Expansion Of Municipal Corporation and Emerging Challenges: A Case Study On Coimbatore and Bhopal
December 11, 2021
ABSTRACT
In India, municipal corporation limits are expanded through a legislative process, passed by the state legislative assembly. The state governments have the constitutional mandate and often the role of the respective municipal corporation, existing municipalities, and Nagar Panchayats, which are being incorporated is limited in deciding the boundaries.According to the policymakers, the municipality’s expansion would improve infrastructure development and enhance service delivery.
Expansion of a city’s municipal limits brings the need for a revised city development plan and examining the requirements of basic facilities in additional areas. To this end, the paper examines the decision-making in expansion and the subsequent challenges faced by the urban local bodies with a case study on the city level administration in Coimbatore and Bhopal. The paper also tries to suggest suitable measures that are vital in overcoming the challenges emphasizing a participatory process involving the local voices.
Keywords: Municipal Corporation, Urban Local Body, Service Delivery, Legislation.
INTRODUCTION
The socio-economic transformation in India can be ensured through the development of the towns and cities in the nation. Cities not only contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country but also play a major role in global markets. These are the hubs for innovations and development. According to the World Bank report in 2021, the urban population in India stands at 34.93%. Despite the major role of cities in development, most cities in our country, to this day, fall behind in terms of infrastructure and service availability. A major chunk of the urban population lives in slums without any access to basic amenities like sanitation, and clean drinking water.
Coimbatore, called the ‘Manchester of South India’, is located on the banks of the Noyyal River surrounded by the Western Ghats, it is the second-largest city of Tamil Nadu after Chennai. It is also the 16th largest urban agglomeration in India and classified as a Tier-II city. Coimbatore city is the administrative capital of the Coimbatore district and is governed by the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC). The city corporation covers an area of 365.74 Sq.Km. as of 2016 which was just 29 Sq.Km. in 1984 (Sundar et al., 2016). The corporation was divided into five zones consisting of 100 wards and covered an area of 257 Sq.Km. during expansion in 2011 through a legislative process. This expanded area has a population of just over a million, according to the 2011 census, and the expanded corporation subsumes three municipal councils, seven major Panchayats, and one village Panchayat.
Bhopal, the administrative capital of Madhya Pradesh until recently was considered among the greenest cities of India. The name of the city is derived from Bhojpal or Bhoj’s dam, the great dam built during the reign of Raja Bhoj – which holds up Bhopal city lakes. These lakes give Bhopal the reputation of Lake City (Wadvekar, 2018). The present-day Upper Lake has had an overarching impact on Bhopal’s ecology which enabled the populations to settle in the region. In recent decades, the city has seen massive urbanization. The population here has increased from 6 lakh in the 1970s to about 18 lakhs as per the census data of 2011. This intense change in populationlevel has been due to increasing investments in urban sectors, inter-city mobility, and expansion of the city, leading to the amalgamation of adjacent villages. The Present population of Bhopal is 23 lakhs, Municipal area of 413.5 Sq. Km spread across 19 zones and 85 wards. The slum population sums up to 8 lakhs. Bhopal is a tier 2 city that has experienced an exponential expansion in a variety of sectors over the last three decades, including real estate, industries, the public sector, commercial activities and commerce, and so on. The city is well connected by rail, road, and aviation services have recently expanded. Jhuggi villages, including more than 125,000 families, are the most common kind of informal sector housing, with some of them occupying important positions and critical drainage basins.
After the expansion of CCMC, there was a need to revise the existing city development plan, and the initiative was taken by CCMC and Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited (TNUIFSL) to prepare a City Development Plan. It identified key areas of urban infrastructure including water supply, sanitation, stormwater drainage, solid waste management, traffic, and transportation, etc.,and suggested certain objectives and strategies be implemented by the corporation. It proposed a capital investment plan where the highest share was to manage the traffic and transportation in the city, other key areas getting a relatively less share. According to a case study done by Transparent Chennai, the corporation’s fiscal deficit widened due to the expansion process, and the property tax could not be rationalized due to the different levels of urban development in the incorporated local bodies. It also noted that user charges were increased, creating a burden on the developing urban local areas and also on the urban poor. Other challenges that emerged were the limited spending on the urban poor, increasing expenditure to meet the targets of Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) where the city took on large financial risks related to cost escalations on the projects.
On the other hand, in Bhopal, lack of safety, security, and a healthy living environment, as well as a lack of essential infrastructure such as housing and piped water, and inadequate sewerage, sanitation, and drainage have resulted in deplorable living circumstances.According to Praja Foundation’s Urban Governance Report, service delivery is delayed due to the requirement of huge paperwork, and new areas are overlooked for development ignoring the old areas of Bhopal. These issues with relevant data and the opportunities that emerged through various schemes to overcome the challenges in Coimbatore and Bhopal are discussed in this paper.
