METROPOLITAN GOVERNANCE: EXPECTATIONS VS REALITIES

The merger of villages within the jurisdiction of Pune Municipal Corporation has raised many eyebrows. With the approval of the merger, the Pune Municipal Corporation would surpass the size of its neighboring financial capital Mumbai (post the merger the area of PMC will be 500 sq kms as compared to BMC’s area of 480.25 sq kms). With the decision to expand has also come the increasing apprehension over the governance of the city. With rising populations and increasing size of agglomeration, the question of the governance of the expanding metro cities cannot be avoided further.

The immediate neighbor of Pune City, which is the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation, has also expanded itself over the years and it is necessary to create a bridge between the two corporations for an integrated development approach. Together the PMC and PCMC along with other municipal councils, cantonment boards and villages would form the Pune Metropolitan Region. There is an inclination in the air towards the formation of the Pune Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (PMRDA) on the lines of Mumbai’s Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA).

Our constitution has made provisions for such situations with the 74^th Amendment Act, 1992. So what does the Act say? Under the Article 243ZE, a Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) should be constituted for a Metropolitan Area. The Metropolitan Planning Committee would consist of not less than two-third of its members who are elected members of Municipalities and Chairpersons of the Panchayat. This Committee is responsible for the preparation of the development plan region. So it is clear that, the MPC is a representative platform that falls above the local bodies in the hierarchical structure.

India already has 6 major metro cities in place, namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai. As per the Constitution, the six metro cities should have an MPC in place. So what is the situation on ground? All the six metros have formed Development Authorities which are State level parastatal agencies and not MPCs. Some of them were formed even before the 74^th Amendment.

City	Development Authority	Year of formation of Development Authority	Status of Metropolitan Planning Committee
Delhi	Delhi Development Authority	1957	Status not known
Bangalore	Bangalore Development Authority	1976	The enabling law has been passed in the Karnataka government. But MPC has not been constituted
Hyderabad	Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority	2008	The AP government envisaged the Metropolitan Planning Committees Act, 2007. However in April 2008, it formed the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority which is an extension of the state government and plays a dominant role in the region.
Kolkata	Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority	1979	It set up a MPC in 1998. The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) has emerged as the administrative and technical secretariat for the KMPC
Mumbai	Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority	1975	MPC has been set on 17th December 2008, but MMRDA still acts as the dominant agency
Chennai	Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority	1972	Enabling Act is drafted but MPC not formed.

It can be seen that except for Kolkata, none of the six metros have progressed towards a functional MPC. The consequence of which is that Urban Planning which is essentially the function of a representative local body has been encroached by a non-representative parastatal body making the process of planning more encrypted and non-transparent. The development authorities functioning in the areas have become so powerful that the major decisions about the city are being taken by them. One of the reasons for the non-formation of the MPC, has been the highly influential and powerful nature of the Development Authorities that they have acquired over these years and dissolving such a body would create political and administrative conundrums which is not appealing to the government.

Another characteristic of such a structure of governance is the similar financial model adopted by the Development Authorities. Being parastatal bodies, the Development Authorities do not have access to collection of taxes and create a revenue base. So what has been the reason for the financial might of the Development Authorities? The answer is land assets. A huge amount of land resources have been transferred by the state to the Development Authorities which has led to an over whelming flow of revenue through land leasing and land sale activity. This kind of financing has its own merits and demerits; the merit being that lump sum money is available for undertaking development activities and the demerit being that the Development Authorities have started behaving like real estate developers aiming to make profits and forgetting their role as a welfare state. On account of being a non-representative platform, there is high chance of regional development not being regional in the true sense, with development being skewed only to certain areas where the land prices are high.

What would happen to Pune Metropolitan Region is still uncertain. The current atmosphere is of binary nature where one group proposes for more decentralization by disagreeing on further mergers, while the other proposes the formation of a Metropolitan Development Authority that would act as a parent to the local bodies within the Metropolitan Area.