban entrepreneurs’ we mean entrepreneurs developing urban infrastructure, previously a monopoly of the state (even at a local level). In Delhi, they have found large markets, either directly, through real estate or through the indirect demand for decentralised infrastructure by housing societies.

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From Old Debates within the State: Physical Infrastructure and Metropolitan Management… In urban India, during the ‘developmental state’ regime, delivery of urban services — water and sanitation included — was seen by the state machinery as being a ‘public good’.11 This economic characterisation was asserted politically so as to ensure the monopoly of the state bureaucracy, and the political economy of resolving issues related to the delivery of water and sanitation services took shape within the state apparatus. In the context of economic liberalisation, the focus of the debate shifted towards the ability of the state to provide water as a public good vs the credibility of the private sector to provide fair and equitable access to services.

… Towards Current Trends of Users’ Secession: Subsidies and Autonomous Systems The rapid growth of middle class-driven housing societies in Delhi’s peri-urban areas as well as the greater degradation of the public system have given an incentive to large sections of users to partly ‘exit’. A ‘systemic liberalisation’ occurred from there: new decentralised technologies allow saving of water and provide differentiated services at a lower cost, paving the way to a hybrid technical model that combines centralised pipes and decentralised resources or re-use. The savings, however, if not internalised within a single public organisation that allows financial redistributive transfers across users, are socially regressive. Indeed, this encourages ‘social exit’ by the rich. Industry and the richest classes are tempted to exit

11

A ‘public good’, by definition, is a good that (i) cannot be appropriated: its usage is said to be ‘non-excludable’ (like clean air or the light of a lighthouse, for example), and (ii) of which one person’s use does not affect another’s use and is thus said to be a ‘non-rival’. The two conditions of nonexcludability and non-rivalry are essential: if there is rivalry (like a collective natural resource that faces over-exploitation), one is in the presence of a ‘common good’ where neither state nor private production is necessarily the best option. For instance, beyond a point, water resources (a physical resource) are a common good. Water services (operationalisation of the resource) may be public, private or common, depending on social, political and economic organisation across societies in history.

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the public system and have the financial means to do so. One can observe two concrete practices used to exit public services: either by resorting to bulk supply (and so keeping on using water from the public utility but at a lower price) or by using underground water. The risk is that the poorest remain the sole consumers of the piped system after a while, thus curtailing any means for management of water equality at the metropolitan level. What used to be a system based on an ‘integrated monopoly’ is today evolving technologically and ceding ground to a possible ‘segmentation’ of users (as in telecom, health, schooling, etc.). As is often found in urban India, water in Delhi is subsidised, and industry is actually cross-subsidising domestic consumers. Industry provides more than 50 per cent of the revenue, for less than 20 per cent of consumption. But what is today a rent for the public system might turn out to be a weak point, if industry exits. Actual developments are thus at odds with the state-led reformist vision, the latter lagging behind the former. As a way to restructure the DJB (the possibility of privatisation was clearly a political taboo), the Delhi Government had planned that two private companies will supply water in these two zones, for a time period of five years under a ‘management contract’ model that will be quite a new institutional solution for India, all the more since it could involve a US-style independent regulator in charge of revising tariffs. What is certain, however, is that the government is aiming primarily at financial success: poor zones, initially considered, as well as unstable developing zones, have been kept out of the project. This may be put in perspective by recalling the complete privatisation of electricity that took place in a massive — and thus politically efficient — manner, at the continued cost of the Delhi government in the form of subsidies given to private investors. Apparently, the government wanted to showcase two things: its political strength via flyovers and electricity, and, on the water front, its financial soundness along with its understanding of privatisation fears. On the political front, the project was soon resisted on ideological grounds by the Left and on oppositional grounds by the BJP. It also managed to divide RWAs in a rather unexpected manner. The project had both opponents and supporters, both of whom became quite vocal. When the RWA Bhagidari apex body, the federation of Rohini’s RWAs, oppose the project and the president of the Vasant Vihar RWA supports it, it may be interpreted as a sign of maturity of this form of local participative democracy.

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However, and despite the government’s cautious political monitoring, the opposition took the protest to unmanageable levels in 2005 and 2006. In fact, many RWAs politicised themselves and more or less straightaway aligned with BJP’s oppositional stand. The political strength of this revolt was all the more important in that it was economically backed. The ‘centres of proliferation of urban initiative’ (Gaudin 1996) now encompass all actors, ranging from public to private, and from local to global. Compared — or perhaps as a precursor — to many other cities in India the rise of capitalistic, scale-based, private real estate developers in Delhi has been simultaneous to the formation of RWAs. They structure themselves around each other. Private developers of real estate have adopted the Co-operative Group Housing Societies (CGHS) model, typically for building multistorey (6–10 floors) apartment buildings. A society generally includes round 250 plots ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 sq. m. Narela and Rohini, in North-West Delhi, and Dwarka, in SouthEast Delhi, are areas earmarked by the DDA for such development. Several of these societies, especially in the Dwarka area which comprises 1 million people and faces severe water constraints, have opted for local treatment. In terms of urban governance, one can already conclude that (i) in the void left by the DJB, the private sector has found its natural slope to promote alternative systems, (ii) these systems in the long run tend to shape local, community-based decision-making, but (iii) the initial social conditions at the community level matter at least in terms of economic efficiency, and thus (iv) making an RWA mandatory is not in itself a sufficient condition for success.

National Actors as Local Context: The Importance of being Delhi As for the transformation of the governance of water and sanitation in Delhi, one also has to consider both external and internal influences. The lobbying/convincing work that multilateral agencies have done throughout the 1990s on better management has borne fruit and convinced the present Delhi Government. Privatisation of electricity (in 2002) was also meant to ‘prepare’ for the same in water, which later only met popular resistance. In the political context of the city’s ‘beautification’, the water conservation measures initiated by industry can be understood only

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by keeping in mind the cause of pollution control that the Delhi Government and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, as well as the Supreme Court and several NGOs like Tara, Development Alternatives and others, have been advocating from the 1990s onwards. Industry, faced with this local context, feared relocation. At the same time, the global economic context demanded gradual integration in the global economy and insertion into supply and outsourcing networks. Several industries (steel, automobile, leather, and clothing) were thus made aware of global environmental standards. For these organisations as well, Delhi serves as a national showcase. Water-heavy Indian cities serve as a ‘top down’ as well as ‘bottomup’ laboratories whose stabilisation will have technological, socioeconomic and political dimensions — not to forget what is lacking the most today — a regulatory dimension. Tendencies in favour of transforming water into a club good within the boundaries of the so-called (and in fact exclusionary) ‘neighbourhood democracy’ and of national projection (or regional, in the case of Hyderabad), gave rise to a political equilibrium that has spurred many NGOs (in Delhi and nationally) to sufficiently mobilise against the ‘privatisation of water’ and to make the Government more cautious about moving too fast. Lastly, where one can separate two problems — on the one hand, upgrading the piped network in ‘central areas’ and, on the other, creating new capacities at the peripheries — a choice has de facto been made to let the peripheries, today more demanding in terms of capital investment, enter into a dual system involving private sector participation so as to save on capital in the interim period. This definition of priorities is partly determined by the lack of financial solidarity between municipalities through any form of tax policy.

Conclusion In a paper with a provocative title, ‘Is there a Third-World Policy Process?’, Horowitz (1989) deals with the legitimacy of Third World regimes, often seen as ‘problematic’ and thus leading to a situation where ‘policies are often also meant to enhance regime legitimacy’ and where ‘public participation is often less in developing countries’. This picture is changing. The excesses of Kolkata’s ‘publicness’ are being challenged, though in a limited way by marginalised users.

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Hyderabad’s case, where the reforms and voluntarism of the Board have met with some success, is also accompanied with structured claims made by a continuum of collective actions. In the case of Delhi, what is of central importance is that the first Sheila Dikshit government consciously built a constituency based on the middle and upper classes and wished to gain legitimacy by serving it on many sectoral fronts, including construction of flyovers and electricity privatisation (the sequencing of reforms in Hyderabad mattered similarly, see Chapter 2). This political project was aided by the vocal strata of ‘proprietory’ civil society, which structured itself accordingly and gave the project its imprimatur through participation — and not least through participation in the state-initiated Bhagidari process. The system in which a ‘public good’ is the monopoly of the public sector is thus economically and politically challenged by ‘centrifugal’ (rather than bottom-up) forces. It is too early to say what the result will be, since other ‘geographically centrifugal’ forces (NGOs with a national model or real estate companies wanting scale-based capitalisation) may show interest in some re-focusing of models, go beyond the city-scale and thus overcome the power of the middle classes. Today the advantage rests with the latter and only the future will tell for how long. Finally, this ‘systemic’ analysis should not give the illusory impression that the process has been smooth. Indeed, Horowitz (1989: 197–212) recalls that ‘it is especially in exceptional times (during a crisis, for instance) that innovative policy can be made and implemented’. The question that thus emerges is how sequencing in building legitimacy/choosing sectors/earmarking the role of the private and public sectors is done in a situation of ‘multi-crisis’ or ‘generalised crisis’ (transport, pollution, housing, work, electricity, and water). Answering this question would certainly call for, as Horowitz recommends, a study of policies ‘throughout their life cycles’ (ibid.), and one can certainly assume the current cycle is not complete.

References Caseley, Jonathan. 2003. Blocked Drains and Open Minds: Multiple Accountability Relationships and Improved Service Delivery Performance in an Indian City. IDS Working Paper 211. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

208 Ú RUET, DAS, HUCHON, TRICOT Chandra, Medha. 2004. Bridging Everyday and High Politics — the 74th CAA and Inclusion in Kolkata, India, http://www.sasnet.lu.se/ EASASpapers/31MedhaChandra.pdf (accessed 25 April 2009). Chatterjee, Partha. 2004. The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the World. New York: Columbia University Press. Gaudin, Jean-Pierre (ed.). 1996. La négociation des politiques publiques. Paris: L’Harmattan. Graham, Stephen and Simon Marvin. 2001. Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge. Harriss, John. 2005. Political Participation, Representation and the Urban Poor:Findings from Research in Delhi. Economic and Political Weekly 40(11): 1041–1054. Horowitz, Donald L. 1989. Is There a Third-World Policy Process? Policy Sciences 22(3–4): 197–212. Huchon, Agnès and Tricot, Guillaume. 2007. Between Citizens and Institutions: The Dynamics of the Integration of Water Supply and Sanitation Services in Hyderabad. Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) Occasional Paper. Delhi: CHS. Jaglin, Sylvy. 2005. Au Cap (Afrique du Sud), des services techniques entre intégration métropolitaine et différenciation socio-spatiale: peut-on parler de fragmentation urbaine. Plan Urbanisme, Construction et Architecture (PUCA) Réseaux et fragmentation. Krishna and Green. 1986. Maria. 2007. May, Nicole, Pierre Veltz, Josée Landrieu, and Thérèse Spector. 1998. La Ville Eclatée. Paris: Editions de l’Aube. Sivaramakrishnan, K.C. and Leslie Green. 1986. Metropolitan Management: the Asian Experience. EDI series in Economic Development. Economic Development Institute and World Bank: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 9 Participatory Urban Governance and Slum Development in Hyderabad and Kolkata Archana Ghosh

1. Introduction

Urban governance can be defined as the ‘interactive relationship

between and within government and non-government forces’ (Stoker 1998: 38). It implies the existence of multiple actors and their roles too may be varied. ‘It encompasses the institutions and processes, both formal and informal, which provide for the interaction of the state with a range of other agents or stakeholders affected by the activities of government’ (Satterthwaite 2005). The notion of governance underlines the fact that the range of actors involved has expanded in all aspects of urban development, including poverty alleviation. This is not to say that these actors did not exist before, for some of them were active in a more informal ways, but their contribution was not acknowledged in the formal approach to urban problems. Now the contribution of extra-governmental institutions is not only encouraged, their role in development programmes is invited and institutionalised. Civil society groups, including NGOs, community organisations and private companies, are being roped in by governments as partners in facing urban challenges. But while governance does imply interdependence, it does not prejudge the locus or character of real decisional authority (McCarney et al. 1995). Therefore, it is to be seen how actors who are located beyond governments are involved in real decision-making on urban governance issues. This chapter is an attempt to study this kind of multi-actor, participatory governance in the crucial domain of slum development in

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Indian cities. Since urban poverty is concentrated (though not exclusively) in slums, we define slum development here in a broad sense, as a measure of poverty alleviation efforts made by the central, state and local governments and other agencies through different policies and programmes, including shelter and basic services delivery within slums on one side and provision of livelihood opportunities to slum-dwellers on the other. We take two metropolitan cities — Kolkata and Hyderabad — for a comparative assessment of the magnitude of the problem; interventions through policies and programmes for slum development; and finally, the actions of the chosen actors and their interfaces. Section 2, which follows this introduction, presents the existing organisational hierarchy in the policies and programmes for slum development in India. Section 3 gives glimpses of the two cities — their social, economic and political diversities. The magnitude of slum settlements in each city and the associated problems of definitional incongruity, methodological inconsistencies with their measurement, tenancy status, etc., are discussed in this section. The section also describes several administrative inconsistencies, such as the absence of denotifying procedures and the processes that lead a slum to be notified as such. In Section 4 we define the role of two local governments, that is, Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) and the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) as actors in the decentralised governance structure, since the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) of 1992 mandated them to plan and implement social development and urban poverty alleviation (UPA) programmes, including slum development. To what extent these two Corporations are actually empowered in terms of functional, financial and organisational aspects to fulfill this role, is the focus of this section. Section 5 then discusses the scope and nature of community participation under the government sponsored UPA programmes, and through institutions beyond this structure, including politically-affiliated associations in Kolkata and NGO-run local institutions in Hyderabad. It discusses the problematic relationship between local politics and the slum-dweller communities that are supposed to be formed in the frame-work of development schemes. In Section 6 we look into the role of councillors as an interface between the local government and the community. Section 7 concludes the chapter with broad observations.

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The chapter is based on data collected from secondary and primary sources. Secondary sources include reports of different agencies, budget documents, annual administrative reports of KMC and MCH. The primary research involved extensive interviews with a crosssection of stakeholders that included: (i) the officials of KMC and MCH, especially the Bustee Services Department of KMC and the UCD Department in MCH, which are primarily responsible for implementation of all programmes in slums; (ii) officials of other government departments/agencies who are also involved in some ways in this function; (iii) councillors/corporators and a few NGO and CBOs; (iv) in each city a limited survey was undertaken in selected slums and focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with women’s groups in these slums.1 In Kolkata, field visits, interviews and FGDs were conducted in July–August 2005 and in Hyderabad these were conducted in two phases, in February and September 2006.

2. Governance of Slum Development in Indian Cities: A Multi-Actor Activity Slums are an inherent feature of metropolitan India. Slum development, involving a plethora of organisations and programmes, figures prominently on the urban governance agenda. In the organisational hierarchy at the national level, the concerned ministry of the central government periodically defines policies and programmes and allocates fund for this purpose. It also issues legal provisions, which 1 In Hyderabad, I surveyed three slums — two of them (Mecca Masjid in Ward No. 73, and Bibi ka Chasma in Ward No. 71) are located in the Old City area. Mecca Masjid is a 50-year-old slum with 185 families and a total population of 950, situated on land (15,000 square yards) belonging to the Waqf Board. Bibi ka Chasma has 166 families with a population of 830. The third slum selected was in B.S. Makhta, in Ward No. 22, located in the central area of the city near Raj Bhavan. This slum has a population of 750. In Kolkata, the two slums chosen were in Ward Nos 12 and 122. The slum in Ward No. 22 with a population of 7,572 is located in Ultadanga, in the congested eastern part of the core city. The slum in Ward No. 22 in Thakurpukur area is primarily a refugee colony with a population of around 2,350 located in the extended southern part of the city that was brought under the KMC after 1980.

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have country-wide applicability. Governments at the state level are supposed to ensure proper implementation of these programmes and the utilisation of funds. They are also partly responsible for the financing of the programmes devised by the central government. They can also devise their own programmes and devolve funds from their own sources for infrastructural development in slums. They are also responsible for enacting state-specific laws, rules and regulations, and creating new institutions whenever necessary for better implementation of policies. Over the years, states have created special purpose agencies like Development Authorities, Improvement Trusts, and Slum Clearance/Development Boards, which are involved in policy implementation. But it is the local governments at the city and town level, that are to actually implement the programmes. Outside the government, bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, like the Ford Foundation, UK’s DFID, UNICEF and World Bank previously played and are still playing an important role in helping governments solve the problems of slums. Interventions by these donor agencies are not limited to funding slum development; major policy guidelines for physical and financial planning, institutional reforms and methods of implementation for projects supported by them are often emphasised by donor agencies as pre-conditions for funding. CBOs constituted by the beneficiaries of the programmes are encouraged to play a prominent role as partners in need-based planning, in facilitating the implementation of projects, and they are expected to maintain these facilities once these projects are completed. This participation is propagated by the government and by donor agencies as well with the understanding that if followed in a real sense, it will lead to ‘empowerment’, which signifies the expansion of assets and the capability of poor people to participate in, negotiate with, influence, control and hold accountable institutions that affect their lives (World Bank 2002). Community participation is desirable from the point of view of the project agency too, because it improves project design and effectiveness; enhances the impact and sustainability of projects and contributes to the overarching goals such as good governance, democratisation and poverty reduction (Imparato and Ruster 2003). Therefore, in all governmentsponsored and donor-supported programmes, the community’s role is emphasized. The role of NGOs as facilitator in the community effort is also noteworthy.

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The private sector, which had never shown any interest in slum development initiatives till very recent times, is gradually getting involved in this area. Since the opening up of the economy, state governments have been competing with each other to attract foreign investments, which prompted them to improve their cities’ image as clean and slum-free. The state and city governments are thus trying to rope in the private sector through various forms of public–private partnership (PPP) models for the provision of housing and basic services to the slum-dwellers, in order to reduce their own burden.2 But private sector companies have not yet shown any significant interest in this sector in any city, except in Mumbai to some extent. Even if they do come forward, it is not so much to help the government but to receive the concessions that are guaranteed by the authorities in several forms of exchange. The public–private partnership model that is being discussed in many cities towards the development of model slums through land management, following the Dharavi model in Mumbai (where existing dwellers will be accommodated in the buildings constructed on a certain portion of the land), is a lucrative proposition for private entrepreneurs since they will be allowed greater floor space index (FSI) in using the rest of the land, vacated by the slum-dwellers, for commercial purposes.3 In recent years, the judiciary has also gradually started to play a new role in slum development, in terms of policy direction and rights protection. In several cases, the apex court of the country has intervened to uphold the rights of the slum-dweller. But the court’s intervention is also not uncommon when it has perceived slums as an environmental nuisance and has directed governments and other agencies for their eviction.4 2

The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) has approached consultants to plan high-rise buildings in some notified slums in localities where slum-dwellers hold the patta. Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is trying to break the legal impasses in acquiring 10,000 acres of the slum land in the prime city areas locked under the Thika Tenancy Act for developing high rise buildings to accommodate slum-dwellers and generate revenue by selling the surplus land for commercial purposes. Several private developers expressed keen interest in the project even though the legal hurdles to free the land are yet to be removed. 3 The granting of Transferable Development Rights in Mumbai since 1997 to developers in exchange for carrying out slum redevelopment projects for high-density slums is another incentive that draws the private sector for this otherwise unprofitable venture. 4 See Dupont and Ramanathan (2007).

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Therefore, two sets of actors — state and non-state — are involved in slum development in the new form of urban governance. Even though the number of players in each set are many, in this chapter we concentrate on the role of only one actor from the each group — the local government in the state sector and the community in the nonstate sector. The selection of the local government as representatives of state actors is important, because in urban areas most of the focus of participatory governance is at the local level since local government has the most direct impact on the lives and livelihoods of citizens; also it is at the local level that maximum opportunities for civil society groups’ engagement with the government exist (Satterth waite 2005). From non-state actors we selected CBOs formed by slum households under state and local government-sponsored projects and programmes.

3. Slums in Kolkata and Hyderabad: Issues in Definition and Methods of Estimation Kolkata and Hyderabad differ vastly in terms of their urbanisation levels and trends, dominant political culture and the experience of local self-government systems. While Kolkata is one of the oldest and largest metropolises in the country with a long-established municipal governance system, Hyderabad joined the league much later. Despite the fact that Kolkata experienced a very slow population growth in the last two decades, it is the third largest city in the country with its present population of more than 4.58 million (2001). Hyderabad, in contrast, is one of the fastest growing metropolises in the country (population growth rate of 19.02 per cent during 1991–2001); with a population of 3.63 million in 2001, it achieved the status of seventh largest metropolis in the country. Slums are an integral part of both Kolkata and Hyderabad, as in all major cities in India, but there are inconsistencies in definition, leading to difficulties in a uniform estimation of slums and slumdwellers. However, city governments, which are primarily engaged in providing civic amenities to slums, have hardly any role in defining slums. The Tenth Five Year Plan (2002) comments that one of the problems hindering the implementation of slum-based programmes is the lack of a general consensus regarding the definition of a slum. Slums have been defined universally by the Census of India 2001 as

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part of its decadal enumeration of slum population in each state.5 However, each state government has its own definition of slums, reflected in its Municipal Act or any other special Act. KMC is an exception, as it defines slums in the KMC Act 1980.6 The MCH does not have any such separate provision to define slums. The definition given by the Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement (The Acquisition of Lands) Act 1956 applies to all urban areas, including Hyderabad.7 But the Andhra Pradesh state government has been following a unique system of estimating the slum population of Hyderabad city on the basis of this definition by setting up Special Committees from time to time. Three such Special Committees were set up between 1979 and 1994, but committee was set up after 1994. Kolkata has not had any such systematic attempt to periodically estimate the slum population in order to streamline development initiatives in slums. We find anomalies in the estimates of slum population due to definitional problems in Kolkata and Hyderabad, as well as in other cities in India. According to the Census of 2001, in Kolkata city the slum population is 1.4 million. But KMC’s recent survey data suggests that from 0.63 million in 1991, the slum population has reached 1.52 million in 2002, thereby registering 138 per cent 5

Census of India (2001) defines slum as: (i) All areas notified as Slums under any Act; (ii) All areas recognised as slums but not notified as such; (iii) A compact area of at least 300 persons or about 60 to 70 households of poorly-built congested tenements in an unhygienic environment usually with inadequate infrastructure and lacking any proper sanitary and drinking water facilities. 6 A slum (bustee) is defined in the KMC Act 1980 as ‘an area containing not less than seven hundred square metres in area occupied by or for the purpose of any collection of huts or other structures used or intended to be used for human habitation’. However, this definition is incomplete if we do not clarify the definition of ‘hut’ according to the KMC Act, which is, ‘any building, no substantial part of which excluding the walls up to a height of fifty centimeters above the floor or floor level is constructed of masonary reinforced concrete, steel, iron or other metal’. 7 According to the Act, ‘When the government are satisfied that any area is or may be a source of danger to the public health, safety or convenience of the neighborhood by reason of the area being low lying, unsanitary, squalid or otherwise they may by notification in Andhra Pradesh gazette declare the area to be a Slum Area’ (Andhra Pradesh Slum Improvement [Acquisition of Land] Act, 1956, section 3[1], Government of Andhra Pradesh).

