Why urban infrastructure O&M system needs increased autonomy?

An exemplary case of PPP project - surface transport !

Though there are already provisions which suggests autonomy in O&M contracts to certain extent at present, but apparently there is further need of functional, financial and decision making autonomy in operation and maintenance (O&M)plan including concerned O&M agency, regarding any given infrastructure project, specially were public safety is a concern, an autonomy to the extent beyond conventional scopes of O&M contracts.

Why this thought even worth consideration and review? Because lack of autonomy can restrict O&M agencies to take prompt critical decisions or can encourage them to unnecessarily prolong, manipulate or ignore some of the important decisions and actions demanding urgency and which are vital for health of project and safety of users and which might otherwise get delayed caught in the complexity of paperwork. For instance, an expressway O&M agency can escape from taking responsibility of mishaps and causalities blaming it to faulty road design by the original infrastructure design agency involved, while design agency can shy away from responsibility saying safe operation of system is in scope of O&M agency or may be it is due to bad maintenance, meanwhile life of commuters would be constantly at stake. But with higher level of autonomy O&M agency can take vital decisions and actions on their own like- post functional design modification in case of expressway, infrastructure retrofit, conducting safety audit and associated changes, life safety installations and safety enforcement measures which can prevent those traffic accidents for example. Also autonomy comes with implied accountability, so now the O&M agency while enjoying the autonomy will also feel a sense of responsibility both morally and legally towards minimizing and preventing those expressway mishaps and can be held accountable in case  such events occur and their performance can also be linked to their monetary gain/ penalty provisions, credit rating ranking, pre-mature termination of contract etc. hence creating a scope of active, innovative and higher performance standards in this new O&M environment.  

There has to be increased level of autonomy for O&M agencies to innovate and to take certain fiscal decisions on their own, which might be vital for public safety and absorption of unperceived growth, autonomy of technology integration to leverage technological opportunities which might have been unavailable at the time of conception and design of project, autonomy to conduct required design changes and retrofit based on peculiar first hand regional experiences gained in course of operation. Of course this strengthened decisive power of should come with certain administrative supervision and stakeholder’s say.

This allocation of autonomy seems justifiable because no one else knows the actual functional and fiscal health of said project, regional and local constraints and infrastructure gaps etc. better than those who are operating and maintaining the said project and assets 24X7 and are in constant contact of end users, knowing it better than even those who originally conceived and built the project. Autonomy if constrained or hampered or for namesake, specially at policy and post functional level, scope of O&M assumes a mechanical and procedural significance and restrict itself only to the often under-perceived operational efficiency and safety level just to the rigid, predefined performance standard with little scope for innovation in terms of physical infrastructure modification, procedural and strategic retrofit and scope of maintenance remains only limited to restoring the degraded infrastructure to its somewhat originally perceived state. O&M will have to be much more than the established notion of routine work as prescribed in the O&M manual or as described in present scope of contract. A wholesome O&M process specially in urban and regional infrastructure projects has to be a dynamic process, a learning experience, continually reinventing itself as per dynamic regional growth, absorbing economic changes and technological advancement, streamlined to the long term vision of regional growth. 

Real Estate price at user’s end: Transparency is the way to win-win situation!

When demand is so high there is no point keeping hidden costs and policies. 

Planning to buy a home? For some, it's joy of their life, for some it’s a mission, for some their livelihood but for many, it’s a pain. Pain of market research, confusion of what to choose, whom to trust, struggle of monetary arrangement, fear of being cheated, horror of future encounter with inevitable unpleasant surprises associated with real estate deals in constantly changing landscape of real estate market, volatile banking and public policies, unstable political and people’s affair and so on.  

There are so many places where your real estate judgment might go wrong no matter how smart, how educated and how networked you are. Forget about the traits and circumstances which are beyond your control. So volatile this whole affair is that at times it feels like it's a game of luck to finally secure a place without any conflict of guesswork and reality, which you can call your home sweet home.  

Long completion cycle of real estate development especially in case of housing and apartments, makes it more vulnerable and susceptible to volatile market and changing policy environment, susceptible to changes in policies and contracts leading to additional fiscal burden, majority on customer’s side and some on developers as well and to monetary losses occurred mostly to buyers who failed to understand the fine intricacies of initial contracts and hidden policies.

In midst of all this confusion you either hire or get channelized through someone or a firm apparently specialized in real estate dealings to make your life easy, only to realize that they have their own hidden policies and excuses to add to your frustrations.

