Why Jaipur’s municipal mess is India’s problem too

In India, let alone having the vision to attract investment, cities don’t seem able to solve even the most basic civic problems. How exactly are we then planning to compete with China?

A garbage-strewn street in Jaipur | Image for representation | By special arrangement

Last month, the BJP government in Rajasthan decided to merge the two municipal corporations of multiple cities in the state—Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Kota—into a single board, also reducing the number of wards in each city. This move effectively flipped the 2019 decision by the Congress government at the time to split the municipal corporations into two for easier governance.

Every single political party in India talks about decentralisation or Swaraj whenever they’re giving speeches on democracy or governance. In its stated philosophy on the party website, the BJP champions a Swadeshi economy based on the principles of “economic democracy” and “decentralisation”. Home Minister Amit Shah went as far as saying that “from the Indian perspective, the meaning of Swaraj is not just limited to self-rule, but also encompasses the elements of the country’s own unique method of governance, languages, dharma, culture and arts.”

 The Congress also keeps reiterating its commitment to decentralisation and stronger local governance. In their 2024 Lok Sabha manifestos, the BJP advocated for cooperative urban governance and modern regulatory frameworks, while the Congress pushed for constitutional amendments to decentralise power, including direct mayoral elections.

But every vision for Indian cities seems to exist only in political speeches. The situation on the ground continues to be dismal.

 

Broken urban governance

Urban governance is critical to the vision of a developed India. By 2030, about 75 per cent of the country’s GDP will come from cities. The urban population will double to 63 crore, representing nearly 40 per cent of the total population. But unfortunately, most Indian cities continue to play “catch-up” development—colonies get built without permission, then regularised by the government later; traffic jams continue for years, followed by a flyover here and there; air pollution killing hundreds results in ad-hoc, stop-gap measures. Exploding populations, crumbling infrastructure, choked air and water bodies, endless traffic are hesitatingly followed by lax governance

But what is the underlying problem at the core of all this? It’s the problem of completely broken urban governance. A system that looks at urban centres only as hubs for resource and rent extraction. A system that remembers its cities only when pushing a political narrative. A system that governs urban bodies only when convenient.

Pick any major city in India and look at the state of its municipal bodies. In Mumbai, which has India’s richest local body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), the term of the previous municipal administration ended in 2022. The city has essentially been run by an administrator since then. Polls are unlikely anytime soon, owing to an ongoing Supreme Court case on increasing the number of wards.

In Bengaluru, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMC) hasn’t held elections since 2015, almost ten years ago. The current Congress government is now planning to split Bengaluru into seven municipal corporations, each to be led by a commissioner directly appointed by the state government.

Similarly, Gurugram municipal elections were held after a delay of two years, severely impacting civic governance. Even in Delhi, the MCD, which was trifurcated by the Congress government in 2011, was merged back into a single municipality by the BJP in 2022, delaying the elections significantly.

Jaipur’s governance mess

Let me play out the tale of Jaipur in detail. Why Jaipur? Because it’s one of the fastest-growing Tier 2 cities in India, and has been featured among the top 3 emerging cities in the country by Forbes. It is reflective of the broader problem plaguing cities of India.

As a resident of Jaipur who was raised in the city, the state of affairs here has completely astonished me. Jaipur is well-regarded as the first planned city of India, and was one of the first to be constructed in a single phase. It is also one among the few of India’s gateways to the world—Rajasthan is one of the most visited states by foreign tourists. But the urban governance in the city has become a laughing stock.

Established in 1994 under the Rajasthan Panchayat Act of 1959, Jaipur had one municipal corporation, comprising 91 wards, up until 2019. The BJP had continued to dominate the municipal corporation since 1994, so the Congress decided a work-around. The municipal corporation of Jaipur, along with two other cities, was broken into two. The demarcation was done quite weirdly—overnight, the city ended up having 250 wards, with clear signs of gerrymandering. And Congress did succeed—they ended up winning the Jaipur Heritage Nigam, installing their own mayor, while BJP retained Jaipur Greater Nigam.