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increase in the last 10 years. The slum population thus constitutes 32.33 per cent of Kolkata’s population and is spreads over an area of 24.28 sq. km. or almost 13 per cent of the total city area of 187 sq. km. How-ever, in addition to these registered slums there are also a number of unauthorised/unregistered slums and a large number of pavement-dwellers, on which the authorities can give no authentic estimates. In Hyderabad, official estimates suggest that the number of slums increased from 455 to 811 between 1979 and 1994, and according to the estimates prepared by successive Special Committees the slum population has reached 1.26 million. But the total slum population according to the 2001 Census is only 0.63 million, which is almost half of the estimates made by the Special Committee in 1994.8 The MCH surveys done for the Hyderabad City Development Plan (CDP) show that there has been a large increase both in the number of slums and in the number of slum-dwellers, which are 1,042 and 1.4 million respectively or more than 38.83 per cent of the city’s population. Slums cover only 9.11 sq. km. or 5.3 per cent of the total city area (172.68 sq. km.). The residential density in slums is thus enormous, with 1,382 persons per hectare, whereas the total MCH density is only 500 persons per hectare. However, a locality is not always declared a slum based on a standard definition or on objective assessments. It is not uncommon for different motivated pressure groups to play a role in declaring an area a slum. As Naidu (1990) observes in Hyderabad, the wide statutory definition of a slum allows political considerations and vested interests to dictate the motive behind declaring an area a slum. If a locality is officially declared a slum, a lot of government funding will flow into that area for development purposes. Therefore, ‘it is possible that relatively well off areas might end up being labeled as slums, whereas truly depressed and dilapidated areas may remain neglected for lack of political lobbying’ (Naidu 1990: 101). Thus, several areas in Hyderabad, especially in the walled city, with a large number of houses suffering extreme dilapidation and slum-like conditions, are not declared slums and therefore remain outside the purview of the slum intervention programmes. 8 The Census 2001 figures for the slum population of the city is available for 35 census wards unlike other cities where the municipal electoral wards are the units of estimates.

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In addition to the anomalies in estimates of slum population, one of the other causes for failure in adopting any sustainable policy towards eradicating the problem of slums is the absence of any provision in municipal acts or any other related legislation for delisting those slums that reach a certain standard in terms of basic amenities. This puts an enormous pressure on city governments to cater to the ever-rising number of slum-dwellers. Neither the KMC Act 1980, not the Andhra Pradesh Slum Act has any such provision. Despite the fact that the Special Committees constituted in Hyderabad for estimating slum population proposed delisting a few slums along with the identification of new slums in their reports, the state government has never initiated any action on this recommendation. The legal status of the land where a slum is located is what usually determines the possibility for a slum to be notified as such. But this in turn has a clear bearing on the slum community’s negotiating power with the state and civic authorities regarding shelter and basic amenities. In Kolkata, slums under the Thika Tenancy System, and other recognised slums are privileged to have all programme benefits.9 But slums on encroached land are not entitled to any such programmes. In Hyderabad, clear anomalies exist in the fact that the new slums identified by the MCH are outside the purview of any development programme simply because they are not yet categorised as slums by any Special Committee. But, on the other hand, listed or notified slums continue to benefit from several state and central government initiatives. As a result, many of the notified slums hardly look like slums because of their well laid-out roads, sewerage and, drainage and water supply facilities. This state of affairs contradicts the goal of ‘cities without slums’ that governments are trying to pursue by promoting coherent and pro-poor city planning, including city-wide slum upgradation. Even though the Andhra Pradesh government decided in 2006 to provide infrastructure facilities to non-notified slums too (as against the previous practice 9 The Thika Tenancy System prevailing in Kolkata is unique in the country; slums under this system are characterised by a three-tier occupancy pattern, comprising the bharatiyas (rent-payers/sub-tenants) at the lowest level, Thika Tenants or house-owners at the middle level and landowners at the top. Located mostly in the central part of the city, these are very congested areas with each hut comprising 10 or even more rooms of 80 to 100 square feet, each room accommodating a family of four or five.

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of excluding them) through an elaborate four-stage identification process in all urban centres based on a poverty and infrastructure deficiency matrix by the specially constituted committees at the municipal, regional, district, and state levels, surprisingly, Hyderabad has been kept outside the purview of this new initiative on the grounds that it already has a system in place of constituting Special Committees at regular intervals for the identification and estimation of slum population.

4. Defining the Roles and Performances of Municipal Corporations of Kolkata and Hyderabad in Slum Development The enhanced role of local governments is a crucial determinant of all human settlement programmes and sustainable poverty alleviation strategies. The policy declarations of several UN agencies in recent times insist on local authorities playing a catalytic role in bringing together all the stakeholders because local authorities are the closest to and most representative of urban constituencies. In India too, the inclusion of Slum Improvement & Upgradation and Urban Poverty Alleviation in the Twelfth Schedule of the 74th CAA reinforces the commitment towards a more important role of local governments in these fields. ULBs are being looked upon as institutions that will facilitate the participation of the people in the development process. However, several studies suggest that despite the 74th CAA and all state governments’ pledges towards decentralisation and the empowerment of urban local governments, hardly any state can claim to have honoured the constitutional mandate in letter and spirit in this vital aspect of governance. The Tenth Five Year Plan (1997–2002) emphasised the participatory management of urban poverty programmes and suggested that city governments create UPA cells at the municipal level. They were also expected to co-ordinate work with the Community Development Societies (CDSs) set up under the Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojana (SJSRY) and with the various NGOs working in the urban area.10 The UPA cells are supposed to draw up City 10 SJSRY launched by the central government in 1997 is the most important urban poverty alleviation programme which aims at providing employment opportunities to the urban unemployed or underemployed poor through community empowerment. The programme lays stress on

(Contd.)

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Poverty Alleviation Plans in consultation with the CDSs. Citywide master plans for slum improvement should be drawn up and programmes of slum improvement and upgradation should be based on such master plans. To what extent have these recommendations been followed? We analyse below the activities of the municipal corporations of Kolkata and Hyderabad so far as slum development programmes are concerned, in a historical perspective, with a focus on the changes that have evolved in the new dispensation of participatory urban governance from the perspectives of functional delegation, organisational responsiveness and access to financial resources for slum development.

4.1. Functional Delegation and Organisational Responsiveness in KMC and MCH In Kolkata the KMC Act 1980 empowers the municipal corporation to implement improvement work in bustees (slums), including the provision of water supply, laying of sewerage and drainage, street lights, conversion of service privies into water-borne privies, improvement of huts, etc. The KMC is also supposed to prepare a standard layout plan for slums and sanction plans for permanent construction. However, despite this, for a long time slum development programmes in Kolkata were planned and implemented by the state government departments and parastatals like the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). The World Bank-supported Calcutta Urban Development Project III (CUDP-III) which had a slum development component, and the DFID-supported Calcutta Slum Improvement Project (CSIP) in the 1990s were planned and implemented by the KMDA and the KMC was systematically kept outside the purview of programme planning and implementation. However, considering the importance of slum-dwellers as a committed vote bank, the leftist government which came to power in the state in 1977 created the Bustee Services Cell (later renamed Bustee Services Department), in KMC in 1985 with a Mayor-in-Council member heading the Cell. Administratively, the Director General (Bustee) heads the Bustee Cell and is responsible for implementing the various programmes for slum development and poverty establishing and promoting community organisations and structures that would support and facilitate local development. A three-tier communitybased organisation has been laid down for the purpose.

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alleviation within the city. But with extremely limited manpower at its disposal, the Cell is ill-equipped to implement the large number of programmes catering to the 1.5 million slum-dwellers in the city. Also, there is a lack of co-ordination with other line departments, which also provide services in the slums. However, in November 2005, the KMC created a separate Social Sector Wing under the Mayor-in-Council to monitor all the social sector programmes in the departments of health, education, poverty alleviation, slum development, etc. But, the Social Sector Wing is still in the formative stage; staff deployment according to specifications is still not complete at the Borough level (Institute of Social Sciences [ISS] 2007). Therefore, it is too early to know whether this reorganisation has actually led to improved functioning of the KMC, so far as slum development is concerned. Unlike Kolkata, in Hyderabad slum development has been part of the functional domain of the MCH since the beginning of planned intervention in this aspect. This began with the introduction of the UCD project that started at a very small scale in 1967 and continued till 1985, with Ford Foundation and then UNICEF support for bringing about social and environmental changes among the poor urban population, especially those located in slums. A specially designed UCD Department, created in the MCH, started operating these projects as an integrated programme for the physical, social and economic development of the poor people in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secundrabad. The Department still continues as a special wing of MCH for the implementation of all state and centrally-sponsored poverty alleviation programmes in the city. The governance of slum development is more systematic in Hyderabad than in Kolkata. The UCD Department functions under the administrative control of the Additional Commissioner (UCD), assisted by Project Officers and other staff through a decentralised network of seven Circles, each with a full-fledged UCD office. The Social Development Officers, Social Workers and Community Development Organisers are the grass-root level workers who are employed full time by this department. However, recent decisions of the MCH allowing officers from other departments to join the UCD Department at different levels and to engage staff on a contractual basis, have created much discontentment among the existing staff that some of them expressed during their interviews with me. They were not only anxious about their own career prospects within the department, but also concerned that the new system would hamper the functional efficiency of the UCD Department. They feared

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that the close functional relations that the project officials nurtured with the community over a long period of time might not work with the officers and programme staff hired on contract.

4.2. Financial Capability The delegation of functions and an organisational set-up are not sufficient to ensure the effective management of programmes if they are not complemented by adequate financial resources. We assess the access to resources and actual expenditure for slum development by KMC and MCH through an analysis of their budgets over the last four years (2000–01 to 2003–04). We will look into the sources from which the municipal corporations receive funds for the purpose of slum development, how they spend the funds received and the criticality in their financial performances so far as this activity is concerned. In other words, the objective here is to assess whether the local bodies are financially empowered enough to fulfill the objective of slum development and poverty alleviation as enshrined in the 74th CAA through financial decentralisation.

Funds for Slum Development in KMC The KMC receives funds for the development of slums in the form of grants from the state or central government against schemes or programmes undertaken by them, or from international donor agencies in the form of grants, soft loans, or a mix of the two. KMC also invests in basic services activities in slums from its own revenue funds. 11 In addition to sharing partial financial responsibility in centrally-sponsored programmes, the state government also contributes to KMC for supplementing services to slums, for water supply, sewerage and drainage services and a development grant. However, an analysis of the budgets shows that the contributions for slum development as a percentage share of total state government contribution to KMC have been on the decline over the years. 11 Peculiarly, receipts for programmes of the state and central governments are shown under the head Suspense Accounts in the KMC budget. However, no estimate was available for KMC’s share in the receipt for slums, as the budget documents do not mention any transfer of funds from the revenue/general fund for slum development purposes. An estimate of the KMC’s contribution can however be made from the expenditure side of the budget, wherein the revenue expenditure on slums can be regarded as KMC’s own contribution for slum development.

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Receipts for slum improvement as a percentage share of total KMC receipts (sum of tax, non-tax, state government contribution and suspense receipts) have declined sharply in the period studied here, especially since 2002–03. As a result, the total expenditure on slums, when seen as a proportion of the total expenditure of KMC, reveals a dismal picture; it has never crossed even 4 per cent (Figure 9.1). One of the reasons for low expenditure is irregular receipt from the central and the state government for slums under different projects, as we see from Table 9.1. Therefore, even though the KMC is statutorily responsible for implementing all programmes of poverty alleviation, it is unable to do so in the absence of timely allocation of funds from the central and state governments.

Funds for Slum Development in MCH The MCH is no different from the KMC in terms of its financial performance, despite the fact that both the state government and MCH have undertaken several new financial initiatives for slum development under their overarching urban reform policies. The two innovative financial packages introduced by the MCH in 2001 for infrastructure development in the city and for slum development make the MCH a pioneer in taking up urban challenges for fulfilling the goal of Hyderabad Vision 2025 and making Hyderabad a city without slums. The MCH first instituted a separate City Development Fund (CDF) for developing city infrastructure according to the Hyderabad City Development Strategy (CDS). The fees collected by the Town Planning Department under various heads now flow into the CDF. The second important fund created by the MCH, which is directly related to slum development, is the Hyderabad Urban Community Development and Services Fund or the Urban Poverty Alleviation Fund (UPA Fund).12 Since the fund is linked to property tax, it is 12 Initially, the fund included the following components: (i) 10 per cent of property tax collected by the MCH annually; (ii) 30 per cent of annual per capita grant received by the MCH from the government annually; (iii) funds received from the Government of India and the state government under various poverty-alleviation programmes like Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojana, National Slum Development Programme, Balika Samruddhi Yojana, Chief Minister’s Empowerment of Youth Programme (EYP), Adarsh Basti Scheme, etc. (MCH 2002: 8).

Source: KMC budgets for the respective years.

Figure 9.1: Receipts and Payments for Slums in KMC

% Share of total expenditure

% Share of suspense expenditure

% Share of revenue spent on slums

% Share of slums in total receipts of KMC

% Share of slums in suspense receipts

% Share of slums in state government contribution

224 Ú GHOSH Table 9.1: Allocations for Slums under Different Programmes (Rs 00,000) 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 Basic minimum service NSDP∗ MDP∗∗ 8th plan (bustee, water, roads, drains) CUDP III 10th Finance Commission 11th Finance Commission Low-cost sanitation National Social Assistance Programme Total receipt for slums

264 963 4

40 0 0

150 0 0

0 400 0

92 440 196 0 351 2,310

0 2,314 377 0 334 3,065

50 0 100 0 335 635

55 0 0 0 186 641

Source: KMC budgets for the respective years. Note: ∗National Slum Development Programme. ∗∗Municipal Development Programme.

assumed that with enhancement in property tax collection a sustained flow of funds can be ensured for slum development and poverty alleviation in the twin cities with a transfer of 10 per cent property tax revenue to this fund every year. From 2005 the state government changed this practice and instructed municipal bodies, including MCH, to allocate 40 per cent of their net funds13 for improving the living standards of the slum dwellers and the urban poor by providing basic infrastructure and amenities in slums and by creating income generating opportunities for enhancement of livelihoods, the UPA Fund is no more linked to property tax only. This system is expected to further augment resources available for slum development. But, despite these laudable attempts, the transfer to UPA fund is not regular, as we observe in the Capital Receipt of the UCD Department budgets. We can see from Table 9.2 that since 2000–01, when the Fund was first created, disbursals were expected to gradually increase. But as the table suggests, except in the first year, no separate allocation was visible in actual terms in the UCD budget despite the statutory obligations imposed by the state government. The reason is the same as we found in the case of KMC: irregular 13 Net fund is describes as: Revenue Surplus (revenue income – revenue expenditure) – Revenue Transfer to Reserve Funds + Capital Receipts – Earmarked grants – Borrowing for Capital Projects.

500.00 286.00

Revised

Source: MCH budgets for the respective years.

Transfer to UPA fund Municipal share in schemes

40.24 100.00

Actual

2000–01

600.00 300.00

Revised _ _

Actual

2001–02

1,449.00 1,000.00

Revised

_ _

Actual

2002–03

Table 9.2 : Transfer to Hyderabad Poverty Alleviation Fund from MCH (Rs ‘00,000)

4,000.00 9,860.00

Revised

_ _

Actual

2003–04

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receipts, and sometimes total withdrawal of central and state government funds, which we can observe in Table 9.3. Table 9.3: Capital Receipt by UCD Department under Different Programmes (Rs ‘00,000) Name of the scheme Adarsh Basti Scheme NSDP SJSRY BSY UCD Local water supply and sewerage IPP-VIII Project Total

2000–01 0.00 0.00 230.35 15.10 1.28 0.00 0.00 246.73

2001–02 2002–03

2003–04

17.50 0.00 0.00 909.60 626.78 42.35 1,416.07 34.50 21.15 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 163.75 1,366.00 1,000.00 0.00 0.00 71.04 0.00 3,709.17 1,732.32 227.25

Source: MCH budgets for the respective years.

But what percentages of MCH total receipt and expenditure go towards slum development and poverty alleviation? We can see from Figure 9.2 that in the total Revenue Receipt of MCH, UCD does not have any contribution as such in actual terms. The figure shows that even though MCH receipt has increased enormously in these years, there was a relative fall in the UCD receipts as a per cent share. In terms of expenditure too, the total UCD expenditure was only 1.02 per cent in 2000–01, it showed a slight increase in the next two years, but again drastically came down to 2.59 per cent in 2003–04. We can see, therefore, that even after several innovative measures and the MCH’s repeated focus on slum development, the expenditure on slums is abysmally low in comparison with the increasing MCH budget for city development and infrastructure creation. A financial analysis of the two municipal corporations, therefore, shows that even though MCH adopted innovative approaches to ensure regularity in the flow of funds, and KMC did not initiate any of such innovations, in reality neither the MCH nor the KMC could ensure sustained receipt and expenditure for slum development because of the uncertainty created out of financial dependence of the two local governments on the state and central governments.14 14 Nevertheless, that the MCH attempts to systematically transfer a portion of own its revenue for expenditure on slum development is laudable if it can be maintained with regularity.

Source: KMC budgets for the respective years.

Total UCD expenditure as % of total MCH expenditure

UCD capital expenditure as % of MCH capital expenditure

UCD revenue expenditure as % of total MCH revenue expenditure

UCD total receipt as % of total MCH receipt

UCD revenue receipt as % of MCH total revenue receipt

Figure 9.2: Income and Expenditure of the UCD Department in MCH

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5. Role of Community: Structure and Form of Participation The Community’s role in urban services delivery in low-income localities, including slums, is not a new concept. By community we mean the slum-dwellers who are the recipients of several targeted programmes. Community involvement may be interpreted in a very broad sense as activities ranging from planning, implementation, to monitoring the operation and maintenance of community infrastructure created under different programmes; or it may be interpreted in a narrow sense, as only partial cost-sharing, or as taking part only in the operation and maintenance of assets. The relevance of community participation lies in inculcating a sense of ownership among the people on the one hand, and in relieving governments from the responsibility of day-to-day operation and maintenance of physical and social infrastructure on the other. Indeed, since the beginning of the liberalisation programmes in India in early 1990s and under the new form of participatory governance ensured by the 74th CAA, a re-examination of the role of the state led to the belief that it should be a facilitator rather than a provider of services. The Eighth Five Year Plan (1992–97) envisaged bringing about a change in the attitude of the people (beneficiaries of the development programmes) from playing the role of ‘passive observers’ and ‘total dependence on the government’ (Planning Commission 1992) for development activities to a proactive attitude of (people) taking initiatives themselves (Planning Commission 2002), which would lead to greater success of the programmes and also make them cost-effective. The Eighth Plan for the first time mentioned the need for the involvement of voluntary agencies and other people’s institutions for effective microlevel participatory planning. However, the Ninth Five Year Plan (1997–2002) observed with dismay that the progress on this front was not entirely satisfactory. The Tenth Plan (2002–07) further stressed on the community structure under SJSRY to be made the common pattern and foundation for all programmes addressing the urban poor. This would give the poor a platform from where they can talk about their needs, discuss common problems and also ensure that their demands are met. Therefore, in the interactive urban governance model the role of community in slum development is important. Communities

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are to be active collaborators, not just the passive recipients of the programmes’ benefits. They can participate through NGO initiatives, or by forming their own CBOs or maybe through the several preexisting formal and informal grassroots-level organisations. In this section we discuss the pattern of participation followed in the context of slum development in Kolkata and Hyderabad.

Community Participation in Kolkata Community participation in slum development programmes that involve the local government or state implementing agencies is new in Kolkata. Mechanisms were developed to involve local organisations under donor-supported slum development projects as well as government-sponsored programmes earlier, but participation by the local people was not always spontaneous; the implementing authorities also showed little enthusiasm in involving local slumdwellers. Several evaluative studies later revealed that in practice community participation was actually not at a very appreciable level (Bardhan Roy 1993, Ghosh et al. 2003). In fact, as Bardhan Roy (1993) suggests in her appraisal of the Bustee Improvement Scheme (BIS) implemented in Kolkata in the 1960s, one of the major lapses in the BIS implementation was the absence of community participation. Initially some attempts were made to involve local people through the establishment of Zonal Advisory Committees (ZACs) in each of the constituencies of the municipal corporation. The members of the ZACs were expected to be directly associated with the activities of the programme. But, the system of appointing such a ZAC was discontinued after some time, which also ended the scope of local participation. However, an enquiry into the nature and scope of participatory governance in the slums of Kolkata led us to delve deeper into the political culture of the city where political organisations at the local level play such a dominant role so far as participation in local affairs is concerned. This confirms the observations made by Jalal, that ‘Civil Society in Calcutta is not a prototype of what we find in other cities of India. While one finds very few formal NGOs or structured voluntary organisations there are numerous popular local clubs or CBOs known as Nagarik Samiti (neighbourhood association), Mohalla (street) Committees or Youth and Cultural Clubs’ (2001: 54). Our interaction with local organisations further revealed that these CBOs, which have evolved in every locality,

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are primarily grassroots-level units of the CPI(M), which has been ruling the state as well as running the KMC for more than three decades. These community-level organisations are very much entrenched in the day-to-day life of local people. They convey the slum-dwellers’ day-to-day problems to party higher-ups like the local councillors or MLAs, and maintain political sympathy towards these political representatives so that they can mobilise a major vote bank at election time. Other political parties too try to carve out a niche for themselves by forming similar organisations of their own. But their presence can hardly be felt because of the strong organisational network of the ruling party and its long-standing dominance in the local power structure. The most organised CBO with the longest standing record of involvement with bustee life and policies in Kolkata is the Calcutta Bustee Federation (CBF), which has been operating since the mid-1950s through the well laid-out network of Zonal Committees at the zone level and Local Committees at the slum level (in bigger slums there may be two local committees). The Federation is affiliated to the CPI(M) and functions in 127 of the 141 wards of the KMC. The local units of the CBF, most of which are registered,15 co-ordinate with the KMC officials, organise health camps, literacy programmes, awareness camps about drug use, etc. In the inner-city areas, these local units have been operating for more that 40 years. There are also youth clubs, sports clubs, etc., which in most cases are also affiliated to political parties. They also help local people solve civic problems related to water, sanitation, drainage, etc., because of their political clout. Most of these clubs have substantial space of their own within the slums, in which they regularly allow slumlevel activities like health camps, vocational training classes, pulse polio campaigns, etc. Beyond these networks of voluntary political institutions, another form of participatory governance is emerging through local government sponsored community structures which is essential for all government and donor-sponsored programmes. Thus, a three-tier community structure comprising Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs) at the slum level, Neighbourhood Committees (NHCs) at the ward

15

These committees are to have regular elections in order to elect their presidents and secretaries (Ghosh et al. 2003).

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level and Community Development Societies (CDSs)16 at the town or zone level is compulsory under the centrally-supported SJSRY programme launched in 1997. According to the SJSRY guidelines issued by the Central Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, all infrastructure projects in any locality should be undertaken in consultation with representatives of the CDS structure. However, despite this mandatory requirement and even after a decade this community structure is hardly operational in the city. Only five CDSs have been formed in five boroughs either with the individual initiative of the Borough Chairpersons or a few councilors. Even the stoppage of SJSRY funds to the KMC by the central government on the grounds of non-formation of CDS could not motivate either the Trinamul Congress-led KMC board during 2000–05, or the CPI(M)-led board that followed after 2005 to constitute CDS in the remaining boroughs The complexity of local politics in Kolkata that we have narrated above is one of the reasons offered against the formation of such organisations, which the existing local institutions find detrimental to their authority in the slums. In any case, our observations during fieldwork suggest that the difference between political and nonpolitical institutions often gets blurred wherever such institutions emerge. The two slums studied here are part of two CDS — Aatmasamman and Srijoni, in Boroughs III and XIII of the KMC. The women’s groups I met for our FGDs were members of these CDSs. We were told that the Mohalla Committee and Nagarik Committee of the CPI(M) were integrally linked to the CDS; most women members of these committees were also members of the CDS. In fact, the CDS acted as a political platform for the councillor as well as other members to mobilise political support. This was very evident from the fact that the CDS (Srijoni) meeting that I attended (in early May 2005) was later converted into an election strategy meeting by the ward councillor for the forthcoming KMC elections (held in June 2005). However, their political clout does not ensure their participation in local matters as that of the grassroots-level political party units mentioned above. In fact, our interviews with CDS members in Kolkata gave rise to serious doubts about the efficacy of such 16

CDSs are registered societies that work at the apex level to provide support to the programme by identifying beneficiaries of, implementing, monitoring and evaluating projects.

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institutions, that are not voluntary and are prescribed from the above. In our FGDs, councillors and CDS members (i.e., poor women of the locality) said that apart from holding monthly meetings they had almost no other functions to perform. They were not involved in, nor consulted about, any of the developmental work going on in the area, even though it is now mandatory to get all the local projects done through CDS. Their activities were limited only to the formation of Thrift and Credit groups for slum-women. The CDS members further expressed their frustration that even though the slum development component (that aims to develop one model slum in 100 municipal wards of the KMC) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-supported Kolkata Environment Improvement Project (KEIP) that started in 2002, pledges participatory processes involving local councillors as well as the community for the construction, maintenance and monitoring of physical infrastructure in slums, it ignores CDS members and the local community. Members of the Atmasamman CDS said that the community was not consulted in the selection of the slum to be developed as a model slum under the project in one of their wards; they were not even informed about the project. As a result, the project officials selected for the project two of those slums which had already been provided with good civic amenities under other programmes, instead of selecting those with more dire needs.