Acknowledging and understanding the inevitability of market dynamism and inevitable growth in housing demand with little bit of fluctuation here and there time to time, a whole new approach is needed in the functioning of real estate affair.

You are a customer; you want to buy a house rather home, you know your financial condition, you know your aspirations and limitations. You see a home advertisement at fabulously low price in local newspaper or on internet with an assumed star (*) or applied conditions, you are already comfortable with that, you match your budget, you find out more just to realize that there are considerable hidden charges, you think for a while, going ahead seeing the same prevalent story everywhere, you go to bank for monetary help, they have their own complex structure of policy documentation difficult to fathom right away, leave it aside for a while because you urgently need loan for your sweet home, you do the deal formality with developer  while realizing that there are secondary and even tertiary level of hidden charges. Finally your deal is completed, but someone just comes to you and tells you that there are additional visitor parking charges subjected to availability, really high annual club charges you can’t escape, Monthly fixed or accelerating maintenance charges for several amenities you won’t be using ever, not to speak of the security and other welfare charges which issues would occurs later in future if you want to live there. And unfortunately you can’t hold developer liable for many of these things because they will say these monetary activities are beyond their scope of contract and deal. Oh, and don’t forget recently revised property related tax policies which is going to go increasingly taxing on your already demanding fiscal health.

Now, you are a developer, you are in this business for long, you know the intricacies very well, you adjust your position as market and policies change, you see that your business in not going to go down ever in future due to insanely high housing and real estate demand apart from occasional dip, you are in a position to dictate the terms so you don’t have to worry. Of course changes in real estate laws and public policy as well as volatility of politics and people’s affair are going to affect your business, but you are sure you will be able to recover what you want from those existing or prospective customers.

For every single customer who can’t afford the price you are offering for a piece of real estate work you are creating, there would be dozens of willing customers to buy the same piece of project. Acknowledging the strong and more or less stable future real estate growth, as well as abundance of customers, it’s your responsibility as a developer to be as transparent in your offers, deals and policies as possible. It will benefit both customers as well as developer. Customer will know early what is within their reach based on their financial position and assessment of realistic real estate offers and their search for house would be less painful and more fruitful, speedy and less frustrating. Developers should declare every possible instance where an additional cost burden can occur to a customer along with its tentative quantum, should declare every possible project constraint and policy in big bold font, emphasizing every liable policy changes and unexpected future charges based on their industry and regional experience. What worst can happen by this approach? You might lose a customer or two, but with such a huge customer base, who cares! It will sure have advantage both ways. Developers will get real customers rather than ghost customers, their transaction turnaround time would reduce considerably, their dealing process would be smoother, more transparent and honest and they can reinvest that saved time and money back into customer service, building repeat customers and word-of-mouth publicity as well as providing better customer service. Not to speak of huge value addition to company’s brand image. Customers will have in tern fair choice of selection, without any hidden fiscal or psychological burden, after all one can only buy a house with a price tag which he or she can afford.   

Public agencies would always be there to help, assist and control the exceedingly high real estate prices to keep the ball rolling and to keep it within reach of a city dweller, common or exclusive. Considering the positive effect it’s an option worth exploration.

By: Anoop Jha

Why such vast gap exists in statistical interpretation of a single fact?

Statistics considers raw data while people tend to value associated sentiments.

If you are going for a primary survey with a standard template of closed ended questionnaires or some kind of table to be filled with numbers you might not be doing real justice to the survey. You might have a reasonable amount of data at end of the day to conclude your assignment or research, but you won’t be able to do the realistic assessment of the situation. You might fulfill the acceptable standards of data gathering; you might even publish the result and can even bag an award or two, but if the very people who got surveyed are not being able to relate to the statistical conclusion, or if they do not validate it, all the efforts of data collection and analysis goes to vain.

You will be surprised to realize that still at many instances the situation shown of paper and the actual situation experienced by the population is drastically different, though data for situation analysis was gathered from the same population or community. Then why this vast gap of interpreted and locally experienced situation exists? Why this constant apparent difference of opinion between government’s point of view and what media and NGO’s showcase about the city, region or community etc. There are few possible reasons, first is that statistics is very flexible domain, though outcome seems very impactful there is enough scope to mould or influence the direction of outcome, still staying within legally of intellectually acceptable limit. The kind of data you select to gather, variety of assumptions you take into consideration, mode and tool of statistical analysis you choose to go with, time span considered for analysis, selection and heterogeneity of sample itself, there are so many such variables that one can interpret and influence the outcome in any possible direction depending on the purpose or intention. Larger the data set, greater the flexibility of interpretation.

