Indian Urban Development and Public Policy Discussion

Katare · Post by **Katare** » 03 Jun 2007 11:19

Swimming against the current is hard, slow and tiring......we have been doing that in India for past 60 years. Lets now swim with the current, help people move out of villages and agriculture that would be the right way to go. It'll be easy, fast and less expensive IMO. The culture of glorification of villages, poverty and agriculture with policy makers must go. Because the life in a village, a farmer's life or life in poverty aint something that anyone wants. Cities, industries and prosperity should be the talk of the town. Providing rural infrastructure has its merit and it definitely reduces distressed migration of most vulnerable class. Moving people out of villages will automatically make them more prosperous by reducing population pressure/dependency-ratio on farmers and farms. The biggest problem of Indian farmer is that land supply is constant (not much forest left to break into agriculture land) but population/dependents are growing (population growth is steeper in rural India) and negating the productivity gains and destroying economy of scale. The ultimate solution must come from farmers not from JNU. Every farmer that I have ever known/met always has a dream of settling at least one of his sons in a city with a permanent job or marrying his daughter in a city. Govt policies should facilitate this dream not prevent it from happening.

Most people in countryside feel that children of people living in the slums in cities have better chances and opportunities than people living in big houses in a remote village. This may not be too far from the truth either.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 04 Jun 2007 22:49

Bombay is debating eliminating ULCRA:
Mumbai Seeks to Free Up Land as Boom Boosts Rents

Mumbai, India's commercial hub, is seeking to curb soaring rents and prices for offices and homes by easing a 30-year-old law that limits the amount of land available for development in the city of more than 17 million people.

Lawmakers for the western Indian state of Maharashtra may next month vote on changes that could add as much as 500 hectares (1,234 acres) of space to the city's property market, Vilasrao Deshmukh, the state's chief minister, said in Mumbai on June 2.

Deshmukh expects the state assembly to start considering in July changes to the Urban Land Ceiling Act of 1976, which limited any individuals to developing no more than 500 square meters. The state government is determined to change the law in the next assembly session, he said.

The expansion of homes and offices hasn't kept pace with Mumbai's burgeoning economy, and about half its population lives in slums, Deshmukh said. The development program for Mumbai includes 100 billion rupees ($2.48 billion) in seven years to develop Dharavi, Asia's biggest slum, replacing unregulated tenements with housing connected to water and electricity.

``Changes in the Urban Land Ceiling Act will be a positive development,'' said Rajiv Sabharwal, head of housing loans at ICICI Bank Ltd., the biggest provider of consumer loans. ``Its removal will help bring in more land to the city.''

The development program, which calls for the involvement of private companies, also includes $5 billion for a new elevated rail network to ease congestion on the city's trains, which transport half of Mumbai's estimated 11 million daily commuters.

The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group will build the initial 11 kilometers (7 miles) by 2010 for 24 billion rupees. The network, when complete, will cover 146 kilometers.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 04 Jun 2007 23:00

human nature is such that a guy maybe pulling 3 cr @ mumbai but he will
still jump at chance to make $1.5mil in NYC or london, or a guy living happily in huntsville on 90K will shift to a smaller home in santa clara for a 150K salary and chance to make bigger bucks.

villages -> small towns -> cities -> metros the march will continue. young people in my city of 1.2 mil always lust for metro life they arent content.

in a free society, I dont see any examples in the past where rural to urban
migration has been controlled and everyone is a happy farmer.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 29 Jun 2007 00:03

Some people have spoken about having a HK-style special economic region to jumpstart inward investments. Here's Andy Mukherjee thinking aloud for Bombay to play that role:
A Mumbai Fantasy for City of Stars, Poverty

This week, a young man in Mumbai lost his only productive assets -- a few glasses and some lemons placed on a tray -- in a raid by municipal authorities. The illegal lemonade hawker was punished, his property confiscated, in the few seconds it took for my car to pass the scene.

A front-page story in Indian newspapers the same day was about the city receiving a glowing endorsement from MasterCard Inc. The credit-card company's inaugural survey of worldwide centers of commerce puts Mumbai -- the only Indian city in the top 50 -- at a lowly 45th position.

However, one of the six subcategories of the survey is ``financial flow.'' On that metric, Mumbai was in 10th place, ahead of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore and Zurich.

The survey confirms something that millions of immigrants coming to Mumbai from the Indian hinterland, Afghanistan and Iran have known for centuries: There's money in the air here.

And yet, most people in this city of rich businessmen, famous movie stars and shadowy hit men are like the young lemonade seller. They can see the money, but never catch it.

How does one make the benefits of financial flows trickle down to those who are undereducated? How does one do it when the Indian state is fiscally and managerially too weak to transfer incomes to -- or create opportunities for -- the have-nots?

Here's a wacky plan: Turn Mumbai into a special administrative region like Hong Kong.

City of Traders

If Mumbai's economy could engage with the rest of India through a ``one country, two systems'' mechanism, similar to the arrangement Hong Kong has with China, it would lose the baggage of national policies and politics that hold it back.

Mumbai, like most ports, is an opportunistic city. In the 1860s, traders of Bombay, as the city was known then, made millions of dollars trading off the American Civil War.

The animal spirits, crushed by four decades of botched Soviet-style socialism, are rising once again. Now the city is exploiting the economic growth in its backyard.

