Pinpointing accountability for smooth operation and better urban governance

By - Anoop Jha

Overlapping responsibilities: is it a reason for disorder?

Every now or that there are apparent disorders and visible chaos in different corners of cities due to unclear or overlapping allocation of responsibilities among different governing and implementing agencies of city, like for instance - any emergency situation where everyone is confused what to do next, whom to approach first, who is to take action first. 

Overlapping  responsibilities of Agencies

Like breakdown of a vehicle in right in the middle of a road stretch or busy road intersection, what next, it can be a nightmare for the vehicle owner; it can happen to anyone, anytime. Vehicle can be in a stress situation while on road due to several reasons, may be due to badly maintained car, may be bad roads with deep pothole, ongoing underground infrastructure maintenance work on road without proper warning signage, rash public transport driver, faulty road signal, improper unmaintained signage etc. Who is accountable for that traffic pile up and chaos following that vehicle breakdown? Is that vehicle owner, is that traffic management authority, is that maintenance department, is that some other department whose maintenance excavation is going on or someone else? No one is clear what immediate measures to be taken and who is to come forward to normalize the situation. No backup plan. Everyone shedding their responsibility, No accountability

To avoid the urban operational chaos and disorder in day to day city activities or in emergency situation a proper accountability platform has to be created where every governing agency and stakeholders would be made aware of their assigned responsibilities in every possible urban scenario whether it’s usual day to day or event specific function or an emergency situation. Role of an urban planner is to stipulate different possible urban event scenarios beforehand as well as assigning responsibilities to concerned agencies to tackle such perceived scenarios with the help of governing authorities.   

Untapped potential of Public Infrastructure

By- Anoop Jha

Public Infrastructure – from Liability to Asset

In the majority of cities and towns of developing countries like India, developing and maintaining public infrastructure are perceived responsibility of governing authorities and it is usually a major source of expenditure in municipal finance. Though to make any infrastructure sustainable in the long run, whether public or private it has to be a source of constant or recurring revenue generation to at least partially meet its operation and maintenance expenditure or to reach the breakeven point. Collective public infrastructure in any city should ideally pay for its own operation and maintenance requirement to make it sustainable. There might be varying dynamics of income expenditure for individual public infrastructure but collectively they should take care of themselves in not immediately may be in long term.

Public asset for alternative revenue stream 

It’s high time that public infrastructure should acquire the status of asset rather than liability or a financial burden to state, that does not necessarily mean it has to become private venture or property. Governing authorities like states, municipal corporations and municipalities have to be little aware towards what precious assets they own and have to find out the innovative mechanisms to exploit the previously untapped revenue potential of these assets, for example they own the most precious chunks of properties in the strategic locations which are spatially scattered throughout the city and beyond, with no or negligible income from them.

There are enough resources within any given region, need of the time is to recognize the potential, identify the resources and formulise a mechanism for revenue generation. If governing authorities or anyone else thinks that this is a difficult task or vague assumption, they should approach any random businessman- small or large, any developer, any architectural, planning or consultancy firm, any resource management firm, any thinker or business guru or even any common citizen with that asset and they will find innumerous ideas, proposals, business plans and even willing investors.