Urban Growth and Exclusion of the Poor

Urbanisation

Urbanisation in India presents a diverse and complex picture. India is considered as one of the least urbanised countries of the world with only 31.16 per cent of urban population (2011 census) compared to the global level of 54 per cent (UNPD, 2014). Its growth rate declined from 3.83 per cent in 1981 to 2.7 per cent during the last two decades though not showing deceleration during 2001–11 (Kundu, A., in this issue) This overall level of urbanisation however, is uneven across states with Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Kerala recording 45 per cent or even higher urbanisation (besides smaller territories like Delhi, Chandigarh, Goa, Mizoram, Puducherry) while Assam, HP, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Sikkim registering a very low level of urbanisation. The expectations of many experts in the country as also international agencies about a spurt in urbanisation in India were belied. Yet, the absolute increase in urban population by natural growth as well as migration is still considerable and along with its unbalanced spread has created severe strains on urban infrastructure and environment (Hust, 2005). Even in metro cities which have a better resource base and infrastructure and also record higher economic growth, there are serious problems—lack of housing, shortage of water, poor sanitation, and waste disposal, disruption in power supply, transport bottlenecks and burgeoning crime rate. This has brought the issue of urban management to the centre stage in the public policy process.

Pattern of Growth

The structure of urban system in India consists of settlements of varying population size ranging from 5000 to 20 million. However, urban growth is not equitable in different size categories. It is top heavy with class I cities, million plus cities and capital cities recording higher growth compared to smaller towns. Urban growth in smaller towns below 20,000 is significantly lower than in metro cities (Kundu & Sarangi, 2005). This pattern of growth has increased slum settlements, 38 per cent of whose households live in million plus cities (Mishra & Dasgupta, 2014). The urban concentration in larger cities has been going up in most states. This disparity in urban growth has, however, increased after the economic reforms introduced in the 1990s and with the process of globalisation which attracts private investment to these cities (Kundu, 2011). The small and medium towns away from global centres of growth record a lower level of urbanisation. This is because their growth is inextricably linked to the economy of their rural hinterland. The deceleration in agriculture growth can adversely affect their population growth and economy. This does not happen in the case of large cities and metropolitan areas which respond to the economy at the national and global level (Mahadevia & Sarkar, 2012). Besides, these centres are constrained by lack of economic base and avenues of employment, financial and managerial capacities but are saddled with high incidence of poverty, lower level of human development, and low level of services (UNFPA, 2007). They are unable to generate resources internally and also fail to attract private infrastructural investment. This brings to the fore the need for targeted development of small and medium towns including newly identified urban centres with public resources for balanced regional development and equitable economic and employment opportunities (Kundu, A., in this issue).

Weak Urban Governance

Urban Governance is very weak. This is particularly so in respect of small and medium towns. A large number of urban local bodies (ULBs) in these towns are not able to meet even their establishment cost. The decentralisation of governance from state governments to ULBs introduced by the 74th amendment to the Constitution is poorly implemented. The expected devolution of resources to them has not taken place. They are unable to attract private investment and are overwhelmingly dependent on external grants. The reduction in central and state assistance in the post-reform period has further restricted their capacity to create employment opportunities, improve infrastructure and provide basic services to their residents. This underlines the need for intervention to strengthen governance of ULBs in terms of building planning, managerial and financial capacity.

Migration and Exclusionary Environment

Contrary to the popular perception, natural increase rather than migration has a major share in urban growth, which shows a slowing down of mobility across states. Life time inter-censal migration has shown a decline and inter-state migration has also not gone up (Sivaramakrishnan, 2005). This is pronouncedly so in respect of male migration which is primarily for economic reasons (Kundu, 2011). Poverty or economic distress is not the key factor even in seasonal migration (Kundu, A., in this issue). This is primarily due to the capital intensive nature of economic growth leading to a very low growth of formal employment as also informal nature of available work opportunities and the skill oriented nature of demand in labour market in large cities which these migrants do not meet. Whatever limited migration, that does take place in large cities and metropolitan areas, it is the non-poor who contribute to it to increase their economic prospects due to their skills and education (Kundu, A., in this issue). But migration to the large cities and metros has also declined (the core areas are even experiencing out migration as shown by Das in this issue) due to the exclusionary social environment resulting from land use restrictions, growing regionalism, pressure exerted by better off residents and courts to remove unplanned growth, encroachments, slums and petty commercial establishment from their residential areas and the neglect of poor new entrants in the City Development Plans. This has seriously constrained the potential of large cities and developed states to absorb migrants pushed out from rural areas to escape their poverty and is, therefore, a cause for concern. These persons are perhaps getting absorbed in small and medium towns located in their backward states which do not have the capacity to sustain this incremental population (Kundu, 2006).

