City plights

As far as I know, no national leader since Mahatma Gandhi has noticed the squalour in which we live. Gandhiji had this to say of Indian village life, 8216;Instead of having graceful hamlets dotting the land, we have dung-heaps. The approach to many villages is not a refreshing experience. Often one would like to shut one8217;s eyes and stuff one8217;s nose; such is the surrounding dirt and offending smell8217;.

The only thing that has changed since then is that our national leaders ensconced in their spotless VIP enclaves have become blind to squalour.

So, let me begin by praising the Prime Minister for coming to Mumbai last week and admonishing Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh for the appalling state of municipal governance. Municipal administration should be freed from the cancer of corruption and the stranglehold of land mafias. Every citizen must feel that the municipality is of them and for them.

Well done Dr Manmohan Singh, but now would you go that extra step and order your Urban Affairs Minister to evolve a model of municipal governance that would take our major cities out of the hands of state governments. Mumbai is a mess because the men who govern it are interested mostly in robbing it of its riches. The Municipal Commissioner has almost no authority. In Delhi, despite an elected Chief Minister, several important powers remain in the hands of a Lieutenant Governor who is chosen by the Central Government. Things are further complicated by a plethora of municipal authorities all competing for turf.

What we need is a system in which cities are governed by powerful, elected Mayors accountable for everything from law and order and waste disposal to infrastructure development and public utilities. Once a mayoral system is developed for our metropolitan cities it should be copied for state capitals and towns with a population of over a million people.

This would free state governments to concentrate their energies on providing the villages with the basic amenities they so desperately lack.

The next thing that needs to happen is the decentralisation of funds. Local governance only happens when local governments control enough money to build local infrastructure. It should be in their hands to build roads, low-cost housing, public parks and other utilities. This is how it is in countries that have clean, beautiful cities that befit the 21st century. I speak not just of the developed countries but even of countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia where till not so long ago urban and rural living conditions were not much better than our own.

This Prime Minister has set up an Urban Renewal Mission, so it should be that much easier to implement a new model of local governance. Perhaps, we could start with Mumbai where things have deteriorated so much in recent years that a couple of weeks ago a large number of children from the city8217;s slums were hospitalised for symptoms of starvation euphemistically called malnourishment. The state government8217;s instant response was to blame it on living conditions in the slums. What can we do if people continue to emigrate to the city in such large numbers? If for no other reason than this Mumbai needs to be freed from the shackles of Mr Deshmukh8217;s disgraceful government.