The cash segment of the Indian equity market has traded $2.7 billion worth of shares daily over the past year, while futures and options averaged $8.4 billion a day last month.

Commodity derivatives generated business worth $6 billion a day in May, whereas bonds added another $3 billion. The currency markets are transacting about $16 billion daily, according to the latest data. That's a six-fold jump from five years ago.

$100 Billion Economy

Throw in the money market, and you're looking at a total daily financial flow of $37 billion.

MasterCard has followed a somewhat different methodology. It has looked at the number of transactions, rather than their value. Either way, if it were made legally impossible for state and federal governments to hijack through taxation the value added in Mumbai's financial trading, that could work wonders.

If the denizens and local government of Mumbai got to keep just 0.1 percent of the flow as their incomes, they would have well in excess of $10 billion a year.

Income from banking services, insurance, fund and wealth management and real estate should easily double that figure.

Then there are port activities, wholesale, retail, construction, hospitality, tourism, education, health care, entertainment, utilities and transportation. All of that together would, if Hong Kong is any guide, create five times the value added in the financial, insurance, real estate and business services. Mumbai would have a $100 billion economy.

The 19 million people who live in the city and its suburbs would have a per-capita income of $5,000 a year, or eight times India's average. The local government would get enough taxes to manage the city's staggering income inequality, against which it is currently powerless with its limited revenue sources.

Two Currencies

How would the rest of India manage without taxing Mumbai? The answer may once again come from Hong Kong and China: one country, two currencies.

Let there be a Mumbai dollar, set much higher than the rupee's exchange rate of 40.7 to the U.S. dollar. It would float freely and be fully convertible, removing one of the big hurdles in turning the city into a global financial center.

The rest of India would continue with the heavily managed rupee, which, I suspect, would then depreciate. That would be a boon for exporters, who are unhappy with the steep rise in the home currency this year. A weak rupee would lure foreign investments into labor-intensive, export-oriented industries.

By creating jobs for their swelling ranks of youth, the laggard states in northern India would reduce their considerable risk of crime and unrest.

This is all just a pipe dream, and a blatantly mercantilist one at that. The International Monetary Fund would never allow it. Nor would India, which is reluctant even to have multiple time zones, let alone currencies. If you have a workable suggestion that could be implemented by a weak coalition government, write to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The challenge is to induce Mumbai's lemonade sellers to go back home to the hinterland and find work in modern factories, where they have access to a larger amount of capital that's also better protected by property rights than their drink stalls ever will.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 29 Jun 2007 02:40

A little radical for Dear Mumbai, I would say.

The trick is to let real local governance to kick in. So let Mumbai, charge property taxes and collect other indirect revenue such as sales tax. Let the councillors get some real power and the Mayor the same with a way for the electorate to keep them accountable and then simply sit back and see the magic unfold.

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 16 Jul 2007 22:20

Dirty, crowded, rich and wonderful (IHT on Mumbai)

With 15 million people, Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, is the biggest, fastest, richest city in India, a city simultaneously experiencing boom and civic emergency; an island-state of hope in a very old country. Because of the reach of the Bollywood movies, Mumbai is also a mass dream for the peoples of India. Everything - sex, death, trade, religion - is lived out on the sidewalk. It is a maximum city, maximum in its exigencies, maximum in its heart.

Every day is an assault on senses. The exhaust is so thick the air boils like a soup. There are too many people touching you - in the trains, in the elevators, when you go home to sleep. You live in a seaside city, but the only time most people get anywhere near the sea is for an hour on Sunday evening on a filthy beach. It doesn't stop when you're asleep either, for the night brings the mosquitoes out of the malarial swamps, the thugs of the underworld to your door, and the booming loudspeakers of the parties of the rich and the festivals of the poor.

Why would anyone leave a brick house in the village with its two mango trees and its view of small hills in the East to come here?

So that someday the eldest son can buy two rooms in Mira Road, at the northern edges of the city. And the younger one can move beyond that, to New Jersey. Discomfort is an investment.

Like ant colonies, people here easily sacrifice temporary pleasures for the greater progress of the family. One brother works and supports the others, and he gains satisfaction from the fact that his nephew takes an interest in computers and will probably go on to America.

Mumbai functions on such invisible networks of assistance. In a Mumbai slum, there is no individual, only the organism. There are circles of fealty and duty within the organism, but the smallest circle is the family. There is no circle around the self.

India frustrates description because everything said about it is true and false simultaneously. Yes, it could soon have the world's largest middle class. But it now has the world's largest underclass.

And on and on. Beautiful prose.

Read it all.

Ensoi.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 17 Jul 2007 03:21

Property tax reforms certain, says minister
Bill okaying move to a capital value-based system to be cleared this session

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstor ... sid=246149

Mumbai, July 15: Much-needed reforms in the cityâ€™s property tax collection system are set to be kicked off in the upcoming monsoon session of the legislature, during which the state government expects to push through a Bill amending the basis of property tax calculation from the current rateable value-based system to a capital value-based system.

The current system uses rateable value of a property as the basis for computing tax, meaning the rent a unit earns or the notional rent it may earn. The capital value-based system would apply the market value of a property, as stated by the regularly updated Ready Reckoner, as the basis for calculating tax liability.

