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Democracy doesn't just mean voting one political party to power for five years and then sitting
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back and hoping it all works out.
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Democracy only functions well when there are safeguards that keep a check on the people
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in power and mechanisms that keep governments transparent and accountable.
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In India, though, democracy has become just a once-in-five-years-samasha.
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Government is an opaque parasitic beast that sucks citizens dry while delivering no services
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And the elections that happen every five years are a contest between competing mafias, all
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of them trying to bribe their way to power, one way or another, so they can rake it in
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while we suffer silently.
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What is a citizen to do?
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Welcome to The Seen and the Unseen, our weekly podcast on economics, politics and behavioural
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Welcome to The Seen and the Unseen.
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I tend to be a pessimist when it comes to government.
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Governments never grow smaller.
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It is in the nature of the beast to grow and grow like a parasite sucking the blood of
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And yet, we can't just sit there and let it happen.
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We need to fight back for our own sakes.
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And my guest today is a man who has spent two decades doing just that.
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V. Ravi Chander, a businessman based in Bangalore, describes himself as a civic evangelist and
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a patron saint of lost causes.
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While those around him have merely outraged, he has actually dived into the cesspool at
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his local government and worked hard on bringing about reform.
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I caught up with him at the sidelines of the Bangalore Literature Festival a few weeks
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ago and I found his insights to be incredibly thought provoking.
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Without any further ado, here it is.
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Ravi welcome to the show.
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Ravi, I am really glad to have you here and you know you have been working in the field
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of urban governance for the last 17 years, you are described by people as a civic evangelist
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and you have described yourself as a patron saint of lost causes.
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So I want to delve a little further into this.
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Why, I mean even though you are being ironic, why did urban governance seem like such a
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lost cause to you and clearly you don't really feel that way because you have been at it
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That's true, actually it all started in 2000 when we had the Bangalore Agenda Task Force
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and Nandan asked whether I would serve on that and I had no idea what urban governance
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That's Nandan Nalikani who has been an old friend of yours.
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That's right, that's right.
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So I had no idea and I said okay and trust me within the first month of working in the
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space with civic authorities and the like, I just got hooked.
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I realized that this was an area that could do with a lot of reform, that was the obvious
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thing when you go with a private sector consulting mind.
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But as you worked within the system, you realized how dysfunctional it was, how difficult it
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was to get outcomes that people want in the city space and when you work in an environment
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like that, you suddenly start thinking about what can you do differently and I'll talk
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about the property tax reform that we did at that point of time.
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How you can make a difference in the public space with innovative ideas from outside.
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The reason for patron saint for lost causes after 17 years, well we have Bangalore's traffic,
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we have Bangalore's potholes and a whole lot more.
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So at one level is the lost cause in the sense that it's not getting fixed but at another
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level even when you make an inch of positive movement in the space, it gives you a whole
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lot of confidence that change is possible and that's the reason I've been in at it
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for 17 years in Bangalore and some other cities and even an inch of positive movement in the
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context and given the scale is actually a heck of a lot of.
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In fact, I think you're going to see change in the space incrementally marginally better
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tomorrow compared to think I don't think you're going to see a dramatic day and night difference
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in urban governance and here actually I'd like to take for example the property tax
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that I mentioned earlier.
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Now back in 2000 before that we had a system of property tax where the revenue inspector
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came and decided what tax you needed to pay and there was an adjustment between the revenue
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inspector and the house owner in terms of the tax paid and the money to be paid to him.
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We came up in 2000 with a self-assessment scheme of property tax built on a basic premise.
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Trust the citizen to tell the truth rather than a revenue officer to uncover a lie.
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So you make a very simple system by which people can comply and what we noticed in that
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process is that more and more people chose to come forward under the self-assessment
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scheme and if you see the statistics in Bangalore property tax over the last 17 years has collections
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have jumped over 20 times under the self-assessment scheme.
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So the point really is if you think differently about an issue like property tax rather than
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having a command and control revenue inspector large.
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You have a citizen trusting system.
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You suddenly find that change is possible and then you know when you told me the story
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earlier when we were having breakfast today it kind of blew my mind because it's very
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People you know people in government generally think oh we have to control the citizens we
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have to bring them to heel and here what you're saying is no leave him alone let him self-assess
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trust the guy he'll do it.
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And one reason it worked of course as you pointed out was that under the older rent
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seeking regime you would have a certain amount of money going to bribes and a certain amount
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of money going to taxes and here even though the tax collection was higher because they
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were paying zero bribes they benefited as well by paying less money.
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Actually the system started getting more money and the revenue inspector was starved of his
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bribe that was the essential reform that we did and it worked because citizens loved it
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and the other thing I realized in that process that once citizens taste something that they
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love in the civic space it's almost very difficult to reverse it.