Government being a powerful entity with ample manpower and resources has generally upper hand when it comes to data collection and interpretation and usually less probability of misrepresentation, but again it depends on what they want to prove or convey. Media and NGO who generally lack enough data due to manpower constraint to prove a fact applicable to a larger domain generally tend to rely on emotional values attached to the subject or region and sentiments of population or communities to prove their point. They generally choose small set of data though having high perceived or emotional value and exploit the associated sentiments. On one hand there is ample scope of playing with data and on the other hand equally or more or less scope to play with people’s emotions and sentiments but ultimately both leads to distortion of fact. And this show of constant blame and justification goes on and on. Actual fact seems to lose the significance while this argument is on, later no one really bothers to reach to the actual fact.

Unless statistics as a knowledge stream would device a method and make it a mandate to consider or quantify and incorporate the emotional and sentimental values attached to the subject of research and aspirations of communities to the extent possible along with some kind of post analytic appraisal and indigenous validation method, data representation would remain deceptive and at the mercy of decision making individuals or groups. Meanwhile we as a layman can mitigate this doubt of data misrepresentation by keeping a questioning, skeptical or neutral attitude towards impactful data being presented day to day from both government end as well as media and social welfare representative’s end, without being panicked, without arriving at immediate conclusion, cross verifying the fact from different sources, applying our own head and intuition, knowing and reminding them that their job is to inform us not to instigate or incite us. You are capable enough to judge yourself; all you need is a fair amount of fair data and statistics or simply a fair representation.

By : Anoop Jha

Municipal Finance in India : Municipal Tax Revenue sources

Municipal Revenue generation through Taxation in India

“Local Self Government becomes meaningless in the absence of financial autonomy. It enjoys the power of imposition of local taxes. The municipal bodies must have a wider scope of collection of revenues”

(Source: UIDSSMT)


ULBs have invented many channels and instruments of revenue generation in course of time due to urgency of handling growth, some of the tax sources both conventional and non-conventional, are mentioned below.

TAXES/FEES

CONVENTIONAL MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

Composite Property Tax

Water Charges

Sewerage Charges

Conservancy Charges

Building Permit Fee

Development Charges

Trade Licensing Fee

Advertisement Tax

Shop Room Rent

OTHER GENERAL MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

House Tax 

Show Tax  

Building Plan Fee

Tax on the consumption of Electricity    

Sale of liquor     

Cess on the transfer of immovable property   

License for Dangerous and Offensive trades

Rates are varied in respective ULBs

Rehari License Fee

Tehbazari Tax

Slaughter House Fee

Cattle Pound Fees

Birth & Death Certificate Fee

Copying Fee

Tree Cutting Fee

Library Membership

Ground Tax

Vehicle License Fee

Death & Birth Reg./ Late Fee

Forest /Garden Income

Dog License Fee 

Animal Tax (Cattle Pound)

Trade License Fee

Tax on advertisement other than advertisement published in the newspaper.

NON-CONVENTIONAL MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

Vacant Land Tax

Service Taxes

Surcharge on Land Registration Duty

Water Supply Donations

Water Supply Connection Charges

Water Benefit Tax

Water Betterment Charges

Sewerage Donations

Sewerage Connection Charges

Sewerage Benefit Tax

Sewerage Betterment Charges

Bulk Garbage Collection Charges

Betterment Charges

External Betterment Charges

Open Space Contribution

Impact fee

Transferable Development Right

Premium FSI

Sub-division charges

Planning Permission Betterment

Road Cutting Charges

Street Tax

Frontage Tax

Cess on Infrastructure

Motor Vehicle Tax/Surcharge

Tax on Petrol and Diesel

Business License Fee

Hoarding Charges,

Advertisement Placement Fees,

Cable TV Fee,

TV Advertisement Charges

Royalty on Auctions

INNOVATIVE /UNIQUE MUNICIPAL REVENUE SOURCES

General Obligation Bond/ Municipal Bond

Awarding of development rights,

Town planning schemes (TPS)

Plot/layout readjustment

Additional FSI/FAR

Goodwill auctions

Bank linkages (for Urban Poor)

Capital-based property tax system

Land banking

Transferable development rights (TDR)

