Venkaiah asks states to tone up urban governance

New Delhi, Nov 21 (INN): Union Minister for Urban Development M Venkaiah Naidu has expressed serious concern over what he called, 'deficit in urban governance' and urged the states and union territories to tone up the same to address emerging challenges. He was addressing a meeting of Chief Secretaries of states and UTs here on Friday, convened to discuss the issue of providing shelter to urban homeless.

Emphasizing the need for 'people centred urban planning, Naidu suggested that states and UTs should come out with white papers in respect of each city with details of revenues, expenditure, availability of land, water and power, projects under implementation and proposed with resource requirement, tax structure and proposed enhancement etc., to enable informed people's participation in urban development.

Stressing on the need for 'quality municipal administration', Naidu said there is a need for specialized 'municipal cadre'. He also suggested that there should be a special module on municipal administration as a component of training of IAS officers.

Venkaiah Naidu stated that the next years will be crucial for economic development of the country and equally so for ensuring better urban governance since over 75% of GDP is expected to be generated in urban areas.

In this context, he said that deficiencies in urban governance should be addressed through institution and capacity building, effective management of land and other utilities, governance reforms, empowering urban local bodies to make them effective institutions of urban governance and smart administrative and political leadership.

He said, huge private investments required for new urban development and housing initiatives can be mobilized only through quick, accountable and transparent decision making.

The Union Minister urged the states and UTs to learn from the experiences of implementation of JNNURM for better planning and execution of urban housing and development projects. He assured that the central government will allow necessary flexibility in execution of centrally sponsored schemes.

He underscored the need to blend the elements of nature and local culture while planning for urban areas to enable quality urban life.

After deliberations on providing shelters to the urban homeless, the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation will file an affidavit in the Supreme Court, as desired by the Apex Court.