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 17 Jul 2007 03:24

Online building permit planned in Hyd (TOI)

HYDERABAD: Taking reforms in the building sector a step ahead, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is now contemplating to issue building permissions online.

The corporation has also decided to reduce application processing time to issue permits for above three floors and cut down the prospective builder's notice time as well.

Under the tatkal scheme, building permissions for ground and one upper floor are being given in 48 hours in all circles by the corporation from the first week of July. It has evoked good response and in the first week, the GHMC issued about 200 permissions in all circles.

Buoyed with the response, it has now decided to provide online facility. As of now, builders or owners have to submit applications at the municipal office in person.

"A special software is being prepared to accept building applications online," GHMC additional commissioner (planning) K Dhananjaya Reddy told 'TOI'.

GHMC town-planning officers will inspect the site and release the building permission and a copy of permission will be sent to them by courier as being practised now.

This system will also prevent middlemen, say officials.

Most excellent.

Tech is making a difference in removing grassroots corruption, improving response times, enhancing monitoring by higher ups etc.

If anyone's been to e-seva centers in AP, they can vouch for this, am sure.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 20 Jul 2007 09:18

I won't call this psy-ops, I'll call this the ugly reality:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 27,00.html

India needs to reform the labour laws and defeat the labour union aristocracy, to create investment in factories, so that the poor can have factory jobs.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 20 Jul 2007 16:00

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Blue ... 220207.cms

As if buses have their own brains..it is the drivers that drive like madmen and kill three people a week..instead of punishing them they are going after the buses

Select one blueline driver who drives dangerously and burn him alive every week - problem will be solved in no time.

Kartman · Post by **Kartman** » 20 Jul 2007 18:49

IMHO, there is a "structural" issue here (for want of a better word)... the accidents will continue as long as the (profit) motive remains whereby bus teams are paid based on number of passengers carried, leading to reckless competition. Many such accidents happen when buses on the same route try to outdo each other in picking up passengers...

The problem is that highly-fractured ownership... IMO, we need a smaller number of players split by zones, or even routes, so that this sort of extreme competition is eliminated. If the same company runs all the buses on one route and pays bus-teams equally, there is less motivation to do reckless things.

Of course, the general ch**tiya way of driving in Delhi would still remain

abhischekcc · Post by **abhischekcc** » 20 Jul 2007 19:09

Suppiah wrote:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Blue ... 220207.cms

As if buses have their own brains..it is the drivers that drive like madmen and kill three people a week..instead of punishing them they are going after the buses

Select one blueline driver who drives dangerously and burn him alive every week - problem will be solved in no time.

No, that won;t be necessary. The real problem is that bus drivers are given a fixed number of 'rounds' to do every day. I have once chatted up a DTC driver - who had to make 16 rounds every day of the outer ring road of Delhi. Or about 45 minutes for each round, with 2 five minute breaks and one 15 minute lunch time in between.

I suppose the blue line walas have a more ahrrowing schedule. Just reduce the number of rounds, more time for completing the rounds and give a little more rest time. In short, treat the drivers like humans and they will behave like humans.

I am not really surprised that even after years of reporting, not a single reporter has ever highlighted the drivers' difficulty. And here I am, just one chat and the answer is known. And then the journos crib when we call them dorks.

Uttam · Post by **Uttam** » 20 Jul 2007 20:26

Sanjay M wrote:I won't call this psy-ops, I'll call this the ugly reality:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/ ... 27,00.html

India needs to reform the labour laws and defeat the labour union aristocracy, to create investment in factories, so that the poor can have factory jobs.

I still think there are elements of psy-ops in the article. Homelessness is not an Indian phenomenon. Some element of comparison is required while addressing a problem. This article does not provide any statistics of what happens outside India. Even US has about 1% of the population living on streets. Finally, the article sounds like the economic development is a cause for homelessness, and it not provide any statistics to corroborate it.

Having said that, I agree with your argument for labor reforms, etc.

Uttam · Post by **Uttam** » 20 Jul 2007 20:40

abhischekcc wrote:
Suppiah wrote:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Blue ... 220207.cms

As if buses have their own brains..it is the drivers that drive like madmen and kill three people a week..instead of punishing them they are going after the buses

Select one blueline driver who drives dangerously and burn him alive every week - problem will be solved in no time.
No, that won;t be necessary. The real problem is that bus drivers are given a fixed number of 'rounds' to do every day. I have once chatted up a DTC driver - who had to make 16 rounds every day of the outer ring road of Delhi. Or about 45 minutes for each round, with 2 five minute breaks and one 15 minute lunch time in between.

I suppose the blue line walas have a more ahrrowing schedule. Just reduce the number of rounds, more time for completing the rounds and give a little more rest time. In short, treat the drivers like humans and they will behave like humans.

I am not really surprised that even after years of reporting, not a single reporter has ever highlighted the drivers' difficulty. And here I am, just one chat and the answer is known. And then the journos crib when we call them dorks.

You bring forth an excellent point. It is easy to blame the individuals without examining the root cause of the problem. Be is blue-line drivers, unscrupulous doctors, teacher, or any other profession. You will always find some bad and some good examples. Beating or killing a driver is not going to solve any problem at all. What really is need is a change in policy, as the one suggested by Abhischekcc.

