https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0293-5574
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ABSTRACT
Large-scale inter-city infrastructure projects are proliferating across the Global South as industrial policy-makers have used spatial planning to purposefully transform regions’ economic and urban geographies. The Make in India policy and its promotion of industrial development corridors is emblematic of these trends, and this paper explores the relationship between this emergent national spatial vision and the subnational governance restructuring necessary for its implementation. We present primary research surrounding the implementation of the Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) in Gujarat, and demonstrate that megaprojects present challenges that require subnational governments to act in altered ways. They must be adept in the assembly and delivery of significant parcels of land, and in handling any political fallout this generates. They must also make new arrangements and acquire competences to meet ‘scaled up’ developmental ambitions. Finally, they need to harness the legitimating power that corridors represent through their promises of connection, integration and growth. The Government of Gujarat has enthusiastically embraced the concept of the DMIC, turning spatial planning into a series of externally marketed infrastructure investment opportunities. In pushing its pro-growth agenda, it has overwritten earlier institutions focused on small-scale industrial development, but has not resolved underlying contradictions around land acquisition, or building consensus in support of its entrepreneurial vision. By focusing on this ‘limiting case’, we highlight the crucial role of the subnational state in implementing infrastructure-led development, and the importance of building a contextually rich understanding of its responses to the scaled-up demands megaprojects place upon it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank their research respondents for their generosity in sharing their experiences of the DMIC in Gujarat, and to N. Abhilasha for all her contributions to the data collection there.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
2 We use States to refer to these subnational territories and their governments, and states (without the capital ‘s’) for institutions of government in the more generic sense. The seven are Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and the National Capital Territory of Delhi (which has partial Statehood).
3 Since Narendra Modi became India’s prime minister, national visions of economic development have been increasingly intertwined with the experience of Gujarat, where he was previously Chief Minister.
4 Districts are administrative units below the State level, on average encompassing around 2 million people.
5 Our analysis was given contextual depth through Mahadevia’s extensive experience of Gujarat’s planning and development institutions gained through three decades of research, policy engagement and training of professional planners.
6 Here we refer to all manner of zones, such as special economic zones, free trade zones, export processing zones, etc.
7 The renaissance of ‘development corridors’ in planning circles worldwide is evidenced by over 50 corridors being planned in Africa alone (Enns, Citation2018).
8 India’s 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments, passed in 1992, required States to establish elected local governments for all rural and urban areas. But as Sood and Kennedy (Citation2020) note, a loophole in these Acts gave State governments the power to declare ‘industrial townships’ under their direct control. In turn, this allows forms of entrepreneurial governance to be enacted that prioritize service delivery to rate payers over democratic inclusion and participation.
10 During Modi’s first term as prime minister, these amendments lapsed due to their non-acceptance in parliament. Nevertheless, they signal the GoI’s ongoing commitment to industrialize at all costs.
11 Statehood was conferred on 1 May 1960 with the division of the Bombay Presidency into Maharashtra and Gujarat.
12 The Gujarat Human Development Report (Hirway & Mahadevia, Citation2005) documents a post-economic reform growth pattern that favoured larger industries over SMEs; industry as a whole over agriculture; and ultimately valued economic growth over broad-based human development. This is reflected in a human development index score (0.672 in 2018) that remains mid-ranking for India (hdi.globaldatalab.org, Citationn.d.).
13 This allows for land pooling and readjustment, while appropriating up to 50% of the land for public purposes. Landowners are compensated for the land appropriated, but are also charged the expected costs of infrastructural improvement, the final balance being settled at the time the land parcel is brought into development by the land owner. As soon as the TPS is announced and its draft form approved by the State government, the planning authority takes away the lands marked to be developed as roads (for details, see Bellaney, Citation2008, Citation2013; and Mahadevia et al., Citation2018).
14 The TPS mechanism provides a revolving fund for infrastructure development, with up-front costs met from selling a proportion of the land retained by government (Mathur, Citation2013). Land within a TPS is purchased at official rates – usually significantly below market price – and the TPS mechanism does not involve the public hearings or environmental or social impact assessments provided within the RFCTLARR Act.
15 The composition of investment within projects mentioned as part of the Blueprint for Investment in Gujarat 2020 varies greatly: government money heavily underpins transport infrastructure, but in SIR Dholera in particular, private investment is expected to outstrip that of the State by a ratio of over 100:1.
16 As Halbert and Rouanet (Citation2014) note, transnational capital does not simply ‘land’ in locations because of their (de)regulation policies: opportunities have to be packaged and presented in ways that are legible and de-risked to make them attractive to international investors.
17 In its ‘Action Agenda’ for the Government of Gujarat, the GIDB’s Blueprint for Infrastructure in Gujarat report recommended modification of the Gujarat Infrastructure Development Act to allow direct negotiations with developers where a competitive PPP bidding process had not created interest. This would open the space for highly non-transparent deals between particular business interests and central figures within the Government of Gujarat.
18 As Anand and Sami (Citation2016) note, the fact that Gujarat could insert Dholera as a new node into the DMIC’s overall plans shows its strength and access to national government relative to other States in the corridor, such as Rajasthan.
19 Interview with the leader of the Gujarat Land Rights Movement, June 9, 2017.