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In fact the system did try to reverse the self-assessment scheme but citizens protested
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saying we like it we want this.
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So the way to get change in the civic space is get the citizens to taste the good things
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that are possible and that's the way change is possible.
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How hard was it to for example convince people about this kind of thinking when you first
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started doing your pro bono evangelism because typically in government people just want to
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expand their own power the incentives are towards increase your budgets and increase
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rent seeking opportunities and government never actually reduces power or gives up control
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and like this property tax incident you mentioned itself seems to me almost unbelievable like
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why would they just allow that opportunity from them to go away but in general while
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you had this one success do you find that mindsets are an impediment to getting things
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In fact you know it's about power it's about money there's a whole lot of money riding
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on projects in fact you know anecdotally I've built estimates of the kind of leakage in
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civic projects and if you include ghost works the extent of leakage in civic projects is
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almost about 50-55 percent that's the level but including ghost works.
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But typically you can say as a rule of thumb 25 to 30 percent in a project is definitely
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So what are ghost works for just for my list guys?
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So I found there were five categories of ghost works for example.
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So you'll find project works which you know there's a reason why they name roads with
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new names so if you go actually to the project file there will be one work in the old name
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of the road and the same work in the new name of the road and unless you know that both
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the roads are the same you already created one ghost work.
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I have seen projects which say that while going northwards the left side of the road
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and the same road project being described going the other way as the right side of the
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Then another one you have private sector people coming and saying I will do this road for
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Now the civic system waits for that road to be completed as a donation by the private
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sector and then they raise the same thing as a job in their works because the work's
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already done and that's another kind of ghost work and I could go on.
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The problem really is we have a pretty dysfunctional system and it's a long road back to fix it
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and corruption and this is clearly one important thing to deal with.
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The other thing really is we want to bring change in this place.
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I think if you ask for change in terms of giving up power etc it's not going to happen.
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So you have to work in terms of making the benefit case for the person doing it.
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So for example I hate to say it but they like projects so if they see that possible projects
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at the end of this road for example in the case of property tax the reason why they don't
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mind getting more money is the ability to do more projects.
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So they are okay with doing this because they know their downstream benefits with more money
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That's a very perverse kind of reality check for me because what it means is that whenever
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you then sell a plan or a project to these guys you're not selling it to them because
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it's good for the citizens.
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You're selling it to them you're keeping their own self interest in mind that hey I'll have
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projects at the end of this or I'll be you know I'll have this much more.
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I mean they have that in mind because they are able to smell the opportunities and we
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We are just saying these are good things to do and their mind is clicking away saying
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what are the possible downstream benefits of doing this.
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But over time I guess you do keep into account how they are looking at it as well.
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In fact I keep saying you know the problem with a lot of theoreticians who give suggestions
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in the civic space they come from what I call a systems theory outlook.
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No no systems theory is this orderly world everybody knows their place and things are
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happening in orderly way.
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I always say that in this space very crudely we need a modified game theory.
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People everybody has an agenda they have their own goals and objectives and the trick to
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get good outcomes good people wanting good outcomes have to understand everyone's motivation
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and find an alignment of stars of these diverse group of people which gets you the good outcomes
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but they believe that they are getting what they want.
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So I really feel that we need this whole new science to develop of what I crudely call
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modified game theory because frankly to sit back and say people must be good they must
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do good things is not going to happen.
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So we have to realize it's an imperfect world and as I mentioned earlier dysfunctional set
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up the trick is to really figure out how to navigate this system and still get some good
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That seems deeply complex because you have all these self-interested actors acting in
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their own self-interest very rationally with different ends and to find a way to sort of
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nudge them in the same direction it seems a very hard task.
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So there actually Amit I'd like to come in for example lots of people mentioned that
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a directly elected mayor in the city is the way to go for instance which is really the
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second tier of state government giving their powers to the third tier of city government.
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Not going to happen because this is where the power lies but you want them to give away
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power in fact I think there's even a private members bill in Parliament seeking directly
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elected mayor it's not going to happen but if you start thinking about how it could potentially
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happen if you look at the history Sardar Patel Nehru Rajendra Prasad where all city mayors
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they cut their teeth in city government before they went to state and national politics.
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So the way potentially to think about directly elected mayor is if we got the political dynasties
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of different parties their children to convince their parents that I could be the mayor of
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the city let's go for that route and if they did it across parties it has a greater chance
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of you getting the directly elected mayor because different political science of political
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families are saying this is the way to go then saying that the state must give away
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power to the third tier of city government because that is not going to happen.