Community Organisations in Hyderabad Community participation is not new in Hyderabad and does not take the political route as in Kolkata. Community involvement was first initiated with the UCD project in the 1960s, conceived on the premise that the community should be an active participant. In later programmes like the Overseas Development Agency (ODA)supported Hyderabad Slum Improvement Project (HSIP) similar to Calcutta Slum Improvement Project of the 1990s, participation was not restricted to an expression of the needs felt or to projectmonitoring only. The community’s financial participation in the infrastructure projects and community-asset creation was for the first time underlined under HSIP. Activities were first initiated in those slums where the community beneficiaries agreed to contribute 30 per cent of the project cost (the rest was to come from MCH project funds).

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The community structure, set up under the UCD programme and later revised under different centrally-sponsored programmes, is supposed to be the basis of all UPA and slum development programmes in Hyderabad. Later in 1998, when the JSRY programme started eight CDSs (in seven circles), 740 neighborhood committees and 5,984 neighborhood groups were formed as vehicles of community participation. The UCD Department took several initiatives to help slum-women form a CDS by making them aware of the processes and formalities, by helping them in elections to the posts of functionaries, and later in project formulation, on-time disbursal of project funds, etc. One of the former CDS presidents17 declared that her CDS was working very well, involved in various developmental works in slums like roads, drainage, pavement construction, etc., in close cooperation with the UCD Department. The project cost was directly handed over to the CDS by the UCD. They engaged contractors, purchased building material, maintained accounts and also supervised the work. They were also involved in income-generating projects under SJSRY, organised several skill-training programmes for SHGs and facilitated the marketing and selling of their products in fairs within and outside the state. Therefore, the CDS was involved in a truly participatory manner in slum development projects. But we must mention here that the CDSs were formed in Hyderabad when the MCH did not have an elected body and was administered by the Municipal Commissioner. Once MCH elections were held in 2002 (after a 14-year gap), the newly-elected council completely discouraged the functioning of CDSs. The elected councillors feared that the CDS would be a parallel institution at the local level, jeopardising their authority as people’s representatives. The eight CDSs that were formed in 2001 are now defunct, since elections to these bodies were never allowed to take place by the MCH, despite the fact that the central grant for SJSRY was discontinued for the last few years for this reason. However, even though the CDS is no longer functional in Hyderabad, collaboration between local organisations and the local government is encouraged in civic activities in slums, most notably door-to-door garbage collection. In the past few years, several selfhelp groups constituted under the SJSRY programme and NGOsupported initiatives have been involved in slum development projects. 17 I interviewed the former lady President of CDS-III in February 2006 in MCH.

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In 1999–2000, the MCH launched the ambitious Clean Slum Initiative to bring up every two years a targeted number of slums to fully developed status (with adequate civic amenities).18 In the first phase (2002–03), 105 slums were selected. In each of these slums a Clean Slum Committee, composed of women, was constituted. One NGO was identified for each slum to help mobilise slumdwellers, train them and act as an interface between the MCH and the community. Groups of slum-women undertook the job of supervising sanitation work for which the MCH would give some money and provide free tricycle rickshaws. With the MCH’s and the community’s contribution, women’s groups could hire rickshaw-pullers to carry out garbage collection from the doorstep (MCH 2002). The MCH also identified women sweepers engaged under different civil contractors and helped them register as Development of Women and Children in Urban Areas (DWCUA) sweeping groups under SJSRY, which were thereafter allotted new sweeping contracts. Fourteen such DWCUA sweeping groups were functioning in the city when we conducted fieldwork. Some of the other DWCUA groups operating under SJSRY are also doing well. In Bibi ka Chasma, as we observed, a DWCUA group (now registered as Health, Environment and Literacy Promotion Society) with 10 members runs a computer training centre for local boys and girls by the group president who is a qualified computer professional. The group also trains young girls in tailoring, hand embroidery and zardoshi, both under the SJSRY and the state government-supported Rajiv Yuva Shakti Programme. What is the community’s perception about the types of participatory governance that the MCH propagates in slums? From FGDs 18

Under this unique participatory scheme involving the MCH, NGOs and community groups, each slum would eventually become a ‘Mini Municipality’ with the community discharging basic civic functions such as sanitation, pre-school education, adult education, preventive healthcare, immunisation, pre-natal care, thrift and credit, income generation, etc. The community is enabled to maintain the assets created. It was proposed to have Resident Tax Collectors in the slum, who could collect property taxes and user charges from the better off and make use of the fund for local development. The Corporation would give matching grants to community organisations. Medical Officers of the Urban Health Posts would be designated as the nodal officers and each of them would be in charge of one or two slums.

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with women self-help groups in the case-study slums in the old city, it emerged that people did not generally have many complaints about basic services in their areas. In general, notified slums are well provided with basic amenities by the UCD Department even though there are distributional anomalies between slums in the old and new parts of the city (see Chapter 10). Slums have wide paved roads and water connections. Most of them have land pattas, given under the N.T. Rama Rao regime when the slums were regularised. Therefore, when asked about what they perceive as development priorities in their localities, women’s groups in Bibi ka Chasma and Mecca Masjid, where we conducted the FGD, expressed their concerns about income-generating activities which these participatory projects were not able to ensure for all. They complained that they formed self-help groups under UCD, some of them even got training in various skills, but did not get any revolving fund, or any loan to start their enterprises. SHG members in the B.S. Maktha slum, along with the local councillor (a woman belonging to the opposition party, TDP) actually complained about the MCH’s apathy towards the group in this regard. No skill-training programme was provided for the members; some of the girls underwent nurses’ training in a summer health camp, but the UCD never helped them get any jobs after completion of the training.

6. The Local Government–Community Interface: The Role of Councillors Councillors as the Link In the municipal set-up, elected councillors are conceived as a link between the community and the municipal corporation; as people’s representatives they are accountable to the people for their action (and inaction). Slum-dwellers are a special constituency for all councillors as prospective voters. After the 74th CAA made municipal elections a regular feature in local politics, councillors have been more eager to maintain regular contact with their electorate. But are the councillors in these two cities equally responsive to the problems of slum-dwellers? Are they empowered to fulfill their role as people’s spokespersons in the local government? The councillor’s effectiveness as a link depends to a great extent on how mature the local democracy is. In this respect the Mayorin-Council system adopted by the KMC empowers councillors to

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take decisions as a collective body. The fact that elections have been held regularly since 1985 in the KMC has made people’s representatives more informed about the problems of the people at the grassroots level. Moreover, the almost uninterrupted rule of one political party since 1985 has given an opportunity to several councillors to be elected from the same constituency again and again, thus enhancing their proximity to the people.19 The grassroots-level political outfits of that political party also make it easier for the elected representatives to stay in touch with the people. This situation is so deeply entrenched that councillors never allowed even the constitutionally mandated Ward Committees to be formed or to function (Ghosh and Basu 2007) in Kolkata. In Hyderabad, the municipal authority structure of the MCH is completely different, because in the ‘Commissioner system’ the state-appointed Commissioner wields more administrative power than the elected body. Moreover, the MCH was without an elected body for 14 years until elections were held in 2002. Therefore, most corporators (councillors) are new in their job. Their inexperience in the municipal administration system, incomplete knowledge about the different programmes and benefits that are available for the poor prevent them from functioning as an effective link between the MCH and the community. These corporators, irrespective of their political affiliation, are still at the mercy of the administrative rigmarole. Thus, two corporators of the two surveyed wards, belonging to the ruling and opposition parties, who I met expressed the same helplessness and raised a plethora of complaints during the interview. The corporator of Ward No. 22 felt that her area was neglected by the MCH because of her affiliation to the opposition party (TDP); her corporator’s fund,20 allocated for road construction, remained unused due to delays in construction by the MCH on one pretext or the other; the old-age pension for beneficiaries in her constituency did not 19

Since 1985, the KMC has been ruled by the Left Front (an alliance of five leftist parties, dominated by the CPI(M), with only a disruption during 2000–05 when the Trinamul Congress came to power after winning the elections in 2000. 20 Each corporator in the MCH is entitled to Rs 30 lakh every year for improving infrastructure in her/his ward. But the fund does not come directly to the corporator. S/he is only to suggest the works that need to be done, which the MCH officials are supposed to implement.

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arrive on time; neighbourhood groups formed under SJSRY could not function in the absence of a revolving fund; a community centre had not been built despite several requests made to the MCH. This corporator was also a political minority in her Ward Committee, which was dominated by the Congress. Local issues she raised in their meetings were not given due importance, she said. But the condition of the lady councillor of Ward No. 58, belonging to the ruling coalition partner Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM), is not much different from the corporator of the opposition party. She expressed her frustration at not being able to serve her people well. Very critical of the UCD, she complained that development activities were not being taken up seriously in the slums of her constituency. She said that although the UCD budget was on the rise every year, but there was no ‘scheme’ under UCD. When asked, what she meant by ‘scheme’, she said there were no incomegenerating projects for the poor. SHGs were formed, but the revolving fund never reached many of these groups. She accused the UCD Department of diverting funds to other areas. She complained that the UCD Department was engaged only in infrastructure development and took no initiative in community development work nor training programmes for boys and girls for their economic development. Under the mandate of the 74th CAA, the elected wing of the municipal corporation is meant to be all-powerful, because councillors are accountable to the people who elect them. The corporators’ chances of being re-elected are dependent to a great extent on their capacity to reach out to people, especially slum-dwellers who vote en masse at the local level, through various avenues including providing benefits under development programmes. With a substantial chunk of the population living in slums, in these cities slum development has been a major rhetoric of all political parties, especially before any election. The concern of the corporators, therefore, was understandable in view of the fact that elections to the local body were due within a few months time (January 2007) when I conducted the interview in September 2006. So there was tremendous urgency to prove their worth to their electorate. On the other hand, the predicament of the UCD Department lies in the fact that in the absence of any elected body, for a long time the Department was in complete charge of all projects for the poor and the community is still in direct touch with UCD officials for

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the redressal of any problem, even though, from 2002, councilors, as people’s representatives, are supposed to be the official channel for solving any local problems and local officials are supposed to be accountable to them. Therefore, the deep-rooted political influence that councillors have grown to exercise over the years in Kolkata is yet not visible in Hyderabad.

7. Conclusion The new forms of urban governance, which stress on decentralisation and participation, are not an unencumbered notion in the case of slum development. Our study on the roles played by two major actors — the local government and the communities — in two metropolitan cities shows that there is a hierarchy of institutions in the decentralisation chain, and that each institution is wary of sharing its power and authority with those at the lower level. At the apex level, the central government is privy to all decision-making, from conceiving intervention programmes to financially sponsoring them and even prescribing a structured institutional framework for community participation. At the state level, the government has to follow the central government’s policies and programmes and will decide on specific state-level policies, ranging from defining the legal status of slums to preparing state-specific slum development projects and negotiating with donors for funds. Central and state governments can take a decision to discontinue flow of funds for programmes if the prescribed rules are not followed. Municipal corporations, which are supposed to implement the programmes, are hardly ever consulted at this decision-making stage. They remain dependent on the state government for functionaries and finances, even though the functions of poverty alleviation and planning for social development have been devolved to them. The community is claimed to be a partner in the new governance model, but participatory institutions like Ward Committees and CDS are totally discouraged by the councillors, fearing they will lose their political clout. In Kolkata these institutions fail to take off because they are redundant in a context where political associations fulfill the function of representation of the interests of slum-dwellers; in Hyderabad municipal councillors who feel threatened by them oppose these institutions. In both cases, slum development appears as a case in point of the actual difficulty of ‘depoliticising’ (Chandhoke 2003)

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urban governance. And at the grassroots level, slum-dwellers have very little opportunity to influence the policies that affect their lives. The participation of communities largely consists in contributing to selective service delivery as agents of local government, as we could see in Hyderabad. Thus, the slum development functions defy one of the basic premises of effective good governance, which Putnam mentions as, ‘civic culture’ in which the participants are bound together by ‘horizontal relations of reciprocity and cooperation, not vertical relation of authority and dependence’ (Putnam 1993). The chapter thus, underlines a series of contrasts between discourses and practices: the discourse on decentralisation versus the concentration of decision-making powers in the state and central levels of government; the discourse on slum development as a priority in urban planning vis-à-vis the poor allocation for slum development in municipal budgets; the discourse on participation versus the fact that slum-dwellers are hardly ever associated with major decisions concerning their right to shelter and livelihood in spite of the fact that they are, as put by Harris in his study on Chennai, ‘garrisons of votes for contending politicians’ (Harris 2007: 2722) and that their well-being is a major theme in the rhetoric of all political parties.

References Bardhan Roy, Maitreyi. 1993. Calcutta Slums: Public Policy in Retrospect. Calcutta: Minerva Associates. Chandhoke, Neera. 2003. Governance and Pluralisation of the State: Implications for Democratic Citizenship. Economic and Political Weekly 38(28): 2957–68. Dupont, Véronique and Usha Ramanathan. 2007. Du traitement des slums à Delhi. Purushartha 26, ‘La ville en Asie du Sud’, coordonné par V. Dupont and D.G. Heuzé. Paris: EHESS, Paris. Ghosh, Archana, A. Mukherjee and A. Mitra. 2003. Wealth and Well-being. Impact of Slum Upgrading and Improved Service Delivery to the Poor: The Case of Kolkata. Study Report (unpublished), prepared for the Water and Sanitation Programme (South Asia). New Delhi: World Bank. Ghosh, Archana and A. M. Basu. 2007. Urban Governance in Kolkata: Actors, Policies and Reforms. Paper presented at a seminar on on ‘Urban Actors, Policies and Governance in Four Indian Metropolitan Cities’, the Centre de Sciences Humaines de New Delhi (CSH) and the India International Centre, Delhi, 23–24 January.

240 Ú GHOSH Harris, John. 2007. Antinomies of Empowerment: Observations on Civil Society, Politics and Urban Governance in India. Economic and Political Weekly : 42(26) 2716–24. Imparato, Ivo and Jeff Ruster. 2003. Slum Upgrading and Participation: Lessons from Latin America. Washington, DC: World Bank. Institute of Social Sciences (ISS). 2008. Kolkata Development Report — 2007, Prepared for Kolkata Municipal Corporation, Kolkata. Jalal, Jennifer. 2001. Decentralisation and Urban Governance in India: A Tale of Two Cities. Urban Management. Kolkata: ILGUS, Government of West Bengal. McCarney, P., M. Halfani and A. Rodriguez. 1995. Towards an Understanding of Governance, in R. Stren and J.K. Bell (eds), Perspectives on the Cities. Toronto: Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto. Mohanty, P.K. 2003. City Development Strategy and Comprehensive Municipal Reforms. Working Paper 5, Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad. Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH). 2002. Budget 2002–03. Hyderabad: MCH. Naidu, Ratna. 1990. Old cities, New Predicament. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Planning Commission. 1992. Eighth Five Year Plan (1992–97), Vol. I. http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans Putnam, Robert. 1993. Making Democracy Work: Civil Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Satterthwaite, David. 2005. Tools and Methods for Participatory Governance in Cities. Report prepared for the 6th Global Forum on Reinventing Government: Towards Participatory and Transparent Governance, 24–27 May, Seoul. Stoker, G. 1998. Public–Private Partnership and Urban Governance, in J. Pierre (ed.), Partnerships in Urban Governance: European and American Experiences. Macmillan: New York. World Bank. 2002. Empowerment Source Book. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Chapter 10 Reforming Solid Waste Management in Mumbai and Hyderabad: Policy Convergence, Distinctive Processes1 Marie-Hélène Zérah

In this chapter, we shall study the reforms initiated for solid waste

management, and specifically household garbage collection. The nature of garbage collection enables flexibility in contracting out-side the public monopoly, favouring the creation of contestable markets.2 Even before the beginning of the 1990s, some urban local bodies had introduced changes in the governance of this sector (National Institute of Urban Affairs 1999). These experiences ranged from the introduction of international private operators in Chennai (Anand 1999; Srinivasan 2006), local private contracting in Hyderabad (Baud et al. 2004), and increased number of initiatives and partnerships in large cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, and Surat (Asnani 2006) as well as small towns (Water and Sanitation Program 2006). In cities, at an annual average of 5 per cent, waste generated grows more rapidly than the population. Rising incomes and consumerism have led to a shift in waste composition with the decline of compostable waste, the rise of plastics and other non-biodegradable materials (Asnani 2006). Moreover, greater expectations for cleanliness and the role of senior bureaucrats contributed to governance reforms in a sector otherwise disregarded and plagued by inefficiency (Supreme 1

I would like to thank Ms Mitali Kamkhalia and M. Mahesh Reddy for their research assistance in Mumbai and Hyderabad respectively. 2 A market is contestable when entry and exit costs are low and can therefore attract competitors contrary to other markets with high entry and exit costs (the water industry, for instance).

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Court of India 1999). Further, following public interest litigation (PIL) in 1996, the Supreme Court set up a committee to look into the matters of solid waste management. It made a number of recommendations related to technical, financial, institutional, and labour aspects. The intervention of the Supreme Court is a milestone event which confirms the growing role of the judiciary in urban governance (Dupont and Ramanathan 2009). While promoting partnerships (public–private or public–civic groups), the rationalisation of public management and institutional strengthening (Supreme Court of India 1999: 54), the stand of the Court echoes the ‘good governance’ discourse but is more compelling. Its recommendations were incorporated in the Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 notified by the Ministry of Environment and Forests with which municipalities have to comply.3 The research is based on a comparative case study of Mumbai and Hyderabad. As garbage collection is a statutory responsibility of urban local bodies, it enables us to focus on decision-making processes of local governance per se.4 Research focused on governance often gives predominance to the roles of new (and visible) actors. Our observation of the range of partnerships built up by both cities (Section 1) leads us to this direction and a first set of questions (Section 2): what are the competences delegated to private operators and civil society organisations? What are the tools for negotiation and collaboration? What are the impacts in terms of civic mobilisation? Overall, what does it tell us about the nature of partnerships in India? However, the public sector remains a central actor in this multilevel governance set-up. This brings us to the second stage in our analysis, related on the one hand to the conditions for synergy among actors, a process where civil society and institutions reinforce each other to create a favourable environment for development (Evans 1996: 1034), and to the necessary evolution of the public sector on the other hand (Tendler 1997). By focusing her attention on the transformation of work within the public sector, Tendler’s approach provides a relevant framework for the study of public reform in India. Similarly, while discussing the synergy thesis applied to the production of services, the co-production notion proposed by Öström where ‘the process through 3

Compliance is not satisfactory for the whole of India (Asnani 2006). This chapter deals with waste collection but both cities gave emphasis to transport and treatment as well, especially Hyderabad. 4

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which inputs used to produce a good or a service are contributed by individuals who are not “in” the same organisation’ (1996: 1073) brings upfront the importance, for partnerships to be successful, of the ability of actors to perform their roles, to ensure commitment and to design effective incentives. Our last section will focus on those two aspects and assess what the study of garbage collection tells us about the the ability of both corporations to drive change, to respond to new demands, to devise news steering tools and regulatory mechanisms, and to include or not elected councillors in these processes. Finally, we will question the relationships between public sector reform, the increasing role of partnerships and urban fragmentation, to assess whether the shifts in urban governance steer towards equal opportunity of treatment (in a social and spatial sense) or contribute to increased disparities. The results are based on an empirical survey in three administrative wards of Mumbai and two electoral wards in Hyderabad. It is based on a mix of qualitative interviews, qualitative and quantitative surveys, direct observation and a perusal of local newsletters published by residents’ associations.

The Making of Policy: From Public Management to Collective Action Contextualising the Process of Change In both cities, external and internal constraints contribute to the build up of a crisis situation. The Supreme Court order and the Solid Waste Management Rules (2000) compel municipalities to improve service in a context of demographic growth and rise in waste generation.5 The Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai faces specific difficulties. Many roads remain unswept in the suburbs; the existing 5 Between 1991 and 2000, the increase in Mumbai’s population amounted to 20 per cent while the waste generated increased by 41 per cent between 1994 and 2001 (Rathi 2007). A similar trend is noticed in Hyderabad with an increase of garbage generated of 50 per cent between 1999 and 2005, while the population increase was around 11 per cent (author’s estimate, based on different sources).

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landfill sites are saturated; land is scarce for setting up new ones and the cost of the service rises due to transport congestion and the long distances to landfill sites. By the middle of the 1990s, the Deputy Municipal Commissioner in charge of solid waste management supported the concept of zero garbage generation in residential areas. Reduction of waste at source and door-to-door collection were expected to lessen the burden for transport and treatment. Later, the administration decided to follow the Hyderabad model of private local contracting to ensure the same level of service in the suburban wards. Finally, in slums, households used to throw their waste in drains and canals or had to carry it to community bins located outside the settlement. After experiments, where waste collection was organised with the participation of the inhabitants (Dalvi 2001), the Corporation evolved a specific scheme for slums. In Hyderabad, forces for change began to operate earlier than in Mumbai. In the beginning of the 1990s, 25–35 per cent of the garbage remained uncollected. Some areas had their garbage picked up only once a week (Galab et al. 2004). This state of affairs did not go well with the image that Chandrababu Naidu (the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh between 1995 and 2004) wanted to advertise.6 He was instrumental in encouraging a reform process that proved to be a significant and highly publicised policy of the MCH (Zérah 1999) (for a chronological sequence see Table 10.1).

New Schemes to Make Over Service Delivery Both in Hyderabad and Mumbai, there is no garbage collection tax (or fee) and the service is financed entirely through the municipal budget. Further, a freeze in recruitment constrains the expansion of work force. These two constraints are important drivers in the reform process that aim at disengaging the urban local body as well as reducing the cost of the service. The Hyderabad model for cleanliness delegates the work of sweeping and cleaning to small private contractors as well as nongovernmental organisations. In Hyderabad, some units are managed by community groups or resident’s welfare associations (RWAs).7 6

Kennedy (2006) details the role of the state government in the reform process in Hyderabad. 7 They are women’s groups located in slums and called Development of Women and Children in Urban Areas (DWUACA).

Solid Waste Management Ú 245 Table 10.1: Major Landmarks Overall (for the entire sector)

Mumbai

1993

Voluntary Garbage Disposal Scheme (VGDS)∗ Private sector for sweeping roads and waste collection∗∗

1994

1996

Public Interest Litigation (Almitra Patel and another vs Union of India)

1997

Advanced Locality Management Scheme (ALM)

1999

Supreme Court Committee

2000

Solid Waste Management Rules (2000)

2001 2002 Since 2000

2005

Hyderabad

Improvement of the private sector scheme for sweeping and waste collection: the ‘Unit System’

Slum Adoption Scheme Hyderabad Pattern Reorganisation of the work force and introduction of Officers on Special Duty Appointment of a Ward Assistant Engineer Environment

Source: Author’s survey. Note: ∗For more details, see Chapter 9. ∗∗Attempts were made to improve the system from 1994 till 1999. It evolved from contracts attributed to the lowest bidder (till 1996) to contracts on a fixed volume (till 1999). Loopholes in the two previous schemes led to the present system (Broekema 2004; Zérah 1999).