Special Education tax

Pilgrim

Octroi

Special and General Sanitation

Shows

Toll on Vehicles,

Timber

Terminal

Menial Domestic Servants

Artisans

Entertainment Tax

SOME OF THE UNIQUE REVENUE STREAMS (THROUGH FEES/ CHARGES) OF MUNICIPALITIES ACROSS MAJOR STATES IN INDIA

Registration Fee

Mutation Fee

Market Fee 

Trade License Fee

Compounding Fee

Slaughter House Fee

License Fee

Betterment / Development Fee

Fire Brigade

Public Health

Swimming Bath Fee,

Stock Registration

Cattle Pound Fee

Teh Bazari Fee

Pilgrim

Scavenging

Prevention of Food Adulteration Fee

Dangerous and Offensive Trade License Fee

Animal Registration Fee

Compounding Fee

Warrant Fee

Bus Stand Fee

Copying Fee

Cart Stand Fee,

Encroachment Fee

Fees from burning ghats

Birth and Death Registration Fee

Sources:

cgg.gov.in/  (http://bit.ly/Jb35C5),

UIDSSMT / http://bit.ly/IkNKk0,

RBI / http://bit.ly/J8i70d

Data mining of local print Media for contextual urban planning

By - Anoop Jha

Analyzing vast database of local and regional newspapers

Media is called the mirror of society and it tells the stories of any region and its people as seen and gathered with continuous efforts.  Imagine the amount of data and information media might have gathered collectively in course of decades of exploration, about any particular region, its people, community and their behavior, their needs and aspirations, their strengths and their opportunities, their social and economic dynamics and potentials. 


[Handpicked Books] 




This huge amount of data can be of tremendous importance for planners and policy makers, if filtered and analysed properly. Let’s take print media for the purpose of data mining since it would be easier to dig from the decades of archive, of national, regional and local newspapers.

Collage of print media

What’s the standard way of research for different planning projects? Planners are generally dependent on secondary data in elementary stage and primary data at later stage to arrive at a conclusion in term of what could be the best suitable plan for a city or region. 


When it comes to secondary data collection, most of the time it’s either published reports or online database which is user uploaded content on which they rely. This relevant information may be authentic, may be half baked, may be partially relevant, may be totally wrong or may not be available even.

Local & regional newspapers

What about local print media? Have we forgot to explore the rich and authentic information which the local newspares have generated across a large time span. Though its little tiresome to filter all those relevant information about the particular region or issue from the thousands of chronological issues of dozens of national and regional newspapers and magazines. But no information can be as authentic, precise and relevant as the collective database of this vast landscape of print media not even primary data. Need is to encourage and formalize a methodology to utilize this untapped knowledge of print media for the planning process.

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.   

Emerging Strategic Trends in Urban and Regional Planning

By - Anoop Jha

Proposed strategic planning interventions

Strategic research in the field of urban and regional planning is an interesting area of study. Formulising sound and sustainable strategies require thorough brainstorming by the planners, scholars, experts, academicians, business representatives, people’s representatives, Welfare organizations, focused professional groups and individuals. It’s high time that a fresh set of strategies should be prepared to tackle the exponentially growing urban and regional problems, like population bubble, shrinking resources, growing confusion chaos in cities etc. Let’s take a look at strategies which has emerging in recent part or can be the possible fresh approach towards better planning.

PROPOSED STRATEGIC PLANS

Cross sectoral learning to increase industry knowledge base,

Multidisciplinary approach for innovative approach, cost effective solutions and swift process,

Decentralization of activities for localised autonomy and efficiency,

Single point contact from public agency for hassle free and faster processing,

Bilateral and Multilateral ties for regional consensus and holistic development,

Environmentally sustainable efforts to curtail the negative externalities of project and boost the downstream benefits

Active Resource mobilization to unlock the untapped potential of the region, population and resources

Pro-poor Regional Planning: Strategic proposal

By- Anoop Jha

Mainstream Socio – economic Integration of poor and underprivileged

Impact of Regional Planning is slow but it is long-lasting. It is directly related to growth of region hence it has to be inclusive for downstream befits. It has evolved to cater to a much larger population base. It shapes the socio-economic future trends of the region and even the nation. There are different strategies which can and should be adopted as part of the Regional Development Plan and Regional Tourism and transportation Plan. Some of the pro-poor strategies for regional planning are as follows –

Social Integration of poor and underprivileged strata of society

Reviving and reinforcing local art, culture, history, of the region   

Promoting local Artisans, craftsman and artists,

Establishing Service and food processing industries

Creating zonal art, craft, food-grain, Wholesale and retail markets as active and vibrant nodes

