DYSFUNCTIONAL
CITY-SYSTEMS
Urban Capacities and Resources
Urban Planning and Design
THE CHALLENGE
CITY-SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK
for Urban India Transparency, Accountability and Participation
Urban India is at various stages of malfunction and disrepair. An estimated 30% of India’s 1.3 billion people currently reside in cities. The rate of urbanization is a rapid 2.4% per year, thereby making it imperative that cities are equipped to handle the steadily growing influx of people. Currently, however, cities in India are found lacking in terms of adequate planning, infrastructure, public services and sustainable development. Most of urban India is overburdened and grappling with the consistent growth in population. Most people would agree that our cities need urgent attention – roads, traffic, garbage, power, water-supply, environment, crime, safety and the whole gamut of Quality of Life aspects that frustrate us daily as cityresidents. But these are only the symptoms. They are visible elements of a systemic failure in the governance and management of our cities. Any number of band-aids cannot prevent the malaise from spreading, unless the underlying structural deficiencies are treated. Figuring out a way by which the challenges of cities can be distilled into a frame of reference, will align action towards coherent change.
We call this our City-Systems framework and view the challenges of our cities through the lens of its four defining aspects. These four interrelated aspects are the building blocks for transforming our cities and creating a more sustainable future for growth. 1) Well-structured Urban Planning and Design 2) High levels of Urban Capacities and Resources 3) Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation 4) Transparent, Accountable, and Participatory Cities Quality of life is a direct result of the City-Systems that underlie each of the four themes – the invisible, complex and interrelated elements of laws, policies, institutional frameworks, and processes. To fix the quality of life in our cities and towns, we need to therefore fix our City-Systems.
Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation
A CLOSER LOOK AT THE CURRENT SCENARIO IN URBAN INDIA
A health check against the City-Systems Framework
Now let’s take a closer look and the dysfunctionality of India’s City-Systems from the perspective of the City-Systems Framework. URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN
URBAN CAPACITIES AND RESOURCES
Indian cities today are perched precariously on the precipice of rigidly regulated master plans on the one hand, and completely uncoordinated free-for-all market determined growth on the other. The result is visible in the chaotic expansion of our cities and in the discordant, makeshift nature of public infrastructure being built.
Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) are the ‘last mile’ connection between government and citizens. They are responsible for providing the infrastructure and services that affect our daily quality of life as city residents. Yet, this crucial final arm of government is failing constituents due to a lack of capacities and inadequate resources.
This atrophied approach to spatial planning results in master plans that play no meaningful part in shaping the form and future of our cities, relegating them to regulatory references that merely dictate, ‘what can you use this piece of land for, and how much can you build’.
There is a critical shortage of manpower in ULBs especially at the senior management level. This is compounded by the fact the Urban Management is yet to emerge as a specialised professional domain in India. Municipal Corporations in India therefore do not have a compre- hensive, standardized and well-defined set of roles and job descriptions across urban services and functions, which would ensure that they are right-staffed. Further, a pool of appropriately and adequately skilled and trained manpower is not available for urban services and Urban Capacities functions (E.g. personnel specifically trained in municipal financial manand Resources agement, municipal solid waste management, and municipal revenue mobilisation etc. are not available in the Indian job market).
Similarly, the current development pace has promoted haphazard infrastructure which has not taken into account social science or aesthetics. Ownership and neighbourhood community is built on a sense of place and identity. Investment in the details of urban design is an investment in nurturing ownership and building communities. We believe that most existing Indian cities require large-scale investment in rejuvenation of public spaces and up-gradation of neighbourhoods and key centres of activity.
Urban Planning and Design
Most importantly, we need to realise that the whole spectrum of robust macro spatial planning and detailed local design must be the bedrock of the world-class cities we want.
Only by addressing these twin challenges of sufficient specialization and adequate staffing, will UBLs be able to deliver a better quality of life for our cities and towns.
TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND PARTICIPATION
EMPOWERED AND LEGITIMATE POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
Transparency and Accountability are the founding stones of any robust government, and citizen participation is key to a strong, representative democracy. Unfortunately, the current situation in India’s cities and towns does not reflect this. There remains a wall of opacity between the Government and the citizen, with average city residents unaware of the workings inside the ‘black box’ of the administration. Most tax payers do not know where their money is spent, nor what, if anything, the government plans to do to improve their quality of life. Often, the government itself is unaware of citizens’ chief pain points, and due to the lack of rigorous data is unable to track the state of its own finances and level of service provision.
The edifice of a democratic society is built on having elected representatives that are both empowered and legitimate. Today in urban India there remain institutional impediments that prevent the realisation of this democratic ideal.
Transparency, Accountability and Participation
This situation is compounded by the lack of pre-agreed service delivery benchmarks, and mandatory performance disclosures, which also make it hard for government and citizen to identify which reform efforts are needed most pressingly. From the safety of this opacity, corrupt practices, leakages, pilfering, preferential contracting and cronyism are able to flourish, to the detriment of our cities. Relegated to passive bystandards, urban citizens are unable to voice their concerns, take ownership over their neighbourhoods, and work together with government to create the world-class habitats in which we all wish to live.
Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation
Predominant challenges include: inadequate power of elected representatives in the city council despite efforts to decentralise power nationally through the 74th Constitutional amendment; the persistent influence of crime and money in electoral politics; the lack of institutionalised engagement between elected representatives and citizens, which leads to a sense of disenfranchisement and places serious doubts over the representative legitimacy of politicians; the lack of an objective reporting system for of elected repre- sentatives’ performance in assemblies and parliamentary sessions; and persistent low voter turnout in urban areas.
Other important impediments also remain, such as the inaccuracy of voter lists – which have the power to influence election results in closely fought constituencies. With urban migration causing annual transience rates of 20%, the Election Commission finds itself unable to keep electoral rolls up to date. Because of this, many citizens find themselves unable to vote on election day even if they want to. How can we realise the democratic ideals we desire with urban electoral turnout at just 40%?
TARGETING
OUR INTERVENTIONS THE CITY-SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK
URBAN PLANNING & DESIGN POLICY
URBAN CAPACITY BUILDING (UCB)
Fostering sustainable urban development through robust planning and design policies that respond to contemporary demands and respect federal structures / democratic principles.
Training better Bureaucrats/Administrators to strengthen local government in India, while ensuring Urban Local Governments are adequately resources to meet the demands of India’s Urbanisation.
URBAN PLANNING PRACTICE
Building spatial plans that anchor the long-term political, social, economic and environmental vision for a city and its region / guide all public agencies towards delivering on that vision.
URBAN DESIGN PRACTICE
Fixing India’s urban roads networks – life blood of the city and chief pain point for citizens.
As a Roadmap Urban Capacities and Resources
Urban Planning and Design
What interventions Janaagraha and Jana Urban Space (JanaUSP) Foundation undertake, and why. Under the four dimensions of the City-Systems Framework there are a vast number of interventions needed to improve the quality of life in India’s cities and towns. Many are already being undertaken by various stakeholders in the non-government and government spheres – some to great effect, some less effective, many still critically underimplemented. At Janaagraha and JanaUSP we cannot hope to run all the interventions needed to improve India’s City-Systems. Rather we undertake a subset of targeted interventions, which we believe: • • • •
Are most critical Are under-represented or not being addressed by other stakeholders Are something for which we have a core-competency Represent the most ‘bang-for-buck’, in terms of scalability, replicability, and impact – based on our strategy of running interventions that have lasting impact and create permanent solutions.
CITY-SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK BALA JANAAGRAHA
JAAGTE RAHO!
Building tomorrow’s active citizens through local level civic education.
PUBLIC RECORD OF OPERATIONS AND FINANCE (PROOF) Creating Transparent and Accountable Urban Local Government through reporting and disclosure. Building a growing constituency of citizens who are engaged in their cities’ budgets.