In Somajiguda, an RWA operates one unit. In the Voluntary Garbage Disposal Scheme, RWAs take up the organisation of door-to-door collection. They employ a tricycle-puller who collects the waste and they motivate households to pay for the service. In Mumbai,

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the Advanced Locality Management (ALM) Scheme was launched to replicate the residents’ group initiative (Redkar 2005). It has been accompanied by a compelling discourse for greater civic sense (Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai 2001). In residential and middle-class areas, the partnership is not institutionalised. On the contrary, the Slum Adoption Programme hands over a competence via a form of subcontracting to a CBO. These schemes demonstrate a policy convergence between Mumbai and Hyderabad. The common trend is to shift from a service managed purely by the local administration towards collective action. This process relies on various types of partnerships, a greater role given to civic and private actors as well as both formal and informal institutional arrangements. The similarity of these programmes reflects the multiplication of relationships between cities as well as the acceptance of international norms on city management. Typically, participatory programmes presuppose that communities have a certain amount of social capital, that CBOs are representatives of their members who can pay for services.8 A second common point is the predominance of the administration in policy making. The design of the schemes is a product of senior bureaucrats from the Indian Administrative Service, who have worked closely with international consultants and experts since the reform period began (Mahadevia 2003).9 Consequently, the programmes are conceived to be run, co-ordinated and monitored by the administrative machinery with very limited support from corporators. The latter are bypassed in the decision-making process. They are included in the Slum Adoption Programme in Mumbai only as a warrant to the CBOs, which implicitly recognises their knowledge of local conditions. Concerning implementation, de-concentration is stronger in Mumbai where responsibilities are devolved at the ward level (awarding of contracts and payments to the CBOs, co-ordination meetings with

8

Most participatory programmes have a positive perception of social capital as a set of relationships within communities, norms of trust and reciprocity that can be harnessed for the production of public goods. The role of different types of social capital is detailed in Woolcock and Narayan (2000) Though this synthesis underlines some issues related to social capital, it belongs to an optimistic perception of its function in economic development in the tradition of Putnam. 9 Three out of the five schemes were initiated by a bureaucrat from the Indian Administrative Service.

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the ALMs, management of the Hyderabad scheme). The Additional Municipal Commissioner who heads the ward plays an important role in his/her ward and is supported by a recently created post of Assistant Engineer Environment to improve expertise on solid waste management. Three ‘officers on special duty’ for the whole city also support the participatory schemes, two of them coming from the field of social sciences rather than being engineers. This contrasts with Hyderabad, where the line of command remains centralised with limited responsibility given to the administrative circles.10 This difference may partly be explained by the sheer size of the city. Box 1: Description of the Programmes Studied

The Hyderabad ‘Unit System’ (in Hyderabad and Mumbai) The area of the municipal corporation is divided into uniform units. Each unit comprises of 7–8 kms of roads to sweep and generates 7–8 metric tonnes of waste (9 kms in Mumbai). Each unit is composed of one sweeping unit and one garbage-lifting unit. The requirements in terms of equipment and staff are established by the Municipality. The cost per unit is calculated by the municipal corporation based on the salaries and the cost of equipment. The contract stipulates a fixed profit margin (of 8.5 per cent) and is of short-term duration. Contracts are awarded through a lottery system. In Hyderabad, 70 per cent of the city is covered under this scheme with 166 contracts renewed every seven months. In Mumbai, the scheme is implemented in the suburbs. Another scheme ‘Manning and Mopping’, deals with the main roads. It is also characterised by short-term contracts and rigid specifications.

The Voluntary Garbage Disposal Scheme (VGDS, in Hyderabad) This scheme encourages door-to-door collection and a reduction of community bins. In any colony, an RWA can apply to the municipal corporation (a simple set of documents is required) to start a VGDS. The corporation provides a tricycle free of cost and the association has to employ a rickshaw-puller. Payment for the service varies from Rs 10–20 and is paid monthly by each house in the area. The scheme is uniformly applicable in the city. 10 The Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad is administratively organised into seven circles as compared to the 24 administrative wards of Mumbai.

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The Slum Adoption Programme (in Mumbai) This programme aims at ensuring waste collection within the slums as well as its proper disposal. The focus is on public participation. Communities, represented by CBOs, take charge of the implementation of the scheme with limited support from the municipal corporation. Each Slum Adoption Programme is managed by a CBO for 200 families (around 1,000 households). A supportive grant is provided to the CBO for three years. The amount of the grant is reduced over time till such time that the CBO can fund itself through monthly payments received from the residents (Rs 10 per month). Any CBO can apply for this scheme, provided it satisfies certain requirements (conducting a survey of the area, previous experience and registration documents). It is expected to employ members from the community. Administrative responsibilities (interaction with the CBO, evaluation, release of the subsidy) are devolved at the ward level (for details, see Desai and De Wit 2006).

The ALM Programme (in Mumbai) ALM units are micro-level associations representing one building or a group of buildings, covering one or two lanes. They are registered and given a number but not with the Charity Commissioner, the legal authority responsible for trusts or charitable organisations. This type of registration neither gives them a legal status, nor does it entitle them to any obligations. The funding of ALM programmes differs from one unit to another. They either charge a monthly fee from their members or depend on donations (Table 10.2). In general, a few active members manage the ALMs and commit to organise door-to-door garbage collection, to separate the waste and compost biodegradable waste. In return, the ALMs’ complaints are considered on a priority basis by the administration. Currently there are 648 ALM units but only 150 of them are active (for details, see Nainan and Baud 2009; Zérah 2007b).

Assessing the Actual Processes and Outcomes A Relative Improvement in Service Provision Since the 1990s, household garbage collection has improved, partly due to previous neglect and today’s active policies. Hyderabad won the Clean City Awards of HUDCO (Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited) six times in a row and it is

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often presented as a case of ‘best practice’.11 Indeed, in quantitative terms, 70 per cent of the road cleaning is handled by the private sector without any serious opposition (Broekema 2004).12 However, people do not really know who is in charge of the cleaning and sweeping of the roads (Table 10.3), confirming our hypothesis of the continued centrality of the public sector. As per official figures, voluntary garbage disposal is growing. Around 70 per cent of the households interviewed believe that both schemes operate reasonably well and the level of discontent therefore is low (Tables 10.4 and 10.4). Further, as compared to 10 years ago, the overall picture in Hyderabad is rosy: 63 per cent of the households find their roads much cleaner and 75 per cent observe an improvement in garbage collection. Nevertheless, discrepancies are significant between Somajiguda and Sultan Shahi. In Sultan Shahi, the survey shows that cleaning is satisfactory mostly on the main roads while about 50 per cent claim that inside roads and their own streets are never cleaned (as compared to 70 per cent of Somajiguda residents having their neighbourhood streets cleaned everyday). A similar difference in service is noticeable regarding waste disposal. The satisfaction level is lower in Sultan Shahi despite service improvement. Inhouse collection is also a less popular practise. Two (interrelated) reasons account for these disparities. In Somajiguda, the unit has been run by an organised RWA for a few years. This situation suits the municipality, who renew their contract every seven months. Second, this ward is a highly visible area and posh residential areas are usually better supervised and monitored (Zérah 1999). In Mumbai, official figures point to a rise in the number of programmes but these are considered unreliable. The ‘Hyderabad pattern’ has been extended to all suburban wards. When the Slum Adoption Programme began in 2001, 87 slum pockets were included, representing 1 million slum-dwellers and in 2006, the official figure rose to 961 slums pockets representing 4.5 million people.13 As Redkar (2005) notes, previously many settlements had no service and 11

HUDCO is an owned enterprise of the Government of India in charge of financing housing and urban infrastructure projects. 12 Opposition was strong at the beginning of the scheme. However, the Municipal Corporation, with continuous support from the Chief Minister, negotiated with the trade unions but did not go back on its decision. 13 These figures, produced by the Corporation, are updated in www.karma yog.com. Though, various estimates co-exist for both schemes.

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the Slum Adoption Programme is a definite step forward. Despite wide variations among slums and within slums, this is confirmed by our field observations as well as those of Desai and De Wit (2006). Regarding residential areas, from 1997, the number of ALM units grew steadily to reach its peak in 2000. In 2006, the estimate was of 648 ALM units but, as mentioned earlier, the active ones are roughly number 150. Further, the scheme does not exist in all wards. Most of the ALM members interviewed perceive a positive change in their local surroundings but this reflects the active presence of ALMs in only one of the wards studied, K west, a localised phenomenon to which we shall return later. Otherwise, in terms of solid waste management K west is ranked as the worst performing ward by Praja, a voluntary organisation conducting regular surveys on (and on behalf of) the corporation. Regarding solid waste management, the satisfaction level is below 50 per cent and this sector represents 13 per cent of the overall complaints to the corporation, indicating that Mumbai is far from being provided with adequate services.14

Privatisation: A Stopgap Policy to Expand Services and Workforce at Low Cost A scrutiny of contractual conditions and the implementation of privatisation demonstrates that it is primarily conceived as a tool to expand the workforce cheaply. First, in Hyderabad, despite service improvement, Broekema (2004) suggests there has been a decline in productivity and efficiency, as private contractors use poorly performing and manually operated equipment and have no access to transfer stations. The working conditions of private employees mostly explain the reduction in the operating costs of each unit, as labourers are paid three times less than municipal employees and are denied various benefits by their employers.15 Despite this contrast with municipal employees, private labourers are getting better opportunities and greater security than in their previous employment (ibid.). The unit system works reasonably well 14 Praja claims that the sample of households interviewed is by and large representative of the city’s socio-economic structure. 15 The Employee State Insurance (ESI) and the Provident Fund (PF). The contract stipulates rules regarding labour but municipal supervisors are more concerned with service efficiency than compliance with labour rules.

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thanks to continuous monitoring. The ‘Clean Hyderabad’ image forces municipal employees, under pressure from the Municipal Commissioner, to ensure that quality work is done by private contractors. In addition, private companies are owned by small-time contractors from neighbouring villages, who are dependent on those contracts to earn a living. Second, barring similar issues regarding labour, in Mumbai the picture is slightly different and blurred as public records (on contractors and the cost of operation) are not transparent. In S ward, the list of private contractors was erroneous and the only contractor identified was in fact replacing an acquaintance. In K west, only after one influential contractor gave us some information could we interview the others. This highlights the importance of informal networks, which are of various types. As the profit margin is small, bigger contractors operate this scheme as a service to the administration ‘only to keep their names in the market’, aiming at larger contracts and asserting their position in Mumbai’s contracting system.16 Some other contractors, closer to the situation in Hyderabad, are satisfied with the small profit margins. Often, they base their operations in one ward and run both the unit system and the Slum Adoption Scheme (F-North). The monitoring mechanism is decentralised and depends on the nature of the relationship between the junior engineers and the contractors. It leaves space for ‘little arrangements between friends’, depending on the control over the ward machinery of the Additional Municipal Commissioner. Third, in both cities, the role of the councillor is marginal. It is limited to broad supervision and in some cases to the request of a ‘donation’ for the party. Thus, despite claims of greater efficiency, privatisation ends up reproducing the previous forms of public contracting. The rigid specifications and short-term nature of the contract is not meant to harness the potential of private operators who have little incentive to perform but to reduce the cost of operation. Therefore, it attracts contractors who are able to manage pool of labours through their social networks but it is not a mechanism to enhance productivity or technological efficiency.

16

According to our interviews, and confirmed by other sources, four big companies, with a chain of subcontractors, are awarded most of the very large tenders of the corporation.

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Fictive Participation in Low-income Neighbourhoods Unsurprisingly, it is in poor areas that the Corporator is seen as having a significant role. In Mumbai’s Slum Adoption Programme, the Corporator provides informal support to the CBOs to get and implement contracts. They vouch for the CBOs led by members of their party or with whom they have a working relation. Typically, community leaders are involved in community activities, have some political affiliation or maintain a cordial relationship with political leaders. In some extreme cases, the Councillor literally adopts the slum and runs the scheme in the name of a CBO (‘Yes, I know about Slum Adoption Programme, I manage them’).17 In Hyderabad, the situation differs because the VGDS has little financial stake and Councillors have limited power. Nevertheless a rapid perusal of the VGDS applications showed that roughly 50 per cent of them were made on the letterhead of the Corporator. It is one of the rare areas of municipal councillors’ intervention in Hyderabad. Second, Desai and De Wit (2006) highlight that junior engineers are also instrumental in helping CBOs file their applications since community leaders often have previous interactions with the ward administration. This situation creates a nexus between the Corporator, the CBO and the lower echelons of the administration that results in ad hocism in the evaluation process (ibid.). The Corporator can support CBOs or demonstrate its power of nuisance. S/he can influence the blacklisting of the CBOs she opposes, or with whom s/he may have had a fall out (if a community leader changes his/her political allegiance), even after a first positive evaluation. This further undermines the process of monitoring, that has not been properly carried out because of work overload. Further, a complex chain of kickbacks is created through a system of fake fines and delayed payments to the CBOs by the ward administration (also partly explained by late fund disbursement by the headquarters). CBOs need to pay some money to speed up the process.18 Nevertheless, despite the limited financial participation of the households (roughly 30 per cent, according to Desai and De Wit 2006), most CBO leaders openly use the Slum Adoption Programme as a profit-making venture. 17

Interview conducted in S ward in February 2006. Up to a significant percentage of the money granted to the CBO in some cases. 18

Solid Waste Management Ú 253

This apparent paradox is explained by the managerial dimension of the Slum Adoption Programme. It is another form of subcontracting that is given to CBOs based on a flexible but poorly paid and badly-equipped labour force. Bhide (2006) argues convincingly that the programme cuts employed labour and creates a cartel of large CBOs, which in due course of time sideline smaller organisations. It offers strong resonance with the private contractor scheme. Indeed in some wards, the same persons operate both schemes, relying on a pool of workers whom they allocate to different sites. Finally, the claim (as explicited in the programme’s brochure) of greater participation and micro-employment is defeated. Except for a few examples, there is no substantial process of participation.19 CBOs are not representative because the households are not informed of the schemes. They have no say in the decision-making process (field work; Desai and De Wit 2006; Bhide 2006). In a similar manner, in the Sultan Shahi ward of Hyderabad, we found no trace of any VGDS scheme. Door-to-door collection is done by rickshaw-pullers with no links to a community organisation (Table 10.5).20 The Slum Adoption Programme also demonstrates that de-concentration is not intrinsically positive. The management of the Slum Adoption Programme at the ward level has in fact sustained clientelisation and a rent-seeking form of privatisation, characteristic of service delivery mechanisms in poor settlements (Devaranjan and Shah 2004). Vertical political patronage remains the main resort for weaker sections of the population or weaker individuals, as demonstrated for Delhi by Harriss (2005).

Mobilisation and Elite Capture in the Residential Areas Is the process different in residential areas where RWAs are involved in solid waste management activities? In Hyderabad, the Somajiguda RWA demonstrates a successful case of co-production. The service produced is of good quality, a relationship of confidence exists with the administration (good evaluation and regular renewal of contract) and it is a stable, financially viable organisation that employs the same workers for years. In Mumbai, ALMs are a result of Corporation support (34 per cent) and of specific problems, often related to cleanliness (42 per cent) (Table 10.6). Though this was 19

We came accross one or two such schemes. Some interviews indicated that 50 per cent of the rickshaw-pullers are handled by private persons. 20

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their primary objective, less than 50 per cent of the ALMs continue with garbage segregation and their numbers have declined in the last few years. This failure (from the Corporation’s perspective) is partly explained by lack of administrative co-operation, lack of incentives and difficulty to mobilise citizens on a long term. Once a specific objective is achieved, some ALMs becomes defunct. However, in wards where the ALM scheme is functional, active members use their bargaining power and exert continuous pressure on the administration. Monthly ward meetings constitute the main platform to discuss local issues. Meetings on local issues can be painstaking but repeated interactions have positive outcomes. Some leaders emerge, who play a co-ordinating role among the ALMs. They act as mediators during the monthly meetings (setting a clear agenda, classifying issues, demonstrating a constructive attitude towards the officers). Further, beyond their role of a watchdog, ALM members display specific expertise and knowledge. Counter expertise probe the traditional attitudes of municipal employees. Finally, monthly meetings compel municipal employees to be more responsive to the citizen’s concerns. In both cities, this ability to establish interpersonal relationships results from the social proximity between representatives of those groups and the administration. Members of residents groups are over-endowed with political resources such as time, money, contacts as well as oratory competency. In Hyderabad, for instance, a memorandum of understanding is under discussion with the administration to delegate further responsibilities to the RWAs. Consequently, ALMs in Mumbai and RWAs in Hyderabad prefer to bypass corporators and to that extent their relationships with the elected councillors are limited or conflictual. In Mumbai, where corporators are more powerful and therefore known to the ALMs, most conflicts relate to the removal of hawkers and illegal construction. ALM networks rely on public interest litigation to exert a form of control over urban space. To be effective on these city-scale issues, both in Hyderabad and in Mumbai, resident groups have built horizontal links with other prominent NGOs that deal with issues such as civic governance, preservation of green spaces and, more recently, political reform. Of late these groups, very critical towards local politicians, have started to engage with the more political dimensions of governance. In Mumbai, ALM groups devised different strategies to mobilise voters. In one electoral ward of K-west, the ALM federation put up an independent candidate who was elected (Zérah 2007b). In Hyderabad, the federation of

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RWAs is contemplating strategies to influence municipal elections, confirming the observation that the exchange of experiences between cities is on the rise (Zérah 2007a). However, in both cities, these groups are mobilised only in the more affluent areas and still represent only a localised phenomenon. Nevertheless, they benefit from high visibility due to their proximity to the administration and positive press coverage in the English media. This suggests that a share of the affluent classes is able to harness a strategic position in the new forms of urban governance, which can lead to a process of elite capture.

The Changing and Abiding Features of Municipal Government The first and most important question relates to the relationship between administrative centralisation and changes in public sector reform. Decision-making processes in municipal corporations remain highly centralised, even though some form of de-concentration is underway. Classically, ward-level engineers have no authority to disburse any funds, most important decisions are taken at the headquarter level and for implementation there is a strong reliance on the heads of each department (especially in Hyderabad). At this point of time, there are a number of ways in which this affects public sector performance. First, in the existing system, the ward’s administrative capacity depends essentially on the leadership qualities of the Assistant Municipal Commissioner (Pinto and Pinto 2005) and its equation with elected councillors. This is not conducive to stability, bearing in mind the high turnover in managerial postings. Second, it reinforces the importance of the elite in the bureaucracy. Little focus is given to the lower echelons of the hierarchy who, with the exception of support from the officers on special duty, get no training, be it technical or related to issues such as participation and monitoring. Studying government reform in Brazil, Tendler (1997: 137) emphasises the importance of ‘choseness’ (employees understand that they were chosen specifically for this job and therefore have a special responsibility) among municipal employees in increasing work performance. This is also related to the role of meritocracy (ibid.: 26–29) and job enlargement (ibid.: 138–39), where workers are given incentives and the flexibility to think beyond their assigned tasks, and extend their responsibilities, which is also a tool to build confidence with users in the long run. In a sector such as garbage collection, which is already disregarded and where

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the working conditions of sweepers and scavengers are abysmally low, this is an uphill task. Nevertheless, a number of supervisory inspectors raised issues of demotivation, linked to their inability to get promoted. This highlights the lack of importance given in Mumbai and Hyderabad to this aspect of implementing new programmes and partnerships (with the exception of the water board in Hyderabad, Davis 2004). Third, we argue that this forgotten aspect of governance reform leads to weaknesses in the processes engaged, mainly on two dimensions: co-ordination and regulation. Two examples illustrate these problems. Monitoring is based on site visits and checks without any referral framework for assessment, and the insufficient level of expertise and motivation limits the expertise of lower-ranked engineers to evaluate these non-traditional schemes. It is done either in a routine manner (Hyderabad) or as an ad-hoc process (Mumbai). Co-ordination would require some initiative to reorganise wardlevel operations. However, no incentives are provided to municipal employees who do not adapt to new situations. For instance, in the Slum Adoption Programme, the pick-up of dustbins is not coordinated with the CBOs, undermining the efforts taken inside the slums while there is a demonstrated proximity between councillors and engineers that could lead to an improved situation. A second key issue concerns the transformation of relationships between public servants, the end users of services and the corporators. First of all, there is no co-production in poor areas. On the contrary, we have demonstrated that these community-based schemes have maintained a process of clientelisation. On the other hand, in residential areas, ‘co-production’ has enabled a number of RWAs to engage with bureaucratic decision-making processes. However, resident associations, who are not really in a position to co-produce a public good, claim to co-produce decisions and to be treated as equals with the administration. In reality, they contribute to the shift from something being a public good to a club good, available to those members of that community who are able to pay for it. Thus, problems of the elite capture of participatory processes is a trend common to both Mumbai and Hyderabad, and is in fact being reinforced. Third, councillors have not yet found a clear space in the transforming governance of Indian cities, which implies complex questions related to democratisation, beyond the simple analysis of the impact of decentralisation and the role of councillors. Literature on urban local bodies in India highlights two models of local government (Pinto 2000): the Kolkata model where

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the mayor holds significant powers, and the commissioner system with most powers in the hands of the municipal commissioner and the executive. Hyderabad is a clear case of the marginalisation of councillors that is rooted in the history of local government and that characterises the limits of the decentralisation amendment (see Chapter 3). In Mumbai, which for a long time maintained a vibrant civic political life, the situation is more ambivalent as the executive needs to accommodate the elected councillors. This is reflected in the daily running of the Mumbai Corporation, at least as we observed it at the ward level. At the city level, corporators do not discuss their ability to influence budget and policy decisions. They maintain that a budget can be approved only once the local assembly votes on it, which gives them little say on decisions already made by the administration. At the ward level, councillors see their allotted funds as insufficient but they believe the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) has given them more power. Their notion of power is mostly related to the ability to ‘get things done’ at the level of their wards: ‘Just to rule is not power. If a councillor is raising his point and the officer does it, this is also power.’21 Another councillor boasted of his ability to get many more funds allotted to his ward than a Member of Parliament (MP) or a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) can mobilise. Although this local power can derive from the status of elected councillors, it often depends on other factors.22 The ambivalent and fluctuating relationships between the administration and the councillors are reflected in the processes of the garbagecollection schemes. Many municipal employees highlighted the vested interests generated by the Slum Adoption Programme while others underlined the weekly inspection carried out by councillors along with the administration and the local knowledge of corporators. The administration is used to interact with the councillors on a regular basis. Though often unhealthy, this proximity between corporators and the administration could be harnessed positively in Mumbai. A third and final question related to shifts in urban governance concerns the ability to reduce social and spatial disparities. Our study of the different wards revealed different patterns of collective action, depending on the administration’s responsiveness, the voice of citizen’s groups and the socio-economic composition of the ward population. In Mumbai, in the F-north ward, the balance of 21

Interview carried out in November 2005. Among them, powerful landlord status, position in the party, socioeconomic status, links with powerful lobbies. 22

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power between the head of the administration and the councillors favours the former in a traditional manner, where he also does not encourage innovative forms of service production (Table 10.7). In the K-west ward, resident groups are sufficiently mobilised to ensure a more accountable mode of functioning. In the poorer S-ward, clientelisation and patronage vis-à-vis users as well as private contractors dominate. In addition to these disparities, the level of expertise and means provided (computer systems, and a supporting staff, for instance) are better in the richer wards than others. Similar discrepancies can be seen in Hyderabad, between the middle-class ward of Somajiguda and the Old City area of Sultan Shahi. In both cities, the administration is more responsive (postings of better officers in Mumbai, granting of contracts in Hyderabad, the degree of co-operation with users) in middle-class areas, where RWAs want at minima to be involved in the process of decision making. These variations and evolutions are of importance, especially at a time when public action is shifting towards differentiated service-delivery mechanisms. Jaglin (2005) theorises the ambiguity of this spatial reengineering aspect of governance, which on the one hand can hold a fertile promise of accommodating, up to a point, the diverse demands of urban citizens, and on the other hand, can lead to the unequal treatment of users, elite capture of public services and increased complexity to govern. Our analysis of the last 10 years of evolution in the service delivery mechanisms for household garbage collection indicates conflicting trends. If there is an attempt to catch up in the Mumbai suburbs, the better-off suburbs seem to be reaping most of the benefits of the new schemes. In Hyderabad, the Old City lives on its legacy without any enhancement of service levels while the main focus is on new and middle-class areas. It indicates a need to seriously look at the evolving forms of social and spatial disparities.

