Governing Locally: Institutions, Policies and Implementation in Indian Cities 9781108832342, 9781108935944

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Governing Locally India and other countries chose a decentralised mode of delivering public services through elected local governments for increasing public welfare. However, great expectations of effective services, increased accountability and people’s participation were widely belied in practice. Based on field research in cities of Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the book is a detailed examination of how state and local governments function and why decentralisation outcomes vary considerably. It locates the primary reason in governance practices that compromised autonomy and capacity of urban local governments. The book demonstrates that despite a constitutional mandate for decentralised governance, policy implementation got derailed in processes threading through laws, rules and administrative actions. It shows how habitual practices create hidden institutional rigidities that thwart policy moves despite good intentions and democratic legitimacy. The book also discusses how to navigate policy to skirt hidden threats to successful implementation. Babu Jacob is a former member of the Indian Administrative Service. He worked in several domains in the Kerala state government and national government and retired as Chief Secretary to the Government of Kerala. He researches governance and was affiliated with the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum. Suraj Jacob is a political economist who teaches development and policy at the Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. He recently worked as the chief executive of Vidya Bhawan, a non-governmental organisation in Rajasthan.

Governing Locally Institutions, Policies and Implementation in Indian Cities

Babu Jacob Suraj Jacob

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05-06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108832342 © Babu Jacob and Suraj Jacob 2021 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2021 Printed in India A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-108-83234-2 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Lizzie, Amma

Contents

List of Tables

ix

List of Figures and Boxes

xi

Preface

xiii

Acknowledgements

xix

List of Abbreviations

xxiii Part I Background

1. Two Cities

3

2. Approach and Argument

28

Part II Local Capacity

3. Running City Governments 4. Organising City Governments

77 107

Part III Accountability

5. State–Local Relations

141

6. Participation in City Governments

168

Part IV Institutions, Policies and Implementation

7. Theorising Decentralisation

187

8. Governing Locally: Institutions and Policies

217

9. Implementing ‘Governing Locally’

242

Glossary

259

References

263

Index

284

Tables

1.1 Performance ranks for Trivandrum and Surat

4

1.2 Street lighting performance

5

1.3 Which government delivers urban services in Trivandrum and Surat?

8

1.4 Analysis of vignette

18

2.1 Devolution Index

35

2.2 Which government delivers urban services?

40

2.3 Cities selected for fieldwork

47

3.1 Procurement strategy comparison

88

3.2 Procurement procedures for street lighting in Surat

89

3.3 Procurement procedures for street lighting in Tirunelveli

91

3.4 Procurement procedures for street lighting in Trivandrum

91

4.1 Which government controls city government staff?

125

4.2 Discussions in Palakkad municipality

130

5.1 Rule-making authority in state laws

143

5.2 Authority for project preparation and implementation

147

5.3 Staffing authority in state laws

148

5.4 Case study of a water supply project in Trivandrum

155

7.1 Government relationships in the decentralisation framework

205

Figures and Boxes

Figures 2.1 The argument

37

2.2 Study sites

48

2.3 Infrastructure and social indices of municipal corporations

50

2.4 Coverage of water supply and sewerage in municipal corporations

51

2.5 Population of municipalities

52

2.6 Literacy rate and sex ratio

53

3.1 Decision procedures in Kerala city government

80

3.2 Implementation procedures in Kerala and Gujarat city governments

83

3.3 Use of committed JNNURM funds, by state

85

3.4 Decision process for the JNNURM in Kerala

86

4.1 Horizontal organisation of municipalities

109

4.2 Horizontal organisation of municipal corporations

112

6.1 Voter turnout in Gujarat municipal elections

171

6.2 Voter turnout in Gujarat local, state and national elections

172

6.3 The participation argument

181

7.1 Relationships across two levels of government

204

8.1 Implementation process for decentralisation policy

222

Boxes 1.1 Transcript of conversation in the office of the Trivandrum Municipal Corporation 4.1 Council meeting in Attingal municipality

10 128

Preface

Years ago, my son Suraj, then a research student, wanted to know how the government works and asked me to write about it. Despite long years in the Indian Administrative Service, I little knew how to describe how government works. I made a note in my mind. Towards the end of my administrative career, I began to feel that I could work not just within existing frames of government but more importantly, on the frame of government itself, to make actions and outcomes more effective. That was a breakthrough. The product was an innovative, participatory approach to creating road infrastructure. It involved reconceiving how to get something done within a specific domain of the government, drafting and facilitating a law (the Kerala Road Fund Board Act) and a new way of organising the work and decisions around it. One of its projects was a capital city road programme that brought different actors together: the mayor, city councillors, state legislators, and other politicians and bureaucrats. Frequent interactions with the mayor and councillors energised the programme considerably. I began appreciating the deep potential of local leadership for local action. Local elections had been stabilised by then. They generated leaders with remarkable capabilities, interest in city development and intimacy with city localities. I wondered how well they were performing. The monsoons were a good opportunity to gauge this. In the capital city, the annual stormwater surge inundates downtown areas just across from the state government headquarters and floods the central bus and railway terminals. As an almost repeat annual feature, government ministers rush to the spot and hold conferences while the mayor looks on helplessly. Getting stormwater flushed out – could the mayor’s team not do it? This was a dramatic instance of the fact that even with constitutional changes to empower city government, local leaders were not running local public affairs. It needed the state government to drain out stormwater, and that too, not one government minister but four because it concerned four departments (water, roads, transport and local government). And did the four ministers succeed? No. After a while, a government order (GO) was issued to proclaim that the problem should be resolved. Each department – by this time the number of concerned departments had climbed to a dozen – went on to do one thing or the other but ultimately the GO could not

Preface

xiv

get them to address the problem. Knowledge, technology, personal competencies, policy design, administrative leadership, accountability, coordination – all of these were possible reasons and yet there was no one person or office that was answerable. The city mayor was kept out of all this. Politics, constitution, parliament, state assembly, law, rules, bureaucracy – everything was there but nothing seemed to address the problem. Big, big actions were rolled out for small matters, and yet they were unsuccessful. I approached the Kerala Road Fund Board as an act of rethinking and redoing ‘government’. I realised that we were in fact chiselling at things like organisation, structure, coordination, accountability, decision-making, policy, autonomy, institutions and implementation. Our approach to the law and administrative rules squared with the literature on statute drafting, administrative law, delegated legislation, administrative overreach, legislative oversight, and so on. I knew well that politics inhabits policy and that policy includes all happenings up to the ‘street level’. Notably, straddling the tenures of two different governments, one leftist and the other centrist, the new Act could elicit the support of both for a significant policy measure. So, governance and policy could work, and yet often they do not work. The constitutional reform of the 1990s promised to change the way Indian cities are governed. If it had succeeded, large numbers of local groups would likely be running their own affairs across the country in far better ways. The attempt was to achieve exactly that. Politics was not missing, it occupied the policy field, and in fact, it was India’s politicians who triggered the process of change-making even though it did not succeed. My experience in the road project makes me wonder: when things work, what makes them work? My observation of the city government’s struggles makes me wonder: when things fail, what makes them fail? Is it all simply about how things are done? The earlier question re-emerges: how does the government function, and how does it craft policies that deliver on well-meaning intent? That is why I started on this research venture and this book is the first major output. It took considerable time, a decade: about four years of fieldwork and poring over documents and reports; and another six years of extended observations. If anything, governance seemed to be getting worse. Over the decade, Suraj slowly came into the research and that gave me great strength and companionship and it infused a new level of intellectual input and commitment to untiring work. I ventured into this task soon after retiring from the government. Lizzie, my wife and colleague in government, shared my concerns. Without her loving encouragement, this work could not have occurred. Similarly experienced like me in governance, her constant sharing of my discoveries cast new light on my path and her assurances gave me great strength. Although retired, I was on a mission to understand the government. It was like working in the cause of the government and for the government,

xv Preface

although not any specific government. I could draw on my close view of government functioning especially in the concluding years of my civil service career. I recall that politicians P. J. Joseph as Minister in the E. K. Nayanar government and M. K. Muneer in the succeeding government played key roles in the policy changes in the road sector which measured up to Chief Minister A. K. Antony’s call for seeing ‘visible improvements’ in the state capital by steering through a smoother implementation path. As I started to research urban local governance, V. Ramachandran’s robust advice and support encouraged me. He was authoring the report of the Second National Administrative Reforms Commission of India and shared his knowledge and wisdom on governance and life. After I presented my first conference paper, K. N. Nair, the director of the Centre for Development Studies, supported me to submit a research proposal to the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). He was with me throughout this effort leading to the book. My service colleague and friend C. K. Koshy in Gandhinagar has been an enormous source of support. He connected me with important players and institutions in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, and constantly shared his insights. I was also encouraged by the interest in my pursuit shown by senior colleagues P. M. Abraham and P. G. Muralidharan . I constantly interacted with my friend and colleague M. S. Joseph. I benefited from a discussion with Merilee Grindle at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, who shared her research experience in Mexico’s municipalities. B. R. Balachandran and Lekhan Thakkar provided very useful contacts throughout Gujarat. Bala shared his vast experience in urban planning and governance. Lekhan shared his thorough knowledge of Gujarat urban administration and served as an able interlocutor with municipal bodies. Tara Nair of the Gujarat Institute of Development Research helped with research staff support. Oommen George put in hard and unwavering work making sense of countless heavy documents. O. K. Karthiayani untiringly digitised all that I gathered and produced, along with Sathiamma. V. K. Ravindran was always there with help for all needs. The Centre for Development Studies and its office and library patiently supported these efforts. The Centre for Management Development hosted me for over seven years. Throughout, I received great support from M. Jayakumar, my lifelong friend. I did a considerable amount of fieldwork with the support of the ICSSR; it opened a large window for me to view the world of governance-sharing in India. I was met with an overwhelming response in the field. It surprised me to see the deep desire for meaningful service and the bubbling hope for change among the numerous local politicians I met. It filled my work with new meaning and elevated my spirit. I cannot list them all, over 600 politicians across states and localities. I am indebted to them all for their deep insights and the interest that they shared with me.

Preface

xvi

I had a great many interactions, often multiple times, with several senior and middlelevel government officials of both state and city governments. Their cooperation is reflected in the evidence presented in the book. In doing the research, I had not planned to convert it into a book. This came from Suraj’s prompting and his active interest in governance, skill in developing conceptual frameworks, and deep social concern. My daughters Neerada and Anjana, also PhDs in the social sciences and humanities, played a sizeable role by giving their love and care and also helping with editing at different stages. Parts of this book were drafted in their homes and that of Suraj. 31August 2020 Thiruvananthapuram

Babu Jacob *

Manifestations of governance surround us and yet it is difficult to make sense of the government. Privileged outsiders are sometimes dismissive. Many see incompetence, corruption, violence and retrograde practices. Many more aspire to work in the government. But the outsider-insider distinction is stretched. Today it is difficult to be really outside of the government except in a formal sense. And insiders scarcely can make any more sense of the government than others. Conversations, reading and experience have helped me understand the government only to a limited extent. This book project was a unique opportunity to do this. While I was in the loop during the fieldwork stage, I became seriously engaged only afterwards. I am conscious that general familiarity with the material through fieldwork probing government in other projects is an insufficient substitute. It helped that in the last few years, I led a large organisation and experienced many of the book’s concerns (autonomy, capacity, administrative procedures, organisational form, procurement, and so on). In the roughly five years of my engagement on this book project, my contribution focused on exploring the literature, thinking about the empirical material, assembling and reassembling it, and toying with coherent explanations. I am lucky and thankful for the opportunity to formally work with my father, which is a rare chance for any author. I have learned an incredible amount from this formal association. I experienced new sides of him which deepened my affection and respect for his sense of public service, unflagging energy and keen intellect going beyond political correctness and facile theory. As my training and inclination are towards the academic and the methodological, this association and project helped to ground me and renew my instinct for the importance of academic work that is relevant for policy or that at least has a sympathetic eye for policy. As a consequence of doing

xvii

Preface

this, I am more interested in the need to theorise practice, especially administrative and policy practice, and to do it in a way that naturally loops back to and becomes practice. At one level, ‘understanding government’ is a hopeless aspiration. The project managed to bite off a chewable portion by examining selected city governments. This generated strands that took us wider into other parts of the government, both state and national, but it helped that the wider explorations were grounded in city governments. The book does not foreground concerns of caste, class and gender which have animated my past research, but these concerns are implicit although the focus and lens are different. I found it interesting that the terrain of this book, local selfgovernance, draws interest from very different angles: liberals, Gandhians, mainstream economists, leftists, technocrats, critics of neoliberalism, communitarians, nongovernmental organisations, and so on. However the reader interprets it, I hope the material and arguments will be of interest and lead to more explorations of governance. And the philosophical edge of autonomy, agency, freedom and justice is never far away. My thinking on this book, and more generally, owes a great debt to Ajay Mehta. Working with him and enjoying his hospitality and wide-ranging conversations, I have slowly come to adopt his approach and sensibilities to governance and relationships in the broadest sense. I am also deeply thankful to Balmurli Natrajan for his intellectual companionship and conversations in our joint explorations over the last several years. I am grateful to the Azim Premji University which has given me considerable latitude in following my heart and supporting various projects. Ashok Chandran gave invaluable advice on the book project. We are grateful for the many comments on parts of the draft from several people: Anjana Jacob, Aparna Sundar, Ashok Chandran, Gayatri Menon, Joseph John, Kaveri Gill, Lizzie Jacob, Mathew Idiculla and Neerada Jacob. It has been a pleasure working with Anwesha Rana at Cambridge University Press. My wife Priyanka, daughters Mili and Amira and mother Lizzie Jacob have all breathed this book for the last many months and years. Words cannot convey my gratitude for their presence in my life and for supporting my itinerant instincts over cities and countries. This book tries to dissect the government. There is a danger that by dissecting, the life escapes and we are left with a limp form. I hope that we have managed to bring some of the life onto these pages. 31 August 2020 Thiruvananthapuram

Suraj Jacob

Acknowledgements

Political Leaders Political leaders showed great cooperative spirit in individual and group interactions and in municipal council meetings. They include: Surendra M. Patel (Ahmedabad); Omdev Singh Jadeja and Mansubhai Sakhia (Gondal); Bhagavandas C. Jethvani (Kalol); Kantilalbhai Amrutiya, Suresh Desai, Jyraj Singh Jadeja, Anibhai Mehta and Hansaben N. Thakkar (Morbi); Prakash Patel (Navsari); Suresh Desai, Janakbhai M. Kotak, Anibhai Mehta, Narendrabhai Solanki, Bhikhabhai Vasoya and Rajbhai Zaia (Rajkot); K. R. Dave, Hiren Patel, Kanubhai B. Patel and Rameshbhai R. Rana (Sanand); Mukesh Dalal and Rajendra Ajitrai Desai (Surat); Shrion Pradhan, Ajaybhai Janak Shah, Bipinbhai Shah, Rakesh Bhai Shah, Vikrambhai Tarsadia and Nilendrabhai Upadhyay (Vyara); R. S. Bharathi (Alandur); Komala A., Shirley Florence, A. Jesurajan, Noor Mohammed M., A. Nazeer, Gurusiah S., Siluvaimary S., Latha A. T. and R. Vijayarani (Colachel); N. Karthik and P. Krishnamurthy (Coimbatore); A. Simon Raj, Rajan, Ramakrishnan, Sahayaraja, T. R. Selvan, Shahul and V. Asokan Solomon (Nagercoil); Natarajan Sekhar (Tirunelveli); S. Jameela, S. Kumari, V. Muraleedharan Nair, Premakumari P., Avanavanchery Raju, R. Ramankutty, S. Srikumari and V. Viswambharan (Attingal); K. R. Gopalakrishnan, Kunjumon M. A., Aneeda Latheef, Jamal Manakkadan, Chandrika Padmanabhan, Riyas K. A. and V. K. Thankappan (Kalamassery); T. K. Ashraf, K. Balachandran, Tony Chammany, K. J. Jacob, Soumini Jain, Essy Joseph, Manikandarajan P. S., Dinesh Mony, K. R. Premakumar, Ratnamma Raju, Bhadra Satish, K. J. Sohan, P. D. Suresh and R. Thyagarajan (Kochi); Priya C., S. Gangadharan, Abdul Jaleel P. M., Rani Jose, Babu K., K. Krishna Kumar, Parukutty P., Vanaja P., Shashidharan Padinharkkara, Parvathy S., S. Selvan, Jose Thomas and T. K. Unnikrishnan (Ottapalam); Abdul Azeez T. A., V. Devayani, C. Krishnakumar, Abdul Kudhoos, Shiny Paulson, P. A. Remanibai, Sahadevan S., Saheeda M. and Sivarajan N. (Palakkad); P. I. Mohammed Ali, Gopalakrishnan, Babu Joseph, Radhamony Pillai, Varghese Poulose, Sherina Shukkur, V. D. Suresh and Ajitha Thankappan (Thrikkakara); Subi Babu, R. Bindu, John Cyriac, A. M. Krishnan, P. A. Purushothaman and K. Radhakrishnan (Thrissur); A. Jayan Babu, J. Chandra, K. Chandrika, R. Harikumar, Johnson Joseph, Happykumar G., K. Mohankumar, Khajida Nazar, V. S. Padmakumar, V. K. Prasanth, Pushpalatha S.,

Acknowledgements xx

Vanaja Rajendrababu, Sheela K. S., P. K. Venugopal and B. Vijayakumar (Trivandrum); and Sridevi Amma, Bindu Haridas, Ramani S., Varkala Sajeev, Sateesh, Sumayya S. and K. G. Suresh (Varkala).

Civil Service Leaders Many civil service leaders provided insights and valuable support, including P. M. Abraham, S. Aparna, T. Balakrishnan, Pankaj Kumar Bansal, K. Biju, K. M. Chandrashekhar, M. G. Devasahayam, Lizzie Jacob, Jayanti, T. K. Jose, M. S. Joseph, Vikram Kapur, L. Krishnan, P. Senthil Kumar, Sudhir Mankad, Lalit Mathur, Shakul Mishra, Palat Mohandas, P. G. Muralidharan, Ajit Patel, M. Ramachandran, Padma Ramachandran, V. Ramachandran, T. R. Reghunandan, M. M. K. Sardana, Ashok Vardhan Shetty, B. K. Sinha, K. C. Sivaramakrishnan, P. K. Srivastava, Manjula Subramanian, S. S. Meenakshi Sundaram, Keshav Varma, Mamta Verma, S. M. Vijayanand and M. Vijayanunni.

Local Government Bureaucrats Many officials generously shared their experiences in local governments, including R. B. Joshi, R. P. Mahida, Vijay H. Mistry, Neela Munshi, Deepak Nayak, Prashant A. Pandya, Sheetal Pillay, Mayang Rawal, K. J. Shah and Mahendra Sokhadia (Ahmedabad); B. R. Bard (Gondal); Dashrathsingh N. Gohil and R. J. Patel (Navsari); Vijay Anadkat, J. R. Dudiya, H. S. Mehta, Harshad Patel and P. D. Vyas (Rajkot); Debashish Basak, Bhairav Desai, J. M. Patel, Nilesh Patel and Jatin Shah (Surat); M. B. Zunza (Vyara); D. Chandrasekharan, G. Dhandapani and V. Pitchai (Chennai); K. Boopathy, Karunakaran, K. Saravana Kumar and Natarajan (Coimbatore); D. Ganesan, A. Janakiraman and Rajan (Nagercoil); M. Seeni Ajmalkhan and V. Narayanan Nair (Tirunelveli); Gopalakrishna Pillai (Kochi); K. N. Krishnankutty (Ottapalam); K. M. Bashir and R. S. Chandran (Palakkad); and B. S. Jayakumar and G. V. Shyam (Trivandrum).

Scholars Many scholars shared their insights, including Saswath Bandopadhyay, Solomon Benjamin, Shubhagato Dasgupta, P. Krishnakumar, Debolina Kundu, Mukesh P. Mathur, O. P. Mathur, Dinesh Mehta, Meera Mehta, Sebastian Morris, Partha Mukhopadhyay, M. A. Oommen, K. N. Nair, Tara Nair, Prem Pangotra, A. V. Jose, Vidyadhar Phatak, K. Govinda Rao, Amita Shah, Ghanshyam Shah, V. Shantakumar, Vimal Trivedi and Chetan Vaidya. Several faculty members of training institutes

xxi

Acknowledgements

also provided insights, including Mona Iyer, Sadan Jha, P Kanakasabapathy, N. Muthuswamy, J. B. Rajan, N. Ramakanthan, S. Reghukumar, P. Taniz Selvan, M. Sivaraman and G. Suresh.

Others Several other individuals shared their insights on local governance, including S. P. Mohammed Ali, P. U. Asnani, B. R. Balachandran, Manvita Baradi, Jignesh Barchha, Hiren Bhai, Kishen Bhai, Ranji Bhai, Ajoy Bhattacharya, D. Chandrasekharan, S. Dinesh, Jacob Easow, A. Jayaraman, Manish Khurana, Neeraj Khurana, V. V. Krishnarajan, J. B. Kshirsagar, K. S. Jayachandra Kumar, Radhakrishna Kurup, Muyun Lathigara, N. Mahesh, Thomas Mathew, Rohit Mehta, Mohan, K. Mukiah, G. Nagarajan, Bimal Patel, John L. Paul, V. Pitchai, K. G. Prakash, P. R. Sajikumar, D. Sarathchandran, Sureshchandran, Ramesh Ramanathan, Swati Ramanathan, V. Sriram, Lekhan N. Thakkar, B. S. Tulsigani and A. Vijayan. Hitesh Amin and Vijay Solanki served as able interpreters and provided research support in Gujarat.

Abbreviations

AE AEE AMRUT ARC ASICS BATF BJP BPL BPMC BSNL BSUP CA CDP CDS CEPT CET CMD CPHEEO CPM CPWD CSS CTP DDP DMK DPC DPR DTP EE EMS

assistant engineer assistant executive engineer Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation Administrative Reforms Commission Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems Bangalore Agenda Task Force Bharatiya Janata Party below poverty line Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited basic services for the urban poor constitutional amendment city development plan Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum formerly known as Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad College of Engineering Trivandrum Centre for Management Development, Trivandrum Central Public Health Engineering and Environment Organisation Communist Party of India (Marxist) Central Public Works Department Centre for Social Studies, Surat chief town planner detailed development plan Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam district planning committee detailed project report detailed town planning executive engineer Elamkulam Manakkal Sankaran (initials of the political leader and former Kerala chief minister E. M. S. Namboodiripad)

Abbreviations

EWS GIDR GO GoK GUDC HPEC HUDCO ICSSR IIMA IIPA IMF IT JNNURM KDMC KILA KMA KRFB KSEB KSUDP KWA LDC/UDC LG LSGD MHADA MIS MLA MMRDA MoHUA MoPR MP NCAER NDDB NGO NHAI NIUA NPCC NPM

xxiv

economically weaker sections Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad government order Government of Kerala Gujarat Urban Development Company high powered expert committee for estimating investment requirements for urban infrastructure Housing and Urban Development Corporation Indian Council for Social Science Research, Delhi Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi International Monetary Fund information technology Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation Kerala Institute of Local Administration, Thrissur Kerala Municipality Act Kerala Road Fund Board Kerala State Electricity Board Limited Kerala State Urban Development Project Kerala Water Authority lower division/upper division clerk local government Local Self-Government Department Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority management information system member of legislative assembly Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry of Panchayati Raj member of parliament National Council of Applied Economic Research National Dairy Development Board non-government organisation National Highway Authority of India National Institute of Urban Affairs National Project Construction Corporation new public management

xxv Abbreviations

PA PIL PIU PSC PWD RAY RWA SCM SEC SIDCO SMC SRFD SWM TAG TISS TMC/TC TNUDF TNUIFSL TPO TPS TWAD

personnel assistant public interest litigation project implementation unit Public Service Commission Public Works Department Rajiv Awas Yojana resident welfare association Smart Cities Mission State Election Commission Small Industries Development Corporation (Kerala) Surat Municipal Corporation Sabarmati River Front Development project solid waste management technical advisory group Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) Municipal Corporation Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited town planning officer town planning scheme Tamil Nadu Water and Drainage Board

Part I Background Service delivery, especially in urban areas, is a hot-button issue. Piles of garbage in city centres, blackouts in streets, patchy piped water – such realities have inspired activism, investigation and scholarly work. In India, public services are seen as the responsibility of the government but there is a widespread perception that it is heavy-handed, ineffective and unjust. Decentralisation is often seen as a mantra to address such problems: locating governance in local populations and reducing the distance between the ‘government’ and the ‘governed’. Proponents hope that decentralisation will make public service provision – and governance, more broadly – responsive to local needs in general and particularly the well-being of those with precarious lives and livelihoods. Reduced distance between the government and the governed also deepens democracy so that people participate in governance. This is the double allure of decentralisation. The ability of decentralised governance to pursue the common good, enhance public services and deepen democracy is hardly assured. Powerful national and global technologies of rule threaten local possibilities and local action. Authoritarianism and the dominance of big capital are important concerns. Local government can also be upended by locally dominant groups. Nevertheless, lurking authoritarianism, ‘neoliberalism’ and ‘local capture’ do not overwhelm the transformative potential of local government. For much of India, we see a reality in which strong local possibilities exist. The ability of local government to pursue the common good and enhance public services can be greatly strengthened by institutional features of government. Indeed, we already see instances of conducive institutional features – hardly perfect, but showing considerable possibilities for local government. The stakes for democracy are high: if local government does not ‘work’ effectively and justly, it can compromise people’s belief in engaging with governance, thereby compromising democratic deepening. The two chapters of Part I engage with governance and decentralisation. Chapter 1 introduces the main arguments by comparing two cities with very

different realities of decentralisation and patterns of urban governance. It raises the basic puzzle of why the cities are very different and why major nationwide reforms failed to substantially change these realities. Chapter 2 broadens the twocity comparison and advances systemic explanations for the difference, applicable more broadly across the country. It addresses these puzzles and presents answers arising primarily from the political-institutional features of the government rather than meta modes of governance or inequalities of social structure, important as these are.

1 Two Cities

The 1990s witnessed a deep change in India – a constitutional amendment, no less – that redefined decentralised governance. The reforms emphasised the democratic character of local governments and, in the case of cities, provided them many policy functions: infrastructural services such as water supply, sewerage, drainage, solid waste management and street lighting as well as education, public health, environmental management, poverty reduction and economic development. Together, these encompass wide possibilities for individual wellbeing and social justice. The beginning of the 1990s had already triggered a structural change in India’s political economy and governance through a shift in the tectonic plates of mandal, mandir and market.1 The decentralisation reforms added to these. The broad sweep of the reforms created considerable expectations about the new possibilities. We begin by trying to understand governance in two specific cities. From the thousands of city governments in India, this chapter presents contrasting narratives for two – Trivandrum2 on the southern and Surat on the western coast. Trivandrum is an erstwhile slow-paced city where pre-Independence royalty built progressive institutions and created public service systems. As the capital of the modern Kerala state, it houses public offices and, in recent post-liberalisation decades, also has thriving commercial and technological activity. Following the national decentralisation reforms, Kerala led India’s states in efforts to operationalise it. Kerala’s laws being particularly wide-ranging, Trivandrum too enjoyed a high degree of latitude in its decentralisation framework compared to cities in other states. Surat is a bustling old commercial centre famous for specialised industries as diverse as textiles, diamonds and chemicals. The industrial landscape has attracted a considerable number of migrants. About a quarter-century ago, and soon after the decentralisation reforms, Surat experienced an outbreak of plague that suggested public health failure but also showed proactive response by the local government (Shah 1997b). Surat is located in the state of Gujarat, which, unlike Kerala, is seldom feted for decentralisation. However, under an old legislative provision, even prior to the decentralisation reforms, the city government had authority and responsibility over several local policy domains.

Governing Locally

4

Table 1.1 Performance ranks for Trivandrum and Surat Governance Indicators

Democracy Indicators

City

Urban Urban Capacities and Planning Resources and Design

Transparency, Empowered and Accountability and Legitimate Political Participation Representation

Trivandrum

17

12

1

1

Surat

3

4

14

5

Source: Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS), 2017. Indicator definitions and other details are on the website footnoted in the text. Note: Ranks are out of 23 cities; in some cases, ranks were joint.

A 2017 survey benchmarks city government performance in 23 cities, including Trivandrum and Surat.3 It ranks both cities in the top five. However, Surat ranks better on ‘governance’ indicators while Trivandrum ranks better on ‘democracy’ indicators (Table 1.1). Relatedly, an index of public infrastructure by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited/National Institute of Urban Affairs (HUDCO/NIUA 2017) ranks Surat much higher than Trivandrum.4 Despite potential validity issues, such comparative exercises are nevertheless broadly suggestive of differences between the cities. This chapter examines what may lie behind such differences and, in doing so, elaborates our main arguments. The following section examines street lighting and other public services provided by the Surat and Trivandrum governments and establishes that the two cities are indeed quite different. It traces this to different local ‘capacities’ for effective practices and for organising local action. This is followed by a section that provides an extended conversation with elected representatives and bureaucrats inside the Trivandrum city government. The vignette underlines the importance of state–local relations in shaping local capacity. The subsequent section explores this as well as the realities of public participation in the two cities – ‘accountability’ relationships with the state government and the citizenry, and how the strength and nature of these relations together explain observed patterns of local capacity. The last section presents the layout of the book.

What It Takes to Deliver Services Locally Consider what appears to be an uncomplicated public service: street lighting, a basic responsibility of the city government and linked to livelihoods, gender and safety. Although lighting streets does not take sophisticated technology or massive resources, streets are poorly lit in much of urban India. But things are better in

5 Two Cities

Surat where the monthly failure rate of street bulbs is low (under 2 per cent) and failed bulbs are replaced within days. By contrast, Trivandrum’s failure rate is much higher (about 9 per cent) and it can take months to replace a failed bulb (Table 1.2, Panel A). Both cities function under a common national decentralisation framework. In the same ‘Indian conditions’, what enables Surat to ensure better quality street lighting? Indeed, what does it take for street lights to function effectively? Good quality bulbs have to be procured, stored and used quickly when the need arises. This implies efficient processes for procurement, storage and deployment. It further implies efficient communication, coordination and monitoring of multiple activities. In other words, an efficient system of procedures and skilled staff as well as organising and monitoring activities. What are the systems in place in Surat and Trivandrum for street lighting? Table 1.2 (Panel B) summarises these. Surat has developed product specifications Table 1.2 Street lighting performance Surat

Trivandrum

Panel A: Service Delivery Outcome Monthly failure rate ~ 1.4%; improvement over time; replacement interval for failed bulbs ~ three days

Monthly failure rate ~ 9%; no improvement over time; replacement interval for failed bulbs ~ two months

Panel B: Capacity Procurement Procurement Cell develops clear product specifications and supplier qualification criteria; continuous evaluation of previous procurement and revision of later contracts

Tender qualifications too generic for efficient procurement; procurement knowledge insufficient

Quality testing

Internal expertise available for random quality testing

Arrangements with testing centres incomplete and unworkable

Installation

Specialised staff

Installation through state government (Kerala State Electricity Board Limited) but no enforceable contract in place

Source: Compiled from field observations, interviews and documents.

Governing Locally

6

and procedures that make procurement smooth and can spot poor quality supplies. An electrical engineering professional liaises with a well-organised procurement unit that also designs and implements contracts. The city government maintains an updated database for procurement and performance monitoring. There are continuous reviews to revise product specifications and contractor qualification requirements.5 By contrast, similar systems are weaker in Trivandrum. There are several inadequacies in inviting bids (tenders) for lighting fixtures: technical descriptions are too general, supplier qualification thresholds are too low, quality testing arrangements are ad hoc, contract design is muddled and delivery schedules are not aligned with needs. These inadequacies reflect staff capacity: the ability to imagine appropriate specifications, clearly describe a purchase, design a contract, and monitor execution.6 All this suggests that in Trivandrum, ‘decentralisation’ of policy functions and authority was not accompanied by appropriate capacity to organise activities and deliver services. The language of ‘capacity’ is sometimes dismissively associated with ‘technocracy’ and ‘neoliberal governance’, terms that are unpacked in Chapter 2. Unfortunately, the association has depoliticised it and discouraged serious efforts to understand what shapes capacity. We explore what ‘capacity’ is, how it is formed and what it means in the field of power relations. Not only does the Trivandrum city government have weaker systems for providing services such as street lighting, but it also depends on the state government for street light installation. The city government hands over procured bulbs to the electricity utility of the state government (Kerala State Electricity Board Limited, or KSEB) which makes its own contract arrangements for installation. The KSEB does not prioritise the city government’s needs and in general has only weak accountability to it, leading to delays and inefficiencies. The elected representative overseeing these matters in the city government says:7 ‘We buy bulbs and give them to the KSEB. We also pay the tariff. But they will not do it on time.’ Compare this with the following categorical statement from an administrative leader in Surat:8 We have a rate analysis cell [which functions] under the commissioner. We keep information from previous procurements. And we review our bid document [for procedures] frequently. Our procurement [system] is good. We get good local competition and local contractors have reduced their rates. The state government does not interfere [in our procurement system].

The example of street lighting can be extended to other public services. Take the case of water supply. Surat’s water supply (including treatment weir) is managed by the city government through a team of technical staff led by an Additional Chief Engineer. The city government has developed internal skills and procedures

7 Two Cities

for treating and supplying water. In Trivandrum, too, the responsibility for water supply was formally transferred to the city government following the 1990s reforms. Accordingly, the city government should have developed the relevant knowledge and skill base, developed corresponding staff cadres and set in place new procurement and works contracts. None of this happened. As a consequence, water supply in Trivandrum – a quintessential ‘decentralised service’ – is still provided by the state government’s water utility (Kerala Water Authority, or KWA). Consistent with this, Chattopadhyay and Harilal (2017, 16) note that the city government’s role is ‘limited to supply of water through tankers in some of the stressed areas during emergency situations’. Unlike Trivandrum, Surat also runs its own crèches, schools, hospitals and even a medical college (Trivedi 2017; Shah 2019), functions which are performed by the state but not the local government in Trivandrum.9 Surat also manages a dedicated roadway with buses for public transport (Mahadevia, Joshi and Datey 2013). In the specific comparison of Surat and Trivandrum, another possible explanation could be that of scale. Surat has over four times the population of Trivandrum and a larger, more industrialised economy. However, the capacityautonomy argument largely works independently of scale. Much of the description of Surat in this chapter also applies to Rajkot city in Gujarat, which has a population and economy closer to that of Trivandrum. Indeed, Navsari city in Gujarat, with only a fifth of Trivandrum’s population, has a city government whose organisational form has more detailed functional specialisation than Trivandrum. The description of street lighting and water supply suggests that the city government in Surat functions differently from that in Trivandrum. Surat has the capacity to effectively deliver services. This does not necessarily mean that these services are worse or missing in Trivandrum. It simply means that these services are provided by the state government, not the local government. The first set of arguments in the book establishes whether or not cities have decentralised services and traces decentralised services to local capacity.10 The second set of arguments locates such capacity in state–local relations and public participation. When the state government interferes in local government functioning, even with good intentions, local capacity is compromised despite potentially strong public participation. Under such circumstances, we find that not only is service provision not decentralised but its quality is also compromised. The third set of arguments connects state–local relations to institutional features of government (laws, rule-making authority and operational rules).

Governing Locally

8

The above description produces a fundamental empirical question: even as the Constitution endows local government with local public service responsibilities, who controls service delivery? Kerala’s local governments are feted for decentralisation (Heller 2012), unlike those of Gujarat. Soon after the constitutional reforms, Kerala enacted legislation to move an elaborate list of municipal functions to city governments as well as ‘transfer all institutions, schemes, buildings, other properties, assets and liabilities’.11 One naturally assumes that these services were now in fact handled by city governments – and yet this was far from the case. Core public services such as street lighting, water supply, sewerage, drainage, and roads and bridges remain the responsibility of state government utilities and departments in Trivandrum while Surat’s city government has complete control over these services (Table 1.3).12 Importantly, urban planning – a key, overarching element of local governance – is also within the control of city government in Surat but not in Trivandrum. The capacity argument demystifies the puzzle of local action: compared to Trivandrum, the Surat city government has the organisation and people for key functions and has developed the procedures to follow through. The Surat government’s capacity is influenced by its administrative relationship with the Gujarat state government, what we term ‘state–local relations’. Trivandrum’s mayor felt that decentralisation was mostly in the rhetoric of ‘people’s planning’,13 Table 1.3 Which government delivers urban services in Trivandrum and Surat? Service

Surat

Trivandrum

Street lighting

City

City and state

Water supply

City

State

Sewerage

City

State

Drainage

City

State

Solid waste management

City

City

Roads and bridges

City

State*

Urban planning

City

State

Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents. Note: In Kerala, the following state government utilities or departments are involved: Kerala State Electricity Board Limited (KSEB, street lighting), Kerala Water Authority (KWA, water supply and sewerage), state government Irrigation Department (drainage), state government Public Works Department (PWD, drainage and roads and bridges), state government Town Planning Department (urban planning). *Except very minor roads which are handled by the city government.

9 Two Cities

and the deputy mayor averred that it is the state government bureaucracy that actually decides local government matters.14 Noted a former mayor of Trivandrum:15 All responsibility for staff placement is kept with the state government, which spares no role for us. Most of our purchases and work contracts need its approval. We have no authority for any action. We look up to the state government for everything, we are ‘yours obediently’ to it.16

The above account may suggest that Surat has ‘good’ urban governance. But a major missing factor is the relative absence of people’s participation in the governance process, which is a constitutionally mandated, basic element of the self-governing structure. In its absence, Kamath and Zachariah (2015) report that slum-dwellers and the poor were forcibly moved from city lands and river banks. In a study of one relocation site on the periphery, Kosad, they note that those who were resettled had poor connection with the city and faced rupture of livelihoods. Tragedies have been documented in detail for Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s megacity. I. Chatterjee (2013, 160) contrasts the privileged classes and castes of Ahmedabad’s West, ‘replete with state-of-the-art hotels, glossy malls, gated apartments, treelined wide roads’, with the poor of the East, themselves fragmented on religious and caste lines. Literature for the city has documented how the West has pursued non-inclusive programmes that immiserise the East. One such project was the Sabarmati River Front Development project (SRFD). It reclaimed parts of the riverbed by evicting thousands of poor families and dispossessing the livelihoods of several tens of thousands and sold the land to private developers (Desai 2012; Patel, Sliuzas and Mathur 2015). Loss of homes and livelihoods fell largely on dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Muslims with little initial thought given to their security and well-being – in the case of Muslims, many were already living insecurely after years of communal tension and violence (Chandhoke et al. 2007). Navdeep Mathur (2012) recounts the tale of subsequent contestation through community organisations mobilising against the injustice, complicated by fragmentation within the community (I. Chatterjee 2013).17 Such dispossession is less likely to occur in Trivandrum, where equity considerations are more salient.18 For instance, in planning public housing for the poor, a key role was given to Kudumbashree, the women-centred State Poverty Alleviation Mission, thereby substantively and symbolically ensuring propoor, participatory intent (Williams et al. 2018). Local women affiliated with Kudumbashree conducted surveys to generate lists of those who qualified for housing. For Trivandrum housing projects, Ganga (2019, 90) observes:

Governing Locally

10

… compared to what is indicated by similar studies conducted in other cities …, in Kerala, the process of slum rehabilitation has been transparent. For example, the beneficiaries were fully aware of the inclusions and exclusions in the beneficiary list. Local politicians actively campaigned for the project and spread awareness among the beneficiaries.… [T]he absence of attempts to acquire slum land for real estate development or beautification demonstrate the state’s continuing commitment to the welfare of its citizens. The local government also pooled nearby state-owned unoccupied land to build houses for the landless. This contrasts with … many other cities.

One strand of the argument is from autonomy to local capacity to local action. But this does not ensure that local action is inclusive and just; indeed, local capacity can even become an instrument of dispossession of those at the socio-economic margins. When local capacity is tempered by vibrant community participation – and where needed, contestation – outcomes are likely to be more just. Therefore, a second strand of the argument goes from community participation to justice in local action.

A Field Vignette Prior to abstracting into arguments and analysis, in the spirit of Grindle (2007, 1) who ‘ventures inside town hall’ in Mexico, we start with a textured understanding of city government from within. Box 1.1 presents the transcript of a freewheeling conversation in the mayor’s chamber with elected representatives and bureaucrats of the Trivandrum Municipal Corporation.19 The conversation covered a range of domains that rose organically in the discussion, with participants often responding to each other conversationally rather than answering specific questions put by the researcher. Box 1.1 Transcript of conversation in the office of the Trivandrum Municipal Corporationa Babu Jacob: Why is the [Trivandrum Municipal] Corporation not handling water supply, sewerage, etc.? Mayor: The corporation is ready but the KWA [Kerala Water Authority, state utility] doesn’t hand it [authority] over to us. Deputy Mayor: Water supply has not been transferred to us. Power has been delegated, but not handed over by them. If we supply water using water tankers, the [state] government will be against it. The biggest difficulty is with electricity and water supply.b One and a half years ago, (Contd.)

11 Two Cities we had deposited 26 crore rupees but the KSEB [Kerala State Electricity Board, state government utility] has not done anything until now. Mayor: We gave them money for installing meters for street lights and public taps for water, but they are not doing it. All matters must go to the [state] government. We need its administrative approval. There is no self-governance. Power has not been decentralised. Deputy Mayor: We have power over only two matters. One, issuing birth and death certificates. Two, solid waste management.c Mayor: We cannot build a single building since they won’t allow tender excess.d [Public] works done by the [state] government get tender excess. But we don’t get it. Often we don’t get decisions either [that is, the state government stalls on the decision on whether to allow tender excess]. The corporation will not get tender excess for [constructing or repairing] a road, but the PWD gets it for a road in the same spot. Babu Jacob: Does the corporation have an agenda for city development? Mayor: Yes, we have many items on our agenda. One, improving public ponds/ tanks. Two, creating multilevel parking. Three, creating a public toilet system. Four, decentralising solid waste management. Five, improving the Putharikandam maidanam.e Secretary: The Master Plan is supposed to be developed by the corporation. But the CTP [chief town planner of the state government] is doing it.f Mayor: The corporation is not able to do anything. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works):g We are unable to create a vision [for the city]. Our time is frittered away by complaints related to building rules. Mayor: There are eleven zones. If each has an additional secretary, many things can be done then and there. But the [state] government does not permit such changes. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): 33 per cent of [the state government’s] Plan funds are given to us. But the implementation is by [state] government officers. When the mayor calls a meeting, they will not come. Instead, they will send a clerk. For every four or five meetings called by us, the officer will come for one. Secretary: We have so much money, but we have no manpower and infrastructure for spending it. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): We do not have a master plan. If we contact the CTP, we get advice with several restrictive conditions. We contacted the CTP for layout approval for an IT facility in Kuravankonam. The CTP said that permission can be given if there is ‘considerable development of commerce’. Whether there is ‘considerable development’ is something that they already know. And yet they do not make a decision. (Contd.)

Governing Locally

12

Deputy Mayor: Even when a decision is taken by the representatives of 10 lakh citizens [that is, elected councillors], along with their officers, a [state government] departmental officer can reject it. Mayor: Salaries have increased, but the tax source was not raised. We are ready to raise taxes, but the [state] government will not change the rules to enable this. Deputy Mayor: Today’s taxes are the same as taxes 15 years ago. In 1999, they removed the tax schedule but have still not replaced it. Babu Jacob: Have different [municipal] corporations organised and met [the state government]? Mayor: Yes, we have. But they [state government officials] are not doing anything in accordance with the schedule. In the matter of taxes, they issued an executive order, but that by itself cannot create a new, implementable policy. Deputy Mayor: Councillors have a lot of work: creating a beneficiary list, calling [meetings of] the ward committee.h There is a financial burden for those [councillors] who do not have private employment – telephone charges themselves will be around Rs 1,000, but councillors get a very poor honorarium.i Standing Committee Chairperson (Health): The councillor has to directly go and do many things. People [wrongly] think councillors take bribes. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): We buy bulbs and give them to the KSEB. We also pay the tariff [for electricity]. But they do not change the bulbs on time. Deputy Mayor: The ward committee selects projects. Then the TAG [technical advisory group]j rejects many of these arbitrarily based on its likes and dislikes. City Engineer: We have no architect to execute major schemes. There is nobody to do soil testing. The TAG will ask for all this. And then it will reject our proposals. Earlier, we could get things done. Now, because of TAG, nothing is possible. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): All [public] works happen in March. We don’t even know whether a work was executed. There is no supervision. We need a calendar for project implementation, but each year the [state] government issues [implementation] guidelines only by the end of the year. Initially, they tell us not to buy tar [for road work]. Then they tell us to buy up to a limit of Rs 10 lakhs. By March they tell us to buy as much as we like. The [state] government guidelines for the EMS Housing scheme are worthy of inclusion in the Guinness Book [of World Records]. Deputy Mayor: We are unable to execute matters discussed in the ward sabha.k Consequently, fewer people attend ward sabhas. Earlier, 4,000 people would attend, out of the 5,000 in a ward. After a while, only 100 would attend. We just buy and distribute tea. (Contd.)

13 Two Cities In the working group [of the corporation], people’s representatives and their technical officers together make decisions. This goes to those who sit on the committee [TAG] which promptly rejects them. As long as this continues, nothing will change. Whatever project one proposes, some retired officers [constituting the TAG] will sit and push it out, the TAG is the problem. Additional Secretary: Because of this, there are conflicts between officers and elected representatives. There are four different audits: AG [Accountant General], Local Fund Audit, Finance Inspection Wing, Performance Audit. Of these, only the AG audit is done well. Deputy Mayor: Yes, the AG audit is done well. Additional Secretary: Earlier we could appoint an architect [on our own]. Soil testing was also possible earlier. Now we are unable to even hire an architect. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): Slum improvement [work] is not happening. The reason is that in JNNURM the costing is too low.l Babu Jacob: [Is the reason] politics? Mayor: [Politics is] not an obstacle to development, there is not much of it. Deputy Mayor: There is not much [of politics]. Sometimes political matters are raised in the council, but it is largely with an eye to the media. Mayor: The reason there is little participation is because nothing is getting done. We need the freedom to operate. The [state] government should interfere only when we exceed our power [that is, go beyond what is stipulated in the law for decentralised government]. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): Out of 5,000 applications received for the EMS Housing scheme, only fewer than 40 have been approved – because of the TP regulation/master plan. City Engineer: They are not assigning land for public housing saying that it was designated 40 years ago as ‘area reserved for future urbanisation’. Secretary: There is no genuine e-governance. All municipal bodies are required to partner with IKM [the state government’s Information Kerala Mission] but they have not done anything. Nothing is being delivered to citizens through the IKM’s output. Their apps do not talk to each other and are not integrated. IT Officer (KSUDP):m After over 11 years, they have not even established a network. Even e-tendering has not been introduced. IKM is eating into our funds. E-governance has faced a very bad setback. Additional Secretary: By 1999, the mayor received executive power and became the full-time chief executive. Before that, the [corporation] secretary was the chief executive. The corporation secretary is still the authority in many Acts and rules such as for building permits – the mayor and council cannot interfere in these matters.n (Contd.)

Governing Locally

14

Disciplinary powers have not been made in terms of the 1994 [Kerala Municipal] Act. For disciplinary action, there is uncertainty of powers.o Secretary: Administratively, the [corporation] secretary has no control over staff. The mayor has those powers. The mayor does not go to either the court or the ombudsman – but the mayor is still the chief executive authority.p The Act says the secretary can take disciplinary action with the ‘knowledge of the mayor’. This has caused uncertainty about powers. [short break in the conversation while tea was served] Secretary: Ministerial staff change departments – Health to Revenue to Engineering. City Engineer: We have a big fleet of vehicles, but there is no qualified engineer to look after them. There are many electrical works, but we do not have an electrical engineer. The same is the case with IT, there are no engineers here. Secretary: We are far behind on IT. There is no MIS reporting and the finance and accounting system is way behind.q We need a finance and accounts officer. City Engineer: If the [state] government can spend a small proportion of money in developing these support services, we could do it without consultants. We have environmental engineers, engineers with M.Tech. degrees, whose services are wasted.r Instead, we employ costly consultants. Kudumbashree Project Officer: There are no arrangements for vehicle maintenance. Secretary: Yes, there is no vehicle management. City Engineer: We can do well. A few rule changes can lead to a miracle. Additional Secretary: There is no professionalism in middle-level management. A person may be appointed as bill collector, then he becomes an LDC [lower division clerk]. There is no training, the starting is itself misguided. From LDC he gets promoted to RI [revenue inspector] to senior superintendent to assistant revenue officer, then to officer. As officer, he can be RO [revenue officer], PA to secretary, accounts officer or council secretary. Then he can rise to deputy secretary. He doesn’t get any training. The accounts officer may never have written out a cheque as he was previously a clerk in Revenue or Health. Secretary: We need to inject professionalism, especially in Finance and Accounts. There is no caderisation. Introduce caderisation and some direct recruitment. Inside the corporation, governance is hollow. Funds are not a problem, but we are short of management expertise. [short break in the conversation while tea was served] Secretary: E-governance is not benefiting citizens. The railway is a good example [of e-governance]. We are nowhere close to that. There is no transparency. For obtaining a building permit, the citizen does not know whether a piece of land is in the green strip or not. (Contd.)

15

Two Cities

City Engineer: DTP approvals should be published. Then people will know [what has been decided]. But now, the TPO [town planning officer] can claim that such and such a road is slated for widening although it may not be so.s Kudumbashree Project Officer: The master plan does not have survey numbers. It only contains colours [on the map]. Secretary: So, it is [up to] the discretion of the officert – because there is no survey number. There is no clarity in the master plan. City Engineer: The common person does not have a way of knowing which are the ‘reserved areas’. Even the engineers don’t know it. People equate a ‘green strip’ with a paddy field. The main work of the TP [Town Planning] department is to make the master plan. But actually, 70 per cent of their work goes for building approval. Engineers are all TPOs. It is not like in earlier times. All engineers do all work. If it were not so, there would be enormous pressure to become TPO, including recommendations from national government ministers.u Secretary: The [state government] secretary says, ‘You can do that.’ After some time he says, ‘No, you need government approval.’ Kudumbashree Project Officer: The [state] government has not granted authority [to the corporation] – they only give some funds. City Engineer: That is right. Kudumbashree Project Officer: To purchase a vehicle, we have to go to the government. Secretary: That is right. There is no land for [creating a] landfill for SWM [solid waste management]. We need expertise for the technology of landfill. New technologies would need to be developed. Notes: a The conversation occurred on 7 May 2011. It was in Malayalam with a mixture of English; translations are by the authors. The following elected members participated: mayor, deputy mayor (who was also standing committee chair for finance), and chairpersons for standing committees for public works (works), health, education, town planning, and development. The following bureaucrats participated: secretary, additional secretary, city engineer, IT officer (KSUDP) and Kudumbashree project officer. b  The situation changed slightly a few years later: although the KWA continued to arrange city water, the city government also had a role in tanker supply during emergencies. c  In fact, the city government cannot perform even solid waste management on its own as it is dependent on permissions from the state government, as evidenced later in the conversation. d  ‘Tender excess’ refers to the amount by which the lowest bid exceeds the estimated value prepared by the tenderer prior to bidding. e  A famous local public open space. f  A ‘master plan’ is a plan for socio-economic development with spatial coordination for a city. CTP stands for the chief town planner of the state government on whose recommendation master plans are approved by the state government.

(Contd.)

Governing Locally

16

 In the city government, elected members (councillors) form the council; councillors form standing committees for different policy functions, such as public works (‘works’), health, and so on. h  A ward committee is a committee of a city government formed for every ward. It consists of representatives of specified organisations of the people and is presided by the ward councillor. i  A councillor is an elected people’s representative from a city government ‘ward’; the Trivandrum city government has 100 wards and therefore 100 councillors. j  TAG stands for technical advisory group. It mostly consists of unelected, retired technocrats selected by state government and has veto powers over local government proposals. We discuss this in detail in Part II. k  A ward sabha is a general body consisting of all the citizens of a ward presided by the ward councillor. l  The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was a 2005–12 national programme to fund infrastructure and low-income housing in 65 selected cities, including Trivandrum and Surat. m  KSUDP stands for the Kerala State Urban Development Project. It is a department of the state government holding responsibility for urban development projects funded by the Asian Development Bank. It was also given the responsibility to implement JNNURM. The speaker is the IT representative in the project implementation unit for JNNURM formed by KSUDP for the Trivandrum city government; its office is located within the city government office premises. n  Here, the additional secretary means to say that although the mayor is designated as the chief executive of a city government, there are still several matters – such as specific responsibilities under state laws – in which the secretary, not the mayor, is formally in charge. o  ‘Disciplinary’ power and action refer to the power of an official to take action to punish an erring subordinate. p  The secretary means to say that the corporation secretary continues to be answerable to the courts and statutory authorities, not the mayor. q  By ‘MIS reporting’ the secretary is referring to an office Management Information System which is an arrangement for reporting key information at defined time intervals on a given template to the head of the office. r  The state has a general technical cadre for managing civil works of all local governments. This cadre is formed and administered by the state government and headed by a chief engineer. Since recruitment to this cadre is broad-based, its personnel have diverse technical specialisations. Placement to local governments is not a function of training or experience. As a consequence, an environmental engineer with a postgraduate degree may be placed in a rural local government while a mechanical engineer is assigned to environment issues in the Trivandrum city government. s  DTP stands for a detailed town planning scheme for a given location in the city; it is prepared by a town planning officer (TPO). t  The officer here could be from the city or state government. u  The city government does not have a cadre of town planners qualified and experienced in the profession of urban planning. Its organisation is staffed only with a general technical division. From this division the city government separates a few staff members for town planning matters, although the role is narrow (mostly issuing building permits). At best, this is a feeble claim for separation of functions. It was made feebler still by frequently moving personnel from town planning to engineering and back. All these matters are in the hands of the state government. g

17

Two Cities

The extended conversation covered wide ground and highlights a range of concerns (and frustrations) within the city government. Table 1.4 summarises themes emerging from the conversation focusing on six participants who made 60 of the 66 comments coded from the conversation (three elected representatives and three bureaucrats making 33 and 27 comments, respectively). The themes are: 1. city government capacity a. organisation (organisational form; staff; disciplinary powers) b. procedures (IT and e-governance; vehicles; taxes; audit) 2. town planning 3. municipal functions (buildings, roads and other public works; electricity; water supply; street lighting; solid waste management; housing; slum improvement) 4. politics 5. people’s participation 6. state–local relations Expectedly, municipal functions attracted the most comments, but these were mainly from elected representatives.20 Conversely, bureaucrats emphasised organisational and procedural issues far more than elected representatives did.21 Importantly, almost a fifth of all comments had to do with state–local relations. These comments were unprompted and typically came from elected representatives. In fact, even when a comment was not explicitly about state–local relations, there was frequent mention of the state government. About half of all comments referred to the state government and its agencies, and not one of them in a positive light.22 At first, it may seem odd that the deputy mayor says, ‘If we supply water using water tankers, the government will be against it’ or that the mayor complains that ‘all matters must go to the government’ (ella kaaryavum governmentil pokanam) – after all, they ‘run’ the government and are at its apex! Of course, they are referring to the controlling state government. Both the mayor and the deputy mayor were from political parties running the state government at the time. In fact, even in the Kerala law effecting decentralisation (Kerala Municipality Act of 1994), the term ‘government’ is often used to refer to the state government. Reference to the state government and its agencies was particularly high when elected representatives spoke about municipal functions (over 80 per cent of comments about municipal functions referenced the state government). Similarly, in the sharply realistic fiction of Yes, Prime Minister, when British Prime Minister Hacker complains that ‘the Government has virtually handed over control of the country to the local councils’ (Lynn and Jay 2020, 383), he is referring to only the national government at Westminster but not the local councils as ‘government’.

City Political Executive

(1b)

(2)

(3)

Theme (%)

44

18

19

19

0

17

31

12

0

17

17

50

11

10

19

25

0

23

3

11

0

0

81

24

27

7

13

0

8

42

78

25

33

(5)

(6)

0

3

3

0

0

0

0

6

0

8

8

0

3

3

0

0

0

0

6

0

8

8

73

18

18

11

25

0

8

24

11

33

25

48

48

22

38

0

23

70

78

58

75

66

60

27

8

6

13

33

9

12

12

Mention Number of state of government comments (%)

Note: Comments made by six participants in the vignette (Box 1.1) were coded using the categories indicated in the table and described in the text. Cells represent percentages; columns (1)–(6) sum to 100 per cent.

7

Mention of state government (%)

44

Total

23

38

City Engineer

Total (10 people)

83

Addl Secretary

23

6

31

0

‘Works’ Chair

Secretary

8

Deputy Mayor

Total

8

Mayor

(4) Politics Participation State– local

Table 1.4 Analysis of vignette

Organisation Procedures Town Municipal planning functions

(1a)

Total (6 people)

City Bureaucrats

19

Two Cities

In the conversation, when asked about the agenda and priorities of the city government, the mayor rattles off a series of relatively minor points when, by her own admission and that of her team, almost no basic service is delivered in a decentralised manner. She mentions matters such as beautifying tank areas and multilevel parking but not basic, core infrastructure (water supply, sewerage, roads, and so on). As the city government is resigned to being controlled by the state government, basic matters of water supply, sewerage and roads are not on the mayor’s agenda. According to the corporation secretary, ‘The state government secretary first says, “You can do that” only to reverse it with, “No, you need [state] government approval”.’ The vignette also addresses some popular explanations of local government ineffectiveness: finances, citizen participation and politics. On the first explanation (finances), the conversation identifies the bottleneck in capacity and autonomy: Corporation Secretary: We have so much money, but we have no manpower [sic] and infrastructure for spending it.… Inside the corporation, governance is hollow. Funds are no problem, management expertise has to be developed. Standing Committee Chairperson (Works): Thirty-three per cent of Plan funds are given to us. But the implementation is by [state] government officers. Kudumbashree Project Officer: The [state] government has not granted authority [to the corporation] – they only give some funds. City Engineer: That is right.

On public participation, the vignette suggests that it is not low participation that produces government ineffectiveness, rather, ineffectiveness reduces what is otherwise relatively high potential participation. There is also an indication that state government control reduces the attraction and possibilities of participation: Deputy Mayor: The ward committee selects projects. Then the TAG rejects many of these arbitrarily based on its likes and dislikes.

When asked about the role of politics, the elected representatives note that this, too, is not a bottleneck in the conventional sense:

Governing Locally

20

Babu Jacob: [Is the reason] politics? Mayor: [Politics is] not an obstacle to development, there is not much of it (vikasanatthil thadasum alla, valuthaayittilla). Deputy Mayor: There is not much [of politics]. Sometimes political matters are raised in the council, but it is largely with an eye to the media.

In another sense, politics is a bottleneck, but it is not the conventional politics of power struggles (individual, factional or partisan) for control of the city government. At the time of the conversation, the city and state governments were both controlled by the same partisan political coalition. Rather, the vignette points to state–local administrative politics. The deputy mayor puts it poignantly: Even when a decision is taken by the representatives of 10 lakh citizens [that is, elected councillors], along with their officers, a [state government] departmental officer can reject it.

Local capture and corporate-capital-fuelled governance pressures are also absent in the vignette. While these are general realities of concern, the vignette suggests that an important part of the story of local governance is located elsewhere, namely in state–local relations.

Making Local Government Local Do the Surat and Trivandrum city governments enjoy autonomy to plan, consult and act? The vignette reveals that Trivandrum faces considerable interference by the state government. Surat is less hamstrung. When water supply and sewerage functions were transferred from the state utility following decentralisation reforms, the Surat city government created a design department that grew into expanded roles such as energy efficiency, leakage prevention and system upgradation. By contrast, water supply and sewerage, as well as other functions, were not transferred at all in Trivandrum. The state government merely transferred one engineer from its Irrigation Department to the city government – someone with no experience in water supply or sewerage. Nevertheless, the state government maintained the fable that this would ‘take care of all kinds of engineering works including water schemes’.23 After the 1990s reforms, Kerala enacted a new law (the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 and 1999). In making the law, the state government did not cede authority on most matters. Rather than clearly stating that specific functions were turned over to the full administrative authority of the local government,

21

Two Cities

the law reserved for the state government several administrative matters such as placement of staff and how public works are to be implemented. It did so by giving the power of administrative rule-making to the state government. There followed a continuous one-way flow of detailed instructions from the state government to the local governments through the years, virtually controlling the day to day affairs of the local government. The state government’s instrument for control is its Local Self Government Department (LSGD). Even minute matters need to be specifically authorised by the LSGD: postal charges, signboards, exhibiting images of national leaders in the office, fuel charges of vehicles, repair of office clocks and office furniture, tea and snacks for committee meetings!24 Nothing is left to the imagination of the local government. The law effecting decentralisation is different from other laws because it is about creating a government and transferring authority. The government giving up authority typically does it reluctantly rather than willingly, fearing erosion of power. Therefore, it is imperative that the procedures for decentralisation not be left only to the government giving up its authority. Unlike Kerala, Gujarat kept rule-making within the domain of the local government, not the state government. This happened through a legislative legacy tracing to well before the 1990s decentralisation reforms, as we will discuss later. Furthermore, when there is extensive delegation of rule-making power, as in Kerala and many other states, according to institutional best practices it should be accompanied by clear oversight by the legislature and the political executive to ensure that the delegated agency (LSGD) follows the original intent of the legislation. But in practice, institutional oversight was weak and the rules drafted by the LSGD were not seriously questioned.25 This contradiction between political/legislative intent and administrative backtracking produced ambiguity and policy drift. As Hacker, Pierson and Thelen (2015: 180) note, ‘[d]rift occurs when institutions or policies are deliberately held in place while their context shifts in ways that alter their effects’. We examine these matters in Part IV. A key motivation for decentralisation is to reduce the distance between those ‘doing governance’ and those who are ‘governed’ (and perhaps even to question the dichotomy), to have citizens participate directly rather than through the mediation of elected officers and bureaucracies. Surveying various definitions of citizen participation, Roberts (2004, 320) emphasises that it is ‘the process by which members of a society (those not holding office or administrative positions in government) share power with public officials in making substantive decisions and in taking actions related to the community’. Participation in governance can occur in formal and informal ways. The presence of local community organisations, NGOs and social movements enhances deliberations and public participation

Governing Locally

22

and also creates constructive spaces of contestation. Without their presence, government functioning often tends towards the technocratic, and effectiveness of service delivery trumps considerations of equity or justice. Kerala laws provide for formal, direct public engagement through mandatory formation of ward committees and ward sabhas (citizen assemblies) for ongoing, structured interaction with the public. This is often, and rightly, feted as fulfilling the promise of democratic deepening. Trivandrum has a relatively active space of community mobilisation (Williams et al. 2019), reflected in Trivandrum’s top rank on democracy indicators in the survey findings in Table 1.1. By contrast, community participation is relatively muted in Surat. Write Kamath and Zachariah (2015, 21–22) about the displacement of poor households from central areas in exchange for public housing in the periphery: Livelihoods seem worst hit by this displacement to the outskirts with hawkers and domestic workers now unwilling to travel so far to sell or do work in the residential areas of the main city. Shared auto rickshaws remain the main mode of transportation.… There was also little participation of dwellers in the design or decision-making regarding their EWS [Economically Weaker Sections] housing. Local activists say that it required a lot of pressure, including filing a public interest litigation (PIL), for the SMC [Surat Municipal Corporation] to open new schools and anganwadis....

This suggests that Surat’s capacity for municipal action is limiting when not accompanied by vibrant community participation and contestation to bend local action towards justice. In Trivandrum, while potential community participation was stronger, its translation into action was limited by municipal capacity. While Trivandrum’s citizen assemblies had considerable initial participation,26 typically their deliberations were unsupported by action. Selection and list approval in individual benefit schemes draw interested potential beneficiaries to meetings but participation stops there (Ganga 2019). The inability of the local government to efficiently follow through on implementation ends up compromising the possibilities of participation itself, as revealed by the vignette. Public engagement in Trivandrum also does not extend to reconfiguring land for public purposes. For instance, a promising sewerage project, which needed land for pumping stations and sewerage lines, was stalled by vested interests through protests over land acquisition. Meanwhile, Surat made transformational changes in land use through what was formally a voluntary scheme (plot reconstitution and land pooling) needing, arguably, public engagement and deliberations with hundreds of individual plot owners – even though Gujarat’s overall track record on this suggests

23

Two Cities

that there was some structural coercion (Deuskar 2011; Sampat and Sunny 2016). Ironically, public engagement was greater in a state that is conventionally seen to have low community mobilisation. An official report notes that due to capacity limitations, poor implementation of infrastructure and housing projects in Trivandrum and Kochi (Kerala’s commercial capital) severely compromised possibilities of public participation (Kerala State Planning Board 2013).27 A detailed study of a participatory pro-poor housing project in Trivandrum observes how limitations of autonomy and local capacity compromised both the realities of participation and overall outcomes (Williams et al. 2018). The study quotes a member of the implementation team (157): The gap between the preparation of the [project bid documents] and the community participation in it, and the implementation of the projects affects the enthusiasm of the community. They lose interest in it eventually. If that happens, it automatically leads to the draining away of the sense of ownership among the community and it’s brought down community participation. I think that is what had happened here…. I am sure that if we had implemented the project in a timely and effective way, there would have been an effective participation from the people.

Roadmap This introductory chapter used a two-city comparison to provide a preview of the main ideas. The book has four parts. The first and last parts (I and IV) provide the broader framing, argument and theorising. These bookend the two middle parts (II and III) which present the main empirical argument (local capacity, state–local relations, public participation). Part I uses specific cases (Chapter 1) and presents the context, argument and methodology (Chapter 2). Part II opens the black box of the city government to examine two aspects of local capacity – how decisions are made and implemented (Chapter 3) and how city government is organised and staffed (Chapter 4). Part III explores accountability by connecting local capacity with state–local relations (Chapter 5) and community participation (Chapter 6). Part IV pulls the various strands together to theorise decentralisation (Chapter 7), explore the broader institutional and policy environment shaping local governance (Chapter 8) and suggest feasible paths forward (Chapter 9). We have started with a contextually grounded presentation of specific cases in this chapter to present the core ideas of the book. Chapter 2 builds on this by elaborating the background and argument. Through a review of the literature, it surveys the history of decentralisation and urban governance in India.