Policy Neglect

Urbanisation also suffered policy neglect. During the freedom struggle, the dominant discourse favoured decongestion of cities and limiting their growth. This legacy continued after independence. Constitution has viewed urban management as a function of municipalities, and therefore, assigned town planning to the state list (Sivaramakrishnan, 1998). The states, however, took little initiative in policy making. Whatever emerged by way of policy came from the central government. The share of allocations in Plan expenditure for this sector has also remained low, at slightly above 2 per cent (Vira & Vira, 2005). There was virtually no urban policy in the early decades of Planning. The rural areas dominated the policy space. The strategy of urban growth was linked to regional and industrial policy (Mahadevia, 2003) and focused on containing the growth of cities, discouraging rural–urban migration and provision of in-situ employment (Ramachandaran, in this issue). Urbanisation was neither viewed as an area of investment nor attracted priority attention. In the first phase 1950–92 (up to 74th amendment) the regulatory arrangements for town planning, provision of the housing and land policy for this purpose occupied the policy discourse. The focus on integrated development of small and medium towns and urban poverty emerged only in the Seventh Plan. In the second phase (1992–2005–11) up to the launch of JnNURM, urbanisation was viewed as a driver of economic growth. This period witnessed a thrust towards decentralisation and democratisation of urban governance, major programme intervention in slum development, urban poverty alleviation, dwelling units for the poor and the largest of all programmes JnNURM which amalgamated poverty alleviation and urban infrastructure development. This phase is marked by a directional shift towards neo-liberal thrust in urban development conveyed by anchoring JnNURM to market oriented legal, financial, structural and governance reforms at the state and municipal levels. The third phase from 2011–12 onwards is focused on inclusive urban development in line with the objective of the 12th Plan (Mishra & Dasgupata, 2014). In both the first and second phase, urban poor was excluded from benefit of investment, in the first phase by the state and in the second by the market though paradoxically urban poor got more attention in the government policy in the second phase. The objective of balanced regional development was also defeated because industries were increasingly located in developed regions rather than in backward regions as the policy required (Mahadevia, 2003). But the processes of globalisation and liberalisation have created conditions for a dominant role in urban development to the private capital—national and international which is linked to the imperative of economic growth. This constricts the vision of city to the interests of the investors and the elite in sharp contrast to that of the urban poor The pursuit of this vision aggravated iniquitous spatial and regional urban growth, and institutionalised exclusion of the poor in urban areas which has potential for generating social conflict and instability. Poverty alleviation programmes cannot neutralise this negative impact. A change in policies is needed for inclusive urbanisation.

Increase in Inequality

Besides iniquitous regional and spatial growth, urban areas are also characterised by greater interpersonal inequality. This inequality is starker in urban areas in comparison to rural areas and has increased after economic reforms were introduced. The inequality is reflected in the pattern of consumption expenditure between the richer sections and the poorer ones. As per NSSO (68th Round), the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of the richest 10 per cent of rural population is about 6.9 times that of the bottom 10 per cent, while in the case of richest 10 per cent of urban population, it is 10.9 times of that of the bottom 10 per cent. The MPCE of the top 5 per cent of urban population is 14.7 times of the bottom 10 per cent (CBGA, 2014). ‘Both rural and urban Gini ratio were the same at 0.34 in 1977–78. The gap between them increased to as high as 0.09 points by 2009–10’ (Mohanty, 2014: 118). The economic growth in the pre reform period had shown a larger increase in consumption expenditure at the bottom of urban population compared to that of the higher brackets. The regression after reforms points towards elite cornering the benefits of growth. The same unequal pattern is reflected in respect of metros and non-metros (Mahadevia & Sarkar, 2012). This inequality has wider implications. It is slowing the pace of poverty reduction in urban areas (Kundu, A., in this issue). It also promotes unequal access to public goods, inequitable distribution of resources—land/urban space for housing and infrastructure, and financial to meet the needs of and provision of services to the residents and distorts their priority. This generates asymmetrical influence in decision making. There is not only a strong need but also urgency to reduce this inequality sharply.