I was having a similar argument with a relative of mine, who was claiming that all these anticorruption case against govt. official will reduce corruption. Well, as far as my memory goes I hear about these every year with increasing intensity and yet the corruption is only increasing. What is needed is a change in policy of strangulating controls in the hand of govt. Till you don't take the power from the individual official, he/she will always have a motive to abuse it.

The same holds for blue-line driver. Without addressing the underlying problem punishing a few individuals is not going to solve anything.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 06 Aug 2007 12:05

This article describes one of the key issues behind urban development (bolded):
Ambani brothers ride Mumbai`s makeover

Today, if you travel by road from the central suburb of Ghatkopar to the western suburb of Versova, it could take you an hour if you are not caught in a bad traffic jam. Come 2009 and you could cover the same distance by the Mumbai metro in 21 minutes and, since the metro will have air-conditioned coaches, you can hope to arrive in good shape. Besides, the maximum fare of Rs 10 will not pinch most pockets.

Similarly, if you are a businessman or a senior executive tired of coping with the cityâ€™s crumbling infrastructure, you could think of buying an apartment in the Navi Mumbai special economic zone (SEZ), which promises to offer living conditions on a par with the worldâ€™s most sophisticated cities. The city will come up next to the Navi Mumbai airport from where you could catch a flight to anywhere in the world.

And in case you are worrying about visiting Mumbai, a new 22.5 km, six-lane highway across the harbour will get you to central Mumbai in just 30 minutes.

Sounds too good? Well, thatâ€™s a glimpse of the future of Mumbai. And whatâ€™s common in these dream infrastructure projects is that the Ambani brothers, Mukesh and Anil, are either involved or pitching for them.

The brothers already have a finger in many infrastructure projects in the city. Anil Ambaniâ€™s Reliance Energy-led consortium has bagged the Rs 2,356-crore first phase of the metro project and will definitely bid for the next few phases.

Mukesh Ambani, with other partners, is building two SEZs (Navi Mumbai and Maha Mumbai) and setting up a world-class convention centre in the Bandra-Kurla complex for which the land alone costs Rs 1,104 crore. While Anil plans to expand Reliance Energyâ€™s Dahanu plant by 1,000 Mw, Mukesh will set up a 1,000-Mw captive power plant in the Navi Mumbai SEZ.

Both brothers have bid for the Rs 4,000-crore trans-harbour link that will connect the island city with Navi Mumbai and Mukeshâ€™s two SEZs.

Anil is also likely to bid for the new international airport at Navi Mumbai even as a non-compete clause in the family split will ensure that Mukesh canâ€™t bid for airports. But given its strategic location (the airport will be next to the Navi Mumbai SEZs), experts feel that Mukesh may bid indirectly through an associate like Anand Jain.

â€˜â€˜The brothers have emerged as serious players in infrastructure projects in and around Mumbai,â€™â€™ said a high-ranking state government official who requested anonymity.

To be fair, itâ€™s not that the brothers are bidding only for projects in Maharashtra. Anil just won a road project in Tamil Nadu and the 4,000-Mw Sasan ultra mega power project, while Mukesh is setting up an SEZ in Haryana too. Both brothers are keen on city gas distribution projects, including in Mumbai.

Unlike the product-market economy (which was liberalised in the early 1990s) and the financial markets deregulation (of late 1990s, when foreign and private banks were allowed), the infrastructure business is yet to be liberalised.

â€˜â€˜It still involves government licensing, award of concessions or build-operate-transfer schemes. These require extensive networking skills, which the Ambanis are good at,â€™â€™ said a Delhi-based expert on infrastructure.

â€˜â€˜Today, manufacturing has far higher risks with the threat of Chinese dumping or reducing import duties while if you have an infrastructure project in your bag, it can offer you a steady stream of income,â€™â€™ he added. That explains why the brothers are betting big on infrastructure.

â€˜â€˜As a promoter, I would be unhappy if an infrastructure project does not offer 18 per cent return on equity over a 15-year period,â€™â€™ said Nikhil Gandhi, chairman, Skill Infrastructure, which roped in Mukesh and Anand Jain in the Navi Mumbai SEZ.

â€˜â€˜I see no reason why Anil or Mukesh should not be interested in infrastructure projects in the city. Itâ€™s a very good opportunity. In a city with high disposable incomes and crumbling infrastructure, if you build railways and road bridges, people are bound to travel by them,â€™â€™ added an expert.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 30 Oct 2007 05:11

This is the fallout of a well-publicized drunken driving case (Alistair Pereira) in Mumbai a few months ago.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fo ... +(F)&sid=1

* Mumbai has launched an unprecedented crackdown on traffic violations and drunken driving
* From July to September, 5,700 fined for drunken driving, 1,250 licences suspended, Rs 1.2 crore collected in fines
* Figures show Mumbaikars consumed 4 lakh litres less alcohol in September than in corresponding month last year
* Motorists caught talking on mobiles sent to prison for a day
* Results are showing: Accident deaths down from 60 in June to 9 in September