Conclusion To conclude, a first remark on service outcomes is that under pressure from the Supreme Court, central government policies and local constraints, a reform process did take place in household garbage collection. Nevertheless, there are many deficiencies that still need to be addressed. Further, integration with the rest of the solid waste management chain remains an important missing link. Second, new policies have redistributed roles and responsibil-ities as prescribed by the ‘good governance’ agenda, evolving schemes

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which include private actors and people’s participation. However, the actual implementation of these programmes portrays unexpected outcomes and a reality away from the designed schemes, especially with the emergence of new power relationships as well as the maintaining of others. On the one hand, participation has led to processes being differentiated according to the group’s socioeconomic identity. In slums, it is almost completely devoid of its meaning and participation even seems, at least in the case of Mumbai, as a blurred form of private subcontracting. On the contrary, civic organisations representing the interests of residential areas, especially affluent colonies, have harnessed strong benefits from the new competences and roles they were offered and took advantage of the imperative of transparency and accountability to have their demands met. In Mumbai, they have taken further their action into the political realm and play a role in the renewal of local democracy. Finally, the tool of private sector participation is not being used to its potential. This confirms that the shift in the governance of the corporations towards partnerships is rather the result of a choice under constraint than a strategic shift that is demanding in terms of their own reorganisation. A third conclusion relates to the public sector machinery. It seems to have been rather weak in transforming itself. Hyderabad has performed better in ensuring smooth functioning of the sector as compared to Mumbai, which indicates that the relationship between effective control and decentralisation is not a straightforward one. The issue is rather the balance between both levels of action in order to favour greater efficiency and reduce the rent-seeking programmes that seem to be characteristic of Mumbai governance. The impact of political decentralisation is the fourth important outcome. Despite the constitutional amendment, and in Mumbai, a history of local government, corporators are sidelined by the administrative machinery. In Hyderabad, their say in decisions regarding solid waste management is only anecdotic. This is not the same situation as in Mumbai but their role is mostly contained within the local scale of their wards, even though this is where the renewal of political life takes place. Finally, in both cities, spatial differences seem to be a constant feature and the process of the new forms of governance seem to favour areas where residents are able to monitor and take control of new programmes. These are mainly the traditionally well-off parts of the city and areas inhabited by a vocal, new middle class.

Network with other NGOs None With other ALM With the resident federation With AGNI With two associations More than two Total

Number of ALMs Is the ALM registered? No Yes Total Reason for forming an ALM A specific problem to solve Promoted by the BMC Examples of other ALMs Read in the paper Specific event Promoted by AGNI Total

Annexure

75.0 100.0

3 4

100.0

4

25.0

75.0 25.0

3 1

1

7.7 7.7 15.4

50.0 50.0 100.0

2 2 4

11.5 15.4

3.8

15.4

11.5 3.8

3.8

2 2 2 9 2 4 21

7 8 2 1 1 2 21

21 21

21

Count

9.5 9.5 9.5 42.9 9.5 19.0 100.0

33.3 38.1 9.5 4.8 4.8 9.5 100.0

100.0 100.0

Column (%)

Table (%)

Column (%)

4

Count

K-West

F-North

7.7 7.7 7.7 34.6 7.7 15.4 80.8

26.9 30.8 7.7 3.8 3.8 7.7 80.8

80.8 80.8

80.8

Table (%)

1 1

1

1

1

1

1

Count

Table 10.2: Characteristics and Activities of the ALMs

100.0 100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Column (%)

S

3.8 3.8

3.8

3.8

3.8

3.8

3.8

Table (%)

2 2 2 10 2 8 26

11 9 2 1 1 2 26

3 23 26

26

Count

7.7 7.7 7.7 38.5 7.7 30.8 100.0

42.3 34.6 7.7 3.8 3.8 7.7 100.0

11.5 88.5 100.0

100.0

Column (%)

Total

Source: Author’s survey (2006).

Funding for ALM activity Sources of active members Funds collected from each member House tax + ALM levy Newsletter/Advertisements Subscription for festivals No funding Total

Segregation of waste No Yes Abandoned Total

25.0

75.0

100.0

3

4

25.0 25.0 50.0 100.0

1

1 1 2 4

15.4

.111

3.8

3.8 3.8 7.7 15.4

100.0

4.8 4.8

1 1

21

28.6 61.9

42.9 47.6 9.5 100.0

6 13

9 10 2 21

80.8

3.8 3.8

23.1 50.0

34.6 38.5 7.7 80.8

100.0 100.0

100.0

1

1 1

100.0

1

3.8 3.8

3.8

3.8

1 26

1 4

6 14

10 12 4 26

3.8 100.0

3.8 15.3

23.1 53.8

38.5 46.2 15.4 100.0

Is sweeping on your own street done?

Is sweeping on the inside streets done?

Is sweeping on the main roads done?

Who is in charge of street cleaning?

37 3 2 1 30 2

Every alternate day Rarely Never Everyday

Every alternate day

66.7

33.3 15.4 3.4 71.4

72.5

20.0 12.5

38.9 51.3

7 41 1 1

40.0

44.8

4.7

7.0 4.7 2.3 69.8

86.0

2.3 2.3

16.3 95.3

14.0

69.8

1

6 11 28 12

4 7 9 14

9 2 11 39

37

Count

33.3

66.7 84.6 96.6 28.6

80.0 87.5 100.0 27.5

60.0 100.0 61.1 48.8

55.2

1.7

10.2 18.6 47.5 20.3

6.8 11.9 15.3 23.7

15.3 3.4 18.6 66.1

62.7

Column (%)

Row (%)

Column (%)

Row (%)

6

30

Every alternate day Rarely Never Everyday

Private Contractor Nobody is sweeping Do not know Everyday

Municipal Corporation

Count

Sultan Shahi

Somajiguda

Ward

Table 10.3: Cleaning and Sweeping of Roads in Hyderabad

3

9 13 29 42

5 8 9 51

15 2 18 80

67

Count

2.9

8.8 12.7 28.4 41.2

4.9 7.8 8.8 50.0

14.7 2.0 17.6 78.4

65.7

Column (%)

Total

262 Ú ZÉRAH

Source: Author’s survey (2006).

Do not know

18

Aware about Neighbourhood Committee

14.3

25

Aware about the RWA

2

Knowledge about associations in their own area

8.7

2

Same Worse Do not know

30.5

59.5

60.9

39

Much better

64.6 42.9 10.0 8.7

Comparison with ten years ago?

31 9 1 2

6.3 24.4

Very Reasonably Not very much Do not know

1 10

Are you satisfied?

Rarely Never

41.9

58.1

4.7

4.7

90.7

72.1 20.9 2.3 4.7

2.3 23.3

13

1 41

17

21 1 12

25

17 12 9 21

15 31

100.0

100.0 69.5

40.5

91.3 100.0 85.7

39.1

35.4 57.1 90.0 91.3

93.8 75.6

22.0

1.7 69.5

28.8

35.6 1.7 20.3

42.4

28.8 20.3 15.3 35.6

25.4 52.5

13

1 59

42

23 1 14

64

48 21 10 23

16 41

12.7

1.0 57.8

41.2

22.5 1.0 13.7

62.7

47.1 20.6 9.8 22.5

15.7 40.2

Solid Waste Management Ú 263

Same Worse Do not know

2 1

40 1 1 38 2 1 1 40

Yes, and we pay regularly Yes, but we pay irregularly Yes, but we do not pay Yes Reasonably well No Do not know Much better 16.7 100.0

46.5 50.0 100.0 64.4 13.3 5.3 12.5 52.6

25.0

16.7

2

1

37.5 18.2 80.0 40.8

4.7 2.3

93.0 2.3 2.3 90.5 4.8 2.4 2.4 93.0

2.3

4.7

7.0 4.7 37.2 46.5

83.3 100.0

13

35.6 86.7 94.7 87.5 47.4 10

21 13 18 7 36

53.5 50.0

100.0 75.0

2 3 46 1

83.3

62.5 81.8 20.0 59.2

10

5 9 4 29

Count

22.0

16.9

35.6 22.0 30.5 11.9 61.0

92.0 2.0

3.4 6.0

16.9

8.5 15.3 6.8 49.2

Column (%)

Row (%)

Column (%)

Row (%)

3 2 16 20

Thrown outside Thrown in community bin In-house collection Collection by rickshaw-puller Rickshaw-puller + Outside/Community Bin Outside + Community bin No

Source: Author’s survey (2006).

Comparison with ten years ago

Are you satisfied?

Do you pay for garbage collection?

Mode of waste disposal

Count

Sultan Shahi

Somajiguda

Ward

Table 10.4: Waste Disposal in Hyderabad

12 1 13

86 2 1 59 15 19 8 76

2 4

12

8 11 20 49

Count

11.8 1.0 12.7

92.5 2.2 1.1 58.4 14.9 18.8 7.9 74.5

2.0 4.3

11.8

7.8 10.8 19.6 48.0

Column (%)

Total

Solid Waste Management Ú 265 Table 10.5: Basic Information on Research Methodology Mumbai

Hyderabad

Number of 3 wards studied Type of wards Administrative Wards studied z Survey of the ALMs∗ Methodology z Qualitative analysis of selected Slum Adoption Programme∗∗ schemes z Survey of private contractors∗∗∗ z Qualitative interviews

2 Electoral Wards z z z

z

Name of the wards studied Population in each ward Location of the ward

F-North

K-West

S

524,393

700,680

691,227

Island City

Western Suburb

Eastern Suburb

Household survey+ Survey of private sector schemes++ Qualitative analysis of voluntary garbage disposal scheme Qualitative interviews+++

Somajiguda

Sultan Shahi

≈ 34,000++++ ≈ 34,000++++ New City

Old City

Source: Author’s survey (2006). Notes: ∗ The survey of ALMs is based on a structured questionnaire that was administered. In the three wards studied in this paper, 27 ALMs were chosen. To consolidate the results 13 ALMs were interviewed in two other wards but are not analysed here. ∗∗ Based on an analysis of six case studies. ∗∗∗ The survey was based on a structured questionnaire administered to seven contractors. Access to the list of private contractors in one of the wards was not possible. + Among 102 households. ++ All contractors were interviewed in both wards. +++ Around 30 in Mumbai and 12 in Hyderabad. ++++ There is no exact data on the number of people per electoral ward. The figure of 34,000 is an average of the total population divided by the number of electoral wards.

Yes 59 7 Stopped Used to be maintained by the ward administration Yes Yes 16 316,850

F-North

Source: Author’s survey (2006). Note: ∗ Data as beginning of January 2006, provided by the municipal corporation. ∗∗ http://www.karmayog.com/cleanliness/almreport.htm

Local newsletters Organisation of events Number of slums covered by Slum Adoption Programme∗ Population covered∗

Assistant Engineer Environment Official number of ALMs∗∗ Official number of active ALMs Holding of monthly meeting Minutes

K-West

S

Yes Yes 63 32 35 1 Yes No Yes – Maintained by the No ALM coordinator Yes No Yes No 75 123 176,000 400,000

Table 10.6: Elements of ALM and the Slum Adoption Programme

266 Ú ZÉRAH

4 4

2 2 4

Evolution of clealiness (over 10 years) Same Improved Total

Source: Author’s survey (2006).

100.0

4

Do you know the corporator? No Yes Total

50.0 50.0 100.0

100.0 100.0

100.0

4

7.7 7.7 15.4

15.4 15.4

15.4

15.4

1 20 21

3 18 21

2 16 2 1 21

Count

4.8 95.2 100.0

14.3 85.7 100.0

9.5 76.2 9.5 4.8 100.0

Column (%)

Table (%)

Column (%)

Role of the ward head Not effective Partially effective Very effective Do not know Total

Count

K-West

F-North

3.8 76.9 80.8

11.5 69.2 80.8

7.7 61.5 7.7 3.8 80.8

Table (%)

1 1

1 1

1

1

Count

100.0 100.0

100.0 100.0

100.0

100.0

Column (%)

S

3.8 3.8

3.8 3.8

3.8

3.8

Table (%)

Table 10.7: ALMs’ Level of Satisfaction and Interaction with the Administration and the Corporators

3 23 26

3 23 26

6 17 2 1 26

Count

11.5 88.5 100.0

11.5 88.5 100.0

23.1 65.4 7.7 3.8 100.0

Column (%)

Total

268 Ú ZÉRAH

References Anand, P.B. 1999. Waste Management in Madras Revisited. Environment and Urbanization 11(2): 161–76. Asnani, P.U. 2006. Solid Waste Management, in A. Rastogi (ed.), India Infrastructure Report 2006: Urban Infrastructure. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Baud, I., J. Post and C. Furedy, eds. 2004. Solid Waste Management and Recycling: Actors, Partnerships and Policies in Hyderabad, India and Nairobi, Kenya. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Broekema, J. 2004. Trial and Error in Privatisation: The Case of Hyderabad’s Solid Waste, in I. Baud, J. Post and C. Furedy (eds), Solid Waste Management and Recycling: Actors, Partnerships and Policies in Hyderabad, India and Nairobi, Kenya. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Dalvi, S. 2001. A movement in the slum by the people, for the people, to the people. Personal note, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. Davis, J. 2004. Corruption in Public Service Delivery: Experience from South Asia’s Water and Sanitation Sector. World Development 32(1): 53–71. Desai, P. and J. De Wit. 2006. Slum Adoption Program — SAP in Mumbai — An analysis paper presented at the IDPAD Seminar on ‘New Forms of Urban Governance in Indian Mega-Cities’, 10–11 January, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Devaranjan, S. and S. Shah. 2004. Making Services Work for India’s Poor. Economic and Political Weekly 39(9): 907–19. Dupont, V. and U. Ramanathan. Forthcoming. The Courts and the Squatter Settlements in Delhi — or the Intervention of the Judiciary in Urban Governance, in I. Baud and J. de Wit (eds), New Forms of Urban Governance in India. Shifts, Models, Networks, and Contestations. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Evans, P. 1996. Introduction: Development Strategies across the PublicPrivate Divide. World Development 24(6): 1033–37. Galab, S., S. Sudhakar Reddy, et al. 2004. Collection, Transportation and Disposal of Urban Solid Waste in Hyderabad, in I. Baud, J. Post and C. Furedy (eds), Solid Waste Management and Recycling: Actors, Partnerships and Policies in Hyderabad, India and Nairobi, Kenya. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Harriss, J. 2005. Political Participation, Representation and the Urban Poor, Findings from Research in Delhi. Economic and Political Weekly 40(11): 1041–54. Jaglin, S. 2005. Services d’eau en Afrique Subsaharienne. La fragmentation urbaine en question. Paris: CNRS Editions. Kennedy, L. 2006. Decentralisation and Urban Governance in Hyderabad: Assessing the role of different actors in the city. Gaps Working Paper, Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. Mahadevia, D. 2003. Urban Reforms and Impacts, in D. Mahadevia (ed.), Globalisation Urban Reforms and Metropolitan Response: India. New Delhi: Manak Publication Pvt. Ltd.

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Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. 2001. Charter of good governance, MCGM’s initiatives towards a better Mumbai. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai 2009. Nainan, N. and I. Baud. 2009. ‘Negotiating for Participation: Decentralization and NGOs in Mumbai, India’, in I. Baud and J. De Wit (eds), New Forms of Urban Governance in India. shifts, Models, Networks and Contestatious. Shifts in Urban Governance in India’s Mega-Cities. New Delhi: Sage Publications. National Institute of Urban Affairs. 1999. Solid Waste Management: Improvment Initiatives in Selected Cities of India. Research Study Series 75, National Institute of Urban Affairs, Delhi. Oström, E. 1996. Crossing the Great Divide : Coproduction, Synergy and Development. World Development 24(6): 1073–97. Pinto, D.A. and M. Pinto. 2005. Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai and Ward Administration. New Delhi: Konark Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Pinto, M. 2000. Metropolitan City Governance in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Putnam, R.D. 1995. Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy 6 (1), January: 65–78. Rathi, S. 2007. Optimization Model for Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management in Mumbai, India. Environment and Development Economics 12(1): 105–21. Redkar, S. 2005. New Management Tools for the Solid Waste of Mumbai: Some Concerns. Paper presented at the IDPAD Seminar on ‘New Forms of Urban Governance in Indian Mega-Cities’. 10–11 January, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Srinivasan, K. 2006. Public, Private and Voluntary Agencies in Solid Waste Management: A Study in Chennai City. Economic and Political Weekly 41(22): 2259–75. Supreme Court of India. 1999. Solid Waste Management in Class I cities in India, Report of the Committee constituted by the Hon. Supreme Court of India. New Delhi: Supreme Court of India. Tendler, J. 1997. Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Water and Sanitation Program. 2006. Solid Waste Management Initiatives in Small Towns: Lessons and Implications. New Delhi: Water and Sanitation Program-South Asia. Woolcock, M. and D. Narayan 2000. Social Capital: Implications for Development Theory, Research and Policy. The World Bank Research Observer 15(2): 225–49. Zérah, M.-H. 1999. Report on the Documentation of Innovative Contracting Procedures in Hyderabad. New Delhi: Water and Sanitation Program, The World Bank. ———. 2007a. Le rôle des associations de résidants dans la gestion des services urbains à Hyderabad. ———. 2007b. Middle Class Neighborhood Associations as Political Players in Mumbai. Economic and Political Weekly, 42(47): 61–68.

Chapter 11 Thinking the Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai Experience: Emerging Modes of Urban Governance and State Intervention Joël Ruet

I

nteractions between various players and the different levels of state machinery have multiplied in number, diversified in nature, and changed in focus. This happened either during an early stage of the reforms or as a collateral effect of these, either because of the initial impetus provided by the state or on account of the proactive moves of other players, to which the state later had to adjust. Conversely, several interactions have developed between non-state agents, some of them having key economic implications. These new patterns have been largely described in Chapter 3. A further question is, whether from these patterns a new mode of governance, with a renewed role for the state, unfolds. Indeed, of these interactions between non-state agents, some have been ‘formalised’ by the state, hence legitimised. From these mechanisms of legitimisation transpire evolutions in the larger economic power equation. In this context, the chapter attempts to re-interpret some of the political and social evolutions of governance through a political-economy prism. In short, this chapter deals with the normative idea of regulation. The notion that some form of regulation and co-ordination is now an urgent necessity that can only be provided by the state — in which is included the municipal level — ultimately involves the broader issue of the political economy of Indian cities. For instance, the red thread of this chapter lies in suggesting how the study of urban governance can shed some light on the otherwise ‘overlooking’ notion of ‘liberalisation’. In most of the sectors surveyed by our group, the developmental role of the state had reached its limits, not so much because of ‘politicisation’ or political interference as was the

Modes of Urban Governance and State Intervention Ú 271

multilateral mantra in the 1990s (for a critique see Harris 2001), but due to structural and organisational lacunae, in an all-encompassing attempt at regulating the economy and society. Accordingly, our case studies suggest that liberalisation, as it deployed into a multiplication of players outside the sphere of the state rather than just a ‘de-regulation’, nevertheless translated into a multiplicity of modes of interaction with the state. However, the problem seems now to be that these interactions are still too loose to provide a framework for stabilised urban regimes looking at the political and economic interweaving between cities and their regions, or at the ‘nested arrangements for governance in cities and urban regions’ (Sellers 2002: 290). As Sellers, in his revisiting of the concept of an urban regime, insists on the characteristics of stability (in both ‘coalitions’ and ‘institutionalized’ agendas) as well as of ‘participation of private or societal interests (…) in the governing coalition’, the chapter attempts to highlight a pattern of change in urban governance and to suggest that this pattern is best characterised by ambiguities (Section 1).1 Section 2 discusses these ambiguities and substantiates the difficulty in moving towards urban regimes through a study of the politics of public reform and how they translate into varieties within an overall enlarging urban governance. Section 3 examines the position taken by the elite — across sectors of the civil, business and political society — to elaborate on the possible future of the role of the state.

1. Patterns of Change, Ambiguities and Urban Regimes: State and Non-State Actors in Urban Governance Although they have their own specificities, changes in urban governance in Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Mumbai have nonetheless by and large fallen into a regular pattern. This pattern has four dimensions: the importance of centrally and politically-driven 1

Sellers (2002: 291), recalls that, on a hotly debated notion, ‘most accounts agree on several features: 1. a stable agenda institutionalized in the local policy synthesis, 2. a stable electoral coalition, 3. a stable governing coalition, 4. participation of private or societal interests, including business and institutional interests from the urban economy, in the governing coalition.’

272 Ú RUET

change; a certain bypassing of the administration, the multiplication of actors and diversification of their roles, and finally a rise in expectations and voice, even if class-biased. These aspects present variations across the four cities that are more a matter of degree than nature. I find some purpose in presenting these evolutions according to whether they lead to recompositions that are internal to the state sphere (even while they mobilise external actors), or whether they mainly provide new arenas of governance outside the state (even though they may imply arenas of interaction with parts of the state). The formal or informal aspects of governance in which these changes occur still matter, for these categories are continuous and their dynamics are an expression of the processes of legitimisation: while numerous players have become bearers of practices and sometimes producers of norms, the state as a whole remains the guarantor of rights. The most striking issue is that changes in urban governance have by and large remained a top-down and politically-driven change (in chronological order of ‘reform’, Hyderabad, Delhi, Kolkata fall in this category). Where this is not so (Mumbai, for example, among the cities studied), i.e., where non-state players had initially taken the lead — possibly with the crucial involvement of international players/experts — there have been subsequent attempts by the state government to politically appropriate this change initiated by others. One way of doing this was by providing an additional stamp of legitimacy through the provision of a formal space, i.e., through formalisation.2 The political is far from absent in the change of governance. State machinery is the second feature of this common pattern that I wish to highlight. The bureaucracy has been placed in an ambiguous position. It has been used by state governments to limit — and even to short-circuit — political decentralisation from the state government down to the municipal level. At the same time, it has been similarly bypassed by the government in several areas. In addition, its total ‘share’ in urban activity has decreased in direct proportion to the rise of various categories of new players

2

In Mumbai, the government ‘endorsed’ Vision Mumbai, initially developed by the business elite.

Modes of Urban Governance and State Intervention Ú 273

or revamped roles for existing non-bureaucratic players. The statelevel administration has thus been one of the factors in the larger power equation. The fact that some prominent, high-ranking civil servants have been associated with this change cannot hide the formal decline of the administration over the period studied. That this was balanced by the rise in politicians’ power to promote their own interests (mostly state-level politicians, but local elected personnel benefited too), is nonetheless real. Meanwhile, its municipal levels have remained marginalised compared to the forward-looking 74th CAA expectations, at least in terms of formal spaces of governance (this of course needs to be balanced at the informal level as Chapter 5 discusses the brokerage system). The power equations within the state-sphere as a whole — between the administration and elected officials — have thus changed a lot. However, it is these changes precisely that have been an important part of the governance transformation. That way, the liberalisation narrative — that just mentions the retreat of the state and developments outside of it — , in fact leaves an essential dimension of change out in a grey area. That these changes do not correspond to the ‘linearities’ of the causality implied by the notion of ‘good governance’ — whereby the right set of institutions and incentives would automatically lead to political and economic efficiency — is, however no, surprise to the authors of this book. Conversely, changes that had initially taken place outside the statesphere were now followed by the actions of some these non-state agents attempting to define relationships and modes of interactions with the politicians first, and later on led to redefine the practical regulation by the state. The heuristic approach to urban governance did take us back to the state in several chapters. The state is transforming itself, it has been active and highly focused about it. In Delhi, the Bhagidari scheme is first and foremost a proactive move by the state and a new way of deploying its forces to reach the constituencies.3 In Hyderabad, the ‘business activism’ of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) Chief Minister reinvented a whole panoply of direct links within the administration. That no institutionalisation arose 3 In an interview with the author, a top bureaucrat in charge of the project acknowledged that despite the difficulty in reaching the poor, it facilitated a renewal of the link with the middle and upper classes (Personal interview, November 2004).