Empowering urban voters through clean voter lists, leading to higher turnout and higher quality elected representatives.
Transparency, Accountability and Participation
COMMUNITY POLICING
Improving the safety of our neighbourhoods and bridging the gap between citizens and police through citizen participation.
ICHANGEMYCITY.COM
Fostering the urban civic ‘community’ - Allowing citizens to connect with one another, and with their civic agencies / local governments.
IPAIDABRIBE.COM
Using the voice of citizens to tackle ‘retail’ corruption in government services.
Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation
The targeted interventions we have chosen to undertake are plotted against the four dimensions of the City-Systems framework here, along with their Statement of Purpose (SoP). Our approach involves working with our primary stakeholders, Government and Citizens, to devise solutions that are easily to scale and replicate via 3Ps . Policies Platforms Partnerships While each of the dimensions of the City-Systems framework comprises of a whole gamut of issues and challenges facing Indian cities, our efforts are focused on programmes that we pilot extensively and prove to be sustainable, scalable models for coherent change.
URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN URBAN PLANNING AND DESIGN POLICY
URBAN PLANNING PRACTICE
URBAN DESIGN PRACTICE
Paving the way for a well-planned Jaipur through to 2025. Produced
Bringing the Tender SURE concept to life for the first time on the ground.
Improving Urban Planning practice via National-level policy reform.
Jaipur Master Plan
2 Pilot TenderSURE roads
under State Urban Agenda for Rajasthan (SAURAJ) at request of then Chief Minis-
executed in Bangalore (Vittal Mallya Road, and Walton Road) with permission from
National Urban Spatial Planning and Development (NUSPD) Guidelines
ter Vasundhra Raje.
Government of Karnataka, and funding from Prestige Group.
produced by JanaUSP and submitted to Ministry of Urban Development for dissemination to states as blueprint for spatial plans nationwide. Improving urban road execution policy through standardisation and specifications.
Tender SURE (Specifications for Urban Road Execution) volumes 1&2 accepted by State Government of Karnataka, with 200 crores allocated, beginning with a 68 Crore outlay for 7 pilot roads in Bangalore.
Securing support for Tender SURE at the government level.
Spatial Plans
developed by Jana USP for Chhindwara, and Valluvanad / Perinthalmanna at request of Kamal Nath (Minster of Urban Development) and Government of Kerala, repectively. Laying a solid foundation for the future development of the Bhubaneswar/Cuttack Region in Orissa. As part of a
Ward Quality Score (WQS) compiled and released for all 198 wards of Bangalore, to link quality of life indicators to budgetary outlays. Linking budgetary allocations to infrastructural adequacy, service delivery, and quality of life indicators. Two editions of
allocated by Government of Karnataka to roads designed and executed as per TenderSURE design specifications.
standing (MoU) with Lodha group to develop showpiece
‘Mumbai Mile’
on Senapathi Bapat Marg, Mumbai.
Tripartite agreement with Tata Group and Government of Orissa
Building PPP models that engage the stakeholders of our urban roads. MoU with
Swati Ramanathan (Chairperson Jana USP) will serve as principal advisor for Urban
Traffic Management Plan
Planning to the Government of Orissa – focussing on the formulation of spatial
Establishing a Performance Reporting Framework (PRF) for Urban Local Bodies to increase government transparency, and accountability to citizens. Seminar on PRF convened in conjunction with
Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) of India, as part of our deepening relationship with the premier audit Institute of the central government of India.
URBAN CAPACITY BUILDING
APPLIED RESEARCH PROGRAMME
TECHNOLOGY
Improving the capacity of the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) to run our cities.
