A CASE FOR ‘URBAN MANAGEMENT’ AS A SUBJECT FOR UNIVERSITY COURSES

‘India lives in the villages’ as the saying goes. We have been a rural economy, no doubt. But India owns cities as well. Now after 65 years of Democracy we have grown beyond the myth that village is innocent and city is cunning.  At the time of independence our urban areas had just 17.3% of the population. As per the latest census, the urban share comes to 32% roughly 37 crores of the people. Almost 6 Crores more than the entire population of America. With no efforts towards regulating and planning our cities have grown like octopus on each and every road leading to them. Leaving aside a few modern ones most of the towns are rural Bazars. It is with the start of the economic liberalization our cities, their problems and plights have started coming in the focus. Cities are engines of growth. But the structures which exist for the management of the cities are primitive, rudimentary. Municipal bodies often survive on Government grants. They have meager income compared to the immense responsibilities they are supposed to bear.

          The planning for human resources development is nonexistent. Mostly we have incapable staff, hardly able to understand the changing urban scenario.  Our corporators generally have a limited vision. For general public municipality is there simply to clean the streets and collect taxes once in a while. With no proper enforcement of municipal rules, municipalities remain on the receiving end all the time. If you take the work of enforcing the rules seriously it becomes your problem and you face it.

          The need of the hour is to change our stereotype mindset, overhaul the machinery and increase their capacity. Even Municipal Corporations, leave aside small local bodies, need consultants for each and every project. Mostly someone else conceives our projects.  In smaller Municipalities and Town areas it is often the contractor who manages and makes the projects. It all goes to show that the officers and municipal representatives alike find it difficult to understand what the need of the city is. That is why our cities are badly managed. For example even in scanty rains we see instant cases of water logging in streets and muhallas. Our municipal engineering functions just at the base level of competence.

          Serving as Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Kanpur and later on at Allahabad, I felt that managing a city is a serious job. It is like taking care of a government which is running underground. Our citizen by and large remain unaware of what all is being done for them. When we look at the available stock of officers, supervisory staff, it becomes apparent that they are just not cut out for the serious job they are responsible for. A total casualness prevails. In this world of work shirkers and self servers, if anyone is just a bit sincere he remains in great demand. I also felt the acute need of such staffs, engineers, municipal officers who could understand the changing patterns. When the GIS system of identifying the housing properties in the city began to be introduced   there was a big opposition all over. Entire Tax department, almost all municipal officers, entire lot of elected representatives, including the Mayor, everyone was strongly opposed to it. GIS survey teams were hounded out and at time manhandled also.  There were frequent agitations, Juloos, Dharnas in the city.  It continued for months. Once a few busloads of people went to gherao even Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow! Such intense was the opposition to the introduction of GIS. The GIS was infact an instrument of correct evaluation of property tax. There were schools, offices, showrooms even a few cinema halls recorded as residential properties. This faulty assessment or no assessment at all was a major cause of the corruption in tax department. Despite all the opposition, a small group of committed officers and staff, most of them employed on contract, went apace with the task. Kanpur became the first success story of the country in converting the GIS map data into real house taxes. Finally those two lakh houses were added which had remain out of assessment list since long. The tax net increased from almost Rs. 32 crore to Rs 108 crores. An increase of more than three times in one year! Unknowingly Kanpur had created a national record. This was acknowledged by SCOTCH group also in the year 2011. We were the recipient of the award.  Later on our State Government acknowledged our success by giving us 'E-Governance Award' for the year. But this big success story could not be repeated with equal vigour in other cities of UP.

          Similarly when Kanpur started its experiment with PPP model in solid waste management it was the same story being repeated again. It was again rejected by lot of elected representatives, entire sanitation department, inspectors and sweeping staff alike. They even went on a month long strike as well. Mayor, Corporators were dead against this change. They campaigned against the scheme and opposed vehemently the collection of user charges from the households in door to door collection of the waste. Despite the fact that the user charges were just one rupee for a day!  But against heavy odds the system was put in place. Gradually civil society and local media come forward to support us. We all, our team of officers frequently reached out to the people in mohallas, markets, to their association, clubs and all over. Sustained efforts were made for personal contacts and gradually things improved.  Kanpur solid waste management became as big success and the city was awarded by the Hon’ble Prime Minister in year 2011 JNNURM award for its pioneering work.