274 Ú RUET

out of this should not make us underestimate the lasting impact it had (over a decade) on senior civil servants.4 In Kolkata, the recent reforms have been a way to reconcile the CPI(M) with the unmet demands of the middle class, that had been part of the reason for the opposition ruling the city for five years.5 In Mumbai, where despite an active role in ‘charity’ and contributions to public places, the major industries keep declaring that the government is best kept away from business. The introduction of ‘independent regulation’ in networkbased infrastructure has provided a way for the state to regain its legitimacy in the eye of the public.6 The third feature of the common pattern of changing urban governance is the rise of new players or the adoption of new roles by the existing ones. This need not be repeated here for this is perhaps the main point of convergence of almost every chapter in this book. Suffice it to mention, and this is articulated below in this chapter in detail, that such a mushrooming of numbers, categories, modes of action, and range of provisions observed in these players calls for a terminology that can reflect its richness. The term ‘liberalisation’ was largely constructed as a negative to or unmaking of the erstwhile state’s rule. As it refers to what it negates more than what it contains, this term ends up appearing inappropriate to characterise a transformation with such a content. The state has not withdrawn itself, and like in every other liberalisation process that has taken place in the world, the so-called de-regulations have implied an equal amount of re-regulation. As well, many new actors have emerged. This, I would argue, contrasts starkly with the experience of ‘liberalisation’ of developed economies: a change in the (narrower) political economy of business relationships but with a set of players

4 Interviews with a State Secretary, 1 March 2001; repeated interviews with senior civil servants in the electricity sector, from 1998 to 2001; private conversations with a former District Collector, May 2004 and in 2005. 5 Interviews with two academics closely associated with the CPI(M); private conversation with a former Commissioner of Police, 26 December 2005; series of interviews and private discussions with a Secretary-level senior civil servant and leading industrialists from different ‘circles’ (for example, the ‘Bengal Club’ and ‘Young generation of Marwaris’) in 2005; interview with the Indian Chamber of Commerce. 6 Interviews with a Maharashtra Electricity Regulator, 7–8 February 2005.

Modes of Urban Governance and State Intervention Ú 275

somehow remaining stable, or at least definitely not showing the dramatic levels of change as seen in India. The changes seen in India put it much closer to post-socialist experiences, despite variations in these countries. ‘Liberalisation’ in India is a misnomer, at least ‘by omission’, and definitely not a de-institutionalised liberalisation (Ruet 2006). It is all the more so in India where the changes observed and documented go well beyond the sphere of economics to encompass, as the fourth aspect of transformation, a correlative rise in voice/ expectations. Civil society has definitely entered governance but its importance as a decisive force in the formal aspects of governance is still limited or politically instrumental. Conversely, the rise of the corporate sector, by developing direct relations at the government level, may have circumvented the impact of whatever decentralisation had occurred within the state. These transformations do lineate a pattern, an elusive, ambiguous one, but nonetheless a pattern. The collective work of which this current book is the outcome may not be advanced enough to venture into a well-grounded categorisation or denomination of what I would simply call (for the sake of convenience) a ‘new urban governance’, or a series of new modes within urban governance in India. That they met with some continuity in each city’s economic and industrial trajectory is only natural, and leads to variations, which I discuss below. Table 11.1 shows the stylised elements that substantiate this pattern for each city. If one goes further into the details of these patterns, they allow us to make some preliminary comments on a series of issues in the Indian context. One has to recognise that the metropolitan area in India is now largely, and in fact increasingly, used as a showcase for the state government or the ruling party’s policies. I shall therefore briefly situate the four cities in their trajectories over the last two decades in terms of political economy regimes and state regulation of industry.

On State and Urban Political Regimes Cities are embedded in a larger Indian socio-economic and political transformation. It is customary in Indian literature to refer to colonial — or post-colonial — trajectories of cities. I believe that

Commissioner model persists. Not much internal debate even within the TDP. Schemes to bypass locally elected people. A decade of electoral gap. City as laboratory for TDP/BJP Vision 2020: international agencies agenda. IT and world-class city, indigeneous capitalism. Little co-ordination corporate/corporators. Cyberabad ‘happening by design’; competition with Bangalore.

Discourse on ‘good governance’ but brutality of public intervention. A decade of electoral gap.

Mainly an administrative city. Large economic activities but outside its administrative limits. Policies to constrain industry. Network services privatisation (electricity).

Ambiguous state/ bureaucracy towards democratisation

Multiple actors and public–private interaction

Hyderabad Top-down political decisions. One of the most advanced for ‘reforms’ but without political decentralisation.

Reluctant decentralisation as the NCTD lacks normal state powers. Competition’ MLA/Municipal Councillor.

Centralised reforms vs decentralisation

Delhi

KMDA: From monocentric to polycentric development/spatial fragmentation development along WB loans. Outsourcing, no real PPPs. Recent industry revival.

Devolution of most civil functions, but no ward committees. Same party in the state and municipality since 1977 (except 2000–05). State-led, CPI(M) is central and centralised. Vision 2025 developed by KMPC. Mayor-in-Council system.

Kolkata

Mumbai

Importance of local area citizen groups: CBOs. Distinction unclear between roles of CBOs and contractors. Land gentrification agenda. Social infrastructure most neglected. Outsourcing rather than real PPPs. Sense of competition with Bangalore, Hyderabad…

Industry-led agenda for reforms. Disputed political terrain — state/ municipality.

Table 11.1: City-wise Stylised Manifestations of a Common, if Contrasted, Urban Governance Pattern

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Supreme Court and environment ‘green agenda vs brown agenda’. From the importance of migrants as vote banks, to Bhagidari and favouring middle-class RWAs.

Source: Author, and Chapters 2–10, supra.

Voice, access, class

Rise in expectations: Lok Satta. Divide Old vs New city. Negating open politics perpetuates the dominant interests. RWAs: Role of the upper class. Recent trends of CBOs in urban programmes.

Mediated essentially through parties. Very limited number of NGOs.

Open WCs Expectations: Lok Satta, AGNI… Some success in Slum Sanitation Programme, but much clientelism. Slum demolition in 2005: Alliance state, elites, business, experts.

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the concept of political regime has the power to encapsulate several of the determining characteristics of these explanatory models, notably recalling the trajectory of a region, while refraining from too large a drawing from singular trajectories embedded in a postcoloniality that is now more than 60 years over. The way the concept is developed by Harriss (1999) to characterise a form and environment of government, builds on the idea that politicians’ autonomy in making decisions is shaped by three factors. Quoting Kumar’s (2006) synthesis of Harriss (2001) and Kohli (1991), these factors are: (i) maintaining the stability of support from the coalition of social groups; (ii) effectiveness of the regime in power in implementing programmes perceived to be important by the government; and (iii) capacity of the regime to ‘accommodate political conflict without violence’ (Kohli 1991). This concept is thus compatible with the concept of governance, focusing on the long-term regularities in a way that can accommodate the interactions in governance. It sets a background that certainly influences and partly determines the governance of cities within a state with a given regime. As far as the political regime goes for Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, both fall in the category of what John Harriss calls ‘states with middle-caste/class dominated regimes, where the Congress7 has been effectively challenged but has not collapsed’ (he specifies that ‘the politics of accommodation vis-àvis lower class interests have continued to work most effectively in Maharasthra’). West Bengal falls in the category of ‘states in which lower castes/classes are more strongly represented in political regimes’ (all quotes, Corbridge and Harriss 2002). One sees some characteristics of the state regime at the city level, like the implicit assumption of a change in power that revolves around the pivotal middle-class/caste in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra and that paves the way for resilience and accommodative reforms, or a certain latent readiness of these ‘middle categories’ — the result of social 7

In Harriss’s model, the Congress is associated with what he calls ‘“traditional dominance” rather than politics of accommodation vis-à-vis lower classes’.

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mobility — to undertake measured ‘reforms’. In the case of Kolkata, the more prominent role of the lower classes might be used to expost explain the long political delay in reforms, a path in a sense taken after the middle-class-accommodating Trinamool Congress’ brief episode of ruling the KMC. It could even be used to suggest that the strategy shift indeed had to be somehow sudden. However, what is more relevant for the argument presented in this chapter, is that putting a city into perspective with reference to a given state regime has to be done through some specifically urban dimensions, especially the role of an urban elite, and, as far as the 1990s and 2000s are concerned, a growing industrial and business elite. Methodologically, it should be clarified that at this juncture, our idea in referring to a political regime is to complement rather than to overshadow the bottom-up approach developed within our framework of urban governance. Considering a political regime environment is necessary for addressing the question of the state in a more normative way. Comparing the four cities within their respective states, the state government of Andhra Pradesh directed the Metropolitan area of Hyderabad to undertake ‘reforms by design’ that intimately combine politics and the economy, focusing on businesses (especially IT) that need little capital and for the development of which investment in infrastructure could remain for a long period under the ‘control’ of the administration and the party.8 Similarly, the Government of West Bengal has recently launched a policy of industrial revival, largely by inviting industrialists from outside West Bengal, including foreign ones. This has had a serious impact on the Eastern zone of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (even though it leaves the functioning of the Municipality of Kolkata proper largely unaffected). By contrast, Delhi follows a model based solely on the primacy of administrative and political involvement with the middle class in a broad-based but ‘top-down governance’, while in Mumbai the state has adopted a political agenda that ultimately had to accommodate an economic vision initially floated by a section of corporate leaders. It would be interesting for future research to study the articulation of earlier state regimes with the urban governance of their capital cities. Most certainly one can assume that urban practices as well as policies (and the shift of the rural towards the urban) have 8

Interview with the IT Secretary, February 2001.

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increasingly become a marked feature of renewed urban regimes. Here the definition of an urban regime would have to articulate with the extension (or the geographical and spatial reduction) of the concept of a political regime. It gathers characteristics of local state regimes, as well as national features of urban processes. One thing is certain: for a long time the idea of containing urbanisation dominated in India; a more ‘positive’ outlook about urban growth has now emerged. The change has probably been instigated by Bangalore, which during the 1990s was synonymous with quality of life and economic development. Officials in Hyderabad were keen to emulate this model, and claimed that, what happened in Bangalore because of its historical legacy, would happen ‘by design’ in Cyberabad/Hyderabad. This led to policies geared to attract private and foreign investment. Mumbai — having felt threatened in its historical position of the first economic city in the country — now wishes to rethink its land-use practices in keeping with modern industrialisation (the closure of mills, the redevelopment of land as commercial and service spaces, the redevelopment of slums, etc.). The West Bengal Government and Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority have been impressed with the example of Hyderabad, that they try to emulate while keeping with the local political idiosyncrasies and the electorate of the CPI(M). Here it is necessary to compare and contrast the (changing) ‘dominant visions of development’ in these cities, again top-down, elitist and, with the state machinery to implement them. This issue can in fact be generalised in order to raise the possibility of a given, practical, urban governance gaining long-term stable patterns, that is crystallising into an urban regime. In being able to define a given regime, Sellers underlines the role of stability of the agenda and coalition (electoral as well as governing), but more importantly he suggests an additional condition: the participation of private or societal interests that should, so to speak, ‘adhere’ to a vision borne by the state-sphere. He suggests that ‘for urban governance to crystallize into an urban regime, businesses and other institutions of the urban economy must ally with officials in the pursuit of local interests’ (2002: 292). As far as the four cities-within-states are concerned, one can grant ‘stability’ to Delhi, Hyderabad and the Kolkata (Metropolitan) area, even if there was a period of ruling party’s change at the KMC. Beyond the appearance of similarity, however, the ‘allies’ of the ‘officials’ (party, elites and the administration) were not exactly

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the same. They include NGOs — and RWAs — and the uppermiddle class community of Delhi, the (fast growing) medium-size non-capital-intensive industry in Hyderabad and a small, select group of bureaucrats, and the (preferably external) big industrialists in Kolkata. Now the question is of the initiator: quite obviously the state in Hyderabad and Kolkata. Conversely, in Delhi, the social porosity of upper-class elites through NGOs in Delhi, politics and administration-focused business make it difficult to identify exactly how and where the agenda was initiated. A sociology of the upper class, a political study of its alliance with the upper-middle class is required, along with the fact that international experts and elites working in international agencies have had a definite role. In contrast to these three cities, Mumbai, a more disputed terrain within a disputed state over disputed identities, is possibly showing less political stability, which could be a reason for the lead being taken by business; in which case, business needs officials as allies, and not just the business to adhere to the state’s views. It is against this backdrop that I contrast the four urban ‘models’ and see how in reality these models are modulated and co-determined by the local regime.

On Ambiguities and Models The Indian metropolis, partly as a place where the greatest number of players and institutions operate and where new electoral constituencies are emerging, epitomises the democratic question. In the context of the top-down reform of governance, democratisation has tended to get sidelined as political representation. The strategies deployed by the state pertain to the containment of political decentralisation. It is more than an ambiguity, in fact I could say that it is paradoxical that it does so precisely through the opening of formal governance channels to new partners (corporate players, associations). While the state ‘modernises’ through its interaction with society, it simultaneously refrains from democratising. One can now see an increasing number of alternate channels, some of them initially informal at a given stage of their development. In all cities, the (limited) areas of democratisation of the processes of governance are mostly the work of players from civil society. Finally, and maybe partly because the state has not withdrawn, maybe because several players are also looking for some stability in

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the modes of governance, interaction between the private and the public spheres has developed. It has been discussed at some length with regard to various ‘sectors’ in Chapters 7, 8 and 10. What emerges is the variety of the new forms of interaction between the private sector and the state, either through a co-ordinative aim, or in as much they constitute channels of voice. If the economic interests of middle-class neighbourhood associations are generally given space in this model, the articulation with large-scale industry and local entrepreneurs takes different forms in the four cities, ranging from the promotion of local entrepreneurship in Hyderabad and Kolkata, the come back of the large corporate sector in Mumbai, to contrast with a form of Malthusianism against economic actors in Delhi.9

A State at Work to Re-Legitimise Itself? Initial reforms have proved successful in opening the Pandora’s box of governance, even if the way modes of governance may stabilise in the long term are difficult to predict. In return, the limitedness of these processes as of today reflects a clear issue: these have in most instances been developed or claimed by state governments that wanted to re-legitimise themselves during periods of democratic and economic challenge to their leading role. There is thus a paradoxical situation where, on paper, the central authorities of the state governments wish to open up more formal spaces in urban governance (as in many areas of the world, the overarching centrality of the developmental state is being contested), but by so doing, those involved in politics in the state government wish to regain legitimacy. In this matter, different modus operandi are being attempted. I suggest they revolve around legitimacy, but leave issues of governability unanswered. Delhi’s case exemplifies the limitations of even a well planned ‘good governance agenda’, while Hyderabad poses the question of sustainability of reforms in the context of changing governments. Kolkata suggests, in a similar vein to Hyderabad, that industrial reforms do not necessarily mean exiting old political games nor do they bring political decentralisation. Mumbai, with its business-led ‘vision’, which moreover serves as a laboratory for the country, could be posing a key question at the local level: i.e., the internal public– private and top-down vs bottom-up balance of tomorrow’s Indian 9

With regulations that favour the boom of satellite towns outside Delhi.

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urban governance and political economy at large. However, the state, largely trying to regain legitimacy towards business, should not overshadow the fact that there is often little attempt to officially legitimise itself through the needs of the poor.10 There may be in several areas an increasing targeting of public services to the poor; some outsourcing and co-production models of different kinds may be justified as they ensure more effective delivery. However, on a broader scale, the poor as the source of political legitimacy have seen their importance sharply decrease. This may be read as a confirmation in the Indian case of what McCarney (2003) stresses for developing societies in general: the difficulty for the state to accept external participation in building a competitive city and in projects such as bettering the life of the urban poor. Taking stock of these divergent experiences, one can attempt a general line of critical assessment with regard to the stabilisation of governance in today’s Indian metropolis. The experiences of Delhi and Hyderabad raise the question of the sustainability of reforms based on political energy and which has been inadequately institutionalised.

Ambiguity in a Changing Political Economy In a nutshell, drivers of change have appeared, but they have been more ambiguous than what the good governance discourse, the democratisation or economic liberalisation paraphernalia would seem to accommodate. The political is central — and therefore reforms are not just an ‘anti-politics machine’ — but that does not mean straight democratisation. The bureaucracy has partly lost the role it had in a state that functioned around developmental procedures, but its fate seems to be more the result of a reluctance to decentralise, the ascent of political leaders who want to impose fiat, and de facto marginalisation through the rise of both the private — and societal — sectors. ‘Liberalisation’, equally, is surprisingly multi-form and multiplayer. Therefore let us not ignore the fact that it resembles less the kleptocratic transformations that other transforming developing societies have recently experienced. But this liberalisation — besides commenting on the class and social aspects — still encourages many

10

Who, in India, vote more massively than the rich or the middle class.

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to resort to brokerage, that is, to a resurgence of the old-style Indian state. This raises several practical and theoretical problems of urban governance itself, the state within which it operates, and introduces some further normative issues on the elusive ‘role of the state’ (see infra). One may here briefly contrast these civil society developments, and its blurred aspects11 with the political society category.12 Vocal contestation having led to raising the question of governability in Delhi and Mumbai; because of growing subterranean divides in Hyderabad — between the Old and the ‘New’ city; because the ground for potential changes in sociopolitical coalitions is mounting in Kolkata, urban governance features question the extent to which the change observed in the four cities predominantly takes its origin in the political will to regain the support of the urban elites, or whether the state as a whole will ultimately find itself caught between the contradictions of the rise and transformation of the elite or the growing expectations of the categories left aside, that today fuel the potentialities for conflict. Here it will be relevant, even if briefly, to suggest how this collective work opens up avenues with regard to the general question on the new political economy of India, as recently suggested by major contributions in the field by Corbridge and Harriss (2002) and Jenkins (1999), which somehow sign the exit from the long-lived political economy phase that Bardhan (1984) had described (see infra). Having focused on the state-within-new-patterns-of-governance, let me now work on what it can tell us about the state as an actor, and on the state-to-other actors modes of interaction.

2. Varieties in Expanding Urban Governance and the Politics of Public Reforms The so-called ‘models’, as mentioned earlier, are marked with ambiguities. Let us see how they interact with the different types of governance observed in the four cities studied in this book. Ultimately I wish to confront these with the ‘models’ — as is usually done in

11

Examples pertain to the confusion or overlap between the roles of CBOs and contractors, RWAs and citizen groups, 12 As introduced by Partha Chatterjee in the Politics of the Governed (2004).

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the normative part of governance literature — prior to obtaining some institutional background on which the governance approach developed. I close this section by evoking a major change that supports the idea that there is a new urban governance: a paradigm shift with regard to the nature of the erstwhile ‘public good’.

Normative Models and their Carriers On the origins of the concept of governance (and ‘good governance’), Hust (2003) suggested a narrative for the ‘evolution of the idea of governance’, from what she called the ‘structuralist thesis’, in which the main actor is the public sector, to the ‘neoclassical antithesis’ where the preferred figures of the policy toolkit are privatisations, towards a ‘neo-institutional synthesis’ that emphasises ‘good governance’ (a lighter version of the neo-classical). Of course, the use of such an archaeology of ideas is not meant to serve as an abstract typology, but on the contrary enables re-introducing the holders and promoters of these ideas, as something that can be studied. A full study would range from forms of lobbying to ‘symbolic politics’, issues of legitimacy, etc. What interests me here is that each of them as a normative typology conveys a view of the state’s role, which can be compared to the real actions of the state as a player. I believe it offers a way for doing an in-depth characterisation of the state’s action in urban governance. I would argue that most of the cities studied are in-between the first and third ‘categories’. While the studies showed forms or types of linkages that pertain to the third one, resistance by the state remains. In this sense hybrids do exist, they are created by the resistance of the state to being normatively defined. And, as a corollary, the second category has somehow been left out in India; again the ‘liberalisation’ explanation is somewhat undermined when one looks at details. This is particularly evident when one observes political regimes at the level of the city. City-wise attributes and inter-city differences are in terms of history of forms and degree of mobilisation; these are drawn partly from historical roots, but which I cannot take up here for lack of space (an extremely brief account was given in Chapter 2, and also in Chapter 8). Recent developments, in terms of the political will of the state leaders, role of established regional political parties and their pattern of mobilisation, can be briefly discussed here.

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In Mumbai, whose entrepreunarial elites at one point felt, if not threatened, at least outstripped by the upcoming new entrepreneurs in other Indian cities, appeared an oft-repeated desire of ‘transforming it into Shanghai’. Six decades after the ‘Bombay Plan’ (1944), it was symbolic of the captains of industry to introduce ‘Vision Mumbai’, projecting it as the financial capital of India (though this plan had internal contradictions). This plan clearly emulated the path first adopted by Hyderabad (Bombaybased firms hiring the same international consultancy firm). But in Andhra Pradesh this had been commissioned by the state under Chandrababu Naidu’s Chief Ministership and involved a more mixed recourse to international institutions (World Bank and UK DFID) and leading global firms and regional, upcoming firms, while capitalising on established institutions at the same time. It is only more recently that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s Kolkata made similar attempts to attract foreign direct investment and the manufacturing sector (at variance with the CPI(M)’s long emphasis on agriculture). In this case, the shift was interestingly a combination of influence from regional industrialists and associations (such as lobbying by the Indian Chamber of Commerce),13 and the example of China (though the idea of links between the ‘two communist parties’ would be a fantasy: the CPI[M] is a regional party, the Communist Party of China is ‘the government). However, the party operated largely by endorsing the arrival of foreign groups from the Asia-Pacific region.14 What should be retained here is that if these avenues are linked to ‘global change’ (liberalisation, decentralisation, cities as engines of growth, and good governance discourses), it is in a very cherrypicking manner. Further, the ‘privatisation’ aspect, present in discourse but absent in fact (in reality it is outsourcing), is mostly missing from the toolbox. More importantly, the equilibriums and timings reflect the balance in political regimes. The issues that concern the urban scientist, economist, etc., like improving multisectoral linkages, inter-municipal co-ordination as a more efficient, decentralised version of metropolisation and economic alignment

13

At least during the initial phase of ‘liberalisation’, the business sector interacted more often and more openly with politicians, circumventing the earlier all-powerful bureaucracy. 14 In personal communications, thinkers close to the communist ideology confirmed to me that it was partly to check the rise of local counter-forces.

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on the new international delivery model, etc., are usually secondary from these decisions.

Limited Involvement of Civil Society and Corporate Sector as Limits to Decentralisation As suggested above, parastatal and municipal bureaucracies are alternately used by political authorities in order to limit or counter political decentralisation and are often bypassed by the government when defining and implementing new policies. The latter includes cases of circumventing the existing bureaucracies for the benefit of newly-created ‘special purpose vehicles’ — that is classic to the Indian developmentalist state. Another method was to build direct channels with some players and impose these on the bureaucracy (whether at the sectoral operations level or through some participatory processes), which accounts for a substantial part of the ‘new governance’ in place. Direct links between the government and entrepreneurs is characteristic of Hyderabad, and also of Kolkata. A kind of ‘imposition’ of contractors occurred in Mumbai in the case of sanitation programme under World Bank schemes. In a context that I qualified above to be of containment of decentralisation by the state governments, there is ultimately a growing dialectical tension between these mechanisms for containing decentralisation by opening up official governance channels to new partners (corporate actors, associations) and the new, parallel channels that develop informally, and through which civil society players contribute to the democratisation of governance in all cities. However, this civil society is next-to-absent in Kolkata and has a strong class-bias in Delhi, with many NGOs involved in rent-seeking activities (not as a general rule of course). Developed, modern, politically-conscientising as well as far-reaching NGOs are mostly found in Hyderabad (Lok Satta, for instance) and even more so in the prima urbs, Mumbai (Lok Satta, AGNI, etc.). Here the gradation is clear, and somehow reproduces the one on political centralisation. I do not have the space here to go into details, but this conjunction gives ground to test the hypothesis that civil society develops in conjunction with the modernisation and opening up of the political/state sphere: this hypothesis is powerfully put in a sociological as well as historical perspective way beyond the short duration of the post-reform era by T.K. Oomen (2004), who offers an explanatory framework based on autonomisation of social movements.

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Taking the case of Mumbai, the NCP–Congress state government wants to affirm its control over Mumbai’s affairs and wishes to access the funds available with the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). In a context where the Congress came to power in Hyderabad in 2004, aspired to retain power in Delhi, and where the West Bengal CPI(M) wanted to ensure that the KMC did not really with the opposition, these moves gel with the aspirations of the urban elite and the emerging middle class. If the economic interests of the urban middle class are generally given space, the articulation with the major industries and local entrepreneurs takes different forms in the four cities. In all cases there is currently a trend in many large Indian cities for corporate players to take part in metro-level planning bodies or think tanks. In some cases, like Bangalore and Mumbai, business houses are even seen taking the lead in an effort to address urban problems, usually with the objective of making the city more attractive for economic growth. But field interviews, such as in Hyderabad, show that corporate development initiatives do not generally involve municipal councillors. This raises questions about the implications of corporate initiatives for political decentralisation and urban governance. The course of my argument till now reinforced the idea that governance is partly about incorporating ‘soft’ links. It is however striking to see that political incentives to speed up the process of infrastructure-based reforms remain strong and instrumental, with a serious emphasis on physical over social infrastructure. This should not come as a surprise, since infrastructure building is at the same time the ‘foundational procedure’ of the developmental state, the process around which it structured its own construction, and around which the idea of ‘public–private partnership’ was first promoted in the 1990s.