LITERATURE REVIEW
The Constitution of India provides for three types of local government under the 74th amendment of 1992, that comprises of Nagar Panchayat for a transitional area from rural to urban, Municipal Council or Municipality for a smaller urban area and a Municipal Corporation for a larger urban area. The vastly increasing rural-to-urban migration, common in developing countries today, presents complicated difficulties for local urban bodies, as they grapple to accommodate and provide basic services to a rapidly increasing population (Dasgupta, 2019). There is a certain inclination across the world in merging political jurisdictions, particularly the local governments. The merged jurisdictions have to struggle to get political representation and fulfillment of basic service delivery. When a large city is merged with less populated jurisdictions, the power is concentrated at the core of the city, and this leads to a higher and over-representation of the periphery in the legislature of the amalgamated jurisdiction (Jakobsen & Kjaer, 2015). The amalgamation of local units has not created any impact on the quality-of-service delivery or reduction in administrative costs (Hansen et al., 2016). The economic and social burdens that urban sprawl creates are not immediately visible due to the immediate advantages (Ciscel, 2001). The weakness and lack of financial resources is the most important obstacle faced by municipal governments (Raco, 2018). Amalgamation has seriously disrupted the financial sustainability of the amalgamated units, and they end up having lower capacity and Budget due to the Budget cuts from the larger unit (Andrews, 2013).
ANALYSIS
Coimbatore
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) projects were targeted for mega-cities and during the expansion process of CCMC, only a few projects were offered to the expanded areas, even though the expansion was planned way before some years and had been discussed for a long time. CCMC had received a score of 5 out of 10 on the JNNURM scorecard on the reform of Operations and Maintenance cost recovery in water supply and sewerage. This was largely due to the expansion process, and the government officials indicated the different levels of urban development in its periphery, the CCMC could not rationalize the property taxes, collect user charges and extend the services to these areas.
The already existing pressure to implement the JNNURM projects along with increased expenditure in the newly added areas also created fiscal pressure on the CCMC. The officials of the CCMC indicate that the land from the periphery of CCMC could be used to implement JNNURM infrastructure projects, but that was not feasible due to the nature of the projects where the potential to recover the capital costs was lower. The constant increase in the city’s revenue after the expansion could not reduce the recurring expenditure due to the increase in service delivery and not being able to reduce the budget deficit. The widening of the jurisdiction also increased the number of urban poor where the objective of providing access to basic resources under JNNURM needs to be met. This created additional expenditure to be spent on the urban poor, but the data reveal that the expenditure could not meet the targets set (Transparent Chennai, 2015). The target of 25% spending on urban poor could not be met and the actual allocation was around 10% during 2011-12 which clearly shows the financial health of CCMC.
The water supply charges were increased in the core city keeping in line with JNNURM reform guidelines. The new reforms increased the per capita supply of water in the core city from 145.69 lpcd to 184.26 lpcd, but in the newly added areas, the per capita supply of water was only 72.61 lpcd, and the frequency of supply was once in 4-12 days. This also resulted in different user charges, and the piped water supply could not be extended to the newly added areas.
The parastatal agencies have a stronghold on the planning and monitoring projects in the cities of Tamil Nadu and this has reduced the purpose of decentralization and the voice of local representatives has been minimized. Due to the large size of the municipal legislature, often the grievances of the people could not be resolved by their representatives in the legislature. It is a well-known fact that, smaller the local body, the better the representation of the complaints raised. Small local bodies have the time and patience to address the problem of the local people and they are in a good position to provide quality service delivery. When the smaller bodies are amalgamated with a larger body, the regulations that are in place will have to be modified or brought under the existing regulations of the larger body.
The newly launched ‘Smart City’ scheme being implemented in the city as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has also excluded the expanded areas and the projects are concentrated in the core city. The projects are of two types, one is Area-based Development and the other is Pan City. It is evident from the data and project location, the Area-based Development projects are concentrated in the core city and the city’s periphery getting only a meager share. The fund allocation for the Area-based Development projects covers 80% of the total funds and the pan-city projects get a less share and usually are of the overall general management of cities like air quality, CCTV surveillance, etc.
