Only 19 out of 269 municipal corporations have issued bonds since SEBI guidelines were released in 2015. This represents less than 1% of total outstanding public-sector debt.
The private sector stays out of climate resilience funding because projects lack revenue models, bankability, and local data. But empowered Urban Local Bodies can unlock that.
Over 60% of Indian cities are left ‘orphaned’ without elected urban governments. Citizen groups, civic influencers, and informal ‘nagarsevaks’ are filling the gaps in Mumbai and Nagpur.
According to India Infrastructure Report 2023, Gujarat ranks 1st with 33 Public Private Partnership projects in urban areas, followed by Uttar Pradesh & Maharashtra.
Other factors include easy availability of govt funds, lack of political will to improve service delivery & systemic absence of timely audits, says India Infrastructure Report 2023
Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs is crafting a single portal to aggregate data from ULBs, spanning domains like planning, finance, & citizen services, to improve their functioning.
India and Bangladesh should remain alert and remember that Turkey’s increasing role in Dhaka’s defence capabilities goes against India’s security and strategic interests.
This is the game every nation is now learning to play. Some are finding new allies or seeing value among nations where they’d seen marginal interest. The starkest example is India & Europe.
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