Business and Bureaucrats: Modes of Public–Private Interaction15 I will now discuss in a symmetrical fashion how the state needs business and business needs the state. The dialectics of anteriority– simultaneity, when engaging in reforms by the two actors, has been 15

This echoes Mary Shirley’s Bureaucrats in Business (1995), a normative outlook at PPPs as a way to get the bureaucracy ‘back to business’. Here, obviously, I adopt a different view of businessmen using the state.

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discussed. One argument focuses on who initiated the reform, the second on who it benefits more and which player becomes dependent on the ongoing reforms. I will not get into this in this section, for it calls for a much larger socio-economic framework than is relevant for our work here. However these inbuilt questions refer to different stages of relationships, business reacting to policies (corporate social responsibility [CSR], participation in committees are some of the formats), or business demanding that the state extend assistance to its projects, or simply the state becoming a service provider, an economic player.16 In Chapter 3, Kennedy states that ‘corporate NGOs’ ‘work closely with government in solving urban problems, including those related to service delivery’ and ‘are more and more involved in setting the urban agenda’. There is still too little feedback to properly analyse the co-ordination costs, whether economic or social. But it is clear that, while the scope of government is definitely open to governance through these measures, they may create tensions between top-down ‘cherry-picking’ and bottom-up attempts to construct democratic spaces, such as those by CBOs not ‘picked-up’. The second issue, ‘demands from business’, is not only vast but has also become more ‘simple’ and definitely more limited than is usually assumed. A striking fact that emerges in interviews with industrialists is that they ‘no longer need to go to Delhi’, they can ‘work without soliciting the state’. But the principal feature is that, since the early 2000s, with the notable exception of the land access issue, business has less and less requirements from the state as it has developed in-house most of the resources it requires. This is well encapsulated in an interview conducted by the author with a top executive from the Hinduja group who stated ‘Hinduja is definitely “pro-active to State governments” (…), the State-level government is the most important in terms of access to land. Hinduja puts states “in competition” on power, land, but not on infrastructure which is out of their control.’17 Other pan-Indian or even multinational Indian groups interviewed between 2005 and 2007 have declared that they developed their own capacity even for energy, and that land 16

Instances of ‘regular swaps’ between politics and business in an individual’s career are rather rare in India; the notable exception is retired bureaucrats sitting as independent directors in some corporate boards. 17 Interview with the author, Mumbai, 2005.

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is the only issue for which they pursue very active, direct lobbying.18 There is of course one growing form of advocacy, but it takes the form of press statements and not (yet) lobbying, this involves physical infrastructure governance. But the example of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, which the Congress terminated in 2004, is the only example in the country of business formally participating in municipal and metropolitan infrastructure ‘public’ reforms. The last issue to be considered, public contracts, involves an important part of public expenditure but a small section of business, where channels have long been established between the lower bureaucrat (the bureaucratic chain mops up its share of bribes) and the contractor. Increasingly, the business sector tends to ‘avoid public contracts’, a fact often repeated in the interviews. Many companies appoint retired public servants to their boards, but in most cases this is to ‘speed up’ cases in fields that are the last administrative regulations, than for winning contracts and influence. The third method, business becoming an economic player in areas that had formerly been a state monopoly, subdivides into two types of interaction. In the most dominant scenario, interaction is really compliance with the basic administrative requirements rather than co-ordination, of which there is not much. The other format is the famous ‘public–private partnerships’ (PPPs). On the latter point, if one takes education for instance, teaching staff issues, such as rotation of public servants, fragilisation of public players, management of postings, are elements of what a system of professionalisation of civil servants should be. It is unsure whether the development of private schools helps at all in rethinking the organisation of public schools. Another example can be taken from what is simply outsourcing, for instance in the fields of garbage collection, water services (for example in Chennai) or the registration and handling of demands for issuing all types of administrative certificates. In fact, people interviewed in Kolkata proudly called a PPP the outsourcing of processing papers to constitute a complete file. In this case, the idea that the private and public sectors co-produce is simply based on cheap labour,

18 This is of course a major issue in urban governance that has and continues to have a long history of appropriation by the ‘proprietory classes’, to use Pranab Bardhan’s terminology. A scholar who has extensively researched this topic in the case of Bangalore is Solomon Benjamin.

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and nothing is done to carry out any sort of re-engineering of the administrative activity. As far as the larger physical infrastructure is concerned (water for instance), very few ‘privatisations’ such as the transfer of property — or simply the transfer of management — have occurred in urban India.19 PPPs technically rest on the idea of distinguishing ‘management’ from ‘government’. But it is obvious in the Indian context, with class and caste differentiation and unequal access, emphasised in practically every chapter of this book, that ‘management’ tools, distinguishing between the different categories of users in order to provide user-specific quality services (that leads to a process of socio-spatial fragmentation, see Chapter 8 as well as infra), affect the ‘government’. The way the so-called PPPs in fact operate, namely in a state of confusion and in the absence of a clear definition of their coverage and limits by the state, exemplifies this linkage. Today, users, stakeholders and shareholders are categories that tend to be confused by the state, which reflects in fine its own confusion with regard to its role. Till now, the state’s limited capacity to self-reform served as an argument for promoting PPPs; in practice however, this is now a limiting factor for the development of a modernised, clear-cut public-to-private relationship. Where there is a chance for the state to restructure its role, one finds instead a weak administrative machinery and incapable of reinventing itself, as Judith Tendler (1997) has underlined in her ‘Good government in the tropics’. If I have qualified some processes I have observed as nonstable, here is a process that is indeed haphazard. The Indian state has not yet found the formula to reconcile a decentralised democracycum-administration with a sound responsible establishment (administrative, fiscal, etc.). Meanwhile, the only ‘PPPs’ that are still operating in 2008 are those with strong land-based vested interests.

19

Transfer of assets (that is, technically speaking, privatisation) has unexpected difficulties. When interviewed on the takeover of two out of three electricity distribution zones in Delhi, Reliance Energy executives told the author that ‘we didn’t imagine the condition (of the network); when you lift a cable, it breaks; feeders are not just fully loaded they are overloaded’. They thus discovered the reality of day-to-day government functioning: ‘State Electricity Departments are managed for administrative purposes, and not for the benefit of customers’; with regard to the organisation: ‘files move, but people don’t move’ (interviews conducted in Mumbai’s national headquarters, 11 April 2005).

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PPPs are just one form of co-ordination. Economic regulation implies various forms of co-ordination and management of externalities. Sectoral co-ordination is needed in so far as class distortions and issues of geographical distribution and cross-subsidies are important. In a period of the ‘end of demographic transition’, the economics of education, nutritional economics and health will have a long-term effect on how India will stabilise. If the ‘modes of governance’, as the neo-institutionalists label them, include various forms: market, regulated market, administration, decentralised administration, private–public agreements and so on, it is clear that they all require the state’s special capabilities. These are not available to date, and certainly not at the municipal level.20 All in all, the state is still unsure of what it wants now and in the future, while business is not yet proactively interacting with the state. One has new urban governance with definite patterns, but clearly there is a shortfall in the possibility of an urban regime. However, in the absence of a common vision and project, I would suggest that there exists an implicit model that deploys itself, but with greater ambiguity between the wishes of the elites and the role of the state.

3. On Elites and a Role for the State: From Multiplicity to an Insidious ‘Club Goods’ Governance? The state has not ‘disappeared’. Not only does each player remain ‘positioned’ to the state (while old players renew their relationship with the state, new players and new organisations too develop forms of intervention), but also, local entrepreneurs as well as local service providers are having a growing interaction with the decentralised level of the state and with the municipal level of government. While the developmental regime amounted to forms of class appropriation of the state machinery in a centralised manner, in the context of the new governance, ‘public reforms’ have sometimes framed, often espoused and mostly answered demands of the ‘new proprietory classes’, while in return the latter have supported, channelled or made demands of the new political economy regimes at both the municipal and state government levels. 20

And sometimes not even at the state government level, as actors from the electricity sector declared to us that the sector needed to ‘get regulators who are more familiar with business’ (interview by the author in April 2005).

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But the state as an institution has lost its momentum and its economic vision because it has not reformed and decentralised to the way it would have needed to reach enterprising actors who take the decisions; it has not modernised sufficiently. A senior bureaucrat (at the time of the interview a Joint Secretary in the Government of India with an economic portfolio) recognised the structuring dimension of the economic factors as he declared that ‘there is a need to go towards economical and political decentralization, to the state governments but even more to the municipalities, as today economic forces are decentralized’. The challenge before the state was thus its ‘loose cohesion, while the vision of a Unitarian state is wrong’ and there is a need to ‘change the whole system: not just sectors but public governance as a whole’ (emphasis added) ‘for the public is a whole — bureaucrats as well as politicians — for the separation between them is a colonial concept, but today politicians no longer sit in London…’. This expresses the whole gamut of ambiguities this chapter tried to describe: intra-state; in elected and professional bodies; and state-to-society. In view of such a vast agenda he was however forced to conclude that ‘it has become impossible to obtain a clearly written memo’. He further added that, off-the-record, in the upper echelons of administration, in emulation of the Chinese way, the idea of limiting the moves of the rural classes and the poor was gaining ground… There is an abyss of helplessness between the felt challenges and the means.21 While changes in urban governance have altered the modes of economic accumulation (that control political redistribution), the administrative possibility of a renewed distribution has just not developed. I now show that, instead, the appropriation of urban services as ‘Club goods’ has occurred.

Multiplicity and Collective Aims in a Club Goods Era: Upper and Lower Governance Circuits I will briefly review the position of the elite in light of the abovementioned developments. While the state, although an important player in key decisions and partly instrumentalised by politicians, remains present, new players have emerged. As Niraja Gopal 21 All quotes have been reproduced verbatim from a private conversation that the author had with an IAS officer in late 2004; however, repeated similar conversations with several senior officials tend to suggest that the feeling of helplessness is gaining ground.

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Jayal remarked in the concluding seminar of this project, ‘citizen participation and multiplication of new actors is not particularly Tocquevillian’. The fact is that, when I tried to see how a multiplicity of actors as well as a multiplicity of authorities interact, what I found can be labelled as a change in both policy and delivery mediation. Interactions between politicians, bureaucrats, technicians, civil society, etc., have somehow become extremely specialised, and they have multiplied within the strata of hierarchies of power more than across strata. Apart from distinguishing between formal state structures (including decentralisation legislation) and (informal) urban civil society arrangements, in order to identify the intertwined dynamics of the elite, the poor and the role of the state, I find the approach developed by Benjamin (2004) useful, who distinguishes between upper and lower governance circuits and suggests that: divisions in society compounded by the divides between rich and poor groups result in ‘governance circuits’ and civic politics organizes around this contested urban terrain, public resources, and implementation of infrastructure programs. In this view, one category of society includes many poor groups (constituted in a dynamic and heterogeneous way), the lower level bureaucracy, and business elite of the local economy clusters described above, among other actors. These groups structure a particular type of civic politics centered mostly around local government institutions where councillors are key political agents. This is termed as the lower governance circuit. In contrast to this is the elite who uses the public system quite differently. Their group is constituted by big business, higher-level political and bureaucratic officials whose interests congregate around circuits of influence that involve higher levels of government: upper governance circuits. For the former, civic politics focuses on access to basic infrastructure, services, secure tenure to locations all emphasizing the productivity of clustering local economies. For the latter (discussed later) the effort is to influence Master Planning to acquire land already settled by local economy clusters and re-allocate them for corporate use. This also includes access to special purpose infrastructure and services including legal status that provides access to lower than market cost institutional finance. Thus, governance is seen from that perspective to be closely linked to ways and structures of political influence to shape the nature of public interventions and institutional forms (Benjamin 2000: 35–36).

To give but one illustration of this idea, business interviewees declared to me that they ‘make proactive presentations to governments,

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to advertise that, in case of privatisation (of infrastructure), our company would go for it’.22 A company’s representative declared that ‘a presence in the electricity sector would allow us to easily extend to urban transport, water desalination, etc’. This approach is of course debatable, as social linkages do exist to form a society. Chapter 5 pledges for the concept of ‘vertical governance’: Vertical governance is the sum of the practices and interrelationships of the various actors taking part in the management of the city that have a dominant vertical pattern. This pattern stretches across the spectrum of social classes and groups due to the weight of patronage, community-based identity and linking social capital.

Here I do not want to clinch this debate in its generality, but to underline that the two approaches are complementary in describing an Indian society far from a democracy where, in effect, one person equals one voice. Reinforcing the distinction between these two levels of governance, coupled with greater community-specialisation of each of them might lead to the state increasingly espousing the ‘social stratification of India’, and within it, the competition between various elites, that is, ultimately it has the advantage to pinpoint the negation of the idea of the ‘public’. In other words, the question here is what can governance do, and for whom? In terms of contemporary development economics it translates for instance into the nature of the relationship between new forms of governance and making the city sustainable, in the sense of social equality and environmental sustainability. The scale of urban services, and specifically so of physical infrastructure is appropriate to study this. I wish to underline that, if this includes a sociopolitical dimension — as is generally so — this also includes a technical dimension. The socio-economic methodology that Benjamin proposes for analysing the governance strata can be well complemented through an examination of the socio-economictechnical structures that develop around infrastructure, and in particular physical infrastructure. I refer here to the central concept of ‘club goods’.

22

Interview conducted in Mumbai, April 2005.

296 Ú RUET ‘Club goods’ refer to the technical-socio-economic nature of producing and operating goods — or infrastructure — and differs from ‘public goods’ in the sense that the former ‘exclude’ some potential users and limit the use to specific groups (hence the idea of a club), whereas public goods imply the idea that every citizen is included. The notion, in economic theory and categories, is as important and stays at par with the notions of a public good, private good, or common good. From the very fact that it is less known transpires the political economy equilibriums of previous decades, with a role for the state to forcibly manage urban services as public goods, or recent rhetoric to instead consider them as private goods. Actual technical systems that are operated and actual scales — now increasingly down to the ‘community’ level — at which they deploy allows social exclusion and even to redefine the ‘community’ — around the capacity to pay. There is a paradigmatic shift in urban India, even if differentiated from the ‘publicness’ of Kolkata via Hyderabad’s continuum of voice, to the ‘organised sector’ of Delhi’s urban entrepreneurs, the three cities show an increasing state of ‘advancement’ in this paradigmatic shift.’ (Ruet et al.: Chapter 8, infra.)

As goods rarely have an objective economic nature, in practice it is an essential condition that the state accepts — or does not interfere with — a mode of operation that in so doing determines the economic nature of the good. Hence, the idea that there could develop a ‘club’ type functioning of the state,23 which adopts it — or adjusts to it — and the goals and aims that go with the system. This is absolutely essential for it sustains quite a few currently observable changes. In a club, as compared to a collective where every user is formally a citizen, politics is conducted differently. It is directly aligned with the idea of community and possibly of clientelism. In a club one does not want to co-produce the service, but to speak as equals and to co-produce the control of the service. An example of this was provided in Chapter 8 with water reforms in Delhi and it is in this context that one can read Zerah’s statement in Chapter 10: ‘the relationship between effective control and decentralisation is not straightforward. The issue is rather the balance between both levels of action in order to favour more efficiency

23 The idea of crossing the political economy of management of resources and operating infrastructure systems has resulted from a scientific dialogue that has been underway since 2002 between Bernard Barraqué, MarieHélène Zérah and the author.

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and reduce the rent seeking programs’. Decentralisation, efficiency, take another dimension when they meet a change in the scale, composition, and outlook of their stakeholders, and when the system moves from a ‘public good’ vision (agreed, a very imperfect one and largely rhetorical, but with lasting implications) to a ‘club’ one. In this context it is legitimate to question whether a framework most favoured by political science, the ‘exit and voice’ paradigm, really captures these complexities. Mooij and Jalal’s study of education (Chapter 6), for instance, could be re-interpreted as to think that there is a risk that ‘exit’ is merely exit from the public system, while voice is only voice within the private system. This is further complicated when, as in physical infrastructure services that are very capital-intensive, some sections of society, through RWAs, start having their own independent or semi-independent systems and cross-subsidies, different from the public systems, and lose solidarity with the city.

On Regulation John Harriss at an early meeting of our research group asked: ‘How can everybody inflect his/her project to take into account all the actors’? He was recalling the context of ‘much longer term entangled trends: the decline of programmatic parties — if ever the leading pattern in India, the shift towards neighbourhood politics and civil society, movements, identity politics...’. At the end of the journey, in contrast to those who celebrate ‘participation’and this work indicates many ambiguities about people’s definition of problems, how they attempt to solve them, some preliminary patterns of political participation and associational activities. Horizontal links between associations, actors, etc., need to be constructed at the same time that vertical links are being modified. But one of the vertical links by essence should not disappear: the state’s administration of the city, as an act and a process. In this larger perspective, what emerges from this chapter is that, whether seen from the perspective of economic efficiency, of civil society’s real interaction with the government, or through the demands of political society, some level of public re-regulation is required. One question remains about the motives (economic, political and ethical) and the necessary form and tools. The state, including at the municipal level, is slowly adjusting to the new equation, but it seems in many instances to be in a transitory or

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intermediate phase between its former position and its new ‘role’. In this respect, the ‘depoliticised’ concept of public–private partnership is less analytically helpful than the concept of modes of engagement in urban governance, as India’s socio-economic structure increasingly shows features of a ‘club goods’ mode of access to services. This evolution carries risks. To further elaborate on Partha Chatterjee’s distinction between civil and political society, it raises the question of forces that are agents of change in the governance of the four cities. Economic compulsions and some level of competition between cities is a clear enough motive for change, as one can see from Hyderabad, then Delhi, then later on Mumbai and of late Kolkata. One can also see this in Hyderabad’s desire to become a second Bangalore, but ‘by design’ and not ‘because of history’, or in some cities emulating Ahmedabad’s financial reforms, etc. But this ‘external focus’ should not be done out of neglect or underestimation of the internal dynamics. The way the corresponding political transition is handled is through a political will to regain the support of the urban elite. This results in a mix where the transformation of these elites and their aggregative expansion on the one hand, and on the other, the growing expectations of those social categories that are left out, fuel the potentiality of conflict. The state as a whole may ultimately find itself caught between the contradictions of the rise and transformation of the elite on the one hand, and/or the growing expectations of the categories and classes left out on the other, that materialise into a growing voice over the disparities of access. This disparity is fuelling vocal contestation in Delhi and Mumbai (in the former raising the question of governability), promoting socio-spatial disparities in Hyderabad, and fundamental potential changes in the sociopolitical coalitions in Kolkata. If the current (largely normative) process of the ‘modernisation’ of governance consists of a negotiated attempt at broadening the formal spheres of governance, along with the correlative process of economic promotion by some actors, it is not certain that this process can be endlessly ‘selective’. Indeed, in many instances where ‘the state’, represented by its top politicians and sometimes by its senior bureaucrats, wanted to cherry-pick, while prima facie it retained an initiative of sorts, in fact a more lasting reality of the state — its administrative framework — lost its capacity to orient society towards collective goals.

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The state may have been disappointing in many ways and to many. Still, to be inclusive in the long run, an essential element of democratic functioning whatever the mode and level of ‘representation’ and ‘governance’, the way it was approached in this study, fits neither state-led selectiveness nor the withdrawal of the state. A certain history of the activist Indian Left, having fought the state more than anything else and now in disarray when forces larger than the state have emerged, might be a symptom of this; in reverse, a few political NGOs might instigate the renewal of a necessary collective project in metropolitan India.

Conclusion Let me conclude here by summarising the progress achieved but also what I believe to be directly related questions that were arrived at in the course of collectively dealing with the concept of governance in the study of the Indian metropolises. On the features of urban governance in the four metropolises, this chapter recapitulates the many ways contributions to this book suggest that urban governance is not only about ‘processes’ the way ‘good governance’ implies, that power equations should not be forgotten, and that state governments continue to play a very important role in metropolitan cities where they are in power. In a context where the metropolitan area is used as a showcase for the state, on the national and the international stage by state government’s and ruling party policies, the most important aspects of urban ‘reforms’ have initially been conceived by state governments as top-down, party-driven or political leadership-driven, and least as participatory. This is to accommodate the changes in the Indian polity, economy and society, where state governments recently had to accommodate local demands and several independent initiatives (thereby trying to politically recuperate them). It recalled how, as a second feature in this process, the bureaucracy that was a crucial balancing element in politicians’ power and a driving force of the developmental state, now occupies an ambiguous position. Regarding meta-narratives on practical governance, Chapter 1 suggests that ‘the state is increasingly contested as the main source of decision-making’. In the Indian context, the state may of course now be increasingly contested as the main source. However, several chapters reinforce the argument by Corbridge and Harriss that the

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state still matters. Manifestations of this at the urban governance level include re-regulations by the state, local non-state developments originating however from the state’s resources, either financial or institutional. Second, it is clear enough that the management of collective affairs departs from this in at least three ways. It still entails a strong intra-statal dynamics, which is not the least of it. Furthermore, interactions between public and private actors are not just (re)-aligned ‘partnerships’ that would leave the socioeconomic–political nature of goods and services unaffected (there are economic dynamics of the development of club goods that mutually enforce class-biased evolutions). The very notion of ‘partnership’ entails a normative dimension at variance with the heuristic vision of governance explained in the introductory chapter, and which moreover does not represent the reality of today’s urban India. And finally private-to-private interactions are not to be forgotten. On the last issue, it is still a matter of research and observing how issues may stabilise (it is more than likely that they are not stabilised as yet) to understand when private actors interact without feeling the need to fully involve the state and when they start to reconsider the matter. Reflecting on the concept of urban governance, there is scope to suggest that the Indian case provides specifications that thus make it possible to examine the relevance of complementary definitions. Besides, and as was looked at the theoretical benefits of different approaches, it is important to state that Metropolitan India, as a field, can inform their ability to serve as (conceptual) operators apart from being excellent operative concepts. Let me illustrate, limiting myself to the few authors our collective work studied and who are mentioned in Chapter 1. Stoker’s view, about the blurring of boundaries and responsibilities and the recognition of capacity to get things done beyond government’s command or authority (Stoker 1998), if fruitful as a heuristic approach, is perhaps, as a synthetic approach, the one which is less able to bring out either the transformations or the continuities. In a developing country such as India, where the state is not a unitarian state (to say the least), the ‘blurring’ has been a recurring feature. There is certainly scope to venture that the state has relatively expanded its governing role to a broader sphere of governance. However, it is clear from Pranab Bardhan’s ‘coalition of proprietory classes’ and Corbridge and Harriss’s view on the elites, that not only

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was the state permeable, but today’s fluid society is attune to the shores of the state — the change is in quantum terms and variety as much as in the nature of linkages. In contrast, the many approaches that emphasise horizontality versus verticality have a powerful explanatory power for the ambiguities highlighted in this chapter. Whether negotiation, co-ordination, cooperation, networks or partnerships (that take on an interesting dimension on the economic front as they can perform normative functions), the essential dimension is of going beyond the a priori assumptions of ‘verticality’ such as liberalisation, decentralisation and democratisation through participation. The many discussions by the several authors of this book on various issues were particularly useful in building bridges between the various questions: political brokerage as economic efficiency and economic voice as political bargaining. This illustrates a key feature of India today: the need to go beyond the ‘three central transformations of Indian political economy’ (political decentralisation, liberalisation, development of re-imagined religious spaces in the polity), and explore them not separately as vertical evolution, but analyse the many horizontal linkages.24 Central to these, is the infrastructure on which governance is articulated. Here I wish to bring up a conclusion that surfaced now and then, especially in the chapters dealing with physical infrastructure (as opposed to social), and which could help to accommodate thinking on materialistic determinism and social constructions. Whatever the extent of differentiation — or segmentation — observed in Indian society and economy, it ultimately depends on the development of the concept and practice of the idea of a ‘club good’ that is likely to replace the notion of a public good, which has had its rise and fall, miseries and vagaries. The potential to exclude some potential beneficiaries does relate to the contemporary governance of networks (see Graham and Marvin 2001). Studying the linkage of exclusion with the gradual shift (albeit many resistances) in political economy, from the pre-eminence of a ‘central state’ that wished to legitimate its power on ‘public goods’ to local actors who favour ‘participation and representativity’, is one way to sharpen the discussion on socio-economic inclusiveness and its scale, otherwise less in focus 24 This idea was first introduced in an explicit form under a research agenda that Stuart Corbridge, John Harriss, Partha Chatterjee, Sanjay Reddy, and Sanjay Ruparelia had wished to develop in 2005.