But five years later, as the BJP wrestled into power in 2023, this is all set to change again.

The BJP has now decided to re-merge the Nigams into one single municipality, and is promulgating direct election for the position of mayor. Funnily enough, the demarcation is being done using the population census of 2011, after which the city has witnessed almost 25 per cent population growth. A lot had to be done to run two corporations—separate offices, separate bureaucratic appointments, separate contracts, separate budgets, separate revenue streams, separate waste collection, separate waste management, etc. Now all of this is being taken back.

A Nigam whose very existence continues to be in question is further marred by significant corruption. Both the mayors and their families have been accused of serious corruption in the past.

In 2021, BJP’s Dr Somya Gurjar, Mayor from Jaipur Greater, was suspended and her husband was arrested on charges of corruption worth Rs 20 crore. Her own party members allegedly boycotted her. She was also suspended in a separate case of violence against the Nagar Nigam commissioner, only to be later reinstated by the high court. More dramatically, Congress’s mayor from Heritage, Munesh Gurjar, was suspended by her own party, which was in power back then, when her husband was caught by the Anti-Corruption Bureau taking a bribe worth Rs 2 lakh.

Can anyone imagine someone being sacked by their own party in India? How bad would you need to be, for that to happen? Furthermore, eight Congress councillors joined the BJP after the high court finally proceeded with the corruption case against Munesh Gurjar, thereby installing a BJP mayor in Heritage as well. The Nigams became a standing joke.

The Nigams continue to falter in day-to-day governance as well. The Standing Committee of Greater Nagar Nigam, for instance, is supposed to meet once every month. However, the committee has only met three times in three years. Even then, the meeting primarily focused on controversial communal issues like putting “Halal-Jhatka” on shops, promotion of workers, etc. More worryingly, Jaipur Greater Nigam’s budget was sent directly to the government without any discussion during the 2022–23 and 2023–24 sessions, while the recent 2024–25 budget was passed in haste, without giving prior notification to the councillors. Councillors even reported significant discrepancies in some of the numbers published in the budget.

All this while, Jaipur’s local development continued going on a downward trajectory.

In an RTI I filed with the Swachh Survekshan team, there was a shocking revelation—Jaipur’s Swachhta rankings have declined continuously over the past few years, from 39 in 2018 to 173 (Greater) and 171 (Heritage) in 2023.

Garbage depots have become a common sight in the city, door-to-door collection happens in select zones, waste segregation is happening only on paper, and the city continues to see the rise of landfills.

The landfills, in particular, seem to be only increasing every passing year and a visit to these sites reveals a very worrisome picture.

 

Local failures, national cost

This is pretty much the story of the majority of municipal bodies in India. And it doesn’t bode well for the country.

Globally, name any burgeoning or developed country—be it the UK, US, or China—and you’ll find that they have all grown on the back of thriving cities. Cities are among the strongest units of governance in these countries, becoming economic, socio-cultural, infrastructural, and political powerhouses.

In London, for example, the mayor is such a powerful position that one of them, Boris Johnson, went on to become Prime Minister of the UK. In China, cities fiercely compete against each other to attract investments, thereby boosting the overall investment attractiveness of the country.

In India, let alone having the vision to attract investment, cities don’t seem able to solve even the most basic civic problems. When Indian cities should be talking about attracting investors, making cities liveable, and drafting action plans to combat heat waves, they are busy juggling the bare essentials of urban governance.

How exactly are we then planning to compete with China? How exactly are we planning to build our cities? How exactly are we planning to achieve decentralisation in India?

Ashutosh Ranka is a national spokesperson for the Aam Aadmi Party. He is a public health consultant and a graduate from IIT Kanpur and London School of Economics. Views are personal.

(Edited by Asavari Singh)