Disparity in Governance

The disparity in urban growth can be seen in the execution of the flagship programme of JnNURM. JnNURM was introduced as a major intervention to improve infrastructure in select 65 cities called as mission cities. It had two components: one was Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) and second was Basic Services to the Urban Poor for integrated development of the slums (BSUP) with central funds distributed between them broadly in the ratio of 60:40. The programme took into account the differential financial base of small and medium towns in the distribution of funds. The parallel programmes for Urban Infrastructure Development for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) for provision of basic services were also started to bridge the gap between large cities and metros and small and medium towns. But the policy context as well as the execution of the programmes clearly indicated a bias in favour of metropolitan and large cities vis-a-vis the small and medium towns and UIG vis-a- vis Basic Services Components (Kundu & Samanta, 2011). This is evident from a larger proportion of central funds going to JnNURM projects as against UIDSSMT projects as also a very high percentage of funds being allocated to 65 mission cities and only 21.7 per cent for small and medium towns. This is further corroborated by central government per capita spending of ₹220 per annum for work in mission cities under JnNURM as compared to ₹119 for small and medium towns under UIDSSMT between 2005 and 2009 (Kundu & Samanta, 2011: 56). The same bias operated in the release of funds for Basic Services as against Infrastructure component of the two programmes (Kundu and Samanta, 2011: 61). The bias is also manifested in population coverage between class 1 cities and smaller urban centres (Kundu, D., in this issue). However, this position was not uniform across the country as some states reflected a lower bias against small and medium towns (Mahadevia & Sarkar, 2012).

Governance Reforms

JnNURM implementation was made conditional to the carrying out of mandatory governance reforms which related to decentralisation of management of civic amenities from the state to the urban local bodies and shifting of responsibilities of investment in infrastructural projects from state and central governments to urban local bodies and seeking institutional resources and private investment for this purpose. The conditions associated with seeking institutional finance and attracting private investment have tended to favour large cities and developed states and regions which alone were in a position to meet them. As a result, smaller towns particularly in backward regions find it difficult to take up infrastructural development and improve supply of basic services. Both these modes of financing have stipulations for cost recovery through the realisation of user charges from beneficiaries. These stipulations are also incorporated in public sector projects dependent on institutional finance and market borrowings. This has the effect of excluding low income segments of the city, slums and informal settlements from the ambit of infrastructure improvement projects as the residents are not in a position to pay these charges. This accentuates the gap in availability of basic amenities between the rich and poor localities in the cities.

Exclusion of the Poor

There is a strong class bias in urban policy and governance (Kaur, 2005; Mann, 2005). This takes many forms (Sengupta, 2012), such as segmentation of city with areas inhabited by the poor (slums) shifted to the periphery of the cities from the core residential areas, inequality in access to services, social barriers to entry of poor migrants into cities, etc. This bias has historical roots embedded in the colonial rulers’ vision of city as an orderly, hygienic and civilised space and their concerns of health and security (Mehra, 2011). The colonial government destroyed the indigenous organic link between villages and towns by destroying traditional industries without absorbing the losers of livelihood in alternative employment. It also directed commodity and population flows to ports, plantations and administrative towns which became centres for collection and processing of primary goods thereby laying foundations of an iniquitous urban structure (Kundu, 2011). At a social level, the colonial vision was reflected in the segmentation of cities into elite part with better infrastructure and amenities and the rest of urban settlement lacking even in basic amenities. This bias in urban management was carried forward in the post-colonial phase and is manifested in distribution of urban space and level of quality of civic amenities available to the residents between the settlements of the higher income groups and the informal settlements of the poor.

