Niti aayog strategy @75
Urban governance
- To transform our cities into economically vibrant and environmentally sustainable habitats that provides equitable access to basic infrastructure, public services and opportunities to all citizens.
- India’s growing urbanizing needs requires sustainable infrastructure and services for a better quality of life, which can be ensured through modern urban governance key enabler for urban transformation.
The government has undertaken various initiatives-
- Tourism (HRIDAY - Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana)
- Infrastructure (Housing for All, Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT - Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation)
- Sanitation (Swachh Bharat Mission)
Constraints
- absence of a modern spatial planning framework, public utility design standards takes a huge toll on economic growth, environmental sustainability and living conditions in the cities.
- lack of human resource capacities in the urban sphere at all levels. The municipalities are heavily under-staffed along with required skill gap.
- ULBs struggle with financial crunch due to the narrow, inflexible and non-buoyant tax base; broken financial accounting and audit systems and the inability of municipalities to levy and recover taxes and user charges.
- distribution of power between elected officials at the city level (mayors and councillors) and central administrative service cadres at the city/ district levels is often a bone of contention with no clear demarcation.
Way Forward
- A city dashboard capturing city-level investments, GDP and employment growth, financial position and financial performance encouraging competition among cities.
- synchronous and modern national framework for the spatial planning of cities
- Finances of civic agencies and Urban Local Bodies needs to be strengthened - through fiscal decentralization, innovative models to improve revenue collection, optimizing return on assets
- National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) should be leveraged to improve understanding of municipal jobs including job definitions, technical competencies and key result areas. separate sector skill council for municipal services may be considered.
- Ward committees should activate a technology enabled ‘Open Cities Framework’ and the use of digital tools for feedback and reporting enhancing trust between citizens and governments.
- ULBs should encourage the participation of all community associations, including settlements of the underprivileged and civil society organizations.