Here is an interview of Sheila Dikshit, the Chief Minister of Delhi. Delhi is a very very old city, has 13 million people currently living there with 500,000 moving in every year! you can imagine the challenges of managing and administering that city!. Ken Livingstone or his successors think they have a problem, HA!, they should try this city.
Anyway, here are some extracts if you do not want to register to read the full interview.
Delhi is straining under the weight of a vast and growing population. More than 13 million1 people live there, and half a million more move in every year. Decision making can be excruciatingly slow, especially since her administration shares authority in the city with elected municipal leaders and a lieutenant governor appointed by India’s president.
We have people with outstanding and very innovative minds. This country is not short of wealth. This country is not short of skills. This country is not short of brains. What we lack, and I think what we always have lacked in this country, is effective management in the government.
I can give you a very interesting example. Government schools in Delhi were performing very badly. The pass percentage on standardized tests was 35 to 37 percent. We looked into it and found that the government spent 900 rupees per child per month, while nongovernment schools, which were performing better, were spending a maximum of 700 to 800 rupees per child. We brought the teachers together and asked, “Obviously, you are the best paid, so why are you not delivering? What do we need to do to motivate you?” And when the teachers got motivated, children performed better. Today the pass percentage has risen to 82 percent, half a percentage point more than nongovernment schools.
I can give you another example concerning the problem of exporting. There were 17 different forms that had to be filled out to export something. So we had a talk with the relevant authorities and said, “Please, let’s reduce this.” Other countries have 2 or 3 forms, and it’s done with. So they set up this committee, and when they came back with a solution, instead of 17 forms, 25 forms had to be filled out. So you see it’s the mind-set, especially in administration, that needs to be changed. We are addressing it, but I don’t think we are addressing it seriously enough.
I was in Himachal3 just about four weeks ago. One panchayat,4 which is the lowest level of government, told me that several years ago they were poverty stricken. They couldn’t get even two square meals a day. In the past three years they made nine crores5 exporting flowers. So they’re beginning to learn. Where the income of 60 to 80 families was virtually zero it came up to nine crores. They’ve tasted it. And there’s going to be no stopping them from becoming role models for the rest of the panchayat—year round.
The Quarterly: Has infrastructure been able to keep pace with growth in the city?
Sheila Dikshit: It is keeping pace now, but we should be ahead. The fact that we have been able to cater to the half million people coming into the city each year in everything except housing is the good point. The bad point is that it’s slow. For me, it’s not fast enough. With the technologies we have today, we should be able to build infrastructure much faster.
Archaic systems and a great multiplicity of authorities in Delhi are slowing us down. You have the federal government. You have my government. You have the municipality. We are a state government without, for instance, the power of owning land. It’s a great problem. We have a lieutenant governor here representing the government of India, which no other state has. We work with our hands tied. It’s very unique.
AND THIS IS CRUCIAL!
The Quarterly: How can other Indian cities follow Delhi’s example?
Sheila Dikshit: They should be made into city-states,11 and we should start with five cities: Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, and so on. I am sure politically no one would agree with this, but I think administratively it would be good for the country’s development. Create city-states and give them the power to undertake development. They should not be under the state governments but rather under their own chief minister or chief administrator or whatever you want to call the position. They would collect their own revenues, maybe sharing a percentage with the other states. You have to develop your cities, especially if you’re envisaging that in the next 20 years 55 to 60 percent of India’s population will be urban. You just can’t do it with the same old administration where you’re dependent on various constituents for every penny.
1 comment:
LOL at the form thing. However here is a person who is an invaluable asset for the nation of India. I hope we don't lose her in the dung-melée of politics and she can inspire other administrators to be as intellectually forward thinking.
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