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 20 Nov 2007 03:10

About the JNNURM:
Urban reform gets going
[quote]Why does capitalism succeed only in capitalist nations and fail in so many others? This, of course, is the famous question posed by the Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, who explained this by arguing that most developing countries locked up valuable capital by making it difficult for firms to start businesses, to shut them down, and so on â€” de Sotoâ€™s framework is the basis of the World Bankâ€™s annual global survey on Doing Business. High on this list is land title â€” wherever this is not clear, as is the case in India, it becomes difficult for buyers to buy land, for landowners to raise money using their land as surety, and to develop a vibrant market for mortgages. In the event, valuable capital which can be leveraged for creating economic value gets locked up. Indeed, the quality of land records is so bad that in states like Maharashtra, the statute even says â€œno suit shall lie against the state government or any officer in respect of a claim to have an entry made in any record â€¦ that is maintained in this chapter or to have any entry omitted or amendedâ€

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 02 Dec 2007 02:38

Months ago Andy Mukherjee wrote at length suggesting the repeal of ULCRA in Mumbai along with the RCA. Now that the former has been eliminated:
Urban Renewal Beckons in Mumbai as Law Repealed

India's most important city finally has a good shot at urban renewal.

Lawmakers in India's Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is the capital, yesterday repealed the three-decade-old Urban Land Ceiling Act, voiding the state's claim on as much as 500 hectares (1,234 acres) of private property.

Analysts say the actual amount of vacant land held in violation of the law -- though not identified by the government for acquisition -- may be 10 times that figure.

If all this land becomes available for redevelopment, the city's acute space shortage will surely ease. Tenants in Mumbai offices now pay higher rents than their counterparts in the financial districts of London, New York and Tokyo.

The full impact of the change may take a while yet.

``The land needs to be cleared up and approvals have to be taken for development before actual construction can take place,'' says Anshuman Magazine, managing director for South Asia at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., the world's largest commercial real-estate broker.

It is, nonetheless, a change with far-reaching consequences.

The Indian government has an ambitious plan to turn Mumbai into an international financial center. That will require everything from new office towers and apartment buildings to schools, markets and art galleries.

All of that has to be accommodated in a city built on a narrow peninsula protruding into the Arabian Sea with limited land resources. Freeing up the property market will go a long way in making Mumbai a financial center that can compete with more established rivals.

A Lousy Law

The Land Ceiling Act was enacted by India's parliament in 1976 during a 21-month period of emergency rule by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who suspended civil liberties, put opposition leaders in prison and muzzled the press.

The legislation said that any landowner in possession of more than 500 square meters of property in a Class `A' city such as New Delhi and Mumbai would have to surrender the excess to the state so that the urban poor could be rehabilitated.

However, the law also specified the escape routes. It cited a number of conditions under which the government could be lenient in applying the ceiling, provided landlords ask to be exempted. And thus began a sordid chapter in wholesale bribery.

The state acquired very little land; and where owners failed to protect their property through bribery, they went to the court. The real-estate market froze up. Rents rose. Good land remained vacant or underutilized.

Mumbai's Loss

The poor and the middle class lost out on affordable housing. Of the 19 million people who reside in Mumbai and its suburbs, half live in slums.

In 1999, almost a decade after India began opening its economy and started correcting the mistakes of its socialist past, the federal government took a bold decision to repeal the land-ceiling law.

Once the government had won parliamentary approval for the plan, it advised the states to follow suit and change their own laws accordingly. Most states acquiesced; Maharashtra, and a few others, held out.

To get the laggards to fall in line, the government in New Delhi dangled a carrot in front of them. States were told that they could tap federal-government funds to rebuild their creaky urban infrastructure, provided that, among other things, they removed the draconian land-ceiling law from their statute books.

`Long Overdue'

The repeal of the land-ceiling law in Maharashtra was ``long overdue,'' says Magazine of CB Richard Ellis.

The restrictive legislation choked Mumbai just as it was straining to expand.

Mumbai, which looked both listless and hopeless even until the late 1990s, began its comeback after the Indian economy -- and the stock market -- came out of slumber in 2004.

This year, a survey of global centers of commerce by MasterCard Inc. put Mumbai in 10th place -- ahead of Shanghai, Hong Kong, Sydney, Singapore and Zurich -- in ``financial flows.''

Already, the National Stock Exchange, based in Mumbai, is the world's second-most-active market for single-stock and index futures trading. The cash segment of the equity market has traded an average $4 billion worth of shares daily this year, compared with less than $800 million five years ago.

The currency market, too, is in the midst of an unprecedented boom. India's daily foreign-exchange turnover in April was $34 billion, almost a five-fold increase since 2004, the Bank for International Settlements noted in a recent study.

Bollywood, Mumbai's movie industry, is also doing much better now than a few years ago.

House for Ambani

All this means more business and jobs for Mumbai, and greater pressure on the city's cramped real estate.

Even tycoon Mukesh Ambani has had trouble this year with the ownership of the land where he wants to build a house.

And Ambani is the richest resident of Mumbai -- or rather, one of the wealthiest denizens of the planet -- with a net worth of about $49 billion, according to the Forbes magazine.

That should tell you how tough it is for ordinary millionaires -- the poor investment bankers -- to find decent accommodation in the city. Maybe now they will have better luck.

Rahul Mehta · Post by **Rahul Mehta** » 02 Dec 2007 08:02

About the JNNURM:
Urban reform gets going

Why does capitalism succeed only in capitalist nations and fail in so many others?

