Effective Decentralisation—Going beyond Reconciled Planning Scales and Capacities: The Need to Recognise Specific Socio-political Drivers

Abstract

The 1990s ushered in two parallel changes in India. The first pertains to liberalisation, which meant the opening-up of the country to international trade and foreign investment, and the introduction of tax reforms and inflation control measures. The second, internal to India, albeit linked intrinsically to liberalisation, is decentralisation as initiated through the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA). The CAA seeks to strengthen urban local bodies as units of local self-government through functional and financial empowerment. Two decades hence, the country continues to suffer from a poorly executed decentralisation agenda. This paper, through the case study of the Bangalore Metropolitan Region (BMR), traces the impact of the decentralisation agenda on the socio-spatial fabric of the region. It highlights how, in the absence of empowered local governments, the state government is increasingly vesting decision-making powers in non-elected task forces, the latter being more or less individuals patronised by ruling parties. The approval of the statutory planning tool for the BMR was stalled on account of the lack of legitimate planning bodies. Consequently, growth continues to be investment-driven, with the metropolitan region emerging as a distorted spatial fabric. The paper argues that the reconciliation of planning scales and capacities renders decentralisation incomplete. In parallel, contending socio-political challenges are an imperative.

The Production of Space and Governmentality in the Urban Poor’s Claim over Land and Housing

“…It is clear that the tools for urban renewal were largely based on land governance and these were left to the states to manage, 1 but the further devolution of powers to urban local bodies did not occur, even though prescribed by the mandatory decentralization agenda incorporated in the mission. In the absence of empowered local governments, the state government increasingly vested decision-making powers in non-elected parastatals, the latter being more or less a network of individuals patronized by ruling parties (Mohan and Mercier 2012). Mahadevia and Datey (2012) demonstrate that in Karnataka, the optional reforms were hardly implemented.…”