Bhopal
Bhopal Municipal Council was elevated to the level of a municipal corporation in 1983, with a total of six wards. The Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) currently has 85 wards and covers a total area of 463 square kilometers(Dwivedi, 2021). The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) program was launched in Bhopal with a long-term vision for the City, with its rich cultural legacy, to be converted into a contemporary capital with improved urban lifestyles, better environmental conditions, and physical, social, and economic improvement for the city’s underprivileged sections. The city will be able to realize its long-term ambition thanks to a programme under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. The lasting goal of making Bhopal a modern metropolitan center is thought to be accomplished by first establishing a desirable level of infrastructure, which will then be used as a platform in the future years to take a quantum leap toward world-class status. The city, despite being the capital and home to rich natural beauty stands at crossroads with inadequate infrastructure and inability to meet the needs of its people. The majority of the population lives in substandard conditions. The City of Lakes faces a constant threat to the environment which in turn will affect the health of the people as well as the scenic beauty of the city (Sharma R. &., 2010). JNNURM provides the citizens with an opportunity to reassess and rebuild the plan and progress of the development of Bhopal. There is scope for betterment in terms of lifestyle/standard of living, approach towards the environment, and the socio-economic conditions in general of the urban population. JNNURM provides a platform to the citizens to achieve these. The impacts of JNNURM can be divided into three heads, transportation, environment, and basic services for the urban population. The city is divided into an old area and a newly developing area. The roads in older areas are narrow, with little scope of development, this leads to congestion of traffic. Apart from this, Bhopal faces issues of pedestrian overcrowding and unmanaged parking. These issues are taken up by JNNURM and are being skillfully resolved. (Sharma R. &., 2010)
Another aspect being of pressing importance in the city with growing industrialization is that of environmental degradation. JNNURM is addressing this issue as well. Proper methods of sewage and solid waste management are being applied. Still, the slum populations and the ones at the outskirts of the expanding city face challenges with sanitation and access to water. The water bodies in the city are turning into nalas due to the disposal of industrial waste. This is ironic because these industries attract migrant workers, building up a load on the city where there already is a lack of clean water availability. The increasing population and their activities have been releasing toxins into water bodies, making them unfit for use. People are forced to transport water to the internal sections in buckets, often across steep terrain and through kutcha lanes, due to a lack of water supply and availability at sites along the perimeter main lines of slums. Within these communities, less than 5% of families have access to a toilet facility. Access to safe drinking water for all is one of the main motives of JNNURM. Various projects like Narmada Water Supply Scheme have been implemented to ensure the delivery of clean water for the population and to ensure that the citizens remain healthy.
In other ventures of the government and on the lines similar to those of AMRUT mission, the Smart City Mission in Bhopal came up with the goal of Area Based Development (ABD) and Pan City Development. This is a comprehensive project aimed at the development of the city at every level. This requires changes in different areas, even the ones that are inhabited by the urban slums. There are plans for the massive relocation of slum populations. Irrespective of the work done for the betterment or development of the city, this relocation brings about major life changes for the slum dwellers who usually develop a habitation near their places of work. This debate for consideration of the poor versus development has been a burning topic in recent times. Apart from the relocation of dwellings, there were requirements of encroachment of illegal, small shops came up. The Haat Bazaar project helped in the accommodation of such informal establishments of commerce. These include vegetable markets. With the expansion of the city, there are exceedingly more illegal establishments in place due to increasing population, lack of habitation, and need for livelihood.
DISCUSSION
Coimbatore
It is clear from the analysis that the benefits are few in the expansion of CCMC, but the challenges remain both to the corporation and the people living in the periphery. The very fundamentals of decentralization are getting affected due to the expansion process where the voice of the locals is not heard or ignored due to other pressing issues. The constitution has recommended a three-tier structure, but the boundaries of the jurisdiction of each tier solely rest with the state government.
It is always much easier to have a small jurisdiction for a local government as they ensure the basic facilities are provided in a city and to have a smaller and fixed target group, thereby ensuring better planning and implementation of the schemes and functions. In Bengaluru, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was merged with the Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike or BMP) in 2007, but after 8 years, the state government had to divide it again justifying that a single body cannot manage the affairs of a huge population and smaller ULBs ensure efficiency in administration.
In the case of Coimbatore, we can see that one Village Panchayat and seven Nagar Panchayat has been directly subsumed into the CCMC where the hierarchy of a Nagar and Village Panchayat is the lowest in the local governance structure. It is always better to follow a step-by-step procedure – from Nagar Panchayat to a Municipal Council and from Council to a Corporation. This will ensure the level of urban development happens uniformly and where the residents also adapt to the different regulations and the level of development around them.
Privatizing the service delivery in the periphery of a Corporation is not effective as the private players often feel they cannot recover the costs invested due to the level of urban development. People in relatively developing urban areas do not welcome the higher user charges for providing basic services.