Underestimation of Urban Poverty

The exclusion of the poor also emerges from failure to take note of the existence of urban poverty in public policy until the Seventh Plan and its flawed understanding, underestimation and under provisioning for its alleviation. This failure stemmed from lack of recognition of its character different from the rural poverty and multiple vulnerabilities—residential, occupational and social which urban households suffer from. As a result, urban poverty ratio has been shown to be lower than that of rural poverty by different methodologies adopted by the expert committees (Mohanty, 2014). A committee appointed by the government to identify the poor in urban areas specifically observed that the incidence of urban poverty was higher than the official estimates (Hashim, in this issue). Besides, the level of urban poverty varies with the size of settlements; it is high in small size towns and the lowest in large cities. It is also predominantly concentrated in settlements of less than one million (Mohanty, 2014). Also, while both rural and urban poverty have declined over time, the rate of decline of urban poverty has been slower compared to that of rural poverty, notwithstanding the high rates of economic growth to which economies of the top structure of urban system contributed. The incidence of urban poverty and its decline are both uneven across states, which is attributed to the level of development and urbanisation (Mahadevia & Sarkar, 2012). The relative neglect of urban poor is also reflected in the programme interventions made for alleviation of urban poverty, their ambit and reach and funds assigned to them when compared to rural poverty.

Missing Focus on Employment

The bias against the urban poor also emerges from ‘lack of integration of economic aspects such as livelihood with infrastructure issues such as housing and basic services, infrastructure with social development such as shelter, security, basic services and locational issues with access to and impact on health and education’ (Mahadevia & Sarkar, 2012: 3). JnNURM exemplified this lack of integration. It consciously excluded employment generation in the framework of BSUP. The access to other basic entitlements than civic amenities was left to the implementing agencies to provide by converging with concerned sectoral programmes without creating any institutional mechanism for its realisation. The narrow focus on housing and infrastructure reflects the flawed understanding of the situation of urban poor for whom these two services are integrally linked to the opportunities for earning a livelihood. This issue is, therefore, ignored in designing slum relocation projects and housing programmes which is why the relocated persons go back to the old site or set up a new slum (Kumar & Singh, in this issue). Similarly, linkage with social services—education and health is not built into these projects. This lack of integration of different sectoral programmes is on account of the unwillingness to seek participation of the beneficiaries, while planning for resettlement (Kulwant Singh, in this issue), lack of sensitivity about their needs and interests and absence of any accountability of concerned officials. This, points to the powerlessness of the urban poor in the decision making system.

Financial Exclusion

Financial exclusion is another of its dimension. The urban poor have no access to institutional credit. They and particularly the migrants among them find it difficult to open a bank account because it requires proof of residence and endorsement from an account holder. The reach of commercial banks even in urban areas is very low (Nair, 2009) though it is better than in rural areas. The urban poor residing in informal settlements with low and uncertain income and negligible assets are not considered bankable. Even targeted credit based poverty alleviation programmes such as Swaran Jayanti Shahri Rozgar Yojna failed to persuade the banks to lend to the urban poor in the informal sector as noted by the Planning Commission itself. Microfinance intermediaries also bypass them. Self Help Group movement among the urban poor has not picked up (Nair, 2014). Hence, their overwhelming dependence on private money lenders and the vulnerabilities it generates.

Bias in Programme Implementation

The bias against the poor can also be observed in the implementation of programmes targeted at them. This is evident from the BSUP component of JnNURM which provides for integrated development of slums with housing and infrastructure development. This component of the programme emphasises in-situ development of slums with provision of tenurial security to the slum dwellers by issue of pattas as a protection against eviction. The states/ULBs rather than undertaking in-situ development of slums have invariably resorted to relocation of slums by taking up multi storeyed housing projects for them outside the core area without creating any linkage with livelihood and access to health and education. Even as housing projects the execution is very poor. The construction in many locations is shoddy and provision of basic services is not ensured. The slum dwellers are forced by officials to shift to the new settlements with these deficiencies as their primary concern is to get the land vacated for its commercial use. Also, the houses are unaffordable for the poor beneficiaries and, in many cases, are cornered by the ineligible and undeserving persons. The relocation cuts off slum dwellers from their livelihood activities and social networks and reinforces peripheralisation of the urban poor. These design and implementation flaws extend to employment programmes as well which suffer from faulty identification of beneficiaries, failure of banks to extend credit and lack of market support not to speak of very thinly spread and uneven distribution of funds. Little wonder that 75 per cent of slum households have not benefited from any poverty alleviation programme. Only 15.7 per cent—received land related and other benefits (Mathur, 2009). Thus, the disparity in development across ULBs/states and exclusion of the poor and their areas within cities get more entrenched.

