The start of a year is often associated with resolutions -- about improving ourselves after a bout of introspection. Individuals often introspect about the need to do things differently. It is time our governments did, too.
In the past, issues like increasing income inequalities, migrants, widespread rural distress, deteriorating air quality indices, and the high levels of social stress have figured less and GDP more in our development debates. These deficiencies have been attributed more to inefficiency of execution and administrative incompetence, rather than being seen as symptoms of design failure. With the passage of time, these deficiencies have become acute, meriting immediate attention and systemic solutions.
A curious feature of our development model is the near-universal belief that India resides in its villages. Accordingly, the dominant focus of the State has been on rural upliftment, at the cost of creating attractive high-quality urbanity across the country. Less than 600 of the identified 8,000 urban centres are Class 1 cities but house 70 per cent of the urban population. Further, less than 250 of these have full-fledged municipal corporations. There are only 53 large ‘million-plus’ cities, nine being ‘mega’ in size. Only this group, plus a handful of other cities, provide semblance to a full urban experience. The pyramid not only narrows sharply but is also unbalanced geographically, with a majority of the larger cities being located in the western/southern belt, which coincidentally displays lower inequality indices but has a lower share of the population.
Interestingly, the current official urbanisation level is 34 per cent but as per World Bank estimates, based on satellite night lights data, it is 55.3 per cent. This is the share of population living in urban-like density or ‘agglomeration index’, the globally used alternative measure of urban concentration in the absence of consistent cross-country census figures. It suggests that in major centres, population growth occurs outside the fringes of ‘official’ cities in slums and shanty towns and thus fails to get recorded in official statistics. The Indian urbanisation model is often termed ‘messy urbanisation’.
As a consequence, despite governance being overseen by large and well-trained centralised bureaucracies, most Indian cities rank at the bottom of the UN Livability index, including our much-pampered capital cities. Each of our major cities have their own unique forms of degradation. The national capital, and 89 of the large cities, choke in their own air with AQI rarely descending below dangerous levels. Elsewhere, erstwhile salubriously pretty cities like Bengaluru, Pune and Indore now choke in traffic jams of their own making. Monsoon floods bring several cities, including Mumbai, to a standstill; Chennai is known for perennial shortage of drinking water, poor street drainage and waterlogging. Our societal stress levels are amongst the highest and get manifested in a ‘million mutinies’ getting provoked at the slightest pretext. Additionally, inequalities, both interpersonal and inter-regional have been going up. The World Inequality Report 2022 pegs India to be amongst the most unequal countries, with a large number of poor persons and an affluent elite. Rural and urban distress both remain high.
On the other hand, globally, securing widespread and attractive urbanity has been the prime focus of State attention, as brought out by a variety of World Bank/UN and other reports. Europe has the lowest inequality levels because despite a population of less than 800 million, it has 500-600 important urban centers. The US, with a 350 million population, has over 250 important urban centres. Could the concentrated Indian imbalance be the cause of our problems?
It might be useful here to take a small diversion to talk about Kolkata. It had for long figured in the top 3 metros but was often written off as a ‘dying city’ after the Naxalite outbreak of the late 1960s and the large-scale flight of big business. Subsequently, it was battered by the refugee influx of the Bangladesh crisis and the long, business-unfriendly Left Front rule.
Yet, despite these handicaps, it retains its third spot, with its GDP estimated at over $150 billion, far ahead of the three shining stars of South India. It has over the years created millions of jobs without having any noticeable USP. Coincidentally, it also experiences lower inequality compared to neighbouring states. Could the Kolkata lesson be that it is important to help a city gain critical mass but subsequently, with appropriate governance models, it will display self-sustaining growth even without pronounced USPs? This may then apply even to the UP/Bihar hinterland, which has long been deprived of high-quality urbanisation, unlike the western/southern states.
The question arises as to how to create critical mass. The creation of small states resulted in the explosive growth of Raipur, Ranchi and Dehradun. This model could be replicated. Enhanced creation of municipalities, delegation of financial powers/budgets could be tried. Creation of a parallel national capital centre by shifting several Union ministries/statutory authorities could be considered for that belt, leveraging the ongoing Digital India/high-speed rail-road network development for ensuring seamless connectivity. The possibilities are many, but boldness of execution and strong vision/intent to initiate high-quality urban infrastructure in a more widespread geography is needed at this juncture.
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