Developing infrastructure, the Chinese way

The Indian government is currently trying to figure out how to boost investments in infrastructure and make headway in land acquisition using a range of finance mechanisms, so as to restart a stalled economic growth engine. As policymakers and industrial leaders join forces to find a way to break away from the gridlock of illegal mines, railway accidents and inadequate power supply, they might do well to look across at the model that has been developed in China.

China made the decision in the early years of this century that the future was urban. The policymakers, therefore, focused on the need to move the country's population out of agriculture and into rural and urban industrial-based livelihoods.

The most radical consequences of this policy are visible in the city of Chongqing, in the province of Sichuan and located in the geographical centre of China. This city has been in receipt of direct financial funds from the central authorities since the mid-2000s, as part of the national ‘Go West' strategy that seeks to make China's economically-backward provinces along the upper reaches of the Yangtze river the focus of new industrial initiatives.

‘1-HOUR ECONOMIC CIRCLE'

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Chinese equivalent of India's Planning Commission, has been the major champion of this strategy to change urban-rural relations in this important region at the crossroads of the nation.

The urbanisation of the Chongqing region, with a combined urban and rural population of 30 million, has been the lynchpin in this strategy. The region is being spatially redeveloped to become a megacity, which is devised as being composed of a “one-hour economic circle” model, covering the nine central districts of the city, and all counties within an hour's driving distance of Chongqing. These districts and adjacent counties will be the first focus of the strategy, as rural residents will be transferred to urban areas with the re-designation and re-development of the city.

The Master Plan for Chongqing envisages that the urban population will increase from 50 to 70 per cent during the current decade. It would then require the Chongqing administration to be able to provide housing and other infrastructure services to the growing number of rural residents, who will move off rural land and become urban dwellers with the reclassification of the region into a global megapolis.

TWO WINGS

The ability to absorb the large number of rural residents will be aided by the “two wings” — the two regions of Northeast Chongqing and Southeast Chongqing, which are largely rural, and where the latter region is home to many ethnic minority groups. These will be developed after the strengthening of the main economic circle, and bring in an additional 4 million migrants.

Addressing the housing needs of the rapidly growing migrant population will also require changes to the national Hukou (registration) system that makes a distinction between rural and urban citizens. Within its remit, migrants currently aren't regarded as permanent denizens of the city, and hence excluded from housing, health, education and other social services provided by the municipal authorities.

The megacities of Beijing and Shanghai already face the challenge of providing 4-5 million migrants with a system of low-cost social housing. With Chongqing outstripping these national urban centres with a population of more than 30 million, and with an area of 82,000 square kilometres — making it twice as big as the combined areas of the three other megacities, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin — the challenge is far greater.

FINANCIAL MECHANISMS

The Chongqing municipality authorities have been working on operationalising the Master Plan since 2007, and have commissioned studies by Chinese academics, besides seeking advice from international development and urban experts. The focus has been on putting in place the financial mechanisms that would permit the building of housing, and the provision of education and health using a variety of public-private partnerships, such as leasing of public land by private providers in the new megapolis.

Less attention has been paid to the consolidation of rural land that will be left behind by the new urban dwellers, and the financial and environmental risks associated with such strategies. This lacuna could result in the ‘two wings' remaining stunted, and not being able to channel rural migrants effectively in the years leading up to 2020.

QUALITY CHECKS

Furthermore, while there is a willingness to create partnerships between the state and the private sector — with the Chongqing municipal authority being in the driver's seat as far the direction and speed of achieving the Master Plan is concerned — well-established metrics must be developed against which to measure the standard of service delivery of all infrastructural provisions. This is to prevent the poor quality of housing that came to light in the aftermath of the earthquake in Sichuan in 2008.

Finally, there needs to be provision for compensation schemes that go beyond just financial packages. For, it is possible that rural residents might oppose rural redevelopment and land acquisition, as was witnessed in the recent protests that have emerged in other high-growth regions, such as Guangdong in the south of the country. All these, needless to say, hold valuable lessons for India as well.

(The author is Lecturer in Development Studies and Fellow of Jesus College at the University of Cambridge.)

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