Parallel Structures of Decentralisation in the Mega City Context of Urban India: Participation or Exclusion?

Abstract

Abstract. This paper attempts to understand how decentralisation unfolds in the mega city context of urban India as a result of shifts in policy and practice since the 1990s through a study of recent civil society organisation partnerships with the urban local bodies in Mumbai. Using the cases of Advanced Locality Management (ALM) groups and Local Area Citizens' Groups (LACGs) as instances of parallel structures of decentralisation, it argues that such civil society organisations have usually been spearheaded by the professional middle classes and have transformed the public sphere in mega cities. However, a closer look reveals that many of the features of these state–civil-society partnerships are inherently exclusionary of lower socioeconomic city residents. Resultantly, these go against the letter and spirit of democratic decentralisation as envisaged in the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act 1992, which provides the framework for urban decentralisation in India. New initiatives in decentralisation under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission—a major urban development programme launched in 2005—have further rendered the space for decentralised participation extremely fragmentary.

Acknowledgements

A first draft of this paper was presented at the International Conference and Workshop on Decentralisation and Urban Transformation in Asia, held on 10–11 March 2011 at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. The author is grateful to the Asia Research Institute for funding attendance at that event. She also gratefully acknowledges helpful comments as well as editorial guidance from the conference organisers, Michelle Ann Miller and Tim Bunnell.

Notes

These new tasks were as follows: urban planning, including town planning; regulation of land use and construction of buildings; planning for economic and social development; roads and bridges; water supply for domestic, industrial and commercial purposes; public health, sanitation, conservancy and solid waste management; fire services; urban forestry, protection of the environment and promotion of ecological aspects; safeguarding the interests of weaker sections of society, including the handicapped; slum improvement and upgradation; urban poverty alleviation; provision of urban amenities and facilities such as parks, gardens and playgrounds; promotion of cultural, educational and aesthetic aspects; burials and burial grounds; cremations, cremation grounds and electric crematoria; cattle pounds: prevention of cruelty to animals; vital statistics, including registration of births and deaths; public amenities, including street lighting, parking lots, bus stops and public conveniences; regulation of slaughterhouses and tanneries (see Jain, 2003, p. 354).

See: http://www.karmayog.com/cleanliness/almstatus.htm (accessed on 3 September 2007).

See: http://portal.mcgm.gov.in (accessed on 4 April 2011).