“It ASICS 2023 is a meticulous and praise-worthy effort. I endorse the ten key recommendations made in the report. They can deepen the principles of decentralisation and devolution in urban governance and revitalize the spirit of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (1992).” Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India on ASICS 2023
Systemic nature of India’s urban challenges
From floods and garbage crises to power cuts and pollution, so many of the issues that our cities and towns face repeat like a broken record, over and over again. One could say that our cities are not faced with a hundred different problems but the same problems repeated a hundred times.
To address these recurring urban challenges, we need to fix the root causes that lie within ‘city-systems’. Janaagraha’s city-systems Framework consists of four distinct but interrelated components that together make up urban governance.
Urban Planning and Design (spatial planning, land, and design of public spaces)
Urban Capacities and Resources (finance, staffing, performance management, and digitalisation in city governments)
Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation (empowered and accountable mayors and councils) Transparency
Accountability and Participation (citizen participation in neighbourhood-level governance).
We believe fixing India’s city-systems is a necessary pre-condition for a better quality of life and for preserving and nurturing the natural environment of our cities and towns.
Urban planning and design
spatial planning, land, and design of public spaces
Urban capacities and resources
finance, staffing, performance management, and digitalisation in city governments
Empowered and legitimate political representation
empowered and accountable mayors and councils
Transparency, accountability and participation
citizen participation in neighbourhood-level governance.
About ASICS
Our flagship initiative, the Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) is a comprehensive diagnostic of the state of India’s city-systems – the complex, mostly invisible factors (such as laws, policies, institutions, and institutional processes) that underpin urban governance and strongly influence the quality of life in India’s cities.
ASICS is a health diagnostic of our cities. It is intended to serve as a bellwether of the degree and direction of systemic reforms being undertaken by governments in the urban context.
ASICS aims to provide a common frame of reference for political and administrative leaders, business and academia, media, and civil society, in different cities to converge on their agenda for transformative reforms.
ASICS over the years
ASICS, since its first edition in 2013, has improved its coverage besides strengthening its methodology. In its past editions, ASICS evaluated cities by scoring them on a scale of 0 to 10. The ASICS score of a city is an indication of the health of its governance systems and therefore, its ability to deliver a good quality of life in the medium to long term. Further, global cities such as New York, London, and Johannesburg (in 2017) were added to the study to serve as reference points for India’s cities.
ASICS 2023
ASICS 2023 evaluates the quality of urban laws (municipal acts and town and country planning acts) of all 35 states/Union Territories (UTs) in India through 52 questions using the city-systems framework. Further, to make the study more relevant, 25 additional data sets were analysed. For example, data on implementation aspects such as cities with active master plans, ward committees, disclosure of civic data by cities, as well as data that offers perspectives on India’s urbanisation such as the definition of urban in India, and district urbanisation patterns basis census 2011, etc. CAG performance audit reports on the implementation of the 74th CAA across 13 states were also analysed.
Cities in India are principally governed by their respective state municipal acts and town and country planning acts. An evaluation of the quality of these acts along with allied acts such as community participation law or public disclosure law (where they are separate), and policy documents such as open data policy give a comprehensive understanding of the quality of urban governance in India from a root cause perspective.
Janaagraha’s Annual Conclave on Shaping India’s Urban Agenda
The launch was followed by an engaging panel discussion on ‘The Future of India’s City-Systems’ with B V R Subrahmanyam, CEO, NITI Aayog, Vidya Shah, Executive Chairperson, EdelGive Foundation and, Srikanth Viswanathan, CEO, Janaagraha. The discussion was moderated by Latha Venkatesh, Executive Editor, CNBC TV 18.
The Annual Conclave also included other exciting conversations such as:
‘City Finance: Catalysing Large-Scale Capital for India’s Cities and Towns’. Closed-door panel discussions with senior policymakers.
Panel Discussion 1: Municipal Borrowings
Panel Discussion 2: Fiscal Decentralisation
‘City-systems: Reimagining the Architecture of City Institutions’ Closed-door roundtable on strengthening the institutional design of governance of India’s cities.
Attended by parliamentarians, legislators, senior bureaucrats, and academic experts, the conclave served as a platform for a diverse set of stakeholders to collaborate and contribute to shaping India’s urban agenda. The details of the speakers can be viewed here
Our reports have always gained attention in English and vernacular newspapers, online news sites as well as on radio and TV. See key media mentions here.
Improve infra, make cities more ‘liveable’ — Modi govt plans new programme for urban local bodies
Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and Industrial Townships State Services (Absorption, Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 2006.
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