Nagar Trends: Power of a Nagar

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Nagar Trends: Power of a Nagar

Nagrika has been conducting a pan-India mapping of the implementation status of 74th Amendment and municipal functions enshrined in the 12th Schedule. This is being done as part of a knowledge partnership project. The project is an urban governance study led by Praja Foundation, a non-partisan organisation working towards enabling accountable governance. Praja's initiative aims to advocate policy changes that will change the way Indian cities are governed. It is multi-year project in nature, with ground research as the foundation being used to form a pan-India network and influence change across the country. The Nagrika team have already visited 16 out of the 29 states, which are part of the study.

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What 2018 held for Urban India

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What 2018 held for Urban India

2018 was (yet another) year of cities, big and small. It was in continuation of the many previous years through which cities (and citizens) have been resurging as a dominant political, economic and social unit, independent of their regional, state and national level identities. This has been a slow and steady but a definite process with various planned and unplanned factors contributing to the resurgence. These include political and constitutional provisions that gave greater powers to cities and citizens; evolution of government programs, their funding mechanisms and institutional structures; an increased sense of civic participation from citizens; limited capacity of centralised governance institutions to monitor and deliver; technological enablers such as internet and mobile phones. Bottomline-Cities are here to stay! Pun intended.

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Are urban policies aligned with city hierarchies?

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Are urban policies aligned with city hierarchies?

India presently uses multiple definitions to classify its urban centers. The first and most prominent definition is the one by the Census of India. It classifies towns in two categories, one based on legal statute and other on a mix of population size and economic functions. All places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committee are termed as statutory towns. All other places with a minimum population of 5,000, at least 75 per cent of the male main working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and a density of population of at least 400 persons per sq. km are termed as census towns.

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