Informing discussions on quality of citizenship in urban India with objective data on social inclusion and exclusion. Path-breaking
3 Janaagraha Urban Case Studies
Citizenship Index (CI)
Implementation of performance improvement methodologies for both online platforms www.ichangemycity.com and www.ipaidabribe.com leading to a
produced under MoU with Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussorie, for urban curriculum taught to officer trainees and returning officers.
project conducted in collaboration with Brown University, USA.
IChangeMyCity.com
BALA JANAAGRAHA Delivering local - level civic education to schoolchildren across India. reached across
236 schools
in
during 2013-14.
Bringing the civic community and civic agencies together to solve urban challenges. Over 6000 real life civic issues resolved at the neighbourhood level through citizen action on www.ichangemycity.com – Janaagraha’s hyper-local civic change network. Fostering and engaging the urban civic community.
20,000 registered users, 200 groups, 1 million + visits on www.ichangemycity.com and counting. COMMUNITY POLICING
IPaidaBribe.com
Improving the safety of our neighbourhoods through volunteer-driven Community Policing. Launch of Janaagraha Community Policing programme in 7 police stations across Bangalore (one for each police division), in partnership with Bangalore City Police.
Harnessing the voice of citizens to bring an end to retail corruption. Crossed
4.5 Million visitors
on www.ipaidabribe.com with 2500+ reports, from across 645 + cities, to the value of 66.21 Cr Rupees in bribes reported. Expanding the IPaidaBribe.com global network. Replica platforms launched in 10 partner countries
(Sri Lanka, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Guyana, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Morocco, Greece, Hungary, Pakistan).
Ensuring adequate resources for the ‘last mile’ of government (Municipal Bodies), which directly impacts citizens at the neighbourhood level. New advocacy stand launched to produce replicable
Destination Organisational Charts
EMPOWERED AND LEGITIMATE POLITICAL REPRESENTATION
CITY-SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK
designed and under construction in Bangalore with 68 Cr government support.
11 cities
SUPPORT PROGRAMMES
JAAGTE RAHO!
Transparency, Accountability and Participation
Empowered and Legitimate Political Representation
14% increase in voter turnout in Karnataka State elections 2013. Working for government acceptance of Proper URban Electoral (PURE) Roll Management model.
MoU signed with Election Commission of India (ECI)
Crowd-sourced Retail Bribery Index (C-RBI)
at the enterprise level.
constructed from online and on ground survey data to paint a picture of corruption trends across government departments, India wide.
HRVM Implementation of
Peopleworks
Implementation of industry best practice
review and appraisal systems.
Recruitment of
robust leadership group with competencies and institutional alignment.
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT (P&D)
to roll out the process across all assembly constituencies of Bangalore.
Bringing the PURE Roll Management concept to other Indian states.
Citizen survey across 7 Assembly Constituencies in Delhi which revealed 20% error rate in electoral lists.
Implementation of Document Management System
Sharepoint
for HR management at the institutional level. Updating urban electoral lists to encourage higher voter turnout and more legitimate elected representatives. 25,000 additions and 50,000 deletions from Shantinagar electoral list leading to 75% accuracy rate and
reduction in loading time
Using data to advocate for reduction in retail corruption on government services.
for Municipal Bodies India-wide, in partnership with AonHewwitt.
for Electronic City tech-park.
Phase 01 TenderSURE roads
16,500 students
Urban Capacities and Resources
Electronic City Industry Association (ELCIA) to produce holistic
Budget Briefs produced for all wards of Bangalore, and shared with municipal councillors.
Urban Planning and Design
Giving Bangaloreans a world-class central road network. Seven interconnected
TRANSPARENCY, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND PARTICIPATION
Informing quality of life debates with never-before-seen hyper-local data at the neighbourhood level.
200 Crores
URBAN CAPACITY BUILDING
Expanding the Tender SURE concept to other Indian states. Memorandum of Under-
development plans.
PROOF
CITY-SYSTEMS ACHIEVEMENTS
Implementation of
Salesforce
for improved donor relations management. 100% track record of meeting the organisation’s growing annual budget year-on-year through attracting and retaining donors.