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So this is my example of thinking in terms of what could motivate people to give away
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power to a third tier that lies with the political system and we got to figure out how to make
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Which is very interesting and pragmatic and something I hadn't thought of where what you
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are essentially saying is that there are limits to democratic advocacy within the system so
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instead you subvert it by talking to the privileged elite so that they can use some of the privilege
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in taking the system in the direction.
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Except I don't want to be considered as a subversive guy it's just about being pragmatic
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as you said we all know that you need the city you need somebody accountable a directly
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elected mayor that's the way to go everybody by and large agrees that.
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The question is how do we get there and to me anything that gets us to a good outcome
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of that kind is worth considering and that's where I was coming to I mean people could
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make the philosophical argument that the end never justifies the means and therefore blah
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blah blah but anyway the pragmatic guy in this space because I'm very clear that you
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know the ecosystem is quite compromised and and it's extremely difficult to make the moral
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argument to do the right thing right so we have to navigate this minefield so your sense
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would be look there's too much at stake and we have to be practical and get things done
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and somehow that's that's my bill however we can so let me now take you back to a broader
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fundamental question what is wrong with our cities today the way they are governed see
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first thing is there's no one in charge of the cities to carry on with something I said
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earlier I think that's the fundamental thing it is too much under the state's control so
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whether it's Bombay or Bangalore or Chennai which has a problem let's say it could be
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flooding portals or whatever you will find invariably the chief minister of the state
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talking about it and that's the problem why should the state chief minister who is the
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state chief minister be answering questions about traffic and portals in the city it's
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not his remit or her remit so I think we don't have clear-cut accountability and somebody
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in charge of the city's destiny that's the start point our governance and administration
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structure is those institutions have collapsed we don't there was a 74th constitutional
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amendment we are the 73rd of panchayati raj for rural areas and 74th for cities that hasn't
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worked there's hardly any state that has implemented it so we now need to go back to the drawing
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board and come up with a governance and administration framework for cities that can work then there's
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a challenge of human resources and capacity you know this World Bank came up with this
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thing that capacity building is the way out I think it's just a thing for getting consultants
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jobs because the reality is what we have got in the system to work with is extremely weak
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clay or quicksand and therefore to mold it is very difficult so we need a fresh infusion
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of ideas we need to think about human resources differently we need to think of lateral recruitment
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we need to think of a commissioner who comes from outside and becomes the city commissioner
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so we need some transformational thinking in this space the other thing about cities
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where everybody is making a mistake is they are trying to fix yesterday's problems unsuccessfully
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band-aid solutions we're not planning ahead what we really need to do if bangladesh to
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work the extended region has to work internationally the focus is on city regions london works
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because it's housed in the south england region same as the case with new york so if you improve
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banglore even marginally another half a million people will come into banglore and the place
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will collapse again so unless you have a regional clusters that work as live and work you're
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not going to fix this problem so there are whole the way we do our plans they are also
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quite messed up in terms of so the master plan is nothing but a land use plan it's about
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there's a price for the color by which various land parcels get covered what you need are
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strategic spatial plans we are nowhere there i could go on and on we try to fix the inner
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city the periphery is going for a six we need a municipalization strategy to deal with the
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periphery so there's a whole range of problems lots of moving parts that need to be worked
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on when you try to fix this i think really governments have to figure out where do they
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want to start in this journey and start doing something about it that's really the need
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of the hour so i'll come back to regional clusters in a bit in fact i want to ask you
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both about regional clusters and your city connector program which you carried out so
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successfully before that but just to go back to the fundamental question like i had done
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an episode of the scene in the unseen which ruti rajgopal and the economist and legal
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scholar and and we'd spoken about open governance and one of the points that she made was that
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the incentives are skewed because the people who have the power to actually do something
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in cities aren't accountable to you and the people who are accountable to you your local
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cooperatives who you vote for directly don't have the power to do anything and you can't
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expect anyone to actually give away power like you can't expect state governments to
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then say that oh okay we'll empower the cities and therefore there'll be less money to buy
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votes from rural regions which crudely put is what it comes down to elections are all
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about bribing voters essentially in one form or the other that that's true for example
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i have met mlas who actually want to run the city and are running the city and you ask
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yourself essentially when you got elected as an mla you signed up for the state legislature
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and to frame laws and the like if you wanted to run the city you should be a corporator
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right or a mayor that's the whole point right so our whole setup is really messed up in