The inertia against the charge is very strong. In Municipalities, over a period very deep vested interests have got entrenched. In order to keep their interest intact they always prefer status quo. It is a hard task breaking those barriers. Question comes to mind why are we not capable to see the advantages of new system? The interest groups, the union are part of the status quoist mindset. Whenever we discussed these new innovative changes with our corporators, they agreed in person yet remained susceptible, doubtful in public.

          The problem here, we gradually realized was the very structure of the local bodies where check and balance are designed in such a way which creates a situation of constant tug of war among various interest groups such as Municipal Commissioner, Mayor, corporators, Unions, contractors and local politicians. Under the circumstances there is no scope for any initiative from any of the above constituents. The system becomes vision deficit and innovative thinking takes a beating. The above innovations which I mentioned were literally bulldozed through.

The second problem with the local bodies is that their work commands very low waitage in the public eye. The impression is that they do just the menial jobs of scavengers and cleaners. Since local bodies are in constant shortage of funds they find difficult to change the perception about themselves by vigorous developmental activities. Thirdly the efficiency level of officers and supervisory staff is fairly low. They are not exposed to the higher virtues of urban management. But our limitation is that this officer lot is the only instrument which we have for bringing about the desired changes in the system.  It is far easier to educate and motivate the group of city officers or managers than to educate the entire city and their representatives.  

I felt with all the seriousness that this all should be part of an academic study, with well thought out syllabus, in university curriculums. We do have subjects like Business Management, Public administration. Why cannot we have a subject like ‘Urban Management’? With growing urbanization, there is urgent need for new ideas, new approaches to be introduced. It is wakeup time or we are going to miss the bus for urbanization.

The works in the municipal bodies are not properly organized. No one works to a plan. No effort to build teams is seen. Being a good worker does not pay any dividends. Every segment has their safe anchor from where it refuses to budge.  They show no motivation for learning any further in their professional direction. But we need officers with knowledge of urban sector. There is an urgent need of urban and municipal education. We need MBA like professionals for the management of the cities.

          During a visit to Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad (ASCI), I proposed to a prominent faculty member Pro Chary that if I could get a syllabus on degree course in ‘Urban Management’, I will request Vice Chancellor of the Kanpur University to adopt it. Since AND college run by Kanpur Municipal Corporation, is affiliated to Kanpur University, it will be quite easy for us to run this course. We may get to run the degree course ourselves to begin with. He was surprised as request was coming from a Municipal Commissioner. Designing and running the courses is the sole prerogative of academicians. His reply was equally surprising to me also. ASCI does not have such a degree course. So far as he remembers there is no University, in the country which, run such a course on urban or city management. Still he put some people to search on the internet but after two days search the result was the same. No one runs urban or municipal management courses anywhere. A few courses on city planning and environment studies are there but they were of no use to us. It is unbelievable in a country where more people live in cities than the entire population of America.

          Then this idea came to me. Who, other than ourselves, serving in a municipal corporation is better placed to write a syllabus on urban management. And I told him we will do it. Then another problem came. Suppose with all the efforts we write the syllabus and also put it up to the university, who will do the teaching?  From where the teaching faculty for urban management will emerge? Pro chary came to our rescue. Once the syllabus is put in place and accepted by the University of Kanpur they (ASCI) will give faculty support. Some expert environmentalist and retired Municipal Officers with reputation may be of immense use for building up the faculty.  It was agreed upon then and there to write a letter to Pro Sahegal the then Vice Chancellor Kanpur University by ASCI committing faculty support if the university accepts the syllabus of urban management put up to them by Kanpur Municipal Corporation.  A letter was dispatched to V.C. Kanpur accordingly.

