September 05, 2001

    Considerable variations among the States in assigning responsibilities and resources to the local bodies despite the enactment of the 74^th Constitution Amendment about a decade back was today noted at a workshop held here on Urban Governance in India as part of the India Launch of the Good Urban Governance Campaign.

    While Kerala has amended the law to provide for strong elected municipal executive, Punjab has undertaken to prepare a fresh municipal legislation to equip the urban local bodies to take up their enhanced responsibilities, Dr Kulwant Singh, Executive Director of the Human Settlements Management Institute of the HUDCO pointed out.

    The 74^th Constitution Amendment Act (CAA) had mandated democratization and decentralization of urban local bodies to make it more representative and service oriented.

    Some of the States that were in the forefront of implementing the provisions of the 74^th CAA have, however, gone in for the second set of amendments after carrying out their initial conformity legislation.

    Dr Singh noted that some State Governments were reluctant to devolve powers to the local bodies. In some cases, the nominations of other agencies have been made intruding into the domain of municipal bodies.

    The new laws under the Constitution have made municipal elections mandatory every five years. Such elections are yet to be held in States like Bihar, Pondicherry and some North-East ones. Jammu and Kashmir is slated to hold the local body elections later this year after adoption of the 74th Amendment.

    The financial position of the local bodies, particularly the urban ones, are noted to be weak. Many are yet unable to raise loans for want of subordinate legislation. Others are yet to go in for setting up their own State Finance Commission that is to demarcate clear financial norms and provisions underlined by the 74^th CAA.

    However, West Bengal reported successful utilisation of the 74^th CAA for taking up comprehensive back-up action to revitalise the municipalities. Shri G. Balachandhran, Secretary of the West Bengal Municipal Affairs Department, said the Constitution Amendment helped boost political and economic empowerment efforts that were already on in the State since 1977.

    He pointed out that the efforts to make the civic administration people participatory and representative came up only in Independent India. While pushing up the urban civic set up, the colonial rulers aimed only reducing the cost of administration and restricting the basic municipal services to the elite.

    The West Bengal Municipal Affairs Secretary pointed out that recent success in civic bodies administration in the State has proved that "unwavering political will" for getting things done for the common people along with administrative ability could usher in real change.

    The case of the city of Chandigarh, presented by Shri Gopal Krishan of the Chandigarh Muncipal Corporation, was different from that of West Bengal. The "city beautiful" that was taken up as fully planned city in 1951 was at breaking point in the matter of civic service provision. It never had a municipal set up till the 74the CAA was taken up for follow up action. The new representative character of the Chandigarh Municipal administration is expected to improve things for the city that has almost a billion population in its environ.

    Brazilian Delegate to the India Launch of the Good Governance Campaign, Shri Jackson Silvano de Toni, explained how participatory budgeting in the urban civic bodies at Porto Alegre and Rio Grande do Sul in his country helped to find a permanent solution to the perpetual financial problem faced earlier. Shri Kailash Vijaywargiya, President of the All India Council of Mayors Association, pointed out that peoples’ participation in property tax assessment in Bangalore had brought in similar results.