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terms of things and it's a fact that and when it comes to the corporator you get into this
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whole area of petty corruption you know people say that you don't know where the corporator
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ends and the contractor begins yeah and you then so consequently every time i see a pothole
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i see that nexus at work in fact in bombay i am amazed that people expect potholes to
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be permanently fixed it's not going to happen because it's in the corporator contractors
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nexus to make sure that roads are repaired so badly that potholes come up again and more
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repairs are required exactly in fact in bangalore we we are actually doing a project called
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tender sure sure stands for specification for urban road execution under our city connect
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platform where we have made the case that if you build your road right with stormwater
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drains and pedestrian footpaths underground utilities and take a life cycle cost view
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to the investment you actually end up spending much less than the half yearly pothole filling
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exercise model that we have got and we have said that if you get it right it will cost
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you more upfront but within four to five years you have a payback after which you're in the
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positive zone now the system doesn't like it we have pulled off a few roads in the in
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the city but there again the betting has been that citizens will like the roads and say
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that we want similar roads in our neighborhood as the way to change but the system per se
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does not like it because it goes against the repair model every six months where there's
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a whole lot of money right so my question then is to come back from the earlier point
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about power and accountability being in separate hands that as then a citizen reformer within
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the system as you have been for so many years what is your approach because the people who
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have the power are very different from the people who have the accountability how do
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you navigate that so the thing really is you have to understand who is going back there
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some of us have been working in this space have been criticized by NGOs and civil society
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groups saying why are you spending so much time convincing the state government to do
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this and that you should be investing more energy with the corporator but the reality
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is if you can get change happening through the state government route that's where you
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spend your time till the system is changed where the power lies with the city government
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so we do get criticized saying that this group prefers to sit with the chief minister and
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solve the problem rather than sit with the corporator but the way I look at it is the
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following at the end of the day of course currently in Karnataka the chief minister
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is not the minister for Bangalore but for the longest time the chief minister was also
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the minister for Bangalore and at one level it could be argued that if he's the minister
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for Bangalore he's the place that you go to get change done which is really the state
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government right my sense really is for those of us who are spending time trying to bring
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about change you try to spend time in places where you can make the change happen in terms
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of thing till such time that the system itself the architecture is changed so that the true
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power resides in the third tier of city government ward committees ward planning actually take
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shape in reality that day is a long way off we need to get there and many of us who are
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working in the space are battling for those kind of ideas but while we battle for those
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ideas to take root we at the same time figure out how to improve mobility how to get pedestrian
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walkable footpaths how to do a better property tax system and the like because you need to
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bring change on multiple fronts in other words we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the
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good you know while that perfect state of being is a long way away we still have to
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keep working and would it then be fair to say that since administration is really a
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chain of jugars where you do little band-aids from time to time what you try to do besides
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tackling the root cause which is a long-term project what you also try to do is influence
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a specific band-aids that are put and try to sell them and make sure that they're at
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least better band-aids and make a long term for it you know not by not to us like the
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movie see we know that we need to head north that's the root the goal right and often you
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have the I mean a crew would sell fly not straight but in real life you the way to not
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maybe not by northwest and that's fine it's when some of the things you're doing as taking
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you south then you have to stop and say hello what am I doing out here and this is not the
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right thing so that's the kind of compass that should guide you as you work in this
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space let's now talk about city connect tell me more about city connect so city connect
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is an idea which has been about 11 12 years old it started in Bangalore and today it's
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there in Chennai Trivandrum Panjim and Pune are five cities see when you look at a city
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you realize that there's one stakeholder who has really not participated in the city development
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and that is the business industry the corporates they crib about the city they say it doesn't
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work they say I pay my taxes the city better work so they're really giving those kind
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of press statements which doesn't help the cause none of them have been into the belly
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of the beast which is local government and realize that is impossible for this system
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to fix the place and give them the kind of city that they desire but they don't know
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it and they crib so the idea of city connect was to tell business look guys the system
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is broken and unless you find a way to get involved in the system in a positive manner
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and for things which are larger than your company it's not about the road to your company
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it's about the largest city fixing the city pollution roads and drainage sewerage the
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works and also the public spaces you have to embrace an idea larger than yourself or
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before you realize it you'll find that your best talent are leaving your firm and why
