Indian Cities - Racing to Ignonimty

Indian Cities face historical disadvantages that are sought to be addressed by the ambitious Smart Cities Mission.  Typically, this ambitious Government program would affect approximately 2-4% area of any given city, the proposed Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in these proposed “Smart” Cities has been accorded full powers to implement, monitor and audit the identified urban projects. A characteristic feature of Indian cities has been ‘Sovereignty Trap’. Consequently, even when certain functions have been expressly delegated to the municipalities, State Governments often intrude into their domain through parallel legislations and/or executive decisions to operate in same functional area. While the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (CAA) did attempt to address these concerns by allotting greater administrative and financial power to the cities, a lot remains to be done in terms of implementation. Most importantly, cities have not been encouraged to address the wider issues pertaining to human development like primary health care, nutrition, primary education and social services among others. It is skeptical if the Mission will address the challenges that have come to identify the characteristics of Indian urbanization milieu.