Governing Locally

24

The review of the analytical literature on decentralisation and decentralisation policy is reserved for Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 2 presents the hypothesised explanation and argument as well as the methodology (namely comparative case study at two levels with purposively selected states and cities). It also places our argument – emphasising local capacity, state–local relations and public participation – within broader concerns about the pressures of ‘neoliberal governance’. Chapter 3 discusses decision-making in city governments. Of our three study states (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat), in Tamil Nadu and particularly Kerala, despite the need for new arrangements following the decentralisation reforms of the 1990s, city government decisions and implementation are woven around old, rigid procedural requirements. Procurement procedures, work contract awards, contract management decisions, and review and monitoring mechanisms are all caught in procedural webs. By contrast, decision and implementation procedures in Gujarat city governments do not have long, linear sequences and are not subjugated to veto-holding outside ‘experts’. Chapter 4 addresses a second dimension of local capacity, namely organisational form and staffing. City governments in Gujarat are organised in ways that can absorb newly devolved functions and have specialised staff and specialised functional divisions. Those in Tamil Nadu responded to decentralisation reforms with limited restructuring. Those in Kerala followed virtually the same organisational and staffing pattern as before, compromising their ability to discharge the new functions. In Kerala, there is typically a mismatch between job requirements and educational qualifications of employees whereas in Gujarat cadres of expert personnel occupy function-related positions, bringing technical expertise and administrative competence. Chapter 5 focuses on autonomy for governing locally. Relative to other states, Gujarat’s law leaves local governments to manage themselves. However, the laws in Kerala and Tamil Nadu allow major state government interventions in the administrative turf of local governments. In these states and particularly Kerala, rule-making authority resides with the state government, which has used this power to shift de facto management from local governments back to itself despite de jure decentralisation. The chapter shows that absent a genuine resetting of state–local relations to bolster local capacity, de jure decentralisation merely yields to de facto recentralisation. Chapter 6 details how city governments are structured for public participation in local governance. The 1990s decentralisation reforms mandated spaces for participation. While Gujarat has weak legal provisions for it, Kerala’s law provides an elaborate canvas. And yet participation enjoys little effective role in city government functioning in Kerala. The comparison suggests that solitary

25

Two Cities

structural frames of participation cannot substitute for lack of institutional capacity in city government. Chapter 7 attempts to theorise decentralisation. It surveys extant definitions and advances a definition of de facto decentralisation emphasising autonomy to take binding decisions and facilitation by other governments to enhance the capacity of local government for effective action. The chapter also surveys the general literature on decentralisation to distil a framework to represent relationships between elected politicians and bureaucrats across government levels (local and state). The framework can be used to both explain realities of (de)centralisation and normatively explore future possibilities. Chapter 8 broadens the ambit of analysis and explores India’s decentralisation policy. It theorises the connection between laws, rule-making authority and state–local relations and details how laws with ostensibly decentralising language can nevertheless hide centralising tendencies. The rule-making powers of the state government are particularly important, besides typically being invisible to public scrutiny. For Kerala, we discuss the relative role and interactions of the state bureaucracy with the legislature and political executive in compromising local autonomy. Weak organisational structures and ineffective procedures in local government produce policy vacuums into which the state government steps in. Although key actors (especially state bureaucracy) in Gujarat are similar to Kerala, the institutional features (laws and rule-making authority) have a different history that produces a different pattern of state–local relations that allow local governments to have control over administrative and implementation arrangements. However, whether or not enhanced local capacity translates into more just governance depends upon widening the ambit of who ‘does’ governance to include genuine community participation and contestation. Kerala’s history of community mobilisation and public action offers such a promise. Chapter 9 closes the book with a short examination of feasible ways forward for India’s decentralisation policy. It attempts to draw out pragmatic implications of the analysis from previous chapters focusing on contextual realities and the room to manoeuvre in administration and politics. The chapter discusses possible changes in the rule-making authority given through laws. It explores the policy implications of viewing decentralised governance as a government-wide matter spanning three levels (local, state and national) rather than being reduced to the business of one department in the state government. The chapter also considers pragmatic ways to reset state–local relations and highlights the importance of community mobilisation for genuine decentralisation.

Governing Locally

26

Notes 1. ‘Mandal’ refers to the name of the government commission synonymous with public jobs reservation for the large group of Other Backward Classes (OBCs). ‘Mandir’ (temple) refers to the religious site in Ayodhya that was the subject of a major dispute between Hindus and Muslims. They reference major inflections in caste and religious identity politics that created violent divisions in society. ‘Market’ refers to the pro-market economic reforms. 2. The city is formally Thiruvananthapuram following a name change in the 1990s, but the older and more common name is used here. 3. Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) by Janaagraha, an urban policy NGO; see http://janaagraha.org/asics/. ASICS 2017 covered 23 cities across 20 states on 89 questions covering 150 parameters. Trivandrum topped the ranking in the 2016 edition of ASICS. 4. See Figure 2.3 and the discussion in that section. 5. These observations are based on detailed fieldwork findings discussed in Chapter 3. 6. In fact, Trivandrum typically accepts the lowest bid; in the absence of product specifications, this amounts to ignoring considerations of quality. 7. Interview, chairperson of works committee, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 8. Interview, municipal commissioner, 17 February 2011, Surat. 9. Interviews with academicians, Centre for Social Studies, Surat, 18 and 19 February 2011. A ‘citizen report’ on service delivery in Surat indicates that civic services are appreciated by a majority of the people (Trivedi 2017). 10. Interactions with diverse citizens in both cities suggest that those in Surat are more satisfied with service levels and responsiveness of water supply and street lighting compared to Trivandrum. 11. Section 30(3) of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994. 12. Among the public services listed in the table, solid waste management is an exception: the local government controls this service in both cities. 13. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. The reference is to Kerala’s ‘people’s planning campaign’ (Devika 2016); see Appendix 2A. Note that the mayor belonged to the political party associated with the campaign. 14. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 15. Interview, 23 December 2010, Trivandrum. 16. The reference is to formal signing-off in letters. 17. Despite a spirited movement that brought in more allies beyond those who were directly affected, and produced some gains in terms of rehabilitation, governance institutions of the city and state governments mostly managed to stay their (neoliberal) course. 18. In Ahmedabad, dispossession was driven by the state government rather than only the local government. But it still shows that the local government had a relatively weak capacity to counter, or want to counter, such actions.

27 Two Cities

19. Later we present details of similar conversations in smaller city governments. 20. Forty-two per cent and 7 per cent of comments, respectively. 21. A third of the bureaucrats’ comments was on capacity, compared to less than a tenth for elected representatives. Bureaucrats also emphasised town planning more than elected representatives did: 19 per cent and 3 per cent of comments, respectively. 22. Seventy per cent and 22 per cent of comments by elected representatives and bureaucrats, respectively. 23. Government Order G. O. (P) No. 186/2000/LSGD, dated 4 July 2000. 24. Section 15(3)(c) of KMA 1994 has been invoked to list out a range of activities that would qualify as ̔contingent expenses’. 25. There is a Subordinate Legislation Committee of the legislature but it has never examined KMA 1994 for delegation overreach. 26. As the deputy mayor of Trivandrum observed, the big turnout in the initial meetings of the ward assemblies is indicative of citizens’ readiness to engage with the government. 27. See Sections 2.4.5 (viii) and 2.4.6 (x) of the report.

2 Approach and Argument

Chapter 1 generated two puzzles of local governance. The first puzzle is why Surat and Trivandrum exhibit considerably different patterns of governance; it is indicative of state-level differences and the influence of history and institutions. The second puzzle is why India’s major decentralisation reforms of the 1990s did not create a rising tide to lift Trivandrum’s boat and that of other cities. Those reforms addressed many factors that could enhance local governance: changing laws, transferring resources, instituting regular elections and mandating forums for public participation. Although important, they proved to be insufficient. A plausible explanation of decentralisation outcomes will need to disaggregate these factors and explore the processes of implementation of the idealistic policy intent of the 1990s reforms. Such analysis leads us to emphasise institutional features of policy. Politics and power relations are never far in the account laid out in this chapter; they form the crucible for processes around governance. Since explanations of such governance puzzles invoke the past, this chapter starts with a brief history. Appendix 2A presents a more detailed history of decentralisation and urban governance in India. Since colonial times, local governance was placed in the domain of provincial rather than national government, an arrangement that continues even today. For decades after Independence, local governance was a pushover and whatever residual emphasis was given to it went to rural rather than urban local government. A watershed moment occurred with the constitutional reforms of the 1990s. The official statement observed: In many States local bodies have become weak and ineffective on account of a variety of reasons, including the failure to hold regular elections, prolonged supersessions and inadequate devolution of powers and functions. As a result, Urban Local Bodies are not able to perform effectively as vibrant democratic units of self-government.1

The 74th constitutional amendment (CA) adopted in April 1993 conveyed the intent that state government transfer a wide spectrum of urban policy functions

29 Approach and Argument

to city governments. This was ‘to enable them to function as institutions of selfgovernment’.2 The CA also laid out how city governments were to be constituted and the method of election and sharing of public resources between the state government and local governments. The CA required that state legislatures work out the details of decentralisation, and the states responded by enacting legislation. More generally, since the 1990s, urbanisation and urban governance came to increased prominence. A rich literature explores many aspects of the Indian urban, especially big cities: the changing face of commerce and industry and the pervasive quality of ‘informality’, slums, the old and new middle classes, and contestations around land, caste and religious identity. In the new emphasis on urban governance, poor performance of city governments in the past was attributed to deficiencies in planning, infrastructure, finance and insufficient capacity in general (HPEC 2011). National policymakers identified infrastructure spending, deregulation, privatisation and technology as appropriate responses and formulated a large urban intervention, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), 2005–12. Critics of the general policy orientation noted that Singapore and Shanghai became the aspirational models, to be attained through depoliticised routes with inputs from industrial and civil society elite groups. The JNNURM was followed by the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) which emphasised technocratic solutions. The JNNURM explicitly reserved 35 per cent of funds to address urban poverty focusing on ‘slum upgradation’ through affordable housing, water and sanitation. Critics see this as insipid crumbs in a broader landscape of dispossession and modes of governance influenced by corporate capital. Critics also note that urban governance initiatives such as the JNNURM undermine the autonomy of city governments and give importance to parastatals in service delivery. Urban governance, in keeping with governance in general, was shot through with informality – ‘a state of deregulation, one where the ownership, use, and purpose of land cannot be fixed and mapped according to any prescribed set of regulations or the law’ (Roy 2009, 80) – not just for the working classes and unorganised poor but also for big capital, the middle classes and the government itself. New modes of governance and democratic contestation often form the master narrative in studies of urban precarity and urban governance. And besides the emerging class of private developers and consultants, many other groups – working classes, middle-classes, slum-dwellers, agriculturists and political brokers – also influence local governance.

Governing Locally

30

Appendix 2A provides a more detailed account of the relevant history for India. The more recent developments – constitutional reforms and urban contestation – set the context for the main ideas of the book. The following section explores different perspectives on governance. The section titled ‘Main Ideas’ presents the arguments of the book emphasising decentralisation laws and rules, state–local relations, community participation and local capacity. The section after that presents the methodology and research methods used in the book. And the final section places the arguments of the book in a broader context.

Perspectives on Governance Today in India and elsewhere, there are ideological and political forces that can overwhelm fundamental, hard-won settlements regarding democracy, welfare and justice. Populations are ridden with anxiety and modes of governance are turning authoritarian, sectarian and populist. There is systemic violence and existential ecological danger. In these sombre realities, how is one to reflect on urban governance? We begin by asserting the belief that these threatening forces do not overwhelm possibilities of governing locally and meaningfully. An exploration of urban governance and decentralisation can perhaps also contribute to opening new possibilities for democracy and justice. ‘Governance’ has attracted much ink and lungpower, and scores of differing articulations. In the context of public affairs, we take the view that it is the exercise of public authority in the regulation and facilitation of social life and the life of the individual. This view draws from a large literature (Peters 1996; Hewitt de Alcántara 1998; Grindle 2004; Robichau 2011; Börzel, Risse and Draude 2018). Governance threads institutions and processes, and power relations and discourses, through which public authority is formed and exercised. While acknowledging that ‘public authority’ is a contested concept, we take the view that it consists primarily of government and statecraft but includes outside networks as well. Governance has both a structural/organisational aspect and a process aspect of how public authority is exercised. Views about the role of the state have changed with time. In the second half of the twentieth century, perceived ‘state failure’ to realise the euphoric ambitions of ‘development’ and ‘welfare’ led to backlash against the state. The 1980s saw the rise of discourses and practices of ‘free markets’ and ‘limited government’. Another discourse sceptical of state possibilities emphasised local communities. But developments over the last four decades have brought ‘the state back in’ – economic and political transitions in the Soviet bloc; democratic transitions in Latin America; economic growth in East Asia; and renewed intellectual interest

31 Approach and Argument

in institutions, embedded autonomy and public management – perhaps in more nuanced ways than before. The present work also brings the state and government back in. We argue that specifics of government functioning and institutional features are critical for understanding the realities of local governance. It is worth distinguishing ‘governance’ from the normative attributes and wishful thinking that are often imposed on it. These reflect different ideologies and interpretations – accountability, transparency, participation, justice, equity, efficiency and rule of law. Besides such ‘meta’ attributes, sometimes more specific ‘meso’ attributes are tagged on to governance, such as specific economic deregulation or welfare interventions. In the contested world of ideas and practices around the polity, some interpret the term ‘governance’ itself to be appropriated by and emblematic of particular discourses and patterns of dominance. Contestations have intensified in the last three decades with notions of  ‘good governance’ tending to frame governance in apolitical ways. Within the thicket of ideas around governance, there are two opposing perspectives that are central to the discourse on urban governance. One is associated with ‘technocratic’ policymaking and ‘neoliberal’ governance while the other is a critique of this mode of policymaking and governance. These are discussed hereafter. Our perspective emphasises features of politics and institutions that are distinct from but not inconsistent with these perspectives. In the context of local governance, there is no gainsaying ‘the crucial importance of building the capacity of local government bodies to analyse, assess, manage, and implement’ (Ahluwalia, Kanbur and Mohanty 2014a, 25). The capacity of the local government is a simple proximate explanation for the quality of service delivery and fits the description of governance in Surat and Trivandrum in Chapter 1. Our explanation also starts by highlighting the importance of local capacity. Emphasis on the nitty-gritty of capacity is often associated with ‘technocracy’, the domination of apolitical technical experts in public policymaking, which is itself a form of governance politics (Centeno 1993).3 Emphasis on capacity is also associated with ‘new public management’ (NPM), a ‘shopping basket’ of administrative reforms emphasising public sector efficiency using managerial approaches of the private sector (Pollitt 1995; Christensen and Lægreid 2016). NPM has various elements: breaking traditional bureaucracy into specialised organisations; decentralising management authority within public agencies; using market mechanisms; using performance targets; shifting to outputbased pay and contractual rather than permanent staff; cost-cutting and budgetary discipline; and viewing citizens as clients and emphasising client satisfaction.

Governing Locally

32

While the emphasis on capacity and public management helps to understand urban governance to some extent, it is inadequate by itself. This perspective does not seriously explore community participation that can make ‘capacity’ more effective and more capable of justice. It also does not ask what shapes capacity and pursue it in the field of power relations. For the empirical puzzles from Chapter 1, the question is why Surat has greater capacity and why the decentralisation reforms did not significantly improve capacity in Trivandrum. If these questions are not taken seriously, the capacity-management explanation tends to be partial and proximate in the face of deeper relations of power and institutions that shape capacity. The above considerations of technocracy and public management are often extended to ‘neoliberal’ governance.4 Although the term has a variety of meanings,5 it usually refers to governance with a central role for economic capital (particularly big domestic or international capital); selectively deregulated markets; withdrawal of the welfare state and reduced role of the public sector; substitution of transactional solutions for structural approaches to inequality; and discourses associated with these (see Venugopal 2015; Springer, Birch and MacLeavy 2016 and Cahill et al. 2018 for surveys of the literature). In the specific context of Indian urban governance, did deregulated markets and capital flows improve the effectiveness of public services? Did equity suffer? It could be that, for instance, even if public transport and water supply systems improve, (higher) user fees may make them unaffordable for many people. Dispossession in megacities is cause for alarm, as is the reduced role of the public sector and the welfare state. Critics of the JNNURM and its successors raise concerns about shifting modes of governance – towards centralisation and the outsized role of the private sector and away from people’s participation, and increasing exclusion of the poor. While injustices of neoliberal governance, especially those imposed by the national government and state governments, should not be ignored, many challenges of local governments reflect other concerns. A detailed study of small municipalities by de Bercegol (2016) shows the struggle with mundane capacity issues, which has existed for decades. The vignette in Chapter 1 and later vignettes in the section titled ‘Latent Local Capacity’ in Chapter 4 suggest that capacity is a critical issue in Kerala and Tamil Nadu cities, and can be traced to the relationship between the state government and local governments. Where neoliberal governance pressures occur, they can be better countered by strengthening local capacity through resetting state–local relations. Our fieldwork suggests that because city government organisations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu were enfeebled, they needed external support to develop

33

Approach and Argument

projects to absorb the sudden, unprecedented amount of funds available through the JNNURM (2005–12) and its successor programmes. These cities could not look to state parastatals whose project-related capacities were limited. They ended up turning to the private sector and to external consultants who authored plans. Our fieldwork reveals that ‘city development plans’ in Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu were simply documents tying project proposals together to create some coherence to qualify for JNNURM funding.6 Studies for Trivandrum by Glyn Williams, J. Devika and co-authors are consistent with this (Williams et al. 2018, 2019).7 Rather than being serious threats to the just growth of cities, these efforts merely addressed long-standing needs for basic infrastructure, although only partially. Expenditures on water supply, sewerage and drainage constituted over two-thirds of all JNNURM investments on a scale not attempted previously (Kundu 2014). The underlying centralisation of urban funds is indeed a matter of concern. And yet there is still considerable room to manoeuvre in states. Unfortunately, although local government was always the responsibility of states, even before the JNNURM and neoliberal modes of governance, state and city governments never approached urban planning seriously. The situation is different in India’s biggest (mega) cities – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad – where land ownership and occupancy are particularly precarious and large populations live in ‘illegal’ settlements (see the section titled ‘Urban Planning’ in Chapter 3).8 These cities have stronger neoliberal influences and there are many tragic narratives of dispossession. Issues of land and equity are far more complicated in such cities. Although our focus – political and institutional processes shaping local capacity for action – has relevance for megacities as well, the book does not explore the distinctive issues of these cities. Decentralisation policy needs to work through different configurations of local governance based on the history and contextual realities of each megacity.

Other Perspectives Before elaborating our argument, consider a few other perspectives for explaining the realities of local governance: people’s participation, politics, local capture and laws and finances. The first is people’s participation. While important in principle, it has limited scope in explaining patterns of local governance in India. According to Heller et al. (2007, 627), Kerala’s effort to promote citizen involvement in planning and budgeting ‘represents the most ambitious and concerted state-led effort to build local institutions of participatory democratic governance ever undertaken in the subcontinent’. Corresponding claims about participatory

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34

decision-making are not made for Gujarat. The difference in citizen participation between these states should have yielded the opposite observations from what was reported in Chapter 1. While the role of people’s participation is important, we emphasise the criticality of enabling conditions – namely autonomy to shape local capacity – without which not only is the effect of participation on local action muted, but participation itself is also compromised. Another potential explanation lies in politics. It is possible that local and non-local politics stymie the effectiveness of local government in cities like Trivandrum or produce unjust local action in cities like Surat. But usually the generic ‘politics’ argument is under-specified; it does not explain why and how politics works to produce different outcomes across cities. While Trivandrum and other Kerala cities have vibrant local politics, they exhibit considerable local political cooperation to address urban challenges (see the section titled ̔ Latent Local Capacity’ in Chapter 4). The facts about state-level politics also cannot explain the puzzle. Gujarat has a dominant-party system (dominance in early decades by the Congress Party and later decades by the BJP). By contrast, for decades, Kerala had alternating coalitions led by the Congress and Communist parties who were both ideological proponents of decentralisation.9 The Congress Party has an old commitment to decentralisation and it led the CA through the parliament. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has led decentralisation efforts in states where it is influential, including the major effort on Kerala’s people’s plan in the second half of the 1990s.10 Therefore, the expectation is that the state government in Kerala would be relatively pro-decentralisation. Gujarat’s dominant-party system could be expected, if anything, to erode rather than support decentralisation – especially since the dominant BJP is pitted against the Congress Party that initiated the national decentralisation reforms. And yet the decentralisation process left the city governments of Kerala with less autonomy than their counterparts in Gujarat. A third potential explanation has to do with ‘local elite capture’. Given the manifold inequalities in localities, some groups and individuals wield disproportionate power that can be used to control local governance and extract resources for themselves. The literature documents the sources and consequences of local power rooted in economic and social domination. However, this characterisation focuses on rural areas, and even there, multiple processes over the decades have weakened local capture (Jacob 2016). While the urban is also a site of great inequalities, arguably urban elites are fragmented and there is greater intra-elite contestation that prevents narrow capture. Elite capture also appears less likely in Kerala compared to Gujarat. Therefore, the argument of local capture is limited as an explanation of the puzzles from Chapter 1.

35

Approach and Argument

The literature for India has also pointed to shortcomings in laws and local government finances as reasons for the weak translation of constitutional reforms to local action. But these factors also have limited potential to explain observed patterns of local governance. According to the National Institute of Urban Affairs (2007), laws on local governance across states largely comply with the CA, suggesting that a law-centric approach cannot explain why city governments differ significantly. Kerala has done relatively well in enacting decentralisation laws and formally transferring policy functions to local governments.11 Kerala has also done relatively better than other states in making funds accessible to local governments. This can be seen in the state comparisons of devolution in the detailed exercise undertaken by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on behalf of the national government. Although it concerns rural local governments (panchayats), the findings are indicative of overall devolution. Table 2.1 presents ranks assigned for Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat in this exercise (Ministry of Panchayati Raj and TISS 2016). Out of 21 states, Kerala is consistently ranked best in each of three broad domains: functions, finances and staff (‘functionaries’).12 All this suggests that the pattern of local government should be the reverse of what was reported in Chapter 1. Table 2.1 Devolution Index Kerala

Tamil Nadu

Gujarat

Aggregate Improved Index

1

2

5

Operational core of decentralisation

1

2

6

Support systems for devolution

1

4

8

Aggregate Devolution in Policy

1

4

10

Functionaries

1

5

8

Finances

1

3

12

Infrastructure, governance and transparency

2

3

13

Functions

2

7

4

Aggregate Devolution in Practice

1

9

3

Functionaries

1

3

9

Finances

2

2

5

Infrastructure, governance and transparency

1

9

4

Functions

1

11

2

Source: Ministry of Panchayati Raj and TISS (2016). Note: The table gives state ranks. Details and definitions are in the report.

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While all these strands of scholarship (namely people’s participation, politics, local capture and laws and finances) are important in understanding particular aspects of decentralisation, they cannot adequately explain observed patterns of local action and inaction. The book’s focus, instead, is on opening the black box of the government and identifying institutional features – about which the literature has been relatively silent (O. P. Mathur 1994, 1999) – that go a considerable way towards explaining local capacity or incapacity for effective, just action.

Main Ideas We argue that the effectiveness and justice of local action depend upon the capacity of the local government; that local government capacity depends upon state–local relations and public participation; and that state–local relations depend upon governance practices involving laws, rules and democratic oversight. Figure 2.1 presents the argument as a set of conceptual connections that explore what it means and what it takes to govern locally, effectively and justly in a decentralised democracy.13 The first part of the argument is that decentralised services and local action depend on local government ‘capacity’, the ability of the local government to take and implement decisions for providing water, lighting streets, and so on. Chapter 1 had traced the connection between local action and two dimensions of local capacity: internal procedures to make and implement decisions, and the organisational form and people to carry them through, which includes political and administrative leadership. Neither dimension of capacity is directly material in nature. Of course, finances and material elements matter but fieldwork evidence indicates that in India the binding constraint on local action is local capacity. The second part of the argument addressed the question: how is local capacity strengthened? The analysis identifies two critical factors – state–local relations and community participation. The first, state–local relations, was highlighted in the vignette in Chapter 1; state government control in Trivandrum is so ubiquitous that the local government views the state government as simply ‘the government’. However, the absence of such control is not sufficient to ensure vibrant local action. For acting innovatively to address specific challenges in its context, the local government typically also needs facilitation of capacity through technical support and linkage with wider policy and other networks. A healthy state–local relationship is one of autonomy with facilitation, a potential contradiction that can be deliberately or otherwise ‘misused’ by the state government (through paternalism and control) or by the local government (through suspicion and rejection of support). When autonomy is weak, facilitation also tends to be weak as the state government itself is directly involved in service delivery, as suggested in Chapter 1.

37 Approach and Argument Decentralised Services Effectiveness

Equity

Community Participation and Contestation

Local Government Capacity

State_Local Relations

Autonomy

Habituated Governance Practices

Facilitation

Rule-making Authority Decentralisation Law

Figure 2.1 The argument Source: Authors. Note: Arrows represent conceptual relationships, not relationships between actors or temporal processes. Dashed lines show the two dimensions of state–local relations (autonomy and facilitation). Local government capacity consists of decision-making and implementation procedures, and organisational form and staffing (not shown in the figure).

The second factor strengthening local capacity is community participation in local governance. Local communities can collaborate in many aspects of local governance, such as the selection of programme recipients and monitoring – and where needed, contest local government procedures and decisions. Community participation can facilitate local capacity, enhance its translation into effective services, and importantly, embed equity and justice in local action. Active participation of communities and political networks representing non-elites such as dalits, working-class women or slum-dwellers, has a particularly important role in local governance. Participation can occur in multiple ways. Besides formal spaces such as ward sabhas (citizen assemblies), members of the public can approach

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their councillors more easily than state or national legislators. Community organisations such as women’s groups, local political groups, NGOs, resident welfare associations, and so on, can engage directly with the local government or indirectly through the media.14 All this makes decentralisation a delicate dance in the space of possibilities – relations between local and state government and relations between local government and community. Based on this understanding, and in the context of India’s democracy where state–local relations critically influence local possibilities, we define de facto decentralisation as a process leading to autonomous local governments capable of taking exclusive, binding decisions and implementing them in policy areas formally devolved to them.15 This draws from existing definitions, including those used in Indian legislation.16 Acknowledging these but going further, our definition flags autonomy and capacity. ‘Autonomy’ refers to the absence of constraining influence by other levels of government, allowing the local government to take exclusive, binding decisions. Such autonomy is, of course, not absolute. It is located within broader constitutional parameters, as is true for state and national government as well. It is also embedded in wider social relations and political economy. Usage of the term ‘de facto decentralisation’ explicitly contrasts with ‘de jure decentralisation’, that is, formal pronouncements of devolution which do not automatically lead to de facto decentralisation. This is an important distinction because both the literature and public discussion often slip from one to the other. The definition also emphasises that decentralisation is a process towards a specific governance system. Local governments experience de facto decentralisation when state–local relations are conducive, that is, when there is local autonomy and they have the capacity to take and implement decisions regarding devolved functions. The presence of an engaged community enhances such de facto decentralisation by strengthening local capacity and bending local action towards justice. The third part of the argument addresses the question: what affects state– local relations? We argue that state–local relations depend considerably on who makes rules that detail out the manner of functioning of the local government. Rule-making authority is laid down formally through law. When the law gives rule-making authority to the local government, it can fashion its own functioning through self-governance. When the law gives rule-making authority to the state government and legislative oversight is weak, local autonomy is compromised. Across much of India, state law authorises the state government – and effectively, the state bureaucracy – to make the rules about local government functioning. Oversight by legislators and ministers (the political executive) is weak in practice.

39 Approach and Argument

The state bureaucracy thus drafts the law that authorises it to form rules about its relations with the local government, and its draft law and rules are formally adopted. The rules typically tilt greatly in its favour and compromise the autonomy of local governments. In this perspective, state lawmaking and rule-making for decentralisation as well as democratic oversight together constitute the processes for implementing the intent of the constitutional reforms. The law for decentralisation – and importantly, its assignment of rule-making authority – is one ‘output’ of the implementation of decentralisation policy. This produces the further output of rules for organising and conducting local government, and these rules shape state– local relations. The strength of local capacity depends on this (along with people’s participation), leading to the final ‘outcome’ of local government action. Laws, rule-making authority, the rules themselves, and oversight are all created and exercised by legislators, ministers and bureaucrats who operate in a field of habituated practices of governance. That is, their actions, expectations and beliefs are guided by norms and patterns of decision-making and action from the past. This explanation emphasises the role of ‘institutions’, ‘the shared concepts used by humans in repetitive situations organized by rules, norms, and strategies’ (Ostrom 2010, 263). Often, draft laws and rules are copy-pasted from the past – in spirit if not in letter – and similar is the case with interpretation and oversight. These institutional features operate in the long shadow of the past. This, then, constitutes the three-part argument summarised in Figure 2.1: effective and just local action comes from the strength of local government capacity; local government capacity depends on one pathway from community participation and another tracing to autonomy and facilitation in the relationship between the state government and local governments; and the state–local relationship is formed by specific institutional features of the decentralisation policy process based on habituated practices of lawmaking and rule-making. This argument does not diminish the role of human agency or innovation in practices. From time to time, windows of opportunity do occur when habituated governance practices may be interrupted or even reset on other paths. The constitutional reforms of the 1990s offered one such possibility.

Understanding Patterns in India For selected municipalities in Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, Table 2.2 lists the level of government (city or state) that delivers each of several public services.17 In Kerala, overwhelmingly, the state government delivers these services although they are formally devolved to city governments; in Gujarat, the city governments

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Table 2.2 Which government delivers urban services? Service

Kerala (Palakkad, Ottapalam, Kalamassery, Thrikkakara, Varkala, Attingal)

Gujarat (Kalol, Sanand, Navsari, Vyara, Gondal, Morbi)

Tamil Nadu (Colachel, Nagercoil,a Alandur b)

Street lighting

State and city

City

City

Water supply (production and distribution)

State

City

Statec

Sewerage

State

City

Stated

Drainage

State

City

City

Solid waste collection

City

City

City

Roads and bridges

Statee

City

City

Solid waste disposal

City

City

City

Urban planning

State

City

State

Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents. Notes: The table shows municipalities and not municipal corporations. a  Upgraded from municipality to municipal corporation in 2019. b  Merged with the Chennai Municipal Corporation in 2011. c  With the exception of water supply production in Alandur, which was done by the city government. d  With the exception of Alandur, where sewerage was serviced by the city government. e  Except very minor roads (city government).

exercise devolved authority and carry out local governance; and in Tamil Nadu, public services are delivered by a combination of the state government and city governments. City governments in Gujarat have the capacity for effective service delivery relative to those in Kerala, as evidenced by the two-city comparison in Chapter 1. They are freer to self-govern and to plan and implement local action, while those in Kerala are less free and more dependent on the state government’s dos and don’ts which enervate local capacity. In Kerala, lack of autonomy also diminishes the vibrancy of people’s participation, weakening that pathway, despite the history of community mobilisation for social justice and public action. People’s participation is low in Gujarat as well, limiting what could otherwise have been a stronger local capacity for effective action and especially more just action.18

41 Approach and Argument

In these comparisons, Tamil Nadu is a useful foil because it shows some characteristics of both Kerala and Gujarat, although it is far more tilted towards Kerala because of weak local autonomy. Why were state–local relations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu different from those in Gujarat? In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the decentralisation law gave rule-making authority to the state bureaucracy without adequate oversight from the legislature and the political executive. Neither were such nuances of lawmaking adequately scrutinised by the media, political groups or civil society. The rulemaking authority of state bureaucracy and weak oversight and scrutiny produced rules of local government functioning which reflected habitual practices of governance: micro-management of local affairs through arbitrary, contradictory and often impossible regulations. The granting of rule-making authority to the state bureaucracy and weak oversight by the legislature and the political executive, themselves reflect habitual practices derived from past ways of governance. The state bureaucracy also rationalised its authority through the argument that it was facilitating the capacity of local governments – since local governments did have low capacities to begin with. In comparison, Gujarat’s trajectory is different from this account for Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Even prior to the 1990s decentralisation reforms, Gujarat had a legislative legacy giving rule-making authority to local governments. The Gujarat state bureaucracy, political executive and legislature function in similar ways as they do in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. But in Gujarat, the habituated practices of governance were set on a different trajectory based on norms from past actions giving authority to local governments. A serious inquiry into this legacy, which traces to a 1949 municipal law that itself was based on legal and other developments in colonial history, is beyond the scope of the analysis presented in this book. The Gujarat–Kerala comparison throws light on underlying processes and conceptual connections, but it is not proffered to evaluate different ‘models’. Weaknesses of Gujarat-style urban governance arise from insufficient community intermediation for livelihoods, housing and public services – and these weaknesses are common across the country. What is less known is that state–local relations in Gujarat are conducive to autonomy and local capacity, and that this feature of Gujarat pre-dates both the 1990s decentralisation reforms and the present mode of governance. By contrast, while Kerala’s history of community mobilisation and social welfare policies is well known, what is less known is that state–local relations prevented this potential from creating effective and just action through local governance. Despite the presence of a politicised civil society in Kerala – bharanavum samaravum, ‘governance and struggle’ (Harilal 2013) – and despite political leaders committed to decentralisation, habituated practices of governance circumscribed local possibilities.

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While traditionally local governments had considerable autonomy and capacity in Gujarat, in recent years, autonomy has been increasingly compromised through incursions by the state and the national government, particularly in the megacity of Ahmedabad. Both our own fieldwork and other studies (Sud 2014; Priyadarshi 2018) reveal that in the last two decades the presence of dominant party control and the state government’s aggressive promotion of Ahmedabad in particular, have blurred the lines between the state government and city governments. With Narendra Modi’s accession from Gujarat chief ministership to prime ministership, the lines with the national government are also blurring. Nevertheless, even with fraying autonomy, smaller city governments of Gujarat still appear to have greater autonomy than similar governments elsewhere in India.

Further Considerations From the argument summarised in Figure 2.1, the point about autonomy is particularly important because of its relative absence in India; because in Kerala, it is also a sufficient condition for vibrant local action since community participation is poised propitiously; and because we believe that local autonomy will likely stimulate community engagement in many places beyond Kerala. These considerations are elaborated below. In Grindle’s (2007) account of Mexico, the autonomy of local governments is due to weakly institutionalised state governments rather than well-institutionalised state–local relations. This autonomy translates into effective local action idiosyncratically, depending upon whether or not conducive conjunctural factors (such as the presence of an inspiring mayor) are present in a municipality to create capacities for action that are temporary. The flip side is that it leads to an unfortunate resetting with every change of local government. Grindle also notes that community participation occurred idiosyncratically in a few of her Mexican cases. Kerala is interesting because arguably its history of state-wide mobilisation and mass public action has created a more generalised presence of potentially engaged community in many of its localities.19 But this occurred in the top-heavy and interventionist government strategy of post-Independence India supported broadly by the political left and the right and despite the demurral of Gandhians (see Appendix 2A). Given this statist history, Kerala’s inability to provide autonomy is common with other states, and Gujarat is the exception for historical reasons.20 In Kerala, why were the factors that created public action in the past not able to counter the incursions upon local autonomy by the state government? It may be partly due to the weakened muscle of public action after its heyday in the 1970s (Devika 2016). But a bigger reason probably lies in the nature of mobilisation and

43 Approach and Argument

public action in the past: its emphasis was on rights-seeking and pressurising the state, and much of the mobilisation was itself heavily influenced by the state – all of which made it dependent on the state (Mannathukkaren 2010; Törnquist and Harriss 2016). ‘Political civil society’ was not independent.21 While Kerala’s past is rightly celebrated, bharanavum samaravum (‘governance and struggle’) is not a localising sensibility – rather the reverse, associated with the left penchant for centralism. This may also explain the limits of the left experiment with decentralisation in rural West Bengal (Bhattacharyya 2016). In the mid-twentieth century, centralism was justified from different ideological perspectives – in India’s case, apart from communists, ideological opponents as different as Nehru, Ambedkar and Golwalkar all had the centralism instinct (see Appendix 2A). An abiding argument was the concern that in an unequal society where localities were run by the writ of local ‘big men’ and caste prejudice despite the counter noises made by the progressive national leadership (Varshney 1998; Jacob 2016), local autonomy would lead to ‘local capture’ (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000). Similar ideas existed elsewhere, not only in the communist world but even in the United States where the national government was sending troops to Alabama to counter local intransigence to constitutional values, highlighting James Madison’s early concerns about local faction and national power (Madison 1961 [1787]). But in practice, the argument for centralism led to a slippery slope in India where the overdeveloped, interventionist central government stifled local capacity. Indeed, arguably the later appearance of NPM and neoliberal governance was partly a reaction to failures of the heavy centralist statist approach. Like centralisation, the case for autonomy also has diverse intellectual DNA. In very different ways, Gandhi, Foucault and James Scott have articulated serious disquiet about the centralising state. These diverse approaches also show deep concern about the problems of ‘local capture’, articulated in very different ways. If local autonomy were present, among Indian states Kerala would probably be the least likely to succumb to local capture. Its history of mobilisation and public action has produced localities that are more robust to local capture. And yet, as will be shown by the empirical chapters, Kerala’s urban local governments have little autonomy. It is time, therefore, for Kerala to reconsider its overdeveloped government apparatus seriously, a point also raised by others (Harilal 2013; Oommen 2014). This book calls for a change in focus, notwithstanding the presence of potentially vitiating, centralising vested interests. If Kerala is more than ready, though, can the same be said for other Indian states and parts of the globe? Will autonomy only produce greater injustice? Perhaps it cannot get much worse than it is now, under de facto centralisation. But there are reasons to believe that local communities in India are potentially more vibrant today than is commonly believed.

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Despite manifest inequalities, today there are more information flows, more possibilities of political mobilisation, more NGOs and community organisations and more funding opportunities for specific types of mobilisation. We are aware of counterarguments and counterexamples – but there is reason to believe that there are hundreds of contemporary examples of community potential that are insufficiently documented.22 There are also many traditions of community arrangements that have atrophied – first under criticism from progressives and from the general expansion of the state, and later under assault by capital and market logics – but which can potentially be recovered, nourished and infused with new sensibilities. Gujarat itself offers an example through its tradition of local Gandhian organisations. Although they are connected, the effectiveness and justice strands of the argument about local action have different dynamics. Both strands are based on local capacity. Genuine community involvement, which often also involves contestation of governance strategies, can bend the workings of local capacity towards greater justice in action. There is nothing automatic about this. Weak local capacity compromises both effectiveness and justice, but the effectiveness brought by autonomy-without-participation may be hollow in the absence of justice considerations. And community participation can turn into unconstructive contestation and deadlocks. Trust and leadership can potentially navigate such challenges, but these are also not givens. In the light of these considerations, even though Chapter 1 may have suggested that Gujarat and Kerala are lopsided in opposite ways (Table 1.1), there is no necessary trade-off between effectiveness and justice.

Methodology As we have seen, the literature offers differing perspectives on urban governance in India. One is technocratic and neoliberal. Another comes from studies of critical policy and social justice. The account of the history of decentralisation and urban governance in Appendix 2A draws from both perspectives although they generally do not connect with each other. For instance, a book on urbanisation and urban governance by influential scholar-policymakers (Ahluwalia, Kanbur and Mohanty 2014b) does not touch upon the issues of contestation and inequality in urban governance analysed by a large, interdisciplinary literature (see the section titled ‘Participation and Contestation: The Literature’ in Chapter 6).23 There is a need to study government and government capacity by going beyond technocratic framings that depoliticise governance and ignore structural inequality. Our attempt is to analyse these concerns from a position which is social democratic, respectful of agency and attentive to structural violence.

45 Approach and Argument

The book draws on material from a study by the first author, based at the Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum and supported for three years by the Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR) in New Delhi. It also draws from the different worlds of policymaking, government bureaucracy, politics and social science. Opening the black box of the government implies coming to grips with officialese: contractors and ‘works’, procurement (tender, contract design, product specifications, and so on), tax schedules, master plans, town planning schemes, e-governance and the like. At the same time, we are sensitive to power and meaning-making in ‘sarkari culture’ (government culture) and government hierarchies and sensitive to the fact that the study of governance is itself influenced by ‘the state’s takeover of society’ (Foucault 1991). The language of government has Orwellian qualities; Chapter 1 alone uses terms such as ‘execution’, ‘monitoring’, ‘disciplinary power’, power to ‘sanction’ and ‘authorise’. The fieldwork for this book explored how services are provided by city governments. It sought answers for the questions: How do city governments muster the capacity to do what they do? Are they in touch with the community in doing their work? And in doing all this, how much do they connect with the state government? Noting differences in city government functioning, the approach compares purposively selected cases at the state and city levels using primary qualitative data.24 Chapters 3 to 6 present details from the cases regarding work procedures, organisation, centre-state relations and community participation, respectively. Part IV attempts to theorise relationships and policy around decentralisation (summarised by Figure 7.1 and Figure 8.1).

Choice of States and Cities The strategy of choosing states and cities reflects the initial intuition – based on governance experience and consultations – that states matter greatly in shaping city government performance. Alternatively, the strategy could have been to choose city governments without explicitly considering their states. Cases of sectoral successes, such as Tamil Nadu’s Alandur (Gopakumar 2009) [water and sanitation] or Madhya Pradesh’s Indore (Nidugala and Pant 2017) [cleanliness and sanitation], would have been interesting to contrast with other cities. Typically, successful individual projects can be traced to exceptional local leaders and idiosyncratic features less tethered to the nature of government and institutions. Such cases occurred even before the decentralisation reforms, such as in Kerala’s own Thrissur (Acharya 1988) [land reconstitution]. They are about entrepreneurial leaders getting around impediments of inefficient administrative processes and governance arrangements, not about the improved processes and arrangements themselves.

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The literature on local governments in India focuses on aspects on which Kerala is considered to have done particularly well: decentralisation laws, financial devolution and people’s participation (Sivaramakrishnan 2000). Yet lived experience and prior observations suggested that in practice, service delivery in urban Kerala lay with the state government rather than with city governments. Hence Kerala offers an intriguing puzzle that the decentralisation literature does not identify or address. The study began with the intuition that practices of state government make a difference to local government functioning.25 In searching for cities with decentralised service provision, there were no data sets for service delivery to rely on, let alone data sets for decentralised services. But consultations with scholars and policymakers suggested that city governments in Gujarat were different in that they did perform many urban functions themselves. Kerala and Gujarat have many dissimilarities which raise potential methodological concerns about credible explanation from comparative analysis. However, neither previous literature nor our own experience suggests that the dissimilarities between the states – ‘culture’, structure of the economy, patterns of social stratification – have a direct bearing on the question of decentralised services.26 The third state, Kerala’s neighbour Tamil Nadu, was included for the following reasons. First, Tamil Nadu is held to be a relatively well-governed state. Second, prior to 1956, some regions of modern Kerala were in the Madras presidency and the Madras state that later became modern Tamil Nadu; and prior to 1956, some regions of modern Tamil Nadu were in the Travancore state that later became part of modern Kerala. Studying cities in these regions would allow exploration of potential historical processes influencing contemporary governance. Accordingly, Tamil Nadu cities close to Kerala were chosen for the study.27 The primary motivation of the research was the open-ended question: ‘What explains city government performance on decentralised services?’ But a deductive variant of this question also motivated the study: ‘How does local capacity affect service delivery?’ This raised the further question of how local capacity comes to be what it is. Fieldwork reinforced previous intuition and experience regarding state government control and community participation. This eventually led to the argument about the central importance of these two factors in affecting local capacity.28

47

Approach and Argument

In the spirit of the ‘embedded multiple case’ approach (Yin 2013), there are two levels of analysis, state and city. The selected cities in Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu are listed in Table 2.3. Nine cities each were chosen for the two main states (Kerala and Gujarat), spread over population size (bigger cities with municipal corporations and smaller cities with municipalities). Cities were selected from different geographical-cultural regions. Figure 2.2 shows that both Kerala and Gujarat have three clusters of three selected cities (North, Kochi and South regions in Kerala; Saurashtra, North and South regions in Gujarat), each cluster having one municipal corporation and two municipalities.29 For Tamil Nadu, fewer cities were chosen (five), with a focus on regions closer to Kerala: Tirunelveli, Nagercoil and Colachel in the South closer to Kerala’s South cluster; and Coimbatore in the western Kongunad region closer to Kerala’s North cluster. Alandur in the northeastern region of Tamil Nadu was chosen because of interesting innovations in water and sanitation. Table 2.3 Cities selected for fieldwork Kerala

Gujarat

Tamil Nadu

Kochi (MC)

Ahmedabad (MC)

Coimbatore (MC)

Thrissur (MC)

Rajkot (MC)

Nagercoil (MC)b

Trivandrum (MC)a

Surat (MC)

Tirunelveli (MC)

Attingal (M)

Gondal (M)

Alandur (M)c

Kalamassery (M)

Kalol (M)

Colachel (M)

Ottapalam (M)

Morbi (M)

Palakkad (M)

Navsari (M)

Thrikkakara (M)

Sanand (M)

Varkala (M)

Vyara (M)

Source: Authors’ fieldwork. Notes: Parentheses denote municipality or municipal corporation status. a  The official name is Thiruvananthapuram. b  Upgraded from municipality to municipal corporation in 2019. c  Merged with the Chennai Municipal Corporation in 2011.

Gujarat

Kerala Tamil Nadu

Gujarat

Morbi

Sanand

Kalol Ahmedabad

Rajkot Gondal

Kerala Surat

Vyara Navsari

Tamil Nadu Alandur Palakkad Ottappalam Thrissur

Coimbatore

Kalamassery Thrikkakara Kochi

Varkala

Tirunelveli

Attingal Trivandrum

Colachel

Nagercoil

Figure 2.2 Study sites Source: The maps have been generated using GIS files provided at http://projects.datameet.org/maps/ districts/, where data has been sourced from the Census of India’s Administrative Atlas of India for 2011.

49

Approach and Argument

The primarily empirical chapters (3–6) draw on fieldwork in 23 big and small city governments in three states (Table 2.3). There are good reasons to believe that the story of Kerala and Tamil Nadu is similar to most other states and that Gujarat is an exception for historical reasons (Chapter 8). Just as service delivery in cities of Kerala and Tamil Nadu is considerably due to state government parastatals, such parastatals turn out to be extremely important in other states – not only in smaller cities (Coelho and Vijayabaskar 2014; de Bercegol 2016; Guin 2019) but also in bigger cities – Mumbai (Gandhi and Pethe 2017) and Kalyan-Dombivli (Pancholi 2014) in Maharashtra; Bhubaneswar (Praharaj, Han and Hawken 2018) in Odisha; Asansol (Khan 2017) in West Bengal; and Mangalore (Kudva 2013) and Bangalore (Idiculla 2015) in Karnataka.30 In fact, Praharaj, Han and Hawken (2018, 40) write about Bhubaneswar: ‘Ultimately what seems to be left to be managed by the municipal corporation are commonplace activities like sweeping and street light maintenance.’ All this suggests that in much of India, most urban public services are not provided by city governments. Therefore the findings from the three-state comparison are of broader relevance. One general limitation of empirical work is that it necessarily offers only a limited range of possibilities, determined by the past and the present, while the conceptual argument may have greater scope beyond existing empirical cases. Gujarat is a relative exception in India regarding state–local relations and local capacity in urban areas, and therefore comparison with Gujarat helps to probe the two concepts of state–local relations and local capacity. But in absolute terms, there are many – and increasing – shortcomings faced by Gujarat’s city governments regarding autonomy as well as facilitation of capacity by state (and national) government. Another important part of the conceptual argument, people’s participation bolstering local capacity, is generally weak across all the cases, even in Kerala where it is potentially strong but actually weak in practice. Therefore the conceptual argument of Figure 2.1, explored further in Chapters 7 and 8, is not limited to the comparative realities of our cases. The conceptual argument builds on the empirical cases but extends them and enables the exploration of realistic future possibilities.

City Comparisons While the book looks at the overall performance of city governments, the focus is on key infrastructural services (water supply, sewerage, drainage, solid waste management, street lighting and roads) along with urban planning, all of which are specified in the constitutional amendment which inaugurated the 1990s decentralisation reforms. Unlike important social sector services such as

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2

education and health where private provisioning is widespread in Indian cities across economic classes, infrastructure services are mostly publicly provided. Although systematic data are unavailable for many of these services, the exercise by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited/National Institute of Urban Affairs (HUDCO/NIUA) (2017) is useful. It constructed indices for infrastructure and ‘social attainment’ for cities.31 Note that the infrastructure index is a proxy for public services and not decentralised public services. Figure 2.3 presents normalised scores for municipal corporations of the three selected states.32 It shows that cities within a state are more similar to each other than cities across states. Gujarat cities have relatively high scores on the infrastructure index while Kerala cities have relatively low scores, with Tamil Nadu cities in between. The reverse is true for the social attainment index. Figure 2.4 plots two specific indicators from the infrastructure index: the percentage of households with on-premises access to treated piped water against the percentage of households with on-premises toilet with piped sewer. These two indicators are directly related to publicly provided services that have been formally devolved to city governments. As with the case for the overall infrastructure index in Figure 2.3, intra-state variation is far less than inter-state variation although

Infrastructure index 0 1

Surat

Ahmedabad Rajkot Coimbatore

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‒2

‒1

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Figure 2.3 Infrastructure and social indices of municipal corporations Source: Based on data compiled by HUDCO/NIUA (2017) and described in the text. Note: Graph is for municipal corporations; black dots, triangles and circles indicate Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala respectively.

2

Source of drinking water tap water from treated source within premises 20 40 60 80

51 Approach and Argument Rajkot

Kochi Coimbatore Trivandrum

Ahmedabad Surat

20 40 60 80 100 Households having flush latrine facility with piped sewer within the premises Figure 2.4 Coverage of water supply and sewerage in municipal corporations Source: Based on data compiled by HUDCO/NIUA (2017) and described in the text. Note: Graph is for municipal corporations; black dots, triangles and circles indicate Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala respectively.

there are a few outliers. Gujarat cities have relatively high scores for both indicators, Kerala cities have relatively low scores on both, and Tamil Nadu cities come in between (closer to Gujarat on water supply and closer to Kerala on sewerage). Figures 2.3 and 2.4 suggest that publicly provided services differ considerably in their reach across states but less so within states. These figures are another way of setting up the puzzle of variation that calls for explanation.

City Demographics How do cities of the three selected states compare on population size? Figure 2.5 shows the distribution of population across municipalities using graphs that can be interpreted as smoothened histograms. As the first graph shows, the average population is similar in Kerala and Gujarat (about half a lakh) while the average population is larger in Tamil Nadu (about three-quarters of a lakh). The other graphs of Figure 2.5 show populations of cities selected for fieldwork in relation to the respective state distributions; in each of the three states, the cities for the research (Table 2.3) broadly cover the range of the distribution.

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density .005 .01 .015 0 0

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density 0 .005.01 .015.02

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0 TN

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100 150 200 250 population (in 1000s) Gujarat

Figure 2.5 Population of municipalities Source: Data from Census 2011. Note: The figure is for municipalities only. Graphs show distribution of population of city governments and can be interpreted as smoothened histograms.  i  Dashed vertical lines give averages; solid vertical lines show city governments selected for study. ii  The graph shows an estimated probability density function (PDF) using a kernel density estimator (with Epanechnikov kernel) and is like a histogram that is smoothened. In a histogram, the data are divided into intervals and the number of data points is counted for each interval. A PDF is a version where the interval (window) becomes sliding and the frequency count becomes a ‘density’.

Unlike municipality populations, which are similar for Kerala and Gujarat, municipal corporation populations are quite different (the average in Gujarat is about four times more). Among bigger cities, Gujarat’s are far bigger than Kerala’s, with those in Tamil Nadu coming in between.33 There are two reasons why this is unlikely to weaken the inferences. First, the overall arguments summarised in Figure 2.1 hold empirically for municipalities, whose population distributions are more similar across the three states, especially in Kerala and Gujarat. Municipalities far outnumber municipal corporations (accounting for 92, 93 and 96 per cent of city governments in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, respectively). Second, although municipal corporation sizes are very different across states, later chapters

53 Approach and Argument

show that the argument holds even when comparing similar-sized municipal corporations. For instance, Rajkot is closer in size to Trivandrum and the overall argument holds when they are compared. There is reason to believe that smaller municipal corporations of Gujarat (Junagadh, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar) also share the governance attributes of the state’s bigger municipal corporations,34 and likewise for Kerala. As regards indicators of human development, the cities reflect the development histories and achievements of their respective states. Figure 2.6 shows literacy rates and sex ratios: Kerala cities tend to have higher values than those in Tamil Nadu, which in turn have higher values than those in Gujarat. While our emphasis is on inter-state differences in city government functioning, it does not mean that city governments within each state are homogenous. However, Kerala city governments do exhibit considerable similarity with each

Male Literacy

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Gujarat

Figure 2.6 Literacy rate and sex ratio Source: Data are from Census 2011. Note: The figure is for all city governments (municipalities and municipal corporations). Graphs show distribution across city governments and can be interpreted as smoothened histograms (see note to Figure 2.5). Vertical lines give averages.

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other; this can be traced to the curtailment of local possibilities by the state government. But there are greater differences within Gujarat.35 Our fieldwork reveals that local leadership in Gondal and Morbi was less engaged in city affairs. These city governments did not have specialised staff for many services and they functioned routinely – unlike other municipalities such as Navsari.36 In Vyara, there are a whopping 23 standing committees so that each of the 23 councillors gets to chair a committee. Vyara’s politics was controlled by a close-knit group and the city government showed arbitrary expenditures and lack of planning. And yet the fact that it had 23 standing committees reveals the autonomy of the city government to determine its own functioning (other cities in Gujarat have smaller numbers of standing committees) unlike in Kerala where the number was fixed at six by state government diktat. Reminiscent of Grindle’s (2007) Mexican cases, Gondal and Vyara suggest that the absence of state government control is not sufficient for healthy local action since it also depends upon facilitation by active political leadership, community engagement and so on. Although the analysis is not focused on intra-state difference, the differences in Gujarat matter because they highlight local government agency and the possibility of innovative local action.37

Research Methods There is little consensus regarding theoretically meaningful indicators and data sets of decentralisation in the literature. This is the case not just for cross-country studies (Mookherjee 2015; Harguindéguy, Cole and Pasquier 2019) but even for single-country studies (Bossert 2014).38 Fesler (1968, 373) cautions: The illusion of decentralization is partly the consequence of ease of quantitative measurement of work load (for example, volume of paperwork handled or number of employees needed for the work load), in contrast to the identification and application of indexes of discretionary power.

Such considerations suggest the inevitability of a qualitative approach. Detailed comparative performance assessments with development indicators and citizen surveys cannot get at the subtleties of local government functioning for reasons articulated by Grindle (2007, 56), who was primarily interested in how ayuntamientos [town councils] functioned as units of government, more interested in the ways in which the business of government was carried out on a daily basis than measures of their development, the attitudes and behavior of their citizens, or their divisions and civic cultures.

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In a thoughtful exploration of local government effectiveness for KalyanDombivli city (Maharashtra state), Pancholi (2014, 118) implicitly articulates useful methodological concerns:39 ... measuring scope of authority and direction of accountability of the local body in decentralisation requires an in-depth study of local body’s functioning. To understand the way a local body functions in decentralisation, it is essential to interpret laws and regulations that decide the mandate of the local body. It is further essential to assess the role played by other institutions that also operate locally and the extent such institutions collaborate/conflict with local body’s mandate.… Similarly, it is important to investigate the role of central and state government development schemes/programs in affecting local body’s authority in preparing local development agenda and local level planning. Such schemes/programs may curtail local government’s authority and can shift accountability from downwards to upwards. Lastly, there is also a need of understanding the type and effectiveness of accountability mechanisms at the local level. Such an exercise would entail assessing the effectiveness of ‘points of interfaces’ between local government and higher level governments and between local government and local citizens. This would also require understanding the role of civil society organisations in the process of governance.

Along with field observations, two main qualitative methods were used for data collection and analysis: semi-structured interviews with individuals and groups as well as content analysis of official documents. The first author conducted interviews and studied documents in each of the 23 city governments. Separate interview protocols and questionnaires were developed for elected officials and bureaucrats. Several others were also interviewed in the selected states: local and state-level political leaders connected with and interested in local urban governance; state policymakers in the fields of urban governance and decentralisation (state municipal government departments and urban planning departments, area development bodies and local planning authorities); and members of state research and training institutions. At the national level, interviews and discussions were conducted with officials of the ministry of urban development,40 the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) and policy research organisations. The first author also drew from long and diverse experience as a career bureaucrat in the Government of Kerala and the Government of India. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the study collected and scrutinised large numbers of state government instructions, circulars, government orders, letters and other types of communication. In Gujarat, there were far fewer such documents

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but those related to the annual budget, review papers, progress statements on implementation and municipal council decisions were collected. In many cases, councillors, city government staff and local residents were consulted for analysis. In Gujarat, two research assistants from the Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR) helped with interviews and translations; and scholars from CSS, GIDR, CEPT and IIMA were interviewed.41 In Tamil Nadu, interviews covered the state government’s training institute for local government in Coimbatore. And in Kerala, two retired government officials provided research assistance and logistics support throughout the three years of ICSSR sponsorship; and interviews were conducted with scholars at CDS, CMD and KILA.42 Several independent scholars and observers were also consulted in all three states. The argument emerged through themes and patterns from interviews and related observations. Selected quotations from interviews illustrate arguments in all the chapters. Interviews were not coded separately with the exception of the vignette in Chapter 1. The initial fieldwork period was from January 2010 to November 2013. Subsequent interactions and cross-checking of information with original interviewees occurred through phone and email with a few follow-up field visits, including with new incumbents in elected and bureaucratic positions. Newspaper reports on city governments were also continuously followed. Contact with Trivandrum mayors over a decade and a half consistently confirms lack of city government autonomy. The first author organised a meeting in August 2016 with the minister of Kerala’s Local Self Government Department (LSGD), elected representatives of the Trivandrum city government (mayor, deputy mayor, three chairpersons of standing committees), a former deputy mayor and a former chairperson of the standing committee for Works (both of whom were in office during fieldwork in 2011), the additional chief secretary of the state government who held the responsibility of LSGD, and a few invited scholars of local governance. Research findings were presented, emphasising lack of autonomy for taking binding decisions and absence of freedom to act in most devolved matters. Current and former elected representatives endorsed the findings and the first author urged the minister to consider the position and enable empowerment of city governments through de facto decentralisation, a point that was received well. Conversations with present-day city government officials suggest that the general tone and content of the extended vignette in Chapter 1 continue to hold today. The first author organised a conference in Trivandrum on the theme ‘Urban Governance and Planning’ with participants from the Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala city governments, representatives from state governments and the national government as well as urban planners and other practitioners. And as a board

57 Approach and Argument

member of an NGO actively working on democratisation and urban governance, he has also kept abreast of developments in city governments in different states.

Contribution of the Book Several observers and scholars have commented on the need for reform in local governance. The report of an official committee chaired by economist and policymaker Isher Judge Ahluwalia mentions the need for a major overhaul in governance (HPEC 2011).43 But even as recommendations have flowed, there remains a need for understanding how city governments function and what aspects of ‘governance’ need to be addressed. This work explores the internal workings of the city government such as office procedures, organisational form, staffing and relations with the state government. These details of government functioning contain the explanation of how well city governments do their work and provide public services. While the related literature is rich and diverse (see Appendix 2A and the section titled ‘Participation and Contestation: The Literature’ in Chapter 6), there is a need to detail out how governance arrangements affect local capacity for action.44 The literature on this is relatively sparse but studies by de Bercegol (2016) and Grindle (2007) do explore local capacity for action in India and Mexico, respectively. The present effort goes further to connect it with the national government and state governments (laws, rule-making) and the calibration of state–local relations.45 We hope that this book will be relevant for both scholars and practitioners as it speaks to: how state–local relations, local capacity and community participation affect decentralised services; the relationships among bureaucrats and elected politicians within and across government levels; and how state–local relations are affected by the policy process (institutional features such as laws, rule-making authority, oversight, rules and organisation of city government as well as key actors such as legislators, ministers and bureaucrats). Some of these conceptual relationships are likely to be of interest to scholars and practitioners outside India. Our approach uses comparisons both for structuring the empirical material as well as for theorising. The observation that cities within states tend to be more similar compared to cities across states, leads to the analysis of state–local relations and the institutional features of state policy. The exploration spans several disciplines: law (constitution and legal architecture), policy studies (policymaking and implementation), urban studies (service delivery, participation and equity) and political studies (power, citizenship, democracy and government). While the focus is on cities, the domain is of local governance in general and some of the insights carry over into village governance as well. The evidence suggests that for

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roughly comparable towns in India, the effectiveness of public provision of services such as water, sanitation and banking is independent of whether the governance arrangement is urban or rural (Mukhopadhyay 2017).46 The realities of ‘urban’ governance in such spaces may not be very different from the realities of ‘rural’ governance (Baviskar and Mathew 2009; de Bercegol 2016).47 The book also throws light on the workings of ‘policy’ through cascades of intention and action which produce different outcomes across states. Policy continues in the implementation process and the analysis underlines the importance of incorporating projected implementation in policymaking stages.48 Focus on implementation should extend to how laws and policy documents authorise policy detailing by administrators through rules and regulations.49 We examine broader questions of managing a policy through the policy process, designing policy instruments and building safeguards against policy drift during implementation. These matters are relevant both for decentralisation policy as well as for other policy domains more broadly. In government terminology, autonomy has a strange relationship with ‘power’. State laws reference the ‘power’ of the local government as a stand-in for government authority rather than autonomy and freedom to undertake an action. Kerala law gives a municipality the power to enter into some types of contracts but this ‘power’ is not for deciding on an action and implementing it. Rather, it is only about the competence to be a contracting party although the original policy intent was that the local government should have the power to decide about contracts in the first place. In the vignette in Chapter 1, the mayor had made a simple plea for autonomy: ‘We need the freedom to operate. The [state] government should interfere only when we exceed our power.’ An inquiry into decentralisation is an inquiry into the freedom to govern. This can be contrasted with ideas of governing to safeguard freedom. Amartya Sen (2001, 18) argues that democratic governance can strengthen an individual’s freedom, which in turn moves governance in desirable directions: ‘Capabilities can be enhanced by public policy, but also, on the other side, the direction of public policy can be influenced by the effective use of participatory capabilities by the public.’ Here Sen twins ‘governing to be free’ with individual freedoms that can guide governance for public action. To do this, governance processes have to be unveiled and examined. This book attempts to do so by highlighting the ‘freedom to govern’. ‘Governing to be free’ is a capacity of government, a capacity that is compromised in the absence of the ‘freedom to govern’.50 Interestingly, in some Indian languages such as Gujarati and Hindi, the same term can be used for both citizens’ rights and government authority (adhikaara).51

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While citizen rights and government authority often stand in opposition, they become aligned in local autonomy – that is, the local government has the ‘right’ to have exclusive ‘authority’ over local affairs.

Appendix 2A History of Decentralisation and Urban Governance in India The following is an account of India’s history of decentralisation and urban governance drawing from the large literature on the subject.

Decentralisation The Indian urban can be traced very far back, all the way to the Harappan civilisation over four millennia back. Fast-forwarding to more recent times, for colonial India formal decentralisation is usually traced to Viceroy Ripon’s 1882 resolution for creating urban local bodies with limited franchise but controlled by the colonial government (Sivaramakrishnan 2016). The Montague-Chelmsford reforms (Government of India Act of 1919) placed local government in the domain of the provincial rather than the national government. The Government of India Act of 1935 further confirmed this arrangement in British India.52 Independent India continued this legacy by making local government a state subject (rather than a union or concurrent subject), with momentous consequences. In the long, exacting process of constitution drafting, India’s Constituent Assembly witnessed ideologically charged debates between two very different visions of the locality and local governance. Gandhi had famously emphasised gram swaraj (village self-governance) and Gandhians in the Constituent Assembly argued for a decentralised system. This was successfully opposed by statists of both the left and the right. Writes Rudolph (2006, 29): Gandhi wanted a decentralized bottom-up state built on a foundation of ‘village swaraj’. Nehru, along with key ‘strong state’ allies in the Constituent Assembly such as Vallabhbhai Patel, the ‘iron Sardar’, and B. R. Ambedkar, India’s first Law Minister, Dalit leader and ‘father’ of the Indian Constitution, wanted a centralized top-down state capable of planned development. Patel, no socialist, wanted centralized powers for the sake of reason of state. Nehru was an urban as well as an industrial person. He would have agreed with Karl Marx about ‘the idiocy of rural life’. And Nehru shared Ambedkar’s view that village India is ‘a sink of localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and communalism’. This troika led the way in blocking and marginalizing efforts by Gandhians in the Constituent Assembly to add in the form of panchayati raj institutions, a third autonomous tier in India’s 1950 Constitution.53

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The compromise was to insert wording that advocated for but did not mandate decentralisation; even then, it referred only to rural and not urban local government.54 Matters relating to local governance were included in the domain of state governments.55 At the time, neither was there a groundswell for local governance nor was centralisation discredited as an ideology. There was broad support for ‘modernisation’ and ‘big push’ development by national governing elites, the intelligentsia, the bureaucrats and foreign advisors and funders of both the US and USSR stripes, and this translated readily to centralising tendencies. Rudolph (2006, 54) recounts that when he lectured sympathetically on Gandhi to recruits of the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1962, they ‘listened in disbelief’ and only two out of a hundred admitted to an ‘admiration for Gandhi’, the rest being ‘steeped in the Nehruvian world view’. Despite the weak constitutional provisions, Indian governments did pursue some elements of local governance. The Community Development Programme of the 1950s ‘sought to draw democratically self-governing local communities into partnership with the centralised state in a drive for rural development’ (Manor 1999, 18), but it tapered off due to implementation inefficiencies and lacklustre initiative. Over time, Prime Minister Nehru warmed to decentralisation for instrumental reasons (Varshney 1998, ch. 2). In the context of administrative inefficiencies, delays and corruption, Nehru wrote to state Chief Ministers: ‘It is easy to criticise such decentralisation and devolution of powers, but there appears to me to be no other democratic way to deal with the multitude of problems that arise’ (Nehru 1984, 42).56 Another attempt to strengthen local government came from the national government’s Balwantrai Mehta Committee and later the Ashoka Mehta Committee, but these fizzled out as state governments kept control over local governments. Until the 1990s, decentralisation was ‘whimsical’ at best (M. S. Aiyar 2015).57 The trajectory of local governance in cities was similarly uninspiring. India’s largest city government (Calcutta) was dissolved by the state government the year after Independence and the fourth largest (Madras) was dissolved in 1973 for a period of almost a quarter century (Sivaramakrishnan 2016).58 Although city governments performed key infrastructural service functions, in the 1960s it was argued that modernisation required specialised technical and managerial personnel and application of new technologies. This produced a logic based on economies of scale that created state-wide specialised technical organisations for public services, such as the Water Authority, Electricity Board, and so on. These were large, centralised, state government organisations with specialised cadres and

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wide geographical coverage. National and multilateral lending agencies treated them as clients and directed investments to them. They rewrote their financial systems to reflect programme-wise costs and benefits and revamped their work contracts and procurement methods for sourcing goods and services – that is, modernising practices for increasing efficiency. In the process, key service activities were distanced from local governments. The 1990s reforms can be traced to the late 1980s and the appointment of the Singhvi Committee by the national government to suggest reforms. The committee recommended constitutional protection of local government autonomy. However, some states governed by opposition parties opposed this move as it would reduce their ‘rights’ and powers (Sivaramakrishnan 2016) and perhaps give the national government greater powers over local governments (Kochanek and Hardgrave 2007). After further twists,59 the national parliament passed the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments (CAs) which received presidential assent in April 1993 (M. S. Aiyar 2015).60 According to the official statement for the need for reforms: In many States local bodies have become weak and ineffective on account of a variety of reasons, including the failure to hold regular elections, prolonged supersessions and inadequate devolution of powers and functions. As a result, Urban Local Bodies are not able to perform effectively as vibrant democratic units of self-government.61

India’s CAs coincided with an international turn towards decentralisation. Influential policy-setters argued for decentralisation, led by the World Bank (World Bank 1997, 2003) but also supported by the United Nations (UN-Habitat 2009) and International Monetary Fund (IMF 2009). Service delivery was important among the many reasons that were advanced.62 This was identified as a major area of ‘state failure’ in the developing world, stymying efforts at public intervention in general, especially for the poor (Ahmad et al. 2005). Decentralisation was also attractive in the public and political imagination for its association with democratisation, especially in regions making democratic transitions. Writes Faguet (2014, 2): A decade ago, estimates of the number of decentralization experiments ranged from 80% of the world’s countries to effectively all of them (Manor 1999). Since then, further reforms have been announced in several dozen countries.… In short, decentralization is being implemented essentially everywhere. The importance of reform goes well beyond the sheer number of experiments under way. At least in their intention, many decentralizations aim to reconstitute government….