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did they leave because their spouses told them this city doesn't work for us and our
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children let's go somewhere else it is actually in the long-term interest to work for the
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city because network effects with more talent will come in if the city is better and for
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the individual company they'll be able to retain talent and attract talent if the ecosystem
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works right and I tell companies your involvement in the space and the money you spend I don't
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want it from your CSR you're doing no favor as a social responsibility I want it as a
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balance sheet item in terms of I'm investing this kind of money for a better city it's
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a cost item to make a better city the payback on the top line by a city which is productive
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and that works it'll more than pay anything that you invest in the city in improving the
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city and in what way can you improve the city so the city connect platform is a bunch of
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business leaders typically I look for about four to six committed people who believe in
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the idea the platform has scope for everybody to be on it resident welfare associations
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NGOs citizens and the like but basically as the elite it's the corporates responsibility
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to take ownership and make it happen they definitely bring in money not to do one road
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but to prove a concept basically proof of ideas on the ground spend money on designs
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and drawings the big money is spent by government and that's how we did the tender show road
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so we did the designs and therefore the compact with this local government is I will bring
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in expertise in a non-threatening manner and in a non-dictatorial manner that you better
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do this and can we collaborate so that we try new models to do better roads or better
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drainage or fixing the lake problem so that we can collectively improve so can you elaborate
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on that illustration you gave me of the roads that you designed and which were then yes
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about a decade ago the most successful example in Bangalore is what's called the tender
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show roads so in the tender show road has a poor idea that we need to build the road
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around pedestrians and not around motorists the problem today is we have a motorist oriented
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thinking when it comes to the roads but actually if you think about it half of a city like
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Bangalore moves in public transport buses now guys don't fly into buses and fly out
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of buses they walk on footpaths to reach it the invisible lacks in our cities the informal
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labor etc they walk on footpaths which are non-existent so when you think about it even
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electorally it's actually good politics to build good footpaths but we have never done
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it we always try to cater to the motorized vehicles so the idea here was two or three
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ideas one idea is pedestrian at the heart of the what does that mean wider footpaths
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pedestrians cross that grade not taking them over bridges and when there's a conflict
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you rule in favor of the pedestrian you have a hierarchy pedestrian cyclists bus transport
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and then the motor vehicles motor vehicles will get uniform lanes end to end but that's
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all they will get today they're getting just about everywhere you get space they're pouring
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tar which is a dumb way to do things the second concept in what we did as an idea is to think
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life cycle costs instead of doing the six monthly pothole repair you actually spend
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more money upfront redo the drains redo the power lines and the sewerage lines and spend
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more but you don't have repair work and then you do contracts which are five years maintenance
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all built in now for example if you take the recent Bangalore flooding which we saw in
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the last one and a half months lots of areas getting flooded the streets that actually
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worked where the seven tender show streets their waters got drained away there are no
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potholes on those roads it works and that's a proof of concept so how did it come about
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like okay conceptually you explained to me the thinking that was behind designing such
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roads but how did it come about out of city connect how did you persuade people to mention
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so city connect is this body which is I mean for example in the case of Bangalore it has
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a Kiran Mazumdar Shah Chris Gopalakrishnan and a few other people what that group has
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got has got access to the system so when they speak the system listens and that's the big
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role they play there are people like us who actually are willing to run around and get
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and implement some of these ideas but you need access to people to listen so the proposition
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to the chief secretary that we made on the platform really was this idea that we will
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not give Gyan we will spend money on doing the designs all we seek from you is you will
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do a pilot trial of two roads based on designs on which we will spend money on so that's
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how it started it took us about a year to put that whole thing together when we went
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back to the chief secretary he said the idea is much larger let's get also a political
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clearance for the idea we went to the then chief minister who said look this sounds
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great why are you looking at two roads we'll do 50 roads like this wow that's how it started
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and on the city connect platform what's now happened we spent 85 lakh rupees of the city
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connect money got from industry on the designs the manual and the like in return the city
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is now going to get has already got about 85 crores worth of roads and commitment wise
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we have 600 crores worth of roads on that principle so the power to get the right thing
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done and what's at the end of the day it has two core ideas pedestrians should be able
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to walk without fear and with comfort and second once done we don't have to repeatedly
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repair the roads two ideas behind that project and evangelized in this manner and I want
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to repeat if you want to really get things done in the system don't lecture don't give
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Gyan be ready to work as a partner along with them know your place in the overall ecosystem
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then it gets accepted but if you talk down I know more you better listen to me that kind