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in ‘good governance’. For non-Marxists this may have the merit of serving as a palliative for the notion of ‘class’. A last point, regarding the larger social transformations that governance may use as a tool to map changes, and the hypothesis that what is described as a process of ‘modernisation’ of governance can be equated with an attempt at broadening the sphere of formal governance, along with the correlative process of economic promotion of some agents. If ‘reform’ is understood as germane to a top-down approach, a major motive for change is connected with the ‘reform of governance’ attempted by the state. However, the actual change has ultimately resulted in sowing the seeds of progressive change, questioning the legitimacy of a ‘government’ that has left several social classes outside its rhetoric and basic dynamics.

References Bardhan, Pranab. 1984. The Political Economy of Development in India. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Benjamin, S. 2000. Governance, Economic Settings, and Poverty in Bangalore. Environment and Urbanization 12(1): 35–56. ———. 2004. Urban Land Transformation for Pro-Poor Economies. Geoforum 35(2), March: 177–87. Corbridge, Stuart and John Harriss. 2002. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Graham, S. and S. Marvin. 2001. Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London: Routledge. Harriss, John. 1999. How Much Difference does Politics Make? Regime Differences across Indian States and Rural Poverty Reduction. Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science. Mimeo. ———. 2001. Depoliticizing Development : The World Bank and Social Capital. New Delhi: Leftword. Hust, Evelyn. 2003. About the Genesis and Meaning of the Concept of Governance. Working document, mimeo. Jenkins, Rob. 1999. Democratic Politics and Economic Reform in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kohli, Atul. 1991. Democracy and Discontents: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kumar, Girish. 2006. Local Democracy in India: Interpreting Decentralization. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

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McCarney, Patricia L. 2003. Confronting Critical Disjunctures in the Governance of Cities, in Patricia L. McCarney and Richard E. Stren (eds) Governance on the Ground: Innovations and Discontinuities in Cities of the Developing World. Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press. Oommen, T.K. 2004. Nation, Civil Society and Social Movements, Essays in Political Sociology. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Ruet, J. 2006. Une libéralisation sans privatisation: réformes et nouvelle économie politique de l’Inde. Critique Internationale 32. Paris: Institut d’Etudes Politiques. Sellers, J.M. 2002. Governing from Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tendler, Judith. 1997. Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

About the Editors Joël Ruet is a Research Fellow, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at LATTS - Université Paris Est and teaches at Ecole des Mines-Paristech, HEC-Paristech, and Barcelona University. He is an alumnus of Ecole des Mines de Paris and has a PhD in industrial economics. A former Marie Curie Fellow at the London School of Economics and fellow of the MSH-Paris and Columbia University’s Advanced Program for Advanced Studies, he also directed the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH) in New Delhi and taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. His published works include Winners and Losers of the State Electricity Board Reforms: An Organisational Analysis (2001); Water & Sanitation Scenario in Indian Metropolitan Cities: Resources and Management in Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai, Mumbai (co-edited with V.S. Saravanan and Marie-Helene Zerah, 2002); Against the Current (edited, 2003); and Globalisation in China, India, and Russia: Emergence of National Groups and Global Strategies of Firms (co-edited with Jean-François Huchet and Xavier Richet, 2007). Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal is a CNRS Research Fellow at Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS-EHESS), Paris. She was Research Co-ordinator at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi in 2005–09. She has also taught at INALCO (National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations), Paris. Her research focuses on urban democracy in India, with a focus on micro-local mobilisations. Her published works include Femmes et politique en Inde et au Nepal: image et presence (2004); Electoral Reservations, Political Representation, and Social Change in India: A Comparative Perspective (edited, 2005); and Democratization in Progress: Women and Local Politics in Urban India (co-authored with Archana Ghosh, 2005).

Notes on Contributors Keshab Das is Professor at the Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad. Awarded the prestigious V.K.R.V. Rao Prize in Social Sciences (Economics) in 2004, his research concerns regional development; the dynamics of small firms and industrial clusters; the informal sector; basic infrastructure; and the politics of development. His published works include Indian Industrial Clusters (edited, 2005) and ‘Ensuring Horizontal Equity: Challenge before the Thirteenth Finance Commission’ (co-authored with Aswini Kumar Mishra, Economic and Political Weekly, 44 [5], 2009). Ravi Duggal is a social science and health researcher who has worked on public health issues for nearly three decades through institutions like the Foundation for Research in Community Health, the Centre for Enquiry into Health and Allied Themes, Swissaid, and ActionAid International. Presently he works as an independent consultant/ researcher and is associated with the International Budget Partnership and the Peoples Health Movement. His recent publications include ‘Healthcare in India: Changing the Financing Strategy’ (Social Policy and Administration 41 [4], August 2007) and ‘Health Budgets in the Context of NRHM’ (India Economy Review, 5 February 2008). Archana Ghosh is a social scientist and currently the Head of Urban Studies in the Eastern Regional Centre of the Institute of Social Sciences, Kolkata. Her research interests include urban governance, poverty and environmental issues. She has several publications to her credit. Her recent works include Urban Environment Management: Local Government and Community Action (edited, 2003) and Democratization in Progress: Women and Local Politics in Urban India (co-authored with Stéphanie Tawa Lama-Rewal, 2005). Agnès Huchon studied urban utilities in developing countries. She worked as a transport programme manager in a non-profit organisation, and co-authored Between Citizens and Institutions: The

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Dynamics of the Integration of Water Supply and Sanitation Services in Hyderabad, with Guillaume Tricot (2008). Jennifer Jalal is Assistant Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where she teaches courses on urban governance. Her broad research interests are the politics of urban space, globalisation and its impact on infrastructure and retail practices, and the ‘governance’ of urban service delivery in developing countries. Her publications include Chukimane: Building on Community Capacities of Early Childhood Care and Education (2003) ‘Good Practices in Public Sector Reform: A Few Examples from Two Indian Cities’, in A. Singh, eds, Administrative Reforms: Towards Sustainable Practices (2005). Loraine Kennedy is Research Fellow, at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), at the Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies (CEIAS-EHESS) in Paris. From 2007 to 2009, she was research co-ordinator at the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi. Her research focuses on regional factors underlying growth and emerging patterns of federal governance in India. Recent publications include ‘The Shift to City-Centric Growth Strategies’ (Economic and Political Weekly, 43 [39], 2008) and on ‘New Forms of Governance in Hyderabad’, in I.F.A. Baud and J. de Wit (eds), New Forms of Urban Governance in India: Shifts, Models, Networks and Contestations (2008). Girish Kumar is Senior Fellow at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi. His areas of interest are public policy, decentralisation, governance reforms, government, social sector reforms, rural and urban development, women’s empowerment and participation. His recent publications include Local Democracy in India: Interpreting Decentralisation (2006) and ‘Reinventing Local Governance: Expressions of Interlocking Strategies and Programmes’, in Citizen’s Report on Governance and Development, 2008–09 (2009). Frédéric Landy is Professor of Geography and heads the laboratory Gecko at the University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense (France). He is an associate fellow at the CEIAS-EHESS, Paris, and a honorary fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is working on decentralisation and state–citizen relationships in urban

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and rural India. He recently authored Feeding India: The Spatial Parameters of Food Grain Policy (2009). Jos Mooij is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Development Management at the Institute of Social Studies, part of the Erasmus Universitr, Rotterbam. Her research focuses on social policies and governance in India. She has published internationally on food, health, education and social sector budgets. In addition to numerous artical, she has written a monograph on public food distribution and edited to books: Disappearing Peasantries (edited with Deborah Bryceson and Cristóbal Kay, 2000) and The Politics of Economic Reforms in India (edited, 2004). Guillaume Tricot studied urban utilities in developing countries. Further to this research work in India, Guillaume Tricot joined a consultancy firm in the field of urban development. He co-authored Between Citizens and Institutions: The Dynamics of the Integration of Water Supply and Sanitation Services in Hyderabad, with Agnès Huchon (2008). Marie-Hélène Zérah is a Senior Researcher in Urban Studies with the Institute of Research for Development, Paris, and deputed to the Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi. She previously worked with the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank and as a consultant for a number of organisations, including the European Union. Her research interests cover the area of urban services in cities as well as the impact of decentralisation and liberalisation processes on urban governance and democracy in India. Her more recent published works include ‘Middle Class Neighbourhood Associations as Political Players in Mumbai’ (Economic and Political Weekly 42 [47], 2007) and ‘Splintering Urbanism in Mumbai: Contrasting Trends in a Multilayered Society’ (Geoforum 39 [6], 2008).

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Index AADI (Action for Ability Development and Inclusion) 147 Above Poverty Line (APL) 109; cards 115 Advanced Locality Management (ALM) Programme 67–68, 94– 95, 97, 246, 248 AGNI (Action for Good Governance and Networking in India) 35, 44 Andhra Pradesh, Government of 47–48, 166; engagement with NGOs 69; policy for school education committee 150, primary schools in 140 Atmasamman City Development Scheme (CDS) 232 Baru, S. 25 basic infrastructure, shortage of 3 Bayard, Jean-François 129 Below Poverty Line (BPL) 109, 115 see also Above Poverty Line Benjamin, S. 294 Bhagidari scheme by Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit 94, 207; success of 40; Tawa Lama-Rewal on 68 Bhattacharjee, Buddhadeb 30, 286 Bombay Municipal Corporation Act of 1888 35 Bombay Plan 286 Borough Committees in Kolkata, 91 bribe 107–11, see also corruption Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) 29, 64 Bombay Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) Committee 64

Calcutta Municipal Corporation Act, 1980 36 caste system and state educational system 140 Centre for Education Management and Development (CEMD) 147 Chandhoke, Neera 7 Chandra, Medha 37 Chatterjee, Partha 198, 298 Chaudhuri, Basudeb 4 Chaudhury, Sukanta 25 Chhibber, P. 98 Citizens’ Action Group (CAG) 44 City Level Programme of Action for Street and Working Children (CLPOA) 149 city-dwellers and decision-making process 4 Civil society organisations (CSOs) 17, 56, 65; faces of 65–69 Civil Society, actors 25; and Corporate Sector 287–88; groups in Mumbai 92 classes and local self-government 93 classical public system 184 Clean Hyderabad image 251 Club Goods Governance 292–99 coaching business 142, see also education Collective Action 243 Commissioner as Mayor 39 Commissioner system 11; as Bombay system 35l Community Development Societies (CDSs) 218

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Community, Nagarik Samiti 229; organisations in Hyderabad 232– 35; participation in Kolkata 229–32; role of 228–29 community-based organisations (CBOs) 16, 69–71, 119–20, 212; formation of stakeholder groups 70 Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI) 50 Co-operative Group Housing Societies (CGHS) 205 Cornwall, Andrea 113 corporate NGOs 14, 20, 57, 74; in Hyderabad 74–75 Corporate Sector, role of 47–51 Corporate Social Activism 74–75 corporator 114, 123 corruption 108, 99–100, 115; chain 111, 116; and clientelism 105–6; economic 108–9 Councillors Role, In Hyderabad, 236–38; in Kolkata. 235–36; under 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) 177 Dasgupta, Subhagato 105 decentralisation and democratisation 34–40 decision-making process, fragmentation of 8–9 Deepalaya 147 Delhi 25–27, 205–6; as city-state 10; demand for alternative water systems 73; governance 41, 164– 65; healthcare delivery in 165– 66; as megacity 3; mixed landuse in 99; Municipal Corporation 38; NGOs. RWAs, MLAs 171 –72; people’s candidates’ 32, 97, 98; private participation in watersupply systems 48; Social Jurist 144

Delhi Development Authority (DDA) 32, 63 Delhi Jal Board (DJB) 32, 63, 183; as private sector 48, 204–5 Delhi Transport Corporation 32 Delhi Vidyut Board 32 Delivery Systems Design and Urban Actors 170–75 democracy 7; neighbourhood 196–98 democratic decentralisation, institutions of 57–59, 91; local actors 57 Department for International Development (DFID) 48 Department of Education and income by bribe 154 Corruption in 154 Desai, P. 250, 252–53 Dev, Mahendra et al. 109 Development of Women and Children in Urban Areas (DWCUA) 234 Dikshit, Sheila 27, 39; re-legitimising the government of 42; reelection in 2003 41 Directorate of Education and Government of Delhi 140 District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) 85, 138 District Primary School Council 140 Dixon 154 Dr Reddy Laboratories Ltd’s Dr Reddy Foundation 147–48; initiated Child and Police (CAP) project 147 drive public action’ 42 Dubresson, Alain 8 Dupont, Véronique xviii, 4, 25 economic development 4 education 83–84, 135; Actors in 142–44; cess 138; class

310 Ú GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES dimensions of 84; corporate NGO involvement in 157; for all 138; in Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata 137–42; investment in 89; primary level 11; Progress in 138; types of expenditure to school 142 Educational, governance 136, 157; initiatives with Wipro 141; quality 86; system, polarization that exists in 89 e-governance, adopted in Hyderabad in 95 86th Constitutional Amendment, 2002 136, 138 electoral quotas for women, SCs, STs (and OBCs) 92–93 elite 82; capture’ of democratic spaces 99 elite capture in residential areas 253–55 English as subject’ 153 English-medium schools 89, 136, 142 fair price shops 111 female councillors are ‘housewives or social workers’ 92 Fictive Participation in Low-income Neighbourhoods 252–53 Food Corporation of India (FCI) 109 Forum for Better Hyderabad (FBH) 196 Frykenberg, R,E. 25 garbage collection tax 244 Ghosh, Archana 58 good governance, characteristics of 105; concept of 6; notion of 41; UNDP on 7 governance 5–10; and government 149–56; political parties 188–89; reforms 40–47

Government schools 86–87, 139; administration of 140; children admitted in 141 government teachers 151 government–NGO–CBO cooperation 71 Greenlands Association, 199 Hansen, T.B. 25 Harriss, John 6, 65, 284, 297; concept is developed by 278; definition 99 Harriss-White 128–29 health ‘link volunteers’, network of 71 Health 162–67; facilities in Delhi 168; hospitals 163; in-patient care 163; public health system 162 Health sector, expenditure in 164 Healthcare Services 167–70; in Hyderabad, 168–9; primary level 11; privatisation of 164 healthcare, GOs role in 174 Healthcare, public–private sector provision of 163 Hinduja group 289 Hirschman’s framework 89, 90, 99, 101 Hospital Advisory Committees, formation of 166 Housing and Industrial Development Corporation 45 Hust, Evelin 5, 285 Hyderabad City Development Strategy (CDS). 222 Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sanitation Board (HMWSSB) 32, 190, 195 Hyderabad Urban Community Development and Services Fund 176–77 Hyderabad, 27–28, 63, 141, 210; and elections 57–58; federation of RWAs in 68; IPP-VIII

Index Ú 311

program 172–73; Mayor chosen by councillors 43; Mid-day Meal scheme in 148; model for cleanliness 244–45; municipal politics in 27–28; NGO-run health posts 173; outsourcing sanitation 73–74; participation and formation of stakeholder groups 42; as pre-colonial city 11; RWAs were mobilization in in 43; and process of ‘differentiation’ 184; unit system in 247; Urban Health Posts (UHPs): 173; voluntary sector 172; won Clean City Awards of HUDCO (Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited) 248 India as ‘NGO capital of world’ 66 informal actors 9 information technology (IT) sector and middle classes 81–82 International, development agencies 47; institutions 286 ‘invited spaces’ 113 Jaglin, Sylvy 8, 194, 258 Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) 32, 66, 77, 288 Jayal, Niraja Gopal xviii, 293–94 Katha 147 Kennedy, Loraine 14, 16, 25 Kingdon’s calculations 140 Kolkata 29–31, 33, 142, 210; civil society’ and ‘ market’ 56; corporate NGOs are 148; cradles of British colonisation 10–11; development-oriented state 30; KMC into public–private partnerships 50; Mid-day Meal programme 148; NGOs under

guidance of Sister Cyril, of Loreto Day School 148–49; public– private partnerships (PPPs) 30, 45–46, 55; role of non-state actors, 55; Salt Lake City 29; stakeholders 55 Kolkata Environment Improvement Project (KEIP) 232 Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA) 33 Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) 33–34; Vision 2025’ document by 46 Kolkata Metropolitan Planning Committee (KMPC) 34 Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) 35–36, 140, 183; Bustee Services Department of 211; and Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) 210; schools and school-based committee 150 Kumar, Girish’s synthesis of Harriss and Kohli 278 Lakha, S. 87 Lama-Rewal, Tawa 58, 63 liberalisation 72 literacy rates 136 Local Area Development Scheme (LADS) in Delhi 14, 106 Local Government, Second Tier of 59–62; Factors Shaping 62–65 Lok Satta (in Hyderabad) 35, 44 Madras 63 Maharashtra 166–67 Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Agency (MHADA) 33 Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) 33 Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) 64–65, 111

312 Ú GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES Mann, Michael 5 Manor, James 117 Market Traders Associations (MTAs), formation of 42 Masselos, J. 25 Mayor Reddy 43 Mayor-in-Council (MIC) model 36 McCarney, Patricia L. 283 Metropolitan Development Authorities 31 Mid-Day Meal scheme 138 middle class, 82–3, see also Middleclassisation; in ‘associational activism’ 93; concept of 82, 83; demands of emerging 202; voters.97 Middle-classisation, and Education 83–90; and Local Democracy 90–100; concept of 83; English and Indian middle class, identity 87 MP/MLALADS Fund Utilisation of 125; and urban governance 120–28 Mumbai 28–29; by Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) 33, 167; in contrast, BMC 169–70; as cradles of British colonisation 10–11; entrepreunarial elites in 286; hospitals managed by nonprofit charitable trusts.174; Mahila Mandals in 119; as megacity 3; network of Advanced Locality Managements groups (ALMs ) 49, 253– 55; PDS in 112; political scene is 29; population in slums 28; private sector involvement in 48; privatisation cell in BMC 48–49; role of ‘public–private partnerships’ remains marginal in Mumbai, 49; solid-waste management in 49; torrential rains 97; water and sanitation, private enterprises in 72–3

Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) 33, 64 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) 62, 140; Medical Relief and Public Health Committee 175; and MLAs 177 Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) 33 Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH), 183 Municipal Councillor’s Development Fund 126 Municipal Councillors, role for 175–77 Municipal Government, features of 255–68 Municipal Solid Waste (Management and Handling) Rules 2000 242 Naandi Foundation 147–48; of Hyderabad 155 Nagarik Committee (NC) 61 Naidu, N. Chandrababu 25, 117, 190, 194, 216, 286; achievements of 27; governancere lated policies 42; reducing corruption is ‘e-seva’ 42–3 National Advocacy for Right to Education (NAFRE) 152 National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCTD) 26–27, 32, 63 Neighbourhood Democracy, Publicness’ to 193–202 New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) 140 Non-Governmental Organisations 136, 147–49; education, growing role of 156; hired’ by government 71; participation, institutionalisation of 66; run local institutions in Hyderabad 210; run schools in Delhi 141, 151; service delivery in 68–69

Index Ú 313

Normative models and carriers 285–87 ODA-supported Calcutta Slum Improvement Project (CSIP) 37 Oomen, T.K. 287 Öström E. proposed by 243 Overseas Development Agency (ODA)- supported Hyderabad Slum Improvement Project (HSIP) 232 Padioleau, J.G. 108 Parents Teachers Associations (PTA) 146 Partnerships with NGOs 154–55 Patel, S. 4, 25, 29 Patronage 108; definition of 107 Patronised Distribution System 112–20; complaint boxes and books 113; elected Actors 112; Filtering Intermediaries 115–17; users of 114–15; pay for services 246 Pinto, Marina R. 5, 71 Political Parties 117–19 politically-affiliated associations in Kolkata 210 public reforms, politics of 284 Pratham 85, 141 Prayas and Pratham, for informal schooling 147 Private Schools 86–87, 89–90, 139–40, 144–47; in Andhra Pradesh 152–53; in Delhi 144; in Hyderabad 144–45; in Kolkata, 145–46; and parents relationship 146; regulation of 152; run for profit 146; unauthorised schools, 144; unrecognized 154; in West Bengal 153 Property tax 95–96; as source income Municipal Corporations 95

Public and Club Goods 202–6 Public Distribution System 11, 106, 109–11; brokers 118 public interest litigation (PIL) 242; about education 152 Public–Private Interaction, Business and Bureaucrats as 288–92 public–private partnership (PPP) 17, 41, 213, 290–92; depoliticised’ concept of 298 Racine, J. 25 ration card as proof of identity 110 rational optimizers’ 129 ration-shop, system 112, see also Public Distribution System; keepers 116 Redkar, Seema 249 reservation 91 Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) 40, 42, 67, 94–6, 123–24, 184, 198–200; activism 68 Riggs, Fred W. 121 Road Associations 95 Sanyal, B. 25 Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) 85, 138, 142, 149–50 Satyam, Byrraju Foundation of 147–48 Savage, David 105 schooling system 143–44 schools, categories of 138–39 Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) on Urban governance 9–10 Secunderabad and Hyderabad, separate corporations of 63 Sengupta, R. 25 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) 14, 18, 24, 31–32, 34, 39–40, 57–59, 90–91 service delivery, private sector participation in 72–74

314 Ú GOVERNING INDIA’S METROPOLISES service provision 248 Shikshalay Prakalpa 149 Slum Adoption Programme (in Mumbai) 246, 248, 251, 252, 257 Slum Development and Municipal Corporations of Kolkata and Hyderabad 218–27 Slum Development Funds, for KMC, 221–22; for MCH 222 Slum Development, Governance of 211–14; definition of 210; upgradation and Urban Poverty Alleviation 218 slum rehabilitation model in Mumbai 50 slum-dwellers 3, 68 slums in Kolkata and Hyderabad 214–18 social corruption, forms of 108 social equality, and urban integration 200–2 Society for All Round Development (SARD) 147 solid waste management 242; in Hyderabad 253–55 SPARC (Society for Promotion of Area Centres) 44 Stoke, governance refers to 8 Street- or slum children 143 students abuse by teachers, 154 Supreme Court order and Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules (2000) 243 Swabhimana forum, Bangalore 94 Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojana (SJSRY) 218 Tarlo, E. 4, 25 ‘technocratic management of politics’ 6 Tendler, Judith 291 Thorner, A. 4, 25 Tiwari, M. 25

Tooley, J. 154 UN-HABITAT and Cities Alliance 48 Urban Community Development (UCD) programmes 198, in MCH, 211 urban governance 8; patterns of change 271–84 urban growth 3; Reform Policies in Hyderabad:190–93 urban local bodies (ULBs) 31–2, 77 urban local governance and political culture in Kolkata 185–86 urban poverty alleviation (UPA) 210; schemes 70; Fund 222 urban, middle classes 87; poor parents 142–43 vaccinations 171 vertical governance’ 107, 295 Vidal, D. 4, 25 vigilance committees 112 Vision 2020 48 Vision Mumbai project 44–45; study by McKinsey 44 Voluntary Garbage Disposal Scheme (VGDS) 247, 252 voluntary organisations 66 Waldrop, A. 90 Ward Committees, creation of 57, 59–60, 91–92; ‘invited space’ for citizen participation 61–62; and West Bengal 60–61 water supply and sewerage in Kolkata city 186–88 Weber, Max 108 Weiner, M. 84 West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) 45 West Bengal Industrial Development Finance Corporation (WBIDFC) 45

Index Ú 315

West Bengal, elections 64 Wipro’s Azim Premji Foundation 147–48 Wit, J. De 250, 252–3 Women and Child Welfare Committee and Public Health Committee in Mumbai 176

women’s quotas by Government of Maharashtra 35 workforce at low cost 250–51 World Bank 6; ‘good governance’ agenda of 45–46; schemes 287; World Campaign for Urban Governance 9