Empower municipal bodies rainproof towns

Empower municipal bodies rainproof towns

The rainy season has now become synonymous with urban dysfunction. Rains over the past few days in the National Capital Region have caused flooding and waterlogging, and impeded mobility. This is not just Delhi’s story. Urban flooding is now a regular occurrence elsewhere, too. India cannot be a leading economy of the world with its cities flooding come every shower. The fix lies in urban planning and governance. Building better for greater resilience is one pillar of this effort.

That translates to improved planning to build infrastructure that is resilient and adaptive to climate change. Improved planning and administration would require strict adherence to norms, rules-based systems that dispense with perpetual ad-hocism. The second pillar is improved urban governance. For far too long, the urban authorities have failed to deliver on their basic responsibility to maintain the city’s systems — drainage, lighting, roads, mobility. Municipal bodies must be empowered to make decisions, have the requisite personnel and finances to keep the city in proper running condition. These bodies also need to ensure they draw on all available expertise to build and retrofit their cities to meet the challenges posed by threats such as climate change. Once so empowered, local urban authorities must be held accountable for the state of their city.

Municipalities need a proper fiscal base and the political will to make use of the base. Property tax is the most logical and lucrative source of tax. The better the governance, the more valuable the property. Municipalities can issue bonds on the strength of this fiscal base to raise the resources they need to invest in urban systems and infrastructure. Property owners and local politicians must accept that there are no free lunches.