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of stuff people may not in the room but they'll kill the project outside so you have to find
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ways to collaborate in a healthy friendly manner with these people to go in there with
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humility and work hard you know the cynic in me would say that I've seen so many civic
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initiatives break down over the years because of diffuse responsibility or because of the
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free rider effect that you might go to these captains of industry and they will say hey
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great idea I support you but they'll expect someone else to actually do the hard work
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and you know put themselves out there but what you had with city connectors you've
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actually had these captains of industry getting involved at a level deeper than that there's
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a reason for that if you actually see the kind of people who come on board across these
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cities and their captains and leaders they are invested in the city long term they expect
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their children and grandchildren to be in the city that's very important in contrast
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you have industry people who flit from city to city here today there tomorrow gone day
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after whatever they for example they just it's a plug and play people they just want
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to come in plug in and expect the place to work so you can't expect them to get too
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emotionally involved with the city so even in constructing such a platform you need to
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find people who are vested in the city long term only then it works because they also
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believe that I'm in fact when I go and evangelize because I've gone and evangelize this across
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10 cities and crafted it in five cities I tell people if you're not willing to commit
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a minimum of a decade to the idea don't enter so I tell them at the door itself unless you're
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willing to think that you're going to stay with this for a long term don't even sign
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up for the idea of city connect so by making it clear at the start you sort of ensure that
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the people who join are right let's let's move on to talking about the future of cities
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and what you were talking about these expanded sort of regional zones where cities in a sense
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become the hub of urban networks is that something that you think is organically happening anyway
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or is that something that you think needs to be proactively planned for and enabled
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it is happening organically but in a very haphazard manner it needs to actually happen
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in a proactive plan manners the way it needs to happen so really when I say it's happening
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in a haphazard manner pockets are developing in different places take a simple thing according
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to me the Ministry of Industries and the Ministry of Urban Development at the state level need
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to be together because frankly speaking a new industrial area it's not about just a
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factory people have to live there they have to have educational schools social infrastructure
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and in the silos of government agency you say that somebody else's problem so you need
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a thinking which and that's the problem in governance we want outcomes outcomes invariably
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are across multiple silos of government and integration is the biggest challenge and in
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our flawed system that integrator is the chief minister and the chief secretary any one level
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below nobody is able to do that role so unless we crack the code on how we are going to build
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a governance administration architecture that cuts across this there's the future of cities
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and urban areas in India is bleak I believe you know we have put out a paper called the
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gamechangers I have about 12 to 15 ideas as gamechangers for future cities broadly very
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quickly I'll try and give the big points one is you need to think in terms of city region
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you want to fix a city have a regional thinking so if you're thinking of fixing Bangalore
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look at the Bangalore larger metropolitan region area which is eight thousand square
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kilometers almost eleven twelve times Bangalore size look at that second the periphery is
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got the most unplanned growth because they don't come under the civic system which has
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also done some kind of rules and procedures you need a municipalization strategy to deal
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with the periphery for larger cities you have to break the city corporation into smaller
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corporations for example if you take a place like Bangalore 198 wards 80% of them have never
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spoken in five years in the council meetings and they just travel in Bangalore traffic
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to the council hall waste of time decentralize and do things at the ward level what can be
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done at the ward level with citizen participation integrate what you need to do at the city
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level like transport and the like another thing really is planning we have static land
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use planning terrible it is absolutely terrible and it just gives you rules and regulations
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to manage land use we need a master plan that actually embraces ideas on mobility water
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sanitation environment and the like not happening currently we need to do something out there
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land acquisition is a big problem as we go forward we need to come up with innovative
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land pooling mechanisms you know that town planning schemes a whole lot of methods we
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tend to still think of one more outer ring road as a strip development we need to think
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of area-based development and innovative ways to be able to procure land for public purposes
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data information we don't have observatories at all we don't have a culture of respect
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for data we need a spatial data center today if you go to most agencies everybody has their
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own GIS map how can a city have 10 maps floating around there's only one base map you need
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a spatial center which takes care of that I could go on and on I mean there are a whole
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lot of other ideas please to go on and on we have time okay so that's another thing
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that we can do the other thing which is important in this space for example is we are not paying
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enough attention to maintenance there's a lot of excitement in creating assets the point
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we spoke earlier about projects because there's scope for kickback money in projects but actually
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we don't budget enough for maintenance of those assets so we have a lot of decaying
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assets across our cities another good principle to adopt as we go forward to change our cities
