Editorial 1: A reminder of the flaws in India’s urbanisation policies
Context:
- A report by the World Bank, released in November 2022, on financing India’s urban infrastructure needs, focuses on private investments ameliorating urban problems. The push to attract private capital, since the 1990s, followed by the urban reforms under the United Progressive Alliance I regime, the Smart City mission, and now this report, continues to plague India’s policy paradigm in the urban sector.
Urban financing:
- So, has the reform process really been able to attract private capital to urban infrastructure? After three decades of reforms, urban finance predominantly comes from the government. Of the finances needed to fund urban capital expenditures, 48%, 24% and 15% are derived from the central, State, and city governments, respectively. Public–private partnership projects contribute 3% and commercial debt 2%.
- In the last few years, various reports have estimated a huge demand for funding urban infrastructure; for example, the Isher Judge Ahluwalia report says that by 2030, nearly ₹39.2 lakh crore would be required. A McKinsey report on urbanisation has a figure of $1.2 trillion, or ₹90 lakh crore.
World Bank estimates
- The World Bank estimates that nearly $840 billion (₹70 lakh crore) would be needed for investment in urban India to meet the growing demands of the population, and $55 billion would be required annually.
- The flagship programmes of the government, the Smart City mission, the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), etc., are not more than ₹2 lakh crore (that too for a period of five years). So, how will such a gap between demand and supply be matched?
- The core idea of the report and the solutions suggested include “improving the fiscal base and creditworthiness of the Indian cities. Cities must institute a buoyant revenue base and be able to recover the cost of providing its services”. In simpler terms, it means increasing property taxes, user fees and service charges to name a few.
- This report already points out that nearly 85% of government revenue is from the cities. This means that urban citizens are contributing large revenues even as the World Bank report’s emphasis is on the levying of more burdens in the form of user charges on utilities, etc. But the point is even by enhancing the tax base, will it be sufficient to meet the rising demands of urban infrastructure in the cities?
- The answer is that it will not.
The Shimla example
- The Shimla water works was transformed into a single utility in 2016-17, called the Greater Shimla Water Supply and Sewage Circle (GSWSSC) under the Shimla Municipal Corporation. The Bank rendered help in the form of a soft loan, ensuring an adequate supply of water and proper distribution by the utility, but under the Shimla Municipal Corporation.
- However, in 2017-18, it changed the character of GSWSSC to a company and formed the Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Limited, now run under a board of directors, but outside the ambit of the municipality. Such machinations shall not serve the purpose and will be perilous to the entire purpose of the urbanisation in India.
Finding alternative paths
- The basic problem with this report and other reports drawn up in a similar fashion is that they are made using a top to bottom approach, with too much of a focus on technocentric solutions using very high capital-intensive technologies.
- For the urban context, plans must be made from below by engaging with the people and identifying their needs.
- Empowering the city governments and the people at large is the second point. In the national task force that reviewed the 74th Constitutional Amendment, chaired by K.C. Sivaramakrishnan, many suggestions were made such as:
- Empowering the people
- Transferring subjects to the city governments
- Suggesting that 10% of the income-tax collected from cities be given back to them
- Ensuring that this corpus fund was utilised only for infrastructure building. (This would ensure that city governments had an advantage in ensuring rapid transformation.)
- Another important aspect of urban infrastructure is linked to urban governance, which is in shambles in most parts of the country. Regular elections should be held in cities and there must be empowerment through the transferring of the three Fs: finances, functions, and functionaries.
- Cities primarily are run by parastatals and the city governments hardly have any role to play in the smooth functioning of such parastatals.
Smart Cities Mission (SCM):
- Smart Cities Mission is an innovative initiative by the Government of India launched in 2015 to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local development and harnessing technology as a means to create smart outcomes for citizens.
- ‘Smart city’ is a city equipped with basic infrastructure to give a decent quality of life, a clean and sustainable environment through application of some smart solutions.
- It includes basic infrastructure like adequate water supply, electricity supply, sustainable sanitation and solid waste management, efficient urban mobility, affordable housing and ensuring robust IT connectivity and e-governance.
- Smart Cities focus on their most pressing needs and on the greatest opportunities to improve lives. They tap a range of approaches – digital and information technologies, urban planning best practices, public-private partnerships, and policy change – to make a difference. They always put people first.
Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)
- AMRUT was launched by the Government in 2015 in 500 selected cities and towns across all States/ Union Territories (UTs). AMRUT focuses on development of infrastructure in the sectors of water supply, sewerage management, storm water drainage, non-motorized urban transport, and green spaces and parks. A set of Reforms and Capacity Building are also part of the Mission.
- The AMRUT Mission consists of the following major components:
- Capacity building
- Reform implementation
- Water supply and management of sewerage and septage
- Drainage of storm water
- Improvement in urban transport facilities
- Development of green spaces and parks.
