IT’S NOT THE HARDWARE, IT’S THE SOFTWARE

IT’S NOT THE HARDWARE, IT’S THE SOFTWARE 

If there is one area where the corporate sector has a disproportionate say in government, it is in urban infrastructure. Even discounting its over-emphasis in the media, corporate opinion holds genuine potential to impact policy. To some extent, this relationship between the emperors of our economy and the circuitry of our cities is an understandable one: cities comprise only 2% of India’s land mass, but generate 62% of its GDP, and are the gateways to globalisation. The market is leading the growth of the cities, and hence can justifiably demand an enabling environment from its government. 

In this light, it is important to evaluate the ideas of the corporate sector on urban governance and infrastructure. Unfortunately, the report card will reveal a bright student showing little application. Ask any corporate CEO what (s)he wants for urban areas, and a predictable wish-list of goodies that they want the Centre to finance will come tumbling out: flyovers, airports, metro rails and the like. Unfortunately, the reality is that Santa doesn’t exist. More importantly, the fundamental paradigm that places the Centre at the heart of the urban solution is itself flawed. 

Most CEOs are well-traveled. A quick examination of the cities in their itineraries would show an extraordinary variety of urban management experiments being tried. We are talking here only of democracies that have a similar governance structure to India’s: a 3-tier interlinked system of centre, state and local government. This broad federal canvas allows a tremendous variety in experimentations with urban and regional governance systems. These structures are more relevant to us than the oft-repeated, tiresome and somewhat irrelevant Chinese Shanghai model because at best, these comparisons betray a naïve understanding of how governments function; at worst, they suggest a subversion of the process of democratic decision-making. 

Within the United States, there are widely different urban practices being tried across different states. While Portland has a participatory style of urban planning, Minnesota-St Paul have a unique pooled property tax structure that allows evenly distributed regional development. New York innovated the use of special-purpose municipal bonds. Hundreds of other local examples abound.

Across the Atlantic, continental European urban management practices are vastly different from British experiments. Cities on the continent generally tend to be more independent, with more flexible revenue sources than their counterparts in England. Currently in the UK, there is an ongoing debate about having regional mini-parliaments that can have a greater say in holistically managing their regions, across a range of strategic areas: transport, culture, economic development and planning.  

The governance environment in these countries explicitly support a marketplace of urban solutions. This is critical, because the problems are very situation-specific: what is good for San Francisco will not work even in Seattle, let alone in Stockholm.

This is not to suggest that these countries have solved their urban problems, just that they have the elements of the solution-set in hand, which allows them to deal dynamically with their local conditions. If we were to take lessons, we would spot some common ingredients across these countries. One such ingredient is that these solutions are not unilateral decisions of government, but are emerging out of a well-designed structure of participatory decision-making, with clearly defined roles for government, citizens and the private sector.

 Taking a leaf out of these international experiences, the question we need to ask ourselves is: what are the ingredients necessary to ensure that these kinds of locally relevant, innovative solutions emerge in India? The answer lies not so much in getting the centre to direct vast sums of money for infrastructure – what can be called the “hardware”, but rather in ensuring that the local decision-making systems are well established to ensure optimal, flexible performance – what can be termed the “software” of processes. 

The fiscal crisis of the early 90s that ushered in the wave of reforms was preceded by years of creating the critical mass of arguments for what constituted the reform package. The fact that the job is still incomplete demonstrates how much political capital needs to be expended to push reforms through. Indeed, it is a warning on how rare and temporary a commodity political capital can be, and why it needs to be spent wisely. 

For urban India, the story has parallels: there is clearly a growing crisis in urban governance and infrastructure. Just as we did a decade ago, we can use this crisis to insert the thin end of the wedge for urban reforms. However, in order that this happen successfully, we need consensus on a coherent set of solutions that can ensure sustainable change, not a laundry-list of projects. A good litmus test for these solutions is to see if they answer the question: “Will what is being suggested allow city governments to run themselves efficiently, meeting their specific local challenges and planning for their future?”

Any solution that provides an answer to this question justifies inclusion in the reform package. Any solution that looks to circumvent this question needs to be seen as a temporary quick-fix, and rejected.

 The corporate sector in India is in a unique position to influence the trajectory of urban governance. They need to use their voice, and the current crisis in urban infrastructure, to craft a coherent urban reform agenda that helps every city answer the question posed above. The IT czars ought to know this best: in their industry, studies have compellingly shown that for every $1 of hardware expenditure, it takes $7 of software and management costs over the life of the asset. What is true for computers is also true for cities: more than the hardware of infrastructure, what is needed is the software of governance.

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The author is founder of Janaagraha. He can be reached at ramesh@janaagraha.org