Does a single city like Delhi really need so many elected representatives and so many layers of governance and authorityIJ If it has 70 MlAs and a State regime as well, does it need municipal corporations tooIJ
On Sunday, April 23, Delhi votes in municipal elections. What used to be just the Municipal Corporation of Delhi has, since 2012, been trifurcated into the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation and the East Delhi Municipal Corporation. Between them, these bodies have 272 members. Additionally, the cantonment area and the New Delhi Municipal Council, responsible for broadly the lutyens’s zone that is the core of governmental Delhi, have separate jurisdictions. Next there is the State Government, elected by an Assembly that has 70 MlAs. Of course, with Delhi as the national capital, the Union Government also retains certain powers, especially relating to land and policing.
Till 1993, when Delhi elected its first legislative Assembly, there was a familiar lament among city politicians that while democracy had grown in the rest of the country, the capital itself had been deprived of its state Government. Today, far from a scarcity of democracy, Delhi residents are burdened by an overdose of democracy and a degree of electoral fatigue. A city of 11 million people (as per the 2011 Census, though the number has grown to perhaps 14 or 15 million) and 1,500 square km of territory has to elect seven MPs, 70 MlAs and 272 municipal councillors.
Since everybody must have something to do and since politicians must be allowed patronage, every MP in Delhi has five crore rupees a year to spend on his or her MPlADS (MP local Area Development Scheme). This is in line with MPs in the rest of the country, except those MPs are dealing with must larger geographical areas. The Sheila Dikshit Government, which ran Delhi till December 2013, had introduced a similar scheme for MlAs. As such, each of the 70 MlAs gets four crore rupees a year for his or her MlAlADS. A few months ago, the Aam Aadmi Party Government hadproposed hiking this figure to Rs 14 crore per MlA per year.
In Delhi, individual municipal corporation members also get a discretionary development fund. This is not fixed but is dependent on the specific municipal corporation’s financial condition, tax collection and budget in a given year. In the past four or five years, this figure has varied between Rs 25 and Rs 60 lakh for each municipal corporation member in the North Delhi, South Delhi and East Delhi Municipal Corporations.
There is another point to be considered. The MlAlADS funds are meant to be spent in cooperation with the municipal corporations, taking the local ward representatives into confidence. In theory, this can work very well if the MlA and ward representatives are party colleagues or if the MlA is the civic elder under whom the ward representatives work. In practice, especially if different parties run the municipal corporation and the State Government, war breaks out. There is no point blaming one party or the other. This is a systemic problem.
The development funds can be spent only on permanent structures. Much money is wasted in erecting grand gates to neighbourhood parks or concretising mud tracks, leading in turn to drainage and related problems. Yet, since the money has to be spent and ‘something has to be done’, MPs, MlAs and municipal representatives bash on regardless.
The big question then is: Does a single city like Delhi genuinely need so many elected representatives and so many layers of governance and authorityIJ If it has 70 MlAs and a State Government, does it need three or even one municipal corporationIJ On the other hand, if Delhi has an intricate network of municipal wards in three separate municipal institutions — in North, South and East Delhi — does it need a State Government backed by 70 MlAsIJ This is a genuine conundrum that needs to be sorted out. Frankly, one of these two layers of elected representatives needs to be abolished.
In December 2018, it will be 25 years since Delhi elected its first State Government, with the BJP’s Madan lal Khurana becoming Chief Minister. At the time Khurana and his friend and rival, Jag Pravesh Chandra of the Congress, were the doyens of Delhi politics. They had a grounding in civic issues and viewed the job of the Chief Minister as the city administrator and de facto Mayor. It was not envisaged that Delhi would have a Chief Minister and State Government as well as three independent municipal bodies — all jockeying for space in a limited geography, with overlapping mandates that nobody fulfils.
At some point after this set of municipal elections, it would be prudent to begin a debate on the administrative architecture of Delhi. Does the city need both municipal corporations and a State GovernmentIJ Should one echelon be phased outIJ Should the next general election have parties advocating this and asking Delhi voters to chooseIJ Does Delhi, like modern cities elsewhere, need professional city managers, who are given a specific set of responsibilities and terms of appointment, and answerable to an elected body, whether a State Assembly or a municipal corporationIJ Could such an arrangement become a template for other major Indian cities as wellIJ These are all very good questions. One day, Delhi must find the answers.
(The author is distinguished fellow, Observer Research Foundation. He can be reached at malikashok@gmail.com)