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Discourses around decentralisation were formed by attractive accounts such as Fiszbein’s (1997) account for Colombia. Until the early 1980s, the country’s nearly 900 local governments (municipios) with mayors and elected councils ‘had practically no role beyond the administration of street cleaning and slaughterhouses’ (Fiszbein 1997, 1029). Later in the decade, decentralisation reforms moved many functions outside the national government and its parastatals. Writes Fiszbein (1997, 1030): Essentially, municipios have now more resources, responsibilities and decisionmaking authority than under the old centralized regime.… Local governments are now responsible for the provision of services in education, health, water, sanitation, roads, and agricultural extension among others.… These reforms took place in the context of a revival of local political life under democratic rule which has the popular election of mayors, since 1988, as one of its main components.

In India, the 73rd and 74th CAs could potentially have changed the nature of local democracy and governance. Article 243W and the Twelfth Schedule of the 74th CA conveyed the intent that state governments should make a specified and wide spectrum of urban services the responsibility of city governments. Transfer of policy responsibilities was ‘to enable them to function as institutions of selfgovernment’ with ‘powers and authority necessary to enable them to carry out the responsibilities conferred.’63 Besides functional devolution, in order to recalibrate state–local relations, the CA laid out how city governments were to be constituted as well as the composition and methods of election and tenure of elected members (Articles 243P to 243V) and state–local resource sharing through State Finance Commissions (Articles 243W and 243X). Much was left to be done to translate the intent of the CA into reality. While the CA emphasises local electoral democracy and formal devolution of some functions, it leaves the organisation and regulation of local governance to state legislatures and state governments.64 Sivaramakrishnan (2016) describes this as ‘dichotomous drafting’ that strengthens local representation but not local government. He also notes that related litigation in the High Courts and the Supreme Court ended up with judgements mostly favouring state government positions rather than those of local governments. This follows from the constitutional division of legislative powers between national and state legislatures and the authority for local governance resting with the latter. State legislatures and governments responded by changing local government laws to reflect the letter of the CA. But many of them continued to let non-elected, delegated organisations such as the Water Authority and Electricity Board provide local services, virtually denying

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decentralisation of those functions. This diluted the spirit of the CA and made the new state laws themselves uninspiring. Ultimately, since local governance was mostly up to the states, it also produced state-level variations in decentralisation patterns (Mookherjee 2015). Despite the CA’s provisions for citizen-level participation in local governance and its reflection in accompanying state legislation, these provisions were activated only with reluctance, with Kerala and West Bengal being more proactive than other states in forming ward committees (WCs) of local residents (Sivaramakrishnan 2006). However, WCs were not particularly active and were often run in a partisan manner, as Bhattacharyya (2016) observes for West Bengal. Consistent with theories of ‘local capture’ (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000), unsurprisingly the less privileged get edged out of participatory spaces (Ghertner 2011), a matter that we discuss in Chapter 6. Soon after the CA, Kerala saw an ambitious decentralisation initiative (the people’s plan campaign, 1996–2001) focusing on rural governance. It was described by some in laudatory terms of deepening democracy (Isaac and Franke 2002; Heller, Harilal and Chaudhuri 2007) and by others as a project of mainstream left parties to shore up their political fortunes in the new market and governance realities (Mannathukkaren 2010; Törnquist and Harriss 2016). Considerable finances were devolved from the state government to local governments and large numbers of people participated through articulating needs in local forums, assessing local resources and formulating ideas on local projects. But the decision space for local governments, though now newly decentralised, was highly constrained, with limited improvements in housing and some public distribution of private welfare benefits. The impact on services, material well-being or economic and social relations fell considerably short of the rhetoric (Devika 2016) and over time, democratic deepening was considerably compromised through recentralisation and bureaucratisation (Harilal 2013; Oommen 2014). The focus of decentralisation has traditionally been on rural populations – and that too the first tier (gram panchayat) of the three-tier structure of rural local government. The challenges of urban governance were given greater attention only much later. Increased urbanisation and pressure on service delivery also brought civil society organisations and policy advocacy organisations into the picture. We now turn to the trajectory of urban governance.

Urban Governance Under the East India Company and the British Crown, early emphasis on separating ‘English’ (civil lines) from ‘Black’ (native town) areas slowly gave way

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to systemic attempts for urban improvements, particularly around sanitary issues (Spodek 2013). Fears of infectious disease spurred coercive moves to destroy the cramped living quarters of the poor, widen roads and use urban improvement trusts to build drains, sewers and water supply lines, besides electricity, roads and streetlights. Propertied urban elites predictably resisted municipal extraction to meet such expenditures (Dossal 1991; Kidambi 2007). Town planning began in Bombay through legislation in 1915. It formalised the government’s power to acquire land and impose land use regulations and this loosely carried over to urban governance in post-Independence India through the city development authority controlled by the state government (Weinstein, Sami, and Shatkin 2013).65 Other conceptions of planning also existed, such as the approach of Patrick Geddes which was more organic and respectful of local ways of life, but these remained marginal (Spodek 2013). From the early twentieth century, factors other than colonial influence started shaping urban dynamics. Cities expanded in size and complexity. While only ‘primate cities’ expanded in the early period of colonial rule, now smaller towns also slowly transformed as small enterprises thrived (Haynes and Rao 2013). The Government Acts of 1919 and 1935 Indianised the government and gave greater scope for provincial and municipal leaders to pursue public infrastructure and welfare (Gooptu 2001). But municipal efforts at improving conditions were limited by the primary objectives: ‘the need to fight epidemics, the need to attract labour, the need to minimize political discontent, the need to respect the old maxim of political control, and light taxation’ (Chandavarkar 2009, 58). There was an increase in contestations between elected city councils and appointed urban improvement trusts (development boards which became parastatals in independent India) controlled by the provincial government – contestations that continue today (Shaw 1996; Spodek 2013). Increasing economic activity, the changing colonial regime and slowly widening democratisation together brought more non-elites into this contested urban governance space. This also complicated planning efforts. Spatial clusters based on class, particularly the slum and the suburb, became more clearly delineated from the early decades of the twentieth century. Suburbs for the middle class began to be distinguished as organised expansions, often through coercive land acquisition (Haynes and Rao 2013). Informal settlements also grew, attracting permanent poor in-migrants and those evicted through land acquisition by the improvement trusts (Gooptu 2001; Kidambi 2007). Slums were already identified as ‘illegal’ and subject to action by planning authorities a full century before today’s hyper-contested notions of the informal and the illegal (Bhan 2016). Later strands of civil and political society

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(P. Chatterjee 2004; Harriss 2007) can be dated to this period (Haynes and Rao 2013). Thus, already in these last decades of colonial rule, ideas of urban citizenship – expectations, rights, entitlements, norms, legitimacy, progress – gained traction (Rao 2013). After Independence, state governments were mostly passive on urban governance and planning although these were state subjects. The national government stepped into this gap through the articulation of urban policy, especially in the Third Five Year Plan (1961–66) and through the creation of organisations including a ministry of urban affairs (Shaw 1996). This was in tune with the post-Independence climate that adopted a development state identity that emphasised growth, welfare and public order (Jacob 2016) and gravitated to centralised planning in a mixed economy. The Third Plan mentioned regulation of urban land and land values as well as public acquisition. It also guided state legislation for land use and master plans: this occurred by the late 1960s, showing continuity rather than change with colonial policies to regulate congestion. Meanwhile, municipal structures stayed weak and the vacuum in urban service delivery was filled through state governments’ parastatal agencies. From the 1970s transport, water and sanitation, electricity and housing all effectively came to be controlled by state governments through parastatals. The post-Independence decades strengthened processes connecting urban space and hierarchy, and power and resistance – processes that were already visible in the later period of colonial rule. The struggles of the urban poor run the gamut from land rights, shelter and ‘infrastructural citizenship’ (Lemanski 2019) to political mobilisation, work and livelihoods (Coelho and Maringanti 2012). These struggles are shot through by fragmentation of communities (Navdeep Mathur 2012; I. Chatterjee 2013) and gendered violence (Datta and Ahmed 2020). The adoption of the 74th CA in the 1990s coincided with specific discourses around the economy and governance. Past poor performance of city governments was attributed to deficiencies in planning, infrastructure, finance and insufficient capacity in general and deregulation, privatisation and technology were identified as appropriate responses.66 As the national government followed up macroeconomic liberalisation with massive programmatic welfare expenditures (P. Chatterjee 2008; Benjamin 2010), there were also massive programmatic expenditures on urban infrastructure and the welfare of the urban poor. And just as the earlier national government articulated urban policy although it was a state subject, so too now it formulated a large urban intervention, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), 2005–12.

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Scholars observe ‘metrocentricity’ bias in policy (Shaw 1996; Bunnell and Maringanti 2010) and a policy slant to deregulate urban land (Weinstein, Sami and Shatkin 2013; Bhan 2016). The national government’s first major funding support for cities through the JNNURM involved technology and the private sector and has been interpreted as promoting markets and private capital aligned with policies of international financial institutions (Mahadevia 2011). Shanghai and Singapore became the aspirational models (Nair 2000; Datta 2015), to be attained through technocratic, depoliticised routes driven by industrial and civil society elite groups such as the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF) and its successors. Promoters of such bodies believe that contestation is ‘dirty politics’ that compromises economic growth and instead prefer the language of inclusion (Coelho and Maringanti 2012). The newly elected national government in 2014 reinforced these trends, especially since Prime Minister Modi had pursued similar governance strategies as the Chief Minister of Gujarat in the previous decade (Datta 2015; Sampat 2016; Das 2020). The JNNURM was replaced with the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) for improving infrastructure in a broader swathe of cities. Later the national government started the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) which emphasised technocratic solutions through privatised Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) insulated from democratic scrutiny (Praharaj, Han and Hawken 2018). The JNNURM explicitly reserved 35 per cent of funds to address urban poverty through a component called Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP). This focused on ‘slum upgradation’ through security of tenure, affordable housing, water, sanitation and the like. Critics argue that BSUP and its successor programme, the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) (Williams et al. 2019) are insufficient in a broader landscape of dispossession and disproportionate influence of corporate capital. Developments over the last quarter century have complicated governance equations. Some interpret it as ‘polycentric’ governance: ‘multi-level (involving the local, state and national levels within the federal set-up), multi-type (with nested, overlapping and fragmented jurisdictions), multi-sectoral (various public and private organisations, civil society, and others), and multi-functional (with units performing specific functions)’ (Pethe et al. 2012, 211). But urban governance initiatives like the JNNURM undermine the autonomy of city governments (Sivaramakrishnan 2011) and give importance to parastatals in service delivery. Programmes such as the JNNURM and the SCM also increase the influence of national government over state governments and urban local governments and lead to a larger role for the private sector including engagement of consultants even for urban planning (Mahadevia 2006; Williams et al. 2019; Das 2020).

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Urban governance, in keeping with governance in general, was characterised by informality extending to the privileged classes and the state (Coelho and Venkat 2009; Nair 2013; Kamath and Vijayabaskar 2014; Bhan 2016). Roy (2009) notes that such informality is calculated deregulation rather than merely unregulated and emphasises informality from above, including the state itself, despite (Weberian rational-legal) appearances to the contrary. The new modes of governance and democratic contestation often form the master narrative in studies of urban precarity and urban governance. And yet important local processes exist between these two narratives, influencing and being influenced by them. Besides the emerging private developers and consultants, many other groups – working classes, middle-classes, slum-dwellers, agriculturists and political brokers – affect local processes (Shatkin and Vidyarthi 2013). Even in the public sphere, the dichotomous representation of civil versus political society (P. Chatterjee 2004; Harriss 2007) has been complicated by blurring of lines regarding interests and patterns of mobilisation (Baviskar and Sundar 2008; Coelho and Venkat 2009; Roy 2009; Nair 2013; Kamath and Vijayabaskar 2014). Finally, despite increasing urbanisation, both policymaking and scholarship tend to focus on the megacities (Shaw 1996; Bunnell and Maringanti 2010; de Bercegol 2016; Denis and Zérah 2017) even though there are considerable differences in basic services available to urban residents based on city size, location and history (Kundu, Bagchi and Kundu 1999; Chattopadhyay and Das 2018; Guin 2019).

Notes 1. Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Bill, 1991 which was enacted as the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992. 2. Section 3(g) of the Statement of Objects and Reasons. 3. A highly cited work by Centeno (1993, 314) formulates it as ‘the administrative and political domination of a society by a state elite and allied institutions that seek to impose a single, exclusive policy paradigm based on the application of instrumentally rational techniques’. 4. The term has contradictory articulations in the literature. Exploring these, Venugopal (2015, 166) asks: Does neoliberalism imply a contraction of the state vis-à-vis the market, or just a different kind of state that promotes and works at the behest of markets? Is neoliberalism a depoliticized and technocratic fetishisation of the market, or is it a deeply political agenda of class rule and neo-colonial domination? Is it a Leviathan that bludgeons its way around the world, or is it a far more subtle, mutating,

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localized, contingent force that works by transforming individual subjectivities? … [I]t has been drawn far beyond its conceptual crib in economic policy, political economy and the states-versus-markets debate, towards issues of power and ideology, reflecting a shift in theoretical inspiration from Keynes towards Marx, Gramsci and Foucault.

5. The literature critiquing neoliberalism also identifies three interconnected discourses that can reshape subjectivities: individual economic freedom, sovereignty, enterprise and self-responsibility (paradoxically producing possibilities of both political liberalism and authoritarianism); political and ideological strategies of de-emphasising the overtly political and ideological; and the use of specific rationalities (market relations and marketisation) both in the conduct of governance and elsewhere. 6. None of these documents represented statutorily valid, spatial socio-economic plans. Kundu (2014, 628) observes: ‘CDP was seen as an investment plan for projects in the immediate term and not as a vision document for the city with very limited cities revisiting the same CDP [as it] is not a statutory document as the master plan/regional plan.’ These were one-off engagements of external support for the instrumental, immediate purpose of developing documents for receiving external funding. We also find that where outside consultants make plans or reports for city governments – typically ending up merely subcontracting to a local agency – these tend to be formal facades employed instrumentally by the city government to fulfil national government guidelines to access funds. The CDPs made for JNNURM were mostly collections of disparate technical projects, scarcely bearing a connection with urban planning as a sociopolitical and spatial governance instrument for urban development in a wider sense. 7. They note that for the nationally funded RAY programme, the Trivandrum city government did engage a consultant, who unsurprisingly produced a narrow technical document – but this was a marginal phenomenon and did not affect the conduct of urban governance. 8. These seven cities are mentioned in the United Nations report The World’s Cities in 2016 based on estimates of current and future size. 9. For an overview of differences in state politics, see Jacob (2019). 10. See Appendix 2A for a brief discussion of the people’s plan. 11. Sivaramakrishnan (2000, 140) notes that the ‘Kerala Municipalities Act 1994 contains by far the most elaborate list of municipal functions’. 12. In the table, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are ranked in the top half of states; Tamil Nadu is ranked higher on ‘policy’ and Gujarat on ‘practice’. Annual devolution indices were developed by India’s National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) for 2007–09 and by the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) for 2010–13; these led to the bigger effort for

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13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20.

21. 22.

2016 by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) on behalf of the national government (Ministry of Panchayati Raj and TISS 2016). The previous efforts also gave Kerala a high rank on devolution. For instance, Chaubey (2011) uses the NCAER and IIPA exercises to give Kerala the first and second rank respectively for 2009 and 2010 for financial devolution while Gujarat is behind at rank eight and ten for the two years (out of 25 states). Supporting this, our fieldwork repeatedly uncovered instances when budgets could not be spent for want of project preparation and execution skills. Together, the conceptual connections form a ‘hypothesised explanation’; see Bennett and Checkel (2015). This is consistent with wider usage in the philosophy of science and social science, for instance Elster (1983). Community organisations may differ based on class and other attributes with different forms of mobilisation although they increasingly tend to be cross-cutting in background and methods. The section titled ‘Participation and Contestation: The Literature’ in Chapter 6 explores this in more detail. The profusion of terms for ‘decentralisation’ is examined in the section titled ‘What Does Decentralisation Mean?’ in Chapter 7. Indian legislation uses the term ‘devolution’ to signify both local control of ‘functions’ and ‘responsibilities’ as well as local ‘power’ and ‘authority’. The first paragraph of the Statement of Objects and Reasons (appended to the 74th CA) itself notes ‘inadequate devolution of powers and functions’ in the past. It also mentions ‘devolution by the State Legislature of powers and responsibilities upon the Municipalities’ (3[g]). This is analogous to Table 1.3 which focused on two municipal corporations, Surat and Trivandrum. This is shown, for instance, by instances of dispossession in Ahmedabad (Navdeep Mathur 2012) and elsewhere in Gujarat (Datta 2015) as well as slow development of infrastructure in a resettlement site in Surat (Kamath and Zachariah 2015). Mass public action in the mid-twentieth century was driven by public spirit and individual and community agency. Paradoxically, its success led to institutionalisation that, it can be argued, partly corrupted and weakened it. Ironically, since the government was less interventionist in colonial times, local spaces actually did enjoy a fair degree of autonomy unlike under the overgrown post-Independence state. Of course, it does not follow that localities flowered in colonial times because effective, just local action depends on community engagement and conjunctural factors that enhance local capacity in the presence of autonomy. ‘Political civil society’ refers to the ‘network of political groups that coalesced into a nascent social movement’ (Thayer 2009, 1). For instance, see the many cases in the Vikalp Sangam network, http:// vikalpsangam.org/.

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23. The book partly draws upon a government report (HPEC 2011). 24. Jacob (2015) discusses the comparative subnational approach for India. 25. This departs from the pattern in Mexican cities described by Grindle (2007), where inter-state differences in urban governance are less pronounced. 26. Further, the specifics of decentralisation laws, financial devolution and the institutional framework for participation in the two states should all have led to enhanced decentralised services in Kerala; the fact that this was not the case only sharpens the puzzle. 27. Of the five Tamil Nadu cities in our study, three cities (Nagercoil and Colachel of Travancore, and Tirunelveli) in the south are close to three Kerala cities in the study (Trivandrum, Attingal, Varkala); Coimbatore is close to three Kerala cities in the study (Palakkad and Ottapalam of the old Madras state, and Thrissur). The fifth Tamil Nadu city, Alandur, was chosen for other reasons explained in the text. 28. In focusing on a particular explanation (state–local relations and public participation), these are narrower than the first question, making for the empirical strategy of choosing states for comparison. 29. In Kerala, the cities are: Palakkad, Ottappalam and Thrissur in the North region; Kochi, Kalamassery and Thrikkakara in the Cochin region; and Trivandrum, Varkala and Attingal in the South region. Note that technically Thrissur is in Central Kerala while Palakkad and Ottappalam are in the Malabar (North) region; however, they were grouped together due to geographical proximity. In Gujarat, the cities are: Rajkot, Morbi and Gondal in the Saurashtra region; Ahmedabad, Kalol and Sanand in the North Gujarat region; and Surat, Navsari and Vyara in the South Gujarat region. 30. For instance, parastatal agencies in Bangalore include: Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA), Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM), Karnataka Slum Clearance Board (KSCB), Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation (KUIDFC) which was also the nodal agency for JNNURM (Benjamin 2000; Idiculla 2015). 31. The infrastructure index includes on-premises availability of treated piped water, on-premises toilet with piped sewer, on-premises bathroom and wastewater outlet connected to closed drainage. The social attainment index includes sex ratio (total and child) and literacy rate (female and male). 32. Some of the values are negative because these are normalised scores. Normalisation involves subtraction of the mean of the distribution and division by its standard deviation. 33. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have four and five municipal corporations, respectively, whose populations are larger than Kerala’s largest municipal corporation.

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24. Interview with Manjula Subramaniam, former chief secretary of the Government of Gujarat; 29 March 2011, Gandhinagar. 35. This is the reverse of the ‘Anna Karenina principle’: while Kerala city governments tend to be similar due to similar incursions on their autonomy, the more autonomous Gujarat city governments have their own different arrangements. In the case of the business world, Masters and Thiel (2014, 27) conclude: ‘All happy companies are different: each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: they failed to escape competition.’ 36. These and other observations in this paragraph are from field visits in February 2011. 37. Intra-state differences are an interesting area for future research, including interstate comparisons of intra-state differences. 38. Some scholars are more sanguine. Introducing a set of studies of decentralisation and governance, Faguet (2014, 3) writes: ‘This collection shows the analytical power of what might be called a one-country, large-N approach … detailed knowledge of the institutional, historical and economic characteristics of a country (or state or region) is combined with quantitative research on subnational units of analysis, such as municipalities or provinces.’ However, we maintain that despite such welcome attempts, not enough is currently known about contextualised indicators of de facto decentralisation, let alone more generic ones for withincountry or cross-country studies. 39. Dickovick and Eaton (2013, 1453) make a similar point for Latin America. 40. Ministry of Urban Development at the time of fieldwork, subsequently renamed Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. 41. Centre for Social Studies (Surat), Gujarat Institute of Development Research (Ahmedabad), CEPT University (Ahmedabad) and Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad). 42. Centre for Development Studies (Trivandrum), Centre for Management Development (Trivandrum) and Kerala Institute of Local Administration (Thrissur). 43. The High Powered Expert Committee for Estimating the Investment Requirements for Urban Infrastructure Services set up by the national government in 2008. The point made in the text was also noted by senior decentralisation scholar Govinda Rao (interview, 25 March 2011, New Delhi). 44. See Chapters 7 and 8 for surveys of the broader literature. 45. Grindle’s research in 30 municipalities of Mexico produces a narrative of relative autonomy in state–local relations and we engage with this work at various points. At the start of the research, the first author also met Grindle to discuss insights and suggestions.

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46. Mukhopadhyay (2017) compares service provision in ‘Statutory Towns’ (municipalities) with population less than 100,000, ‘Census Towns’ with urban characteristics but governed by panchayats, and Census Towns near large cities. 47. However, the nature of governance appears to be qualitatively different in larger towns and cities (Guin 2019). 48. The contemporary literature in policy studies has transcended old conceptions separating policymaking and implementation (and policymaker and implementer), as well as going beyond old assumptions of ‘upstream’/‘downstream’ linearity (Hupe and Hill 2016) although traces of the old conceptions linger. 49. Rules concern higher order matters that elaborate the framework of action authorised by the law; regulations and bye-laws usually pertain to the conduct of internal business in organisations. They are not necessarily or routinely placed before the legislature. 50. In a very different approach, Michel Foucault argues that notions and practices of individual freedom are shaped by processes of governmentality (Foucault 1991; Rose 1993). While this generates insights about the processes of governmentality, it too does not open up the black box of the government. Foucault’s ‘governing through freedom’ is a characteristic of governmentality, which is affected by the ‘freedom to govern’. 51. In Malayalam and Tamil, the main languages of the other two study states (Kerala and Tamil Nadu), the same root word is used for government authority (adhikaaram, atikaaram) but not for citizen rights. 52. Besides the 1919 and 1935 Acts, there were also other official efforts in the later decades of colonial rule: the Royal Commission on Decentralisation (1907) and the Simon Commission Report (1925). 53. Interestingly, it is not just the ‘troika’ of Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar who opposed decentralisation despite their ideological differences. So did the Hindu right wing; for instance, see Golwalkar (1966, Chapter XVIII). However, as with many interpretations of opposing positions, there were nuances too. According to Austin (2003, 145), Gandhi ran ‘a highly centralized political campaign’ against the colonial government although he advocated decentralisation. 54. Article 40 of the Constitution (under Directive Principles of State Policy) says: ‘The State shall take steps to organize village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government.’ 55. Entry 5, List II, Schedule VII of the Constitution. 56. Letter dated 9 September 1958. 57. However, there were pockets of exception, such as greater rural decentralisation in West Bengal and Karnataka under communist and socialist party governments respectively (Kochanek and Hardgrave 2007).

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Approach and Argument

58. By the 1980s, ‘[a]t any one time, as many as half of all municipal bodies in India are in receivership – superseded by state authority’ (Kochanek and Hardgrave 2007, 135). 59. The constitutional amendment bills of 1989 for rural and urban decentralisation were passed by the lower house of the Parliament but failed in the upper house which had a greater proportion of legislators from opposing states. After a change of government, they were reintroduced and finally passed in parliament and became official in 1992–93. 60. Some urban areas of the country have different provisions from that of the 74th Amendment: those in Union Territories directly administered by the national government; areas listed in the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution; cantonment areas administered by the defence forces; and industrial townships where municipal services are provided by an industrial establishment (Idiculla 2015; Sivaramakrishnan 2016). 61. Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to the Constitution (73rd Amendment) Bill, 1991 which was enacted as the Constitution (74th Amendment) Act, 1992. 62. Chapter 7 elaborates some of these points. 63. The policy functions under transfer are listed in Schedule 12 and include 18 activities. They are: 1. Urban Planning including Town Planning. 2. Regulation of Land Use and Construction of Buildings. 3. Planning for Economic and Social Development. 4. Roads and Bridges. 5. Water Supply for Domestic, Industrial and Commercial purposes. 6. Public Health, Sanitation Conservancy and Solid Waste Management. 7. Fire Services. 8. Urban Forestry, Protection of the environment and promotion of Ecological aspects. 9. Safeguarding the interests of weaker sections of the society, including the handicapped and mentally retarded. 10. Slum Improvement and up gradation. 11. Urban Poverty Alleviation. 12. Provision of urban amenities such parks, gardens, playgrounds. 13. Promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetics aspects. 14. Burials and Burial grounds, cremations, Cremation grounds and electric crematoriums. 15. Cattle pounds, Prevention of Cruelty to animals. 16. Vital statistics including registration of births and deaths. 17. Public amenities including street lighting, parking lots, bus stops and public conveniences. 18. Regulation of slaughter houses and tanneries. 64. Constitution of India, Article 246(3), Schedule VII – State List, item 5. 65. There was a provision for land pooling but it fell into disuse because of the timeconsuming negotiations involved; this was to be used later in Gujarat which had the institutional legacy of colonial Bombay (Deuskar 2011). 66. An official report notes that ‘strengthening the capacity of ULBs [urban local bodies] to improve governance and enhance their ability to prepare, implement and manage projects, is crucial even when funds are not a constraint’ (HPEC 2011, 33).

Part II Local Capacity In popular imagination today, ‘government’ invokes differing images: corridors of power and labyrinths of incompetence. There is, on the one hand, the wielding and misuse of power shaping our very consciousness. And on the other hand, there is ineptitude and arbitrariness. To explain patterns of local action and public services, Part II asks: How do local governments actually function? It turns to two interrelated dimensions of government functioning – how it takes and implements decisions (Chapter 3) and how it is organised (Chapter 4) – which together form local government ‘capacity’. Local capacity has both a performance-orientation and a citizen-orientation. For Fiszbein (1997, 1031), it ‘involves the existence and adequate functioning of mechanisms through which the community can voice demands, channels by which authorities can translate those demands into actions and instruments for government accountability’. There are many nuts and bolts to effective practices that enhance capacity: decision-making and monitoring; organisational structure and distribution of responsibilities; skills and personnel policies (reward systems, career mobility, work planning and appraisal); leadership and management style; generating, managing and analysing information and creating feedback loops; managing relationships (with citizens’ organisations, other governments, suppliers, businesses, and so on); and managing equipment, materials and buildings. Chapter 3, on government practices, explores how city government attends to matters. How are decisions taken? What administrative procedures are in place for planning and delivering services? These matters make up the everyday substance of local government. The chapter also discusses urban planning, a ‘meta’ capacity that can enable the city government to conceptualise space, integrate interventions and enhance equity in access to public services. Chapter 4, on organisation, explores the horizontal departmental and vertical hierarchical patterns inside the organisation of the city government and also goes into details of staffing. Administrative procedures, organisational form and staffing together constitute

the capacity of the local government to undertake effective and just local action. Once capacity has been so mapped out, it provides an explanation of observed local action. This raises the further question of what makes capacity what it is, which is explored in Part III.

3 Running City Governments

Following the decentralisation reforms, city governments were expected to perform a wider and more complex set of policy functions than before. For infrastructure services, they needed physical systems, processing plants and distribution networks previously controlled by the state government. Importantly, they also needed to plan, coordinate and implement in more complex ways, for which they needed new work systems, procedures and implementation methods – which state agencies had developed over the years. City governments would also need to transform themselves into ‘policy entrepreneurs’ (Montero and Samuels 2004; Petridou and Mintrom 2020). It is in grassroots implementation that any policy finds its ultimate shape, whatever be the intent, as shown by Lipsky (2010) and others. For decentralised service delivery, the final implementer is the local government. It is in the local government that new work procedures have to emerge and sustain. ‘Work procedures’ are the specific methods and sequences through which decisions are taken and implemented within the government organisation. If a bulb in a streetlight fails, how does the local government proceed to respond? If there is a request to extend the sewerage line to a new neighbourhood, how does the local government tackle it? Sound procedures should bring about the intended outcome in an effective and fair manner, apart from being legally compliant. Local governments also have to devise new procedures to deal with multiple agencies and actors, both within the government and outside it. Previously, specific departments were ‘owners’ of specific policy outputs whereas policy implementation permeates departmental boundaries in the present era of network governance. Hence, emphasis should be on interconnected policy implementation processes rather than only the ability to manage government departments and operations (Conteh and Huque 2014). Local governments need to not only renew their in-house procedures of work but also develop capabilities to deal with matters that cross organisational boundaries. But among our three chosen states,

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Tamil Nadu and particularly Kerala city governments did not develop such capabilities. An elected representative in Thrissur (Kerala) notes:1 It is difficult to get things done here. The minister knows this but is not able to push [for effective implementation]. We propose many city projects, but nothing comes of them, we are not able to implement [them]. There are many problems. Project ideas and project efforts are wasted.

Kerala city governments operate in isolation and continue traditional practices of public administration: emphasis on control, rule adherence and routinised procedures. The upshot is that decision chains end up chaining local action in Kerala. Strikingly, our fileldwork reveals that councillors and staff of Kerala city governments are aware of this and share their frustrations about ineffective procedures and delays in public works. They themselves suggest several realignments of procedures to improve efficiency – and yet, for lack of autonomy, they cannot act upon these. A former mayor-turned-state legislator in Kochi (Kerala) observes:2 We are not able to do things, we are going the wrong way. In the JNNURM, the CM [chief minister] chairs the monitoring committee. Why [should this be]? Why should we have such a committee? For making the DPR [detailed project report] for the STP [sewerage treatment plant], the committee has to convene based on the CM’s convenience. It also has the MLA, minister, secretary, etc. How will they meet [since it is hard to find common time in busy schedules]? If the corporation sends a proposal, the monitoring committee can’t meet. Why should we have this rigmarole? The process and procedures are wrong.

In the context of infrastructure services, the chapter distinguishes procedures for deciding to do an activity or project (or not) and procedures for implementing decisions (sections titled ‘Making Decisions’ and ‘Implementation Practices’). The section titled ‘Procurement and Contracting’ turns to how local governments procure goods and services and manage contracts. Procurement is important because most material resources and inputs used by local governments for providing services – bulbs for street lighting, pipes for water supply, books for community libraries, and so on – are not produced by them but are instead contracted out. Many maintenance functions are also implemented through service contracts. The aforesaid section also discusses administrative procedures from the broader perspective of knowledge management. The last section (‘Urban Planning’) explores the ‘meta’ activity of urban planning around which most other city government activities are expected to cohere.

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Making Decisions A frequently highlighted feature of decentralisation in Kerala is that local governments ‘were granted discretionary budgeting authority over 35–40 per cent of the state’s developmental expenditures’ (Heller 2012, 654).3 Specifically, what was transferred was a portion of the state government’s annual funds from its official five year plan finalised with the national government.4 What were the internal arrangements in city governments to use this ‘discretionary budgeting authority’ for activities? It turns out that city governments follow long and winding paths to decide what activities to do with these Plan funds. This is shown in Figure 3.1 for Palakkad. The municipal secretary puts up a spending proposal to one of the 13 working groups of councillors. Then it goes through a linear decision sequence with 16 stages and as many as nine different actors! Similar concerns about lengthy procedures have been raised by Oommen (2014). A councillor in Palakkad articulated the frustration as follows:5 How can we do anything keeping to a schedule? We have thirteen working groups. Each one makes a draft proposal which goes to the ward sabha [citizen assembly], then to the working group, then to the council, then to a seminar, then again to the council, then to the DPC [district planning committee], and then again to the council – all to what purpose? And very few people attend the ward sabha. In the municipal office, all approvals above as small an amount as Rs 50,000, including bid selection, go to the full council. The procedures take over ten months and implementation is squeezed into two months. How can any meaningful governance happen under this arrangement?

A recent set of instructions on procedures from the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) of the state government, dated February 2018 and consisting of over a 100 pages, shows that little has substantively changed over the years. The detailed set of procedures to decide on activities to spend the devolved Plan funds was mandated by the state government. This suggests that rather than the presence of a ‘discretionary budgeting authority’ (Heller 2012, 654), local governments enjoy neither discretion nor authority, both of which lie with actors external to them like the TAG and the DPC in Figure 3.1 (discussed below) which undercut local discretionary authority. Harilal (2013, 54) labels the ‘unjustifiably long process of making and sanctioning local plans’ as ‘bureaucratic capture’. He observes that in 2011, five months into the Plan financial year, only a third of local governments – and none of Kerala’s municipal corporations – had passed the stage of DPC approval (stage 13 in Figure 3.1). Harilal (2013, 57) makes an

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interesting comparison with decision-making in the state government, where technical clearance does not hold up other aspects of planning: In the state plan, detailed administrative and technical vetting of individual projects and the issue of technical sanction are separated from the process of plan formulation and approval. These are seen as tasks related to implementation. The plan is not withheld for want of technical clearance for any particular project, however important it is. In the case of LG [local government] plans, it is the opposite – administrative and technical vetting of projects precedes implementation.

Not only is the sequence long – in many cases, a good 10 months of the year, leaving just two months for implementation – but veto powers are spread liberally. While the original motivation may have been for checks and balances, the system is highly inefficient, with many steps adding little value and some adding negative value (namely misuse of veto power). The web of controls that operate over the heads of local government leadership seriously constrains effective, autonomous local action (Devika 2016). Most importantly, decision-making authority was (16) Council for final approval (15) DPC (14) TAG of DPC (13) District Planning Committee (DPC) (12) Council (11) Technical Advisory Group (TAG) (10) Development Seminar (9) Steering Committee (8) Standing Committee (7) Working Group (6) Ward Sabha (5) Council (4) Steering Committee (3) Standing Committee (2) Working Group (1) Proposal from Municipal Secretary Figure 3.1 Decision procedures in Kerala city government Source: Information compiled from interviews and documents.

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consciously taken away from elected local leadership and handed to non-local, unelected technocracy by design. A portion of the decision chain in Figure 3.1 lies outside the city government through the district planning committee (DPC) and technical advisory group (TAG) set up by the state government (Steps 11, 13–15 in Figure 3.1). Four-fifths of DPC members are unelected and come from outside the city government. So we have a strange situation where local needs identified by the local government are placed for judgement before a veto-wielding committee where the local government is only marginally represented – denying the local government even an opportunity to explain, justify or negotiate. Similar is the case with the TAG. Its members serve on a part-time basis and are usually retired government staff.6 Since they are typically unfamiliar with the situation, location or context of a project, their decisions tend to come from personal policy preferences. Not being part of the city government organisation (being neither elected representatives nor bureaucrats), DPC and TAG members also have less accountability. And yet the system gives them veto powers. The TAG’s role is mandated by the state government, not voluntarily designed by the city government, and it seriously constrains autonomy. An expert group of the state government (Sen Committee 1997) had proposed dismantling ‘committees and bodies’ that superfluously run parallel to local governments but unfortunately, its implementation was botched. Although such bodies were formally abolished, they resurfaced in new forms with new names and with still greater constraining influence on agenda-setting and implementation. Besides decision procedures for Plan projects, the inside handling of these matters within the city government is also circuitous. This adds up to otherwise avoidable delays without increasing the quality of decision-making. A councillor in Thrissur provides a concise analysis:7 Our administration has too many tiers. Proposals go from clerk to assistant engineer to corporation engineer to secretary to mayor, and travel back through all the layers several times. The process takes a year. Finally, what we are left with for doing a [public] work is one month, because the approval process occupies the first eleven months.8 Nothing can get implemented.

Tamil Nadu local governments enjoy considerable freedom in deciding their internal work procedures, unlike in Kerala. The constraints in Tamil Nadu are on account of the requirement of approval by the state government after decisions are taken by the local government – such as approval for contracts exceeding specified thresholds and new activities. By contrast, in Gujarat,

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local government procedures are all decided internally by local governments themselves – even the formation of committees and decisions about which matters should go to committees. This produces a multiplicity of arrangements as each government designs arrangements separately, as mentioned in Chapter 2.

Implementation Practices The previous section detailed the convoluted state-mandated decision process for accessing Plan funds that were ostensibly devolved to Kerala city governments – and the presence of mandated state-linked veto players in the city government decision process. Both these features reflect considerable incursions to local autonomy. What happens once a decision is taken to proceed with an activity, say the provision of an infrastructural service? Unsurprisingly, in Kerala implementation involves yet another convoluted process, shown in Figure 3.2 (first diagram). The relevant councillor takes the approved proposal to an engineer for estimating the cost (‘work estimate’) – in the case of street lights, the cost estimate would be for procuring and installing light fixtures. This goes to the works committee and finance committee before getting to the council for administrative approval. It is only then that it is put up for technical approval. After technical approval, the complicated process of procurement begins. The call for tenders needs the recommendation of the works committee followed by approval of the council. Tender approval procedures are themselves a complicated little world (see the section titled ‘Procurement and Contracting’). Once private parties respond, the city government initiates another process to decide which tender bid to accept, culminating in the matter going back to the council for final selection. All of this can take several months. Besides city government procedures being long and cumbersome in Kerala, there are also important procedures that are missing or inadequate. In Kochi, Kerala’s commercial capital, at the time of our fieldwork the city government had no in-house procedures even to hire competent agencies for planning – let alone constructing – infrastructure such as flyovers.9 The detailing of the procurement system for street lighting components in Chapter 1 suggested many lacunae: tender documents do not specify supply schedules, payment conditions, performance standards or quality-assurance procedures; there are gaps in technical specifications leading to the participation of suppliers with low capacities; and quality test procedures and information about test centre facilities are lacking. By contrast, Gujarat city governments have developed procurement procedures and supply specifications that filter out poor quality supplies.

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Kerala City Government (11) City Engineer authorises selected bidder (10) Council approves bidder selection (9) State Govt approves excess tender (8) Works Committee selects bidder (7) Council approves tender call (6) Works Committee recommends tender (5) State Government technical sanction (4) Council approval (3) Finance Committee approval (2) Works Committee approval (1) Work cost estimate Gujarat City Government (5) Standing committee approval (4) Commissioner approval (3) Office processes tender (2) Deputy Commissioner approval (1) Standing Committee/Council Figure 3.2 Implementation procedures in Kerala and Gujarat city governments Source: Information compiled from interviews and documents.

In Gujarat, decision sequences are shorter, more effective and made by city governments themselves (see Figure 3.2, second diagram). There are no veto points from outside groups or agencies unlike in Kerala, including in the matter of bidding and bid selection. Even smaller city governments (municipalities) can devise their own systems. In Kalol, the decision is left to the works committee unless tender excess10 is over 10 per cent, in which case the council decides. In Sanand, the council has full powers of tender approval unlike in Kalol where the works committee has a separate role.11 In Kalol, after opening the tender, the works committee meets after a three-day notice and the whole matter is resolved quickly. In Ahmedabad, decisions on submitted tenders are taken within a month and work is started within three months. If the price on offer is not good,

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tenders are re-invited. The smooth, transparent process attracts good participation by bidders, sometimes even from the national level. In Surat, after the devastating epidemic and arrival of a new chief bureaucrat, there were sweeping changes in procedures (Shah 1997b), culminating in an effective system for administration and procurement – besides deconcentrating authority within the city government. Importantly, these sweeping procedural changes could be done within the city government without having to follow heavy directives or get permissions from the state government. In Gujarat municipal corporations, implementation monitoring is mostly done by deputy commissioners with substantial delegated authority and control over implementing wings of the organisation; only issues necessitating contract substitution or highly contingent situations go to the commissioner or council. In Kerala, the challenge of addressing every implementation bottleneck automatically rests with the secretary (equivalent to the commissioner in Gujarat) and the council as there is little delegated authority and senior staff are not placed in charge of activities or intra-city jurisdictions. Unlike Trivandrum, Surat has an effective delegation of authority across intra-city jurisdictions. Surat’s zones are headed by high-ranking officers (deputy commissioners) with jurisdiction over all functions in their zones. By contrast, Trivandrum’s zones are managed by low-ranking officials of the revenue wing with no cross-function experience or jurisdiction and who do not have controlling authority over service functions; this concentrates decisions in the city government headquarter. Tamil Nadu city governments lie partway between Gujarat and Kerala in that decisions are made through a mix of autonomy and outside control. In Tirunelveli, the works committee approves tenders up to Rs 30 lakhs and the council approves amounts up to Rs 100 lakhs, but the city government is required to get technical approval from the state government for bigger amounts. In Colachel, a municipality with small-sized operations, the council approves a project, issues the tender, decides which bid to accept and monitors the execution of the work; but it needs external approvals when it comes to larger public works and bigger expenditures. The relative (in)effectiveness of procedures adopted by the Kerala and Gujarat city governments came into sharp relief under the JNNURM, a major programme for municipal corporations funded by the national government in 2005–12. Funds committed by the JNNURM to a city were to be disbursed in tranches based on the progress of implementation. Without sufficient capacity to imagine and execute major programmes, Kerala cities lagged far behind those in Gujarat in implementation and were unable to unlock a major portion of committed funds (Figure 3.3). Unsurprisingly, implementation had to go into the hands of the state government. An official committee noted that ‘the procedures followed in projects

0

20

UIG (%) 40

60

80

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GJ MH UP TN AP KA RJ UT MP WB JK KE PJ JH OD BI

Figure 3.3 Use of committed JNNURM funds, by state Source: Khan’s (2017, Table 13.6) compilation of JNNURM data as of March 2012. Note: UIG stands for the ‘Urban Infrastructure and Governance’ component of the JNNURM; bars show the percentage of committed Additional Central Assistance (ACA) that was released upon fulfilment of implementation conditions; the graph shows city averages for states where at least two cities received JNNURM funds.

for approvals/sanctions are very elaborate’ and that the ‘levels of hierarchy to take decisions are too many as there are a number of committees’, with a decision taking four to six months on average (Government of Kerala 2010, 71). Another official document notes severe difficulties in JNNURM implementation (Kerala State Planning Board 2013, sec. 2.4.5): (ii) … lack of coordination between the ULBs [urban local bodies] and the line departments (KWA, PWD, BSNL, KSEB, Railways, NHAI and KRFB)12 in implementing the projects.… (v) Adamant stand taken by the City Technical Advisory Groups (CTAGs) in some instances such as modification in technology, rates, tender excess, tender procedures, etc. also adversely affected the timely implementation of the projects.

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(vi) At present, projects vetted by Central Technical agencies like CPHEEO, CPWD,14 etc. have to be gone through different levels like [the] City Level Steering Committee, Corporation Council, Technical Committee, etc. before implementation.… This has also resulted in considerable delay in decision-making and project implementation.

Figure 3.4 details out the relationships between organisations involved in JNNURM implementation in Kerala. The city government is only one organisation in this chain, and that too low in the hierarchy. Project managers in the project implementation units (PIU) work as facilitators without authority since decisions are taken by another bureaucratic organisation (Kerala State Urban Development Project, KSUDP) set up by the state government which controls the PIU. The PIUs are poorly empowered and hence inefficient and slow. City governments have poor capacities to liaise with PIUs and little voice or influence over them.14 Even when project teams are formed within the city government, they function in routine departmental fashion, harking to the ‘departmentalism’ noted in an official document (Government of Kerala 2010, 76). State-Level Steering Committee

Empowered Committee

State Government

State-level Technical Committee

State-Level Special Coordination Committee

Municipal Corporation Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project

Project Implementation Unit

Figure 3.4 Decision process for the JNNURM in Kerala Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents. Note: Arrows indicate whose approval is needed to perform tasks.

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Gujarat city governments have developed relatively effective internal procedures for organising work. When faced with capacity limitations, especially on special projects with high investment requirements, they get assistance from the state government’s urban development company. Tamil Nadu city governments also have relatively effective internal work procedures for maintenance operations such as street lighting, managing water supply and road maintenance. For investments, there was support from a state government organisation (TNUIFSL). Importantly, Tamil Nadu’s municipal corporations responded positively to the JNNURM because the state government permitted them to have additional technical staff to handle JNNURM projects. But in Kerala, city governments did not receive any additional technical support on account of the JNNURM, resulting in state government takeover of implementation.

Procurement and Contracting Effective procurement of goods and services is an important element of implementation and it depends on contract design and execution (Kelman 2009; Kim and Brown 2012). We will explore procurement and contract management through cases from one municipal corporation each of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Kerala (namely Surat, Tirunelveli and Trivandrum). Due to general advances in technology and organisational understanding, best practices in procurement are widely understood today and sometimes even a source of marvel, such as procurement in the global supply chains of corporations such as Amazon and Walmart.

Case: Procurement for Street Lighting Consider the example of street lighting introduced in Chapter 1. For routine maintenance, city governments need to ensure good quality supplies of lighting fixtures. Such procurement of supplies is an important and ubiquitous activity of the government, especially for service delivery.15 Table 3.1 provides a comparison of Trivandrum and Surat. Surat has a dedicated specialist coordinating various processes. Technical specifications are clear and communicated well. There is an effective strategy to solicit bids and select from amongst the bidders (decisions on submitted tenders are taken within a month) coordinated by the procurement unit, tender cell and rate analysis cell. The smooth, transparent process attracts good participation by suppliers, sometimes even from the national level. And supply instalments are managed smoothly. All of this culminates in work starting within three months. In Trivandrum, there are problems with even routine procurement. Purchase and output specifications are not laid down effectively.

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Table 3.1 Procurement strategy comparison Trivandrum

Surat

Technical specifications

Not documented

Clearly communicated based on database and needs assessment by dedicated specialist (executive engineer)

Selecting bidders to award contract

Mechanically applying the lowestbid principle in conditions where bids are distorted by knowledge of post-bid negotiation opportunities

Shortlisting by procurement unit, bid contract design by tender cell, analysis of bids by rate analysis cell

Quality testing

Lack of clarity on what is to be tested and by whom, insufficient communication/coordination with suppliers and testing centres

Detailed product description eliminates the need for extensive testing, leaving it to statistical quality control (for which the organisation has internal capacity)

Supply management

Flaws in supply order, managing supply instalments, coordinating payments

The bid document clearly anticipates and specifies these matters. The organisation competently administers these provisions

Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents.

Contract management is poor and quality testing and supply management are arbitrary. Besides the absence or inadequacy of crucial procedures, paradoxically there are also procedures that are overly involved, unnecessary and sometimes counterproductive. Procurement practices in Surat over a period of two-and-a-half months are detailed in Table 3.2 in narrative form. There is a specific staff position to assess the needs of street lighting operations (an executive engineer with relevant qualifications). This officer keeps records of past prices as well as changes in geographical area and density of lighting. The database enables her to systematically analyse potential year-long needs, item-wise. Accordingly, she provides a needs assessment statement that is duly approved at a senior level. Surat procures bulbs, steel, and cement after a competitive vendor appraisal process based on brand classification. The classification system categorises vendors

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Table 3.2 Procurement procedures for street lighting in Surat Date

Type of decision or action

1/1

Executive engineer (EE) for street lighting estimates quantity to be purchased for the year and obtains approval of commissioner

4/1

EE obtains shortlist of brand-classified suppliers from procurement unit for the specific item, namely lighting bulbs

6/1

EE obtains revised and updated tender issue format from tender cell of procurement unit

10/1

EE issues e-tender asking for bid proposals

31/1

EE opens bid proposals

2/2

Bids are sent to rate analysis cell

9/2

Rate analysis cell endorses the bid offers or proposes re-bidding

11/2

Proposal goes for approval of commissioner

15/2

Note for standing committee goes to commissioner

25/2

Standing committee approves the lowest bid offer

1/3

Orders are placed with the lowest bidder

15/3

Selected bidder delivers first lot of supply of the item

Source: The table is based on observations and interviews from 2018.

based on the competence to supply quality items and the capacity to deliver large quantities. The city government has a procurement unit that maintains a regularly updated list of manufacturers based on different classifications. There is clear communication of product specifications and quality requirements. This enables the procurement unit to provide relevant shortlists to the executive engineer for street lighting – shortlists with in-built brand pre-qualification procedures. Bids are taken only from suppliers who satisfy these internally designed pre-qualification requirements, a local innovation within Surat city government which helped to reduce costs considerably.16 In the case of Gujarat’s municipalities, sometimes consultants are appointed and sometimes city government engineers themselves do the pre-qualification work.17 Surat’s procurement unit also works on bid design by drawing on the institutional history of bids. It shares relevant tender documents with the executive engineer, who issues tenders electronically to the classified shortlisted suppliers. Bid details are analysed systematically and rates compared with

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market rates compiled by the rate analysis cell. The two parts of a bid (price bid and qualification) are opened by separate departments in order to improve the integrity of the process. A tender scrutiny committee examines bids and is advised by the rate analysis cell.18 Unlike in Kerala, negotiations are only with the lowest bidder, discouraging non-serious offers. With technical matters out of the way, the proposal is sent through the commissioner to be considered for approval by the city government’s standing committee for works (consisting of elected councillors). For Kalol, Navsari and Sanand, tender excess over estimated costs is approved by the council or the standing committee. To a substantial extent, quality testing is built into the shortlist for qualification, so that extensive further testing is unnecessary at the point of supply. This means that supply orders can be placed straightaway. As supply schedules are clearly specified in the bid documentation, chosen suppliers proceed to deliver supplies in a smooth manner. Ahmedabad also has a transparent contract procedure. The approval system is fast: three to four weeks are allowed for bid submissions, after which the winning bid is chosen in one month; work begins within three months of the beginning of the process.19 Next we turn to procurement practices in a case from Tamil Nadu. Table 3.3 provides details of procedures followed in Tirunelveli over a period of four months. Contractor qualification requirements are decided by the engineering wing guided by the engineering manual and PWD manual.20 Tirunelveli’s works committee meets frequently and has the authority to approve proposals up to Rs 30 lakhs; the taxation and finance committee can approve up to Rs 50 lakhs, and the council can approve up to Rs 100 lakhs. But if the lowest bid is more than 5 per cent over estimated costs, even though its financial volume may be low, it needs to go to the full meeting of the council for final approval. Street lighting management is through private parties engaged by the city government; contracted staff replace failed lights in a day. In Coimbatore, although the plan preparation cell consists only of junior staff with little say in the hierarchy, the city government nevertheless has some degree of institutionalised knowledge of tendering practices.21 Like its municipal corporations (Tirunelveli and Coimbatore), Tamil Nadu’s municipalities also have relatively clear and efficient procedures for managing street lighting. Colachel manages its street lighting well. At the time of fieldwork, the city government was planning to convert all sodium vapour lamps to LED and all tube lights to LED/CFL, estimated to save 30 per cent energy. Failed lights are replaced directly by the city government and all replacements are carried out within two days. The municipality lineman replaces street lights and a helper reports on replacements.

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Finally we turn to an extended example from Trivandrum. In April of a particular year, a committee of the city government made an internal recommendation to purchase some spare parts for street lighting. This triggered a series of responses extending over 16 months described in narrative form in Table 3.4 along with our comments on implications for capacity. Table 3.3 Procurement procedures for street lighting in Tirunelveli Date Type of decision or action 1/1

Assistant executive engineer (AEE) makes assessment of quantity requirements in his own way

5/1

AEE gets bid format from another AEE and adapts it for his purpose

10/1 AEE issues bids through newspapers 10/2 Bids are obtained 15/2 Bids are opened and scrutinised by AEE and then put up to the commissioner for endorsement 30/2

AEE prepares note for works committee (if bids exceed 5 per cent of estimated costs, note would be for the council) and sends it to the commissioner for approval

5/3

Commissioner approves note and sends it to the council

10/4 Council gives approval 20/4 Supply orders are conveyed to the successful bidder 1/5

Supplies start according to the previously indicated schedule

Source: The table is based on observations and interviews from 2018.

Table 3.4 Procurement procedures for street lighting in Trivandrum #

Date

Type of decision or action

Comment regarding capacity

1

29/4

Works committee (WC) recommends purchase of 10 spare parts for street lighting

It could have been more efficient to simply delegate the decisionmaking to the WC (rather than making it a recommending body), as in Surat

2

14/5

Council approves proposal (Contd.)

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Bidding process 3

Tender is finalised and bids are received

Tender is finalised without mentioning output specifications

4

8/7

Working group on energy directs to: (1) negotiate with the vendor offering lowest bid; (2) test 1 per cent of samples for quality ‘in approved centres’ at bidder’s cost;a and (3) require performance guarantee from bidders

(1) The knowledge that bids can be negotiated compromises future bidding; (2) bidders not told previously about test cost; and (3) since requirements have not been specified, it is meaningless to mandate performance guarantee

5

22/7

Trivandrum municipal corporation (TMC) issues notice for negotiations and stipulates that materials be supplied in four instalments

Issuing supply schedule after the bid is indicative of: (1) lack of planning, including of potential cost variation claims in negotiations; and (2) skill gaps in designing complete bid

6

22/8

Works committee recommends approval of the lowest quotation on each item

Accepting lowest offer without output specifications amounts to discarding product quality in procurement

7

27/8

Anticipating council’s post-facto approval, TMC notifies lowestcost bidders to deliver 25 per cent of the quantity

This shows delegation gaps within the organisation

8

4/9

Council post-facto approves action of 27/8

9

20/9

A supplier requests TMC to rectify Indicates insufficient deficiencies in the supply order documentation skills in TMC

10

24/10

Issues supply order for the balance quantity in three instalments on different dates

Since this was not specified in advance, it casts cost implications on suppliers, opening potential litigation and reducing bidder confidence

11

1/11

A supplier requests payment for quantity already supplied and makes supply of remainder conditional on it

Avoidable complication due to incomplete bid preparation

(Contd.)

93 12

4/11

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Another supplier requests permission to supply the full quantity in one instalment Quality testing

13

11/11

Material from one supplier sent to PWD for quality test

Since there were no output specifications, this step is meaningless; also indicates lack of knowledge regarding quality control mechanisms

14

10/12, 16/12, 5/1, 13/1

Material of three suppliers sent for quality test to the College of Engineering Trivandrum (CET) at different dates without making prior arrangements; material from another supplier sent to PWD

Done without prior arrangements with CET

15

12/1

CET informs supplier about fee for the test

Lack of ability to plan and devise advance arrangements demonstrates an inability for collaborative governance

16

15/1

A supplier cites high test fee at Demonstrates basic failure of bid CET; requests test at PWD instead management

17

19/1

Another supplier cites high test fee TMC does not have a list of at CET; requests test at another approved test centres and has not centreb instead anticipated consequences of bid requirements

18

27/1 30/1 2/2

TMC sends items to PWD for the test; PWD informs about fee and issues one test result

19

20/2

A supplier informs TMC about not receiving instructions for the quality test (including which organisation to contact)

20

18/3 20/3

TMC sends another set of items to Demonstrates basic failure of bid PWD for the test; PWD informs management that it does not have the facility to test some items

Indicates a lack of standardised formats for handling repetitive tasks; failure of primary public management skills

(Contd.)

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24/3

TMC sends another set of items to PWD for test

22

30/3

TMC sends separate letters to PWD and another centrec for test

23

5/5

A supplier informs that the test centre assigned to it does not have the facility for test; requests reassignment to another centred

24

3/7

TMC sends some more items to CET for test

25

15/7

Another set of materials sent to PWD for test

26

21/8

TMC sends letter to a supplier to supply material as previously agreed

27

15/9

TMC sends some items to Electrical Inspectorate for quality test

94

Bid process and document not understood by TMC; totally unprepared to face consequences of issuing a bid offer

Source: Information compiled from field observations and interviews. Notes: a Suggestion by the KSEB representative in working group. b  Government Polytechnic College, Kalamassery. c  Government Polytechnic College, Kottayam. d  Government Polytechnic College, Kalamassery.

This example establishes some clear learnings that are more widely indicative of extreme lack of capacity in Kerala city governments. First, the city government did not clarify technical specifications when it invited bids from suppliers, producing a cascade of recurring confusions noted in Table 3.4. Even the requirement of a performance guarantee (# 4), rather than excuse the absence of specifications, suggests a slapdash and uninformed approach. Second, there seems to be very little benefit from accepting the lowest cost-bidder (# 6) in the absence of output specifications, save that it potentially reduces corruption through misuse of discretion. It also shows a mechanical approach without regard for quality, to the point where overall costs may actually increase when poor quality items from the lowest bid need to be replaced. Third, it is highly irregular to have negotiations with selected bidders (# 4, 5). Since procurement happens frequently, it signals to future bidders that they can hide real costs and quality as there would be a

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second chance (after selection) for negotiation. The anticipation of negotiation opportunities undermines the rigour of competition and reduces the confidence of bidders in the process. It also potentially has cost implications for suppliers and opens the door to litigation. The missteps in the testing sequence (#13–27) – quite apart from the recurring theme that a quality test is meaningless without output specifications – suggest nothing less than a comedy of errors. In one case the city government did not make arrangements with the testing centre before sending the samples for testing (#14), in another case, it assigned a centre that did not have testing facilities (#20, 23) and in a third, it did not assign a testing centre at all (#19). The city government also did not specify testing costs with either the centres or the suppliers (#15–17), nor did it have a strategy for requests to change centre (#16, 17) or send material to centres on a coordinated basis. And there were embarrassing flaws in basic supply management – flaws in the supply order (#9), flaws in managing supply instalments (#10) and flaws in coordinating payments (#11). Many of these were due to the absence of standardised formats for handling repetitive tasks, which is a basic skill required of good public management. In fact, Trivandrum did not have a single person who was knowledgeable about bidding and bid management, despite being Kerala’s capital city and one of its largest city governments. In Kerala, matters are similar for water supply as they were with street lighting. Not only does the state government’s utility (Kerala Water Authority, KWA) prepare the tenders for water supply, but it also handles the whole process of bidder selection and contract management. Even though the KWA handles city government matters, there was one exception where the Trivandrum city government took the initiative to provide water supply in an unserved ward; in Chapter 5 we discuss this in detail and show how city government action was eventually thwarted. In the JNNURM, when the city got the opportunity to design a major sewerage scheme, the city government merely handed the work over to the KWA as it did not have the skills for managing this basic function of the city government – and even though the KWA had not handled a sewerage scheme for several years.22 Ironically, the KWA itself could not manage the tender process,23 so the project did not receive bidder responses for a long time despite repeated attempts with revised designs and estimates. The three cases – Trivandrum, Tirunelveli, Surat – show wide differences in procurement procedures that impact quality and timeliness. Surat ranks highly, Tirunelveli has some speed and effectiveness although with suspect quality, while Trivandrum faces major challenges. The insights from this three-city comparison hold more generally for other cities in the respective states and other domains besides street lighting.

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Service Contracts The purchasing of services is more complex and challenging than the purchase of goods. Service contracts are integrated to combine different complementary actions for delivering a service. They can be distinguished from goods contracts for the supply of ready goods or work contracts such as laying tar for roads, building a water tank or laying pipes for water supply. A service contract puts together materials and goods and converts them into a deliverable service. Since a service combines elements from different contracting arrangements, the design of a service contract is more complex and monitoring of implementation is more arduous besides extending over long periods. Continuing with the example of street lighting, consider service contracts for this function. Gujarat city governments have made enduring arrangements for street light servicing by designing service contracts appropriately.24 Navsari has a light inspector and the municipality itself procures poles, fixtures and bulbs – replacing a failed bulb within a day. Vyara works through service contracts which it has designed and implemented so that a failed bulb is replaced within two days. Morbi also contracts out street lighting and manages to get a failed bulb replaced in two days.25 In Rajkot, the service contract ensures replacement of failed bulbs the very next day and imposes a penalty on the maintenance contractor if there is a delay. Tamil Nadu city governments also have relatively clear and efficient contract arrangements and contract management procedures for street lighting. In Kerala, service contracts for street lighting are generally unsatisfactory because the contract management does not lie wholly with city government but rather with the state government’s Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB). In Trivandrum, failed bulbs are not replaced for several weeks under the arrangement made by the KSEB. Palakkad finds the arrangement unsatisfactory as the contract makes it pay energy charges to the KSEB even for light fittings that fail; so the city government decided to install meters on the transformers.26 Attingal finds the arrangement difficult to manage. Varkala provides materials for street lighting to the KSEB which does not care to attend to the work of installing them or look after maintenance needs. The municipality wants to have its own personnel to oversee this type of work rather than depend on the KSEB. By contrast, things are satisfactory in Kalamassery because councillors have good relationships with contractors managed by the KSEB. Kerala city governments also face problems in service contracting for other services besides street light maintenance. Consider the case of office computerisation. Kochi had decided to do this as far back as 1990 and asked a state government agency to do the work.27 But the state government advised the

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city government not to give the project to the agency as it was planning to launch a new public sector company to computerise local governments. Once this company was formed, Kochi awarded the work to it. The company took a substantial amount of money but had not completed the work until 2015, a quarter-century after the city government made the decision; computers had simply been placed on work tables but computerisation had not occurred. In fact, across Kerala city governments, despite completion of an all-municipality office computerisation programme, computers were not used except in minor activities. Ottapalam, judged to be Kerala’s best municipality by the state government multiple times, is confident that successful implementation of e-governance can solve many office management problems. However, at the time of our fieldwork, there were no support arrangements or systems operator for computer use so that although there was a software for tendering, it remained unused.

Knowledge Management Matters such as contract design and management are instances of the broader challenge of knowledge transfer faced by city governments following the decentralisation reforms. This extends to other domains such as skills database, documentation and application of information and communication technology. Knowledge development could change internal procedures that traditionally emphasised control and rule adherence in a rigid organisational form. The approach to street lighting in Gujarat city governments reveals that complementary procedures are integrated into one overall, well-coordinated unit. In Surat, this integration of procedures encompasses technical aspects, procurement activities and contract management – and crucially, there are feedback loops to continually refine these. One round of procurement and contract may reveal some flaw or need for innovation in existing procedures, which will get reflected in the next round. Different procedures come together around a specific service. Rather than being alienated, one from another, there is a common animus and coordination binding them together. Procedures have also been developed for knowledge about procurement to become embedded across the organisation. This general spirit of integration shows up in different ways, such as some aspects of construction being standardised wherever it is relevant (school buildings, community halls, and so on). This contrasts with Kerala city governments where procedures are not integrated. Procedures for technical specifications for procurement are not integrated with procedures for designing contracts, which is seen as a separate and purely legal activity. According to Kelman (2009), such neglect is partly attributable to the

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specialised nature of contract drafting, a task historically relegated to back-office activity and undertaken by legal or support staff. The autonomy, procedure integration and overall energy in Gujarat city governments naturally show up in local innovations. As mentioned previously, Surat developed a format for supplier pre-qualification. Ahmedabad and Rajkot had innovations in procurement and new forms of contracting such as publicprivate partnerships for work execution. Based on experience and dynamic feedback loops, Gujarat cities also use different contract designs for different contexts and needs. In Gujarat cities, procurement is guided by store purchase codes and tender rules for goods and services as well as PWD codes for work contracts. The codes lay down basic tenets of operations. To apply codified knowledge effectively, it has to be embedded in a broader series of implementation decisions and actions. In the case of procurement, this includes identifying a provider, contracting with that provider, managing the contracted activity and completing the contractual obligations. These can be traced to a broader set of decisions and actions: deciding to procure rather than to produce; the process of selecting a provider; and ensuring efficiency and transparency in the entire process. Codified knowledge itself is generated over time through the knowledge from applying the codes and creating institutional memory. Its accumulation enriches decision-making and implementation. Without sensitivity to these, procurement codes can become ‘dead’ codified knowledge. The procurer needs clarity on the type of goods and services required. If the activity is road construction, the procurer should be clear about the types of machinery, labour and quality control involved. The procurer should also be clear about desirable vendor attributes (which become qualification requirements), including relevant prior experience and capacity to mobilise appropriate machinery, labour and finance. All these matters call for sophisticated skills. Gujarat city governments have accumulated such ‘tacit knowledge’. This has not happened in Tamil Nadu, where the state government’s technical department dedicated to local government matters has developed its own code which is built less on the basis of tacit knowledge than replicating the provisions of international multilateral organisations. In Kerala, work procedures in city governments have stayed stagnant and tacit knowledge has not developed. The state government’s Local Self Government Department (LSGD) comes in their way, letting loose a stream of instructions that are often out of line with codified knowledge so that codes virtually get replaced by LSGD instructions.

