Municipal decadence

I am writing this since I observed women in the early to late mornings sweeping roads in the Hyderabad city, municipal officers who have devised this employment generation scheme did not think for a moment the risk they are putting the women to. With poor street lights and rash driving they are often subject to accidents. For 3000 rs a month they are subject to dust pollution, high risk working conditions etc. Do we need to clean our roads at all most of them are broken anyways. Mal-administration, lack of innovation and poor execution ails our municipalities.

Municipal administration in the Indian towns and cities is a broken function. An important civil administration function neglected by the state and central governments. Indian towns and cities are a visual load of dirt and broken infrastructure.

I need not detail the deplorable hygienic conditions that exist of Indian towns and cities. The municipality’s in the country work in bits and pieces. It is amazing to see the consistency in municipal mal-administration across the length and breadth of the country (leave aside some towns here and there).

Indian towns and cities are densely populated and unplanned and that adds to the complexity of administering them. Having said that there is no serious attempt by the state and central governments to address the issues that plague city and town administrations in the country. We are not learning from other successful cities in the world.

We often attribute mediocrity in this country to the large population, complexity etc, more of an excuse to continue the status quo. Municipalities’ too claim the same and do not re-invent themselves.

It is time to turn our attention to our cities and towns which are growing bigger due to influx from villages, our cities will be unmanageable in a decade with the current structures. May be we need to have a relook at the governance model, are the elected municipal councils able to deliver or they have become obstructionist, do we need to privatize some or more of the city functions, do we need professionals to run our cities ?