So why, unlike China during its boom years, isn’t India’s blazing GDP growth leading to a regeneration of its decrepit cities?
For instance, why is Mumbai – which publicly harboured dreams of becoming another Shanghai in the 1990s – unable to realise that ambition?
“The root cause is historical – our cities don’t have a credible governance model,” Vinayak Chatterjee, a veteran infrastructure expert, told the BBC.
“When India’s constitution was written, it spoke of the devolution of power to the central and state governments – but it did not imagine that our cities would grow to become so massive that they would need a separate governance structure,” he says.
The World Bank, external estimates that over half a billion Indians, or nearly 40% of the country’s population, now live in urban areas – a staggering rise from 1960 when merely 70 million Indians lived in cities.
An attempt was made in 1992 to “finally allow cities to take charge of their own destinies” through the 74th amendment of the Constitution. Local bodies were granted constitutional status and urban governance was decentralised – but many of the provisions have never been fully implemented, says Mr Chatterjee.
“Vested interests don’t allow bureaucrats and the higher levels of government to devolve power and empower local bodies.”
This is quite unlike China where city mayors wield substantial executive powers controlling urban planning, infrastructure and even investment approvals.
China follows a highly centralised planning model, but local governments have freedom of implementation and are centrally monitored, with rewards and penalties, says Ramanath Jha, Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank.
“There are strong national mandates in terms of direction and physical targets that cities are tasked to achieve,” Mr Jha writes, external.
Mayors of China’s major cities have powerful patrons in the Communist Party’s top committee and strong performance incentives, making these posts “important stepping stones for further promotions”, according to Brookings Institution, external.
“How many names of mayors of major Indian cities do we even know?” asks Mr Chatterjee.