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Urban Planning Urban planning is a crucial strategic policy instrument to increase effectiveness and justice in local action. As it concerns spatial planning, land use and regulations such as construction and zoning, it touches almost all the functions of city government. In principle, public transport, public facilities, housing and environmental conservation can all be imagined through urban planning. Unfortunately urban planning practices are poor and not integrated with service provisioning in Tamil Nadu and Kerala cities.28 Most Indian city governments do not engage in serious urban planning and whatever does happen in this domain is driven by state governments using rigid, top-down approaches which are little different (although watered down) from older colonial practices. The 1920s critiques of Patrick Geddes, the pioneering urban planner, continue to hold today – ‘Geddes saw British planning as the problem, not the solution’ and the administration found that ‘[h]is concepts were too romantic, too organic, too rooted in planning with and for the community rather than in physical planning of buildings and roads by professional engineers’ (Spodek 2013, 60). Interviews with elected leadership and planning professionals reveal glaring knowledge gaps – not only in the city governments but also in the town planning departments of state governments in both states. No city in Kerala, municipal corporation or municipality, had a master plan for decades; one was made recently for Kozhikode city.29 Even though the law has provisions for plot reconstitution and land readjustment, it has seldom been applied with one exception (Trichur/ Thrissur) many decades back (Acharya 1988). The situation in Tamil Nadu is not much better. Although state policymakers desire town planning schemes (detailed below for Gujarat), they have been unable to deploy land pooling as a policy instrument.30 Tirunelveli’s detailed development plan (DDP) covers only 30 per cent of the city consisting mostly of expanding areas, and even there the plan does not build in any strategies for implementation, especially for land assembly for common amenities and other public needs.31 In Coimbatore, planning practices do not help the city government obtain land for roads and other projects, and the city had to find its own land for developing new parks.32 In Nagercoil, there was a major delay in finding land for improving infrastructural services. DDPs remain mostly on paper; if implemented, they are limited to roads and parks, and only in newly expanding areas, without any effectual programmes for service access in locations that were urbanised earlier. Another challenge is that while local planning authorities include private lands in DDPs for building public facilities, the private landholders do not agree to surrender these lands and the plans are consequently foiled.

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Urban planning procedures are very cumbersome in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and many other states. According to a planning official of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu:33 The steps include land survey, comparison with existing master plan, services survey, preparation of revision, approval from local officials, approval of director of the department, state government approval, gazette publication, local publication, filing of objections, inspection by local planning authority, consultation with district collector, overview of department head, again government notification, and local publication. These tedious procedures take a very long time, [and] many of the steps add little value.

This litany of procedures matches the observations of an officer of the Tamil Nadu state government.34 He thinks that it is possible to prepare plans in one year except that cumbersome procedures make the actual process impossibly long.

Land Assembly for Public Purposes Urban planning in Gujarat is very different from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Gujarat cities have development plans that mesh socio-economic needs with land use planning. The plans link service provisioning to transport infrastructure. Gujarat cities have a specific land assembly mechanism called a ‘town planning scheme’ (TPS) to obtain land to connect public services such as electricity, water supply or sewerage. A TPS works in the following manner. Specific areas identified for reconstitution are demarcated on a carefully prepared spatial Development Plan for the entire city or urban development area. These are usually compact layouts with about 100–200 hectares and 100–250 landowners. A process of revising the land use pattern in the TPS area is initiated in consultation with the landowners/users and individual plots are reconstituted so as to facilitate smoother access to infrastructure and public amenities (Ahluwalia and Mohanty 2014). To implement TPSs, older (1976) laws were amended (1995) to enable usage of land for infrastructure on the condition that the parties agree to a draft reconstitution scheme.35 Landowners expect to benefit from increased land values and economic activity even though they have ceded parts of their original plots.36 Thus, without the coercion and cost of public acquisition, the government gains land for many public services – building roads; providing water supply, sewerage, drainage and other infrastructure services; developing public spaces such as parks and playgrounds; and creating low-income housing and commercial spaces. Ahmedabad’s long ring road was created using land readjustment techniques (Mittal 2014).37 Surat has used the mechanism extensively for urban development work (Kamath and Zachariah 2015).38 Rajkot, too, has used it to obtain land for public

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projects and has reserved plots for socio-economically vulnerable populations.39 Sanand municipality even made a lake of 45,000 square metres.40 Patel and Phatak (2014) argue that the population proportion in slums in Ahmedabad is only half that of Mumbai because of TPSs in Ahmedabad. The land reconstitution mechanism has come in for criticism. Sampat and Sunny (2016) argue that although the land pooling mechanism is meant to be voluntary, there was coercion in the area around Dholera. According to Sampat (2016) and Sampat and Sunny (2016), the consent process is problematic because the government can make changes after landowner consent, and the law does not further require that they give consent to these final changes. Deuskar (2011) suggests that voluntary participation is often overwhelmed by the use of discretionary power by the government. Deuskar (2011) also observes that some of the projected benefits, such as low-income housing, did not materialise as planned. In addition, there are tales of corruption through the use of insider information. Sud (2020) suggests that some bureaucrats, politicians and developers linked to the government bought land ahead of the announcement of the Ahmedabad ring road and made large profits when land prices subsequently spiked. Critics also suggest that the Gujarat policy opens the door to capital flows and new activities that can generate future dispossession under a neoliberal governance framework and in the absence of serious social impact assessments. The above criticisms of Gujarat’s land mechanism mostly stem from implementation flaws – not respecting the spirit of voluntary participation, corruption, and not implementing public amenities and housing as promised – rather than conceptual flaws. Undoubtedly these problems need to be addressed but addressing them tends to be difficult in a governance regime fuelling inequalities, which makes us sympathetic to the critics’ objections. But despite the shortcomings, it is also true that the land mechanism has produced substantive possibilities for infrastructure services and livelihoods as well as public housing. The fact that up to 10 per cent of the pooled land goes for low-income housing has had significant impact in TPS locations in Surat, Rajkot and Ahmedabad.41 In its absence, the conventional alternative of land acquisition increasingly produces conflicts and stalemates as well as impossible fiscal burdens to the extent that its deployment is rarely feasible today. Especially when community engagement is strong and there are different levels of scrutiny outside of government, the land mechanism is an attractive option for effective and just public action. Indeed, Kerala itself had a case of a similar land mechanism (Trichur/Thrissur in the early 1980s) which successfully widened roads, created public infrastructure and stimulated economic activity,

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as shown by Acharya (1988). Another example is from Kochi where the mayor (K. Balachandran) persuaded landowners to give land for free to widen the access road for the new international stadium and to build another crucial road link. He convinced landowners of the potential rise in land values, effectively making it a land reconstitution project. A firm believer in the efficacy of town planning schemes as instruments to secure free land for public needs, he was frustrated by the inability of the state government’s town planning organisation to facilitate the process. Especially in the Kerala regime, with its heightened ability of public scrutiny, community mobilisation and public action, the land mechanism can bend public action towards justice. The spatial organisation of a city is deeply connected with land use, public services and amenities, livelihoods, and patterns of economic, social and political activity. Typically, areas housing the poor are doubly marginalised: they have debilitating living environments and unsatisfactory livelihood opportunities. Improvement of conditions requires not only physical infrastructure changes but also sustained intermediation to navigate spatial and social complexities. Traditional public administration and government machinery – both state and local – have limited capacities in addressing such complexities, unlike physical projects such as constructing flyovers or laying electricity cables. Government bureaucracy is not tuned to engage with the poor in particular on terms that recognise them as active agents with knowledge, rights, resources of resilience, life experience and community support. Given all this, it is small wonder that there are shortcomings in implementation, for instance in housing for the poor, even when local capacity in cities like Surat allows considerable progress through land pooling and implementation of programmes such as the Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) (Kamath and Zachariah 2015). This reinforces the need for participation, not only of affected families and communities but also of local organisations that ably facilitate citizen-government engagement. Unfortunately, mainstream approaches, such as low-income housing, continue to focus on the supply of physical units and finance while neglecting the need for social intermediation.42 These observations about bureaucracy apply not only to those conceiving and implementing general programmes but also to urban planners. In reality, their training, experience and sometimes class and caste bias do not equip them well for land use planning especially in areas where vulnerable families and groups are predominant. On-site comparisons suggest that those in local government have greater sensitivity and consciousness regarding low-income housing compared to urban planners in the state government who have a distanced approach to ground realities within a city. And yet the glaring tragedy is that urban planning, the first

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in the list of decentralised functions in the constitution, is the function whose devolution has been the most inadequate. Going further, the town planning master plans or development plans, as they are variously called across states, hardly ever contain any strategising around the practice of planning and would therefore look as documents devoid of realistic operational strategies. Even short of strategising, planning documents of Kerala and Tamil Nadu cities typically miss service infrastructure planning. Despite the absence of this crucial element, they nevertheless indulge in zoning control exercises that carry little weight in the absence of transport and basic service infrastructure linkages. Anti-poverty policies, if they are implemented at all, do not focus on access to services. The vignette in Chapter 1 pointed to the virtual non-implementation of the EMS Housing Scheme for low-income households in which all but 40 of 5,000 applicants with small plots of land were denied assistance by the city government due to zoning maps made half a century previously by the state government’s town planning department. The state of land maps and the doubtful veracity of the information on land use and users make land titles tentative, and land ownership and occupancy often precarious. Noting the ‘misrule of law’, Roy (2009, 81) asks: ‘Who is authorised to (mis)use the law in such ways to declare property ownership, zones of exemption, and enclaves of value?’ Although the ‘illegal’ settlements of the precariat and the ‘legal’ – or more correctly, legalised – land owned by the privileged are both actually ‘informal’, only the former is characterised so. Hollowed-out town planning practices enable the creep of widespread urban informality, as our research confirms. While it is assumed that mapping technologies allow land use to be mapped and made visible, administrative weaknesses compromise the effectiveness of land administration based on mapping.43 In fact, mapping is a double-edged sword for the urban precariat. The porosity in land administration allows many to survive, but at the edge of legality. If we were to map our cities thoroughly, we might end up displacing the most vulnerable and pushing them into further debilitating uncertainties. Therefore, efforts that visibilise the invisible precariat have to simultaneously give them titles to their land to address legacy issues from informality and to expand opportunities. But this cannot address growing local populations and in-migration, which need administrative and political capacity to imagine, plan and realise housing needs with concerted social intermediation, as shown by Kerala’s own large-scale – but eventually isolated – example of the ‘one lakh houses’ scheme of the 1970s (Nalapat 1976). Decision and implementation processes are closely linked to organisational form in two important ways. First, the way in which tasks are organised and

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knowledge inputs are assembled, affects decision-making and operations. Second, since decision processes need to combine with efficiency and accountability, knowledge inputs need to be derived in different forms (internal expertise, external expertise, networking relationships) facilitated by the organisational structure of the city government and the backgrounds, sensibilities and interests of its staff. The next chapter turns to these matters.

Notes 1. Interview, chairperson of the works committee, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. 2. Interview, 2 May 2011, Kochi. 3. This was associated with the people’s plan beginning in 1996, discussed briefly in Appendix 2A. 4. Nationally, the five year plan was officially dropped in later years but both the language of Plan funds and the substantive process of setting and transferring such funds has continued. 5. Interview, 15 February 2011, Palakkad. 6. In Kerala, initially schemes needed the approval of TAGs at the city government level, then TAGs at the district panchayat level, and still later TAGs at the state level. In 2008, TAGs were removed for municipalities; instead the district level TAG was to consider proposals and then submit these to the DPC. The state government specified various rules: the TAG chairperson had to be a retired official who was a professional, the municipal secretary was to be the TAG coordinator, and the DPC chairperson was to verify and ensure that the TAG chairperson had sufficient expertise. 7. Interview, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. 8. The financial year consists of 12 months. If the work is not completed in the financial year, more complications follow and it is not easy to carry it over. 9. Interview, 2 May 2011, Kochi. 10. Tender excess refers to the amount by which the lowest bid exceeds the estimated value prepared by the tenderer prior to bidding. 11. Projects implemented with support from the state urban development mission are also tendered in the municipality. 12. These abbreviations stand for the following: Kerala Water Authority, Public Works Department, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, Kerala State Electricity Board Limited, National Highways Authority of India and Kerala Road Fund Board. 13. These abbreviations stand for the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation and the Central Public Works Department. 14. Interview, secretary of Trivandrum city government, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum.

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15. For street lighting, besides procurement, service delivery would also involve storing of procured supplies and deployment in a timely manner by coordinating with a system that reports when specific fixtures need replacement. 16. Interviews, 17–19 February 2011, Surat. Costs were brought down by 50 per cent. 17. In smaller projects not involving pre-qualification, vendor qualification is pegged to the (level of) registration with the relevant state government department. 18. The scrutiny committee consists of the commissioner and all heads of departments. This helps horizontal coordination and information permeability across technical units. The rate analysis cell keeps data on rates and continuously analyses trends of market rates for products and services. 19. If bids are inadequate, tenders are re-invited. For big projects, bids are solicited nationwide. 20. Tender documents for mega projects are contracted to consultants. Other works, such as a modern slaughter house valued at Rs 5 crores are prepared by the city government’s engineering wing. The schedule of rates determined by the government engineering departments is followed. Price variations are allowed if the project period is more than a year. 21. For drafting tender documents, except for a technical draftsman and one or two engineers, there is no one who knows tendering practices well. 22. The city engineer mentioned that after executing a minor sewer project (4.5 million litres per day) in Kochi in 1967 the KWA has not implemented any sewerage scheme as the state did not have one since then. Interview, May 7, 2011. 23. Potential bidders found the estimates by the KWA to be technically unworkable and its estimated costs to be far below the market rate. 24. These contract provisions make it costly for the operator if lighting fails even for brief periods. 25. If there is a delay, the contract specifies that the contractor has to pay a penalty of Rs 50, and this provision is implemented well. 26. Interview, 15 March 2011, Palakkad. The municipal leadership feels that the KSEB dictates to it as the master of the local body. They feel that the responsibility of street lighting should be either with the KSEB or with the municipality. 27. A committee of the corporation visited a national research and development institute in Trivandrum. Satisfied about its interest and ability to perform the job, the committee recommended that the council award the assignment to the institute. But the state government did not permit this, informing the corporation that it would make a separate arrangement. 28. For instance, the Kerala state government directed its Town and Country Planning Department to create master plans for 32 specified municipalities; none of the state’s local governments engages in the basic local government function of land use planning. Interviews, 27 April 2011; 2 November 2012; and 7 December 2012, Trivandrum.

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29. Interview, former chief town planner, 25 June 2020. 30. Interview, 12 April 2011, Chennai. 31. Detailed development plans are prepared only for extension areas (‘scheme areas’), for instance the Perumalpuram extension. These make up about 30 per cent of the city area. 32. The corporation developed 52 public parks as well as a new bus stand on the Mettupalayam road. It authorised all 32,500 plots in unapproved layouts; by doing so, it collected Rs 143 crores as fines and used the money to provide basic amenities in those layouts. 33. Interview, 12 October 2012, Tirunelveli. At the time of our interview, Tirunelveli’s year 2005 draft plan was still not completed. 34. Interview, director of Town and Country Planning Department of the Tamil Nadu state government, 12 April 2011, Chennai. 35. The earlier law was the Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development Act, 1976; the later law was the Gujarat Town Planning and Urban Development (Amendment and Validation) Act, 1995. (Interview on 30 March 2011 in Ahmedabad with Surendra Patel who proposed the transformational procedure change that made the TPS feasible.) 36. The ‘final’ plot of an individual is usually confined within the ‘original plot’ and becomes the ‘reconstituted plot’. The area development authority provides the common facilities including roads in the reserved and deducted land. The consequential increase in land value is the ‘increment’. The land owner is entitled to ‘compensation’ for the area that is reduced in the final plot. The difference between the original land value and the value after ‘development’ is the net payment due. Usually the increment exceeds the compensation amount. 37. Interview, former chief secretary, 29 March 2011, Gandhinagar. 38. Interview, commissioner, 17 February 2011, Surat. 39. Interviews, 21–23 February 2011, Rajkot. 40. Interviews, 28 and 30 March 2011, Ahmedabad. 41. Interviews and observation in field visits. 42. Discussion with land planner with experience in Gujarat, 6 August 2020. 43. The cadastral maps of the land administration authority (revenue department of state government) and master plan maps of urban planning authorities are not aligned or interlinked, loosening coordinated information between land occupancy sites and their real location on maps, and making a farce out of town planning map-based decisions on permitted land use. This can be seen clearly for Kerala cities.

4 Organising City Governments

City governments are aggregates of diverse people in diverse roles. How do they and their roles relate to each other? And (how) do they come together to function as an effective whole? Is there a sense of common purpose for the public good, for creating effective and just services? These become critical questions for organisational efficacy. This chapter explores job descriptions, job qualifications, reporting relationships, internal monitoring and supervision, feedback loops, internal incentives and disincentives – and how all these, put together, create city government ‘output’. Careful, thick descriptions of this whole will help to explore whether organisational structure and staffing are appropriate and effective. In India’s city governments, a permanent bureaucracy drives affairs but its composition and management differ considerably across states. Bureaucrats are permanently affiliated to specific city governments in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.1 In Kerala, they belong to common state cadres recruited and controlled directly by the state government. Previously, their organisational forms were antiquated: heavily hierarchical, horizontally narrow and not nimble enough to respond to new functional needs. The 1990s reforms made restructuring crucial because they added large, new tasks to the policy responsibilities of city governments. But Kerala city governments did not restructure their organisations. Gujarat city governments already had relatively ‘delayered’ and ‘deconcentrated’ organisations and could respond to new opportunities such as the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The first section of this chapter explores the organisational structure, ‘the sum total of the way in which an organization divides its labor into distinct tasks and then coordinates them’ (Hodge, Anthony and Gales 1996, 32). The focus is on how a city government is organised by differentiating functions across departments and vertical hierarchies. The second section discusses issues of staffing: recruitment, specialisation, monitoring, motivation, promotion, and so on. The following section details reporting relationships, policy networks, staff shortages and unfilled vacancies. We then explore the impact of state–local relations on the organisation and staffing of a city government as a prelude to a fuller exploration

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of state–local relations in Chapter 5. The last section presents vignettes from Kerala to show that despite the tight hold of the state government, even smaller city governments have many capable elected representatives and bureaucrats with a deep understanding of local issues, challenges and solutions. The discussion of organisational form and staffing in the chapter also touches upon organisational culture and interpersonal interactions. While many of the details mentioned in the chapter are from fieldwork in 2011–13 and some details may have changed since then – staffing details change on a continuous basis – follow-up fieldwork reveals that the broad issues mentioned here continue to hold (see the discussion of methodology in Chapter 2).

Organisational Form City government practices of decision-making and implementation discussed in Chapter 3 are deeply connected with how the city government organises itself. According to Egeberg, Gornitzka and Trondal (2016, 32), an organisational form is ‘a collection of role expectations with regard to who is supposed to do what, how and when. In this sense, the organization structure is a normative structure that is analytically clearly separated from decision behavior or process’. For understanding Indian city governments, it is useful to follow the convention of looking at horizontal and vertical differentiation of organisational structure (Hodge, Anthony and Gales 1996). Horizontal differentiation is the distribution of work and tasks across the same level of the organisation while vertical differentiation is division by level of authority or hierarchy. Figure 4.1 presents horizontal differentiation for three municipalities: Gujarat’s Navsari, Tamil Nadu’s Colachel and Kerala’s Palakkad. Navsari has separate wings for specific functions and services such as town planning, drinking water, drainage and street lighting. Colachel has separate staff for street lighting and water supply. By contrast, Palakkad has common units with a few infrastructure staff who are not specialists in different services. Prior to the 74th constitutional amendment (CA), Kerala municipalities had organisational forms dominated by housekeeping concerns such as account-keeping that reflected the pre-CA approach of regulation and control. After the CA, city governments needed to have substructures specialising in water supply, sewerage, drainage, and so on, for effective service delivery – ‘a functionally arranged structure [that] emphasizes the importance of how things are to be dealt with rather than what the purpose is’ (Egeberg, Gornitzka, and Trondal 2016, 34). The functional responsibilities in the new decentralisation regime are not reflected in Palakkad’s organisational form but instead are opaquely bundled with other categories. And organisational

Navsari, Gujarat Chief Officer

PWD (Municipal Engineer)

Water Works Dept (Hydraulic Engineer)

Overseer

Water Works Inspector

Direct Tax Dept (Tax Supdt)

Shop Establishment (Shop Inspector)

Light Dept (Light Inspector)

Admin (Office Supdt)

Professional Tax Dept

Establishment Ward Clerk

Town Planning Dept (Asst Town Planning Officer)

Drainage Dept (Drainage Deputy Engineer)

Building Inspector

Drainage Inspector

Vehicle Tax Dept

Health Dept (Health Officer)

Food Inspector

Sanitary Inspector

Fire Brigade (Fire Supdt)

Accounts Dept (Accountant)

Market Dept (Market Inspector)

Auditor

(Contd.)

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Colachel, Tamil Nadu Municipal Commissioner

Manager

Engineer

Sanitary Officer

Town Planning Officer

Clerical Staff

Overseer

Health Staff

Health Supervisor

Water Supply Personnel

Electrician, Wireman

Palakkad, Kerala Municipal Secretary

PA to Secretary

Municipal Engineer

Supdt

Revenue Officer

Assistant Executive Engineer

Supdt Tax

Supdt Non-Tax

Municipal Health Officer

Chief Accountant

Health Supervisor

UDC (8) LDC (1) Peons (2)

Revenue Inspectors (3)

Figure 4.1 Horizontal organisation of municipalities Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents.

components for providing services are marginal at best. Palakkad, Kerala’s largest municipality, is functionally less equipped than the much smaller Colachel municipality of Tamil Nadu, but Gujarat’s Navsari has a wider range that consists of all specialised functions that a municipality should handle under the CA – and fieldwork revealed that it does actually attend to all of them. It turns out that municipal corporations also exhibit differences in organisational form across states similar to the differences for municipalities

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discussed above. In Gujarat, expertise in general construction, operations and maintenance is distributed horizontally based on function and geography; senior technical staff are also placed horizontally. This is different from packing nearly equally experienced staff in vertical pyramidal formations in Kerala. Rajkot’s municipal corporation has specialised wings for differentiated functions such as water, sewerage, roads, town planning, projects and general administration matters (Figure 4.2). Each zone has a deputy executive engineer with a team of assistant engineers. Unlike in Coimbatore and Trivandrum (explained below), the horizontal division is preponderantly function/serviceoriented and vertical levels are fewer. General civil construction and maintenance work (roads, schools, footpaths, gardens) is divided area-wise into three zones, each headed by a high-ranking official (deputy commissioner). Many of the decisions are taken at that level. The town planning wing is structured horizontally at the level of deputy commissioners facilitating effective senior-level coordination between the planning and infrastructure divisions, especially in the matter of land assembly for service infrastructure. And in the planning division, staff for TPS, master planning and infrastructure planning are placed in a horizontal relationship with each other and presided over by the town planning officer (TPO), allowing scope for individual application and specialisation. The TPO, in turn, coordinates horizontally with deputy commissioners who preside over service departments. Fieldwork in other Gujarat municipal corporations (Surat and Ahmedabad) also shows well-differentiated organisational structures as in Rajkot. In all these municipal corporations, young assistant engineers are recruited and trained, and those acquiring specialised knowledge are selected for promotions in the infrastructure departments.2 Consider the case of Trivandrum’s municipal corporation. The organisational form is narrow as there is low task specialisation, even compared to Gujarat’s Navsari municipality which has less than a fifth of its population. Critical functions such as water supply, sewerage, drainage, road building and street lighting are collapsed into a single undifferentiated organisational component. Irrespective of the education and experience needed to perform each service function, heterogeneously qualified technical staff are bunched together in a single unit and styled as ‘other personnel’. The organogram (Figure 4.2) is dominated by traditional housekeeping departments such as general administration, revenue and accounts harking back to the pre-CA situation. Even the town planning department is a traditional department issuing building permits and does not deal with any planning function; at the time of fieldwork, the city government did not have a single qualified planner. Praharaj, Han and Hawken (2018) note a similar situation in Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar, where the municipal corporation does

Rajkot, Gujarat Municipal Commissioner

Taxes

Estate

Sewerage

Accounts

OM and Roads and Computerisation Buildings

Water Supply

Contracting Town Planning

Projects

Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu Municipal Commissioner Council Dept

Accounts

Legal

Personnel

Revenue

Planning Health

JNNURM

Engineering

Education

Trivandrum, Kerala* Municipal Secretary

Council

Revenue General Admn

Health Accounts

Engineering

Project Engineer

Town planning

Figure 4.2 Horizontal organisation of municipal corporations Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents. Note: The figure focuses on horizontal specialisation and abstracts from the vertical structure of each of the departments as well as their overall vertical relation with commissioners, deputy commissioners, and so on. * This presentation is consistent with the organogram in Harikumar (2013, 127).

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not have a separate urban planning department; there is only one trained urban planner among its regular staff of 1,137. Unlike these cities, in Gujarat’s municipal corporations the administration of town planning permission, a regulatory/ control function, is with housekeeping rather than with the TPO. This allows the TPO’s office to focus on specialised tasks such as TPS preparation. Coimbatore’s municipal corporation can be placed in between Rajkot and Trivandrum but closer to Trivandrum. Different infrastructure services are bundled together into a single organisational component and placed under the charge of a superintending engineer who supervises technical personnel with dissimilar work experience, backgrounds and without service specialisation or expertise in water supply, sewerage and stormwater drainage. Tirunelveli is similar to Coimbatore in these matters. Previously, both municipal organisations had limited technical components for water and sewerage services. But with the arrival of the JNNURM, they could expand their organisations, although without the functional distinctions across services seen in Gujarat municipal corporations. Despite their expansion, at the time of fieldwork both Coimbatore and Tirunelveli were still short of expertise for the different infrastructure services that had been formally devolved. Another dimension of organisational structure is vertical differentiation, which can range from flat to tall structures (Hodge, Anthony and Gales 1996). Gujarat city governments tend to be flatter. In Surat a public works proposal requires only three levels before it reaches the decision-making committee of elected representatives; and in the case of smaller expenditures, only two levels. There are only two levels under the city engineer: deputy engineer and assistant engineer. The presiding city engineer could be of the rank of chief engineer, additional chief engineer or executive engineer. In Kerala’s Kochi, by comparison, there are three executive engineers under a presiding superintending engineer. If it were Surat, each of the three executive engineers would be utilised at decision-making levels as city engineers in different horizontal specialisations. Rajkot is similar to Surat in having a relatively flat structure, each tier having more staff of different sub-specialisations. In Kerala, other city governments are similar to Kochi. On the general administration side (housekeeping functions), Kochi has several layers but Surat has a flatter structure. These observations about Kerala city governments can be generalised to city governments in many other states. Praharaj, Han and Hawken (2018) note the unproductive bundling of horizontal functions into vertical tiers in Bhubaneswar. Kerala city governments are aware of the ineffective organisational form and interviews reveal their keen desire to change it. Thrissur wants to abolish some

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tiers in the current system of a proposal travelling across clerk, assistant engineer, corporation engineer, secretary and mayor. A councillor observes:3 Our officials have not imbibed the spirit of decentralisation (saamsheekarikkunnilla). Their accountability (uttharavaadithwam) is to the state government. Thrissur is a government. You can say that authority has been given, but there is no real authority. The [city government] secretary is appointed without consulting the mayor. There are many ‘secretaries’ – additional secretary, deputy secretary, assistant secretary. What we need is not these posts and people. A decision file travels from a clerk [LDC or UDC] to superintendent to assistant secretary to deputy secretary to secretary before it goes to the mayor. And then it travels back the same way through all these levels. It is a ‘vicious circle’. Instead of acting on files, officials simply add their signatures (chayyunnadinu pakaram kuri idukayaanu ellavarum). Even if we delegate some of the work, they will not do it [because they are accountable only to the state government].

Going back to the street lighting example detailed previously, the lack of effective procedures in Trivandrum goes along with a failure in organisational form to deal with street lighting matters in a concerted manner. Responsibility for street lighting is not clearly assigned to any senior manager. The line of authority for this function is unclear: at times it seems the electrical inspector’s reporting relationship is with the executive engineer and at other times, it seems the electrical inspector functions separately and independently. In addition, many staff members also do not have the relevant technical knowledge about electrical and lighting matters, the subject of the next section.

Staffing In the pre-CA era, job qualifications tended to be general since city governments were not tasked with nuanced functions and many specialisations did not exist then. Establishing and running water supply systems and sewerage networks are specialised technical tasks which can be discharged only by those with relevant technical qualifications rather than qualification in any technical field. Following formal devolution of functions, staff skills and expertise became an important issue. This section explores how city governments in different states fare on this dimension. Gujarat’s Navsari municipality employs a TPO, a hydraulic engineer for water supply, a municipal engineer for roads and buildings and a medical officer who is also in charge of solid waste management.4 In Navsari, Vyara, Morbi and Gondal, street lighting is done directly by the city government using its own personnel to procure poles, fixtures and bulbs and to swiftly replace failed bulbs. Rajkot has a

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technical team for each specialised infrastructural service (five city engineers and an officer on special duty for technical coordination, all qualified engineers).5 Rajkot and Surat have discipline-oriented components for planning and preparing projects for specialised functions (water supply, sewerage, stormwater drainage, housing and solid waste disposal). Electrical and IT experts support these activities. As mentioned in Chapter 1, the chief bureaucrat in Surat confidently asserted that the city government has sufficient expertise: ‘We can do anything, we are even generating power.’ Young technical staff are recruited by the city government through open competition based on merit. At the time of fieldwork, Surat had 90 young engineering graduates directly inducted as assistant engineers; they did well and, following performance appraisal and selection committee procedures, several were promoted as deputy engineers and later as executive engineers.6 Ahmedabad had four specialised engineering departments to handle water supply, road projects, sewerage and housing. These departments exclusively look after projects as the city government also has separate maintenance departments; such specialisation allows it to focus on investment for improving services. Tamil Nadu city governments present a mixed picture. Nagercoil prepares contracts in-house and also makes in-house estimates for work on roads, drainage and similar requirements – with support from a state government agency (Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services, TNUIFSL) for major projects. At the time of fieldwork, Coimbatore had a city engineer and 34 engineering personnel from three disciplines (civil, electrical and mechanical) but there were major lacunae in contracting. Despite the presence of a plan preparation cell, institutionalised knowledge of contracting is poor and contract documents are drafted by low-ranking, unqualified personnel. While there have been efforts to build capacity, these efforts were not serious enough and were not sustained. This also shows up in marked absence of benchmarking and standardisation and the inability to bring in new technology in matters such as re-laying a road. Tamil Nadu city governments are empowered to recruit for low-ranking staff positions (overseer, peon, driver, revenue clerk, and so on). Nagercoil makes such appointments through a committee of the city council which selects from a list provided by the state government’s employment exchange. But all posts are created by the state government (based upon size of city government). The state government also makes appointments for high-ranking positions through the commissioner of municipal administration. City governments’ municipal commissioners and municipal health officers are on state treasury pay while others are paid by city governments. In Tamil Nadu, only the capital Chennai has separate engineering cadres for different services such as water supply, sewerage, drainage and roads. For the other

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cities, each has its own engineering cadre but not disaggregated by engineering discipline. Tirunelveli’s engineering division is headed by an executive engineer in the cadre of that city government (permanent employee); he or she can also serve in other municipal corporations, but only on a temporary deputation basis. Up to the level of assistant engineer, selection for appointments are made by the council through a committee. Promotion from assistant engineers to assistant executive engineer and more senior positions, as well as disciplinary power over such appointees, is the purview of the state government through the commissioner for municipal administration. In Kerala city governments, staffing patterns maintained continuity with the pre-CA situation. Traditionally, engineers performed relatively uncomplicated functions such as road maintenance and drain construction. They were unprepared for performing devolved functions such as water supply, sewerage, environmental engineering, housing, drainage systems, pavement design and construction, and street lighting design and execution. The selection and placement of personnel are based on broad rather than specific criteria. Solid waste management (SWM) operations require environmental engineering specialists but SWM is placed in the health domain and medical personnel are assigned to it. In Kochi, the health inspector’s responsibility is merely reporting quantities of waste generation.7 Many posts in Kochi are occupied by mechanical engineers while the most needed tasks are related to civil engineering. In Trivandrum, although the recruitment qualification for municipal engineers recognises both civil and mechanical engineering degrees, in practice most recruits are mechanical engineers who are nevertheless placed in civil engineering jobs.8 At the time of fieldwork, Kochi had no social welfare officer and an office superintendent without appropriate background was assigned to manage its social welfare budget of Rs 30 crore.9 There was no one with a background in mechanical engineering to manage vehicles for collecting and disposing of waste. A councillor noted that street lighting was under the charge of a civil engineer ‘who simply signs papers as he has no relevant experience’.10 In Trivandrum, for want of required skills, the city government handed over funds from a national government grant to the state transport corporation for operating bus services. Slum improvement work was affected by the inability to make appropriate costing estimates. In the case of the JNNURM, although the funds were meant for the city government, they were transferred to the state government utility (Kerala Water Authority or KWA) on the reasoning that the city government had no technical capacity to implement projects. Experts were not inducted into the city government in major policy areas such as water supply

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and sewerage – rather, water supply engineers and sewerage engineers in the KWA carried out these functions without any role of the city government whatsoever. At the time of fieldwork, the city government’s technical staff for water supply consisted of merely two overseers with the responsibility for installing street taps. Without internal expertise, and given weak accountability relations with the KWA, city governments like Trivandrum could not understand a water supply system or plan a sewerage scheme, or even manage a minor supplementation of water supply (discussed in Chapter 5). In Trivandrum, even service managers including engineers function as merely administrative technicians as their professional skills are not integrated with the service role. They make project proposals without investigative detailing such as soil tests, condition survey, and so on. Even city managers in traditional departments like revenue and accounts are unable to establish their legitimacy for want of specialised knowledge in their areas of work as promotions are not based on competence, qualification or even relevant experience. Councillors, not trained professionals, decide technical details, pulling down work standards and quality. The additional secretary of the Trivandrum city government noted that the accounts officer may be a person who has never even written a bank cheque for the government and who was previously a clerk in the Revenue or Health department.11 A work method study of Kerala’s Kozhikode municipal corporation, whose organisational set-up and staffing are similar to Trivandrum, reveals that the city government’s town planning department handled 41 activity types which together generated a frequency of 10,844 occurrences of which only 48 were related to city planning (Centre for Management Development 2007). Even these 48 were only marginally related to ‘planning’: the TPO took only four minutes on average over each activity. This was approximately the same as the time taken for clearing the issuance of a building permit, for which there were 2,500 occurrences. Kerala has a common engineering service for city governments, controlled by the state government. This creates many anomalies. A person in the service could be posted as a planner. Trivandrum’s town planning wing is headed by a ‘town planning officer’ and staffed by three ‘assistant town planning officers’, none of whom has the formal skills (qualified town planner) or even planning background. And yet the same state government which appoints them ensures that its own planning department has staff with planning backgrounds.12 When the planning function was formally transferred to city governments as part of decentralisation, the state government retained all qualified town planners with itself. Small wonder, then, that city government ‘town planners’ merely issue building permits rather than prepare town planning or engage in other aspect of urban planning.

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Thrissur does not have a city-level plan; the present one dates from 1981. Councillors in Thrissur mentioned that although the planning department has many officials, ‘none of them knows any town planning’ and in fact ‘their business is issuing building licences, which can be done by overseers’.13 Initially, Kerala had a Municipal Common Service for all categories of staff working in city governments, including technical staff such as engineers. They could be transferred from one city government to another and salaries would be paid by the corresponding city government. In 2008, they were made into a separate cadre under the Local Self Government Department (LSGD) Engineering wing and their remuneration now came from the state government.14 This created a distance between the technical staff and the city government organisation. In the reorganisation, their services were extended from the city governments to include rural panchayats as well. A further change made it a common engineering service that included the rural development department, dispersing their field experience across one more segment. This vastly reduced previously available opportunities of work experience focused on urban locations. Today, the work experience of a municipal engineer is often less relevant for handling urban challenges.15 In Kerala city governments, the need for competent engineering resources increased with the formal devolution of functions – the volume of civil work increased, and about 70 per cent of investments and maintenance work in city governments are in public works. But there was no concomitant change in engineering staffing patterns, creating a mismatch between financial and human resources.16 Engineering staff were deputed from the state government’s irrigation and public works departments but were included in a common cadre with panchayats. Now, in panchayats, the chief executive is a generalist, often someone who started his or her career as a clerk in the state bureaucracy. Deputed engineers find it hard to accept a reporting relationship with them, making them resentful and disinterested. Ironically, the engineering wing is bloated although it is short of work needs. Lack of job fit shifts decision-making to work contractors. Civil construction is designed and directed by mechanical engineers and technical details often end up being decided by councillors. No wonder there are outsized stormwater drains without even basic interconnections. As Kerala city governments lacked technical expertise, the state government tried to graft expertise through committees of volunteers filled with retired bureaucrats (technical advisory groups, or TAGs) – as if this could address the permanent problem of city government technical capacity. TAGs were discussed in Chapter 3. When the Thrissur city government wanted to clean up the

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water-scarce Kolamkochi reservoir, the TAG wanted to be ‘assured’ that once weeds are removed there would be water in the reservoir. In Trivandrum, many proposals submitted to the TAG are summarily turned down.17 Having been thoroughly bureaucratised through government careers, TAG members are unable to imagine innovative alternatives and importantly, they fail to guide city government officials in making things happen. And yet they are placed in decision roles over the judgement of local elected leadership and typically give unilateral decisions on an accept/reject basis. Although this section has focused on the enormous staffing shortcomings in Kerala, Gujarat city governments also have challenges – especially the municipalities, although to a smaller degree than in the other states. At the time of fieldwork, Kalol had a mechanical engineer but needed a civil engineer for water supply. Elected leaders in Vyara complained that staff are fixed, non-transferable and did not listen, so they wanted to be able to transfer employees out.18 It is this situation that may have led the state government in 2010 to set up new cadres for health, engineering and accounts, and arrange to recruit to those posts in Gujarat municipalities. Solutions like this would increase the state government control over local governments and may ultimately erode the autonomous status that they have enjoyed.

Other Aspects of Organisation and Staffing Reporting Relationships In an organisation with many functions and staff members, reporting and monitoring relationships are important for both organisational culture as well as personal and organisational efficacy. In Kerala city governments, the vertical arrangement of functions is accompanied by a lateral arrangement of reporting and monitoring. In Trivandrum, an engineer reports to the project engineer for civil construction, to another engineer for roads and to the TPO for building permits. This is often the result of indiscriminate task assignment to suit individual demands. It has the drawback of multiple reporting points diluting the individual officer’s accountability to the organisation. This is the doing of the state government which places individual officials to positions in local government without even so much as consulting it. And in some cases, such placement goes against local government advice, such as in Palakkad. By contrast, in Surat, the reporting relationships are vertical even as the functions are arranged horizontally. Importantly, these matters are decided by the local government.

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(In)flexibility A well-functioning organisation should be able to efficiently redeploy staff to various tasks cutting across departments, as and when the need arises. But since appointments are controlled by the state government in Kerala, the city government leadership finds it difficult to effect such redeployment, and individuals and departments become fixed and static. If Trivandrum gets an environmental engineer posted to its town planning division, the city government cannot make use of her services for helping with the much-needed solid waste management (SWM) issue that is racking it. Work assignment is wholly the state government’s prerogative and a person posted in one department of the city government cannot be given tasks of another department. And only the Health Department can deal with SWM. But out of 18 medical officer posts in Kerala local governments at the time of fieldwork, as many as 14 were vacant, the reason cited being unattractiveness of the position for medical graduates with public health specialisation. Despite this, if an environmental engineer is available, she or he cannot be part of SWM, which the state government deems to be Health Department turf. And in fact, the common engineering cadre for local governments administered by the state government has environmental engineers who may be attending to road maintenance works in a rural panchayat. Such inflexibility enervates the organisation and it cannot adequately innovate or respond to changes in the external environment. In Surat, when water supply and sewerage functions moved from the state utility to the city government, the latter created a design department that later took on expanded roles (energy efficiency, leakage prevention, system upgradation) – while Trivandrum’s rigid structure allowed it only to slightly tinker with its engineering wing by adding a technical person from the state department unrelated to the water supply or sewerage functions.

Policy Networks With more functions, activities and tasks, especially in a more diffused external environment, the complexity of government challenges has increased (Rhodes 1997). Not only does a city government have to marshal better in-house resources, but it also has to liaise better with external agencies. Ahmedabad developed a rapid bus transit system by tapping specialised knowledge from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), a leading professional institution. But Kerala city governments have struggled to liaise with external agencies effectively. When Thrikkakara wanted to network with local specialists to design high-mast lighting points, it still required the approval of the electrical wing of the state Public Works Department (PWD), leading to considerable delays.

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Varkala’s Arabian Sea coast – formed by the geologically famous Varkala Beds soil configuration in cliff-like formations – is confronting sustained threats of erosion, the biggest environmental hazard facing the municipality. Needing specialised knowledge about technology options and regulatory requirements, the municipality contacted the Centre for Earth Science Studies, a state government scientific institute that subsequently became a national institute. The municipality’s lack of technical and administrative capacity turned the relationship with a leading neighbouring science institute into an asymmetrical, vertical one, making it unproductive in the longer term. Such instances call for facilitation from the state government, but it only intervenes sporadically without coordinating even among its own departments, virtually allowing the problem to remain unaddressed. Fieldwork revealed several similar issues specific to a given city government where interviews with leaders showed how strongly they felt the need for facilitation from the state government on specific matters.19 But as these city governments did not know how to navigate policy networks, they virtually surrendered their policy roles to external institutions, implicitly turning the horizontal into vertical linkages. City governments, especially smaller ones, tend to get pushed around in matters beyond their management, given their limited authority and staff. Differences in the size of operations and contracting skills generate lopsided and unproductive networks with asymmetric power relationships. Instead, if these city governments could work out horizontally networked connections based on clear roles, they may have a better grip on the corresponding policy functions. If they exert fuller control over networking and processes, ‘organisation by cooperation’ could prove to be a better solution than either straight ‘command and control’ or pure market-based mechanisms (Laws and Hajer 2006, 414), the key being the ability to cooperate effectively across organisational boundaries.

Hired Expertise Disconnected with Implementing Organisation For the JNNURM and subsequent programmes, Kerala city governments recruited some contractual project implementation staff from the open market and others through deputation from other parts of the government. In programmes such as the JNNURM, the technical work of project preparation and monitoring is not done by city government technical staff but by outsiders who, as a consequence, have no clear reporting obligations to the city government. The secretary of Trivandrum’s city government noted that ‘fundamental organisational principles are not followed here in the administration’.20

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Staff Shortages At the time of fieldwork, Coimbatore was short of engineers as well as supervisors of engineering staff. In a new major sewerage project, when the subcontractor’s quality was questionable, the city government did not have supervisory staff and the deputy mayor and councillors had to take over the supervision!21 At the time, the state government had placed a ban on staff recruitment which was relaxed only later. Other domains also faced staff shortages; for instance, the state government did not post an education officer to the city although it ran as many as 82 schools. Many Kerala city governments have top-heavy bureaucracies – additional secretaries, deputy secretaries and under secretaries aplenty but a shortage of staff for field matters such as revenue collection.22 A city leader in Thrissur noted: ‘There is a secretary and there are assistant secretaries but we do not have people who will work in the field’.23 This particularly impacts engineering and revenue collection. In Ottapalam, staff support is as limited as when it was a panchayat many years back.24 The city government faces an acute supervision shortage after December when public works activity is at a peak and almost 30 projects happen simultaneously. The city government has no electrical wing and has to necessarily go to the state government’s electrical wing (of the PWD). However, since the local PWD office is in charge of the entire district and is itself short-staffed, sometimes Ottapalam has to wait for a year for PWD approval. When the state government started a new housing programme for low-income households (the EMS Housing Scheme) and house applications increased from 100 to 800, Ottapalam did not have engineering staff to manage housing needs. Thrikkakara had difficulties on electricity-related matters but could not utilise local expertise due to state government rules. Needing technical sanction and approval from the state utility (the Kerala State Electricity Board Limited or KSEB), work was delayed by 18 months even after the city government deposited funds for the work with the KSEB. In Thrikkakara, while the chairperson would have 50 members of the public waiting with petitions, there was not even a personal assistant for support. Representations by the city government to the chief minister produced no response. In Kochi, incoming councillors had campaigned on the plank of improving city infrastructure during the 2010 elections. However, once they were in the council, they found it difficult to move on this campaign promise due to staff shortages in key supervisory roles. For instance, the electrical wing had only an overseer whereas an engineer was needed. Street lighting was another election plank. In order to make the contracting feasible and to distribute risks, the

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incoming council split the contract among three providers on a public-private partnership basis. This required technical support that the council did not have.25 In Trivandrum, the number of wards doubled from 50 to 100 over the first decade of the 2000s (Harikumar 2013). Consequently, the staff position became inadequate. A councillor and a former mayor noted that the city government had far fewer than the required complement of engineers and work superintendents.26

Unfilled Vacancies In Nagercoil (Tamil Nadu), unfilled vacancies were a major staffing issue at the time of fieldwork.27 Only seven of 16 sanitary inspectors and one of five inspectors in the town planning department were in position.28 In Colachel, the post of sanitary officer was vacant after the state government transferred out the previous incumbent. Turning to Kerala, in Kochi, land surveys to determine plot boundaries are important for city government work. The ombudsman, law courts and the local government tribunal all deal with citizen grievances on land matters, and they call upon the city government for information. But it is unable to respond for want of surveyors. At the time of fieldwork, two of four surveyor posts were vacant but the city government did not have the authority to fill them even temporarily. As a consequence, inspectors brought up permit matters for decisions without accompanying survey reports, and standing committees simply approved them without being able to understand the true situation of a case. The city government hired a retired village officer to fill the job temporarily but had to remove him after six months for want of authorisation to pay him. Thrissur similarly faces crucial issues of demarcating limits of common property resources like small water bodies belonging to the city government but is unable to get a particular property (Vandikulam) surveyed four years after approaching the state government representative in the district – because the city government did not have a competent official to conduct a land survey.29 At the time of fieldwork, Kochi had two positions of veterinary doctors, both vacant. As noted previously, in Kerala city governments, out of 18 posts of medical officers, as many as 14 were vacant. Trivandrum has only one medical officer although it has four positions, the others being unfilled for a long time. Poor salaries were unattractive to prospective candidates but qualifications and other details were fixed by the state government.30 For want of a permanent IT specialist, nothing besides birth and death certification was done online at the time of fieldwork.31

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Frequent Turnover In Kerala, there is considerable instability in officer tenure in city governments, frustrating both the staff as well as local elected leadership and reducing coherence in administration. Thrissur had four secretaries in a mayoral tenure of five years. Kochi had six secretaries in five years. And there were five changes of chief engineer and seven changes of TPO. These are all key posts and the turnover produces considerable instability. And it happened when the state and city government were run by political allies, but the city government could still not persuade the state government to protect tenures to deliver stable administration and political dividends. The chairperson of Kochi’s planning committee notes: ‘Even those who know nothing about this place are sent to work here – the limitations of this are innumerable’.32

Performance Appraisal Since Kerala’s city governments lack substantive performance assessments, promotions are linked not to performance but sheer presence over the years.33 As noted in the vignette in Chapter 1, in Trivandrum, longevity can take a person who starts as a bill collector to more and more senior positions mechanically, such as accounts officer, revenue officer and eventually deputy secretary – the second-highest-ranking bureaucrat in the city government. A former mayor found that with each elevation an individual becomes less useful and therefore less active since the gap increases between the calls of the new position and the individual’s own preparedness and knowledge.34

City Government Staff and the State Government After formal devolution, some Kerala state government programmes were transferred to the local government but implementation stayed with the state government line staff functioning in the municipal area. They typically function in silos without developing friendly ties with local government bureaucracy despite shared functions.35 And they give lower priority to local government matters. The previous section noted that the Ottapalam municipality faced substantial delays in getting approvals from the PWD office in the district. Its leaders sensibly suggest that staff shortage should be addressed within the budgeted project costs rather than having to wait for the response of the state government staff, but their hands are tied.36 Thrikkakara had sizeable programme funds for its 7000-strong dalit population but each scheme needed the approval of an officer of the Scheduled Caste Development Department of the state government – and since that officer has the jurisdiction of the whole block, she can attend to Thrikkakara’s work only one day a week, which is inadequate for the city government.37

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The Kerala state government’s LSGD is the appointing authority for all categories and posts in both municipal corporations and municipalities (see Table 4.1). It determines the types and numbers of posts, qualification requirements and role definitions. This hampers city-government decisions in many ways. Trivandrum’s mayor wanted officers of the rank of additional secretary to head the city’s eleven zones but the state government would not permit this.38 By contrast, in Surat, high-ranking officers head zones and use their delegated authority to resolve problems. The Trivandrum city government could not achieve even a remotely close level of deconcentration. A former mayor of Thrissur identified the city government’s biggest challenge as the control over staff, which rests with the state and not the city government.39 Another former elected representative blames the situation on the state bureaucracy, noting that although the local council is accountable to the people, local government staff who are responsible for implementation are not locally accountable.40 Not only are recruitment, selection and initial appointment under the control of the state government in Kerala but so also is reassignment to any particular local government at any point in time. The lack of communication and the whimsical, top-down nature of this authority produces considerable awkwardness and frustration. Kochi posted a staff member as building inspector without knowing that the state government had already transferred him to another city government. In Palakkad, the state government transferred staff without informing the municipality, compromising local planning and implementation. The state government suspended the municipal secretary although the municipality was satisfied with his performance. Table 4.1 Which government controls city government staff? Kerala MC

Gujarat

Tamil Nadu

M

MC

M

MC

M

Sanctioning of posts State

State

City

State

State

State

Placement on job

State

State

City

City

City

City and state

Upward mobility

State

State

City

City

City

City and state

Posting to a location State

State

City

City

City

City and state

Work assignment

State

State

City

City

City

City

Power to penalise

State

State

City

City

City

City and state

Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents. Note: MC and M stand for municipal corporation and municipality, respectively.

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In Kerala, job assignments are not based on appropriate specialised knowledge for the job. As city government jobs are not tenured, their staff frequently circulate from one job to another – within the same city government and even more frequently, across city governments – controlled in ad hoc fashion by the state government. And although it controls promotions, the state government does not link promotion with the performance or the potential of an individual to meet the requirements of the new position. And the state government also controls disciplinary action for poor performance. The top bureaucrat in Kerala city governments was initially called ‘commissioner’ but the state government later revised it to ‘secretary’ to reflect the ideal of accountability to local leadership. But this did not change role perceptions of appointed officials. A former mayor of Thrissur observes that the secretary pays heed only to the district collector or secretary of the state government:41 When I overruled the [corporation] secretary, he would come up and say that the law requires that his views be heard. Decentralisation will remain a shell unless bureaucratic relationships are redefined.

The Kerala state government’s control over city government staffing has been ad hoc and inefficient, producing troubling and unjust discrepancies. Staff composition is related neither to size and population nor to special needs of the city. Kalamassery’s chairperson viewed neighbouring Aluva’s staff as disproportionally high: Aluva had a staff of 120 for 7 square kilometres while Kalamassery had a staff of only 32 for 27 square kilometres.42 In Thrikkakara, a municipality in the same region, the chairperson observed that staff size should be planned based on specific need-based criteria, including the volume of operations.43 While Aluva had 22 divisions with an executive engineer, assistant engineer and 12 overseers, Thrikkakara with 43 divisions had only an assistant engineer and one overseer.44 Staff standardisation for engineering staff in city governments has not occurred and neither has the issue been reviewed or studied by the state government. And for city government administrative staff, this exercise was last done as far back as 1988.45 The state government’s control extends to job descriptions of city government staff with problematic outcomes. In Kochi, a health inspector’s task is only to report how much waste is generated by different establishments. A former mayor offers the following analysis and suggestions:46

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The real responsibility of health inspectors should be public health but their jobs have been reduced to only waste disposal. (Aarogya samrakshanam aanu yadhaartha chomathala, chavaru kondupogal maathrum aakki avarude joli.) We don’t need any of our three inspectors. We need to bring wholesale change, it should have been done a long time ago. (Khadanaaparamaaya maattam varutthanum, athinolla kaalam kazhinju.) The urban government structure itself needs to change. Old conceptions are still held (Pazhaya sankalpangal aanu ippozhum). Public health is not [about only] waste [management] (Chavaru alla health). We need an environmental engineer. The corporation has mechanical engineers where we need civil engineers. The only solution is ‘structural change’. (Structural change koodiye theeroo.)

Table 4.1 shows that matters are different in Gujarat, where the city government has control over staff, avoiding the problems of Kerala discussed in this section. The table shows that Tamil Nadu falls in between the two states – more city government control than in Kerala, but not as much as in Gujarat.47

Latent Local Capacity Conversations over the years reveal that local elected representatives perceive the potential of their role and the heavy limitations due to lack of autonomy. Chapter 1 had presented a vignette of an extended conversation with elected leaders and bureaucrats of the Trivandrum municipal corporation in the south of Kerala. Below are similar accounts for smaller city governments (municipalities) of Kerala. The first is a description of discussions in a council meeting in Attingal municipality, 30 kilometres north of Trivandrum (Box 4.1). Attingal Municipality had 31 councillors, 17 from the communist party coalition (Left Democratic Front), 13 from the Congress party coalition (United Democratic Front) and one from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). After some interviews with councillors on 6 May 2011, the first author was invited to attend the council meeting in the late morning. It took place in the council hall of the municipality office. The chairperson’s podium faced the seats of councillors; departmental heads were seated on either side of the chairperson. Box 4.1 records observations and shows that there was active participation and detailed knowledge of the town’s needs, resources, dynamics and challenges. There was considerable cooperation across different political parties and a constructive, problem-solving approach.

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Box 4.1 Council meeting in Attingal municipality Agenda Item: Kerala Water Authority (KWA) • Issue: Wastewater from the KWA’s treatment plant drains onto municipal roads, causing damage and pollution. Five members actively participated in explaining the problem and seeking action on the KWA’s part. • Decision: Request the KWA representative to join a later council meeting for a discussion. Agenda Item: Pre-monsoon clearing of drains • Issue: The health supervisor explained the proposed arrangements for cleaning and disinfecting drains. A thorough note detailing the issue and listing proposed actions was distributed to councillors. There was wide participation in the discussion, following which Rs 5,000 was approved per ward as expenditure for buying cleaning detergents and other supplies. Agenda Item: KILA training • Issue: It was announced that the Kerala Institute of Local Administration (KILA) was to hold a two-day training programme for women councillors on the topic of leadership. The sub-topics would include communication, team building and overcoming mental tensions. Agenda Item: Any other matters raised by councillors 1. Metal [road ballast] heaped on the roadside can potentially cause road accidents through spillage onto the footpath. 2. Logs from the timber mill have scattered on the roadside in some locations; this can lead to accidents. 3. The footpath in front of the Mangalam Jewellery shopa is being used for parking cars, preventing pedestrians from using the footpath. • The shop extended its area to the road through encroachment and this was reported quite some time ago to the municipality. The multi-storey building of the Mangalam Jewellery shop is unauthorised. The assistant executive engineer informed the council that he would soon issue a notice to the shop owner. • Councillor: Their first building was constructed at the back and the new one is in front of it. There is some kind of violation in this case. When we [the municipality] issue such notices, the councillors do not come to know what happens thereafter. This is happening in many cases. In the case of the shop extension, the previous secretary granted a hearing but nothing is known regarding what happened afterwards. A teashop owner extended his establishment so much onto the road that tea made by him spills on pedestrians. This is also unauthorised and harmful to peoples’ health. (Contd.)

129 Organising City Governments 4. Chairperson: We had decided to spend Rs 3 lakhs for roads for every ward for the year 2011–12 as part of the people’s plan and we should diligently undertake works using this money after deciding priorities. If the same road corridor is taken on priority in two wards, then the two councillors should implement it jointly. • Councillor: The quality of road work should improve. We should examine the road length that we can complete satisfactorily at a cost of Rs 3 lakhs. • Chairperson: The quality of the metal [road ballast] used should be exhibited at the site. Councillors can ask for a copy of the quantities measured. • Councillor: Is there a guarantee of quality for our works? If there is, then we should wait for the guarantee period to be over before finally clearing contractor bills. If the deposit money is only for six months, then the guarantee will also be for only 6 six months. On a road of 5 metres, we award a contract for only 3 metres. What happens is that water will flow on either side of the road and damage the tarred surface. • Assistant executive engineer: The total width of the road is 5 metres. The tar width is only 3 metres. • Councillor: Then water will flow on the roadsides, the tar edge will soon break and the road condition worsens. 5. Chairperson: In those areas where at least half the population consists of Scheduled Castes, if we enumerate households in advance of the visit of the officer from the Scheduled Caste Development department [of the state government], it will quicken the certification process. We should do that. 6. Councillor: When they demolish their houses, some people keep the removed slabs on the roadside. It is only after I mentioned this on three occasions that the homeowner removed the slabs. We can do several things like this. We can issue notices to persuade them to remove their waste. Source: Based on attending a council meeting on 6 May 2011. a Name changed for reasons of confidentiality.

We turn next to Palakkad municipality to the north. Table 4.2 gives a detailed account of discussions on 15 March 2011 with the chairperson, councillors, two former chairpersons and the municipal secretary. It reveals that elected municipal leaders are very well informed about their constituents’ needs and have sound knowledge of governance processes, institutional limitations and organisational challenges. This cuts across gender, religion and party affiliation. Councillor Krishnankutty provided a succinct appraisal of municipal affairs and challenges. Parvathyamma, chairwoman of the works committee, is sore that the EMS housing scheme for the poor was mired in hurdles due to obsolete and

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Table 4.2 Discussions in Palakkad municipalitya Respondent

Ibrahim Muneer, municipal chairman (Congress)

Respondent’s Observations

Authors’ Observations

LSG [Local Self Government] engineering service was formed recently and we have a municipal engineer who is EE, 1 AEE and 5 AEsb of whom two have engineering degrees – yet our engineering wing does not have supervisory arrangements like in the state Public Works Department (PWD).

Despite having engineers, the municipality is unable to propose and develop plans for pressing needs (drainage and sewerage needs explained below).

The health officer post has been vacant for five years and the Public Service Commission (PSC) is unable to proceed since there is little interest from candidates [the qualification is MBBS along with public health diploma].

An important function is unattended. It was noted elsewhere in the text that out of 18 posts of medical officers in Kerala city governments, as many as 14 were unfilled.

Other than birth, death and marriage registration, we provide no other online service.

Online transactions (financial and other) are weak for want of adequately experienced staff.

The currently live master plan is from 1986 and it has no implementation plan – the Palakkad Development Authority was wound up in 2000 and the plan prepared by it was unworkable. In 2002, the council proposed to the GoKc to revoke the 1986 master plan and GoK approved some variations in 2008. There are 10 DTP schemes covering 60 per cent of area of which 5 have been approved by GoK.

The city government is unable to give shape to overall development needs (drainage, sewerage, etc.). There is no staff for such tasks nor authority for it, merely hope that some day, the GoK will undertake these.

Observation: The chairman succinctly describes the organisation’s serious limitations of staff of adequate capacity, lack of a spatial development plan and the municipality’s inability to develop one, and weak planning without a strategy for land assembly for public development purposes, suggesting that the most crucial requirements of running a local government are beyond his control. Even though there are five approved DTPs (which is good considering that most city governments in the state have almost none), they cannot be implemented for lack of a strategy for assembling land for the public purposes included in these documents, making the DTP exercise meaningless. (Contd.)

131 Organising City Governments Parvathyamma, works committee chairwoman (Congress)

The EMS housing scheme for the landless is not being implemented at all mainly for want of a master plan. There is a spatial planning committee under the chairman with the deputy town planning officer (DTPO) as convenor – but without an accepted plan, it cannot function usefully. Palakkad is in the list of 32 municipalities approved by GoK for the preparation of a master plan.

For want of an updated master plan, zoning cannot be changed; many poor households are located in areas marked as ‘green’; although a change in zoning is long overdue, the municipality is prevented from re-zoning for want of town planners. Lack of a master plan and detailed land use planning is the biggest constraint on improvements.

Ganeshan, education committee chairman (BJP district president)

There are 12 or 13 working groups (WGs) and each one drafts proposals for projects. Each proposal is discussed in the ward sabha, then WG, then the council, then seminar, and again the council – after which it goes to the district planning committee (DPC). There is poor attendance in the ward sabha and also in the WG. All tender approvals have to go to the council as the corresponding committees are not competent. The approval process takes 10 months with 2 months left for implementation.

The decision process is time-consuming and heavily dependent on persons outside the city government.

Mercykutty, welfare committee chairwoman (Congress)

The approval process for public works takes a long time because there is no functional freedom and we are heavily constrained by guidelines.

Weak autonomy generates many inefficiencies.

Vijayadasan, opposition leader (CPM)

Staff are transferred before time and without reason, not permitting any worthwhile implementation. The secretary was suspended without good reason.

The city government does not have control over its staff.

Ibrahim Muneer, municipal chairman

By the time a new official gets going, that official is transferred. GoK does not allow honest and capable persons to continue.

GoK interferes even when staff are working cooperatively with elected leaders. (Contd.)

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Girija Kumari, former municipal chairwoman (initially Congress, later BJP)

Ranjitha, former municipal chairwoman (initially BJP, later Congress)

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The activities of standing committees are disrupted by frequent Lok Sabha and State Assembly elections. The whole town is under water even Councillors were after normal rainfall. The town needs unanimous in emphasising to have a comprehensive scheme for the need for a municipalitystormwater control. wide drainage project. We need to plan for a Rs 200-crore investment for storm drainage as two rivers (Kalpathy and Thennalai) flow in different directions and most neighbourhoods are under water during the monsoons. Ninety per cent of the houses are on paddy fields and layouts that provide only for internal drainage and yet there is no plan for channelling out internal drains. Many lodgesd direct their sewage into This is another plea for the stormwater drains – drainage and drainage and sewerage for the municipality. sewage channels are not separate. We need a ring road around the town and also a lorry stand. Ward sabhas do not meet in many wards but merely create records of meetings. There is excessive political activism within the local body.

This pinpoints weaknesses in participation.

(several councillors)

A master drainage facility is badly needed.

Councillors are aware and agree on what is most needed for the municipal area.

Vijayadasan, opposition leader

There has been no tax increase after 1988 because GoK fears voters’ reactions.

Palakkad has budget concerns because it has to pay a highly disproportionate share of pensions to retired municipal staff in the state. There is potential willingness to raise taxes but GoK does not permit this. (Contd.)

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Ganeshan, education committee chairman

Land acquisition is exceedingly difficult due to high land value.

This indicates the need for strategies to find land for developing public amenities, but this is not within the municipality’s control. It needs to be addressed through careful socio-economic spatial planning and a strategy for land assembly and land reconstitution through pooling.

Shaji Basheer, councillor (Muslim League party leader)

We are all together in the matter of development but we have no funds. What we have is only enough for paying staff salaries. Although the Municipal Employee Pension Fund is operated by the director of urban affairs, our municipality is required to pay Rs 6 crores towards staff pension.

The municipality has insufficient funds due to inequitable GoK diktats.

(several councillors)

Street lighting is satisfactory (80–90 per cent coverage). The Kerala State Electricity Board Limited (KSEB) replaces bulbs provided by the municipality but this is not a satisfactory arrangement as the KSEB linemen swindle some of the materials.

Even as councillors agree that street lighting is satisfactory they know it could be more efficient without dependence on the KSEB.

Ranjitha, former municipal chairwoman

The present arrangement for street lighting is not satisfactory. The KSEB dictates and it is one of the masters of the local body. The responsibility of street lighting should be either with the KSEB or with us. We pay the KSEB even for lights that do not burn. To monitor, we can install meters on the transformers. (Contd.)

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There is a great lack of functional freedom for the municipality and many matters need to go to GoK. DPC ‘experts’ are not experts at all, there is no pattern to their whims and fancies – what they do not allow in Palakkad, they allow in Kollam. In fact we have democratic centralisation because in the final analysis everything is decided by the DPC. The DPC’s role is to act as an obstacle for many projects.

A very competent official, he convincingly elaborates how autonomy of municipal functioning is robbed in the prevailing context and that it is necessary to restore autonomy for better functioning.

All projects are implemented over two months and that affects quality very badly but we do it to avoid lapse of funds.

Municipal secretary

For water supply, the KWA controls the municipality – it is the sanctioning authority and it behaves as our master, our job is only to provide it with money and furnish a utilisation certificate. Decisions on pensions for agriculture workers are made by district labour officers – in short, the municipality is downgraded to implementing the decisions of departmental bureaucrats. The municipality is required to report to a lot of agencies ranging from the GoK secretary to many departmental officials. Earlier Thrissur had only three standing committees (health, finance, public works) but GoK now mandates six – the number should be reduced and facilities should be improved. (Contd.)