Back in Kanpur a syllabus committee was set up under leadership of Dr. Umakanti Tripathi, Principal AND Degree College. All the aspects of municipal functioning, urban needs were examined. Whatever limited books were available on the subject were referred. Our in-house meetings and discussion took place regularly. Finally it was put up to the university’s Academic Council in a record time of three months. After completing their prolonged formalities it was finally sent for Mahamahim Governor of U.P. for his final approval. Which was granted after some usual bureaucratic delays. Now this three year degree and one year diploma course is part of the curriculum of Kanpur University. I think it is for the first time in our Country that the subject of Urban Management has been accepted as a full fledged degree course by any university. Dr. Umakanti Tripathi the then principal AND College Kanpur did a commendable job against heavy odds. It is due to her efforts this syllabus could be put together. The pledge by ASCI for faculty support could not be followed up as I got transferred from there and people following me possibly had different priorities.

          The aim of the urban management course is to provide a broad understanding of the functioning and responsibilities of local bodies. This knowledge is a must for those who are serving and also for those who are to join and be part of the municipal administration. It will create a cadre of city administrators & managers whose shortage is being felt very painfully all over the country.

Secondly it provides an opportunity to the people dealing with urban local bodies in any form as an NGO, as service providers or as suppliers of municipal equipments. They will understand the local body’s system & administration and find their suitable role in it.

Thirdly Urban Management graduates could be an excellent asset to the partner companies which are serving as PPP associates to local bodies. Moreover this basic degree course can form a base for higher studies in urban management, city planning, disaster management, environmental studies. The subject may lead to various vocational off shoots: municipal engineering, city lighting courses, municipal tax planning and administration, traffic planning and energy conservation so on.

Last but not the least important is the task of making students, people aware of the cities, their problem and opportunities. It will strive to make the common citizen more response to their cities and environment.

The degree course is divided into six semesters: The course is a mix of theory and practice. I must admit the course was created in a vacuum with no previous examples to follow. But in due course it will be improved upon. It may lead towards various allied subjects for specialization and other degree courses.

But the story has not ended here. It goes further. The forces of the old system have caught on again. The GIS initiative is being killed. Tax staff has gradually started nibbling at the gains in tax increase. In the garb of rationalizing the GIS assessments, taxes are being reduces with impunity. Similarly the PPP experiment in solid waste could not sustain itself. The nationally acclaimed story of Kanpur has petered off. The partner company says they are not being paid adequately. Corporation blames that partners are not interested in collection of user charges. A sort of beaurocratisation of the experiment has taken place. The vigour of initiative is lost. The Kanpur experiment has also exposed the myth that privatisation could give a solution to urban problems. In fact they have gone down to the lowest level of competence. After a promising start partners went on a different line. They unfortunately employed third rate managers. Financial mismanagement became the order of the day. The company had more labour strikes compared to even municipal staff. It appeared at times that their management is deliberately acting irresponsibly. We had hoped that this partnership will bring the goods of private sector to our Corporation, but what happened was the other way round. Our partners adopted all the negative factors of a Govt. department instead. When initiatives are not followed up vested interests tend to gain upper hand. Now we have to start all over again.

Here the lack of municipal education comes as a major impediment. The generalist cadre is not in a position to handle these issues. With these new initiatives coming under strain, 'good old days' theorists have a field day. Moreover, the Kanpur effort and its success was an acknowledgement of the fact that our cities are in dire need of such initiatives. These efforts such as GIS, tax reforms, solid waste innovation, and property management could be done more purposefully if our officers have modern approach towards urban management. This subject will inculcate a sense of purpose among the city managers. The course needs to be taken up by all capable institutions and universities. With this aspect in mind I did approach Prof. P.B. Sharma, Vice chancellor of Delhi Technological University. His response filled me with great enthusiasm. If this initiative is taken up by the Government, Ministry of HRD and Urban Development, it can go a long way in creating the cadre of badly needed City Managers. This subject will become an effective tool in the hands of the civil society also. We have to develop an Indian Philosophy of ‘Urban Management’ and vigorously implement it. Our story of Urbanization starts with oldest cities of Indus Valley. In the description of foreign writer we read about the well laid out cities of Magadh, Pataliputra, Ujjaini, Kashi, and Takshshila. We were the richest economy of the world and our cities were the creators of the wealth. Now we witness the scenes of the vicious anarchy in our cities. An effort in right direction will change the face of our cities which are poised to lead the charge of economic growth.

R. Vikram Singh I.A.S.

Ex. Captain,

Special Secretary,

Govt. of U.P.