Absent Leadership, Dying Cities

In many of our discussions, writings, and casual conversations, the topic of ‘urbanisation’ is often mentioned with a highly negative connotation. And rightly so—because all our cities are essentially dilapidated, unplanned, and overpopulated human settlements. They lack the quaint calm of villages and also the energetic buzz of a well-planned urban hub. What we have are cramped colonies where people live out of compulsion, not choice. Why has it come to this?

There are many reasons, but I want to highlight four primary ones:

1. Lack of Timely and Appropriate Policies, Rules, and Laws

Take the example of Singapore: a city that created a development plan in 1971 and reviews it every ten years to make necessary changes. In contrast, even after ten years since the establishment of the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA), we still do not have a finalized development plan for the region!

2. Apathy of Leaders Across All Political Parties Toward Implementation

This is most evident in the case of delayed local body elections. Some cities have completed entire five-year terms without any elected local governance. While the Constitution, municipal corporation laws, and election regulations all exist, implementation is utterly lacking. The government has not even taken a strong stance that elections must be held and pending court cases should be expedited to prevent local democracy from being kept on life support. Politicians from all parties—engaged in a game of musical chairs for power—find it convenient to keep control of city budgets worth thousands of crores without having to answer to elected representatives. Even basic rules aren’t enforced. For example, there’s a rule that whenever there is digging or construction work in the city, boards must be put up to inform citizens. If not, there are penalties. While the authorities are quick to impose penalties on citizens, they fail to follow or enforce these rules themselves. Whether it's a big law or a small one, implementation by the government is abysmal.

3. Lack of Government Consistency

Look again at the issue of municipal elections. Depending on what suits a political party or alliance, the structure of elections keeps changing—from single-member wards to four-member wards. There is no logical, consistent policy or approach. In the last 25 years, no two consecutive elections in Pune have followed the same method. This naked political self-interest of those in power is plain to see. When court petitions delay elections, our sly politicians simply shrug it off, indifferent to the erosion of democracy.

4. Absence of an Independent Evaluation Mechanism for City Governance

There is no autonomous body to quantitatively or qualitatively assess city governance. Neither municipal corporations nor the state’s urban development department conducts such evaluations. Massive schemes worth thousands of crores are launched, but no reports are available on what goals were set, how much was achieved, or why objectives weren’t met. If an independent organization, research group, or university wants to evaluate performance, even basic data is not made transparently available. Despite managing large municipal budgets, not a single corporation presents its budget in a citizen-friendly format that enables research or scrutiny. The unspoken strategy seems to be: don’t provide information, and you eliminate the possibility of independent evaluation. And because there’s no evaluation, we’re stuck at the first step—unable to make appropriate policies. Without accurate data or performance reviews, what kind of policy-making is even possible?

So, are citizens responsible for all this? No. The real culprits are our irresponsible, all-party political leaders. Currently, there are no city councilors in any of our cities. Commissioners appointed by the state government are managing urban affairs. That makes the state government accountable, particularly to the MLAs who sit in the legislative assembly. In Pune, there are about 150 to 175 corporators and only eight MLAs. This means that one MLA is effectively responsible for the work of at least 20 corporators—which, of course, is unmanageable.

Officers don't respond to citizen complaints because they don’t fear losing votes in any upcoming election. Even a look at the minutes of Pune’s ward-level mohalla meetings shows that small tasks can take six months or more. The administration is lost in its own arrogance, and the leaders whom we could hold accountable are nowhere to be found.

In such a scenario, is it any wonder that our cities are on a ventilator, gasping for survival?

(Published in Daily Sakaal on April 11, 2025)