135 Organising City Governments Krishnankutty, councillor (CPM leader)

Honorarium is a must for councillors. All women councillors need to travel in autos, incurring higher expenses. There is a serious problem of lack of burial ground.

Source: Based on interviews on 15 March 2011 in the chairman’s chamber, Palakkad municipality. Notes: a Names changed for reasons of confidentiality. b  EE = executive engineer, AEE = assistant executive engineer, AE = assistant engineer. c  Government of Kerala d  Budget long-stay hotels.

unacceptable planning regulations imposed by the state government. Ganeshan, chairman of the standing committee on education, criticised the convoluted decision processes which pass through many committees for no valid reason except that the state government insists upon it. Mercykutty, chairwoman of the standing committee on welfare, insightfully observed that the reason for the circuitous decision/approval path is the absence of ‘functional freedom’ for the municipality. Both Ibrahim Muneer and Vijayadasan, municipal chairman and opposition leader, are one in decrying the frequent turnover of permanent staff by the state government, seeing it as a major reason for unsettling the regularity and speed of municipal affairs. Former municipal chairwomen Ranjitha and Girija Kumari offered cogent analyses of the major issues of the municipal area which has considerable low-lying land with drainage and sewerage problems. It is striking that despite differences and diversity of backgrounds, elected leaders of the municipality have profoundly similar understanding and analyses of local problems and solutions. The following is an account for Ottapalam, Palakkad’s neighbour, based on interactions in mid-March, 2011.48 Its council, like other Kerala city governments, has a strong presence of women leaders. Councillors Amira Abdul, Milimol, Karthiayani and Priyanka unanimously identified lack of governance authority of the council, for instance in designing and executing a water supply scheme even after years of effort, which they believed to be a very basic need of the locality. When councillor Jacob Sebastian says that the state government looks upon the municipality as its own directly managed department and that its control is increasing over time, he is making a plea for unshackling chains. When opposition councillor Balaraman talks about the hassles and delays in obtaining state government sign-offs, he is not sparing his own political coalition which was running the state government. Jacob Sebastian, a rice miller and

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former opposition leader, emphasises that the ruling and opposition sides of the council can overcome political differences to work together on the affairs of the municipality. Balaraman and Jacob Sebastian shared a room while on training at the state local government institute and they related animated discussions and considerable consensus over actions for the public good. Councillor Satheeshan feels that the top priority is application of better technology for road maintenance and he is frustrated with the state government for not permitting the use of easily available technology. Multiple similar extended conversations in other city governments in Kerala show that there is overwhelming interest in seeking solutions to civic and public matters and there is a conviction that elected city governments have a critical role. There is an equally overwhelming frustration – sometimes leading to a sense of resignation – at the legal and administrative environment and the apparent inability of alternating political coalitions in the state administration to reform the situation. There is deep dismay over the persistence of state government control of local governance and the inability of the local government to gain authority in local affairs. The conversations also remove any doubts about the capability of local elected leaders to manage matters with alacrity and efficiency. Recent events show how the green shoots of effective and just local action can grow when restraints on local government are lifted, even temporarily. In Kerala’s monsoon floods of 2018, local governments immediately sprang to help in an organised manner with cooked food, cooking utensils, essential clothes, and so on. The Trivandrum city government amassed such large quantities of supplies that state government departments were surprised. In the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, local governments in Kerala were not only proactive but also well-organised in managing the government’s response. Public health workers led the core aspects of patient care and treatment while local governments ensured effective support arrangements for the families of patients, quarantined individuals and working class households impacted by the economic slowdown. Support activities spanned a wide range: visiting secluded senior citizens, organising medical supplies, locating and delivering food to those who could not access supplies or were unable to prepare their own food, running community kitchens and contact tracing of past movements of patients, and so on. Local governments worked effectively with many agencies and organisations, such as the police and Kudumbashree associations, besides playing an important reassuring role in their communities. What local leaders could not express through their administrative role in the local government for want of functional freedom and authority, came to the fore when previous restraints were temporarily lifted. This event decisively showed the administrative potential of local governments.

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To these recent instances of strong local government abilities in extraordinary times can be added previous such instances as well. In the 1970s, the Kerala state government conceived an ambitious programme to provide houses to 100,000 landless households (‘one lakh houses scheme’). Local governments executed the programme by locating and purchasing land in different areas, identifying eligible households, collecting construction materials and money from communities, building housing units and placing the selected families in their assigned homesteads (Nalapat 1976). Local governments acted individually but in a concerted manner – pooling resources and collecting building materials and showing purpose, leadership and coordination with district administrations.

Notes 1. Exceptions include senior positions: the chief officer in Gujarat’s municipalities, the commissioner in Gujarat’s municipal corporations and the commissioner in Tamil Nadu city governments. 2. Interview, 28 March 2011, Ahmedabad. 3. Interview, chairperson of works committee, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. 4. Interview, 18 February 2011, Navsari. 5. Interviews, 21–23 February 2011, Rajkot. 6. Interview, 17 February 2011, Surat. 7. Interview, 3 May 2011, Kochi. 8. Interviews, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 9. Interviews, 2 and 3 May 2011, Kochi. 10. Interviews, 2 and 3 May 2011, Kochi. 11. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 12. Positions in that organisation are with staff having the minimum qualification of a degree in civil engineering or architecture and a postgraduate degree in town and country planning. 13. Interviews, 5–7 January 2011, Thrissur. 14. The information in this paragraph is based on an interview with the chief engineer, LSGD, Trivandrum on 26 August 2020. 15. A further change made in August 2020 brings the LSGD engineering department under a principal director; and the director of the Rural Development Department was designated as the principal director. 16. Interviews, 7 January 2011, Thrissur; and 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 17. Interview, deputy mayor, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 18. Interview, 19 February 2011, Vyara. 19. One example is citywide drainage in Kochi with sea, backwater and river waters; naval defence installations; and a major seaport which needs state and national government participation and facilitation. Another example is low-lying Palakkad where there is citywide intermixing of drainage and sewage. Many interviews

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20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45. 46. 47. 48.

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reveal strategic and technological issues for municipal waste management beyond the capacity of Kerala city governments. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. Interview, 17 March 2011, Coimbatore. Interviews, 23 and 27 December 2010; 28 April and 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. Interviews, 5–7 January 2011, Thrissur. Interview, 14 March 2011, Ottapalam. Interview, 2 May 2011, Kochi. Interviews, 23 December 2010 and 28 April 2011, Trivandrum. Interview, 10 October 2012, Nagercoil. Interview, 10 October 2012, Nagercoil. Interview, chairman of the works committee, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. An IT engineer was provided under a temporary national project for a limited period, but this was an exception. Interview, 2 May 2011, Kochi. Interview, former mayor, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. Interview, 27 December 2010, Trivandrum. Interview, 5–7 January, 2011, Thrissur. Ottapalam won the state government’s award for the best municipality in the first two years of the award (2008–10). Interviews, 20 September 2012, Thrikkakara. If there is a 51 per cent share of Scheduled Caste (SC) families as beneficiaries in a project and if there are ten families, the municipality can do a project under the SC benefit scheme. But this has to be certified by the SC Welfare department official and that is where the municipality confronts a problem for want of adequate level of service of an officer. Interview, 7 May 2011, and 7 October 2013, Trivandrum. Interview, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. Interviews, 5–7 January 2011, Thrissur. Interview, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. Interview, 20 September 2012, Thrikkakara. Interview, chairperson, 20 September 2012, Thrikkakara. The larger Kochi city government – a municipal corporation unlike the others which are municipalities – has 70 divisions with a superintending engineer, 2 executive engineers, 6 assistant executive engineers, 16 assistant engineers and 40 overseers. One overseer is in charge of 11 divisions in Thrikkakara which has 43 divisions. There is an overseer for every division in Kochi. (Interview, 20 September 2012, Thrikkakara.) Interview, 20 September 2012, Thrikkakara. Interview, 2 May 2011, Kochi. Interviews, 12 April 2011, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Selection for appointments are recommended by the state Public Service Commission. Names changed for reasons of confidentiality.

Part III Accountability Part II had mapped out the capacity of the local government using two core dimensions, administrative practices and organisation. Part III asks what shapes local capacity. It identifies two sources, the relationship of the local government to the devolving (state) government and the relationship of the local government to the public it serves. These are developed in separate chapters. Each is a form of ‘accountability’, that is, ‘a social “mechanism” … an institutional relation or arrangement in which an agent can be held to account by another agent or institution’ (Bovens 2010, 948). Chapter 5 explores state–local relations. State–local relations vary considerably across states. Where local governments have more autonomy, they determine their own administrative practices and organisational arrangements. But more typically, state–local relations are such that local government autonomy is substantially compromised. The chapter details the processes through which autonomy is curtailed. It also discusses another aspect of state–local relations – the potential facilitation of local capacity through the state government’s wider reach and resources. Chapter 6 explores public participation in local governance processes. It argues that greater public participation enhances local government capacity for effective and just action. Unfortunately, despite surface variations across states, participation is mostly uniformly poor. The chapter discusses why this is the case, tracing it to two sources, the strength of social intermediation and expectations regarding the translation of participation into local government decisions and actions.

5 State–Local Relations

For decades, India’s constitutional framework had two government levels, national and state. The 74th constitutional amendment (CA) added a third, local government, by devolving some functions of the state government. This implied a change in state–local relations. The reforms recognised that past efforts at decentralisation were ineffective due to inadequate devolution, irregular elections and prolonged supersession – all controlled by state governments loathe to give up authority and power. To recalibrate state–local relations, the CA laid out the manner of holding local elections and raising resources for city governments and also listed the functions to be devolved. But in India local governance falls under the authority of state legislatures. Much is involved in translating the intent of the national CA to the actual resetting of state–local relations. And in fact, by the time the intent was translated – through state laws, rule-making and policy implementation – there was considerable drift and distortion in many states. Following the CA, each state legislature was expected to pass accompanying legislation for decentralisation. The new state law would carve out the field of action for local governments to exercise their new policy functions. Decentralisation law could vary considerably across states in principle, and this in fact occurred. Among all states, Kerala’s law has the most elaborate list of municipal functions (27 groups of items), leading to scholar-bureaucrat K. C. Sivaramakrishnan’s optimism about robust decentralisation and accountability.1 And yet such expanded lists hide more than they reveal. For implementing the provisions of a law, the legislature specifies which details should be worked out and by whom. This is done through ‘rule-making’, that is, constructing the ‘rules of the (decentralisation) game’ by elaborating upon the laws through rules. The details of ceding of authority from state to local government lie in the rules. The legislature usually authorises the executive or a specific agency of the executive to frame rules. The content of the rules is greatly affected by the identity and outlook of the entity making the rules. In the case of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, rule-making authority was given to the state government whereas in Gujarat it was given to local governments. When the state government makes

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rules, its contents are usually developed by the state bureaucracy under a minister. When the local government makes rules, its contents are decided by the council, a body of elected representatives.2 When rules are developed by the state bureaucracy, in practice a significant portion escapes legislative oversight.3 This chapter shows that in Kerala’s case, the expansive decentralisation provisions in state law were accompanied by a counter-movement: rule-making authority was vested exclusively with the state government and the rules produced recentralisation in practice. By contrast, Gujarat law allowed extensive rule-making powers to city governments and Tamil Nadu’s situation was in between the two but closer to that of Kerala. This comparison is the subject of the first section. Since rule-making power lay with the state government in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the resulting state–local power asymmetry produced many top-down diktats that undercut city government autonomy and capacity. The next section explores these: indiscriminate, ad hoc micromanagement and constraining financial regulations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. It also describes the extensive top-down system of ‘approvals’ that city governments needed from the state government in these states. Approaching state-level relations from the perspective of state–local federalism, the third section examines equity complications caused by state government control. It also examines the what-may-have-been: collaborative governance across the two levels (state and local) where knowledge is shared and mutual capacity increased.

Rule-making Authority for Local Autonomy As required by the CA, all states created laws in the mid-1990s specifying both the governance aspect (devolution of several functional domains and authority) as well as the democratic aspect (elections and tenures of councillors) of decentralisation. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu laws treat municipal corporations differently from municipalities; in Kerala, neither the legislation nor the actions of the state government make such a distinction. All three states have official gradation of city governments based on size, organisational elements and resource-raising capacity.4 Decentralisation law on elections and devolution of policy functions is mostly similar across states. The chapter focuses on rule-making (‘delegated legislation’), that is, elaborating the law. It turns out that local autonomy and capacity are critically influenced by who has the authority for rule-making on decentralisation. Just as a policy is the outcome of its grassroots implementation rather than just policymaker intent (Lipsky 2010), arguably autonomy and state–local relations are the outcome of the exercise of rule-making regarding decentralisation. Table 5.1 shows the rule-making authority specified by the state law for municipal corporations and municipalities separately. Gujarat law gives both corporations and municipalities considerable control over their own affairs through granting them

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Table 5.1 Rule-making authority in state laws Municipal corporations Kerala Municipality Act, 1994

All rule-making authority is with state government; city governments can make some bye-laws and regulations.

Municipal Corporation All rule-making authority is with the state government; city Acts in Tamil Nadu, governments can make bye-laws. various years Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949

City governments have extensive rule-making authority, including authority to amend Schedule A Rules (the schedule forms part of the Act and lists matters concerning the city government’s internal operations like conduct of business, committees, contracts, budget estimates, taxes, property tax and regulation of public construction).

Municipalities Kerala Municipality Act, 1994

[same provision as for municipal corporations]

Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act, 1920

[same provision as for municipal corporations]

Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963

City governments enjoy rule-making authority (Sec. 271) – extending to defining the roles of president, vice president and committee chairperson; determining the appointment, powers and duties of the staff of officers; control over staff; prescribing taxes to be levied; writing off of amounts, etc. City governments also have the authority to make bye-laws for various matters.

Source: Compiled from the corresponding documents.

rule-making authority. Tamil Nadu laws do not give rule-making authority to either type of city government. Kerala law is similar; it also has an extensive list of items on which rules can be made – by the state government alone.

Gujarat Law and Rule-Making Gujarat has two sets of laws for city governments, the Bombay Act for municipal corporations and the Gujarat Act for municipalities.5 Most of the relevant provisions regarding rule-making existed prior to the CA.6 The Bombay Act

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empowers municipal corporations to ‘amend, alter, or annul’ and make new provisions regarding rules laid down in the Act with state government oversight.7 Municipal corporations can frame rules regarding: the internal proceedings, committees and general conduct of business; the qualifications and method of appointment of employees; contract design and execution; public construction; and budget and tax administration.8 The Gujarat Act gives rule-making powers over separately specified domains to the municipalities and the state government.9 For example, while the state government makes rules for 10 matters concerning employee administration, the municipalities make rules regarding appointments and regulation of employee conduct.10 The law also gives municipalities the authority over conduct of internal business such as defining the functions of the leadership (president, vicepresident, committee chairpersons), establishment matters, general guidance to municipal servants, prescribing taxes, and so on (Section 271). Through bye-laws, municipalities have the power to regulate: establishments and markets that affect public hygiene and health (including slaughterhouses, dairies and cattle sheds); water supply; construction of buildings; drains; traffic control; and so on.11

Kerala Law and Rule-Making The Kerala legislature instituted the Kerala Municipality Act (KMA) in 1994 to conform to the CA. It concerns the administration of both municipal corporations and municipalities. The KMA gives ‘powers, authority and responsibilities’ to city governments so that they can function as ‘self-government’ institutions in their newly expanded domains.12 It required the state government to soon transfer ‘all institutions, schemes, buildings, other properties’ as well as corresponding plan and budgetary allocations to city governments.13 Sivaramakrishnan (2000) singles out Kerala, along with West Bengal, as a state that not only enacted laws to conform to the CA but went beyond it to clarify and amplify the functional domain of city governments; by comparison, in many other states, conformity to the CA was less explicit and scattered across different laws and government orders. But the KMA explicitly gave extensive powers to the state government to make detailed rules regarding city government functioning: preparation and implementation of development plans; use of municipal funds; audit of accounts; valuation of buildings and land; and acquisition of property by the city government. The KMA even gave the state government the authority to prescribe how to make estimates for public works and implement them, as well as instructions on supervisory arrangements.14 The Kerala rules themselves contain provisions enabling the state government to issue guidelines, directions and advisories.

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Kerala’s state government was prolific in its use of these rule-making powers affecting everyday, routine transactions in functions ostensibly devolved to the city government. Micromanagement extended to instances such as the state government directing city governments regarding the purchase of bitumen for road work – when to stop purchasing, when to restart, where to purchase it from, and so on. The state government’s Local Self Government Department (LSGD) framed rules for approving city government staff positions of all categories.15 It framed rules for goods and works procurement even though the state government Public Works Department (PWD) has a Works Code and the Finance Department has a Store Purchase Code, both of which are used across government departments.16 Even these state codes were effectively replaced by an open-ended, continuous flow of instructions from the state government.17 In doing this, the LSGD also created uniform internal governance arrangements in all municipal corporations and municipalities, going against the spirit of decentralisation where structures and arrangements should be responsive to specifics of local context and priorities. The KMA 1994 gives little rule-making authority to city governments.18 In 1999, the legislature rewrote the 1994 legislation. On the one hand, it required that an independent authority should scrutinise any state government attempt to modify or overturn a decision of a city government.19 But all its other provisions weakened city government autonomy and effectively recentralised governance. These are detailed below. The KMA 1994 had required city governments to prepare Development Plans according to a deadline set by the state government, but the 1999 legislation also required them to make the substance of the plan according to state government directions. According to the KMA 1994, city governments could decide both the type of contracts for public works and the manner of their execution, but the 1999 legislation gave the state government authority over all aspects of procurement, contract and execution of public works, including matters such as estimate preparation, bidding, contractor selection, supervisory arrangements and payment procedures. Even on basic, simple functions such as street lighting, the 1999 legislation constrained the city government’s role so that the state government could now step in to provide the service. The 1999 legislation also gave the state government fresh rule-making powers over an additional 42 matters (beyond the original 26) shaping city government functioning. The state government could create procedures for the convening of ward sabhas and ward committees, remove the city government’s authority over road works, and so on. In sum, Kerala’s 1999 legislative changes reinforced the state government’s authority to frame rules regarding city governments.

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Tamil Nadu Law and Rule-Making Tamil Nadu has three types of legislations regarding city governments: one for municipalities; one for Chennai; and one set for municipal corporations other than Chennai.20 Tamil Nadu laws give rule-making authority to the state government, which can frame rules on a multiplicity of matters pertaining to city governments. For municipalities, these include: taxation and finance;21 preparing plans and estimates for public works; municipality accounts; and prescribing conditions under which property may be acquired, transferred, mortgaged or sold by a municipality. For municipal corporations, these include: regulating or prohibiting resolutions; creating procedures for standing committee meetings; and creating formats for records registers and reports. In Tamil Nadu laws, the state government can suspend and even cancel a municipal resolution or order.22 With the exception of Chennai, the laws require city governments to prepare annual development plans vetted by the district planning committee constituted by the state government.23 The state government fills all senior administrative positions, has disciplinary oversight of these positions and regulates compensation packages. While the laws give rule-making authority to the state government, they authorise city governments to make bye-laws for matters such as public water bodies, water supply, public amenities, sanitary control over privately provided services including markets and shops and urban planning – but these require ratification by the state government.24 Similarly, while city governments do have the power to make appointments to middleranking positions, even these need state government approval.25 City governments have some powers over contracts to third parties in terms of rules made by the state government.26 And in the case of contract awards above specified levels, city governments need to have their decisions ratified by the state government.27

Comparing State Laws and Rule-Making The description of state laws indicates that in Gujarat, both municipal corporations and municipalities have considerable control over their own affairs. In Tamil Nadu, municipal corporations have some control but the state government has overriding powers over municipalities (control over staff and decision-making authority through administrative approval and technical sanction requirements). In Kerala, both municipal corporations and municipalities operate under tight regulations from the state government. For instance, while Kerala laws specify that each city government should have six specified standing committees of elected leaders for taking decisions in different functional domains, no more and no less, the Gujarat law allows city government to decide such matters, with the consequence that Vyara had 23 committees to Kalol’s six.

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Particularly in Kerala, the approach to decentralisation law was similar to the approach to other laws that typically confer authority to administrative agencies to perform certain functions that the law demands. But the decentralisation law is different in that it creates a new, elected government itself. Arguably, matters concerning how to detail the working of an elected government should be decided by an elected body, namely either the state legislature or the newly created municipal council. Gujarat law is aligned with this principle; it grants rule-making authority to the local government. Kerala and Tamil Nadu laws are not aligned with this principle; they grant rule-making authority to the state government, effectively allowing the state government bureaucracy to design local government. It is to be expected that a devolving government is unwilling to shed its power, but by authorising it to work out details of implementation, Kerala and Tamil Nadu law gave authority to an interested party and created a conflict of interest. To see the implication of differences in rule-making authority, consider the hypothetical example of a city government planning to build an anganwadi (child care centre) building estimated at Rs 30 lakhs. Among the bids received, suppose the preferred bid is 10 per cent above the estimated cost. How will the city government proceed, and importantly, can it proceed by itself or do the rules require it to go through the state government? Table 5.2 presents five elements of the building project – engaging a project consultant, engaging a soil expert, authority for administrative approval, authority for technical approval and selecting a contractor. If the city government is in Gujarat, it can see to all five elements on its own. If it is in Tamil Nadu, it would need state government approval for three of them. If it is in Kerala, it would need state government approval for four of the five elements. These differences are due to rules of city government functioning based on the law’s provision regarding rule-making authority. Table 5.2 Authority for project preparation and implementation State

Engage project preparation consultant

Engage soil test expert

Administrative approval

Technical approval

Contractor selection

Gujarat

City

City

City

City

City

Tamil Nadu

City

City

State

State

State

Kerala

State

State

City

State

State

Source: Based on information compiled from interviews and documents.

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State laws also provides authority for staffing, an important element of local capacity discussed in Chapter 4. In Kerala law, the state government has the authority to create positions in the local government and make appointments to them; Tamil Nadu law is also tilted to the state government but allows some authority to the local government; and Gujarat law gives the local government more authority on staffing, especially in the case of municipal corporations. Table 5.3 summarises comparative law provisions on staffing. Table 5.3 Staffing authority in state laws Municipal corporations Kerala Municipality Act, 1994

Only state government can sanction creation of posts; state government is the appointing authority for all posts; all city government staff belong to state cadres (recruitment, cadre control and service conditions totally controlled by the state government).

Municipal Corporation Acts in Tamil Nadu, various years

Appointments to Class III & IVa posts are made by the city government,b to Class II posts by the city government with confirmation by the state government, and to Class I posts by the state government.

Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949

City government standing committees determine the number, designation, grades and salaries of auditors, officers and clerks; selection for all appointments are by the staff selection committee of the city government; city government appoints city engineer, medical officer, chief auditor and municipal secretary with confirmation by the state government; state government appoints commissioner.

Municipalities Kerala Municipality Act, 1994

[same provision as for municipal corporations]

Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act, 1920

Commissioner is appointed by the state government; appointment to posts of health officer and municipal engineer are also made by the state government

Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963

Chief officer is appointed by the state government; appointment of municipal engineer, water works engineer, health officer, auditor and education officer is done with the approval of the state government

Source: Compiled from corresponding documents. Notes: a This refers to the categorisation of levels of posts in relation to responsibilities. Class III and IV generally include ‘subordinate’ staff such as clerks and office peons. b  This is through a committee consisting of the mayor, commissioner and an elected member.

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Although Gujarat law provides greater rule-making authority to the local government, it also provides some top-down authority to the state government, as shown in Table 5.3. The state government appoints the chief bureaucrat in the city government (commissioner) and any senior staff position created by the city government has to be approved by the state government. The representative of the state government, the district collector, also has the power to suspend the decision of a municipality although the municipality can appeal against this to the state government. Despite these limitations in Gujarat, the state comparison reveals that Gujarat law still provides considerable authority to city governments.

Eroding Local Autonomy: State Government Controls In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the state government’s substantial control over rulemaking leads to direct or indirect control over many aspects of city development. For instance, in Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu), although urban planning is formally devolved, the city government is not even consulted by the state governmentappointed Coimbatore Development Authority, a bureaucratic organisation, which creates the city’s development plan. The chairperson of the town planning committee in Coimbatore states: We don’t have a role in [making] the city [development] plan. The planning authority [controlled by state government] does it. They don’t consult us or even once discuss with our municipal council or our standing committee [for planning] which I chair. There is no politics – I am from the DMK, our party is in power in the state.28 They make plans but we don’t know how to get land to implement it. They don’t tell us that. But we developed 52 public recreation parks. We used our own land and also bought some private land by giving compensation. We built a bus stand on Mettupalayam road. We built it where we had our own land. [The] planning authority proposed another place but that was someone else’s land, how can we take it?

Indiscriminate Micromanagement In Kerala, the state government’s instrument for control is its Local Self Government Department (LSGD). Its micromanagement can reach petty levels, such as advising mayors and municipal chairpersons not to use official vehicles more than once daily for travelling from home to office and back. Consider the following substantive example of micromanagement. For re-laying a road in Kochi, the state government decides the thickness of the added layer (‘chipping carpet’). Initially, it was kept as low as 10 millimetres and later increased to

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20 although the city government wanted it to be more. This greatly reduced road quality. The state government also did not allow tender excess beyond five per cent although even the prevailing market price was higher than the estimate based on the previous year’s market costs. By contrast, Ahmedabad city government had more control over decisions around road work. As a result, failures in structural design are rare for the 2,500 kilometre road network in the city. In the case of road pavements, the city government developed a robust, durable, standardised design. Examples of indiscriminate micromanagement abound in Kerala. The LSGD asked local governments not to engage the state government’s PWD for road works, citing the presence of an LSGD engineering wing.29 A 2007 directive from the LSGD ‘permitted’ local governments to purchase up to 10 tons of tar. In 2010, the state government revised its purchase rate. Local governments asked the LSGD whether they could still buy tar based on the 2007 directive, to which the LSGD responded positively. It then went on to give detailed directives, including one that restricted local governments to purchasing tar from the nearest refinery or Small Industries Development Corporations (SIDCO), the state government agency. It also fixed several conditions on SIDCO including the level of discount on imported tar.30 Another instance of state government overreach is the law that prohibits building construction on paddy lands and wetlands and administered by the Revenue Department.31 Under the law, local governments have set up committees to liaise between citizens and the Revenue Department, presided by city government chairpersons. But the LSGD went on to ‘instruct’ city government chairpersons on how to conduct committee meetings and arrive at decisions.32 According to the mayor of Trivandrum, this goes against both the letter and spirit of the Wetland Act. More recently, the LSGD issued a voluminous (109 pages) document on how local governments should prepare projects (dated 2 February 2018). It ‘guides’ local governments by giving benign and banal advice on a range of matters (economic development, need for infrastructure, human resource development, and so on). And mixed in are overly specific and unjustifiable strictures: drains on both sides of roads over 12 metres width and a drain only on one side for narrower roads, footpaths to be built after counting the number of pedestrians, signboards to be provided, and so on. The document reads like a primer for schoolchildren. Other meaninglessly specific strictures in the document: each city government should have a planning committee consisting of 15 or 17 members, and 15 or 16 working groups (in municipalities and municipal corporations, respectively). Every year, the LSGD issues a document similar to this 2018 document.

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Chapter 3 had detailed the long, sequential and inefficient procedures in Kerala city governments for approving/rejecting proposals and, once approved, the equally inefficient procedures for implementation. These procedures are imposed by the state government. The voluminous February 2018 document from the LSGD prescribes the following: city government working groups are to be guided by standing committees; working groups are to frame status reports and then call ward sabha meetings; ward sabha recommendations are to be codified by working groups and proposed to the council; after approval by the council, the proposal is to be placed before a development seminar. Incredibly, the LSGD document goes on to state that the proposal before the seminar should be printed, should have 10 chapters, and also specifies at length the template of each chapter. But the prescribed process is hardly over. After the seminar, the proposal is to go back to the council which will then ask the relevant working group to prepare a detailed project; this is to go to the relevant standing committee and the finance standing committee and then back to the council; the council is to then send the project to the district planning committee (DPC), an external body with veto powers. After DPC approval, the project is to go to the relevant state government department’s ‘senior official’ for technical vetting [details of what constitutes seniority are mentioned in the document]. If the senior official decides so, she can send it to a state-level expert agency for further vetting. The senior official or agency can reject a proposal, thereby killing the project after going through the entire rigmarole. Although the literature on state–local relations in India is sparse, Pancholi (2014, 120) points to similar dynamics in the context of Kalyan-Dombivli municipal corporation (KDMC) in Maharashtra: … although there are legal provisions and innovative platforms that strengthen KDMC’s character as a local self-government, there are however para-statal bodies of the state that affect KDMC’s functioning.33 These technical bodies extend the control of the state government in the process of local and regional development. Presence of these agencies raises serious concerns regarding empowerment of the KDMC.… [There is] a continuous effort of the higher level governments in re-centralisation of decision making from local government towards higher level bodies.

Ad Hoc Micromanagement In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, not only does the state government micromanage city government affairs, but its directives are often ad hoc as well. In the case of implementing public works, the LSGD first issued a detailed, granular set of

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instructions to the city government.34 Through another circular, it mandated the number of days in public notices inviting bids from private parties and also specified that for purposes of public notice, ‘local newspaper’ would mean the newspaper with the largest circulation in the district and that this information should be obtained from the state government Public Relations Department. And yet, with this level of separate detailing for implementing public works, when it came to the purchase of goods, the LSGD simply asked local governments to follow bid notice requirements in the state government’s Store Purchase Manual. Another example of ad hocism in directives is shown in the following comment from the chairperson of the standing committee for works in Trivandrum:35 First it [the LSGD] tells us not to purchase tar [for road work]. Later, it tells us that we can purchase tar up to Rs 10 lakhs. By March [end of the financial year] we are told we can buy as much as we want. (Tar vaangaruthu ennu parayum. Kore kazhinju patthu lakshum vare vaangikkolaan parayum. March aagumbol ishtum pole vaangikkolaan parayum.)

In the case of a housing scheme of the Kerala state government implemented by city governments, the state government issued a series of implementation guidelines. Accordingly, at the beginning of the year, city governments started preparing lists of eligible applicants. But halfway through, the state government abruptly changed the eligibility conditions. Later, the state government told city governments to set ward-wise limits on the number of beneficiaries. Still later, it told them about procedures and committees for selecting beneficiaries. After city governments started disbursing funds, the state government changed disbursement instalments, creating major financial flow problems for beneficiaries. These piecemeal changes were neither formulated together nor shared in advance – rather, they appear to have been conceived in ad hoc and incremental fashion and spread over the whole year of implementation without prior planning.36 There are no project implementation calendars. The state government issues new annual guidelines, and that too towards the end of the year rather than at its beginning or prior to it. In the vignette in Chapter 1, Trivandrum’s deputy mayor observes that changes in guidelines for housing for the poor are so frequent and conflicting as to merit inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records. Ad hoc instructions occur in Tamil Nadu as well. When the state government issued a circular instructing city governments not to put up high-mast tower lights for street lighting, the chairperson of Nagercoil lobbied the state government (through the commissioner for municipalities) for exemption since the city government had made a proposal for five such lights before the state government issued its instruction. It took three years to process this, but Nagercoil was finally

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successful. Following this, the state government then issued a fresh circular permitting such lights for all city governments if funds were locally available.

Constraining Financial Regulations The Kerala state government exercises considerable control over city government revenues and expenditures. Fieldwork reveals that city governments are keen to change the tax rates to increase revenues. In Attingal, where finance is a critical problem,37 building tax and trader fees are major sources of revenue. Rates for these were last changed in 1995 and 1999, respectively.38 The city government wanted to increase rates on both and had confidence that this was justified and would be accepted by constituents. This revenue increase would have eased its anxiety over finances as it struggled to pay even staff salaries. But these rates are decided by the state government, which refused to revise them. All commercial establishments need to register with the city government and obtain a license. The one-time license fee and the annual fees are regulated by the Kerala state government through a notification on the schedule of fees. In 1999, the state government revoked the schedule but did not replace it. City governments jointly approached the state government but the latter would not agree to revise the schedule.39 The Kerala state government prohibits city governments from having more than one bank account. This obviously creates inconveniences. In Attingal, the municipality rents out its hall for private events and keeps rental revenue in its solitary bank account. It wanted a separate account for managing the security deposits of users. When the security deposits are due to be returned, its bank account may not have sufficient balance. This discourages potential users from renting the hall although it provides a good facility at competitive rates.40 The Kerala state government also overregulates city government expenditures. In Thrikkakara municipality, the Primary Health Centre has difficulty in washing bed linen as the state government had set a limit on wages that turned out to be uncompetitive with the local market rate.41 According to the municipal chairperson, the city government manages to muddle through, although unsatisfactorily, by raising public funds through the hospital development committee.42 The education committee chairperson added that she has funds but no authority for expenditure to sweep the floors in the municipality’s three schools.43 The Kerala state government prescribes the maximum expenditure for a unit length of road (‘unit cost ceiling’) while ignoring what it would cost to bring a particular road to an acceptable condition. This discourages the adoption of newer technologies.44 A senior councillor in Trivandrum observes that although the state

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government prohibits the city government from entering into contracts above the unit cost ceiling, the state government’s own department (PWD) could do so for its projects in the same city!45 In the field, all Kerala city governments reported a lack of freedom to prioritise investments. For instance, Palakkad has provided welfare benefits to 1,200 Scheduled Caste (SC) families through an existing programme. But these benefits needed to be complemented through support for activities not included in the programme. The municipality had no authority to include more programme components relevant for the needs of the local population – and it ended up underspending on its allotted share of money for this activity.46 The upshot was that although municipality Plan grants had increased, the municipality was unable to use them effectively.

Case: Extending Water Supply to a New Area Table 5.4 presents the narrative of a water supply project in Trivandrum.47 The city government identified an unserved ward and decided to arrange for water supply. This was an exceptional action by the city government since water supply was effectively controlled by the state government. The state government agency (the Kerala Water Authority or KWA) was to design the project. The KWA and the state government ended up blocking the actions of the city government at several stages. The project was finally implemented after enormous delays and cost escalation. The narrative shows the city government’s insufficient capacity on multiple matters: needs assessment (# 1), project design (# 2), procurement (# 4), technical oversight (# 5) and assessing an alternative proposal (# 6). However, here we focus on autonomy and lack of clarity regarding the authority to undertake the project. Several matters stand out in this regard. First, the city government had acquiesced in the state government’s control over city water supply, so much so that it was even unaware that it had full administrative authority to plan and implement water supply in an unserved area where the state government was not previously providing water (# 2). Even when an alternative proposal came to it, the city government need not have referred the matter to the state government (# 6). Despite the new decentralisation laws, old, embedded notions of power continued: the city government operated as if it only had delegated authority that required going back to the controlling state government for repeat authorisations. This is understandable as the city government had previously experienced state government highhandedness, creating a field of habituated governance practices that Chapter 8 explores in detail.

155 State–Local Relations Table 5.4 Case study of a water supply project in Trivandrum #

Date

Type of decision

Comment regarding capacity and autonomy

1.

17/9

Council decides to have a new water supply scheme and acquires land for ita

Council decided without relevant expertise

2.

19/11

TMC–KWA meeting takes the following decisions: 1) KWA to design project (~ Rs 4 crores) 2) TMC to advance Rs 0.5 crore to KWA 3) TMC to obtain GoK administrative approval

There was no need for approval from GoK but TMC was unaware of this; old authority relations continue by default

3.

3/12

After meeting GoK minister, TMC issues administrative sanctionb for implementing the project

4.

24/12

TMC requests GoK to ask KWA to prioritise project KWA asks TMC to procure pipes; TMC says it lacks the skills and requests KWA for procurement guidelines

5.

1/1

KWA asks TMC to make technical TMC does not have technical sanctionc document understanding (explicit knowledge) and expertise/ intuition (embedded knowledge), so it wants to hand over the entire project to KWA on a ‘turnkey’ basis but KWA treats TMC as a knowledgeable partner (severe mismatch in role perceptions)

TMC cannot wean off its dependency on KWA because it has no expertise in goods procurement, issuing work contracts, creating output specifications and documentation

(Contd.)

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one year later … 6.

25/1 9/2 5/5 1/7

TMC gets a proposal from NPCCd to implement the scheme; TMC asks GoK to concur on the proposal and also asks KWA to get GoK approval to accept the proposal; KWA advises TMC to negotiate bid with NPCC

Only KWA has the technical capacity to appraise the proposal and negotiate with NPCC – TMC expects KWA to perform this role but KWA does not see itself in this advisory and negotiation role

7.

21/7 23/8 19/9

KWA asks TMC to issue administrative sanction; TMC asks GoK for administrative sanction; GoK informs that TMC has authority for administrative sanction

Old perceptions of policy responsibilities drive TMC to approach GoK at multiple stages; GoK reinforces these perceptions by continuously sending directives to city governments on many matters

8.

16/12

KWA offers TMC two options: (1) accept NPCC proposal or (2) opt for competitive bidding

KWA’s advice is unhelpful as it offers indeterminate options that TMC (with its low capacity) cannot choose between; KWA does not do an in-depth comparison of NPCC offer relative to what KWA itself could have executed

9.

10/1 12/1

GoK advises KWA to (1) hold its decision to recommend award to NPCC and (2) asks TMC to assure that NPCC proposal is competitive; TMC advises KWA to accept the proposal

This suggests: (1) unclear delegation of authority from GoK to KWA and (2) unclear relationship between TMC and KWA

10.

25/1

Via LSGD, GoK prohibits TMC from acting on KWA’s recommendation of accepting NPCC proposal; KWA reviews its decision to recommend proposal and advises TMC to go for competitive bidding instead

GoK treats TMC as its agent despite formal decentralisation; KWA’s knowledge of procurement itself appears tentative

(Contd.)

157 State–Local Relations 11.

12/2

TMC canvasses GoK support for TMC decision to favour NPCC and to intervene against KWA’s reversal; TMC argues: (1) NPCC will keep timeline while KWA delays work and (2) NPCC’s work quality is superior to that of KWA

This is an example of the elected local government’s decisionmaking ability in a given situation: TMC found KWA work quality and adherence to time schedules poor compared with NPCC and made a recommendation clearly favouring NPCC – but it was unable to stand up for it due to lack of authority

one year later … 12.

22/5

TMC awards work to KWA on ‘turnkey’ basis with declared anticipation that KWA would charge lower rate than NPCC

13.

9/7

KWA tells TMC to go for competitive bidding.

14.

5/11

KWA informs TMC that cost is Rs 4.13 crores

Although KWA is perceived as a technically competent and experienced organisation, it gives contradictory advice (initially recommending NPCC and later suggesting competitive bidding), calling its competence into question

two years later … 15.

7/2

KWA reports to TMC that execution is nearly complete; asks for payment of Rs 1.41 crores

one year later … 16.

7/1

KWA asks for payment of Rs 1.63 crores

17.

20/11

TMC asks for update and expense details (Contd.)

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one year later … 18.

15/9

The project is completed and the KWA seeks Rs 0.76 crore payment for ‘allied’ works

Source: Information compiled from field observations, interviews and documents. Note: TMC = Trivandrum Municipal Corporation, GoK = Government of Kerala, KWA = Kerala Water Authority, NPCC = National Projects Construction Corporation. a  For Thrikkannapuram ward. b  ‘Administrative sanction’ refers to official ‘approval’ of a decision by an authority who is competent to decide on the matter; this is needed in order to proceed with implementation. c  See the Glossary for an explanation of the term. d  National Project Construction Corporation (NPCC), a public sector company of the national government.

As related in the vignette from Chapter 1: Mayor: The corporation is ready [to take responsibility for water supply] but the KWA doesn’t hand it [authority] over to us. Deputy Mayor: Water supply has not been transferred to us. Power has been delegated, but not handed over by them. If we supply water using water tankers, the [state] government will be against it.

Second, the state government simply reinforced old authority relations. Throughout steps # 2–9 (except # 7), it did not proactively clarify what matters needed its approval. (In fact, none of the matters shown in the table needed state government approval.) The exception was # 7, when the state government told the city government that it had the authority to issue the administrative orders itself. In # 10, the state government explicitly prohibited the city government from accepting the alternative proposal, treating it merely as its agent rather than as an autonomous government. And the city government responded by turning supplicant: requesting a reversal of the prohibition as it still wanted to consider the alternative proposal (# 11). In the event, the mess was resolved by state government diktat favouring implementation by the KWA over the alternative proposal. Third, the state government agency (KWA) played an ambiguous role. Formally, the KWA appeared to cede authority to the city government – in the matter of procurement (# 4), technical sanction (# 5), NPCC negotiation (# 6) and administrative sanction (# 7). And yet this was a hollow gesture as the city government did not have the capacity for this, as the KWA well knew. In # 6, when the city government expected the KWA to give technical and other advice

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for appraising the NPCC proposal and also negotiate with the NPCC, the KWA shrugged it off as it did not see itself in a facilitative, advisory or negotiation role. It appears as washing hands off a responsibility rather than ceding authority. This is reinforced in # 8 when the KWA offers diffident and meaningless advice regarding options. And when push came to shove, the KWA turned over and went with the state government’s wishes.

‘Approval’ from the State Government Functionally, decentralisation should involve the transfer of powers to plan and implement programmes under local leadership. Nevertheless, in reality, many methods of oversight are used by state governments. During fieldwork, city government officials across Kerala noted that most matters needed to go to the state government for ‘approval’ before anything could be done locally. Approval micromanagement reaches ridiculous levels – a decision to give a mobile phone to the city government standing committee chairpersons needs state government approval!

Cost Approvals In Kerala, city governments need to seek approval for contracts and procurement if the amount exceeds pre-specified limits set by the state government. These limits are based on cost estimates made by the state government. For instance, although street lighting is a formally devolved function, contracts for lighting installations need state government approval for bids over a certain size determined by the state government, ignoring specificities of each city’s context and insensitive to changing market costs. In Tamil Nadu, the state government controls formally devolved functions through a process called ‘administrative sanctions’. Any spending beyond Rs 1 crore requires state government approval for municipal corporations and beyond Rs 10 lakhs for municipalities.48 The problem is particularly severe for building construction since it involves longer implementation periods and greater material cost fluctuations, making it far less amenable to pre-fixed unit costs. Ironically, the state government’s own programmes are not similarly subject to such rigid limits. When the Trivandrum city government decided to build a market complex in Manacaud ward, the lowest bid was 15 per cent more than the estimated cost and it approached the state government for (tender excess) approval. The city government judged the bid to be reasonable especially after accounting for the cost increase in the market not reflected in the original estimate. The request was turned down. Four years later, the city government could not even imagine taking up the project as market costs had greatly increased.

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The approval process also produces enormous delays that often kill projects that are prepared with considerable time, effort and money. Ottapalam made proposals for a bus stand and a market project, and given the cost involved, these went to the state government for approval.49 The state government took two years to approve the market project, after which the city government started work (postponing the bus stand for later). Meanwhile, costs went up, bidders withdrew and both projects became un-implementable.

Technical Approvals State governments also require that city governments get technical approvals for higher-cost projects. State governments in both Kerala and Tamil Nadu have created entire engineering departments for scrutinising technical approval requests from city governments. The staff in these departments are not only not accountable to city governments but they also hold veto power. And yet the state government’s technical expertise is often found wanting in practice and the approval procedure produces enormous delays that discourage many project ideas. In Nagercoil, projects costing more than Rs 20 lakhs require technical approval from an engineer of the regional office of the state government. At the time of our fieldwork, the post was occupied by a civil engineer who nevertheless provided technical approval for all engineering projects, across different engineering disciplines – suggesting that the technical approval process, supposedly based on higher technical capacity, is merely a figleaf for control.50 Another example from Nagercoil shows the inefficiency of the technical approvals process. A proposal for a check dam (for water supply) went to the state government department overseeing dams, which sent the proposal on to the state parastatal (Water and Sewerage Board). After two years, the Board ruled that the project was infeasible although the engineer in the commissionerate of municipal administration (Tamil Nadu’s equivalent of Kerala’s LSGD) had already judged it to be feasible. Delay in technical approval also impacts costs and triggers further rounds of approval. In Nagercoil, the tendering process for a proposal to build a vegetable market took about a year, by which time cost revisions made the estimate cross the (Rs 3 crores) threshold requiring approval from the state government. Despite the fact that the government minister had agreed with the original proposal, it remained stuck in the labyrinths of state government approval procedures.

Veto Powers The decision-making procedures in Kerala city governments (mandated by the state government) allow multiple veto-wielding players with allegiance to the

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state government, as discussed in Chapter 3. They need the approval of the district planning committee (DPC) for any project or work. The DPC consists largely of individuals outside the city government and nominated by the state government. A municipal official in Palakkad feels that it is ‘undemocratic and centralising’ that local needs identified by a city government are judged by those serving the state government.51 In Palakkad’s experience, DPC ‘experts’ are hardly experts.52 There are no institutional provisions for a city government to even defend its decisions to the DPC or negotiate a compromise. The DPC sits in judgement even over the legitimacy of locally generated project needs. It does so in a very narrow technical manner, and that too without any independent facility for generating fresh evidence. It exercises veto power rather than serve as a body to guide and enhance project quality. The Kerala state government attempted to fill expertise gaps in city governments by forming committees of voluntary technical advisers (technical advisory groups, TAGs), each with a retired government official as chairperson and a serving official as convener.53 TAGs lacked function-related experience or the capacity to develop alternative proposals. TAGs failed to give worthwhile insights or innovative suggestions and typically raised inconsequential objections to council proposals. TAG members had little local knowledge and were disinclined to spend their energies responsibly. And yet TAGs took unilateral and uncompromising decisions with little accountability to elected leaders.

State–Local Cooperative Federalism The state government sits at the apex of a federal system with city governments at the base. This raises issues of equity in managing relations with different city governments. It also raises the issue of how the state government can collaborate and synergise with city governments. As formulated originally by Elazar (1964, 279), ‘cooperative’ or ‘collaborative’ federalism is ‘the sharing of responsibilities for given functions by different levels of governments’, making it distinct from ‘dual’ federalism with ‘division of functions between governments as well as a division of governmental structures’. This section applies the spirit of cooperative federalism to the field of state–local relations.

Inequity in State–Local Relations across City Governments Top-down diktats from the state government can create unjust implications across city governments. The Kerala state government mandates that each city government’s contributions to the municipal pension fund should be based on retirees’ place of residence. Palakkad has a disproportionately high proportion of retirees who worked in other city governments, so it has to make a large payment

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(Rs 6 crores) to individuals who did not work for it.54 Attingal is in a similar situation and its chairperson notes:55 Our municipality pays out the most pensions. We make 97 pension payments because many people retire and come here. [Neighbouring] Varkala pays out very little pension.

For water supply, which is still managed by the KWA although the function is formally devolved, the KWA takes a share of project costs from city governments and runs the projects. Many city governments did not pay their shares regularly and the deficit became substantial. In response, the state government unilaterally sliced down the routine general purpose grants it gives to city governments and transferred these savings to the KWA. This produced equity problems. Kalamassery owes no money to the KWA on this account and yet the state government cut a share of its general purpose grant.56 Kalamassery pays a water cess to the KWA for its 55 public water taps, so there was no need to slash its general purpose grant – and yet blunt, uniform policy was applied because another city government failed to pay its dues to the KWA.57 In Varkala, a water cess was to cover the KWA’s cost of operating municipal public taps. As the city government had provided land to the KWA for constructing a water tank, they had mutually agreed that the cess would be offset against the cost of the land. But the KWA did not convey this to the state government and instead advised it to apply the grant-cutting policy to Varkala. The state government cut the grant without consulting the municipality, upsetting municipal budgeting and operations.58 Like some other municipalities, Ottapalam embarked on a ‘slum rehabilitation’ project, funded by the national government through the state government. After successfully completing the first phase, it could not receive the funding for the second phase because the state government did not seek the funds from the national government (on the reasoning that some of the other municipalities were not ready for the second phase). Ottapalam suffered because of the state government’s indiscriminate intermediary role in the flow of national government funds to city governments.59

State–Local Collaboration The federal structure of state and local governments offers potential efficiencies that are not available if local governments were on their own. State governments have specialist organisations for planning and technical support that can complement local capacities. Decades ago, when Ahmedabad had to implement a water supply project, it received direct assistance from the state Water and

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Sewerage Board for design, procurement and contract management – knowledge and skills that were transferred to the city government during this extended collaboration. Surat worked with Ahmedabad’s leading management school to develop and implement a bus transit scheme. In Gujarat, bigger cities (Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajkot) and smaller ones (Kalol, Navsari) have collaborated with the state town planning department and the state-controlled city development authorities for master plans, town planning schemes and service provisioning plans. These agencies together enriched each other’s skills in these areas and have even sometimes set up common offices to facilitate joint working. At the other extreme are the Kerala city governments. The previous section showed how Trivandrum handed a major sewerage scheme to the KWA which could not manage the tender process. Unlike the dynamic of cooperation and learning in Gujarat, collaboration failed in Kerala despite city governments approaching state organisations – and even for relatively simple tasks such as street lighting. In its everyday work, a city government has to process a steady stream of information that can construct and reconstruct its knowledge. Over time, it is expected that such potential ‘tacit knowledge’ will get embedded in city government processes (King 2009). Consider the activity of procurement. The state government’s Store Purchase Manual provides a primary guide for procurement, but while applying it to a particular situation, an organisation gains experience and new knowledge that should get added to its stock of knowledge to make subsequent operations more effective. But this did not happen in Kerala. Although initial capacity was weak (discussed in Part II), organisations could nevertheless have learned with experience and constructed tacit knowledge. But this did not happen because the steady one-way flow of administrative directions from the state government to city governments stymied organisational learning. State government control could not create conducive local procedures and stable staff committed to improving local government functioning over time. Similarly, in Tamil Nadu, city governments receive elaborate granular guidelines that close off organisational learning. By contrast, Gujarat city governments decide on their own methods of working the knowledge inputs. Consequently, stronger knowledge bases have developed there. If local organisational learning is weak, this can be used as an argument by state governments to recentralise. This matches Kerala’s experience. Since the state government designs and implements city projects, all learning from these projects accrues to it rather than to the city government.60 It further compromises organisational learning and creates a self-fulfilling cycle of recentralisation and weak local tacit knowledge.

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Previous sections have elaborated how clunky and grinding processes imposed by the state government dominate the public management of Kerala and Tamil Nadu city governments. Many of these impositions are driven not by political processes but rather the whims and practices of state bureaucracy which was given rule-making authority through law.61 What explains differences in rulemaking authority across states? Chapter 8 examines this question at length and traces it to a combination of habituated practices creating path-dependency in statutory language and inadequate political or legislative oversight.

Notes 1. Interview with K. C. Sivaramakrishnan, 25 March 2011, New Delhi. 2. ‘Rules’ are themselves further categorised into rules, regulations and bye-laws. 3. Compared to regulations and bye-laws, rules concern higher order matters that define the framework of action authorised by the law. They are placed before the legislature and are necessarily subject to legislative review. Regulations and bye-laws specify the conduct of internal business. They are not necessarily or routinely placed before the legislature. 4. Smaller city governments have more limited organisational elements, fewer specialist positions and smaller managerial cadres, making them more dependent on external organisations for planning and organising basic infrastructure responsibilities common to all categories of city government. 5. Formally, these are the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Act (1949) and the Gujarat Municipalities Act (1963). Here, ‘municipality’ refers to ‘nagar panchayat’ or ‘municipal council’ (Section 14 of the Gujarat Act). 6. Interview with Ghanshyam Shah, 6 March 2010, Ahmedabad. 7. See Section 454 of the Bombay Act. 8. Further, in many cases regulations can be made even by the standing committee of the municipal corporation. 9. Sections 14, 271 and 277 of the Gujarat Municipalities Act (1963). 10. Municipal governments have the authority to control employee matters like ‘guidance’ to employees, mode of appointment of employees, grant of leave, pension, provident fund and determine security amounts to be deposited by employees. 11. Section 275 provides for bye-laws, and about 30 major items are listed (as areas where a municipality can make bye-laws). These include regulation and inspection of markets; prescribing conditions for licensing and regulating slaughter houses; regulating the manufacture, preparation, storage and supply of human food or drink; regulating pilgrim lodging; regulating milk shops, dairies and cattle sheds; registering births, deaths and marriages; protecting water supply; regulating sanitation; regulating building codes; controlling traffic; and protecting public parks and open spaces.

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12. Section 30(2) of KMA 1994; and Preamble and Section 30(i) of KMA 1994. 13. Section 30(3) of KMA 1994. 14. The state government was also given the power to nominate an agency to execute public works (through a contractor or through a local citizens committee); Section 216 of KMA 1994. The state government has the power to modify and abolish a city government order under some circumstances – that is, if the state government considers that it has not been legally passed, or is in excess or abuse of powers, or likely to endanger human life, commercial harmony, public peace, etc. or has violated the guidelines of the government under Section 57 of KMA 1994. However, before doing so, the law requires the state government to put the matter up for the consideration of an ombudsman or tribunal. 15. Under section 223 of KMA 1994, the approval of the state government is required for creating new administrative positions in a municipality – and such approval is difficult to get. 16. Kerala Municipality (Execution of Public Works and Purchase of Materials) Rules, 1997. According to the Rules, tenders should be invited for the execution of any public work (rule 8) exceeding estimate cost of Rs 5,000 (proviso to rule 8); pre-qualification is compulsory for public works costing above Rs 70 lakhs (Rule 8[2]); every tender notice is to be put on the noticeboard of the municipality, the PWD office, and so on. 17. When Kerala’s PWD changed its tender rule, the LSGD directed all local governments to change their tender rules. This was unnecessary as the LSGD has no technical expertise in the matter and there was no need for such an intervention – under genuine decentralisation, city governments would automatically adopt government codes without being ordered to do so by a non-technical organisation. [Specifically, the PWD rule change was about pre-qualification procedures for projects over Rs 70 lakhs – for such projects, the tender period was reduced from 28 days to 14 days. For the LSGD’s government order to local governments to comply, see Government Order G.O. (Rt) 363/11 dated 3 February 2011.] 18. City governments only have the power to make bye-laws and regulations in matters that include technical requirements of maintenance and regulation of services like water supply and street lighting, urban planning control, regulation of public amenities, licensing of builders and surveyors, and sanitary control over markets and shops. Even in these instances, the KMA requires that the state government confirm the bye-laws made by city governments and allows it to cancel any bye-law or regulation of a city government. 19. This was through a change in section 57 of KMA 1994. 20. There are separate legislations for Madurai and Coimbatore cities, although these legislations mirror each other, and the Madurai Act was extended to other cities.

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21. Specifically, matters mentioned in rule 37 of the Taxation and Finance Rules in Schedule IV. 22. If it has not been ‘legally passed’, is ‘in excess of its powers’, is likely to cause danger to safety or human life, or is likely to lead to a riot in terms of section 36. 23. The observations in the paragraph are based on provisions of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation Act (1981). 24. Sections 306, 310 and 312 of the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act. 25. Sections 70(1) and (3) of the Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act. 26. The delegation of the authority to contract is based on the grade of a municipality under section 68. Sanction of a contract is based on rules made by the state government using its authority under section 68 A. 27. For proposals exceeding Rs 25 lakhs, the city government has to take the prior approval of the state government. 28. The local planning authority is under the direct control of the state government where the same party which runs the city government is in power. 29. LSGD circular No. 13184/DA1/09/LSG dated 27 February 2009. 30. LSGD Order G.O. (Rt) 115/2011 dated 12 January 2011. 31. The Kerala Conservation of Paddy Land and Wetland Act, 2008. It prohibits construction over lands which were low-lying paddy areas at particular points in time. 32. LSGD Order No. 4545/RA1/11 dated 22 January 2011. 33. In particular, Pancholi (2014, 119) highlights the role of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which ‘influences KDMC’s work through its regional planning guidelines, and implementation of various programmes’ and the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) for ‘channelising Central and state government funding to the local governments for the integrated development of slums while appraising the projects prepared by the urban local bodies’ and whose mediation has ‘not turned out to be very fruitful from the perspectives of the urban poor’. 34. LSGD circular No. 15744/RD1/LSG dated 8 December 2009. 35. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 36. Interview, chairman of works committee, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 37. Interview with the municipal chairperson and the chairpersons of the finance and development committees, 6 May 2011, Attingal. 38. Similarly, in Trivandrum a homeowner pays the city government the same level of building tax that she was paying about 20 years ago. 39. Interview, 7 May 2011, Trivandrum; and 6 May 2011, Attingal. 40. Interview, 6 May 2011, Attingal. 41. A ceiling of Rs 240 per day was imposed despite the prevailing daily wage of Rs 650 to 700 in the locality.

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42. Interview, 20 September 2012. 43. Interview with municipal chairman and chairpersons of the education and health committees. 44. Interview, councillor, 14 March 2011, Ottapalam. 45. Interview, 28 April 2011, Trivandrum. 46. Interview, 15 March 2011, Palakkad. 47. Here ‘narrative’ is used to simply recount action sequences and some of the underlying reasons and implications rather than the systematic approach of the Narrative Policy Framework (Jones, Shanahan and McBeth 2014; Schlaufer 2018). 48. Interview, joint director of municipal administration, 11 October 2012, Tirunelveli. That office gives approval for spending between Rs 10 and Rs 40 lakhs. For spending above Rs 40 lakhs, approval is required from the state level Chennai-based office of the commissioner for municipal administration. 49. Interview, chairperson, 20 March 2011, Ottapalam. 50. Interview, joint director of municipal administration, 11 October 2012, Tirunelveli. The office proposes to expand to include more specialists, such as for solid waste management ‘for capacity building’. 51. Interviews, 15 March 2011, Palakkad. 52. Interviews, 15 March 2011, Palakkad. 53. Originally, experts were incorporated in working groups of local governments. To improve the arrangement, later a voluntary technical core was established. Still later, expert groups were set up (‘technical advisory committees’). That arrangement has since evolved as TAGs. (Interviews at the Kerala Institute of Local Administration [KILA], 5 January 2011, Thrissur.) 54. Interview, 15 March 2011, Palakkad. 55. Interview, 6 May 2011, Attingal. 56. Interview, 3 May 2011, Kalamassery. This is an instance of indiscriminate application of across-the-board ‘financial guillotines’. 57. In the water supply sector, the only function of the municipality is to provide public street taps. 58. Interview, 8 May 2011, Varkala. 59. Interview with the chairperson, 20 March 2011, Ottapalam. 60. Interview, 12 May 2012, Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, at the office of the joint director of municipal administration. 61. Such impositions are decided by the bureaucracy enjoying delegation from a government minister who is an elected leader who presides over the department. They are political in formal terms, but all the same, authority is exercised by the bureaucracy.

6 Participation in City Governments

There is no gainsaying the importance of community participation in meaningful decentralisation. The notion of involving the public is natural and inherent to the concept of local governance. Chapter 2 argued that along with state–local relations, community participation is critical for ensuring effective and just local action and deepening democracy in governance. Where does ‘participation’ occur in decentralised governance? What shapes it? How is it linked to local government action and outcomes? These are the questions explored in this chapter. The chapter begins by exploring the literature on public participation and contestation in governance. The next section turns to formal spaces of participation envisaged in decentralisation provisions in states and compares these with the lukewarm realities of participation. This is not to deny instances of strong participation; the section uses examples to suggest that these tend to be idiosyncratic rather than systemic. Based on the empirical findings, the final section discusses the conditions for sustained participation, focusing on the role of strong social intermediation as well as credible expectations that public participation can influence local government capacity and action.

Participation and Contestation: The Literature The aspiration regarding ‘people’s participation’ is that ‘broad involvement of a conscientized and mobilized citizenry would lead to a higher and sustainable popular engagement with public policy at a societal level’ (Blair 2020, 68), which is indeed an important animus for decentralisation in the first place.1 Participation has come to be regarded both as an important end in itself and as a means to other desirable outcomes. But structural factors such as economic class and local social hierarchies can overwhelm opportunities for participation. For central India, Sundar (2001) observes that ‘participatory committees’ meant for forestdwelling communities are actually controlled by government staff and that such interventions end up extending government control.2

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Although it is difficult to identify the propitious conditions for genuine participation, nevertheless ‘participation’ is ubiquitous in articulations of governance and stands co-opted from multiple sides, unfortunately hollowing out its meaning. It has been adopted by international development funders and governments collaborating with them as well as by their ideological opponents.3 Similar is the case with ‘inclusion’, a term that is often used after diluting the centrality of power and inequality inherent to concepts of social and distributive justice (Coelho and Maringanti 2012; Bhattacharyya 2016). Arguments for ‘empowerment’ have had a similar fate. In Kerala’s context, Thampi and Kawlra (2019, 209) mention ‘an uncritical affirmation of “gendered knowledge” mainly through specially designed training workshops by state-level institutions’ and the ‘“governmentalisation” of feminist activism’ in attempts at decentralised governance. Some critics link the cooptation of these concepts to the liberal market economy (Harriss 2007), and argue that they can be a façade for ‘disenfranchising marginalised groups, manufacturing consensus for plans already made, and/ or closing off alternative pathways for transformation’ (Coelho, Kamath and Vijaybaskar 2011, 2). In recent years many ‘invited’ participatory spaces (Brock, Cornwall and Gaventa 2001; Y. Aiyar 2010) have been created, including ward committees and sabhas in Indian cities (see later sections of this chapter). Many have ended up being mechanical and formalistic (Smoke 2015a; Thampi and Kawlra 2019). Inspired by such notions as the ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre 1996), critics rightly point out that participation will remain weak if contestation is not allowed. Genuine participation needs to recognise that underlying social relations emerge from structures of power along class, caste, gender and other axes (Mosse 2001; Chhotray 2007). Attempts to strengthen participation need to ‘invent’ spaces of contestation (Miraftab 2004). Harriss (2007, 2717) distinguishes the ‘old politics’ of contestation from the ‘new politics’ of civil society participation driven by class and caste elites, succinctly portrayed in the words of an activist: ‘the poor agitate, the rich operate’. P. Chatterjee (2004) distinguishes ‘civil society’ from the ‘political society’ of illegal squatters, street vendors, slum dwellers and others with tenuous constitutional rights in practice.4 Nair (2000, 1512) argues that urgent city problems are framed by elites who emphasise … the condition of the roads, garbage, mosquitoes, pollution and public toilets, in that order. Roads, rather than public transport; garbage and pollution, rather than public housing; mosquitoes and public toilets rather than public health.… [Such framing glosses over] the deeply segmented social body, complex economies, and distinct democratic cultures of Bangalore.

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While the elite – non-elite distinction of civil and political society is useful analytically, the distinction is blurred in practice (Coelho and Venkat 2009; Mannathukkaren 2010; Coelho, Kamath and Vijaybaskar 2011; Kamath and Vijayabaskar 2014). ‘Civil society’ dabbles in politics and even contestation and ‘political society’ sometimes appropriates the rhetoric and networking of neoliberal governance. Contestation typically derives from inequalities and injustices rooted in the past and squeezed further by new authoritarian and procapital modes of governance. ‘Occupancy urbanism’ (Benjamin 2008) and other means can contest these modes of governance, informalities around land and the fluidities of establishing and revoking tenure (Roy 2009; Bhan 2016). Mobilisation and resistance often manifest as a reaction to dispossession, such as in Navdeep Mathur’s (2012) narrative for Ahmedabad, although mobilisation is difficult to sustain since the collective is fragmented on many lines. It is also challenging to mobilise sustainedly for enhancing access to resources for nonelites. Grindle (2007) suggests that not only is participation generally weak in Mexican city governments but it also focuses exclusively on resource extraction from the state. Auerbach’s (2019) study of Indian slums also suggests that participation is weak and that people’s engagement is mainly through informal patronage networks to claim individual benefits from the government. It is challenging to sustain mobilisation and participation to claim collective benefits, to contest elite-framed governance and to contest for the ‘right to the city’ and infrastructural and other services. Many activists and scholars rightly hold that in the face of deep inequality and elite-driven governance, participation and contestation for social justice must first be about righting structural wrongs, countering structural violence and redistributing material and discursive resources (Harriss 2007). But such participation and contestation, too, trade in the currency of power. The objective continues to be to accumulate power to redistribute economic resources and social status to flatten intolerable inequalities. The case for such contestation is made from different perspectives – and it is important to make it. And yet, as Roy (2009) cautions, contestation and insurgence do not necessarily make for a just city.5 Mechanistic rebalancing of power distribution through rights goes far but it does not aspire towards an emancipatory, compassionate politics of social relations for self and social transformation.

The Law and Participation Realities Before the 74th constitutional amendment (CA), the democratic basis of local government was far from assured. Often unelected state government nominees ran local governments for long periods of time, or those who were elected continued

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in place long after their tenures ended. Undoubtedly, the CA and subsequent legislation systematised the electoral accountability of local governments. In Kerala, in the 37 years between the formation of the state in 1956 and the CA, there were only three local government elections (1963, 1979, 1988). After the CA and the creation of the State Election Commission (SEC, 1993), regular elections were held every five years starting in 1995 (Biju 2011). In all states, independent and autonomous SECs lay out election procedures (including affirmative action for women, rules about party defection, and so on) and five-yearly elections have been held in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and other states as well. Voter turnout is generally high (see Figure 6.1 for Gujarat) and indicates high citizens’ electoral participation in the making of their local governments. And nuances aside, voter turnout in local government elections is roughly similar to the turnout in state and national elections (see Figure 6.2 for Gujarat).6 But democratic deepening goes beyond casting votes once every five years. Location-specific local problems and improvements – whether they concern street lighting in a neighbourhood or filling vacancies in a particular school – need

density 0 .01 .02 .03 .04

Gujarat, 2010

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60 turnout (%) Gujarat, 2015

70

80

40

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60 turnout (%)

70

80

density 0 .01 .02 .03 .04

40

Figure 6.1 Voter turnout in Gujarat municipal elections Source: Data from the State Election Commission website. Note: Dashed line shows the average; solid and dotted lines are for selected municipalities and municipal corporations, respectively. The figure shows distribution across city governments and can be interpreted as a smoothened histogram (see note to Figure 2.5).