This, of course, is the famous question posed by the Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, who explained this by arguing that most developing countries locked up valuable capital by making it difficult for firms to start businesses, to shut them down, and so on â€” de Sotoâ€™s framework is the basis of the World Bankâ€™s annual global survey on Doing Business. High on this list is land title â€” wherever this is not clear, as is the case in India, it becomes difficult for buyers to buy land, for landowners to raise money using their land as surety, and to develop a vibrant market for mortgages. ....

What this guy "Hernando de Soto" says is a pile of cr1p. The reason why so called "capitalism", if at all there is such a thing, or economic policies of countries like USA, UK, France, Germany, Sweden etc worked was NOT because of reasons he cited but ONLY because these countries created an administrative/court system where nepotism, favoritism and corruption was low, and so fairness was much higher, and this provided greater security to a common when some elitemen uses bribery and contacts to rob that common. So commons in those countries were more productive.

There is sound factual and correlation that economic progress was merely a symptom of less nepotic, less corrupt and less favoritist administrative setup, and has NOTHING to do with so called "economic policies" at all.

But then, why should facts bother these people with 4 digit IQ?

.

But how can this g

alokgupt · Post by **alokgupt** » 02 Dec 2007 08:22

Rahul Mehta wrote: But then, why should facts bother these people with 4 digit IQ?
But how can this g

I am surprised that this idiot still has posting priviledges on the forum. A classic case of Indian too much freedom for hot air and zero responsibility.

Rahul Mehta · Post by **Rahul Mehta** » 03 Dec 2007 21:12

alokgupt wrote:I am surprised that this idiot (Rahul Mehta) still has posting priviledges on the forum. A classic case of Indian too much freedom for hot air and zero responsibility.

IOW, if I answer this personal insult, you and other anti-RM elements will gang up and accuse me of diverting the thread. Well, I will let the insult pass to avoid the accusation. But in other posts, you yourself have acted like a thread policeman. Then can you reply why you are bringing issue of my behavior in this thread and thereby diverting this thread? I am sure that you can read thread topic and you know that RM-bashing is outside the scope of this thread, right?

Pls confine to topic of this thread.
.

Laks · Post by **Laks** » 04 Dec 2007 06:37

Mega cities to have Unified Metro Transport Authority soon

The Unified Metro Transport Authorities will soon be set up in mega cities with a population of more than a million for implementing urban transport programmes and projects.

This was announced by the Urban Development Secretary M Ramachandran here on Monday at the inaugural day of Institute of Urban Transport (IUT) Conference on "Sustainable Urban Transport".

"The present land use and transport policies in India have led to the excessive use of the personalised modes of transportation that causes congestion, air pollution and noise," he said.

Terming the Urban Transport as "bloodstream" of the cities, Anwarul Hoda, Member of Planning Commission, stressed on the need of including private parties in the sustainable development of urban transport.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 14 Dec 2007 23:30

T N Ninan visits Delhi Airport and talks about public private partnerships and how they can bring about the infrastructure development we need:
PPP at work

I spent four hours yesterday, being shown around the different work sites at Delhi airport by people from GMR, the majority shareholder in the joint sector company that is rebuilding the airport in order to run it as a facility that belongs to the modern age. It was an instructive visit, in a dozen different ways. First, the good news: the Delhi International Airport Ltd, or Dial, will have a virtually new airport in place by the summer, two years after GMR won the airport bid, and barely a year after getting full possession of the 5,400 acres that belong to the airport. In stages between April and August, a completely new domestic departure terminal will be inaugurated along with its elevated approach road, as also a largely revamped international terminal, an expanded and remodelled domestic arrival terminal, and an upgraded second domestic departure terminal. Also completed will be a brand new runway, and a four-fold expansion of car parking space in the domestic terminal area. The airport will therefore be able to comfortably handle many more passengers, as against barely 22 million today (in facilities designed for handling 15 million). For all those suffering from the airportâ€™s history of chaos, this will be a huge relief.

Two years later, when an integrated international-cum-domestic terminal is ready (the building will cover more than 20 acres, and work at seven levels above and below ground), along with a metro link direct to the airport and hopefully some 3,000 rooms in about 30 new airport hotels (all this for the Commonwealth Games of 2010), Delhi will have an airport that can handle between 40 and 50 million passengers â€” making it one of the 10 largest in the world. And it will have been built in barely half the time that it took Singapore to build Changi, or Thailand to build Suvarnabhumi, though Delhi will have more aerobridges (74, against nine today), more parking and more of almost anything you can think of. Delhi is not alone. The GVK group is doing similar work, though on a smaller scale, for the Mumbai airport, while the new airports at Hyderabad (also by GMR) and Bangalore will be inaugurated in March-April next year.

Visiting the Delhi site is instructive because the obvious question that asks itself is why the airportâ€™s previous public sector managers could not do what is being done today. From stories of missing maps, sewage systems and electricity lines that no one either knew existed or would own up to, a chaotic arrangement of legacy buildings, and many other hairy tales, you get to understand why so much of government-run infrastructure simply does not work and is a national embarrassment. A second lesson is that India has private enterprise that is creating effective organisations outside the glamour set lionised by the stock exchange â€” though it is also true that the GMR groupâ€™s value on the stock market has multiplied more than five-fold in barely a year. A third point that strikes home is that India has so many fruitless controversies before something useful gets done â€” most people would have forgotten the endless drama over the Tata groupâ€™s attempts to build a new Bangalore airport; even now, the Chennai and Kolkata airports may be losing out because they are being neither privatised nor given a comparable makeover.

