Bulletin n. 2-3/2012
October 2012-February 2013
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Anant Maringanti
    Urban Renewal, Fiscal Deficit and the Politics of Decentralisation: The Case of the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission in India
    in Space and Polity , Volume 16, Number 1 / April ,  2012 ,  93-109
    Decentralisation is seen as a panacea for a host of problems of governance thrown up by economic globalisation the world over. In the vast body of literature across disciplines, the term decentralisation refers both to the vertical devolution of power in political, administrative, regulatory and fiscal spheres and to the horizontal redistribution of activities away from the centre. Shortly after India embarked upon structural reforms in 1991, the Government of India made the first formal attempt at decentralisation through the 73rd and 74th (Constitutional) Amendment Acts of 1992. These two acts aim at decentralisation through vertical devolution of power to rural and urban local governments across the country. While implementation of these acts has been uneven, the Government of India in 2005 launched an ambitious urban renewal programme titled Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 65 cities nation-wide. The JNNURM is designed to release funds to cities on a competitive basis and is conditional upon full implementation of the 74th Amendment Act by state governments. This paper examines the implementation of JNNURM in Andhra Pradesh, a south Indian state, to demonstrate that, in the structure of governance in India, the state government remains the major stumbling block in the devolution of power. Importantly, through a careful analysis of city finances in Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh in the context of JNNURM, the paper argues that decentralisation qua state restructuring in India is a top–down process of devolving fiscal deficit to the city scale—in other words, urbanising fiscal deficit—which does not allow a coherent city politics to emerge. It documents the efforts under way to build new collective action framings which are driving a bottom–up change forcing city governments to demand a real devolution of power from the state governments but notes that such efforts have not as yet gathered adequate momentum to be effective.
    ©2001 - 2020 - Centro Studi sul Federalismo - P. IVA 94067130016