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40

50

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70 turnout (%)

city govts (2015) zilla panchayat (2015) Lok Sabha (2014)

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taluk panchayat (2015) state assembly (2012)

Figure 6.2 Voter turnout in Gujarat local, state and national elections Source: Data from the State Election Commission website. Note: Taluk panchayat data were aggregated at the district level; all other data are for actual corresponding units. The latest local elections data are from 2015; the closest Assembly and Lok Sabha election data are for 2012 and 2014, respectively. Graphs shows distribution across city governments and can be interpreted as smoothened histograms (see note to Figure 2.5).

continuous citizen engagement in communities and with local government. Unlike with national or state governments, where citizen engagement is at best restricted to issues that are more abstract and less continuous, a distinguishing feature of local governance is that citizen engagement is on matters of immediate concern and specific to localities. The local government is also far more accessible for participation. Auerbach (2019, 50) notes the relative accessibility of councillors compared to other elected officials (MLAs and MPs) – in a 2012 survey, 51 per cent of slum residents could correctly name their councillor as opposed to 32 per cent for MLA. Besides voting turnout, the literature on participation focuses on the ends of the governance spectrum, namely participation in agenda-setting and participation through feedback for services. Participation in agenda-setting occurs through formal and informal communication regarding the issues and problems that are important for the local government to address. Participation in service feedback occurs through forums for complaints (‘grievance redressal’) and also surveys and other instruments. Between the ends of the spectrum is a missing element: people’s

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participation in processes of decision-making and implementation. The Sen Committee (1997, chaps 2, B (vi)) set up to study Kerala’s decentralisation experience observed: It is necessary to involve the people fully, particularly those sections hitherto excluded from the development process. And participation should not be limited to mere information giving or consultation or contribution or even, seeking prior concurrence. It should reach the level of empowering the people to take their own decisions after they themselves analyse their situation. Genuine participation is not the same as mobilization.

The national framework prominently laid down the importance of local participation. It prescribed ward committees presided by elected councillors, with membership and manner of function to be detailed by the state government.7 Gujarat city governments have constituted ward committees consisting of elected councillors who meet once a month assisted by a bureaucrat nominated by the city government. Citizens do not participate in ward committees. Kerala city governments have provisions for ward sabhas (citizen assemblies) consisting of all citizens of a ward applicable to all city governments irrespective of the population. In addition, there are ward committees in Kerala city governments with populations over one lakh (Sivaramakrishnan 2006). The ward committee/sabha, presided by the corresponding ward councillor, was to consist of elected members from residents’ associations, neighbourhood groups, members nominated by political parties and heads of educational institutions. The councillor and municipal chairperson could together nominate members to represent cultural organisations, voluntary associations, educational institutions and representatives of trade unions as well as industrial and commercial establishments. They could also nominate professional experts from different sectors of the economy. Ward committees/sabhas were required to meet at least once in three months to perform tasks assigned by the municipal council. And heads of municipal departments were required to attend these meetings and submit relevant information and reports to the committee/sabha. Kerala law gives ward committees/sabhas a wide-ranging role in proposing public infrastructure and in social and economic development planning. They could draw up and approve lists of citizens who qualified for direct income transfer benefits.8 Ward sabhas have the authority to assist in policy implementation and to form and work through sub-committees. They can consider and pass resolutions on any matter. Ward committees/sabhas can identify public works and their preference ordering, mobilise voluntary community action, select needed public

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amenities and their locations like street lights and public street taps, promote actions for public hygiene, environmental enhancement and sanitation, and propose improved assets for better delivery of publicly provided services like water supply. These public participation forums are also powered to scrutinise public expenditures and their cost efficiency and service delivery effectiveness. In addition to the state laws emphasising people’s participation, Kerala also has a robust history of ‘public action’ (V. K. Ramachandran 1997; Tharakan 1997; Sen 2001) manifested as mass mobilisation through communities, political society and interest groups based on class, caste and religion. Such community engagement widened the ambit of the state, enhanced accountability and produced attractive development outcomes in education, health, land reforms and social security. Based on fieldwork in the 1970s in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Mencher (1980, 1781–82) observed: … while both state governments had built primary health centres in rural areas, there was a huge difference between the states in manning and maintaining them. In Tamil Nadu, more than half the times I visited a primary health centre [PHC] one doctor was on leave, another was attending a conference, or one doctor had just been transferred and other was off on some training programme, or had gone to see his or her sick mother, etc. This was not the case in Kerala… The main reason I could see for the differences between the two states was political awareness: in Kerala, if a PHC was unmanned for a few days, there would be a massive demonstration at the nearest collectorate [district administration office] led by local leftists, who would demand to be given what they knew they were entitled to. This has had the effect of making healthcare much more readily available for the poor in Kerala. To that extent, government policy has certainly helped.

The strong participation laws and history of public action in Kerala are important preconditions for successful people’s participation in local governance. And yet, as we describe below, this was stymied by weak autonomy and weak local government capacity. Unfortunately, the detailed formal structures of participation have largely remained on the statute books. Local governments made efforts to constitute these forums, convene meetings and place public matters before ward committees/ sabhas. Interviews reveal that early on when a new council was formed after elections, there was overwhelming attendance at meetings. But this was followed by steeply declining participation over time with ward committees/sabhas turning virtually dormant for the remainder of the council’s tenure. Artificially constructed records occupy the archives of the local administrations.9 The reasons are given by Trivandrum’s deputy mayor:10

175 Participation in City Governments We are unable to act on the matters discussed in the ward sabha. So attendance drops. Of 5000 people in a ward, initially [as many as] 4000 would attend. After a while, only 100 attend. We buy them tea. In the working group, elected representatives and technical staff together work on plans, but those on the [external TAG] committee reject these. As long as this continues, nothing will happen. (Ithu thodarannatholam kaalam onnum nadakkukayilla.) Whatever proposal we bring, a few retired officers [on the TAG] sit and reject it. (Enthu project kondu vannalum kure retired udhayogastan maar irunnu thalli kalayunnu.) I am helpless to do anything even for my own ward.

Adds Trivandrum’s mayor:11 The reason why there is no participation is that nothing happens. (Participation illathathu kaaryangal nadakkathathu kondaanu.) We have power for only two matters. One, [issuing] birth & death certificates. Two, solid waste management. People’s initial enthusiasm and expectations can be sustained only if there is action, then Sabhas would become active. But we only do street sweeping and issue certificates.

A former mayor described her experience over a five-year tenure:12 Local participation can improve the quality of public works. Ward sabha approval is required [for public works schemes] and the councillor will ask [ward sabha] members to approve proposals. But attendance is very poor. Only beneficiaries [of publicly provided private goods] attend the ward sabha, not others. Knowledgeable people do not attend. If they do, their proposals are not approved because focus is on individual beneficiaries. Nobody in the ward sabha thinks of the ward or city as a whole. (Ward-ine, nagara-tthine mottham aayi kaanunna aarum ward sabha-yil kaanunnilla.)

Another former mayor says:13 ̔ Sabhas and committees [are] not successful. [There is] no interest in general improvements. People come only for their own matters.’ Fieldwork observations are consistent with Ganga’s (2019, 87–88) conclusion about a low-income housing programme (RAY) in Vizhinjam near Trivandrum: While mandatory meetings saw active participation from community members, they were meant more for spreading awareness than for decision-making, and thus had no capacity to enhance the democratic participation of the poor in decisionmaking. The apprehensions and suggestions shared by the community to improve the programme were not given active consideration.… The projects were planned by technical experts; decisions were made elsewhere and were presented at meetings only

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to take the written consent of the beneficiaries. According to the ward councillor, who was also a member of the fishing community, the poor were ‘uncivilised’ and did not know the ‘etiquettes of formal meetings’, which made it difficult to gather consensus to make decisions in participatory meetings.

In 2018, a meeting was organised to discuss the master plan of the Thiruvananthapuram corporation, and the invitees included Kudumbashree workers, the ward councillor, political leaders and representatives of hotel associations, among others. Like the other participatory meetings, it was conducted in a local government primary school, with presentations by bureaucrats in the corporation followed by short discussions on the basic requirements of Vizhinjam Harbour Ward. Even besides their lack of participation in budget allocation or the preparation of CDPs, there was no platform for the marginalised fisher community to articulate their opinions regarding issues like slum rehabilitation which directly affected their lives.

According to a professional journalist and close observer of Kochi’s city government, participatory ward bodies rarely discuss the problems of the city and the role of the city government in addressing them.14 In Thrissur, a former municipal vice-chairman found that only BPL [below poverty line] families attend ward sabhas, as they are potential beneficiaries.15 He attributed 90 per cent of attendance to beneficiary selection and only 10 per cent to road, sewerage and similar other problems of residential areas. Thrissur’s chairperson of the works committee, who handles a major part of all civil works, has a stark opinion:16 For preparing projects, we have to call a meeting of the division [sabha]. People don’t come, [and if they attend] what they say will not be acted on. (Aalu varathhilla, avaru parayunnathu nadappil aakathilla.) The ward sabha does not think of the common interest, there is no wider perspective. (Sabha-kkyu poduvaaya chintha illa, wider perspective illa.) The division is supposed to take decisions, meeting once in a quarter – but often it does not convene, and if it does then people don’t attend (athu palathum cheraarilla, chernaal aalu varilla). The reason is the same, that is, the talk does not lead to action. (Kaaranam ithu thanne aanu, athaayathu, paranjaal nadappaakukayilla.)

What comes out clearly is that people’s engagement with local government through official participation forums depends on (the effectiveness of) implementation of ward committee/sabha decisions. Initial enthusiasm for, and expectations from, participation can be sustained only with effective action.17 When there is little follow-up of ward committee/sabha discussions and decisions, faith in participation falls.18 It is the lack of real autonomy that

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creates most of the implementation bottlenecks. Veto-holding working groups and district planning committees (DPCs) dominated by unelected members without local knowledge give little regard to local decisions of ward sabhas, or for that matter of the municipality or corporation councils either. In Kerala, the state government imposes top-down budget allocations for each domain (health, infrastructure, and so on) uniformly for each city government. These allocations may not mesh well with local needs identified through participatory mechanisms. Even local proposals conforming to the allocated domain budget are often blocked by other administrative restrictions from the state government such as narrow procurement requirements and other matters discussed in Chapters 3 and 5. These factors – top-down budget allocation and top-down administrative restrictions that are often mutually reinforcing – take matters outside the wishes of participatory bodies. Hence, the interest in participation wanes. A comprehensive report on Kerala decentralisation by the Oommen Committee authored by scholars such as M. A. Oommen and Michael Tharakan as well as Trivandrum’s mayor and others reported that delivery through local governments was very limited (Government of Kerala 2009). According to the lead author, M. A. Oommen, people have little involvement in the functioning of the state’s urban governments.19 Similar considerations apply in West Bengal as well, the other state that is considered to have relatively strong local participation (Sivaramakrishnan 2006). For two municipalities in West Bengal, Das and Chattopadhyay (2020) report that only half the surveyed wards had constituted ward committees, over half the respondents did not know about ward committees and almost none knew about their rules or functions. Particularly for rural West Bengal, many studies attest to challenges for genuine participation.20 On the one hand, there was bureaucratic and party control (Bhattacharya 2013; Bhattacharyya 2016). On the other hand, caste and gender hierarchies also marginalised the participation of large sections of the population (Ghatak and Ghatak 2002), which went unaddressed because the ruling regime insisted on an exclusively class lens (Bhattacharyya 2016). Why has Kerala’s generally active citizenry not participated enthusiastically in local government, especially as the legal framework was conducive to it? If the absence of autonomy is the reason, as local government leaders believe, why did Kerala’s political civil society not mobilise to pressurise the state government to implement laws on local government participation? Such a route would have reclaimed for it the participatory space that was lost through insufficient autonomy in state–local relations. Addressing the puzzle substantially is beyond the scope of this book. It could be that the strength of community mobilisation declined from

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the heydays of the 1960s and ’70s so that it cannot overcome the participation disincentive from lack of local autonomy, as discussed in Chapter 2. In spite of the constitutional provision for participation in local governance, implementation of the decentralisation laws in many states including Gujarat is weak. Gujarat has incorporated the requirement of constituting and convening ward committees in the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations (Gujarat Second Amendment) Act, 1993. But it did not do so in the Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963 as the constitutional mandate was only for cities of over three lakhs population – unlike Kerala which made the provision for ward committees in city governments of over one lakh population and additionally, ward sabhas for all city governments.21 Citizens do not participate in Gujarat’s ward committees while all citizens can participate in Kerala’s ward sabhas. Neither does Gujarat have a Kerala-style politically active civil society. While these conditions are hardly propitious for people’s participation in local governance, Gujarat city governments nevertheless display some limited elements of participation because local governments delivered services effectively and thereby drew citizens into local governance. In Gujarat municipal corporations (Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and others) although citizen participation is limited to implementation of town planning schemes (TPSs), it is suggestive of the scope for and impact of citizen engagement in urban development and creation of service delivery infrastructure (see the last section of Chapter 3). There are other instances of participation in Gujarat.22 In Surat, driven by memories of the plague that devastated the city and the public cooperation that it galvanised, later disasters also created community engagement – such as in the 2006 floods.23 But such isolated instances should not be mistaken for systemic or sustained participation. People’s participation was missing in ‘slum upgradation’ efforts, which ran as technical projects – planned, executed and supervised along purely engineering lines. Fieldwork in some newly constructed low-income housing sites under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) programme brought out shortcomings consistent with those discussed by Kamath and Zachariah (2015). It illuminates Shah’s (1997a, 613) prediction after the plague that the very civil society organisations that helped mount the recovery failed to respond to calls for other community efforts, specifically slum rehabilitation support, suggesting that ‘[p]articipation of the citizens in civic affairs is absent’. Just as the Kerala case produces the puzzle of public action history not translating into public participation in local governance, the Gujarat case also produces a puzzle: if local autonomy and subsequent capability to deliver indeed produced some public participation, why was it still quite low overall? This can be more straightforwardly answered compared to the Kerala puzzle insofar as alert

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citizenry and community organisations (relatively low in Gujarat compared to Kerala) are necessary conditions for sustained participation.

Individual Instances of Participation Despite the bleak participation in Kerala described in the first section, there are relative exceptions such as Ottapalam and Attingal. Both are small-sized municipalities with very little urban service provision outside the small town centre. But they have good leadership that communicates with citizens. This enables them, despite all the constraints posed by lack of autonomy, to forge more active community relationships. Proud of participation going up to 500 people in its ward sabha meetings, Ottapalam leaders explain attendance as a function of effective local government response: There is little participation in other municipalities, [but] we have full participation. Up to 500 persons attend a ward sabha. It is a little less in the town wards, but otherwise generally there is very good attendance. In other municipalities, they cook up 10 per cent attendance [the quorum prescribed by state government]. We are doing well because we are responsive. Demands are heeded – for example, for street lights and road maintenance. Priorities indicated by the ward sabha are honoured by our municipality. People attend from 10 am to 1 pm, we give only tea and snacks, [but] there is good attendance. People’s involvement is successful.24 Here we do things not through authority and power [but rather through people’s participation], there is a tradition of participation. People cooperate. (Ivide adhikaaram vechhalla cheyyunnathu, adinte tradition ondu, participation ondu. Aalukal sahakarikkunnu.) People are unfailingly updated by the municipality [regarding new issues and developments]. In other places they do not do so – they do not have that transparency. That is an important matter.25

Another example comes from Tamil Nadu where there was participation with proactive involvement of the city government. Alandur municipality (subsequently absorbed into the Chennai Municipal Corporation) was led by chairman R. S. Bharathi of the DMK party. The municipality went for a public– private partnership sewerage project in 1996 with the support of the DMK state government.26 At the time, the municipality served a population of about 1.5 lakhs in an area of about 20 square kilometres. Under Bharathi’s leadership, the municipality created effective governance and participation mechanisms despite weak laws (Gopakumar 2009; Coelho, Kamath and Vijaybaskar 2011). The story starts with the initial resistance of the public to a new system. In an earlier tenure, Bharathi had successfully organised a water supply scheme. Bolstered by this,

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he led a campaign among residents regarding the need for a sewerage system. The municipal area was a lowland experiencing multiple flash floods in the northeast monsoons when domestic sanitary toilets would submerge and spread sewage to living spaces and leave dirt and stench behind when the flood abated. Bharathi effectively navigated through the web of approval processes imposed by the state government and got his proposal accepted.27 Knowing that procedures would cause the proposal to lie for months or longer in different public offices fruitlessly, he formed a committee chaired by himself, consisting of representatives of all of these offices, to convene at approval stages. The state government secretary was an ally; her bold and unorthodox position on the proposal helped to overcome the usual bureaucratic barriers to such design. Another critical matter was to persuade residents to contribute to the seed capital of the project. Failing to get contributions initially despite several personal requests, Bharathi took to publicising the names of contributors on his office noticeboard. This brought pressure of prestige on the others without offending them, and ultimately contributions increased sufficiently. The municipal team held meetings in every ward, going from street to street to canvass support for the project. The team communicated to citizens that stormwater drains would help avoid stagnation of dirty water in low-lying areas and therefore also avoid mosquito breeding and groundwater pollution. Coupled with a piped sewerage system to separate soiled water and avoid intermixing of sewage and stormwater, the land and living spaces could be maintained for safer health at all times. Slowly the residents were convinced by this argument and supported it.28 Careful selection and monitoring of the operator by the government produced a good design and implementation plan. However, the erstwhile opposition party formed the state government in 2001, thereby cutting Bharathi’s political connection with the latter. Alandur needed state-government support for physical connections of residents to the sewer network and also for approval of proposed user fees. Bharathi’s team deliberately took a background role while the resident welfare associations (RWAs) led the advocacy efforts. After a few years of these efforts, the physical connections and fees approval were finalised in 2004 and 2005. It is a case of a strongly felt local need which lay dormant and without expression until concretised by credible leadership to overcome the usual hurdles met by any sizeable local public service project (lack of internal professional support, financier distrust of local governments and bureaucratic hurdles placed by the state government). It is also an example of how to get citizens to participate in local governance even when formal systems for participation are weak.

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Sustaining Participation The history of mobilisation considerably affects participatory potential. Participation also depends on the institutional design for involving the public in local government decisions and actions. Kerala’s decentralisation framework does envisage citizens contributing to governance processes – formally, the ward committee/sabha has a role in decisions about infrastructure creation and maintenance as well as project selection and beneficiary list approval. And yet participation is low, unenthusiastic and often marginal and unproductive. This is not because local government leaders and administrators view citizens as clients and subvert serious engagement or because they perform perfunctory ‘outreach’ to satisfy legal and administrative rules. Rather, fieldwork reveals that typically local leaders in Kerala are keen to have public participation. In all the research sites, interviews with elected leaders show their keenness to meet people in these citizen assemblies if only they could manage to get them there. In Attingal and Ottapalam, both small municipalities where participation was better, elected leaders brought up the subject of participation and were proud to highlight the response in public assemblies and their satisfaction as councillors from these sessions. They also saw such interactions as bolstering their public image as politicians in authority. The fieldwork, therefore, suggests a different explanation. Lack of autonomy, besides impoverishing the capacity of local governments, has also indirectly dulled participation. The argument is shown in Figure 6.3. Participation impacts local action in two ways: it can strengthen local government capacity and make local action more effective (A-B), and it can directly embed equity in local action (C). But the fact is that neither path works effectively in any of the states for the simple Effectiveness B Local Government Capacity F Local Autonomy

Equity E A

C People’s Participation D Mobilisation History

Figure 6.3 The participation argument Source: Authors. Note: Arrows represent conceptual relationships, not relationships between actors or temporal processes.

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reason that participation in urban local government itself is weak, whether it be Gujarat, Kerala or other states. And what makes for participation? The figure presents two paths: a history of mobilisation (D) and the effectiveness of local action (E). While E is partly dependent on participation itself, previous chapters have argued that a key factor shaping E is local autonomy and capacity (F–B). In the case of Gujarat, the link D (mobilisation history) is weak, compromising participation. In the case of Kerala and most other states, the link F–B (from autonomy to capacity, to effective local action) is weak, thereby compromising participation. Understandably, there is a concern in many circles over the generally low participation in local governments. The last national commission on administrative reforms proposed incorporating participatory bodies into the urban government (ARC-II 2007, 333).29 The ward committee/sabha would have power over several municipal service functions in its ward, virtually looking after immediate local needs. Such prescriptions – or Kerala laws setting up a sophisticated participation framework – seem to implicitly assume that there simply exists tremendous interest in society for participation in government, so they do not address the crucial matter of how such participation is generated. This approach needs to be revisited with a better understanding of the processes shaping citizen participation. The question of the drivers of participation is relevant even for celebrated cases such as Porto Alegre in Brazil. Avritzer (2009) argues that a public participatory culture emerged in the country’s democratic transition and was institutionalised in the practices of voluntary associations. Civil society organisations hitherto oriented to cultural and social activities took advantage of weak forms of political mediation between the society and the state and migrated to the politico-administrative realm. Such was the backdrop to the organisation of residents’ associations of Porto Alegre that played a key role in successful participatory budgeting. The creation of the new space changed the state’s tendency to use a technocratic and authoritarian approach (Avritzer 2009). This shows that participation needs an environment and ‘constructive work’ that can promote it. Unlike Porto Alegre, Kerala city governments could not effectively weave public consultation into its administrative process. Even if local government trusts participation and seeks it, it cannot follow through if it itself lacks administrative authority. Absent the capacity to respond effectively, participation is enervated – it becomes formal and fictional in content and leaves the relationship between citizen and government to be unequal and clientelist. In sum, we note that sustained participation has two necessary and sufficient conditions: strong mobilisation history and autonomous, capacitated local government. Gujarat lacked the former, Kerala the latter.

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Notes 1. While the aspiration is laudable, too often empirical accounts are uncritically laudatory, such as Blair’s (2020) own account for Kerala as well as other similar accounts (Isaac and Franke 2002; Heller, Harilal and Chaudhuri 2007). 2. All this may explain why the literature on community-based monitoring of local government finds no clear link with service delivery outcomes (Gadenne and Singhal 2014). 3. The following are examples of the three: the World Bank (development funding), the Andhra Pradesh government led by Chandrababu Naidu (collaborating government) and India’s left party regimes (ideological opponent). 4. He describes a bourgeois civil society that is hegemonically legitimised and shaped by corporate capital. 5. For Castells (1983; cited by Roy 2009), such contestation is urban populism but not a radical social movement. 6. One interesting aspect of Figure 6.2 is that the spread of the turnout across city governments is more than for other elections, and particularly for the left tail. 7. Article 243 S of the Constitution of India brought in through the CA, provides for this for municipalities of population over three lakhs. 8. Chapter IV of the Kerala Municipality Act (KMA) 1994. 9. Interviews, 28 December 2010, Trivandrum; 28 April and 7 May 2011, Trivandrum; 2 May 2011, Kochi. 10. Interview, 28 April 2011, Trivandrum. 11. Interview, 28 April 2011, Trivandrum. 12. Interview, 23 December 2010, Trivandrum. 13. Interview, 27 December 2010, Trivandrum. 14. Interview, 2 May 2011, Kochi. 15. By the end of his tenure, the municipality had grown to become a municipal corporation. 16. Interview, 6 January 2011, Thrissur. 17. Interviews, 14 March 2011, Ottapalam, and 7 May 2011, Trivandrum. 18. Interview, 28 April 2011, Trivandrum. 19. Interview, 17 January 2011, Trivandrum. 20. Nevertheless, according to Bardhan and Mookherjee (2015), vigilant local communities ensured that targeted provisions such as subsidised credit and agricultural inputs were distributed by local governments to poor citizens without ‘leakage’. But vigilance flagged when it came to monitoring expenditures on public goods. 21. Sections 42–46 of KMA 1994. 22. Interviews at the Centre for Social Studies, February 18 and 19, 2011, Surat. 23. Interviews, 17–19 February 2011, Surat.

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24. Interview, chairperson of a standing committee, 14 March 2011, Ottapalam. Similar sentiments were expressed in interviews in Attingal, 6 May 2011. 25. Interview with the chairperson, 14 March 2011, Ottapalam. 26. Funds were available through the newly instituted Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund (TNUDF); separately, the state legislature and executive ushered in a favourable environment for PPPs. The private company involved was IVRCL Infrastructures and Projects Ltd. 27. Interview with R. S. Bharathi, 2006, Alandur. 28. Starting in 1999, about 11,000 residents deposited shares of the project cost. By 2007, 22,334 residents remitted deposits at the rate of 6,000, collecting a sum of Rs 14.63 crores. The project cost of Rs 34 crores was met out of this and the rest out of loans from the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Ltd (TNUIFSL) and the Tamil Nadu Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (TUFIDCO), and a grant of Rs 2.90 crores from the government of Tamil Nadu. The project consisted of the construction of an underground sewerage scheme of 120 kilometres length and a sewage treatment plant of 24 million litres per day capacity for a targeted population of 300,000 for the year 2027. 29. An area sabha consisting of all citizens in an electoral polling station chaired by the elected councillor and having representation in the ward committee/sabha.

Part IV Institutions, Policies and Implementation Parts II and III contained primarily empirical chapters opening the black box of local government for detailing capacity and accountability. Part IV builds on this empirical material to theorise the relationships that constitute de facto decentralisation and how politics, institutions and policies together forge capacity and accountability. Chapter 7 assimilates the empirical insights from previous chapters to theorise decentralisation. It looks closely at the literature and presents a definition of de facto decentralisation that emphasises autonomy and capacity. Theorising this concept involves exploring relationships between elected representatives and bureaucrats in local and state governments. The chapter also surveys the literature on capacity and explores the conceptual connections between autonomy, facilitation and capacity. Chapter 8 focuses on decentralisation policy, that is, the formulation and implementation of a framework and actions to create a new tier of government, which is more than merely delegation of authority by the devolving government. Discussions and detailing of decentralisation policy have been completely outside the space of local government and within that of state and national government. The chapter traces the implementation of decentralisation policy after the spirit and intent was laid down through national constitutional amendment. It explores processes of lawmaking, setting up of rule-making authority, creation of rules of local government functioning – and oversight over all these to ensure against policy drift. Effectively, these shaped the patterns of state–local relations and capacity described in Parts II and III. Chapter 9 weaves together the understanding developed in previous chapters to consider how to effectively implement decentralisation policy in Indian contexts. It takes a broad policy perspective rather than being confined to the perspective of any one policymaker or policy organisation. The chapter suggests possible changes that can be made feasibly in Indian contexts regarding specifics of laws

and particularly rule-making authority. It also considers pragmatic ways to reset state–local relations to enhance local government capacity through autonomy and facilitation. And it underlines the critical role of community mobilisation and how policy instruments can strengthen it by respecting spaces of participation and contestation.

7 Theorising Decentralisation

This chapter places the observations from previous chapters into a broader framework for analysing decentralisation. Field insights about local government capacity and autonomy point to the importance of focusing on the relationships between politicians and bureaucrats across and within the state government and local governments. Rather than present a full theory, the chapter engages in ‘theorising’ – that is, what Swedberg (2016, 8) describes as exploring ‘the context of discovery and the context of justification’ that precede a statement of theory. The approach takes seriously Geertz’s (1973, 24) point about being light and staying close to the ground when attempting to reason in formal, conceptual ways (‘ratiocination’): … the need for theory to stay rather closer to the ground than tends to be the case in sciences more able to give themselves over to imaginative abstraction. Only short flights of ratiocination tend to be effective … longer ones tend to drift off into logical dreams, academic bemusements with formal symmetry.

The first section surveys the profusion of meanings associated with the term ‘decentralisation’ in the literature. Building on this, the following section distils a specific understanding of ‘de facto decentralisation’ that goes beyond formal (de jure) pronouncements of decentralisation to emphasise local government autonomy and capacity. The third section surveys arguments and explanations for decentralisation in general. Much of this literature is biased towards the rural; works on urban areas focus less on decentralisation (Carter and Post 2019; Rodden and Wibbels 2019) and more on urban contestation. We explore the theoretical literature on ‘why (de)centralisation?’ but viewing it as a spectrum rather than a binary. We also briefly consider explanations for (de)centralisation and why in practice decentralisation takes the form it does. The last section advances a framework to analyse decentralisation where the emphasis is on relationships between bureaucrats and elected political representatives in the state government and local governments. The section draws from the literature surveyed in the

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previous sections as well as the empirical material of Parts II and III. The framework helps to situate observations regarding city governments in Kerala, Gujarat and elsewhere. Since the emphasis is on how these relationships affect local capacity, we also survey the literature on capacity and discuss how capacity is related to decentralised governance.

What Does Decentralisation Mean? Decentralisation has been conceptualised in many different ways, so much so that one wonders whether it can be used to mean almost any self-governing status. While the profusion generates nuances, it also creates confusion. We have aligned with its more widely used connotation of empowered local government, but sometimes the term is used to refer to more general redistribution of authority and power away from some centre. This could even include privatisation and NGO networks (Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema 1983; Baud and Wit 2008). Some studies also include federalism (Brancati 2006), especially in the Latin American context (Falleti 2010), although others would describe it as multi-level governance.1 Harguindéguy et al. (2019, 4 and 9) note the inconsistencies in classifying decentralisation: The majority of rankings classify states according to the level of decentralization of their ‘sub-state units’ … This term is rather imprecise since it mixes municipalities, provincial governments and regional authorities … this state-centric approach can have surprising effects on the final results. For instance, in countries like Italy, France or Japan, the IMF (2013)2 considers the regional tier of government as a local administration, while in Belgium or in the United Kingdom, the regional executives are merged with [the] central state. Consequently, these very different countries are all interpreted in terms of demonstrating a high level of centralization!

The literature usefully distinguishes between ‘deconcentration’, ‘delegation’ and ‘devolution’ (Nellis and Cheema 1983; Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema 1983; Dillinger 1994). Deconcentration refers to decision-making by the local arm of a single central government: a system with the ‘brain’ in central government and ‘arms’ in local field offices, implying the transfer of some (limited) authority to the latter. Delegation refers to the shift of management authority for specific functions to public authorities established by a central government but only indirectly controlled by it. Long used in administrative law, delegation implies that a sovereign authority creates or transfers to an agent (public corporation, regional development agency, special function authority, parastatal organisation) some specified functions and duties, for which the ultimate responsibility remains with the central sovereign authority. Much of what is described as ‘decentralisation’ in the literature is actually delegation, a point we take up later.

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Devolution refers to redistribution of governance responsibility and authority – and typically but not always, resources as well – from the central government to the localities. Devolution goes farther than deconcentration and delegation in envisaging local governments formulating and implementing policies at the local level. Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema (1983, 24) emphasise local governments being ‘autonomous and independent’ of the central government, with a separate legal status and clear ‘geographical boundaries within which they exercise an exclusive authority to perform explicitly granted or reserved functions’.3 Many scholars use ‘decentralisation’ to mean devolution along with elections to the local government. For Bardhan and Mookherjee (2015, 461), decentralisation is ‘devolution of political and administrative decisionmaking power to elected local bodies’. Manor (1999, 10) also adopts such a devolution-plus-democracy perspective but emphasises that local governments should have financial and administrative resources (‘fiscal decentralisation’ and ‘administrative decentralisation’).4 By contrast, Faguet (2014, 3) defines decentralisation as ‘devolution-plus-capacity’ and explicitly mentions that democracy is not a necessary condition. The literature often refers to different ‘domains’ of decentralisation, typically administrative or policy, fiscal or financial, and political. There is no consensus on the understanding of each of these decentralisation domains, let alone clarity on how they are mutually constituted. For ‘political decentralisation’, Montero and Samuels (2004) focus on direct elections for political office while Treisman (2007) brings considerations of exclusive authority and irreversibility of decisions. For ‘fiscal decentralisation’, Ahmad et al. (2005) include revenue opportunities (including taxes and grants) and expenditure responsibilities but Falleti (2013) focuses only on revenue opportunities, preferring to place expenditure responsibilities in the ambit of ‘administrative decentralisation’ where expenditures are needed to carry out public services. To better understand the different terminologies and meanings, it is useful to turn to history. Historically, administrative centralisation was key to the creation of large states.5 Centralising rulers sought to create networks of loyal vassals through ‘prefectoralism’, a mode of administration where the central ruler placed prefects in outposts whose ‘administrative functions were intermixed with military command …, adjudication of disputes, an almost viceregal representation of the majesty and power of the distant ruler, and reporting of political intelligence to the capital’ (Fesler 1968, 371). This carried over to colonial and even postcolonial settings. According to Hutchcroft (2001, 29),

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It is most effective in accomplishing such basic tasks as the imposition and maintenance of law and order and the extraction of revenue and resources … a centralizing state will seek to provide regular and extensive supervision of local governments, and take particular pains to ensure that anything having to do with revenue and coercive capacity is carefully controlled by officials loyal to the capital. … It is also common for the centre to require local officials to obtain permission for a range of tasks performed at the subnational level, and insist on overturning or reversing those rulings and actions of which it does not approve.

The degree of (de)centralisation in prefectorialism waxed and waned over time depending upon historical processes and conjunctural factors in specific contexts – for India, imagine the system during and after the reign of a strong centralising ruler such as Ashoka or Aurangzeb. While such systems were not democratic in the modern sense, there were episodes of considerable decentralisation. As Fesler (1968, 372) puts it, ‘[a]t times local self-government often had been a parochial autocracy or oligarchy’.

De jure Considerations in Modern Arguments While (de)centralisation was historically understood in terms of control and extraction by the ruler, modern democratic discourse has introduced valueladen connotations (Appleby 1962; Fesler 1968). Considerations of government accountability, service delivery and democratic participation became important for decentralisation. Where earlier a confident ruler could engage (or not) in deconcentration and delegation motivated by the desire for control and extraction, and where earlier an enterprising prefect or local chieftain could resist and carve out (or not) a local power base also motivated by the desire for control and extraction, modern democratic discourse introduced the normative language of decentralisation as a desirable feature for the citizenry. Issues around (de)centralisation are naturally the subject for public administration and political science but there is a long-standing divide regarding ‘that which exists in the administrative realm of civilian and military bureaucracies and that which exists in the political realm of legislatures, elections, political parties, patronage systems, etc.’ (Hutchcroft 2001, 24). Political scientists have broadened the scope of decentralisation analysis to consideration of constitutions, party structures and competition, ideology and federalism. But sometimes this has conflated local government decentralisation with national–state federal arrangements and taken the focus away from governance structures of decentralisation and considerations of capacity. The normative focus was further compounded by economists focusing on allocation efficiency, resource use and externalities (see the third section of this chapter). Unrestrained borrowings by

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subnational governments in Latin America and the consequent macroeconomic problems turned the focus of ‘fiscal decentralisation’ to public finance even though the problem was again largely about federal arrangements. Analysis of inter-governmental fiscal relations focused on the finances of governments (and to some extent, corruption), leaving out crucial aspects of governance and capacity (Bardhan 2002; Pancholi 2014). Concerns of democracy and public finance have led political scientists and economists to construct a normative perspective where ‘decentralization is systematic and planned, of a de jure rather than a de facto nature’ emphasising devolution as the transfer of decision-making authority and responsibility (Hutchcroft 2001, 30). The influential public administration scholar Paul Appleby, who also contributed to administrative thinking and practice in India, offered a note of caution in this regard (Maheshwari 2003, ch. 17). He argued that rather than bring democratic considerations separately into a discussion of decentralisation (‘democratic decentralisation’), it is better to locate decentralisation within democracy (‘decentralised democracy’) – that is, to discuss decentralisation separately conditional on ‘democracy … [through] a centralised governing institution designed to operate under popular control’ (Appleby 1962, 443). It is useful to distinguish between planned actions for decentralisation based on normative considerations and the realities of capable, autonomous local governments (de jure and de facto decentralisation). Write Montero and Samuels (2004, 7–8): Subnational policy autonomy varies de jure in terms of the categories of policies that are assigned (constitutionally or through legislation) to subnational government and also in terms of the conditions (earmarking or mandates) that national governments place on the use of fiscal resources or on the range of policy choice. Policy autonomy varies de facto by the capacity that subnational governments have to be ‘policy entrepreneurs,’ which requires not only fiscal resources but also a capable subnational bureaucracy, which is sometimes not the case.

This implies that the reality of decentralisation rests in the ‘categories of policies that are assigned’ and the mandate on the ‘range of policy choice’. Eaton, Kaiser and Smoke (2011, 9) also distinguish the formal from the real: At the initial design stage, the decision to decentralize is reflected in de jure changes in legal frameworks, including executive decrees, new statutes, and in some cases even constitutional reforms. Even if the legal framework defines a strong form of decentralization, however, its provisions may be subverted for political reasons in the more detailed design decisions.…

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Similarly, Bardhan and Mookherjee (2015) and Mookherjee (2015) note the de jure–de facto distinction and emphasise the potential gap between the two. Since the concept of de jure decentralisation comes from normative considerations, democratic and other discourses tend to push it further out, increasing the gap between the reality of decentralisation and high-minded expressions of desired decentralisation, analogous to the gap between realised and desired democracy itself. The de jure is itself sometimes articulated in confusing ways. An official report in India (Ministry of Panchayati Raj 2011, 19) states: In some cases, where the states have clearly devolved such responsibilities to the panchayats, these are either still largely being provided in a top-down manner through the state civil service machinery or the ability of panchayats to deliver these is limited because of the deficient financial and administrative powers and therefore, services continue to fail the citizen.

Here, ‘clearly devolved’ seems to refer to de jure statements in national and state laws regarding the transfer of functions to local governments even when it is not accompanied by a transfer of authority and administrative apparatus.6 According to a national report in India, there is no consistent definition on what is a transferred institution/function/scheme/functionary nor clarity on the de jure relationship between these and the local government (Ministry of Panchayati Raj and TISS 2016, 41–42). One characteristic of normative, de jure articulations of decentralisation is that they implicitly start from a central government (national or state) as default and then seek to carve out a separate space for the local government. Perhaps this is due to the recent history of centralised states and governmentalisation that formed the backdrop to these normative approaches – even though in India in the not-so-distant past (prior to the 1970s), functions now granted through the 74th constitutional amendment (CA) were in fact municipal concerns. Or it may be due to the fact that sovereignty, which rests with the central government, also makes it the default government. Whatever be the reason, it has been implicitly assumed that the central government is the primary integral block from which a sub-block of local government is to be chipped off. This contradicts the understanding of local authority derived from the ‘subsidiarity principle’ where the default is that government tasks are best performed with advantage at the lowest level of government where it can be carried out (Breton, Cassone and Fraschini 1998). Subsidiarity means that matters ought to be handled by the ‘most local’ (smallest or most immediate) competent authority, implying that the less local (central) authority should have a subsidiary function and perform only those tasks that cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.

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Decentralisation exercises in India typically start from the opposite end by trying to extricate some policy functions from a central authority’s stock. They often end up narrowly splitting a function without regard for the integrity of the function as an administrative task. Here, it is important to delineate what constitutes a ‘function’. Terms that are in use (‘responsibility’, ‘subject’, and so on) reduce clarity on what it is that is meant to be decentralised. Typically then, decentralisation exercises start with a default central government and apply technical principles such as cost-benefit analysis and comparative advantage to identify items for local government action, instead of directly considering what local governments can best do in a given context.7 The approach seeks to identify the residual functions for the local government after assigning functions to the ‘less local’ tiers of government. This is repeated in articulating what constitutes local governance authority. These exercises end up identifying how much authority should be allowed to the local government. By contrast, subsidiarity considers what can be done competently and with efficiency at the local level and assigns only the residual to other tiers.

Defining Decentralisation The perspectives surveyed in the previous section reveal important nuances. But definitions also have contexts and questions for which they are constructed. In our reading, a good definition of decentralisation should adopt a policy perspective because ultimately, in the doing, decentralisation has to be designed and implemented through policies in a system of governance. The usefulness of many extant perspectives is limited because they do not consider this aspect sufficiently. This is not to suggest that definitions should only follow instrumental reasons. It is possible to recast the definition along the lines of ‘devolution plus’ in a way that enables the design of policy instruments to implement decentralisation. Since the context is primarily India where federal (national–state) relations are substantially different from state–local relations, and the ambit is confined to the latter, our focus is therefore on local government. Since India’s constitutional framework specifies that local governments be democratically elected, this is also a given. Now, adopting a policy perspective, consider what decentralisation is not. The system is not decentralised if the local government has to wait on decisions from the state government (or other governments) or if the state government makes detailed prescriptions regarding how local government should take or implement decisions. That is, the local government should have the authority to make its own decisions and the freedom to exercise that authority. This implies that its decisions cannot be reversed by another authority. The local government’s

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authority should therefore be ‘exclusive’ in specific policy areas. This point about full and exclusive authority is made by Treisman (2007) and UN-Habitat (2009). The freedom of the local government to exercise its authority is partly analogous to the concept of ‘negative freedom’ – absence of external control or interference – discussed by Berlin (2017 [1958]) and others. While this idea of freedom is critical, it is still insufficient. The conceptualisation should go further to require ‘positive freedom’ – here, the presence of institutional capacities to set goals, muster resources and administer and implement public policy – that enable the local government to tread paths that allow it to realise its potential (service delivery and other local action). This is consistent with two of the conditions that Manor (2011, 3) mentions for decentralisation to work well, namely devolution of substantial powers and resources.8 It is also close to the description in the 1999–2000 World Development Report: ‘A government has not decentralized unless the country contains “autonomous elected subnational governments capable of making binding decisions in at least some policy areas”’ (World Bank 1999, 108).9 These approaches implicitly focus on the reality of autonomy and capacity, and distinguish the reality from desire and formal intent. Incorporating these ideas and recognising how normative considerations have led to promised decentralisation running far ahead of contextual realities, we prefer to use the term ‘de facto (de)centralisation’. In the context of federal democracy, de facto decentralisation is a process leading to autonomous local governments capable of taking exclusive, binding decisions and implementing them in policy areas formally devolved to them. Here, autonomy refers to authority for action for a policy function without referring to another authority. Autonomy gives full authority to have people to work with, to decide on actions, to utilise resources for those actions and to execute and oversee the execution of those actions, all contributing to the implementation of a policy path which the autonomous government decides upon. Autonomy is sometimes expressed in the principle of subsidiarity where a local authority is guaranteed some degree of independence from a central government.

Delegation Mistaken for Decentralisation How can decentralisation be spelt out through law and other instruments that represent and make government policy? Government documents in India show repeated attempts to create clarity although arguably they introduced greater tentativeness to the direction of policy. This is especially true regarding proposals for ‘activity mapping’ exercises (ARC-II 2007; Ministry of Panchayati Raj 2011; Rao and Bird 2011). In practice, the exercise involves disaggregating the steps

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of a given function and identifying which steps constitute devolution – the rest staying by default with the devolving government. Activity mapping is possible for delegated functions; even there, it is challenging since every delegated function in every specific context has a unique set of features (the elements delegated, the extent of delegation of those elements and administrative level to which each is delegated). Role-clarity is a foundational requirement for local government authority. In fact, it is role assignment, in whatever form, that determines what authority is decentralised rather than delegated to the local government. Often, impact assessments err by mixing the two and misreading delegation of authority as decentralisation. Generally, decentralisation of some functions can occur simultaneously with the delegation of other functions. Activity mapping pertains to the second group of functions which divides a function into parts for sharing between two levels of government. It is a case of a function performed jointly.10 The Kerala government’s Committee on Decentralisation of Powers (Sen Committee 1997, Chap. 2 (para iii)) writes about ‘role-clarity’: This would govern the exercise of autonomy. … There must be clarity at the conceptual and operational level about what each tier of local self-government can do in each area of development. Of course, neat divisions are not possible, nor are they desirable. Yet functional clarity should be there. Only this can facilitate proper devolution of powers, their creative exercise and a meaningful monitoring of the whole process.

When the Sen Committee observes the need for ‘clarity at the conceptual and operational level about what each tier of local self-government can do’, it means the tiered structure of local government, specifically the three-tier Kerala rural local government structure. But devolution is quite different from this. India’s Second Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC-II 2007, 146) forthrightly declares that for devolution there should be exclusive functional jurisdiction for [local government] … the state government should not exercise any control over this sphere. And if any activity within this sphere is presently performed by a state government department it should cease to perform the activity after devolution.

The logic of activity mapping pertains to delegation rather than devolution which is about exclusive authority over a function as a whole and not some specified parts of it. However, its usage in the context of devolution suggests a conflation of concepts. In fact, the Kerala District Administration Act of 1979 sought to specify the role of a decentralised government in all details. An evaluation report on that

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exercise (V. Ramachandran 1988) refers to ‘powers’, ‘functions’ and the ‘problems’ involved in ‘the instrumentality for entrustment of functions’ as major questions confronting the attempt to re-design a decentralised governance arrangement. The report notes that unlike earlier decentralisation laws, instead of merely listing ‘subjects’, the 1979 law prepared detailed lists for each subject. Yet the range of subjects listed out for local governance varied from ‘inappropriately wide to very limited powers’ while at the same time leaving out ‘some important items to be done at local government level’ (V. Ramachandran 1988, 24). The tendency to conflate delegation and decentralisation in Kerala, a pioneer in deepening decentralisation, continues today. Policymakers elsewhere also often conflate decentralised authority with the delegation of functions. Take the case of education where a part of a state government function is tasked to the local government, such as monitoring teacher attendance or helping with the maintenance of school buildings. This is an example of delegation and yet it is sometimes portrayed as failed devolution (Ahmad et al. 2005). In the context of devolution in Bolivia, Ahmad and GarcíaEscribano (2011, 175) find ‘very little responsibility for either basic education or healthcare to municipalities … [which] have relatively minor functions, and the mayors cannot be held responsible for the outcomes of either primary education or basic healthcare’. It is unlikely that education as a full responsibility can be or was made amenable to devolution even if the government describes it as ‘devolution’. Ahmad and García-Escribano (2011) list out the assignment of responsibilities of the central government, the departments and the municipalities which shows that very specific and limited roles were assigned for municipalities; it does not indicate any ‘overlapping structure’ as feared by the authors. This appears to be a clear case of delegation with potentially clear role assignments. Problems arise when the arrangement is mistakenly interpreted to be devolution, which prompts observations regarding overlaps. This fits the observation of Jennings and Griffith (1960, 219): A major Act of social legislation will, in its terms, do much to indicate the relative responsibilities of the Central Government and local authorities. More general questions, matters of ‘policy’ of national importance, will be entrusted to the Minister and his Department; more local questions, including ‘policy’ at that level, and most of the day-to-day administration may well be left to local authorities.

The example of education is quite different from, say, water supply, where devolution can be described in unambiguous terms and activity mapping is unnecessary.11

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Measuring Decentralisation Explorations of methodology in the positivist social sciences have commented extensively on the difficulties of mapping a concept to a measurable construct (‘construct validity’) and ensuring that such mapping is adequately executed for every context or ‘unit’ that is observed. Without this, comparisons of units or claims about ‘impact’ are all compromised. This is especially true for complex, multi-valent, contested concepts such as ‘democracy’ and ‘poverty’. It is also true for ‘decentralisation’, where in addition methodological literature is sparse and reductionism is common. Further, centralisation and decentralisation form a continuum and should not be treated as binaries (Fesler 1968; Hutchcroft 2001; Montero and Samuels 2004), besides also changing over time.12 According to Faguet (2009, 30), The combination of such methodological difficulties with the widely varying definitions of decentralization adopted by different countries, often followed by poor or incomplete implementation of whatever definition is chosen, goes a long way toward explaining why empirical studies of both types have been unable to pin down the effects clearly.

The general tendency is to construct (qualitative or quantitative) measures based on de jure decentralisation even though there are many reasons to believe that de facto decentralisation diverges from it, and that too potentially differently in different contexts. Bardhan (2002) noted the methodological validity problem two decades back while referencing a study by Foster and Rosenzweig (2001). Exploring a dataset of Indian villages, this study finds that ‘decentralisation’ is positively correlated with pro-poor road investment and negatively correlated with pro-rich irrigation investment, which the authors interpret as a salutary impact of decentralisation. Bardhan (2002, 198) observes that the underlying data do not address ‘the many severe institutional lapses in the implementation of decentralization … making democratic decentralization not yet a reality in most parts of India’. Despite such cautionary comments, the past two decades have not addressed his core point in a more circumspect and careful manner: measuring the reality of decentralised arrangements. Indeed, findings such as those of Foster and Rosenzweig (2001) continue to be cited in the literature (Bohlken 2016; Lipscomb and Mobarak 2016) and even in the methodology literature (Krauss 2016). The concern is that evaluation-focused approaches jump too quickly to ‘outcomes’ or ‘impact’ without checking whether the assumed policy ‘output’ of decentralisation is sufficiently in place. Early on, Fesler (1968, 373) had cautioned against measuring decentralisation by appearances. A local government may be

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full of brisk service transactions, have an army of field personnel and produce large amounts of paperwork – and yet, like the postal service, there may be little ‘opportunity to exercise substantial local discretion in decision making’ as the work is mostly ‘the clerical operation of matching the characteristics of each decisional case against detailed rule-book prescriptions’.

Justifying (De)centralisation: The Literature It appears that just about every possible argument about the desirability or undesirability of decentralisation has been advanced in the literature, many abstracting to near-universal arguments but several also with nuanced contextual arguments. This literature is briefly surveyed below. Early work by economists noted that decentralisation of spending decisions could improve ‘efficiency’ in distributing resources when needs or preferences are only known locally and there are externalities or scale economies in provision. These were later known as ‘first-generation theories’ (Oates 2005).13 Decentralisation was also argued to be efficient through competition that reduces rent-seeking/ corruption (Brennan and Buchanan 1980).14 But these arguments ‘are usually a priori rationalizations based on plausibility’ (Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema 1983, 76) and ‘decentralization in practice bore little resemblance to optimistic theories from welfare economics’ (Rodden and Wibbels 2019, 1). They were based on heroic assumptions such as well-informed, potentially mobile citizenry (‘voting with their feet’) and robust political competition. Later studies (‘second-generation theories’) undid key assumptions regarding interests and behaviour of politicians, bureaucrats, elites and voters and identified situations in which decentralisation may not be beneficial. Citizens may not be well-informed (Banerjee et al. 2018), or able to gauge government performance or hold the government to account over actions regarding the public good.15 ‘Elite capture’ may be easier in local than in central government (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000).16 The local government may be responsive only to a subset of citizens for other reasons too (Baldwin and Raffler 2019). It may provide targetable clientelist goods and services as opposed to broader local public goods because citizens cannot agree or are insufficiently invested in the latter (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2015) and may reflect a form of ‘political capture’ (Khemani 2019).17 The political economy turn of the decentralisation literature produced other, positive nuances that were not considered previously. Decentralisation ‘enhances information flows between government and ordinary people – mightily, and in both directions’ (Manor 2011, 3). This allows performance comparisons of different local governments, thereby allowing citizens to ascertain the performance

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of their local government and stimulating ‘yardstick competition’ (Besley and Case 1995). Being better informed about local government performance, local citizens can better monitor the local government (and can reward/sanction it through elections) than they can a central government (Seabright 1996; Bardhan and Mookherjee 2015).18 Local politicians have more incentive to intervene on issues concerning local citizens compared to central politicians who have a wider constituency diluting their response to the concerns of any one locality (Bardhan 2002). And local politicians can communicate policy better, thereby ensuring a higher quality of uptake of interventions (Manor 2011).19 From such arguments – citizens having better information, engaging more, monitoring government performance better; and local government shirking less – emerged a discourse around ‘accountability’ that brought back focus on efficiency while arguing that decentralisation brings government ‘closer to the people’ (World Bank 2003) and ‘dramatically tighten[s] the loop of accountability between those who produce public goods and services and those who consume them’ (Faguet 2014, 5). These arguments fitted with broader trends of economic neoliberalism as a response to perceived failures of dirigiste, statist development strategies (Grindle 2007). Advocacy for decentralisation also fitted broader trends of, and discourses around, democratisation. Going past the previous emphasis on centralisation for nation-building (Huntington 2006), political scientists focused on the possibilities of decentralisation for countering authoritarian central government and citizen participation as a ‘school for democracy’ and as a facilitator of civil society (Manor 2011). In fact, the accountability argument itself also became a democratisation argument (Faguet and Pöschl 2015). The reality could turn out to be something quite different: depoliticised participation and cutting of contestation for the ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre 1996; Coelho, Kamath and Vijaybaskar 2011), which was explored in Chapter 6. Early on, Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema (1983, 8) had warned that ‘decentralization is not a “quick fix” for the management problems of developing countries … [since the] factors that make it such an attractive policy are usually the same ones that make it difficult to implement’. But much of the literature did not emphasise or explore implementation challenges. While the literature acknowledged that ‘[l]ocal bureaucracies are often unresponsive, they may be poorly motivated and occasionally poorly qualified’ (Prud’Homme 1995, 208), the newfound enthusiasm for decentralisation was not matched by a detailed examination of whether the particular country addressed issues of local government capacity and articulated the solutions for successful implementation of decentralisation policy, which is inherently contextual. As Chapter 8 argues,

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these and similar issues of organising capable local government have not received sufficient attention. An early exception in this literature is Fiszbein’s (1997) study of Colombia. Another is the study of Mexico by Grindle (2007), who explores not only political competition and civil society but also public sector entrepreneurship and administrative modernisation. Chapter 8 also argues that decentralisation should be viewed as part of a policy process and, unlike other policy genres which are sector-specific, it is about ‘government-making’ policy. A second important issue shaping implementation is intra- and inter-government coordination and conflict. Intra-government coordination concerns the roles and relations between the actors that constitute the local government. On inter-government coordination: not only is (de)centralisation a spectrum rather than a binary, but it is also the case that different tiers have to act in concert. Prud’Homme (1995, 218) observes that ‘[f]or many – if not most – types of infrastructure, two or three levels of government will have to be involved as each level of government will have different – but equally legitimate – interests’.

Explaining (De)centralisation Outside the question of whether or not decentralisation is beneficial and therefore whether or not to advocate it (from the perspective of citizens or a benign central government), scholarship has also explored why decentralisation occurs or does not occur and what form it takes. Motivations for decentralisation vary. Decentralisation may be triggered through crises or external shocks – such as the political–economic transition in the erstwhile Eastern Bloc countries and the democratic transition in Latin America – where the new central government is committed to decentralisation for ideological or other reasons (Ahmad et al. 2005).20 There is widespread agreement that ‘actors in political society and the state have played the primary role’ in (de)centralisation (Montero and Samuels 2004, 11) even if it is manifested through non-political channels (Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema 1983). Any serious consideration of decentralisation has to confront the question of why a power-seeking central government would choose to decentralise since ‘the urge to decentralise is irrational in those who must do it’ (Faguet and Pöschl 2015, 4) if central powers treat decentralisation as a zero-sum game (Manor 2011). This may be related to the fact that poorer countries, which are typically less decentralised than richer ones, have focused on expenditure/provision decentralisation compared to revenue/fiscal decentralisation, implying gaps financed through inter-governmental transfers (Gadenne and Singhal 2014).21 Such evidence is consistent with arguments that at best central government politicians prefer only

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partial decentralisation while keeping many of the reins of power (Devarajan, Khemani and Shah 2009) such as taking credit for expenditure decentralisation while holding on to revenue-raising powers. Paradoxically, secure and centralised governments can better afford to partially decentralise, precisely because they start from the security of sufficient centralisation (Fesler 1968; Manor 2011). The literature suggests that central governments decentralise not for altruistic or technocratic reasons but rather as a pre-emptive or reactive response to political threats from party competition or regional pressures (Mookherjee 2015). Central governments may use it for legitimacy and control through popular support, as was the case in a non-democratic regime in Pakistan (Cheema, Khan and Myerson 2019). Central governments may also use decentralisation to localities to undercut opponents in provincial governments (Dickovick 2007). Writing about education reform, Karlsen (2000) observes that decentralisation of the power to set the curriculum may paradoxically legitimise national standards and national assessments by the central government. More generally, notes Fesler (1968, 372), there are different types of delicate balances between centralist tendencies (based on power-seeking, ‘holding together’ or other motivations) and decentralist demands emerging from specific contexts, such as when a ‘geographically fragmented power situation … requires deference to holders of local power’. When central governments are open to decentralisation, other processes may compromise outcomes. Even when politicians are in favour, central government bureaucrats may oppose and drag their feet (fearing loss of power), as happened in Sri Lanka in the 1970s (Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema 1983). Central government bureaucrats may cope with general uncertainty and lack of information about localities by creating centralised and standardised procedures. They may often face conflicting incentives to pursue or undermine decentralisation, either officially through how they frame new rules and systems or more informally through how they influence implementation (Smoke 2015b). In another contribution to the literature explaining decentralisation, Falleti (2010) explores sequencing of political, financial and administrative decentralisation, arguing that the sequence affects and is affected by the distribution of political power between levels of government. Brazil’s sequence (political, financial, administrative) strengthened the autonomy of subnational government while Argentina’s sequence (administrative, financial, political) did not. Decentralisation can also create dynamics that the central government ends up regretting, so that ‘many politicians try to claw back the power passed to decentralized bodies, and they are often assisted by high-level bureaucrats who share their sentiments’ (Manor 1999, 46). Power-seeking provincial governments

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can be expected to oppose decentralisation, which is therefore typically initiated not by them but by central governments (Hutchcroft 2001). In India, despite national legislation through a constitutional amendment, states have refused to devolve the full set of functions or have managed to dilute devolution into delegation as previous chapters showed for Tamil Nadu and Kerala, or have promised devolution and later slid back, as in Andhra Pradesh (Manor 2011).22 The literature is unanimous in noting that, counterintuitively, seldom is there grassroots, popular pressure for decentralisation.23 This is generally attributed to a collective action problem (dispersed benefits among the scattered population).

A Framework for Decentralisation This section presents a framework of de facto decentralisation emphasising relationships between different actors across state and local levels. The framework builds on the conceptualisation of de facto decentralisation and literature survey in the second and third sections of this chapter. The literature has broadly explored relationships between citizens and the government, between interest groups and the government, between state and local governments, and between the bureaucracy and the political executive (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2000; Ahmad et al. 2005; Tommasi and Weinschelbaum 2007; Boffa, Piolatto and Ponzetto 2016).24 Many such studies use ‘principal–agent frameworks’.25 But reliance on one narrow type of framework can be limiting since it views ‘bureaucratic processes as a form of internal management’ and tends to ‘focus too narrowly on explicit monitoring and reward schemes’ (Pepinsky, Pierskalla and Sacks 2017, 257). Some studies use ‘accountability relationships’ and the metaphor of vertical levels to frame decentralisation (Smoke 2015a). Different relationships can be distinguished. One is between the local government and the citizens (‘downward’ accountability). Instruments of downward accountability consist of elections, participatory planning/budgeting, citizen report cards, and so on. A large literature on participation and democratic engagement explores this relationship (see Chapter 6). A second relationship is between the local government and the state government (‘upward’ accountability). The literature looks at how the local government comes with many central (national or state) government strings in practice. Instruments of upward accountability consist of specific authorisations, approvals, permissions, reporting, audits and rewards/sanctions through transfers and other means. This relationship is affected by the preferences and actions of not only the state political executive but also the state bureaucracy. A third relationship is between the elected council and the bureaucracy within the local government (‘horizontal’ accountability). The near-ubiquity of local bureaucrats controlled by

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the state government can fundamentally compromise horizontal accountability. According to Smoke (2015a, 222), this is ‘[p]erhaps the most neglected element of accountability in decentralised systems’. The empirical evidence and arguments from previous chapters suggest that in India horizontal accountability between the state bureaucracy and the state political executive and legislature is ignored, with catastrophic consequences for local governance. This is examined in Chapter 8. Below we sketch a simple framework to explore relationships between the different entities in the context of decentralisation. Figure 7.1 is arranged using the convention of ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’. It is an analytical construct – not a descriptor of specific contextual realities, for which it would be over-schematised. There are two vertical levels, ‘local’ and ‘state’.26 In India, the state government regulates the local government; the national government has an indirect role through the CA and national-state federal arrangements. In unitary systems such as the United Kingdom, ‘state’ refers to the national government. This general characterisation is also consistent with older literature on centre-periphery relations (Galtung 1971).27 What constitutes ‘local’ government depends on the country context. In India, municipalities and municipal corporations are local governments in urban areas.28 In rural areas, the local government goes by the generic term panchayat and follows a three-tier system with the gram(a) panchayat (village council) at its heart. In many Latin American countries, the municipio combining urban and rural populations functions as the unit of local government, roughly similar to Indian districts and US counties. Abstracting from country contexts, the framework focuses on the vertical relationship between the state and local levels. The second dimension in Figure 7.1 is horizontal; it distinguishes the political body of government from the bureaucracy. At the local level, there is a council headed by a mayor or equivalent and there is a bureaucracy that supports the mayor and council in detailing and implementing policies and activities of the local government. The distinction between the political executive and the bureaucracy is even more important at the state level.29 The framework implicitly assumes the presence of an electoral democracy although it is applicable outside of electoral democracies. Typically the political body in the local government combines legislative and executive functions, unlike at the state level where the legislature and political executive are distinct. In fact, the state legislature and other politicians at the state level (such as leaders of political parties) do not feature in the core of the framework in Figure 7.1, nor do local politicians outside local councils; this reflects the understanding that they have limited influence in processes and relationships of decentralisation.

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Media, State-Level Interest Groups

C

State Bureaucracy B

D

Local Council

A

E

Citizens

Local Bureaucracy

Local Government

Other Local Politicians

State Political Executive

State Government

Legislature, Other State Politicians

204

Figure 7.1 Relationships across two levels of government Source: Authors. Note: The lines (referenced by capital letters) stand for relationships between actors. The letters denote relationships between actors, not temporal processes; the solid and dashed lines respectively represent strong and weak relationships influencing the local government.

The media and state-level interest groups are also depicted on the side as the focus is on government, but this also reflects the assumption that they are less critical for shaping urban decentralisation in India. Government-citizen relationships were explored in Chapter 6 and are not brought up here as the focus is on relationships within the government.30 Table 7.1 summarises the relationships and the key issues and questions involved. These are elaborated hereafter. Relationships A through E cut across two levels of government (local and state) and two types of entity (governing politicians and bureaucracy). Consider state– local relationships. In many contexts, the local bureaucracy is under the power of the state bureaucracy (relationship A) and accountability to the local council (relationship E) comes a distant second. Parts II and III showed that in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the state bureaucracy undermines the elected council and the local bureaucracy (relationship B and A) and undercuts autonomy. If the authority does not inhere in local governments but is shared with the state government then it is highly likely that it is the state bureaucracy that wields it, irrespective of whether the local bureaucracy is of the local government or part of the state bureaucracy. Absent hierarchy in A–B, one could imagine a world where the local government feeds information and suggestions for state government policymaking and the state government facilitates technical, organisational and financial

205 Theorising Decentralisation Table 7.1 Government relationships in the decentralisation framework Relationships b/w actors

Issues

Questions State–local Relations

A&B

Reporting, audits and rewards/sanctions through transfers; possibilities of technical/ administrative facilitation

What regulations from the state government constrain local governments? What facilitation is provided? How does all this affect local capacity?

A

Local bureaucrats controlled by the state government

Is local bureaucracy controlled more by state bureaucracy than it is by the local council? If so, what are the consequences?

C

Politician-bureaucracy relations in the state government

Does the state bureaucracy implement the ‘political will’ of the state political executive? Does it influence that political will?

C&D

State–local party dynamics affecting state– local relations

How does the state political executive support party counterparts in the local government? Does this work through pressuring the state bureaucracy to give autonomy (i.e., weaken restraints in B)?

E

Politician–bureaucracy relations in the local government

Is the local bureaucracy answerable to the local council? How strong is their mutual trust and coordination in designing and implementing local policy?

Source: Authors.

matters to independently funded, capacitated, autonomous local government on request (see the third section of Chapter 5). The reality is different, of course, as shown by Part II. If the state bureaucracy ‘concentrate[s] too intensely on framing watertight bureaucratic rules and controls’ for the local government (Manor 1999, 48), it conveys all too clearly a stance of command-and-control rather than of facilitation (Grindle 2007).31 While Figure 7.1 presents the state bureaucracy in the abstract, in fact multiple state agencies engage in commandand-control with local governments, often making matters worse.

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Can the state political executive – the ‘principal’ to which the state bureaucracy as ‘agent’ is formally answerable – rein in the controlling tendencies of the state bureaucracy over the local government? Svara (2001) typologises the politicianbureaucrat relationship based on the level of control and degree of distance: ‘separated’ (high control, high distance), ‘autonomous’ (low control, high distance), ‘responsive’ (high control, low distance) and ‘overlapping’ (low control, low distance). State politicians may have electoral and partisan reasons to make state bureaucracy ‘responsive’ and cede some control to the local government (relationships D and C in the figure).32 But the literature suggests considerable difficulties in the ability of politicians to monitor the bureaucracy, and such a portrayal in the popular Yes Minister television series (Lynn and Jay 1989) is widely considered to be accurate. Consistent with this, some consider the bureaucracy to be an independent dominant ‘class’ in society (Bardhan 1999). The framework of state–local relations in Figure 7.1 can be contextualised for particular cases. In Kerala, the key dynamic is the control of local governments by the state bureaucracy (relationships A and B). By contrast, legislative legacies and habituated practices reduce the inclinations of Gujarat’s state bureaucracy to intervene in local governments (Chapter 8).33

Local Capacity and State–Local Relations An important theme of previous chapters has been the role of state–local relations in shaping the capacity of local governments. Specifically, this refers to the capacity implications of relationships A and B in Figure 7.1. The remainder of the chapter turns to local capacity and state–local relations, and the link between them. In the literature on the capacity of the sovereign state, Max Weber and others have emphasised the capacity to make and implement rules (Gerth and Mills 2014).34 This is based on power that can take different forms, from taxation to militarisation to public service provision.35 State capacity is shaped by its relation to society and the possibilities of autonomy (Evans 2012; Centeno et al. 2017). A general definition of ‘capacity’ is offered by Grindle and Hildebrand (1995, 445): the ‘ability to perform appropriate functions effectively, efficiently and sustainably’. In the context of decentralisation, Fiszbein (1997, 1031) usefully recasts it as ‘the effective existence, at the local level, of the tools that make possible for the local government to perform successfully’, conditional on the availability of material resources. Here, material resources are a conditionality rather than directly in the definition of capacity. Fiszbein’s justification is that ‘[w]e say there is a capacity problem when a municipio is unable to achieve its performance goals even though it has access to the necessary financial resources’ (1031).

