Urban Dystopia: Mumbai and Delhi’s monsoon woes underline need for empowered mayors

New Delhi and Mumbai, India’s political and commercial capitals, were in shambles last week. It’s an annual feature during the monsoon. Yet again, the disorder served to remind everyone that urban India cannot cope with even a recurring weather phenomenon. In Delhi, people have been tragically electrocuted by live wires and in Mumbai – home to India’s richest municipal body – potholes have cost lives.

Urban India provides the lion’s share of India’s economy, with the services industry taking the lead. Census data indicates it is home to 31% of population which may be an underestimate as World Bank believes that when India’s urban sprawl is brought into the picture, it accounts for 55% of the population. Despite being the main source of economic activity and perhaps population, urban India is low in policy makers’ priorities. This translates into big governance deficiencies where even stepping out during the monsoon can become dangerous.

Urban governance structures are designed in a way that guarantees failure. The common thread across the metros and smaller cities is the fragmentation in authority and a stubborn refusal on part of state governments to devolve power to officials directly elected by urban residents. Unlike some of the better run cities in the world like London, a mayor in India is almost helpless. In most states, the chief minister wields more power than a mayor which means a city rarely gets the level of attention it deserves. To make matters worse, existing governance structures result in different dimensions of service provision functioning in silos. So the benefit of a holistic approach to city management is almost completely absent in India.

The most important reform is to make the mayor directly accountable to voters. This can happen only if the spirit behind the 74th amendment to the Constitution, which recognised urban local bodies as the third tier of government, is honoured – because mayors need more financial autonomy and should be able to reform administration through specialised cadre. To illustrate, garbage disposal is a complicated process which requires expertise, resources and leadership. When cities fail at this essential task, it cascades into public health problems and large scale inundation. Similarly, urban planning can no longer be left to unaccountable generalists as evidenced by Mumbai’s woes traceable to choking the Mithi river. Indian cities need to be taken seriously or they will fall apart.