Adopt Sub-Federalism As A Means To Transform Urban Governance

Context: Highlighting the need to bring in cities as the key drivers of federalism and growth in India.

Government initiatives related to urban development

• Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban
• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation
• Smart Cities Mission
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban
• Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana
• Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Urban Livelihood Mission
• The Ease of Living (EoL) Index and the Municipal Performance Index (MPI) are two evaluative tools that quantify development outcomes in cities and thus promote competition among them.

Advantages of MPI and EoL Index: Two side of the same coin

• While EoL Index helps administrations identify gaps in development, MPI can aid in locating the contributory factors that are under the municipality’s functional coverage.
• Not only serve to promote competition, but also encourage peer-to-peer learning.
• The MPI also helps strengthen the decentralization of governance by positioning municipalities as enablers of urban development.
• It will also allow for accountability, transparency and autonomy in their functioning.

Need for adopting sub-federalism:

• Extending the idea of competitive federalism to competition between states and cities, and among cities.
• Rising urban population: Stressing due importance to urban development, as India is expected to have more than half population in urban areas after two decades.
• Fulfilling the goals of 74^th Constitutional amendment: Which is confined by the power of states to decide devolution of powers to ULBs.
• Addressing new set of urban challenges: Such as congestion, pollution and increased energy use etc.

Tools to quantify development outcomes in cities

• The Ease of Living (EoL) Index: 2020 ranks 111 cities based on their development outcomes across four broad metrics of evaluation— (1)Quality of Life, (2)Economic Ability, (3)Sustainability, and (4)Citizens Perception Survey.
• The Municipal Performance Index (MPI) 2020 ranks 111 municipalities on the basis of their functioning evaluated across five verticals— governance, services, finance, technology and planning.