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By contrast, Bossert and Mitchell (2011) include material resources in conceiving local capacity. We find Fiszbein’s articulation to be particularly useful for understanding the Indian situation. The literature recognises the ‘capacity deficit’ in local government (Ahmad et al. 2005). Local capacity is particularly low for investment projects and infrastructure services. A flurry of interventions has tried to address the capacity gap (Ahmad and García-Escribano 2011) but ‘capacity building’ efforts are often ineffective despite seeming impressive on paper. Bahl and Bird (2013, 22) observe: Subnational governments in developing countries often do not have the ability to design, build, and operate infrastructure, and seldom know enough to ‘outsource’ the needed skills efficiently and effectively.… The Indian High Powered Expert Committee for Estimating the Investment Requirements for Urban Infrastructure (2011, 101) puts it well [HPEC 2011]. ‘Weak governments cannot rely on private agents to overcome their weaknesses nor can they expect to make the best possible bargains for the public they represent.

Capacity and Innovation To appreciate the fundamental challenge of everyday innovation in local governance, consider the following. Each challenge faced by a local government (or any decision-maker for that matter) is unique in its details, that is, the assemblage of particular conjunctural attributes. Arguably, an attractive solution also needs to suit this unique assemblage. But in practice challenges and solutions are hardly ever seen in this manner. Decision-makers tend to downplay the conjunctural uniqueness of a challenge and implicitly focus on its ‘core’ attributes. The nature of this abstraction varies. The identified core attributes are then placed (typically implicitly) within a pre-existing categorisation of challenges; the categorisation may itself be based on past patterns in core attributes. Once the ‘type’ of challenge is thus identified, the decision-maker implicitly maps it onto a particular solution within some pre-existing categorisation of solutions. The mapping is based on habituated practices, discourses, instincts, beliefs, personal circumstances, and perceptions of capacity and feasibility. The identified solution will be relatively abstract since it comes from a pre-existing categorisation. It may be contextualised back to the unique assemblage from which the challenge was perceived in the first place, although often such contextualisation may not happen.36 In this line of thinking, many ‘creative’ decisions are possible and desirable. There is creativity involved in identifying the challenge through abstracting from reality to ‘core’ attributes. There is creativity involved in mapping to categories of

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challenges and judging when and how to reconceive the pre-existing categorisation. There is creativity involved in further mapping to categories of solutions. There is creativity involved in contextualising identified solutions. There is creativity involved in the pragmatic assessment of current and future ‘capacity’ and ‘feasibility’. There is creativity in learning as tentative moves are made along all these lines. And there is creativity involved in threading and looping around all these different elements and allowing each to shape others. Little wonder that ‘discernment’ and ‘judgement’ are popular terms to represent these infinitely rich possibilities. All this foregrounds the immense possibility and desirability of ‘innovation’ by a decision-maker, in this case, the local government. There is innovation potential in perceiving and framing challenges and addressing them effectively through new actions, including framing familiar actions in new ways, mindful of capacity and feasibility but also going beyond to imagine new capacities creating new feasibilities. It is through proactive engagement with such possibilities that the local government can fulfill its high-minded mandate. And in fact, city governments in Gujarat (whether they are bigger ones like Surat or smaller ones like Navsari) reveal greater innovation capacity than city governments in Kerala (bigger ones like Trivandrum and smaller ones like Varkala). In this general context, Andrews, Woolcock and Pritchett (2017, 130) write: Action cannot be predefined but must rather emerge through experimental iterations where teams take a step, learn, adapt, and take another step. Multiple authorizers will be needed to manage risks of the project and support experimentation. Finally, the work will require engagement and effort from multiagent groups (or teams) with many different functional responsibilities and talents (not just a few appropriately skilled individuals).

After the decentralisation reforms, state governments including that of Kerala seemed to adopt an implicit model where governance starts from scratch as if no governance processes existed prior to the devolution of functions following the CA – so that local administrative capacity needed to be freshly invented. India’s Second Administrative Reform Commission noted that capacity is about ‘complex and demanding’ organisational development rather than training and skilling alone (ARC-II 2007, 70).37 It identified the neglect of organisational capacity as a failure of local self-governance. If there is autonomy, organisational development can come from local governments themselves. This typically produces experimentation and diversity, as seen in the different organisational forms of Gujarat city governments that evolved over the decades prior to the 1990s

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decentralisation reforms and continued thereafter. Grindle (2007, 109) describes Mexico’s situation where weak state control produced de facto autonomy leading to ‘four strategies of modernization’ adopted by city governments themselves: reorganizing town hall, including contracting out some activities formerly performed by the municipality; altering the profile of those appointed to public office; providing training and technical upgrading for carrying out municipal responsibilities; and introducing performance standards to measure the behavior of individuals and organizational units within the municipality.

Capacity and Autonomy Autonomy does not imply that local governments operate in isolation. There is no gainsaying that a local government can benefit from different kinds of support, especially from the state government, as long as this is on its terms. In cases like Coimbatore and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, when the state government loosened its strings and its agencies facilitated local projects, local potential began to flower. Consider the design and installation of an intricate water system or sewage treatment plant. A local government would need engineering staff and specialised staff for managing the design and execution of the project. Once the project moves from ‘creation’ to ‘maintenance and service delivery’, the next lumpy investment may require a different set of personnel. For such work, it is not feasible or even desirable that city governments, especially small ones, should have in-house capacity to handle the work. It would be more reasonable to tap state government expertise, other professional expertise or develop a pooled system for multiple local governments as suggested by the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC-II 2007). Partnerships and networking can all enhance local capacity when managed and led through fundamentally equal relationships. That the local government ‘needs’ the state government is clear in many ways. But just as emphatically, the state government ‘needs’ the local government to fulfil its own mandate, as seen in the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic where a window of opportunity in Kerala created cooperative state–local relations for contact-tracing, quarantine management, community kitchens, and so on. In fact, Kerala’s old vertical relationship was dramatically (but temporarily) altered under duress, with positive results. Previous chapters emphasised the role of local government autonomy in shaping capacity, innovation, and ultimately service delivery and other outcomes. A rigid, externally prescribed, monolithic governance architecture removes large spaces of innovative local action. However, ‘success’ is often traceable not to rigidly prescribed work procedures but to a capable organisation of the local

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government allowing for innovation. In pioneering studies of health systems, Thomas Bossert distinguishes local ‘decision space’ and local capacity conceptually and unpacks them empirically (Bossert 1998). The decision space refers to ‘local discretion allowed by the central government for functions and sub-functions about financing, service delivery, human resources, and governance’ (Bossert 2014, 277). The degree of discretion varies along different dimensions in the healthcare context: revenue sources, expenditure allocation, organisational choices (hospital autonomy, insurance plans, payment mechanisms, contracts with private providers), and staffing (salaries, contracts, civil service, access rules). Application to Latin American countries previously considered to have decentralised health systems (Chile, Bolivia, Colombia) suggests that in fact their decision spaces were ‘narrow’ and that they were centralised in practice. Recall the discussion of ‘decentralisation’ of education in Bolivia being no more than delegation of some parts of these large functions. Importantly, Bossert’s studies of Pakistan and selected Indian states suggest a strong correlation between decision space and capacity (Bossert et al. 2008; Bossert et al. 2010; Bossert and Mitchell 2011).38 In the context of autonomy and capacity, scholars have noted a ‘governance trap’ (Devarajan, Khemani and Shah 2009) or ‘vicious circle’ (Fiszbein 1997). Abstracting from other political economy factors, the argument is that in a starting situation of weak local capacity, the state government may be loathe to give autonomy through de facto decentralisation; and with low autonomy initially, the local government may find it difficult to build capacity (Harris 1983; Ahmad et al. 2005). Arguing that limited capacity could become a binding constraint for decentralisation, based on Colombia’s experience Fiszbein (1997, 1031) proposes that autonomy should have precedence since ‘capacity can be enhanced through skilful innovations even under difficult circumstances, given the right political incentives and if the community and its leadership are determined’. He suggests that if autonomy is sustained, capacity development can become endogenous. This position finds supportive evidence in Gujarat city governments as described in Part II. Even if the initial autonomy triggers slow institutionalisation of local capacity, it is open to interruption and ‘claw back’ from the state. But the perspective has the advantage of being more inviting to hesitant state governments as they need to concede only some degree of control initially and the dynamics of ‘decentralisation in time’ (Falleti 2013) may subsequently slowly reinforce what now becomes a virtuous circle of autonomy and capacity. The approach of patient, deliberate institutionalisation over time calls for considerable confidence in staying such a course, with no necessarily quick or dramatic results, let alone anything resembling

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silver bullets. The contemporary policy and socio-political environment, across countries, is overly fixated on narrow, ahistorical, short-term ‘impact’ measured through crude, quantitative indicators – with little emphasis on the dynamics of unfolding processes and contextual details. This poses a deep practical conundrum.

Capacity through Facilitation and Networking Grindle’s (2007) account of city governments in Mexico emphasises the entrepreneurial approach of successful mayors who sought to build capacity. This, in turn, was made possible by the expansion of opportunities for competitive elections and involved considerable claim-making by citizens. Fiszbein (1997, 1034) describes how leadership can enhance capacity: [L]eadership plays a key but different role at various stages of the capacity development process: launching it requires drive and clarity of objectives; while consolidation and institutionalization require managerial skills.… [I]t is possible to increase government performance without major new investments, simply by making more effective use of latent capacity.… [M]ayors with an entrepreneurial spirit were able to unlock latent capacity in the local administration.

Grindle and Fiszbein are both referring to contexts with considerable de facto decentralisation that provided a fertile administrative ground for able local leaders to flourish. Kerala city governments also have capable leaders with strong grassroots support and clear notions of needed actions (see Chapter 4), yet local government languishes for want of capacity through de facto decentralisation. Some of the Mexican mayors could strongly impact governance even in the absence of institutional capacity because they enjoyed autonomy. But even a brilliant Kerala mayor had little authority to bring change. In Mexico, the institutional weakness provided, paradoxically, a fence ringing off incursions to autonomy, allowing local governments to pursue their agendas. But the institutional weakness eventually became an obstacle: it prevented facilitation and networks that could enhance local capacity, and gains to capacity remained unstable. Besides autonomy, a local government’s capacity also depends upon the backgrounds, anxieties, aspirations and relationships of the individuals in the organisation. Trust is important, going beyond the language of control in principal–agent analysis (Grøn and Salomonsen 2019). Bossert’s (2014, 282) work on decision space also suggests how autonomy varies with person, organisation and local government:

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[T]he formal legal and regulatory rules about decision space did not really define the actual practice of officials.… [S]ome made more use of the range of choice they formally had while others limited their choices to earlier centralized decisions or were unaware of the range of choices they could use.

Fiszbein (1997, 1039) emphasises facilitation of capacity: Successful implementation was always associated with the involvement of someone outside the local administration: the community, an NGO, the private sector or a neighboring municipio.

The discussion underscores two different, complementary and necessary paths to bolster local capacity – autonomy and facilitation. Mexican city governments had autonomy but experienced little facilitation. Kerala city governments had little autonomy and limited facilitation. Emphasis of both paths leads to a fuller view of local capacity: it depends on autonomy, facilitation and network opportunities, and individual characteristics of those in the local government. This brings back the local government as a field of possibilities, embedded in nurturing structures and learning networks that inspire innovation and imagination to address everyday challenges. It is far from the old (and current) world of state–local hierarchies and dispirited local governments half-heartedly pursuing routinised activities with their eye and heart elsewhere, filled with anxiety and lacking confidence.39

Notes 1. Interestingly and a little confusingly, Grindle (2007, 10) allows the general and the specific connotation to co-exist: ‘[‘Decentralisation’ refers] to the formal and informal mechanisms and rules that allocate authority and resources downward among different levels of government. I am most interested in local (as opposed to regional, provincial or state) level governments…’ 2. The International Monetary Fund’s Government Finance Statistics Yearbook. 3. According to these authors, devolution ‘establishes reciprocal and mutually benefiting relationships between central and local governments … [so that] local governments are not merely subordinate administrative units, but they have the ability to interact reciprocally with other units of government in the political system of which they are a part’ (Rondinelli, Nellis and Cheema 1983, 25). 4. Note that Manor’s (1999) conception of democracy is more expansive than being based simply on elections. 5. Foucault (1991, 88) locates this in a history starting from the 16th century when questions regarding ‘how to be ruled, how strictly, by whom, to what end, by what methods, etc … a problematic of government in general’ began to be formulated.

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6. The Kerala legislation uses the term ‘transfer’ widely, apparently to denote shift of administrative control from a unit of the state government to that of the local government. It seems to be used without seeking to bring the state government unit to the local government, thereby allowing it to be a hierarchical unit controlled by the same functional department of the state government even in a de jure sense – let alone the de facto where such transfer was a myth, as shown in Chapters 3 and 4. 7. Karnataka state undertook a 2010 exercise in this context (Government of Karnataka 2010). 8. In addition, Manor (2011, 3) mentions two kinds of ‘accountability mechanisms’, namely ‘horizontal accountability of bureaucrats to elected representatives and ‘downward accountability of elected representatives to ordinary people’. 9. It is interesting that the attempt to dispassionately survey the literature ends up close to a version associated with the World Bank, which some scholars criticise for imposing an ideologically infused version of decentralisation on the developing world. Here the Report quotes Smith (1996) but intriguingly Smith’s article does not contain the words attributed to it, and in fact makes no mention of the terms ‘capable’ or ‘binding’ which are critical parts of the quotation. This misattribution is carried over into several publications from the World Bank, IMF and others. 10. As for deconcentration, it is not relevant in the relation between two governments because it refers to an intra-government, cross-level sharing of authority. Grindle (2007) describes all three forms as acting through the local government, simultaneously. 11. Water supply was one of the several functions that were de jure devolved by India’s 74th CA; further, accompanying state legislation in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and other states also stated the devolution of this function in de jure terms. 12. Dickovick and Eaton (2013) note this for Latin America but interpret de/re-centralisation as centre–state federal arrangements. 13. See Gadenne and Singhal (2014) and Mookherjee (2015) for reviews. Ahmad and Brosio (2009) call this the ‘second wave’, going further back to classical work on checks and balances across levels of federal government (Montesquieu, Hamilton/ Madison) as the ‘first wave’. 14. Efficiency arguments were also made that localities benefiting from provision should finance it through a benefits tax or user fee (Musgrave 1959), although in the presence of spillovers, central grants can be more efficient (Rao and Bird 2011). Further, it was also recognised that in the presence of mobile factors of production, decentralisation of revenue decisions could produce a ‘race to the bottom’; see Cai and Treisman (2005) for a later articulation. 15. Banerjee et al. (2011) present evidence that when Delhi voters were given report cards of legislator performance, it increased the vote shares of better performers.

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16. While interest group capture could also occur in central government, ‘the concern is usually more acute in the context of local governments’ (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2015, 463) due to ease of collusion, concentration of power, and scant media and civil society attention in localities. Capture occurs less when there is political competition, transparency of government procedures, good information flows and oversight by watchdog groups (Mookherjee 2015). There could also be a risk that if local elites exit the system of public provision, there will be insufficient influential voice to maintain the institutional delivery system (Drèze and Sen 2013; Bardhan and Mookherjee 2015). The literature also distinguishes local capture from clientelism; capture diverts public provision from non-elites to elites while clientelism may not do so, and may even increase the gains of non-elites, but only to selected parts of the population (Bardhan and Mookherjee 2015), and that too in ways that reduce the political rights of those who gain in public provision – besides a tendency for emphasising private goods over public goods (Khemani 2019). 17. Another objection to decentralisation had to do with the ‘fiscal commons’ and ‘soft budget constraints’ (Ahmad et al. 2005). But this is actually about relations between federal and provincial governments, not about local governments where the problem of fiscal indiscipline rarely exists (Manor 2011). 18. Decentralisation can also increase information for the central government and allow it to reward/sanction local governments through centre-local transfers and other instruments, thereby further stimulating competition (Jia, Kudamatsu and Seim 2015). 19. Manor (2011, 3) also makes a project-size argument: ‘Local councils right across the world are more interested in many small projects (basic schools, minor irrigation works, small health dispensaries, etc.) than in a few grand undertakings which actors at higher levels prefer (universities, large dams, hospitals, etc.).’ 20. A different motivation along these lines concerns the handling of ethno-regional conflict. 21. Despite the construction of several cross-national indices, the criticisms are many (Mookherjee 2015; Harguindéguy, Cole, and Pasquier 2019). 22. Manor (1999) gives an example where a newly elected government in Maharashtra state in the mid-1990s (coalition of the Shiv Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party) deprived local bodies of powers and resources as these were dominated by the opposing Congress Party. 23. According to Manor (2011, 19), there is only one such potential case (South Korea), ‘and the argument even there is open to doubt’. 24. In each relationship, the desires and opportunities of the two entities tend to be different. For instance, there are clear differences in ‘the motivations facing elected politicians— electoral, partisan, institutional and coalitional—and those facing appointed bureaucrats—consolidating institutional power, improving career trajectories, and checking rival agencies’ (Eaton, Kaiser and Smoke 2011, xvii).

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25. That is, the principal (say, the political executive) engages the agent (say, the bureaucracy) to fulfil tasks and the principal can use rewards and punishments – but the principal does not have the information available to the agent and also cannot fully monitor the agent’s actions. 26. We choose to represent the state government on top, the local government in the middle and the citizens at the bottom. This is consistent with the implicit ‘gravitational model’ of ‘downward’ exertion of authority and power in conventional representations (the state government has power over the local government). 27. Interestingly, Galtung (1971) emphasises that there is a vertical control relation not only between the centre and the periphery but also, within the periphery, between its own centre and periphery – mirrored in national–state versus state– local relations as discussed in previous chapters. In addition, Galtung notes the absence of periphery–periphery relations, which are not in the interest of the centre – which is also reflected in the situations of Indian states discussed in previous chapters. 28. In addition, there are some other forms of urban local government in India; see Appendix 2A. 29. For the central level, Smoke (2015a) also suggests distinguishing between sectoral ministries (such as roads or healthcare) and central ministries with general mandates (such as finance or personnel) as these may have different regulatory/ monitoring relationships with the local government. 30. The discussion of participation and contestation in Chapter 6 suggests several questions about citizen-government engagement that would be useful to explore in other studies. These include: Are citizens well-informed? What are the mechanisms of (bidirectional) information flow? Is there participatory planning/ budgeting? Can citizens gauge government performance (citizen report cards and so on)? (How) do citizens monitor the local bureaucracy? (How) do citizens hold the government to account (through elections and other means)? Are community-based organisations being facilitated? Does local government provide disproportionately fewer local public goods (compared to targeted clientelistic goods)? To what extent can citizens agree on a vision for the city? To what extent are they invested in claim-making for local public goods? To what extent are they invested in claim-making for targeted benefits for the marginalised? Are there spaces for contestation and constructive engagement? Do elites/interest groups disproportionately influence the government? 31. Unsurprisingly, in a three-level system (national, state and local), the state government that seeks to control local government thus, also often ‘complains of inadequate decentralisation [to it] by the national government’ (Fesler 1968, 374). 32. The mechanics of local government elections are of great interest to politicians and the state political executive that indirectly regulates them. For instance,

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35.

36. 37. 38.

39.

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in Chhattisgarh state, the governing party (Congress) changed the rules so that mayors would not be elected directly by the people but indirectly by councillors (a throwback to the system followed before direct elections were introduced). The governing Congress party was considered to have an upper hand in indirect elections. Further, the governing party could appoint councillors to the city government, increasing its influence on indirect mayoral election. See Neeraj Mishra, ‘Congress Sweeps Civic Body Elections in Chhattisgarh’, The Wire, 26 December 2019. But the evidence also suggests that given the opportunity, it will try to interfere; for instance, the Gujarat government later introduced a cadre of accountants and engineering professionals for municipalities, controlled by the state government. Weber’s influential formulation of ideal-type bureaucracy emphasises professionalisation, impersonalisation, stable rules and procedures, routinisation of tasks, and graded authority and hierarchy (Holton and Turner 2010) although the political reality differs considerably (Wilson 2019). The literature identifies extractive, coercive, compliancy, administrative and coordinative dimensions of capacity (Berwick and Christia 2018). Power can take ‘despotic’ and ‘infrastructural’ forms (Mann 2008; Soifer 2008) that shape relations (Castells 2016) and is used for control. Such forms of control have led to ‘the “governmentalisation” of the state’ – that is, ‘the problems of governmentality and the techniques of government have become … the only real space for political struggle and contestation’ Foucault (1991, 103). Although these are presented as stages for heuristic purpose, they are hardly linear conceptually or in practice. See Singh (2012) for a discussion of the Administrative Reforms Commissions. For decision space, these studies consider the following dimensions: strategic and operational planning, budgeting, human resources, service organisation/ delivery, and monitoring and evaluation. For capacity, they consider the following dimensions: resources available, skills and experience, and processes. They also find some (but limited) correlation of decision space and capacity with accountability of the local bureaucracy to the local council, where the dimensions of accountability are: involvement of the political leader of the local government in decision-making and the responsiveness of local administrators to the leader’s priorities. A study by Seshadri et al. (2016) suggests that the decision space in Karnataka rural local governments is relatively narrow. In such a context, in Hirschman’s (1970) terminology ‘loyalty’ is out of the question, and perhaps ‘voice’ as well.

8 Governing Locally: Institutions and Policies

The previous chapter examined different views of decentralisation and presented a framework of de facto decentralisation. The present chapter turns to the policy question of how governments go about implementing decentralisation. How did India implement its decentralisation policy? In the conventional narrative, following the crystallisation of policy intent in the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments (CAs), state legislatures enacted accompanying legislation and state executives implemented the new laws. Two aspects of policy intent were implemented in a robust manner: regular, competitive local government elections organised by independent State Election Commissions (SECs); and transfer of funds from the state government to local governments using transparent formulas devised by independent State Finance Commissions (SFCs). On paper state governments ‘devolved’ several important functions (street lighting, water supply, urban planning, and so on) to city governments. Do these developments – regular elections and funds transfer as well as de jure transfer of functions – make for de facto decentralisation? Much of the literature has implicitly concluded that de facto decentralisation did happen. But in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, water supply, sewerage and other services continued to be provided by the state government, as revealed by the detailed examples in Parts II and III. Since decentralised governance is at the heart of decentralised service delivery, the chapter examines the implementation of the policy to decentralise governance. The first section develops a framework to explain policy implementation in the Indian context. The key actors in the policy process are the state bureaucracy, the state political executive and the state legislature. The key elements in the policy process are state laws, rule-making authority, the rules themselves and oversight over all these elements. It turns out that, across states, decentralisation policy was implemented in a centralised manner. State legislatures and executives consulted neither local governments nor the public regarding how to implement decentralisation.1 This is particularly odd in Kerala where a large literature emphasises the important role of local agency and community organisations in shaping public action for development outcomes in past

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decades (V. K. Ramachandran 1997; Tharakan 1997). The second section discusses policy implementation in Kerala and how ‘policy drift’ emerged. The state’s decentralisation policy in the 1990s prescribed that most local initiatives, and much of local change, must hew to narrow, inflexible, non-contextualised parameters set by the state government – giving a very small ‘decision space’ to local governments. In preparing to implement decentralisation, the legislature’s approach was limited by familiar and routinised ways of lawmaking. Legislators did not seriously consider what could be contributed by local government leaders – who, like themselves, were elected by citizens. In fact, local leaders could have contributed to shaping the new dispensation to administer local affairs locally and democratically, affairs that are the closest to citizens in managing their everyday lives. Such considerations could have gained ground if political groups, advocacy groups, legislators and civil society organisations – with the benefit of research support from independent, public-spirited think tanks – were to converge around this opportunity for real self-governance. But their focus was on local elections, the formation of local governments (rather than its conduct) and people’s participation – all critically important but coming at the cost of serious consideration of administration. As a consequence, a historic opportunity to reset government and governance was lost. Although the 1990s CA for decentralisation triggered many actions that appeared new and bold, they nevertheless failed to reset local governance, as previous chapters have shown. Both observers and those who were involved mistakenly projected their hopes onto a few visible and promising changes and interpreted them as changes in the fundamental terms of local governance. It is understandable that the realities of better-organised elections and bigger funds transfers – through constitutionally mandated institutions that state governments could not easily manipulate – were seen as a harbinger of fundamental change. It is also understandable that the laws appeared fresh and bold when many critical functions were transferred on paper from state to city government. But the fact that these changes were not reflected in actual changes in local governance was hidden from observers, who implicitly assumed that statutes are automatically implemented. The ambivalence of statute provisions, such as keeping the decentralisation of functions open-ended and unimplemented or leaving spaces for possible manipulation of the law, escaped scrutiny.2 In reflecting the intent of the CA, Kerala’s law was evaluated by scholars and administrators to be the most comprehensive across states (Chapter 5). This conclusion seems to have been reached without the support of field research or full knowledge of state lawmaking practices.3 On this basis, Kerala

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received high scores on decentralisation indices (Table 2.1). And yet those comprehensive laws hid latent recentralisation through the assignment of rulemaking authority to the state government. This partly reflects the general lack of good measures of the output of decentralisation policies, namely the actual nature and extent of decentralisation; existing measures concern the external form rather than the content and internal working of decentralisation. It is not as if scholars are entirely unaware of this. O. P. Mathur (1999) observes that we know very little about the functioning of Indian municipalities and Grindle (2007) emphasises the importance of venturing into town halls in Mexico. Observers generally note that governance is a critical issue in implementing decentralisation but have failed to unpack ‘governance’ and trace implementation processes. The experience of decentralisation in Indian states shows that institutional actors have room to manoeuvre and their interests and habituated practices may either reinforce or undermine formal rules. This resonates with a general point made by Ostrom (1990, 184): … policies based on models that represent the structures of situations as unchanging or exogenously fixed, even if repeated, lead to policy recommendations that someone external to the situation must change the structure…. These models demonstrate what individuals will do when they are in a situation that they cannot change. We do not learn from these models what individuals will do when they have autonomy to craft their own institutions and can affect each other’s norms and perceived benefits.

In Kerala, ambitious attempts to implement decentralisation policy ended up in policy drift. Kerala’s situation is similar to that of other states with the exception of Gujarat. The third section of the chapter turns to Gujarat exceptionalism. Gujarat has broadly the same institutional and government features as Kerala and other states. The key actors – the legislature, the political executive and the bureaucracy – have similar interests and incentives as in other states. As a consequence, policy drift could have been expected. But there was one important difference, namely a legislative legacy in Gujarat giving rule-making authority to local governments rather than the state government. This can be traced to many decades before the 1990s reforms, to laws framed in 1949 and even further back to the historic legislation of 1888. Habituated bureaucratic and legislative practices carried forward this legacy. Many studies in the literature understandably seek to gauge whether (and to what extent) decentralisation has made a difference for democracy, people’s participation, service delivery and citizen welfare in general. That is, their interest is in gauging ‘impact’. But this, of course, assumes that ‘decentralisation’ has been implemented and has become a reality. It can be seen immediately that

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implementation cannot be seen in binary terms for it is a matter of degree and kind. The focus then turns to implementation of the decentralisation policy and the intended and unintended realities of decentralisation that emerge from it – that is, threading intention, action and consequence. What is the process of translation of policy ‘intent’ to policy ‘output’? In the specific case of decentralisation in India, how did the national legislative intent, manifested in the CA, change the structures of local governance? What are the processes involved in inducing such change? What happens to previously institutionalised norms and practices in the face of such new inducements? Changes in the formal ‘rules of the game’ do not necessarily, or at least straightforwardly, generate changes in norms, practices and outcomes, let alone the specific changes expected by those re-engineering the rule. Even when a ‘theory of change’ is carefully formulated, there is hardly any guarantee that what unfolds will approximate what was expected, especially in systems with large numbers of diverse individuals and institutions who have agency and whose beliefs and actions spring from the fullness and complexity of the human condition. The history of social interventions is one of unintended consequences – and yet, also, it is a story of continuing hubris that social reality can be wilfully reshaped through policy intent. The literature on decentralisation offers several normative frameworks as well as arguments for and against nuanced implications of decentralisation for outcomes desired by ‘benign’ or ‘biased’ policymakers (see Chapter 7). Compared to its attention to normative frameworks and arguments, the literature on decentralisation has focused less on how to carry out a decentralisation policy and the practical issues of implementation (Campbell 2011). If it is agreed, for instance, that devolution of specific functions, finances and authority is desirable, how is this to be done and how can the ‘right conditions’ be created by those handling the ‘levers of policy’? The literature has discussed important issues such as preventing local capture and local government capacity as prerequisites for decentralisation to be effective (Bardhan 2002; Bahl and Bird 2013). But how are these to be achieved? There is insufficient attention on processes through which central government strictures or tendencies for local capture are negotiated by local governments and processes through which local government capacity may or may not be enhanced. Much work remains to be done in understanding the ‘how’ questions behind local capacity and inter-governmental relations. It is not only the academic literature on decentralisation that pays insufficient attention to matters of process. Even in the world of policy ‘doers’, it turns out, challenges that arise in implementation hardly ever loop back to policymakers.

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Field conversations with local councils and local bureaucrats in Kerala repeatedly confirm this. Rigid top-down structures can stymie feedback (Konkipudi and Jacob 2017). In such situations, with little recourse to a darshan from upper echelons, let alone a sympathetic one, frontline workers cope in their own ways, including jugaad that is not reported up the hierarchy (Mishra 2014).4

Policy Process and Influence of Institutions This section presents a framework of how policy ‘works’, connecting different governance levels (national, state, local) as well as different institutional actors in the Indian context. Figure 8.1 is a stylised representation of the processes that constitute decentralisation policy. Much of it is pertinent to the implementation of any policy by the state government. The five rectangular boxes denote various parts of the government: the national legislature; the state legislature; the elected leadership (‘political executive’) and the bureaucracy that together form the state executive; and the local government. ‘Decentralisation policy’ is shown as a set of six numbered processes. Associated with each process is a policy ‘output’ represented by six ovals: constitutional amendment; state law; administrative rules; legislative approval of the rules; establishment of local government; and decentralised action such as local service delivery. To begin with, the national legislature amends the Constitution (process 1 in the figure) and requires the state legislatures to enact accompanying legislation (state law) as local governance is a ‘state subject’ according to the Constitution. Accordingly, each state legislature enacts state law on decentralisation to conform to the requirements of the CA; this is drafted through the state executive (‘state government’) and finally approved as law by the legislature (process 2). A good law is expected to reflect the spirit and letter of the CA: ‘The quality of legislation is the extent to which the criteria, emanating from constitutional principles, are met’ (Voermans 2011, 67; cited by Drinóczi 2015). The state government then creates administrative rules (‘subordinate legislation’) to implement the state law. Within the state government, the political executive (elected leadership) routinely delegates this to the bureaucracy, which drafts administrative rules for decentralisation (process 3). Rule-making is based on administrative law, ‘a purely instrumental creature, created to carry out legislatively determined ends’ (Tamanaha 2006, 190). The political executive presents these rules to the state legislature which formally approves them (process 4). These administrative rules are implemented by the state bureaucracy to establish local governments (process 5). Process 5 has two aspects. One is organising elections and transferring funds (5.1). The other is state–local relations (5.2) which affect local capacity. To complete the argument, local capacity shapes decentralised service delivery (process 6).

Governing Locally Constitutional Amendment

State Law

1 National Legislature

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2 State Legislature

State Executive State Political Executive

4 State Legislative Approval for Rules

3

Administrative Rules

State Bureaucracy 5 Organising Local Government 5.2 5.1 Elections, State-Local Funds Relations Local Capacity

Local Government 6 Decentralised Action Figure 8.1 Implementation process for decentralisation policy Source: Authors. Notes: Rectangles and ovals denote parts of government and ‘outputs’ of decentralisation policy, respectively; numbers represent processes in time. In principle, processes 2, 3 and 4 could form multiple loops although the figure shows only one loop.

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While all the processes in Figure 8.1 cohere as decentralisation policy and implementation, rule-making (process 3) is of particular importance in explaining developments in India. The importance of rule-making has been emphasised in other contexts as well. In a comprehensive study, Potter (2019) shows how bureaucratic agencies in the US use rule-making strategically, for instance, fast-tracking or slow-rolling to work around political oversight. Of the tens of thousands of rules in a period of two decades, over four-fifths of rules proposed by the agencies were approved. In the context of decentralisation, Eaton, Kaiser and Smoke (2011, 36) write: It is in the detailed design and implementation of decentralization, however, where bureaucratic politics can really take on a life of its own, including (intentionally or unintentionally) undermining the legal framework and/or moving decentralization in new directions.

Figure 8.1 can be used to clarify the terms ‘policy’ and ‘implementation’. Often, academic literature and public discussions equate decentralisation policy with state law (process 2) and equate its implementation with actions by the local government such as service delivery (process 6). Such a view skips processes 3 – 4 – 5. Administrative rule-making (process 3) is relatively hidden from public view and often dismissed as clerical work.5 Legislative assent (process 4) is considered a formality in parliamentary systems where the executive dominates the legislature. The application of administrative rules to organise local government (process 5) is also not emphasised in academic literature and public discussions. And in organising local government (process 5), the focus is mostly only on elections and fund transfers (process 5.1) rather than on state–local relations (process 5.2). But the intervening processes 3 – 4 – 5.2 are critical in determining the final form of decentralisation. Whether decentralisation is made or unmade depends upon how these processes are made or unmade. Decentralisation policy is ‘implemented’ through legislative lawmaking, administrative rule-making, legislative oversight of rules, and administrative application of rules to organise local governments and set state–local relations (processes 2–3–4–5). This is different from how the local government ‘implements’ (or not) plans and actions for decentralised service delivery. Considerations of action and inaction by the local government pertain only to the outcomes delivered by a decentralised government if decentralisation has been achieved in the first place.6 While the absence of a systematic or sustainable method for solid waste disposal in Trivandrum could be traced to poor management by the city government, it could just as well be attributed to the absence of decentralisation and therefore

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the lack of autonomy and capacity of the city government to manage solid waste. Previous chapters reveal that in fact, the latter is the reason. The city government’s performance in solid waste disposal cannot be evaluated before Trivandrum is de facto decentralised. Much of the criticism of local governance comes before ascertaining whether the local government is endowed with autonomy and actually enjoys decentralisation. There is a long history of separating ‘policy’ and ‘implementation’ and focusing on the former over the latter (Hupe and Hill 2016). In their book Implementation in the context of America’s welfare state almost half a century ago, Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) used the extended title ‘how great expectations in Washington are dashed in Oakland’ and wrote (xiii): Implementation to us means just what Webster and Roger say it does: to carry out, accomplish, fulfil, produce, complete. But what is being implemented? A policy naturally. There must be something out there prior to implementation: otherwise there is nothing to move towards in the process of implementation. A verb like ‘implement’ must have an object like ‘policy’.

In such approaches, not only is policy segmented into formation and implementation but the relationship between them is often assumed rather than problematised. Realities of ambiguity and conflict are not addressed. The tendency is to identify ‘implementation gaps’ and to explain them in terms of translation from well-articulated policy intentions to flawed implementation (from Washington DC to Oakland; or in our case from New Delhi to Trivandrum to, say, Palakkad). While Pressman and Wildavsky emphasise lacunae in implementation, recent literature treats implementation as part of the policy itself. That is, policy formation and implementation are part of a continuum of policy processes. Policy implementation is about carrying out policy intent to change the nature of local governance, not the link between local governance and outcomes such as service delivery. Once policy intent is articulated (process 1), all the remaining processes pertain to policy implementation, that is, the carrying out of that intent. Therefore policy implementation includes the formulation of state law (process 2) and administrative rules (process 3), legislative oversight and sanction of rules (process 4), and the application of those rules in organising the functioning of local government (process 5). Alternatively, these elements of implementation can be interpreted as elements of policy formulation as well – as state law is interpreted in the decentralisation literature for India. This simply underscores the fact that policy formation and implementation are not distinct. In this reading, processes

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2 – 3 – 4 are interim ‘policy outputs’ and process 5 is the final policy output. What is clear, though, is that the actions of local government and their successes and failures are not decentralisation policy outputs. Sometimes, rather than explore the underlying processes, there is a tendency to attribute observed divergence between original intent and final output, to politics and politicians (processes 2 and 4). Naturally, politicians play important roles in the policy process for decentralisation. Many legislators and political administrators may be ambivalent about decentralisation (lack of ‘political will’). And the non-policy interests of politicians can impact policy outputs. But surely explanations cannot end there. ‘Politics’ encompasses more than the domain of politicians – in this case, it is imperative to explore the domain of bureaucrats and the politics of administration. For instance, the staff of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA, a state government utility) may prefer to report to a distant political administrator (a minister in the state government) rather than to a closer political administrator (the mayor of the local government). Working with the minister exposes them to fewer monitoring and fewer accountability mechanisms – cosy, incognito and deep inside the state government’s protective layers. Matters of this nature concern the politics of implementation. Besides politics, problems in local implementation (process 6) form another common explanation for the divergence between original intent and final outcomes. Sometimes mayors and councils may be corrupt or inept. Other elements of local context may also compromise the smooth working of local governments. But previous chapters reveal that local capacity and autonomy are not idiosyncratic or only local. They are affected by state–local relations (process 5.2) and the policy output from the broader workings of decentralisation policy. Although Figure 8.1 assembles processes linearly for heuristic purposes, in fact they play out in non-linear ways. Loops are possible in the process of lawmaking (process 2) based on drafting by the state bureaucracy. The dynamics depend on macro-institutional specificities such as India’s parliamentary system with a dominant executive. Loops also occur in the dynamics between the political executive and the bureaucratic administrators (process 3). And loops are possible between the state executive and the legislature (process 4) through legislative oversight as well as the dynamics of party politics. We develop a few conjectures about why attention has been skewed to processes 2 and 5.1 and why far less attention has been paid to processes 3 – 4 – 5.2. First, some aspects of state law carried through clearly to final ‘outputs’ – namely conduct of elections and creation of a Finance Commission (process 5.1) – and this may have created a general tendency to ignore intervening processes (3 and 4).

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The wide-ranging formal devolution of functions and elaborate participation provisions in Kerala legislation was matched with observations about large fund transfers and people’s participation highlighted by proponents of the people's plan campaign. This may have reduced the scrutiny of intervening processes. Second, rule-making (process 3) may have been ignored because of its relatively hidden nature as it is tucked away in the internal recesses of the government. There is a general reluctance to open the messy black box of the internal workings of the state government and the ‘boring and routine’ world of administrative rule-making. Rule-making may also have been less comprehensible. In addition, there is a general tendency to presume bureaucratic expertise and neutrality.7 The reluctance to scrutinise administrative processes is reinforced by academic disciplinary boundaries: political science, sociology and economics, and even policy studies to some extent, do not engage sufficiently with public administration.8 And public administration also tends to follow routine tracks rather than explain rule-making through administrative culture and nuances of politics by engaging with other academic disciplines.9 Third, state–local relations (process 5.2) may not have been explored sufficiently because of its messy nature and the relative absence of past academic work on the subject beyond principal– agent models. It may be also due to a tendency to believe that local government capacity and local politics are exogenously determined.

Kerala: Drift in Policy Implementation In the spirit of the CA, Kerala’s decentralisation law seeks to decentralise many functions. For instance, it specifies that all water supply installations and facilities be transferred from the state government or its agency (KWA) to the city government. It also specifies that the staff necessary for running the facility should be transferred from the KWA to the control of the city government. Yet water supply remains a state government function in Kerala a good quartercentury later. Why is this so? When an organisation adopts a new strategy in response to a changing environment, typically this would change the output – in this case, when the state responded to the CA by trying to reorganise local government, it is to be expected that there were changes in the local government organisation. But in fact little changed in the way city governments worked, due to the stranglehold of the state government. Which aspects of policy implementation – legislative lawmaking, administrative rule-making, legislative oversight, or rule application – can explain state–local relations in Kerala? Expectedly, the explanation threads through them all.

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Legislative Lawmaking The process of lawmaking in Kerala starts with a policy note from the nodal or sectoral department of the state government. This goes to drafters in the legislative wing of the Law Department.10 Often the original policy note is not precise and does not clearly specify the objectives and intentions. Legislative drafters discuss these matters with the corresponding department to extract details of the intended content.11 However, this did not apply to the decentralisation law since the intent was clear in the CA itself. In fact the 1994 Kerala legislation (Kerala Municipality Act, or KMA) clearly mapped the intent of the CA into the letter of the state law by unequivocally specifying that the ‘[m]unicipality shall have such powers, authority and responsibilities of the Government, to enable it to function as an institution of self government in respect of the matters entrusted to it’.12 Changes were made to the law in 1999 ostensibly to strengthen its provisions for devolution. To identify drift, consider the provisions of the law for a specific service domain, water supply. For this domain, the 1999 law states that ‘all assets ... shall vest in and stand transferred to the Municipality’.13 But elsewhere the law contradicts this by leaving the transfer of assets and personnel to the discretion of the state government.14 The thinking seems to have been to transfer functions only partially, leaving potentially further transfer for later.15 But the language of the law created potential recentralisation by lawmaking stealth. The law also did not give a date for actually carrying out the transfer of the function including the physical transfer and the transfer of personnel. Even today, over 25 years later, the transfer has not occurred. Councillors and mayors of municipalities and municipal corporations affirm that water supply and sewerage have not been transferred to them as municipal responsibilities. Apart from these changes, the 1999 legislation recentralised further by giving the state government the power to make rules on several matters. This opened up all internal matters of local governments for state government direction and control. The process of rule-making details the implementation of laws. Importantly, the KMA gives rule-making authority to the state government. It states: ‘The Government may, by notification in the Gazette, make rules, either prospectively or retrospectively, to carry out all or any of the purposes of this Act.’16 In addition to this umbrella provision, Chapter XXVI on ‘Rules, Bye-Laws and Regulations’ goes on to devote many paragraphs and clauses to emphasise the point. What is left for the local government? In a paragraph titled ‘Power of Council to make bye-laws’, the KMA states: ‘The Council may make bye-laws not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder or any other law, to …’, going on to list several specifics.17 The KMA uses similar language in the case of the ‘Power of the Council to make regulations’.18 This makes it clearer still that

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the rules framed by the state government can supersede bye-laws and regulations framed by the council. And even then, all such bye-laws and regulations framed by the council have to first be approved by the state government: ‘No bye-law or regulation or any cancellation or alteration thereof shall have effect until the same is approved and confirmed by the Government.’19 Typically, authority for rule-making is vested in a delegated agency of the state government. But the KMA was not like most legislation in that it was about forming a government itself, one that is democratically elected and not subordinate to the state government. This being a fundamental departure, it would have been reasonable, following the spirit of the CA and the Preamble of the KMA itself – whose high-minded objective was to ‘endow such Municipalities with necessary powers and authority to enable them to function as institutions of selfgovernment’ – to leave it to the new governments to devise their own procedures. There already existed codes of practices (in the national and state governments), quality and safety standards, environmental regulations and the like for a shared governance arrangement extended to the new local governments by the sanctity of the Constitution. To constitute a new tier of government not subordinate to another, what was needed was not blueprints and rule-making by the devolving government to lay down the internal working of the new government, but rather a clear statement about the nature of state–local relations culling any ambiguous language suggesting subordination, and signalling that the devolving government would extend support to the new government for organising itself in the new regime. By pursuing narrow rule-making rather than actions to signal autonomy of the local government and the facilitative role of the state government, an opportunity was squandered. The law went through the usual mill of law-drafting bureaucratic machinery and the legislative process of enactment. How much were legislators involved in the formation of the KMA? Interviews suggest that legislators generally relied on the drafting done by the bureaucracy. Legislators did not scrutinise the drafts for provisions that reflect the overall spirit of decentralisation. This is not surprising since the complexity of lawmaking often necessarily implies delegation. The detailing of the contents of a law may vary according to legislative norms and practices as well as the specific subject of legislation. In more complex matters, the legislature may delegate more to a relevant administrative agency to apply its expertise, especially in matters in which understanding is not clearly developed. Legislators often face a trade-off between scrutiny/control and expertise and this is likely to affect the authority granted to the executive (McNollgast 1999).20 The more complex an issue, the more the gains from executive expertise (McCubbins 1985). Even when the legislature forms

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specialised committees, its members are often lost in the intricacies of bureaucratic organisations, procedures and tactics. Scher (1963, 532) quotes a US legislator: Even when we [on the committee] suspect something’s not right [in the agencies] what can we do about it? It would take forever to really get into the thing. First we’d get a long run-around in and out of the statute. There’s always some little provision that nobody knew was there, except the bureaucrat who pulls it out of the hat – ‘but, Senator, the law does require that we do such and such.’ Before we finish they have us thinking it’s all because of the terrible law we wrote and nothing at all to do with how they treated it.

In addition, legislators generally ‘tend to see opportunities for greater rewards in the things they value from involvement in legislative and constituent-service activity than from participation in oversight activity’ (Scher 1963, 531). Other scholars have similar observations (Rosenthal 1981; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983). But such reasons for delegated legislation are probably not why Indian state legislatures delegate legislative drafting and rule-making authority to the bureaucracy. Outside of efficiency or normative considerations, the fact is that the wide span of responsibilities of legislatures, the absence of research support for legislators and issue complexity together give little option but to delegate to presumed executive expertise. Such reasons may have caused the approach to lawmaking on decentralised governance to turn out no differently from the habituated ways of making other similar-looking laws which typically authorise a subordinate agency to execute a specific function, the fundamental distinction of a government-making law notwithstanding. And yet the law could have been drafted differently to redistribute rule-making authority from the (default) state government to local governments. Decentralisation law could have proclaimed that by default, rule-making powers rest with local governments (with specific justified exceptions), avoiding the possibility of divergence in the first place.

Administrative Rule-Making Consider next the detailing of administrative rules for action on decentralisation (process 3 in Figure 8.1). Functionally, administrative rule-making is continuous with lawmaking in that it details out laws for their application. While the legislature’s pronouncement of the law in the form of an Act sets up the overall policy frame, the detailing of the policy is spread across several other instruments that are collectively called ‘rules’ – in Indian government parlance, these are rules, regulations and administrative decisions in the form of advisories, directives, circulars, guidelines, instructions, and so on.21 Ganz’s (1987, 1) description of the British context is true for India as well:

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[T]here has been an exponential growth of statutory and extra-statutory rules in a plethora of forms. Codes of practice, guidance, guidance notes, guidelines, circulars, White Papers, development control policy notes, development briefs, practice statements, tax concessions, Health Service Notices, Family Practitioner notices, codes of conduct, codes of ethics and conventions are just some of the guises in which the rules appear.

Just as citizens encounter ‘policy’ through the practices of frontline workers or ‘street-level bureaucrats’ (Lipsky 2010), local governments encounter decentralisation policy and law in the form of administrative rules which serve as the formal boundaries of the ‘decision space’ of local governance within which they are required to function. Therefore, arguably the details of rule-making are among the most consequential policy choices, emphasised more recently by the ‘nudge’ literature (Congdon and Shankar 2018; Sunstein 2019). Who makes administrative rules and how is it done? Within the state government, rule-making is routinely delegated to bureaucrats. The political and democratic underpinnings of legislative lawmaking and administrative rulemaking differ considerably. While lawmaking is in the public sphere, in practice, rule-making is far less public and faces even less scrutiny. Rule-makers typically see it as routine work rather than connect the activity with the broader purpose and the process of policy implementation through which the original policy intent expresses itself. In practice, rule-making often deviates from professional best practices (Schuck 2014). Chapters 3 to 5 provided extensive details of this for Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Here too, as in the case of law-drafting following a beaten track rather than aligning with policy intent, habituated and settled practices did not allow fresh thinking about how to proceed. Rule-making outputs diverge from laws and policy intent for different reasons. Rule-making bureaucrats are hardly impersonal, all-knowing, well-meaning translators of laws into action. While the technocratic lens, inspired by Max Weber’s ‘rationalisation thesis’, conceives bureaucracy as an organised, professional system of graded authority and rules leading to ‘rational’ decision-making, the reality is different (Stone 2002; Nayanika Mathur 2017). Bureaucrats’ individual interests may make practices inefficient, corrupt and unjust.22 And bureaucrats’ ‘class’ interests and backgrounds also affect their norms and ideologies and influence how they translate laws into rules. Although the impact of ‘non-representative bureaucracy’ on administrative processes and policies in India is understudied, there is considerable anecdotal evidence that those with a tin ear for adivasi (tribal) or gender justice make policies and rules in these domains. Interviews with senior bureaucrats in all the three states reveal a generalised suspicion of decentralisation.

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Therefore, it is no wonder if the bureaucracy made rules to claw back what the law promised. From his work on milk cooperatives in Gujarat’s Anand and elsewhere, Kurien (2012, 100) emphasises that both the national and the state political executive was typically open and willing to innovate but that bureaucracy at both levels stifled such possibilities. For instance, while Maharashtra’s chief minister and agriculture minister welcomed him to work on milk cooperatives, a key bureaucrat (the milk commissioner) rebuffed him: ‘So, according to you, the dairy should be owned by the farmers,’ he observed. ‘Then what should I own? You will dismantle my department. I know what you have done in Gujarat and there is no milk commissioner there – there is not even a milk department there.’ … To create Anands in the country would prove to be extremely difficult, only because the bureaucracy would not permit it.

Another reason why rule-making diverged from the law has to do with the realities of the bureaucratic set-up. Rule-making tasks typically lie with the corresponding bureaucratic division. In the best-case scenario, a division would have an administrative leader who is clearly accountable for timely rule-making that conforms to the letter and spirit of the laws that the rules are meant to detail. However, often accountability is fragmented and diffused; bureaucrats operate under unclear monitoring structures; and they are saddled with multiple responsibilities that make it difficult to stay focused and on-task for any particular policy. In sum, the strong hold of institutions and bureaucratic foot-dragging reinforced each other to create a situation where the new decentralisation Act and Rules were drawn away from the original intent, making them indifferent to the real transfer of authority as the end outcome. As Tagore eloquently cautioned, ‘the clear stream of reason’ ended up losing its way in ‘the dreary desert sands of dead habit’.23 And the invisible force of entrenched habit simply carried it along. In principle, there are two formal institutional mechanisms that could prevent or repair drift and divergence. First, since bureaucratic rule-makers are formally accountable to the political executive (process 3), internal scrutiny within the state government could potentially set right any divergence. Second, since the state executive is formally accountable to the legislature (process 4), legislative oversight and scrutiny prior to rule approval could potentially set right any divergence. In addition, a third mechanism is present in democracies: the media, civil society and citizens could potentially scrutinise rules and use advocacy to reach out to bureaucratic rule-makers, political administrators and legislators to set right the divergence of rules from law and policy intent. All these mechanisms turned out to be weak in practice and there was very little effective oversight.

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The specifics of lawmaking and rule-making which can create policy drift can be usefully interpreted as ‘institutions’, that is, stable arrangements that shape (in)action and beliefs and are constituted by them. For North (1990), institutions are humanly devised constraints on behaviour, the ‘rules of the game’, both formal (laws and constitutions) and informal (conventions and norms). For others, institutions are the stable patterns of individual/group behaviour formed by rules (Greif 2006). Elinor Ostrom combines these ideas. Her conception of institutions includes formal rules and informal norms. It also includes ‘strategies’, that is, people’s actions based on expectations of others’ actions, all of which together create stable patterns of behaviour. In Ostrom’s (2010, 263) words, [Institutions are] the shared concepts used by humans in repetitive situations organized by rules, norms, and strategies. By rules, is meant shared prescriptions (must, must not, or may) that are mutually understood and predictably enforced in particular situations by agents responsible for monitoring conduct and for imposing sanctions. By norms, is meant shared prescriptions that tend to be enforced by the participants themselves through internally and externally imposed costs and inducements. By strategies, is meant the regularized plans that individuals make within the structure of incentives produced by rules, norms, and expectations of the likely behavior of others in a situation affected by relevant physical and material conditions.

Legislators, elected leaders in government and bureaucrats all follow old ‘scripts’ including informal conventions, giving old forms to new ventures (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Legislators let bureaucrats do the drafting and ministers let bureaucrats craft the rules, following past practice. The state bureaucracy duly drafted laws and rules through habitual practices and ministers and legislators duly approved them through similar habituation, exercising only perfunctory oversight. Past practices of lawmaking and rule-making created norms that structured actions and created ‘path dependence’ in policy implementation. Bardach (2006, 946) notes: Today’s policy options are a product of policy choices made previously – ‘the path’ – sometimes decades previously. Hence the concept of ‘path dependency.’ Those earlier choices may have … a constraining, or ‘lock-in’ effect.…

The weight of norms and practices became self-reinforcing so that KMA 1999 further strengthened the state government control that was already written into KMA 1994. This further widened initial policy divergence from the original intent. All of this produced ‘policy drift’, that is, the continuation of settled ways

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of behaviour despite a change in context. According to Hacker (2004, 246), who first used the term, policy drift refers to changes in the operation or effect of policies that occur without significant changes in those policies’ structure. The major cause of drift … is a shift in the social context of policies.… The hallmark of change of this sort is that it occurs largely outside the immediate control of policymakers, thus appearing natural or inadvertent.

Since institutions are about stable arrangements, change in institutions is typically traced to outside factors.24 From time to time there could be windows of opportunity (‘critical junctures’) that can nudge or radically change rules, norms and settled practices (Pierson and Skocpol 2002).25 The 1990s decentralisation reforms were a potential critical juncture, as was the process of constitutionmaking almost half a century before that. But these potential windows of opportunity did not produce ‘displacement’, that is, abrupt and transformational change (Mahoney and Thelen 2010) – in this case, there was no major resetting of state–local relations. Law-drafting, rule-making, and beliefs and expectations around these, tended to follow routines set by past practices, legislation and administrative rules.26

The Role of the State Bureaucracy The discussion has highlighted the role of the state bureaucracy in policy practice leading to top-down state–local relations and weakened local government in Kerala and other states. The state bureaucracy has a central role in drafting legislation and rules. Interviews with senior state government bureaucrats overseeing local governments reveal a generalised perception of distance, if not mistrust, and justifications aplenty for ‘hand-holding’ and control. This is true in Gujarat as well. These perceptions both contribute to and are caused by traditional top-down, regulatory lawmaking and public administration. In the realistic fiction of Yes Prime Minister (Lynn and Jay 2020, 392–93), the head of the bureaucracy explains: … if we once create genuinely democratic local communities, it won’t stop there. Once they were organised, such communities would insist on more powers, which the politicians will be too frightened to withhold … if there is some vacant land in, say, Nottingham, and there are rival proposals for its use – a hospital or an airport, for instance – our modus operandi is to set up an interdepartmental committee. That’s what we have always done and its what we always shall do. This Committee creates months of fruitful work as all the interested Departments liaise: the Department of Health, the Department of Education, the Department of Transport, the Treasury, Environment, and so forth. We all have to see the papers, hold meetings, propose,

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discuss, revise, report back, and redraft. It’s the normal thing. And why? Because it generally results in mature and responsible conclusion. But if we had regional government they would decide the whole thing, themselves, in Nottingham. Probably in three or four meetings? … [T]hey can’t be trusted to know what’s right.… [And] we, the Civil Service, would have much less power.

The state government bureaucracy uses multiple strategies that take policy away from the original intent. First, it plugs in law provisions that produce ambiguity regarding what authority lies with local governments. In the case of water supply provisions in the KMA, there was a clause that assets ‘shall be valued in such manner as may be fixed by the Government and shall be given to the water authority by the respective Municipality in the manner prescribed’!27 Two clauses later, the KMA states that ‘necessary staff of the Water Authority as may be required to continue such service shall be conceded to that Municipality as decided by the Government’.28 For a major law, and that too one that has been feted by many observers, the language is surprisingly garbled. Despite the ambiguity, the law nevertheless manages to have the phrases ‘in the manner prescribed’ [by ‘the Government’] and ‘as decided by the Government’.29 Second, bureaucratic drafters left the law open-ended so that there would be a need for elaboration later in the form of constraining rules that are outside legislative control for all practical purposes. Third, these moves by the bureaucracy prevented local governments from acquiring adequate governance capacity, such as by withholding not only functional facilities but also personnel. The upshot was that the bureaucracy built in several avenues to keep working on the policy in its implementation, keeping it ambiguous and reducing its effectiveness over time. This slowly eroded the policy and shifted its direction. These actions by the bureaucracy should not be seen primarily in rational choice terms of manipulation and sabotage. They come more from habituated practices shaped by legacies and cultures transformed into norms and strategies that constitute ‘institutions’. Despite appearances, was political commitment weak? Commentators have suggested this for states like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan (Manor 1999; Rudolph 2006). Our fieldwork suggests that the primary constraint was institutional gaps, not political commitment. Was the ‘implementation capacity’ of the state government weak? The discussion in this section suggests that there was weakness in dealing with change. The state government was better at handling routine procedures than handling change-making processes that require institutional arrangements and capacities to manage policy redirection. At a macroinstitutional level, there were major weaknesses in the monitoring and oversight of the ‘quality’ of legislation and implementation – manifested in laws, rule-making

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authority, rules and execution of rules in establishing local governments. Political scrutiny of state bureaucrats’ rule-making is ‘thin’: although ostensibly there is formal legislative oversight, legislators’ concerns on policy operationalisation and the concerns of the pre-legislation Select Committee were not seriously considered by the state bureaucracy in lawmaking and rule-making.30 Even city government bureaucrats were not consulted when the state civil service made city government rules. There was little engagement of the local elected leadership in building regulatory processes, reinforcing the asymmetry in power. Over time this has produced a top-down administrative culture with authority recaptured by the state government despite the trappings of decentralisation.

Gujarat: Administrative Legacy and Drift Avoidance The path-dependency argument for laws, rule-making authority and rules is true for Gujarat just as it is true for Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The difference is that previous Gujarat laws had already conferred rule-making authority to urban local governments well before the 1990s reforms. During fieldwork, municipal leaders said that their city governments already had the powers mentioned in the CA; this was also confirmed by long-time observer and scholar Ghanshyam Shah.31 Following the reforms, state legislation simply continued this legacy, while expanding provisions for elections, funds transfer and devolved functions. Rule-making was left to the autonomy of local governments due to institutional path-dependency rather than deliberate design. That legacy saved Gujarat’s law from ‘development’ through administrative layers, unlike the experience of Kerala. Gujarat’s trajectory is traceable to the 1949 Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act and its colonial-era precursors. The Act reposed political faith in local self-governance and appears to be derived from and have continuity with municipal legislation for the Bombay region dating back to 1888. That legislation of the colonial administration was the outcome of hard bargaining by the city’s leaders and it led to considerable autonomy for the city government.32 As Tinker (1967, 52) puts it, ‘Government control was almost completed abrogated.’ The following remarkable statement from Lord Reay, the Governor of Bombay (the colonial administrator heading the province) shows the extent to which the provincial government had ceded autonomy to the city government as a result of the 1888 legislation (Wacha 1913, 448–50): The Corporation exercises among other powers that of passing bye-laws and of determining what revenue should be raised, what expenditure may be incurred, and such general control of the executive as is the natural result of that power. No money can be spent, or a future liability incurred, without the sanction of the

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Corporation. No transfers can take place without the knowledge of the Corporation. … The interference of Government with the affairs of the Corporation is limited to the occasion and to the manner in which it can be exercised under the Bill. There is not the slightest inclination on the part of Government to overstep these limits.

Drawing on this legislative legacy, the 1949 BPMC Act was a close-knit piece of legislation for creating a different tier of government. The Act included a schedule with a set of regulations for the conduct of local governments; the schedule simultaneously provided freedom for local governments to recast those regulations. This enabled newly formed local governments to straightaway start on the strength of the schedule provisions; they could work on creating their own regulations as they gained direct experience and confidence in running the local government. The power of rule-making was given to a body of elected representatives, the municipal council. This prefigures the British system of the Scottish parliament legislating by delegation from the British House of Commons (McHarg 2008). The BPMC Act provided autonomy for discretionary action by the local government, including the creation of and recruitment for staff positions.33 It goes to the credit of Gujarat state governments over the years that this legacy of autonomy for organisational development and staff adequacy – beginning over four decades before the CA – was allowed to continue over time. And it is of concern that in recent years, state and national government dominance is eroding this legacy. Although the BPMC Act put in place organisational and decision-making structures that gave considerable autonomy to city governments, resource inadequacies prevented the full flowering of city governance in early postIndependence decades. This changed when infrastructure finance from the state and the national government improved in the early 2000s. Although they previously lacked the resources to provide services such as water supply, sewerage, drainage and street lighting to cover the entire city area, Gujarat municipal corporations were fully staffed and equipped for basic functions and hence could access Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) funds disproportionately far more than those in Kerala. They had capacities that made it easier to fulfil the JNNURM guidelines; these very capacities also ensured that they could better follow through (Figure 3.3) and they expanded coverage quickly. Granted, the new financial support was project-based and brought oversight by the state and the national government,34 but these higher-level governments mostly did not interfere with local government decisions (priorities, project selections, contracting authority, implementation management). Tamil Nadu cities such as Coimbatore and Tirunelveli did not have staffing arrangements to

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handle services made possible by the JNNURM. Nevertheless, they responded by making some changes in procedures, staffing and organisational form emphasising service-producing departments; as a consequence of such expanding capacity, they also grew through the JNNURM. In Kerala, municipal corporations did not have competent personnel and ready procedures for different tasks. Adverse administrative rules prevented them from endogenously acquiring them. Consequently, when the JNNURM arrived, implementation went into the hands of the state government. The comparison with Kerala suggests that the legacy of autonomy and capacity helped Gujarat city governments to hold their ground instead of being inundated by the onrush of external funding through the JNNURM and later programmes, which could otherwise have weakened them. The legislative legacy that benefited Gujarat also benefited Maharashtra as the old ‘Bombay’ of the BPMC Act covered the present-day region of both states. There is suggestive evidence that Maharashtra also had pre-CA latent capacities as a consequence. Studying Maharashtra’s Kalyan-Dombivli municipal corporation (KDMC), Pancholi (2014) observes that the BPMC Act had devolved several functions, including infrastructure services such as water supply, drainage, sewerage and roads. Initially, the KDMC had some autonomy and it provided several discretionary services such as local transport and swimming, auditorium and stadium facilities. This has parallels with Gujarat cities. But over the decades there was an increase in interference by the state government. According to Pancholi (2014), the state-affiliated Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) controlled the city government’s planning and execution of projects on infrastructure and urban poverty in the JNNURM. Overall, it appears that Maharashtra made post-BPMC moves that undermined city government autonomy while Gujarat did not, although the literature on the subject is thin.35

State Government Capacity The chapter has argued that state–local relations depend to a great extent on rule-making and lawmaking with historical antecedence in administrative and legislative practices, leading to a trajectory of divergence from original policy intent in the case of Kerala but less so in the case of Gujarat. How does state government capacity affect the argument? Consider the example of urban planning. The Gujarat state government went on to devise and implement suitable methods of land use planning through its Department of Town and Country Planning. Ahmedabad, Surat and other city governments worked along with local area development authorities of the state government to develop and implement planning instruments. In contrast, Kerala and Tamil Nadu

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did not develop regulations or participatory planning methods systematically even as they grafted the regulatory provisions in laws on urban land use planning.36 For all practical purposes, in Kerala, the policy function of urban planning has not been devolved to city governments.37 But even if they had been effectively devolved, since the state government’s Department of Town and Country Planning had not developed basic competency in developing useful plans or implementable TPSs for extending infrastructure access, it was in no position to transfer any useful planning knowledge to city governments. Commenting on the state government’s entrepreneurial and managerial capacity, an official committee found that Kerala had not undertaken any major urban project for roads, drinking water, underground sewerage, and so on (Government of Kerala 2010, 67).38 The lack of experience is worsened by the absence of adequate planning and institutional arrangements for running, managing and monitoring projects. Project procedures are not task-oriented and there are many unnecessary procedures, committees and hierarchies for decisionmaking. Lack of expertise in project preparation, undue weightage for lowest bids and reluctant project ownership of departments all contribute to poor contract management and ineffective project implementation. Projects are improperly conceived, forcing later redesign and change of technology. A project on sewerage and sanitation was substantially revised three times and its treatment plant design revised four times. The design of a stormwater project was substantially revised five times. There is little inter-departmental cooperation within a single project and the formal mechanism (through cross-departmental coordination committees) is ineffective. Project personnel lacking previous experience in integrated projects are often drafted from different departments; they lack accountability and tend to pass on decision-making up the chain. Another government committee which reviewed programmes sponsored by the national government and implemented in the state made similar disparaging comments on the capacity of the state bureaucratic machinery (Kerala State Planning Board 2013). This reduces the possibilities of useful state government support for and facilitation of capacity in local governments.

Notes 1. The Select Committee of the Kerala legislature held a few out-of-town sittings but neither the Committee nor the meeting’s participants had the benefit of knowing how decentralisation is packaged; the agenda before them was a bare legal document, namely a draft legislation. (Information from discussions with officials who led these arrangements).

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2. Even a quarter century after the Kerala Municipality Act of 1994 which ‘decentralised’ and ‘transferred’ functions such as water supply and sewerage, these functions continue to be with the state government, as discussed in previous chapters. 3. For instance, bureaucrat-scholar K. C. Sivaramakrishnan was dismayed at the finding that Kerala city governments do not provide water supply and he asked: ‘Is it [Kerala decentralisation] a well-intentioned exercise in futility?’ (Interview with K. C. Sivaramakrishnan, 25 March 2011, New Delhi) 4. Hirschman’s (1970) influential exit-voice-loyalty framework is useful here, especially a variant of ‘exit’ explored by Rusbult and Lowery (1985, 82): ‘neglect – passively allowing conditions to worsen’, in the case of bureaucrats leading to ‘developing negative attitudes about work, reduced effort, increased error rate, obstructionism’. There are also shades of James Scott’s ‘weapons of the weak’; this is ironic because the term was meant to denote everyday resistance to domination by powers such as the government, interpreted here as domination within government. Scott (1985, p. xvi) writes: ‘… ordinary weapons of relatively powerless groups: foot dragging, dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, pilfering, feigned ignorance, slander, arson, sabotage, and so on.… They require little or no coordination or planning; they make use of implicit understandings and informal networks; they often represent a form of individual self-help; they typically avoid any direct, symbolic confrontation with authority.’ 5. Despite the attention to state law on decentralisation, only rarely does the literature study the role of those who translate the law’s generalised objectives into detailed legislative prescriptions (Seidman and Seidman 2008). 6. We are, of course, interested in the outcomes of better governance from meaningfully designed decentralisation. Indeed, Parts II and III explored outcomes in detail, arguing that decentralised service delivery depends on local capacity and autonomy. However, in making these arguments in earlier chapters we did not use the language of ‘implementation’ of decentralisation policy that precedes ‘implementation’ of government policy functions devolved to decentralised governments. 7. Presuming bureaucracy to be technocratic, neutral and subordinate to its political principals, there is an implicit belief that it will only elaborate – rather than subvert – legislative intent manifested in decentralisation laws. That is, the presumption is that unelected bureaucrats use rule-making powers to follow through – in classic Weberian fashion – on the decentralisation intent of democratically elected political principals. 8. Unfortunately, public administration in India did not look into how the content of laws and rules impacted decentralised arrangements. This may have derived from the ‘old institutionalism’ that focused on normative structures rather than contents and impact processes, and did not look at institutions in a

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9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

19. 20.

