Janaagraha’s Roadmap for India’s City-Systems Reforms offers three pathways for India’s urban transformation: place-based governance of cities, decentralised participatory governance, and the building of state capacities.
The roadmap draws on Janaagraha’s extensive experience in working in partnership with governments — union, state, and local, and communities, on strengthening India’s city-systems. It also offers fresh, pragmatic and actionable ideas for governments, weaving in rich data and insights from a variety of sources, including: Janaagraha’s Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems 2023, the only comprehensive study of all municipal laws in India; Census 2011; the Compendium of Performance Audits on the Implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992: Landscape Across India (Volume 1), CAG of India, 2024; and www.cityfinance.in.
On place-based governance of India’s cities, the roadmap makes a strong case for: implementing a rural-urban transition policy; adopting a differentiated approach to planning, governance, and financing of different sizes of cities; and reimagining the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and state urban departments as ministries/departments for regional economies and local governments.
On decentralised participatory governance, the roadmap calls for the amendment and implementation of the 74th CAA; the conduct of timely elections; devolution of powers and functions to Urban Local Governments (ULGs); and the formation of platforms for citizen participation.
To address weak state capacities, the roadmap recommends strengthening human resource management in ULGs and municipal finance. Specifically, the roadmap calls for cadre and recruitment reforms, organisational development, shared municipal services, a digital public finance management system, and the development of a shelf of projects in all cities, to also catalyse municipal borrowings.
