Skip to main content

India's "smart city" managers have little or no experience in urban affairs, lack technical competencies: Report

Mumbai
Coming down heavily on the way Indian cities are managed, a new report has said that not only are they bogged with a huge staff vacancy – on an average 35% in the 23 metropolitan centres surveyed – what is worse, those who are responsible for running them, such as municipal commissioners, have little or no experience in urban management.
Pointing out that the “highest vacancy” found in Guwahati, the report, prepared by a Bengaluru-based high-profile NGO, Janaagraha, regrets, “None of the cities has cadre and recruitment rules that contain modern job descriptions covering both technical skills and managerial competencies for each role or position in the municipality.”
Called “The Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) 2017: Shaping India’s urban agenda”, the report, around the time when the Government of India is seeking to push the implementation of its Smart City projects,  states, “Commissioners of cities do not possess adequate domain experience in urban management constraining their ability to deliver strongly”, adding, “On average, commissioners only have 2.7 years of experience in urban management.”
Bengaluru
Worse, the report says, “Medium-sized cities have commissioners with 1.2 years of urban management experience, whereas large and mega cities have commissioners with 2.9 and 4.1 years respectively”, adding, “Commissioners in Ludhiana, Guwahati, Dehradun, Kanpur, Ranchi, Thiruvananthapuram and Chandigarh have less than a year’s experience in urban management.”
According to the report, “While it is true that 15 out of the 23 cities have access to a municipal cadre, the underlying rules are quite weak.” As against “robust and modern HR policies, municipalities lack normative standards for job roles, and clearly defined job descriptions covering both technical skills and managerial competencies.
Pointing out that mayors and councils in India’s cities are “toothless”. The report states, “They don’t have full decision-making authority over critical functions and services such as planning, housing, water, environment, fire and emergency services etc.”
Chennai
“Mayors and councils also cannot hire and fire their own management teams, severely constraining their ability to exact accountability for performance from city officials. They have limited say when it comes to investing or borrowing monies or finalising budgets”, the report says.
The report underlines, “Only four cities assessed can borrow without the sanction of state governments (with a debt-limitation policy), of which one is a medium sized city and three are large cities. Only seven cities can invest without prior state government approval, of which three are large cities and four are mega cities.”
“Only 11 out of 23 have full independence in budget-setting”, the report notes, adding, “Of these 11, one is a medium sized city, six are large cities and four are mega cities. All of the above have resulted in the municipality becoming a glorified service provider, far from a local self-government or a city government.”
The report regrets, “Parastatal agencies like the development authorities (which cover planning), water authorities or boards (that cover water and sewerage), transport corporations (that cover bus transport) report directly to state governments and to different departments/ministers within it.”
Pointing out that lack of transparency is the hallmark of Indian cities, the report says, “We find that 19 of the 23 Indian cities assessed are neither mandated to nor release basic yet important data sets in an open data format.”
Based on its analysis, the report gives Pune highest marks, 5.1 on a scale of 10, followed by Kolkata, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar and Surat. Delhi ranks sixth, followed Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, while Bengaluru is ranked worse (3 out of 10). Even Bhopal, Jaipur and Patna rank higher.
However, according the report, out cities are “improving at a snail’s pace”, and their score between 3.0 and 5.1 is comparable with London and New York, which score 8.8, Johannesburg 7.6.

Comments

TRENDING

Why predictions of an imminent collapse of the Russian economy may be wrong

A veteran Canadian journalist, settled in Russia, stated in a Facebook post that President Donald Trump "is apparently listening to experts who tell him that Russia's economy is on the verge of 'imploding,' and if he just squeezes a bit harder," his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "will fall into line."

Talking of increased corporate control over news, Rajdeep Sardesai 'evades' alternative media

When I received an intimation that well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai was to speak at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on February 2, my instant reaction was: I know what he is going to say—his views are quite well known; he wouldn’t be saying anything new. Yet, I decided to go and listen to him to catch his mood at a time when the media, as he (and I) knew it, is changing fast due to the availability of new technological tools that were not accessible even a decade ago.

DeepSeek censors uncomfortable queries on China, but why's Gemini so touchy on India?

The powerful Chinese AI app DeepSeek, which has taken the Silicon Valley by surprise, as it has capacities matching Google’s Gemini and Open AI's ChatGPT, is being criticised for restricting free speech, and rightly so. It is being said that those signing up for the chatbot and its open-source technology "are being confronted with the Chinese Communist Party’s brand of censorship and information control."

Gujarat a police state? How top High Court advocate stunned a senior-most journalist

Rajdeep Sardesai, Anand Yagnik This is a continuation of my earlier blog on well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai's lecture in memory of the late Achyut Yagnik at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA). I was a little surprised when I received the intimation about the venue for the lecture.

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Gujarat's water anarchy? 16.7% of Narmada water going to industry, 33% of targeted area irrigated: Govt insider

The Narmada project is something that has always excited me, including how much water will be distributed and to which sector. A few days ago, when I was talking to a top Gujarat government insider, I was a little surprised when I was told that it is up to the “respective states to decide how much Narmada water they would distribute among various sectors” out of the total quota allocated to the four states—Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan—as per the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal award of 1979.

Russians at a Bali yoga camp to avoid drafting for war? Things aren't any different in Ukraine

Are people in Russia becoming frustrated with the prolonged war in Ukraine? And is the war having a similar impact on the people of Ukraine? I have no firsthand information about this, but it is well known how nationalist hysteria often seeks to conceal such frustration, particularly among the youth.

I'm flattered: A New York media house claims I was a KGB agent! Wow, I didn't know that

I was astonished, let me say pleasantly surprised, on receiving a comment by Rich TVX News  on my blog   "Why predictions of an imminent collapse of the Russian economy may be wrong" (January 28).  I don't know who wrote the strange comment from this "media house", which is based in New York, and claims to "hold sway not only among the masses but also within global corridors of power, influencing esteemed politicians and shaping international diplomacy, especially evident during pivotal events like the ongoing crisis in Ukraine."

A shocker for parents? Rush for 'prestigious' varsity degrees to reduce; instead, industry may prefer skills

Recently, I had a conversation with a senior researcher working on a project for a consumer goods multinational corporation (MNC) at one of the top institutes abroad. Insightful and articulate, he holds a PhD from a prestigious university and has a remarkable ability to analyze social dynamics. I am withholding his name because our discussion took place informally during a friend’s lunchtime gathering.