Stigmatisation of Migrants

The worst manifestation of the exclusion of urban poor lies in stigmatisation of the poor rural migrants (new entrants) from backward areas who face extreme marginalisation and discrimination including violence. This increases their vulnerability besides uncertainty of employment emerging from vagaries of the labour market they face. These migrants reside in slums and informal settlements and are deprived of basic services. Official agencies view them negatively, consider their existence illegal and disown any responsibility for their welfare. Their contribution to local economy is not recognised. The society around them considers them as anti-socials and criminals. They are omitted from voters’ list and are unable to get a ration card and a driver license due to lack of proof of their residence in the city. Due to pervasive hostility, they are virtually reduced to the status of non-citizens and do not get any attention in the City Development Plans and execution of social protection programmes. The right to the city is strongly denied to them. This exclusion is sustained by ethnic polarisation (Bhagat, 2011).

Elite Capture of Democratic Space

The 74th constitutional amendment decentralised significant responsibilities of governance to the local self-governments which were made more representative and responsible to the local population. However, the expected delegation of powers by states to ULBs has not materialised as there is a great deal of political and bureaucratic resistance to it as in the case of Panchayats. With respect to participation in urban planning, JnNURM required preparation of City Development Plans in consultation with all stakeholders to reflect their needs and interests. It also mandated implementation of community participation law (CPL) to institutionalise a local participatory space—the Area Sabhas, and a public disclosure law (PDL) to place all relevant information in public domain. The compliance of these conditions was required to get financial assistance from the central government for JnNURM projects. Not all states have enacted these laws and even those which have done so, have not implemented them on the ground (Singh, 2014). Participatory governance through Ward Committees even in the large cities has not materialised (Kundu, 2011). Alternative participatory mechanisms have been adopted which are easily amenable to elite capture and promote differential development trajectories (Kundu, 2009). In the preparation of City Development Plans, the consultation meetings were organised in such a way that made the participation of poor and uneducated difficult and where they did, their views were not reflected in the final report (Tawa Lama–Rewal, 2011). Thus, while the poor, particularly the migrants, fail to get a space in participatory processes to articulate their demands, organisations representing the better off sections of urban population (Resident Welfare Associations) have used their proximity to decision making officials and intervention of courts to get slums, squatters and petty commercial establishments removed by urban authorities from their localities. The unequal power relations in urban areas create formidable obstacles for the urban poor to participate in urban governance to at least partly neutralise their exclusion.

Lack of Seriousness in Reforms to Combat Exclusion

Modest reforms were introduced in JnNURM to bridge the huge divide— economic, spatial, opportunity and socio-cultural between the core areas and the periphery in the cities at the planning stage itself (Jakhanwal, in this issue) the compliance of which was made conditional for obtaining central funding for projects taken up by ULBs. These related to earmarking of 25 per cent of budget by ULBs for provision of basic services to the poor, reservation of 20–25 per cent of developed land for economically weaker sections and low income groups in all housing schemes and provision of seven basic entitlements to the urban poor in convergence with other programmes. The implementation record of all three programmes has been dismal, which is a clear indication of the lack of seriousness in pursuing equity dimension in urban development.

Exclusion and Resistance

Notwithstanding the exclusion which the poor are confronted with, they do not accept their situation quietly. They resist it and assert their right to the city. This resistance takes varied forms depending upon the situation and the issue involved. Wherever the poor are enrolled as voters, they have used right to vote during elections to seek commitment from the candidates contesting the election to their demands like regularisation of unauthorised colonies, provision of basic amenities, etc. Specific sections of them, for example, street children, rag pickers, street vendors, rickshaw pullers, etc. have been mobilised by NGOs and social activists for protecting their interests with a small measure of success. The judicial forum has also been used with the help of some advocacy groups for seeking relief as in the case of provision of shelter to the homeless persons. The affected sections of urban poor have also used protest as a weapon to make their voice heard which has succeeded in some cases notwithstanding the repressive response they face from the law and order machinery. These methods are in addition to approaching municipal officials and other official agencies as also pressuring their local municipal councillor and MLA to get their demands met. Still, there is no acceptance of their inherent right to the city they live and work in. As the globalised neo-liberal development trajectory gets more entrenched, the road ahead for the urban poor is harder and the future less reassuring.

The articles in this issue deal with some of these issues.