Preface - National Institute of Urban Affairs

Preface
The Constitution 74 th Amendment Act, 1992, has marked the beginning of a
historical reform to decentralize power at the grass root level in urban areas of the
country. This Act has provided a constitutional form to the structure and mandate of
municipalities to enable them to function as an effective democratic institution of localself-government.
One of its important objectives is to promote people’s participation in
planning, provision and delivery of civic services. It introduces some fundamental
changes in the system of municipal governance with a new structure, additional
devolution of functions, planning responsibilities, new system of fiscal transfers and
empowerment of women and the weaker sections of the society. It has been more than
a decade since the Act was enacted. However, the progress in the implementation of
the various provisions of the Amendment Act has been rather slow. While some states
have made significant progress others are lagging behind.
This study on “Urban Governance Decentralisation in India: A Review” was
designed to analyse the facilitating and hindering factors responsible for achieving
expected outcomes of the urban decentralisation process in the country. Analysis
presented in the study is based on a critical review of the policy documents, reports of
various committees and commissions, research study conducted by different
institutions and discussions with the experts in the field.
The study has suggested that the efforts to move towards decentralized urban
governance has been at best fragmented and uncoordinated, largely due to absence of a
broad macro framework. Despite most of the states passing the laws conforming to the
Amendment Act, for ensuring regularity of elections, representation, and reservation
etc. the process of empowerment of local bodies has been extremely uneven across
states and cities. It would, therefore, be unrealistic to expect any major improvement in
the nature of planning and administration at the local level, as a consequence of the
Amendment Act and linked changes at the state level. This study report includes a
series of recommendations to make the urban decentralization process in the country a
success.

We gratefully acknowledge the support from United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) for sponsoring the study under their programme of supporting the
Economic Reforms of Government of India with a view to provide policy advise to the
Government for effective implementation of Constitution (74 th ) Amendment Act and
other reform measures initiated to improve the quality of life of urban residents. Dr.
Mukesh Mathur coordinated and designed this study and Dr. (Mrs.) Debolina Kundu,
Consultant to the study undertook the responsibility of conducting the study with the
support from Dr. O P Bohra. Valuable inputs were provided by a number of experts
who participated in the presentation workshop organized by the UNDP in its Delhi
office in October 2003 as a part of the study. We are thankful to Mr. Pradeep Sharma
and Ms. Happy Pant of UNDP, Dr. George Mathew, Institute of Social Sciences, New
Delhi and other experts for their valuable comments on the draft report.
Vinod Tewari
Director