Conclusion:
- The World Bank report is another reminder of the tragedy which Indian urbanisation is witnessing — “policy paralysis from the top”. We must rejuvenate our urban landscape with adequate funding, backed by a sta
Editorial 2: India’s plan to eradicate measles, rubella
Context:
- As the new year dawned, so did a crucial target for India. India had set a target to eliminate measles and rubella (MR) by 2023, having missed the earlier deadline of 2015 as well as the extended deadline of 2020, due to a variety of reasons, exacerbated by disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
About measles and rubella:
- Measles- Measles is a very contagious respiratory viral infection that causes a total-body skin rash and flu-like symptoms. It is transmitted person-to-person via droplets when infected people sneeze or cough.
- Initial symptoms usually occur 10–12 days after infection and comprise high fever, runny nose, bloodshot eyes. Several days later, a rash develops and the most severe complication includes blindness, encephalitis (an infection that causes brain swelling), severe diarrhoea and pneumonia. There is no specific medical treatment for measles.
- Rubella- Rubella is a viral disease caused by the rubella virus that mostly affects the skin and lymph nodes. In children, rubella (commonly called German measles or 3-day measles) is usually a mild illness. But the infection is dangerous for pregnant women because it can cause serious health problems in their babies.
- Rubella is transmitted in airborne droplets from the nose, mouth or throat of infected people.
Importance of this target:
- The measles virus is one of the world’s most contagious human viruses that kills more than 1,00,000 children every year globally, and rubella is a leading vaccine-preventable cause of birth defects, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Both measles and rubella can be prevented by just two doses of a safe and effective vaccine. Over the past two decades, the measles vaccine is estimated to have averted more than 30 million deaths globally, as per the WHO’s statistics. In both diseases, the symptoms are a rash and fever. While measles has a high fatality rate, rubella infection in a pregnant woman will have an impact on the foetus, resulting in birth defects.
- From October 2022, in an outbreak of measles in Maharashtra, at least 15 children died among several hundreds who contracted the infection. However, experts aver that this outbreak will contribute to ramping up herd immunity in the population which along with a robust vaccination programme will help achieve the necessary targets.
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What has India done to achieve targets?
- Though the pandemic led to poor immunisation rates, India had done significantly well in alleviating measles and rubella. During 2010–2013, India conducted a phased measles catch-up immunisation for children aged 9 months–10 years in 14 States, vaccinating approximately 119 million children.
- Mission Indradhanush was launched in 2014 to ramp up vaccinating the unvaccinated population. During 2017–2021, India adopted a national strategic plan for measles and rubella elimination (NSPMRE), and introduced rubella-containing vaccine (RCV) into the routine immunisation programme, besides launching a nationwide measles-rubella supplementary immunisation activity (SIA) catch-up campaign.
- It also transitioned from outbreak-based surveillance to case-based acute fever and rash surveillance, and more than doubled the number of laboratories in the measles-rubella network.
Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 4.0 :
- India is implementing the largest immunisation programme globally where it annually covers more than three crore pregnant women and 2.6 crore children through the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP).
- It provides vaccination against 12 Vaccine-Preventable Diseases (VPD) i.e.
- Diphtheria
- Whooping cough
- Tetanus
- Polio
- Tuberculosis
- Hepatitis B
- Meningitis and pneumonia
- Haemophilus influenzae type B infections (HIB)
- Japanese encephalitis (JE)
- Rotavirus vaccine
- Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV)
- Measles-rubella (MR).
- Union Ministry of Health in 2022 had launched the 4th phase of mission Indradhanush called IMI 4.0. It will ensure that Routine Immunization (RI) services reach unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children and pregnant women. Children up to two years will be covered in this drive.
- While the pace of routine immunisation has slowed down due to Covid-19 pandemic, IMI 4.0 will immensely contribute in filling the gaps and make lasting gains towards universal immunisation.
Way forward:
- We must try to meet our target district by district — give each district a target to achieve the required rate of immunisation, conduct a robust fever and rash surveillance programme, besides testing for MR.
- A well-oiled machinery rests in place, and it is possible to be free of the disease as some other countries have recently demonstrated, including Sri Lanka, the Maldives and South Korea.
- It is important to provide full support to the ground level staff who implement the programme — the village health nurses, ASHA (accredited social health activists) workers, anganwadi and ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) workers.
- While targets will be easier to achieve in States such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala, thanks to the robust immunisation infrastructure, in the other States, additional efforts should be taken to work towards achieving the target.
Conclusion:
- The WHO has expressed hope that India could indeed reach the target. We can reach MR elimination goals in India if we strengthen surveillance by finding, investigating, and collecting and testing a sample for every suspected case, in each district in every State and UT. Experts underlined the importance of being thorough in public health outreach. Because, after all, a threat of infection anywhere is a threat everywhere.
- ble and informed policy intervention for a long term urbanisation development programme.