All this is not to say that GMRâ€™s Dial project is above controversy. The companyâ€™s bid to get around sharply escalated project costs and an unreal level of revenue-sharing with the Airports Authority of India, by using upfront deposits as a means of project funding without having to share the cash with anyone, is being too clever by half. That matter will be resolved with/by the government. Meanwhile, for the passengers who will use the airport, the news is all good.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 17 Dec 2007 01:43

Subir Gokarn writes an excellent article on the importance of execution, referring to the Chinese example with urban development in Shanghai:
Execution enigmas
[quote]The secret to effective execution in public services is the same as it is anywhere else.

The recent ad campaign launched by Tata Tea under the â€œJaago Indiaâ€

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 18 Dec 2007 19:02

Mumbai to get new trains.

Call it a New Yearâ€™s gift from the railways to Mumbaikars.

Aware of the pressures on the existing coaches, the railway ministry last week cleared a proposal to give Mumbai 17 new trains in addition to the 157 already under production.

The additional trains, similar to the 157 being manufactured under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP-I), can also run on alternating current instead of direct current alone. The AC/DC-compliant trains not only run faster but also consume less electricity.

Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation MD P C Sehgal on Monday confirmed that the railway ministry had approved the manufacture of 17 additional trains. "The current Western Railway and Central Railway fleet comprises 202 trains. The idea is to have an almost similar number of new trains over the next two to three years," Sehgal said.

Sehgal said the latest decision of the railway ministry would give Mumbai 174 new trains. Besides, WR and CR already have 30 trains which have been converted and are AC/DC-compliant. "That means 204 AC/DC trains. It will also push the work on converting the existing, worn-out DC power supply into an AC/DC network for faster operation of trains," Sehgal explained.

Meanwhile, in a bid to woo its angry commuters, the WR authorities on Monday added 20 Up and Down services on the overcrowded Borivli-Virar sector.

(So Mumbai gets even less "new" trains then it has now and the Railway ministry and indeed the central govt is making it sound as if these are additional trains!!!!)

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 18 Dec 2007 21:29

The AC/DC-compliant trains not only run faster but also consume less electricity.

Whats the use of more speed? Speeds are limited due to the encroachment adjacent to the tracks. This has a cascading effect of not being able to schedule more trains. Currently during peak hours the situation is such that even if railways wanted they cant add more trains. Only feasible way is to use 12 car trains for all journeys, that means extending all platforms on all stations, something I am sure Laalooo will be loath to do due to costs.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 18 Dec 2007 21:43

It's a place where your caste doesn't matter, where a woman can dine alone at a restaurant without harassment, and where you can marry the person of your choice. For the young person in an Indian village, the call of Mumbai isn't just about money. It's also about freedom.

that is also what attracts lakhs of youngsters to indian metros , esp women
crave the freedom away from overly strict parents and relatives.

Katare · Post by **Katare** » 18 Dec 2007 22:22

I think the number of trains are limited by the infrastructure, the goal is to improve efficiency by having faster traction and less breakage and better interoperatability etc.

Vriksh · Post by **Vriksh** » 19 Dec 2007 01:33

[quote="Suraj"]Subir Gokarn writes an excellent article on the importance of execution, referring to the Chinese example with urban development in Shanghai:
Execution enigmas
[quote]The secret to effective execution in public services is the same as it is anywhere else.

The recent ad campaign launched by Tata Tea under the â€œJaago Indiaâ€

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 20 Dec 2007 00:54

With ULCRA repealed, here comes the latest salvo in India's chaotic but uncanny move towards modernising its real estate and housing markets....

Tenants can be evicted for abusing house-owner: SC (TOI)

NEW DELHI: If you are a tenant, make sure you are polite to your landlord and use his property with care. Abusing or threatening a property owner or damaging a rented premises can be a valid grounds for eviction of a tenant, the Supreme Court has ruled.

Such activities would amount to nuisance and annoyance providing the ground for the eviction, a bench of Justices R V Raveendran and P Sathasivam said, while interpreting the West Bengal Premises Tenancy Act and the Transfer of Property Act.

Very significant.

Finally a way for landlords to legally circumvent the tyranny of tenancy in many metro areas and all that. Eviciting long standing tenants who pay a pittance in rents was infeasible due to the rent control act and tenant protection legislation driven by tenants' voting power. But it also left much of our cities' buildings in poor condition, neglected.

Its not just India. NYC has rent control acts as well.

BUt let's see. Its too early to celebrate. ENtrenched interests will fight with their backs to the wall on this one. Won't be easy.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 10 Jan 2008 08:34

I don't know how the Austrians can afford this:

World's Most Luxurious Poverty Housing

But maybe India should look into stuff like this.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 08 Apr 2008 04:17

From TOI ePaper. This is very interesting. Any predictions on what, if any, change in governance will result when civic bodies can raise funds independently from the market, with no more running to Delhi for every project?

