Rescaling urban governance: an assessment of special-purpose vehicles in India

ABSTRACT

While changes in governance and ownership patterns of urban infrastructure in the light of capital expansion remain a worldwide phenomenon, the processes underlying the governance changes and their impact are still under-researched. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by drawing on empirical case studies of two urban development projects in India. The study uses the conceptual framework of state spatial rescaling to examine the impact of the emergence of new institutional configurations within the urban governance sphere, such as special-purpose vehicles (SPVs). Through an in-depth investigation of the role of SPVs in facilitating urban development projects in Indian cities, the paper argues that the entrenchment of the institutional mechanism of SPVs within the urban governance sphere results in new modes of urban planning, the alteration of existing power hierarchies within the urban governance sphere as well as forging of links across geographical locales. The findings of the study imply that SPVs in their current form denote a top-down process of urban planning that risks democratic mechanisms associated with urban governance. The study contributes to the growing academic literature that discusses how urban mega-projects in the course of their development are restructuring the urban political and economic landscape.

KEYWORDS:

• infrastructure development
• land-use planning
• urban governance
• special-purpose vehicles
• India

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Bangalore was renamed Bengaluru in 2014. However, this paper uses the old name because the agency under investigation is called the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation.

2 The DMRC is a government-owned company that was instrumental in executing rail-based MRTS in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India. It is also involved in the implementation of other high-speed rail projects across India.

3 The RITES is a government-established engineering consultancy company providing assistance in the fields of transport, infrastructure and related technologies.

4 A subordinate loan is a debt that ranks after other debts if a company falls into liquidation or bankruptcy, that is, it has a lower priority in the hierarchy of creditors.

5 A senior term is the debt that has priority for repayment if the company falls into liquidation or bankruptcy.

6 Interview with a KMRL official, Kochi, 15 March 2015.

7 A special team under the aegis of the District Collectorate, Ernakulam (also Kochi) is the land acquisition agency for the Kochi MRTS project.

8 Interview, Kochi, 13 March 2015.

9 Interview, Bangalore, 7 November 2014.

Additional information

Funding

The writing of the paper was made possible with the support of research fellowships provided by the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and subsequently the Institute of Eminence cell, Banaras Hindu University.