Another issue here is the process and decision-making involved in expanding the jurisdiction of the Municipal Corporation. The Tamil Nadu state government passes a Bill to expand the limits of CCMC without consulting the Corporation officials, amalgamating ULBs and the general public. It is completely a top-down process, and most of the states follow the same pattern. It should be a participatory and consultative process where the local representatives need to be consulted and ensure that the institutional capacity in service delivery is not compromised.
Not just the unilateral decision-making process is affecting, but full autonomy to the Corporation to decide on its boundaries also can affect the level of urban development in a city. The developed areas will not be sharing the revenue it generates to the other areas which will stagnate the development of developing areas.It is time that we have a Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) as envisaged by the Constitution, but with the representation of the local actors. The state governments have constituted MPCs with the representation of actors appointed at the state level. The MPCs were constituted after a long delay since the 74th amendment, 1992, with Chief Minister as the chairman, and ignoring the local leaders like Mayor, Councilor, etc. The city planning and land use management are not controlled by the local representatives as the state government exercises tight control in the MPC. We need a regional planning and development body, like the MPC under the control of local representatives. Municipal Commissioners and Mayors can be part of this regional body and can be constituted representing all the cities in a state.
Bhopal
The work under the schemes like JNNURM, Smart City Mission, Swachh Bharat, AMRUT, etc. in Bhopal has been commendable, but the population and area increase due to the expansion has been causing hindrance at some level or the other. Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation Limited (BSCDCL) came up with the Green and Blue Master Plan under the smart city project in Bhopal. It takes up five sectors as part of a specific project, namely, energy, transport, green and blue cover, waste and water, and buildings. This project aims at solving a major chunk of issues faced by the city. The energy sector aims towards sustainable methods of energy production and consumption while increasing the green and blue cover refers to the escalation of tree cover and lake preservation in the city. Attempts to solve the issue of waste and water will help the urban slums move towards a better and decent life. Proper planning for water bodies will prevent floods in the downstream areas of the city. The Green and Blue Master Plan is also exemplary of the Public-Private Partnership model of the government. It was prepared by Tata Consultancy Engineers Ltd. the plan was comprehensively prepared by a private firm and the implementation and monitoring will be undertaken by the Municipal Corporation of Bhopal. (Dwivedi, 2021).
Apart from the management issues faced by the Municipal Corporation due to the expansion of the area in Bhopal, there has also been the issue of loss of biodiversity and habitat for animals. The engulfs the surrounding areas and this brings in the development of the area as well. The tree cover needs to be covered to bring in new projects and to bring in the area under the service delivery arena. Loss of natural and semi-natural areas is a cause of concern as more often than not, it includes the agricultural areas. Food security is becoming more of a concern, as is the rising population’s reliance on resources outside of municipal bonds. (Sharma S. &., 2020). At the time where India stands at 101st rank in the Global Hunger Index and faces a grave issue of food security, engulfing of such lands for development at the expense of basic needs is neither recommended nor is celebrated.
CONCLUSION
The goals of public policies at place in the urban sector are to improve housing conditions and the housing environment, as well as to build the resident community so that correct use and maintenance of the material infrastructure can be encouraged.Since the project’s predicted consequences are largely social and socio-economic, an economic return on the money spent cannot be assessed.The expansion of the city inculcates the residing population within the boundaries of the city. This creates an increase in area and population coverage for the schemes and projects implemented by the Government. Such an increase requires a thoroughly examined budget allocation by the municipality. Failure to do this renders the residents deprived of the very needs the policies and scheme aspire to deliver.
Urban agglomeration should be effectively managed by creating smaller bodies governing a small population, thereby maintaining effective service delivery, accountability and making it a participatory process. A larger urban body should be given wider financial powers, representation in a city’s planning and development bodies, and consulted during the expansion of their jurisdiction. After the creation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in the smart city initiative in Coimbatore and Bhopal, some of the rights and functions of the respective municipal corporations were delegated to the SPV. This will be more problematic with the private sector participation, thereby reducing the role of local democratic institutions. As it is criticized by experts that the smart city heavily focuses on the core city, and it is evident from the smart city projects in Coimbatore and Bhopal, it is time either to rethink the process of decentralization again by creating the Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats wherever necessary or by ensuring the periphery of municipal corporation share also taken care equally and maintaining an efficient and accountable governance process. Finally, the expansion of a corporation’s jurisdiction should be initiated only when it is compulsory for effective governance, and must be ensured it remains a consultative process with the representation of the local actors in the planning and development committees.