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is we must sweat our existing assets for example we have the commuter rail in many cities now
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many of those tracks are utilized maybe for two or three hours a day now if we can get
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more trains to run for local services on those racks I'm sure there are technical problems
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of course the biggest problem is railways is central government and this is silo issues
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then it's central state which is even more complicated but if you adopt the principle
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of sweating your existing assets you'll start thinking differently for example I always
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felt that while we had BIL we should have also had HAL Airport BIL could run HAL Airport
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but don't deprive the city of an existing asset and people could fly into different
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airports depending on the willingness to pay more or whatever rather than be dumb and say
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I'm shutting it down under some MOU in terms of things so we need to think more innovatively
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and differently you want to fix for example transport and mobility keeps coming back unless
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we say on mobility there is no fix and many cities and state governments don't seem to
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get it public transport and huge investment in public transport and walkable footpaths
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is the only way to fix mobility problems today for example I'll just give you a quick Bangalore
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statistic Bangalore they roughly say from available data citizens make about a hundred
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lakh trips per day 50 lakh trips of these are made in the buses 3 lakh trips are made
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in the metro and the balance roughly 50% are made in 50 lakh private vehicles and the 50
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lakh trips in buses is made in 6500 buses so you have 6500 buses that carries half of
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Bangalore every day and the other half of Bangalore travels in close to 50 lakh vehicles
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now common sense will tell you that if I went to 10,000 or 12,000 buses and did route rationalization
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I could go from a 50% model share for transport to maybe a 70% model share and then you watch
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the magic on the road but what we find our leadership are pandering to motorized vehicles
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I am not saying motorized vehicles don't have a place by all means it's an aspirational
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thing and people should buy it if they can afford it but as public policy your job is
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to give them some space to drive but promote public transport as the core thing of your
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mobility policy and it's of course an old sword that you don't judge the modernity
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of a city by the quality of the private vehicles but by the quality of its public transport
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exactly in fact another one which is a really a moral hazard if I can call it that take
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the whole issue of solid waste management we don't think anything about Bangalore for
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instance a city of 10 million its garbage is dumped on the outskirts in villages of
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5000 polluting their water forever their crops and a whole lot of things and health and sanitation
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problems in those areas is it right to even do this we have to embrace a policy like I
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spoke about mobility where we have to say that landfills will get only about 10 to 15%
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of the waste and the rest will get resolved I keep saying that what we need to embrace
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are two really slogans the old hamdo hamare do needs to become the segregation policy
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wet waste and dry waste segregated source because without segregation you don't have
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a solution for waste internationally second is what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas so
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my garbage must be resolved in my locality or the extended locality near my area and
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not in a village 40 km away out of sight out of mind so this for example is another thing
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that we need to embrace and go down that route and hammer away till we get there now these
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are known and these are wicked problems to solve but all the time what happens is you
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suddenly have some problem on portholes they will and that's the system loves because you
#
have rapid release of funds drop processes to select contractors and say fill it up fill
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it up etc and then that's again money down the drain because in the next rain comes it
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again opens up so to cut a long story short I mean there's a whole lot of game changes
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that one can go for in fixing the future of cities it has a mix at the larger level as
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I keep saying there's the governance that needs to be think which is really city needs
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to be in control of its own destiny it clearly needs its own leadership I personally believe
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that the directly elected mayor is the way to go to get there I know we will get scared
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when we see our corporators and say oh my god this guy is a mayor or something but trust
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me that if you incentivize the third tier of city government with true powers the right
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kind of people will stand for those posts because the incentives will drive them saying
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it's worth my time to cut my teeth in city government so the start really so their governance
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issues on the administration side I really believe that we need a municipal carder it's
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a specialist job and we are sitting with generalists won't work environmental issues for example
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are serious town planning most cities don't have qualified transport planners don't have
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qualified town planners how are you going to get the city you wish so we have to address
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that whole issue I really believe that laterals we need to have a policy I believe osmosis
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between people in government with people in private for both parties if they had chance
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to work together it would change both parties that's my belief so I believe that that's
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another thing that we should encourage going forward I'm sorry I mean I'm just trapped
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because a lot of these are both eye opening and mind blowing ideas for me it's a lot
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to process and I also love the way you figured out you know language to communicate these
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like and what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas which is perfect so my sort of my next question
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therefore is that when you try to communicate these ideas and the overall thinking behind
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these ideas to the governing class is it that they're not receptive at all because they're
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trapped in old ways of thinking or is it that they are sometimes receptive but in their