Networking nodes through all weather road

Small scale industries

Training

Storage facilities

Hospitality

Natural eco tourism, Food and eateries 

Rural tourism

Culture trekking

Nurturing talent pool

Resource mobilisation,

Micro financing and community based program 

Perception of space – a function (f) of season

Seasonal variance in Perception of space

Technically there is unlimited space around us. Space in terms of perception is the space surrounding us in our field of view, what we are concerned here is the finite perceivable space by people which might vary as per surrounding built mass, undulating terrain, presence and intensity of light, environmental conditions, seasonal variation, etc. 

when it comes to seasonal variation it can be divided into primarily two parts winter and seasons other than winter. Winter provides a unique opportunity to experience a different kind of environment in terms of perceiving space around us which is because of presence of Fog and Mist, it is an exhilarating experience to walk in fog, or observing surrounding from window in winter during fog, it is so mysterious in its own sense, since the field of view is limited due to thick fog there is an element of surprise, you are curious to know and see what is beyond the visibility of fog, the same landscape that is dry and monotonous in summer is so attractive, versatile, ever-changing and inspirational  that you want to capture the that moment and view frame into your memory. This is all because winter provides perception of finite space, a limited field of view. 

Definition of “Per Capita Consumption” need to be modefied - Water Sector

By- Anoop Jha

Apparently “per capita consumption” figure is used in financials, estimates and projections of every project, and DPRs across the country and across the sectors, but apparently age old definition (Per Capita Demand in litres per day per head) and formula of “per capita consumption” seem to be flawed and vague. Let’s consider Water Sector for example.

There are few reasons for this apparently flawed 

First, this formula invariably assumes that all the water is being consumed at household, institutional or community level for some useful purpose, but that is not the fact. The fact is “the collective water losses at household and institutional level are huge in any given community, settlement, or housing society”, leaking taps, pipes due to “lack of maintenance and willingness to maintain” and water wastage related to casual behavior of users “due to lack of education and sense of responsibility”  are a regular phenomenon of almost every household. Planning bodies and Policy makers have to understand that unless they stop these water losses or unless they change the definition from  “Per capita Consumption” incorporating the water losses, there demand estimates, future projections, projects cost estimates, will inevitably  be vague and skewed,

Some interesting extract from the discussion on “India Water Portal” (indiawaterportal.org) on the similar subject are as follows-

Link: http://www.indiawaterportal.org/ask/5409

“ When the norm for a large city is 250 lpcd, it doesn’t mean the residents actually get or use 250 lpcd. A large city has many other water needs such as public use in offices, railways stations, commercial places, for fire fighting, public horticulture, etc. All these are distributed over the population and indicated as per capita use” - Chetan Pandit

“The norms do not take in to account the climate. No distinction is made between Delhi that has a huge water requirement for desert coolers in summer and a bath twice a day is not a luxury; Pune that uses some coolers but not as common as Delhi and usually bath once a day is enough; and Copenhagen where the maximum summer temperature in 17 C and most of the time it is below 10 C” -Chetan Pandit

“Water consumption is affected by various factors which are variable and hence it is difficult to precisely assess the demand of public. There are empirical formulas available for estimating a fair value of domestic consumption for design of water supply systems. However, Indian Standard (BIS):1172-1993 is the basis of 135 litres/capita/day. This 135 litres/capita/person includes drinking (5 litres/capita/day), Cooking (5), Bathing (55), Washing of clothes (20), Washing of Utensils (10), Washing & Cleaning of house (10) and flushing of toilets (30 litres/capita/day)” - J.Harsha

Second, basis, thumbrules, lifestyle, requirement and related values for arriving at “standard per capita water consumption” in different urban areas changes in courses of time and cahnge as per seasonal variation which need to be accounted for calculation per standard water consumption” Standards need to be revised after a certain time interval.

“Details of present norms for water consumption are available in CPHEEO Manual on Water Supply and Treatment and Per capita water supply in selected urban centers of India is available at Water Supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste Management in Urban Areas by National Institute of Urban Affairs, 2005”

Third, accuracy of standard per capita water consumption figure is directly proportional to the size of sample (no. of household) surveyed, which may vary from agency to agency which prepares the report. Larger the sample more realistic the results would be. There should be Policy norms for minimum size of sample to be surveyed and heterogeneity of the sample.