21.

22.

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policy-relevant manner. Political science in India also did not view decentralisation as a policy process underpinned by ‘institutions’ and subject to interruptions and drift. These disciplines tend to associate ‘policy’ with the decisions of political administrators and ‘implementation’ with bureaucracy rather than see them as interconnected processes. Public management brings policy and implementation closer together and views administration as outputoriented rather than regulatory. Policy studies views ‘policy’ as a process embracing both (policy) intent and implementation. Unfortunately, conversations between academic and policy literatures or between these literatures and the ‘doers’ of policy are also rare, despite exceptions such as Faguet and Pöschl (2015) and Rodden and Wibbels (2019). In western legislatures there is a practice of the proposing department attaching an Instruction for a Bill but this is not practised in Kerala. In Kerala, usually the proposal is only a note and often it does not sufficiently explain the objective. Therefore it leaves a burden on the drafting department (the legislative department of the state government) to discuss with the proposing department to make sense of the proposal, which itself may turn out to be perfunctory. Interview with a former senior legislative drafter, 23 April 2020. Section 30(2), KMA 1994. Section 315(1)(a) of the 1999 Amendment to KMA. Sections 315(2) and (4) of the 1999 Amendment to KMA. Interview with the officer in the legislative wing of the Law Department who drafted the Bill, 23 April 2020. Section 565(1) of KMA 1994. Section 567 of KMA 1994. On this matter, the KMA states: ‘The Council may make regulations not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act and the rules made thereunder on any matter and in respect of which regulations are to be, or may be, made under this Act’ (Section 569 of KMA 1994). Section 572(1) of KMA 1994. A classic technocratic reason is stated by McNollgast (1999, 184): ‘Delegation of policy-making authority to administrative agencies … [allows elected officials] to write simpler statutes, allows the details of policy to adjust to new knowledge and changed circumstances, and creates an expert body that can provide useful information about the needs for changes in either legislation or appropriations.’ Baldwin and Houghton (1986) identify eight different categories: procedural rules, interpretative guides, instructions to officials, prescriptive rules, rules of practice, management, or operation, and consultative devices and administrative pronouncements. The practices may also reflect structural violence and Foucauldian social discipline.

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23. Poem 35 in Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali. 24. Ideas of ‘endogenous institutional change’, for instance by Greif and Laitin (2004), also rely on indirect external triggers. 25. This can ‘punctuate’ existing arrangements especially at ‘critical junctures’ when agency is less bound by structure and new possibilities and practices can potentially emerge. 26. The literature observes that change can also occur ‘endogenously’ through small, non-reinforcing subterranean dynamics that might cumulatively produce, in time, a change in the rules, norms and strategies on the ground (Hall and Taylor 1996; Mahoney and Thelen 2010). However, the narrative in the text is of selfreinforcing processes through norms and established practices that maintain, and even increase, policy drift. 27. Section 315(2) of the 1999 Amendment to KMA. 28. Section 315(4) of the 1999 Amendment to KMA. 29. Section 30 of KMA 1994 says: ‘“prescribed” means prescribed by rules made under this Act’. 30. A Select Committee for a Bill is a committee of legislators formed by the legislature to consider a legislative proposal in detail before its detailed consideration by the legislature. In the Select Committee meeting, some members had mentioned the necessity of full control of local government leadership over local government staff. 31. Interview with Ghanshyam Shah, 6 March 2010, Ahmedabad. 32. Congress leader Pherozeshah Mehta and other prominent leaders had the foresight to take such bold positions (Wacha 1913; Masani 1929). The subject of the BPMC and Gujarat’s legislative legacy needs separate, deeper research beyond the scope of this book. 33. Interviews, 3–6 March 2010 and 28–30 March 2011, Ahmedabad; 17–19 February 2011, Surat. This enabled them to organise the city government effectively for various functions which they could make full use of when JNNURM provided them with large-scale funding. 34. Earlier revenue was dominated by the octroi tax which was fully internally funded by the city government. 35. Interview with town planner Vidyadhar Phatak, 10 June 2020. Another intriguing comparative question is that of policy diffusion: why is it that BPMC 1949, with its robust frame of institutions for local governance, did not impact other regions? This, too, is an interesting question worthy of deeper study. 36. Interview, 27 April 2011, Trivandrum. 37. Interview, 2 November 2012, Trivandrum. 38. This paragraph draws on pages 18, 71, 73, 74, 76–77 of Government of Kerala (2010).

9 Implementing ‘Governing Locally’

India’s constitutional amendment (CA) of 1992 sought nothing less than a transformation of democratic governance by emphasising the governance space closest to citizens. The consequent deepening of electoral democracy was a substantial achievement. In regular elections on a sustained basis, many citizens gained opportunities for local representation and public service. Women, dalits and adivasis served in local governments in unprecedented numbers. But the CA failed in its governance objective. Previous chapters detailed the reasons why the spirit of the CA – namely de facto decentralisation so that city governments could exercise exclusive authority over basic services – was not manifested in implementation processes. Where de facto decentralised governments existed, it was due to governance practices from historical institutions and not the CA. Elsewhere, the failure of decentralised governance through the CA was due to habituated practices that undermined the CA and which can also be traced to historical institutions. De facto decentralisation is about the autonomy to decide and act, and the capacity to decide and act. The CA and the accompanying mandatory state laws have provisions for formal devolution. At issue are autonomy and capacity traceable to state–local relations. For all the freshness and pressure of the CA, state–local relations were set by policy implementation processes deriving from the legacy of institutions. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as other states, the CA intent simply did not translate to local autonomy and capacity due to the specifics of laws, rule-making authority, rules and execution of rules (processes 2–3–4–5 in Figure 8.1). Policy reform would need to reset the path-dependency in these processes while being pragmatic and expanding the set of realistic possibilities. The practices of the bureaucracy as a ‘class’ derive from conditioning and norms about how to make laws and how to detail out laws in the form of rules. This conditioning reflects and reinforces traditional concerns of public administration focusing on the form of laws and rules. Bureaucracies are long accustomed to view administration as regulation and the imposition of restraints rather than

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view administration as a process to develop organisations and work methods that emphasise creativeness. This goes together with suspicions of, and defences against, the erosion of authority. Attention was scarcely given to imagining and designing for the new promises of the CA. A related feature of the old practices was the absence of an orientation towards learning. In an era of widespread social change, policy networks, diverse NGOs, social media, social entrepreneurship, technological possibilities, ideological churning and ecological vulnerability, this prevented such potential triggers from generating internal changes to practices. Governance practices of politicians (legislators, ministers and others) dovetailed with all this, again deriving from past ways of doing things, including perfunctory oversight of bureaucratic practices. In short, the traditional public administration orientation did not transition to a public management orientation towards issues of social justice. Can the barriers created by the long shadow of historical institutions be overcome through policy instruments? How can the path be reset to the one promised by the 1990s constitutional reforms? What should be the ‘institutional shaping’ of the policy choice (Steinmo, Thelen and Longstreth 1992)? This chapter turns to some possibilities for regaining the policy agenda of decentralisation in its original intent. It refrains from hard ‘prescriptions’ but suggests some paths forward. It aligns with the position that academic work should not place itself ‘beyond the grasp of practitioners’ and should not be ‘at the expense of increasing distance from the concerns and constraints of the policymakers who drive decentralization forward, or fail to’ (Faguet and Pöschl 2015, 1–2). ‘Policy recommendations’ from academic work should attend to some cautions. One is the tendency to list decentralisation ‘best practices’ without embedding them in broader processes and contexts.1 Another is the tendency to ‘abstract away from the “details” of how policy reform actually works’ (Faguet and Pöschl 2015, 2), leaving recommendations inadequately placed to be useful and feasible. For implementing decentralisation policy, the chapter identifies four broad areas of emphasis. The first section focuses on the framing of laws and the critical role of rule-making authority in safeguarding local autonomy. The second section discusses the need to broaden state government involvement with local governments – conditional on local autonomy – by including all relevant sectoral departments of the state government. It also includes a brief discussion of the role of the national government. The third section discusses ways to facilitate local capacity. And the last section discusses public participation for strengthening local capacity.

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Laws and Rules: Safeguarding Autonomy The Kerala Municipality Act (KMA 1994) unequivocally states: ‘Municipality shall have such powers, authority and responsibilities of the Government as may be necessary, to enable it to function as an institution of self-government in respect of the matters entrusted to it’ (emphasis added).2 Yet the 1999 law substituted ‘as may be necessary’ with ‘as prescribed [by the state government]’. What was envisaged as a mutual, consultative decision about implementing decentralisation was converted into a unilateral decision of the state government. It drained the force of the earlier provision which respected the role of the local government in the process of detailing decentralisation. The KMA then goes on to devote long paragraphs to ‘vest’ and ‘entrust’ functions and transfer of assets and staff, none of which was implemented. In fact, a long and detailed law was unnecessary as the main requirement is to unequivocally state that power is devolved, with no ifs and buts. There are cases of lawmaking in the country where an agency constituted for a purpose is granted the full authority to steer such action through to its end. An example of such effective authorisation is a law that preceded the decentralisation laws by only a few years, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) Act of 1987. That law granted ‘freedom and flexibility of operation’ to a body (the NDDB) created by the national government. It gave it full authority for ‘restructuring and stream lining the organizational and functional set-up … to secure utmost efficiency in its functioning’ and to ‘make regulations for all matters for which provision is necessary or expedient for the purpose of giving effect to’ what the law targeted.3 Analogously, state laws in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and elsewhere should explicitly state that city governments shall have the ‘powers, authority and responsibilities of the Government’ for specified devolved functions. Changes impacting governing capacity are not only legislative but also administrative in nature. Previous chapters showed how state–local relations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu were shaped through the rule-making power of the state government. If the state government did not have this power, local governments would be free to act on many matters. Where an ongoing activity continues to be run by the government, new and immediate rule-making is unnecessary even if there is a switch in the government running the activity (state to local). The activity itself is run under specific arrangements – codes, practices and innovations that get continuously embedded within the organisation running the activity.4 In de facto decentralisation, those existing arrangements should switch to the local government, which can initially run the activity just as the state government had been doing until then. Effecting this transition does not need new rules.

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Consider again the example of procurement, a ubiquitous activity for all levels of government. The state government follows a clear and well-established procurement code that it developed over the years, and which would therefore have suited city governments which were now tasked with performing some of the same functions. And yet the state government went on to formulate an entirely new procurement code (the Kerala Municipality [Execution of Public Works and Purchase of Materials] Rules, 1997) which was more restrictive than the state code. The real issue is transferring the corresponding staff, administrative apparatus and tacit knowledge previously created by the state government for carrying out the functions that are now formally devolved. The transfer should form an integral part of the implementation of the decentralisation policy. Further, the details are important: the organisational unit should be transferred, not ‘functionaries’.5 The ‘functionaries’ approach hollows out the spirit and content of de facto decentralisation since a local government needs a corresponding organisational unit to perform a new function, rather than a few stand-alone ‘functionaries’. As we have seen, although Kerala law specified that several functions were formally devolved, the corresponding staff, administrative apparatus and tacit knowledge previously created by the state government in discharging these functions were never quite transferred to city governments, therefore blocking the city governments in starting their own journey of local action and locally developed innovations in governance practices. To protect against recentralisation by stealth, the law should provide a date and unequivocally state that material capacity and personnel are to be transferred by that date, explicitly disallowing any subsequent riders. Only with such transfer can decentralised governments redesign their organisation to provide the services that were formally devolved to them. That will also bring with it the knowledge of systems and procedures required to manage the tasks. And it will rein in the state government’s tendency to intervene. To run a devolved function, a local government has to take the transferred personnel and installations and fit them into its organisational structure. To do this, it will need to generate internal rules and regulations, and the authority for generating them should lie with the local government. It should be able to fashion its organisation and innovate and run it in its own way. That is how Surat, starting with the state Works Code, added tacit knowledge over time generated by the organisation, leading to improved procurement operations and ultimately to more effective service delivery. Surat also innovated a brand classification system for purchasing street lighting materials and its rate analysis cell guided decisions regarding which bids to accept. This testifies to how, making use of an initial platform of pre-existing codes as well as rules and regulations, a city government

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goes on to build systems that fit its needs. Innovation for local action occurs not through exogenously imposed rules but on the strength of endogenously generated ways of doing. In short, the law should give city governments the authority to make rules and regulations. In suggesting the cutting away of control-oriented administrative rules imposed by the state government on local governments, one concern is that ‘upward’ accountability to state government may be erased. This should not be the case. Accountability mechanisms can focus on processes and outcomes rather than on inputs. For instance, rather than impose micro-controls to authorise spending, contracts, and so on, fund transfer can be conditional on processes and outputs in local government – set through prior deliberations and consensus, even if such deliberations may be difficult.6

Decentralisation as a Government-wide Matter ‘Decentralisation’ is about the decentralisation of the government and therefore a government-wide matter encompassing a minimum of eighteen different functions such as public health, education and water supply – activities that are the purview of different government departments. It should not be reduced to the concern of a specific department of the state government. De facto decentralisation should involve the transfer of functions of several ‘sectoral’ departments of the state government as well as facilitation so that local governments can effectively manage the transfer. This needs the active and sensitive involvement of all parts of the state government. Nevertheless, the Kerala state government operates with a single department (the Local Self Government Department, or LSGD) liaising with (urban and rural) local governments on all state–local issues. (And the Tamil Nadu state government has two local government departments.) The LSGD has built near-exclusive relationships between itself and local governments. That exclusivity of relationship shuts out direct relationships between local governments and sectoral departments of the state government that are relevant for particular devolved functions. A direct relationship between a sectoral department and a local government is necessary even in the presence of decentralisation since governance is a process shared between them. In Gujarat, the management of state–local relations is horizontally distributed among functional or sectoral departments and the relations are less control-oriented and more advisory or facilitative in nature. For instance, the Health Department interacts with local governments on health-related matters directly and not through the department for urban development. In Kerala and Tamil Nadu, all professional advice and knowledge inputs flow from the single

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oversight department which has little sectoral knowledge or expertise for advising on those matters. This arrangement denies local governments the benefit of authentic professional knowledge inputs from sectoral departments. This reduces the build-up of contextual, tacit, sectoral knowledge in specialised domains. Further, a state government agency dedicated to local government or local administration will have the unavoidable tendency to increase its own functional remit and resources relative to other state agencies rather than having a genuine interest to strengthen local governance (Eaton, Kaiser and Smoke 2011). Each government function has a specific sectoral characteristic irrespective of whether the function lies with the state government or local governments or both. There is substantial correspondence of functions across the two governments. As synergies exist even after the start of de facto decentralisation, the connection between local government and sectoral departments of the state government should be continuous and horizontal. Consider the example of drinking water. Suppose this function is de facto decentralised and local governments have the capacity to plan and implement this function. The state government should still have a department or division for it. It may want to, say, provide water quality test facilities to the public. The department may seek to delegate test facility services and a city government is a potential candidate for that delegated function since it already carries out the decentralised function of drinking water provision. Such synergistic expansion of local government roles is possible only if it maintains continuous and horizontal links with sectoral departments of the state government. Consider the example of education. Suppose this function is not de jure decentralised, that is, the state government has the responsibility. The corresponding sectoral department may delegate some aspects such as school maintenance or monitoring teacher attendance to the local government. By cultivating sectoral links, other possibilities can be explored, for instance, the local government running a community library in collaboration with the school. Considering its democratic character and local reach, the local government can be an able ally of sectoral departments of the state government. But this is possible only if sectoral departments view the local government as a potential partner for sectoral activities with mutually beneficial administrative arrangements. It is therefore necessary that the role of the LSGD (or equivalent department) be limited to matters of decentralisation law and the running of other institutions connected with local governance arrangements such as the State Election Commission.

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Clarifying Assignments: Activity Mapping The literature on decentralisation discusses ‘assigning’ of responsibilities to local governments. The assignment can be of two types. The first is what is devolved through the CA and the law as full responsibilities, such as water supply. The second is about assigning part-function responsibilities, which makes it delegation. The national government’s Ministry of Panchayati Raj (MoPR) calls the second exercise ‘activity mapping’. It was also promoted by other policy organisations including the local self-government departments in Kerala and Karnataka. The exercise tries to map out the functions and sub-functions of each state government department for delegating to local governments. The resultant role division is mistakenly characterised as decentralisation by conflating delegation with decentralisation (see Chapter 7). The exercise has a limited value for delegation at best, but even there a general department or ministry (LSGD or MoPR) would not have the competence and therefore would not be in a position to delineate functions and sub-functions as these are specialised sectoral matters. Even in its mediating role, the LSGD often does not directly engage with the programme-administering department for producing the activity map, or it does this perfunctorily. The result lacks specificity and merely routinely categorises ongoing schemes and that too using generic language such as ‘animal husbandry programmes for vulnerable communities’.7 An official report in Karnataka elaborates on activity mapping and recommends that it get statutory status through state rule-making (Government of Karnataka 2010). The report recommends that details be settled by Karnataka’s equivalent of Kerala’s LSGD. It even recommends activity mapping for parastatals and ward sabhas as well, and that too formalised through state rule-making! The superordinate position assigned to one department allows it to convert sectoral department activities into local government activities. Local governance cannot be promoted through such high-handed overriding of the role of state government departments. In short, activity mapping has been built on a command and control structure of governance. A better strategy would build each department’s conviction about the efficacy and reliability of local governments in programme implementation. In a more equal relationship, there would be interactions between the sectoral department and local governments to mutually decide which roles can be transferred and which retained. Such interactions give opportunities for sectoral departments to appreciate the knowledge and influence of a local government which can contribute to programme success. They may also lead to the strengthening of specifics of local capacity.

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The Role of National Government India’s national government has ministries for policy promotion and coordination for rural and urban local governance (Ministry of Panchayati Raj, MoPR; and Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, MoHUA). The MoHUA had steered the 74th CA. But apart from that, it has not taken the lead in the cause of urban local governance. Its first major programme of urban funding for local government, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), only takes incidental note of the fact that the programme components hinge on decentralised functions. Notably, the MoHUA has not raised its voice on the fact that parastatals continue to perform formally devolved functions and that urban governance continues to be centralised. It talks almost approvingly about strengthening parastatals for the implementation of the JNNURM and subsequent programmes. Although the MoHUA is the sectoral ministry for urban governance in the national government, it has not made efforts to delineate the missing links in decentralisation. The National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) attached to the MoHUA is a national think tank on urban planning and development. The NIUA has conducted only one substantive study of the implementation of decentralisation across states (National Institute of Urban Affairs 2007), but even this focused only on state statutes and concluded that the decentralisation statutes conformed to the CA and that decentralisation had therefore been implemented across states. The study did not go further to examine if those ‘conformities’ are conformities in the real sense. It is problematic to view lawmaking as the final output of the decentralisation policy, as discussed in Chapter 8. All this together suggests that urban local government has extraordinarily little place in the agenda and actions of the national government. The MoPR presides over the general matter of local governance and it concerns itself with the subject more actively than the MoHUA. But the MoPR has not taken clear positions on decentralisation that could help state and local governments, and advocates of decentralisation in general, in policy implementation. This can be seen in its Devolution Report (Ministry of Panchayati Raj and TISS 2016). Although the MoPR has highlighted disaggregated elements of decentralisation, such as the clichéd ‘functions, functionaries and finances’ formulation, it has not articulated decentralisation as a democratic governance process, nor has it articulated the relationship between national, state and local government beyond activity mapping. Without emphasising autonomy and capacity, talk of ‘functions’ remains on paper while the functions stay with parastatals. Talk of ‘functionaries’ reduces the important concept of organisational capacity

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and ignores the relevance of rebuilding local government organisation rather than merely having a few scattered personnel who are not even accountable to the local government (Chapter 4). Talk of ‘finances’ linked only to provisions of the law makes it very limiting. In Kerala, despite the statutory revenue-raising authority of local governments, the state government had control over rule-making on it and did not make the rules permitting local governments to fix tax rates. The upshot was that the state government prevented local governments from raising revenue through taxes and other means. In short, the needs of de facto decentralisation are not contained within such formulations. The MoPR and MoHUA should advise state governments unequivocally that whatever is decentralised through the CA needs to be fully handed over to local governments along with the organisational units and physical facilities that were till then with the state government or its agencies. They should also advise state governments that since democratically constituted and decentralised governments exist at the local level, each department of the state government should seek to utilise them, for instance by using local governments as their own implementation arm wherever this is advantageous. This would need sectoral departments to undo some of their vertical structures whose field formations are distanced from the people, unlike local governments that are locally elected and locally rooted.

Capacity How can the state government facilitate technical and capacity support to local governments without ending up controlling them? One method could be through setting up organisations with relevant skills and experience dedicated as support organisations for specialised tasks of city governments which they cannot accomplish in-house. While existing state government utilities (Water Authority, Electricity Board, and so on) could do this in principle, their institutional histories and cultures are not aligned to play such a facilitative role or respect local government autonomy. This is borne out by reports on how these organisations function, for instance, V. Ramachandran (2002). In this regard, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have state organisations to supplement and build capacity, especially of smaller local governments. The Gujarat state government created an urban development company (Gujarat Urban Development Company, GUDC) for facilitating such work. Tamil Nadu has three organisations providing intermediate technology and project support for city governments, although the support is only for project preparation, tendering and financial approval, and does not extend to project execution.8 Once specific capacities are created, such support organisations will withdraw and maintenance operations will

251 Implementing ‘Governing Locally’

continue to be the direct responsibility of the city government. In reality, these bodies have taken up operations in only a few city governments even though most municipalities look for support from the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD) given their weak capacities in this sector. Kerala has long considered setting up such intermediating organisations, although none has materialised. This leaves city governments to work with several state agencies with different organisational cultures operating at different levels of deconcentration.9 However, given the dominance of state-level institutions over local governments in a field of unequal relationships, a new state-level body may also have such inclinations. Another option is inter-city cooperation to build common professional organisational infrastructure such as a body owned and managed by a collective of municipal chairpersons.

Making Suitable Policy Instruments of Local Governance In the new scenario that we are sketching out, except constituting bodies that frame the external environment for local government (election commission, finance commission, ombudsman, dispute resolution tribunals), all other rulemaking related to internal functioning could be left to local governments to design and adopt. For capacity, the staff of parastatals involved in decentralised functions need to be reconstituted as new vertical functional units within the corresponding local government. For example, the Kerala Water Authority or KWA’s water supply and sewerage personnel working for Trivandrum city can be delinked from the KWA and brought into the organisation of the Trivandrum city government as a new water supply and sewerage unit distinct from the existing engineering wing.10 This can be done for all six municipal corporations in the state. Since municipalities are smaller, they can be grouped into clusters to which KWA-delinked personnel can be attached and be administered jointly by the municipalities in each cluster and as part of the municipal organisation.11 Each city government can start freshly recruiting suitably qualified water and sewerage staff as part of its staff cadre and provide them specialised professional induction training. The technical staff brought from the KWA can be promoted in situ as and when they become eligible for promotion while those retiring or leaving can be replaced through new recruitment. Over time, the city government will come to have its own specialised cadre of water professionals. The remaining staff of the KWA can be redeployed in the new role of advising the state government (as well as public and private organisations) regarding drinking water issues, researching issues related to drinking water in the state including sustainability and demand, monitoring the general public’s access to clean drinking water, and building a knowledge base on new developments in the field. In short, shorn of

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day-to-day operational business, the KWA can focus on broader functions of sector overview, research and advisory planning for the future.12 With autonomy from state government strictures as well as enhanced capacity through new functional divisions, city governments can plan changes to water and sewerage systems for wider coverage and improved quality of delivery. City governments can decide water and sewerage charges as well as subsidies for the poor and specific vulnerable communities and clusters. Participation will be enhanced as it would be deeply linked with agency for action and accountability. City governments can potentially redesign parts of their organisational structures such as creating municipal-owned companies and improving capabilities through networking arrangements. City governments can create fresh organisational features, improve operations by tapping the knowledge of experienced staff and lead a change process with newly inducted young professionals. City residents would have an effective government in their own neighbourhoods with locally elected politicians mediating to solve problems. Staff reorganisation – delinking personnel from state government departments and agencies and attaching them under the full control of city governments – needs to be carried out for each of the decentralised functions, namely town planning, water supply, sewerage, drainage, roads, solid waste management, street lighting, housing, public health, forestry, environment and social welfare. Reorganisation should bring competent personnel, relevant experience and knowledge of procedures, which would together fill out some key missing elements of local capacity. In fact, in Kerala, all the experience in de jure decentralised matters of urban planning, sewerage, water supply, drainage, and roads still lie entirely with the state government. This exercise would need new policy instruments for selecting personnel and embedding them in the city government organisation, and some limited flexibility for back and forth movement between the state government and local governments without loosening city government control over them. The success of such an ambitious exercise depends partly on the extent of detailing and the quality of the preparatory work. It implies the comprehensive task of virtually reorganising state government agencies and reorganising each city government. This is where politics enters. It will test the ability and interest of the state political executive and bureaucratic leaders in creating a genuine change of the ‘ownership’ of government. This cannot be achieved merely through ‘rules’ which declare that ‘institutions, assets and personnel are transferred’, which is what occurred in Kerala. A law conveys a basic policy decision but its institutional form only begins with the law. Administrative imagination and creativity is needed to elaborate that intent and translate it into specific administrative and

253 Implementing ‘Governing Locally’

organisational features. Gujarat and even Tamil Nadu benefited from pre-existing local government structures although these were skeletal. In these states, when state utilities took on urban service infrastructure in the 1970s, city governments continued to retain the maintenance and operations of existing facilities so that they were not fully cut off from the basic functions, which formally came back to them though de jure decentralisation in the 1990s. However, Kerala city governments did not retain even this tenuous link after the takeover of state utilities in the 1970s. This made the post-1990s reconnection with service provision that much more difficult. It needs to be addressed comprehensively through detailed administrative reorganisation.

Community Participation While the focus of the book has been on internal government functioning, people’s participation is also an important influence on local government capacity. The analysis in Chapter 6 implies that it is imperative to strengthen communities and to stay the course with all its complexities and contestations. Studies for Latin America suggest that demand for autonomy in decision-making was particularly strong there, driven by local civil society organisations that flourished even under authoritarian governments (Campbell and Fuhr 2004). In the context of municipal governance, Grindle (2007, 182) argues: Legislating and regulating institutions, particularly from above, may not be enough to ensure that they are put in place and then serve useful purposes. Sustaining change may require more engaged civil societies that are able to insist on the continuity of structures and processes that provide good results. Particularly with the changes that are most difficult to sustain— those related to the behaviour and attitudes of public officials as they carry out their work and those related to the equity and efficiency with which citizens are treated—the role of civil societies informed of rights, observant of local government operations, and armed with mechanisms to insist on responsiveness and probity is important.

The literature on participation and contestation (see Chapter 6) suggests some ways forward. One is the example of Alandur described in Chapter 6, where a project on drainage and sewerage was successfully instituted through municipal leadership, public participation and institutional facilitation. The then municipal chairman R. S. Bharathi reminisces:13 When I was re-elected in 1996 as Chairman, my promise was to bring in underground drainage systems from Day One. Initially I was apprehensive, since there was at the time no underground drainage system in any municipality in Tamil Nadu

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(except in a part of Kanchipuram). We went around with a mike, street by street, from 6.30 a.m. onwards sharing/suggesting information with civil associations. Many treated me like a beggar. But patience, and official cooperation, paid off. In strategic corners of localities, exhibited lists of those who paid ensured others would pay! … All funds were audited by two representatives from the civic associations. Monthly updates on the project progress were given to the community.

Another model is mobilisation of citizens through associations to collectively and constructively engage with the city government without overt politicisation. Kothari and Bajpai (2020) present such a narrative for the town of Bhuj in Gujarat where a collective (the Kachchh Nav Nirman Abhiyan) emerged from ‘years of work on governance, women’s empowerment, environment, infrastructure and housing by civil society organisations’ and animated the formal ward committees of urban government. Through associations and cooperation with the city government, local commons were revived for decentralised water management and the voices of traditionally marginalised groups, such as poor women and pastoralists, were heard in urban planning efforts. Yet another example, from rural central India, is that of a village collective mobilising for self-rule. In Menda village of eastern Maharashtra’s Lekha Panchayat (‘Menda Lekha’), residents came together over many years to introspect and patiently and collectively navigate natural resource usage, education, and so on. In the process, they formed a coherent political unit and contested the state government’s incursions into the autonomy of the collective (Kerswell and Pratap 2019). They articulated their philosophy of self-government as Dilli Mumbai amcha sarkar, amache ganavat amhich sarkar (‘national and state governments are our governments, but in our village, we are the government’). This example had ripple effects on other villages and panchayats in the region (Broome, Bajpai and Shende 2020). Kuthumbakkam Panchayat in Tamil Nadu is another example of internal mobilisation for inclusive outcomes (Cajka 2014). Mobilisation and participation for constructive work, and contestation where relevant, needs to be strengthened.14 Until recently there was a relative paucity of organisations for social intermediation and advocacy in urban environments, and existing ones mostly engaged in specialised knowledge-building activities in sectors such as sanitation, water supply and health. There are newer attempts to activate neighbourhood civic participation through civic learning and building innovative platforms by providing data and tools to bring citizens and government together. There is a great need to open up spaces of community organisations while avoiding the dangers of their cooptation.

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The ‘requirement’ of local participation can be paradoxical, a point discussed extensively in the literature (see Chapter 6). National programmes such as the JNNURM and its successors mandated local participation but merely ended up hollowing it, and state mandates in Kerala also led to hollowed-out participation in the absence of robust action linked to participatory decisions. This paradox is present in any rule that mandates something democratic. But it can be reduced if rules and mandates are a result of sustained dialogue. Such dialogue is often contrived (Coelho, Kamath and Vijaybaskar 2011), but even when genuine attempts are made, it is very difficult to practise (Williams et al. 2019). We conclude the discussion on implementing ‘governing locally’ with thoughts on the limitations of suggestions for reforms. If there is merit in the explanation of drift and path dependency identified previously, any countermovement would need to influence and change the orientation of those in authority. This is unlikely to happen through suggestions for reforms alone, however persuasive the logic and evidence may be. To even attempt that route assumes that policymakers are fundamentally ‘ignorant’, which is both untrue and patronising. What would it really take to influence those who pull the levers to switch tracks? Enlightened political and administrative leadership – even by a few, but at critical junctures – can help in the process of reorientation. But this is highly contingent on propitious circumstances. It may seem that acknowledging this reality may not take us far, or that it may be self-defeating, but it may also keep policymaking and reforms grounded and reduce the hubris or expectations of quick change. This may actually be generative of authentic possibilities. A potential indirect route to influence those who pull the levers would be through the difficult art of advocacy through dialogue. For all the rhetoric of participation and the previous instances of contestation, there is insufficient dialogue on these matters – both in public deliberations and in private debates – with an orientation that is open to discovering, learning, changing and growing. Fostering and sustaining respectful dialogue can also temper us as a society, and by doing so, it may lead to deeper reorientations going up to but well beyond those in positions of authority.

Concluding Summary The book began by juxtaposing local government actions in Trivandrum and Surat and noting that their differences are broadly representative of state differences in the functioning of Indian city governments. We found that local government capacity was the main determinant of effective and equitable local action. Part II considered capacity in depth by exploring city government practices of making and implementing decisions, and the organisation of city government.

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We hope the exploration of government capacity will be of value to the literature which has not opened and detailed out the black box of government in sufficient depth. Many more such efforts are needed to examine government capacity in contextual depth beyond the spaces of city government presented in this book. While local government capacity is critical for a proximate explanation of local action, there is a sense of ‘obviousness’ in this explanation, and some may interpret it as almost tautological. To enhance overall understanding, then, local capacity itself needs to be explained. Part III turned to this by asking: Why are local government capacities of Trivandrum and Surat, and other cities, what they are? And what shapes capacity for local action? An important part of the explanation lies in state–local relations, and particularly the autonomy of local governments to function, decide, organise, motivate, lead and implement. Local autonomy is the key explanatory factor behind observed differences between Trivandrum, other Kerala city governments and indeed most other Indian city governments on the one hand, and Surat and other Gujarat city governments on the other hand. While there have been incursions into local autonomy in Gujarat, especially in recent years, the juxtaposition with city governments elsewhere underlines the conceptual importance of autonomy. A fuller account of patterns of local capacity has to include another aspect of state–local relations, namely the facilitation of local capacity through the wider reach and resources of the state government. Importantly, it has to include public participation in local governance, which influences both effectiveness and justice in local action. On this count, city governments have been lacklustre across the board – in Kerala, Gujarat and elsewhere. The case of Kerala is particularly intriguing because its history makes it far better poised for meaningful public participation in governance, and yet this potential was not actualised due to insufficient local autonomy. After advancing local government capacity as the proximate explanation of local government action, and state–local relations and public participation as the explanation of local government capacity, in Part IV we turned to an exploration and explanation of state–local relations. This directly addressed the ‘institutions, policies and implementation’ referenced in the book’s title. Since the intent of India’s constitutional amendment and decentralisation reforms was to carve out a new tier of government that would reset state–local relations rather than merely delegate authority from the state government, it was important to ask how decentralisation policy was conceived and implemented. Here we explored institutions as formal rules and informal norms that shape practices around lawmaking and rule-making by political and administrative actors (legislators,

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elected representatives in government, bureaucrats and agencies). In much of India, implementation practices within state governments produced vertical state– local relations that offered little autonomy to local governments. The book has emphasised the simple point that genuine decentralisation is about local governments having the autonomy and ability to decide and act. By this count, decentralisation is conspicuous by its absence in much of India although some of the large, specialised literature – for instance, on municipal finances, use of technology or even people’s participation – glosses over this reality. The 1990s reforms initiated by the highest, democratically constituted authority of the land (constitutional amendment by the national parliament) presented a rare opportunity to reset local governance. At the time, democratically elected legislatures in all the states had responded positively by enacting laws to set up decentralised arrangements. This only sharpens our dismay that the plot was lost subsequently. The book used a policy process perspective to trace the twists in implementation which were hidden in plain sight. In one sense, it is the remarkable story of an outcome – continued presence of centralised governance in localities (with the language and shell of ‘decentralisation’) – that was the almost complete opposite of the idealistic policy intent. But in another sense, this is hardly remarkable because the morass of institutionalised practices claims many a good intention in the policy field. And this goes relatively unnoticed because the practices of governance have not received the consideration they deserve. Our exploration has also turned up an important, uplifting aspect to the story of decentralised governance: despite much of our narrative pointing to its several failures, genuine local governance arrangements are eminently feasible in ‘Indian conditions’. The book showed that this occurs when decentralisation policy is implemented in such a way that state–local relations are about autonomy rather than control. It also showed that citizens and local leaders have the orientation and enthusiasm to ably conduct local governance. Now that the 1990s reforms have established regular, fair elections and brought forward lakhs of elected representatives, especially those from traditionally underrepresented groups, this broad and stable democratic base looks to the freedom, support and opportunity to transform governance.

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Notes 1. Rondinelli, Nellis, and Cheema (1983, 69) write: ‘It is much easier to list what is needed than it is to state exactly how to bring about the needed changes.’ 2. Section 30(2), KMA 1994. 3. Sections 19 and 48 of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) Act. 4. The Store Purchase Manual and the Works Code are examples of already existing policy guides. Both concern procurement operations. 5. The national government’s Ministry of Panchayati Raj mistakenly emphasises transfer of functionaries and not the organisational unit (Ministry of Panchayati Raj and TISS 2016). 6. Grindle (2007, 179) has a similar suggestion: ‘Making future resources conditional on the use of initial funds would be one way of altering accountability mechanisms from up-front controls to evaluative ones.’ 7. This is from the exercise by the Government of Karnataka (2010). 8. These are: Tamil Nadu Urban Development Fund (TNUDF), Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure and Financial Services Limited (TNUIFSL) and Tamil Nadu Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (TUFIDCO). 9. The efficiency shortfalls of these organisations and their own lack of delegated authority gets adversely reflected in obtaining quality and timely advice. 10. This can be done through Section 315 (1), (2), (4) and (5), and 315 B of KMA 1994. 11. This can be done through Section 315 (1), (2), (4) and (5), 315A and 315B of KMA 1994. 12. This new trajectory can be triggered if the state government were to proclaim the new and comprehensive policy implementation tool in terms of Section 315 of KMA 1994 as amended in 1999. 13. Quoted by Shobha Menon, ‘Alandur shows the way’, Madras Musings XVI (14), November 1–15, 2006. 14. Ramanathan (2007) observes the need for more such efforts in urban areas. In urban slums, party political brokers are active mediators with the administration (Auerbach 2019), more so than in rural areas where citizens including the poor get more direct response from the administration (Auerbach and KruksWisner 2020). This may be due to the greater cumulation of rural development programmes over the decades (Ramanathan 2007; van Duijne 2019; Auerbach and Kruks-Wisner 2020). By increasing clientelist relations and patronage, such informal mechanisms obfuscate rather than enhance accountability in local governance (Pancholi 2014).

Glossary

Act

statute enacted by a legislative body

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

major political party of India

Bombay Act

The Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949

CA (74th CA)

74th constitutional amendment of 1992–93 which laid out the constitutional provisions for local selfgovernment in urban areas

chief officer

see commissioner

chief secretary

head of the state government bureaucracy

chief town planner (CTP)

officer of the state government on whose recommendation master plans are approved by the state government

Classes I, II, III, IV

categories into which the bureaucracy is delineated according to level in the hierarchy (larger numbers indicate subordinate positions)

commissioner/chief officer/ municipal secretary

chief bureaucrat of the city government appointed by the state government (‘municipal secretary’ in Kerala; ‘commissioner’ in Tamil Nadu and for municipal corporations in Gujarat; and chief officer for municipalities in Gujarat)

Congress

major political party of India

councillor and council

councillor is an elected people’s representative from a city government ward; the council is the formal body composed of councillors

crore

number in the Indian numbering system corresponding to ten million

Glossary 260

CTP, TPO

chief town planner, town planning officer

detailed town plan (DTP)

detailed plan for a given location in the city which is prepared by a TPO

disciplinary power

power of an official to take action against an erring subordinate

district collector

chief government official who presides over the administration of a district of a state

five year plan

India’s development planning process of preparing detailed sector-wise plans for government investment in the public sector of national and state governments

Gandhian

A person professing to follow Mohandas Gandhi’s political and social ideologies

Gujarat Act

Gujarat Municipalities Act, 1963

High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC)

committee formed for estimating investment requirements for urban infrastructure services, set up by the national government in 2008

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) 

A 2005–12 programme of the national government to fund infrastructure and lowincome housing in 65 selected cities

KMA

Kerala Municipality Act of 1994 (comprehensively amended in 1999), the Kerala state law on urban local self-government

Kudumbashree

initiative of the Kerala state government for participatory anti-poverty programming through women’s empowerment

lakh

number in the Indian numbering system corresponding to hundred thousand

Local Self Government Department (LSGD)

department of the Kerala state government overseeing relations with urban and rural local governments

master plan

plan for socio-economic development with spatial coordination for a city

261 Glossary

municipal secretary

see commissioner

neoliberal governance

the philosophy of governing that reposes large faith in the private provision of public goods

new public management

a government approach that emphasises management and efficiency

organogram

organisation chart showing positioning of personnel and indicating relative hierarchical reporting relationships

Other Backward Classes

a large set of middle, non-elite caste groups aggregated for administrative purposes

panchayati raj, panchayat

panchayati raj is the three-tier structure of rural local government; panchayat is the grassroots tier (village council)

people’s plan, people’s plan campaign

decentralisation programme of the Kerala state government run intensely in 1996–2001 through efforts at popular mobilisation and participatory planning

Public Service Commission

an independent body which makes recommendations for recruitment for government positions

sanction (administrative, technical)

administrative sanction is the concurrence of the competent authority empowered by the government, to proceed with a proposed task; this is different from European usage where it is a formal official penalty for erring work. Technical sanction is the concurrence of the competent technical authority empowered by the government, to proceed with a proposed task.

schedule

an attachment to a constitutional or statutory document that specifies some details referred in the legal provisions or clauses of the main document

Sen Committee

a committee appointed by the Kerala state government under the chairmanship of Professor Deb Brata Sen to review the Kerala Municipality Act 1994

Glossary 262

standing committee

sub-group of councillors of a local government focusing on a specific domain or policy function (public works, health, and so on).

technical advisory group (TAG)

formal committee in every Kerala local government consisting mostly of unelected, retired technocrats selected by the state government and having veto powers over local government proposals

tender

written invitation to contractors to bid for a contract to execute specified tasks

tender excess

amount by which a bid exceeds the cost estimate prepared by the tenderer prior to bidding

town planning scheme (TPS)

Gujarat’s detailed development plan for a given location of about 100 hectares of land that includes a mechanism to transfer ownership of portions of separate parcels of land for common redevelopment for public purposes

Twelfth Schedule

a schedule of India’s Constitution which lists out policy functions decentralised to urban local governments

ward

electoral district for local government election

ward committee

committee of a city government formed for every ward, consisting of citizen representatives

ward sabha

general body consisting of all citizens of a ward

works

broad category of government infrastructure projects including roads and other transport infrastructure, schools and hospitals, parks and other public spaces, and water supply, sewerage and electricity

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Index

accountability, 75, 81, 114, 117, 125–26, 139, 159–61, 171, 174, 199, 202, 204, 216n38, 225, 231, 238, 231 downward, 55, 202–03, 213n6 horizontal, 202–03, 213n6 relations (see relation/relationship/s; accountability) upward, 55, 202, 231, 246 activity mapping, 194–96, 248–49 administration, 81, 84, 111, 113, 124, 144, 196 of land, 68n6, 103, 106n43, 113 politics of, 20, 225 administrative control, 78, 102, 233, culture, 45, 226, 235 decentralisation (see decentralisation, administrative) law, 188, 221 (see also delegated legislation) rule-making (see rule/s-making) sanction (see approval, administrative) Administrative Reforms Commission, 182, 195, 208–09 advocacy, 63, 180, 199, 231, 254–55 Ahmedabad, 9, 26n18, 42, 69n18, 83–84, 90, 98, 100–01, 115, 120, 150, 162–63 Alandur, 179–80, 184n28, 253–54 Ambedkar, B. R., 43, 59, 72n53 approval,

administrative, 11, 15, 21, 79–81, 85–86, 104n6, 124–25, 130–31, 134, 145–49, 151, 154–59, 165n15, 180, 228 financial, 79, 81, 84, 159–160, 166n27, 167n48, 180 technical, 80, 84, 120, 122, 147, 151, 158, 160 assignment of functions, 195–96, 248. See also activity mapping Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), 29, 66 Attingal, 96, 127–29, 153, 162, 179, 181 authority, for decision-making, 11, 38, 62, 79–80, 84, 86, 98, 125, 134, 145–46, 150–51, 159–61, 191, 193 delegation of, 10, 62–63, 84, 91, 125, 154, 156, 167n61, 185, 188, 194–96, 240n20 rule-making, 21, 27n25, 144–45, 221, 223, 227–30, 239n7 autonomy and capacity, 7, 10, 19, 23, 38, 42, 155, 185, 187, 194, 209–211, 224–25, 237, 239n6, 242, 249–50, 252 with facilitation, 36–37, 39, 185–86, 212 local (see control, of local government by state government; state–local relations)

Index 285

Bangalore, 49, 70n30, 169 Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), 66 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 127, 214n22 Bolivia, 196, 210 Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act (BPMC), 143, 148, 178, 235–37, 241n32 Brazil, 182, 201 BSUP (Basic Services for the Urban Poor), 66, 102, 178 budgeting, 33, 79, 132, 143–44, 162, 176–77 participatory, 182 bureaucrats/bureaucracy, 63, 107, 149, 190, 205–06, 216n34, 223, 225–26, 228–34, 239n7 appointment of, 115–16, 120, 125, 143–44, 146, 148, 164n10 of local government, 10–15, 17–18, 84, 115, 118, 122, 124, 126, 149, 176, 199, 202–06 (see also Commissioner/Chief Officer/ Municipal Secretary) of state government, 9, 38–39, 41, 147, 118, 125, 134, 233–34, 180, 202–06, 216n38, 225, 233–35 organisation of, 86, 149, 229 practices of, 79, 102, 107, 206, 219, 229–33, 239n4, 242–43 relations with political executive/ legislature, 18, 21, 25, 38, 41, 167n61, 187, 202–06, 206, 213n8, 214n24, 215n25, 216n38, 217, 219, 221–25, 229, 231, 243, 252 rule-making authority of (see rulemaking authority) capacity and autonomy (see autonomy and capacity)

of local government, 6–8, 10, 23, 31–32, 36–42, 69n20, 73n66, 75, 94, 102, 127–37, 144, 148, 181, 191, 205–12, 220–22, 225, 239n6, 243, 248, 252 technical, 116, 118, 156, 160 (see also engineering) capture bureaucratic, 79–80 local, 1, 20, 33–34, 36, 43, 63, 214n16, 220 centralisation/re-centralisation, 32–33, 43, 60, 134, 151, 161, 189–92, 197, 197–201, 210. See also decentralisation Chief Officer. See Commissioner/Chief Officer/Municipal Secretary citizen. See community city. See local City Development Plan (CDP), 33, 68n6, 176 civil society organisation, 29, 41, 43, 63, 66, 69n21, 177–78, 182, 199, 214n16, 218, 231, 253–54 and intermediation (see participation/participatory, and social intermediation) and political society (see political and civil society) code of practice, 165n17, 228, 230, 244 of public works, 98, 145, 228, 245 of purchase/procurement, 98, 145, 245, 258n4 Coimbatore, 90, 99, 112–13, 115, 122, 149, 165n20, 166n23, 209, 236–37 Colachel, 84, 90, 108, 110, 123 College of Engineering Trivandrum (CET), 93–94 Commissioner/Chief Officer/Municipal Secretary, 83–84, 89–91, 104n6,

Index 286

105n18, 110–12, 115, 125–26, 129, 134, 137n1, 148–49 Committee, Standing. See Standing Committee Communist Party of India (Marxist), 34 community participation (see participation/ participatory, community/ people’s) welfare, 9–10, 21, 30–32, 38, 44, 69n14, 179–80, 217, 254 Congress Party, 34, 214n22, 215n32, 241n32 Constitutional Amendment, 28–29, 61–62, 73n59, 141, 170–71, 185, 221, 242 contract design, 6, 87–90, 96–98, 115, 144 management (see management/ manage contract) of goods, 61, 78, 87, 96–98, 145, 152, 155, 175 of services, 78, 96–97 of work, 7, 9, 24, 61, 96, 98, 155 control by local elites, 20, 34, 43, 54, 63, 198, 214n16, 220 by parties (see dominant/dominance, party control) capture (see capture) of local government by state government, 17, 19, 21, 34, 54, 59–60, 64–65, 80, 84, 107–08, 117, 125–27, 131, 133–36, 144–61, 163, 164n10, 195, 202–03, 205–06, 215n31, 216n33, 232, 237 council, 20, 54, 62, 64, 79–80, 82–84, 90–92, 116, 122–23, 125, 128–31, 135–36, 142, 149, 151, 155, 174, 202–05, 214n19, 227–28, 236

councillor, 12, 16, 38, 54, 78–82, 96, 114, 117–18, 122, 127–36, 172–73, 175–76, 181, 215n32 Dalit, 9, 124 decentralisation. See also centralisation/ re-centralisation administrative, 189, 201 de facto, 38, 71n38, 191–94, 197, 202, 209–11, 213n6, 217, 224, 242, 244–47 de jure, 38, 187, 190–93, 213n11, 217, 197, 247, 252–53 fiscal, 189, 191, 200 implementation of (see implementation, of decentralisation policy; implementation, in local government) indicators of, 4, 54–55, 71n38, 197–98 political, 189 reforms (see reforms, decentralisation) theorising, 188–94, 198–206 decentralised democracy, 36, 134, 189–191, 218–19 governance, 1, 3, 30, 33, 39, 58, 60–62, 161, 189, 191, 199, 230, 242, 249 services, 7, 36–37, 46, 62–63, 70n26, 77, 223, 239n6 decision-making participatory, 22, 33–34, 175–76, 255 procedures (see procedures, decisionmaking) sequences, 13, 79–86, 88–94, 98, 114–15, 131, 135, 154–58 space, 63, 210–12, 216n38, 218, 230 deconcentration, 84, 107, 125, 188–90, 213n10, 251

Index 287

delegated legislation, 142, 229. See also administrative law delegation, 21, 27n25, 156, 166n26, 188, 194–96, 202, 210, 236, 248 Delhi, 33, 213n15 democracy/democratic contestation (see participation/ participatory, and contestation) decentralisation, 134, 189–91, 218–19 deepening, 1, 22, 63, 171 elections (see elections) governance, 30, 33, 39, 58, 60–62, 161, 189, 191, 199, 230, 242, 249 indicators (see decentralisation indicators) oversight, 21, 38–39, 41, 66, 142, 223–26, 229, 231–35 transition, 30, 61, 182, 200–01 widening, 64, 141–42, 171–72 demographics, 51–54 department of Kerala state government, Local Self Government Department (see Local Self Government Department [LSGD]) of state government, Public Works Department (see Public Works Department [PWD]) of national government, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (see Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs) of national government, Ministry of Panchayati Raj (see Ministry of Panchayati Raj) design of contract (see contract design) of policy instrument, 99, 193, 229, 243, 251–53

of programme/project, 22, 66, 68n7, 84, 95, 97, 99–100, 102, 121–22, 124, 137, 154–59, 166n33, 175–76, 178, 237–38, 248–49 Detailed Development Plan (DDP), 99, 106n31, 144–46, 149, 173 Detailed Town Planning Scheme (DTP), 15–16, 130 development plan, 33, 68n6, 99, 100, 103, 106n31, 145–46, 149, 176. See also plan devolution, 28, 35, 38–40, 60, 62–63, 69n16, 82, 124, 141–42, 159, 189–96, 212n3, 217, 220, 228, 244–45 disciplinary power, 14, 16, 116, 126, 146 District Collector, 100, 126, 149 District Planning Committee (DPC), 79–81, 104n6, 131, 146, 151, 161, 177 dominant/dominance party control, 34, 42, 177, 214n22 patterns of, social, 1, 31, 34, 67n3–4, 206, 239n4, 251 Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), 149, 179 elections, 28–29, 122, 132, 141–42, 171–72, 183n6, 189, 199, 211, 215n32, 217–18, 223, 242 engineering, 90, 105n20–22, 115–20, 130, 150, 160, 178, 251 engineer environment, 16, 116, 120, 127 grades/types, 81, 89, 91, 111, 113–16, 118, 120 shortages/gaps, 14, 113, 115–16, 118–20, 122–23, 126–27, 130, 138n44, 160 work of, 6, 15–16, 20, 83, 88–89, 111, 113–14, 116–20

Index 288

environment, 99, 121, 150 equity and justice, 9, 31–33, 37, 181, 253 (see also justice, social) in state–local federalism, 161–62 execution (see public works) federalism, cooperative, 161–64 (see also state– local relations) national–state, 188–91 Five Year Plan, 65, 79, 104n4 fiscal decentralisation. See decentralisation, fiscal Gandhi/Gandhian, 43–44, 59–60, 72n53 Golwalkar, 43 Gondal, 54, 114 governance/govern freedom to, 58, 72n50 habituated practices of, 39, 41 (see also informal/informality, norms) informalities (see informal/ informality of governance) neoliberal, 31–33, 43–44, 101, 170 outcomes, 10, 23, 28, 34, 58, 126, 168, 174, 183n2, 196–97, 201, 209, 217, 220, 223–25, 239n6, 246, 254 government. See administrative; authority, rule-making; capacity; department; hierarchies; implementation; informal/ informality; instrument, policy; organisation; parastatal agencies; performance; planning; policy; procedures; reforms; relation/ relationship/s; rule/s-making; tiers of government

Gujarat Municipalities Act, 143, 148, 178 Gujarat Urban Development Company (GUDC), 250 hierarchies, 85–86, 90, 107, 177, 204, 213n6, 216n34, 221, 238 High Powered Expert Committee, 57, 71n43, 207 housing, low-income, 9–10, 13, 22–23, 29, 63–64, 66, 68n7, 99–102, 122, 137, 152, 162, 170, 175–76, 178, 258n14 implementation in local government, 77, 82–87, 147, 149, 152, 154–59, 163, 199 (see also execution of work) of decentralisation policy, 217–25, 226–38, 242 procedures (see procedures) indicators of decentralisation. See decentralisation indicators inequality, 32, 34, 44, 101, 169–70 Indian Institute of Management, 120 information technology, 11, 14, 123 informal/informality in governance, 29, 64, 67, 103, 170, 239n4 norms, 39, 41, 219–20, 232–34, 241n26 infrastructure, 4, 16, 29, 33, 49–50, 64–66, 69n18, 82, 100–03, 108, 111, 113, 122, 173, 236–38 planning, 103, 111 innovation, 36, 89, 97–98, 120, 207–10, 231, 244–46 institutions concept of, 39, 232–33, 239n8, 241n24 as formal rules, 22, 173–74, 219–20, 232

Index 289

as habituated practices (see governance/govern, habituated practices of) as norms, 39, 41, 219–20, 232–34, 241n26 institutional capacity (see capacity) features, 7, 25, 39, 57, 209–12, 218, 231, 233–35 legacy, 65, 98, 220, 235–37, 242–43 weaknesses, 21, 42, 69n19, 115, 211 instrument, policy, 21, 75, 99, 149, 193–94, 202, 214n18, 221, 229–30, 243, 251–53 Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), 13, 16, 29, 32–33, 66, 68n6, 78, 84–87, 95, 113, 116, 121, 236–37, 241n33, 249, 255 justice, social, 9, 22, 30, 32, 40, 44, 99, 101, 169–70, 243. See also equity, and justice Kalamassery, 96, 126, 162 Kalol, 83, 90, 119, 146 Kalyan-Dombivli, 49, 55, 151, 166n33, 237 Kerala Municipality Act (KMA), 20, 27n24–25, 143–45, 148, 165n14–15, 227–28, 234, 239n2, 244 Kerala State Urban Development Project (KSUDP), 16, 86 Kochi, 23, 78, 82, 96–97, 102, 105n22, 113, 116, 122–26, 137n19, 138n44, 149, 176 knowledge, codified, 98, 163 contextual, 71n38, 127–36, 161, 177, 207–08, 247, 252 gaps in, 99 gendered, 169

management, 90, 97–98 procedural (see procedures, knowledge of) sector/al, 246–48 specialised, 24, 111, 114–18, 120–21, 123, 125, 155–56, 163, 238, 251 tacit, 98, 163, 245 Kudumbashree, 9, 136, 176 land acquisition, 22, 64, 100–01, 133 pooling, 73n65, 99 (see also land, reconstitution) reconstitution, 22, 100–02, 106n36, 133 use, 9, 22, 33, 64–65, 99–100, 102–03, 106n43, 131, 237–38 law administrative (see administrative law) -making, 38–39, 141–49, 218, 227–30 Gujarat, 143–44, 235–37 Kerala, 144–45, 227–30, 232 Tamil Nadu, 146 leader/leadership administrative, 84, 126, 231 and capacity, 211–12, 216n38, 253–54 entrepreneurial, 45, 179–80, 253–54 engagement of local, 54–55, 127–36, 181, 218 legacy, 235–38, 242n32 legislators, 38–39, 172, 213n15, 218, 228–29, 232, 235, 241n30 legislature/legislative/legislation, 21, 41, 62, 69n16, 72n49, 141, 143–146, 164n3, 203, 217–23, 225, 228–32, 235–36, 238n1, 240n10, 241n30 delegated (see delegated legislation)

Index 290

oversight (see democracy/democratic oversight) local action, 10, 22, 34, 38–40, 42, 54, 69n20, 80, 136, 181–82 capacity (see capacity of local government) capture (see capture, local) government (see local government) Local Self Government Department (LSGD), 21, 79, 98, 118, 125, 137n15, 145, 149–52, 165n17, 246–48 local government. See also Ahmedabad; Alandur; Attingal; Coimbatore; Colachel; Gondal; Kalamassery; Kalol; Kalyan-Dombivli; Kochi; Morbi; Nagercoil; Navsari; Ottapalam; Palakkad; Rajkot; Sanand; self-government; Surat; Thrikkakara; Thrissur; Tirunelveli; Trivandrum; Varkala; Vyara facilitation of, 36–37, 41, 49, 54, 102, 121, 137n19, 159, 163, 204–05, 209, 211–12, 228, 238, 246, 250 management/manage contract, 6–7, 87–88, 90, 95–98, 115, 163, 238 of knowledge, 90, 97–98 public, 31–32, 93, 95, 164, 239n8, 243 master plan, 11, 13, 15, 68n6, 99–100, 103, 105n28, 106n43, 130–31, 163, 176 (see also plan) Mexico, 42, 54, 70n25, 71n45, 170, 200, 209, 211 Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, 71n40, 249–50 Ministry of Panchayati Raj, 192, 248–49, 258n5 Modi, Narendra, 42, 66

Morbi, 54, 96, 114 Mumbai/Bombay, 33, 49, 64, 101 municipal. See local Municipal Secretary. See Commissioner/ Chief Officer/Municipal Secretary Nagercoil, 99, 115, 123, 152, 160 NDDB (National Dairy Development Board), 244 NIUA (National Institute of Urban Affairs), 249 Navsari, 7, 54, 90, 96, 108–11, 114 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 43, 59–60 neoliberal/neoliberalism, 32–33, 43, 67n4, 68n5, 101, 170, 199 New Public Management (NPM), 31, 43 norms as institutions (see institution, norms) informal (see informal/informality, norms) organisational capacity (see capacity of local government) form/structure (see structure, organisational) learning, 98, 163, 208, 236, 243 organisation horizontal relations in, 7, 108, 110, 112, 203 vertical relations in, 108, 111–14, 119, 202–03, 250–51 organogram, 109–12 Other Backward Classes, 9, 26n1 Ottapalam, 95, 97, 122, 124, 135–36, 160, 162, 179, 181 outcomes governance (see governance/govern, outcomes) policy, 28, 39, 58, 142, 197, 223–24, 231

Index 291

service delivery, 4–6, 23, 127, 174, 154–59, 183n2, 223, 225, 239n6 Palakkad, 70n29, 79, 96, 105n26, 108, 110, 119, 125, 129–35, 137n19, 154, 161 Panchayati Raj, 35, 58–59, 63, 72n57, 249 parastatal agencies, 49, 64–66, 70n30, 249, 251 Karnataka, 70n30 Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), 6, 11–12, 96, 105n26, 122, 133 Kerala Water Authority (KWA), 7, 10, 15, 95, 105n22–23, 116–17, 128, 134, 154–59, 162, 226, 251 Maharashtra, 166n33, 237 Tamil Nadu, 87, 115, 184n26–28, 251, 258n8 participation/participatory and contestation, 9–10, 22, 67, 168–70, 199 and social intermediation, 41, 102–03, 139, 168, 254 budgeting, 182 community/people’s, 9–10, 13, 19, 21–23, 33–34, 36–38, 40, 42, 44, 132, 174–82, 215n30, 253–55 depoliticised, 199 electoral, 171–72 planning, 172–73, 202, 238 spaces, 37–38, 164n11, 168–69, 173–74, 254 party, political. See Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP); Communist Party of India (Marxist); Congress Party; Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) path dependency, 232, 235 people’s plan/people’s planning campaign, 63, 226

performance appraisal, 115, 124, 126, 198–99, 213n15, 215n30 city government, 4–5, 50–51, 54, 125 plan City Development Plan (CDP) (see City Development Plan [CDP]) Detailed Development Plan (DDP) (see Detailed Development Plan [DDP]) Detailed Town Planning Scheme (DTP) (see Detailed Town Planning Scheme [DTP]) development (see development plan) master (see master plan) spatial development, 100, 130 Town Planning Scheme (TPS) (see Town Planning Scheme [TPS]) planning authority/development authority, 64, 100, 106n36, 130, 149, 163, 166n28, 237 officials, 15–16, 111, 113, 117, 131 town/urban, 8, 15–16, 64, 68n6, 99–103, 106n43, 111, 117, 131, 149, 163, 237–38 policy actors, 79, 203–05, 217, 221 drift, 21, 141, 219, 226–27, 233, 235 entrepreneur, 45, 191, 211 functions, 3, 8, 16, 20, 28, 35, 60–62, 73n63, 99, 141, 192–96 implementation (see implementation) instrument (see instrument, policy) intent, 21, 28, 39, 58, 62, 141–42, 217–18, 220, 224–25, 227, 230–32, 239n7 -making/formulation, 31, 72n48, 223–25 networks, 120–21, 211–12

Index 292

outcomes (see outcomes, policy) outputs, 39, 77, 197, 219–22, 225 -making, technocratic, 31, 66, 230, 239n7 policy studies, 72n48, 226, 239n8 political and civil society, 43, 67, 69n21, 169–70, 174, 177–78, 200, 182 competition, 198–201, 214n16 decentralisation (see decentralisation, political) executive, 13–14, 21, 41, 202–06, 215n25, 215n32, 217, 221–22, 225, 231, 252 left and right, 42–43, 59, 63 will, 205, 225, 234 political science, 190–91, 199, 226, 239n8 poverty, 9, 23, 66, 101–03, 176, 197, 237 (see also housing, low-income) power, relations of, 11, 58, 121, 142, 147, 149, 154, 170, 200–01, 204–06, 227–28 principal–agent framework, 202, 206, 215n25 procedures decision-making, 11, 77–82, 86, 97–98, 113–14, 125, 131, 134–35 implementation (see implementation, in local government) procurement (see procurement procedures) knowledge of, 90, 95, 97–99, 104, 115, 117, 129, 155, 163, 245, 252 procurement procedures, 5–6, 82, 87–98, 145, 155, 163 public action, 42–43, 69n19, 101–02, 174, 217

infrastructure (see infrastructure) management, 31–32, 95, 239n8, 243 participation (see participation) services, 1, 6–8, 39–40, 49–50, 60, 100, 102 public works, 11–12, 14, 78, 82–84, 105n20, 118, 122, 129, 145, 152, 165n16, 175 execution, 6, 12, 69n12, 84, 87, 98, 137, 145, 165n14–16, 178, 194, 209, 229, 237, 250 public administration, 190, 226, 239n8, 242–43 Public Works Department (PWD), 11, 90, 93–94, 98, 118, 120, 122, 124, 145, 150, 154, 165n17 RAY (Rajiv Awas Yojana), 66, 68n7, 175–76 Rajkot, 53, 96, 98, 100–01, 111–15 recruitment, 14, 16, 115–16, 122–23, 125, 148 reforms administrative, 31, 182, 195, 208–09 decentralisation, 20–21, 28–29, 61–63, 141, 208–09, 235–36 relation/relationship/s, accountability, 55, 114, 117, 139, 199, 202, 213, 231, 258n6 horizontal, 112, 202–05 state–local (see state–local relations) vertical, 55, 202–06, 215n27, 246 research methods qualitative, 54–55, 197–98 quantitative, 54, 211 rule/s administrative, 12–13, 21, 39, 41, 72n49, 104n6, 122, 164n3, 212, 223, 230, 237, 240n21 -making, 21, 38–39, 41, 141–49, 219, 221–23, 226–36, 239n7, 240n20, 242, 244–46, 248

Index 293

SRFD (Sabarmati River Front Development), 9 Sanand, 83, 90, 101 sanction of state government (see approval) SEC (State Election Commission), 171, 217 self-government, 28–29, 61–62, 72n54, 144, 151, 190, 195, 228, 244, 254 Sen Committee, 81, 173, 195 Smart Cities Mission (SCM), 29, 66 solid waste management (SWM), 8, 11, 15, 26n12, 40, 114, 116 Standing Committee, 16, 54, 80, 83, 89–90, 123, 132, 134, 146, 148–49, 151, 164n8 state–local relations, 17, 36, 38–39, 41–42, 57, 62, 141–64, 204–06, 209, 215n27, 223, 233, 246 control (see control) facilitation (see local government, facilitation of) structure, organisational, 107–14, 164n4, 208, 245, 252 subsidiarity principle, 192–94 Surat, 3–9, 20, 22, 26n9–10, 84, 87–90, 97, 100–02, 113, 115, 119–20, 125, 163, 178, 245 TAG (Technical Advisory Group), 12–13, 81, 104n6, 118–19, 161, 167n53, 175 Tamil Nadu District Municipalities Act, 143, 148

Tamil Nadu, Municipal Corporation Acts, 143, 148 tender, 82–84, 87, 89–90, 92, 95, 105n21, 163, 165n17 excess, 11, 83, 150, 159 theorising. See decentralisation, theorising Thrikkakara, 120, 122, 124, 126, 138n37, 153 Thrissur, 78, 81, 114, 118, 123, 126, 176 tiers of government, 59, 63, 66, 188, 193, 195, 200, 228, 236 Tirunelveli, 84, 90–91, 99–100, 113, 116 town planning. See planning, town/ urban Town Planning Scheme (TPS), 100–02, 163, 178 Trivandrum, 3–16, 16, 20, 22–23, 56, 68n7, 84, 87–88, 91–95, 105n27, 111–12, 116–17, 119, 123, 125, 152, 154–59, 175, 208 Urban Improvement Trust, 64 urban planning. See planning, town/ urban Varkala, 96, 121, 162 Vyara, 54, 96, 114, 119 ward, 12, 16 committee, 12, 63, 173–78, 181, 254 sabha, 12, 79, 131–32, 173– 79, 181 works. See public works