How cities don t run

30/12/2002

Last week I met an official of the local municipal corporation to discuss a property tax case, a blatantly inaccurate and astronomical assessment. I asked: why? Said this officer, "Harassment is our tool of governance." Of course the property assessment was inflated. It had to be. We have to presume the worst and then issue the notice. That was the way of doing things, he explained.

I was stumped for a moment. But then I realised this is exactly how city governments are run. It is best to have ridiculous laws, outdated and out-manoeuvrable, which cannot be used as the basis of practice. These laws make the majority of people in the city dishonest or illegal. They also ensure it is easier and less cumbersome to be so. It is no accident that corruption becomes the way of life in such circumstances.

Madhu Kishwar of Manushi has estimated that there are over 0.5-0.6 million hawkers in the city. The municipal corporation only licenses a few. The rest pay over Rs 500-800 each month as bribes - a staggering Rs 480 crore of annual grease money in this informal economy. No wonder it thrives.

Take the issue of illegal settlements. Over 50 per cent of Delhi - more than 6 million people - live in what is popularly known as "unauthorised colonies" and slums. The estimates for most other metros is similar. Over the years, the settlements grow. Policy says they must not exist. Reality dictates that there is no option. Delhi gets over 0.3 million migrants each year, and housing is non-existent.

The reality also is that it suits the politician-administration combine to keep the city illegal. Encroachment of public land is a big business. Then there is the even bigger business of extracting rent for 'illegal' use of public space. Above all this towers the ultimate way of profiteering: making political capital out of regularising the encroachments.

The politician has made it into a fine and corrupt craft. In Delhi, bjp veteran Madan Lal Khurana wants all unauthorised colonies to be regularised, all unauthorised construction within one's boundary wall to be regularised, all illegal shops in residential areas to be regularised. Moreover, Khurana says that he will get all such illegal activities made legal in a jiffy, if he is elected to power. The message is clear: you break the law. I will make it all right. How much more can the system be abused?

The Khurana-way is deplorable. But so is thinking that the problem does not exist. Illegal settlements and slums are the city today. If we dismiss half the population as illegal, then what is legal about the rest? Today in Delhi, unauthorised colonies, roughly 2.5 million people, have no municipal amenities

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