Clean cities

Empower mayors to save urban India

The cleanliness ranking of Indian cities has expectedly come up with a mixed bag of surprises and confirmation of known realities. The methodology used in the survey, conducted by the ministry of urban development to arrive at the rankings, has not been revealed. The total list and rankings of all the 476 cities covered are not available. It is also not clear how fresh is the data and how much of fresh data, not publicly available, has been used in the survey. What is known is that the almost equal weighting given to open defecation and solid waste management focuses on how cities fare in terms of the primary goal of making India free of open defecation in five years. Prominent cities which have fared poorly will be able to pick many holes in the survey. But since the data included cover key aspects, like waste water treatment, drinking water quality and the extent of water borne diseases, the ranking will serve as a useful guide for action by the cities, the states concerned and the Union government.

The standout performer is West Bengal, but Karnataka has also fared well in this survey; it is perhaps a fitting tribute to the great storyteller of small-town India, R K Narayan, that Mysuru should top the list. The fictional Malgudi was based on the elegant and pleasant capital of the former princely state which has had a history of good governance. Simultaneously, it should be galling to the country's business capital Greater Mumbai that it should fare so poorly (rank 140), particularly when Navi Mumbai next door has done so well by grabbing the third rank. But this adequately underlines the role of enlightened planning. The elements of the world view of Charles Correa who conceived the satellite city should be a guide for creating more greenfield cities. Older cities are, however, not unredeemable as the relatively better showing of Kolkata - top among the metros - illustrates. What the latter has and Greater Mumbai does not is a more adequate urban local government structure with the mayor and his executive council being able to wield effective power. In contrast, few will be able to mention the name of the Mumbai mayor who is ineffective as his tenure is short.

There can be no hope of redeeming urban India unless urban local government is empowered; and the way to go about it is to have a mayor, preferably directly elected, with an executive council and a tenure of five years. To make this work, state governments have to let go, empower and help. An empowered mayoral system must also have priorities. Foremost must come solid waste management - with focus on segregation and recycling so that landfills last longer - which does not cost all that much to deliver. Next must come providing adequate public transport which will reduce environmental pollution and the disease burden. The third priority has to be providing sufficient drinking water which again, along with an end to open defecation, will lower the disease burden. Governments may also have to get tough by regulating access to places of tourism and pilgrimage (these, including Varanasi, have scored poorly) so that these are not destroyed simply through overloading them.