The question of autonomy of the Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) under the 73rd Constitutional Amendment (CA) has been much in the news. But the equally important issue of the autonomy of urban local bodies mandated under the parallel 74th CA or Nagarapalika Act, has so far received step-motherly treatment.

With the Greater Bangalore Expert Committee likely to submit its report on a new framework for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), this issue demands immediate attention. The decisive term under both the CAs is local self-government (LSG). 

A movie, “The Story of a Municipality”, produced by the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies (CBPS), on an Asian Development Bank-funded project in Karwar, portrays vividly how the autonomy of urban LSGs is being increasingly eroded with decisions about projects and loans being taken by bureaucrats at the State level, consultants and international financial institutions (IFIs).

Given the Karwar municipality's desire for much-needed funds, it was lured to approve these projects with little discussion on the implications. Repayment of the loans was the onus of the municipality, but an impossibility given its meagre revenues. It would have to face bankruptcy, take more loans like a bonded debtor or make citizens pay heftier taxes. The film is especially relevant for Bangalore.

As the Collaborative for the Advancement of the Study of Urbanism through Multi-Media (CASUM-M) has been pointing out, “government” as we understand it is being fast replaced by “governance” through a nexus of IFIs, investors, consultants and bureaucrats.

Govt role changing
The role of the government is shifting from that of fulfiling citizens’ needs through citizen-centric, rights-based measures and social justice to one of making cities attractive to investors and maximising their profits. Decision-making is being monopolised by lobbies of powerful vested interests of corporates, land-mafias, etc. Moreover, IFIs are not subject to local accountability systems. Municipal councillors, who should have supremacy in decision-making in a local democracy, are being reduced to rubber stamps to merely fulfill formalities.

Privatisation in the name of public-private-partnerships is being pushed by IFIs as a panacea for public sector inefficiency, as in the case of the Greater Bangalore Water and Sanitation Project (GBWASP), without attempting alternatives.

Though “power to the people” is the slogan underlining the 74th CA, lip service is being paid to downward accountability to citizens and decentralisation while centralisation is the rule. In the objectives for forming BBMP, proximity, accountability, transparency, people’s participation, etc, find no place.

The way forward
The way forward for BBMP would be to give supremacy to the elected representatives of the LSG and citizens. Also, the basic function of the LSG as expressed in the 74th CA, “Planning for economic development and social justice” is today a forgotten mandate. Urban development has come to mean only flyovers, ring-roads, etc, which only privileges the already-privileged car-owners and neglects human welfare. Making BBMP ensure social justice would mean enlarging its functions to include those related to fulfiling basic needs, like the public distribution system, housing, labour, livelihood, primary health, primary education, social security, etc.

The principle that “what can be done at the lowest level is best done at that level” would mean that MLAs and MPs have no say in the BBMP, as in the PRIs. Activity mapping of functions between the State, BBMP, zonal and ward levels needs to be undertaken as already done for PRIs.

The new mantras for BBMP will need to be “social justice” rather than profits to investors; “efficiency through decentralisation” rather than through privatisation; “downward accountability to citizens” rather than to investors and IFIs; “decision-making by municipal councillors and citizens” rather than IFIs, consultants and bureaucrats; and “public-people-partnerships” rather than public-private-partnerships.

(The writer is Executive Trustee of Citizen’s Voluntary Initiative for the City,CIVIC.)