The Hindu Business Line : Urban citizens set to reap benefits from reforms

The benefits of an unobtrusive reform-driven improvement in basic amenities in the civic services being provided by urban local bodies such as water, electricity or solid waste management would begin flowing to urban citizens soon.

Disclosing this to Business Line here in an interview, Mr M. Ramachandran, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, said that since 30 per cent of the country’s urban population lives in 5,161 cities, which contribute to 60 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product, their living conditions should also improve substantially.

He said that after the enactment of the 74th Constitution Amendment Act, 1992, the third tier of the Government, urban local bodies (ULBs) were given a major impetus with the advent of Jawharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The aim was to provide reforms-driven, fast-track planned development of identified cities with focus on efficiency in urban infrastructure/service delivery and accountability of ULBs, he said, adding that the two components of JNNURM comprises Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and another on Basic Service to the Urban Poor (BSUP) covering 63 cities comprising mega, metro and capital cities.

Mr Ramachandran said that in the Rs 50,000-crore mission, spread over seven-year span from 2005-12, with half of the component for urban infrastructure having already been committed as an additional Central assistance (i.e., Rs 13,500 crore), projects keep flowing.

He said the areas covered include water supply, sewerage, drainage, roads/flyovers, mass rapid transport system, other urban transport and solid waste management.

Double entry system

He said that in all the projects there were mandatory reforms and optional reforms at the ULBs and State level.

He said that ULBs would put in place modern-accrual based double entry system for accounting and introduce a system of e-governance using information technology, reform of property tax with GIS so that it becomes a major source of revenue for ULBs.

Alongside, levy of reasonable user charges is implemented by ULBs so that full cost of operation and maintenance or recurring cost is collected within the next seven years.

He said in the e-governance front, seven cities had introduced it and in the shift to double-entry accounting as many as 10 cities have done so far and in internal earmarking of funds for services to urban poor 32 cities are in the vanguard.

Rent control laws

Referring to State-level reforms, Mr Ramchandran said that in the case of repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Act and reform of rent control laws balancing the interests of landowners and tenants and rationalisation of stamp duty to five per cent, progress has been uneven but satisfying.

In the case of repeal of ULCRA, a dozen States had done it, while Maharashtra has done recently and Andhra Pradesh would do before the end of this fiscal with West Bengal and Jharkhand scheduling to do by next year and a year later respectively.

Once this is over, lands get released substantially. Similarly, reform of rent control laws would help ease housing shortage problem in cities and the atmosphere of suspicion and scare would no longer be there, he added.

Titling

He said efforts to bring down stamp duty to five per cent would render property transaction much more comfortable and the power of attorney dispensation would disappear.

He said that “we are also working on urban property titling under which registration of properties get computerised and registration linked with land record maintenance.”

He said that ultimately there would be a depositary where any individual would get details of a property to ascertain that the title is guaranteed.

e-seva centres

Mr Ramachandran said that there is also a move from commercial banks to become a facilitator for the ULBs in enabling payment of bills such as water, electricity or property through online by the citizens.

As banks claim core banking services and all their branches are networked and between banks too, like the e-sava centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad, banks would enable urban citizens to manage their civic services payments online soon.

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