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incentives in the silos they inhabit are the way they are and there's not much I think
#
it's more of the latter they realize that some of this holds the answer for the future
#
somehow they feel powerless you know the problem seems so huge and invariably when you deal
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with them on a one-on-one basis the person across the table agrees with you I know this
#
needs to be done but immediately the defense mechanism kicks in saying but that and that
#
is in somebody else's hands you know I agree but you know how do we get everybody to work
#
together to make this happen so I really believe hopefully we need a new leadership that's
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coming out there both political and in the bureaucracy who says that look this is something
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I'd like to take head-on and I'd like to give it the requisite leadership what we are handicapped
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by is that political leader who may be in charge of the city gets changed at one level
#
the bureaucrat definitely will get changed and will go to fisheries or some other department
#
and we have to start all over again the funny thing that's happened for some of us who work
#
in the system we are holding the collective knowledge of what has preceded in the last
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two decades on the space and what's worked and not to work and invariably when a new
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person comes we again go with our toolkit and say look so you reinvent the wheel reinvent
#
the wheel so it's one step forward two step backwards etc I really believe the way out
#
really is we need a little more thing from the leadership the other thing government
#
needs to realize the way I see it is there's a huge trust deficit between government and
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the citizen one of the reasons that property tax compliance for example is low it's 50
#
percent or less is the citizen takes the view that government is going to misuse my money
#
so better I cheat the government by not paying my due share of taxes then allow them have
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my money and cheat me so I personally feel that we need to find a way to bridge this
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trust deficit which brings me to the other big thing which is very badly required transparency
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to me you have to have increased transparency you know I think it was a Supreme Court justice
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in the US who said that transparency is the best distance or sunlight is the best disinfectant
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is the same transparency idea what people need to realize that the more transparent
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you are you know I have another analogy since I've been giving you some stories I might
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as well say this one also what's happening in our political system and you know somebody
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keeps talking about China things happen and it's not happening out here you see when you
#
get elected I say you get elected with leadership to a lake and you start with fishing rights
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in the lake in that pond if I can call it that now normally in the private sector when
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you have a small market you say how can I expand the market how can I make the pond
#
into a lake into a river so that there's more to go around and a smaller thing will happen
#
that's all you start thinking here what happens is people prefer to fish in the pond that
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they have got rights to rather than think about expanding the pond to a lake or a river
#
and I've asked politicians this that why don't you invest to expand because even a smaller
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share of a larger portion will still get you more but the politician is sinking is there
#
for a limited period exactly and also that is one and more and people have said this
#
what if I don't come back I would have set the ground for the next guy to fish with more
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rights so I don't want to lay the ground for the next guy's fishing rights so I would
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rather fish and that's what you see so the metaphorically the frothing and the pollution
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of our lakes that you see is essentially coming from the excessive fishing using these fishing
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rights in the pond rather than thinking about expanding it into a lake and more that's a
#
great point so like you know while society and markets tend to be positive some games
#
everybody benefits politicians look upon governance as a zero-sum game get whatever you can out
#
of it don't leave enough for the next guy I want to end this podcast by asking you two
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questions one what makes you hopeful about the future of cities and urban governance
#
in India and two what is the worst-case scenario that you're worried about in our country today
#
so the first one really what makes me hopeful are the few wins that one has personally experienced
#
for example in my own case the property tax reform that we did or the tender show roads
#
these are two things that I've been intimately involved in and though that's all I've got
#
to show for 17 years of effort I'll take it so the key thing really here is you need patience
#
and resilience for the long haul and for me it's a passion so I am fine with it so that
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gives me hope that all is not lost because there are pockets of wind that have one are
#
visible I mean green shoots or whatever you want to call it what worries me are two actually
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there are two or three things that worry the one that worries me most is the fact that
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people are coming to cities in search of jobs cities are supposed to be engines of growth
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and jobs and the like and we if we don't cater to that cities tend to die I mean you've
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seen internationally whether it was Cleveland Pittsburgh Detroit recently in the West cities
#
rise they have heydays and they die people think they will never die but this happened
#
elsewhere and there's no reason to believe it won't happen here if we don't deliver on
#
those aspirations of jobs and quality of living etc. we could see a fair amount of unrest
#
on the road in fact I really believe that we need a city development agencies for instance
#
just to address that job point you know in way one we were trying to say come to India
#
if you saw Davos 10 12 years ago the slogan was India everywhere today you see state summits
#
invest Karnataka vibrant Gujarat emerging Kerala people trying to say come to my state
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the next inevitable wave is going to be cities competing for investments so you're going
#
to see that and cities and states that prepare itself earlier by proactively thinking about
#
jobs economic development and I say jobs from the informal sector to the formal sector that's
#
really what's required the other thing that worries me and sometimes makes me a tad unhappy
#
as I work in this space I believe that we citizens are to blame why it's easy to blame
#
and throw stones at the system and government and all that I think we need to look in the
#
mirror ourselves if we did not litter if we did not jump traffic signals if we kept to
#
our lane we could in our own way make a big difference and so something that I believe
#
that if we are going to fix the city and that worries me that our civil behavior as manifested
#
in the cities and the roads and the by lanes could be a whole lot better and we can play
#
a role in making that happen that's very enlightening and I have a confession to make here I consider
#
myself the best driver in the history of Bombay and the reason for that is no one changes
#
lanes like I can but I promise to reform after listening to you thank you so much for coming
#
on the show Ravi it's an honor thank you thank you Ahmed nice talking to you if you enjoyed
#
the show and want to know more about Ravi's thoughts you can find his paper on urban game
#
changers at our podcast page on Prakriti the magazine I edit at thinkprakriti.com you can
#
follow him on Twitter at Ravi Chandar r-a-v-i-c-h-a-n-d-a-r and you can follow me at Amit Verma a-m-i-t-v-a-r-m-a
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you can browse past episodes of the scene and the unseen at scene unseen dot i-n thank
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you for listening if you enjoyed listening to the scene and the unseen check out another
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