[Mumbai] City civic body tops credit rating exercise

New Delhi: Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Surat have been awarded top marks in an ongoing credit rating exercise of municipal bodies commissioned by the urban development (UD) ministry. This will enable local bodies to approach the financial market for funds to improve living conditions in cities and augment infrastructure.

The Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai municipal corporations have been assigned AA rating while Nashik, Pune and Surat have been awarded AA, according to draft ratings being finalised by the ministry. Kolkata and Chennai have been rated A+ and BBB+ respectively.

The ministry has given the task to rate 63 cities, including under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission to independent agencies, and has covered 42 so far. Rating of the remaining cities, which include Delhi, will be taken up in the next phase, an official said.

An AA rating means a borrower is considered high safety, the rating is fourth on an 18-point scale, AAA being the best.

Cities with high ratings will find it easier and cheaper to raise credit. The countryâ€™s bestrated cities may enter the bond market once the credit rating exercise gets completed, a UD ministry official said. He added that it would be easier for local bodies receiving good ratings to adopt the bond route to raise money from the market.

The highest rating is of AAA+, which no city has achieved till now. According to draft ratings available with TOI, the cities with A+ ratings are Kolkata, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad, while Nagpur and Kalyan-Dombivli have been given A and Vadodara, Rajkot as well as Mira-Bhayandar civic agencies have got an A- rating.
The high ratings for Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Surat can be attributed to the revenues they earn through local taxes and an efficient service delivery system. Some cities suffered because their municipal corporations did not provide civic amenities and others, especially in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, fared poorly on account of their dependence on budgetary support.
In MP, Indore has been awarded the best rating BBB, followed by Bhopal with BBBand Ujjain (BB ). In UP, Kanpur got BB+, followed by Lucknow (BB ) and Agra (BB-). In Bihar, only Bodh Gaya was rated, getting B.
For cities with an A rating, arranging funds in the bond market will not be a problem. For those falling in the lower end of B category, the Pooled Finance Development Fund (PFDF), a UD ministry scheme, should be an ideal option as it has the Centreâ€™s support.
Credit rating agencies Crisil, ICRA and Fitch are involved in rating the 63 cities based on financial performance, accounting systems, service delivery standards and quality of book-keeping, among other parameters.
Tapping funds from the market has become essential for states as the Centre has promised only Rs 50,000 crore or half of the total requirement as grant under the (JNNURM). That means another Rs 50,000 crore has to be raised from state governments, local bodies and financial markets.
The UD ministryâ€™s credit rating exercise is part of JNNURM, which aims to make cities self-sufficient in terms of their ability to raise money, rather than depend on the Centre or the state governments.
The process is aimed at independently assessing where cities stand in terms of financial performance and methods to make them investment grade, an official said.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Apr 2008 05:26

Abhijeet: Hopefully this will foster a proper municipal bond market. With effective tax treatment (in the US, muni bonds do not attract federal taxes, and in various cases, no state/local taxes or AMT either). A deep and liquid domestic bond market would be an economic force multiplier in many ways, allowing people, particularly HNIs, to invest in muni bonds, and driving city/state administrations to work under an accountable framework, since the failure to deliver means low credit rating and therefore greater difficulty in attracting investment. Overall, this is a wonderful piece of news. Please post in the economic news thread too.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 08 Apr 2008 06:17

I'm especially interested in seeing if investor oversight of bond issuing municipalities leads to better financial management. If investors, especially institutions, buy muni bonds from Mumbai, they're likely to want to ensure that the government pays them the interest due without spending most of their budget on non-productive activities.

It's still early days, since they're midway through the rating exercise. But a good step forward.

Typical of the Indian press that this was a small article buried on an inside page.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 08 Apr 2008 06:30

If the recent US experiences are any indicator, it depends significantly on the independence and impartiality of the rating body. If good ratings can be bought or influenced by political pressure, the entire exercise is wasted. In the recent subprime episode the likes of S&P were inclined to rate pretty much any pile of dog poo as AAA. Presuming an independent rating agency, the chances of investor oversight serving as an effective means of driving proper urban administration, are pretty good.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 10 Aug 2008 11:08

A famous trick of these MNCs is to make a huge environmental mess and then get a local company or the govt to agree to take responsibility for it.

The sad thing about it is that a respected Indian company like Tata is conspiring to screw India for a few dollars from Union Carbide/DOW. My respect for Tata and his company has fallen a few notches.

-----

Tata plan to clean Dow damage rejected

OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi, Aug. 8: The Centre has rejected industrialist Ratan Tata’s proposal that Indian companies clean up the environmental damage in Bhopal caused by the 1984 gas disaster.

Chemicals minister Ram Vilas Paswan today said the Group of Ministers (GoM) handling the case had rejected Tata’s proposal since it effectively “absolves” US firm Dow Chemicals of its liabilities.

Dow now owns Union Carbide, whose factory had leaked the deadly gas that killed and maimed thousands and continues to pollute groundwater in Bhopal 24 years later.

The Centre is seeking a Rs 500-crore compensation from Dow for environmental damages in a case filed in Jabalpur High Court. But letters Tata wrote last year to Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia and India’s envoy to the US, Ronen Sen, had raised concerns among Bhopal victims that the government might withdraw the case.

The letters, made public under the RTI, included the proposal that a group of Indian companies clean up the chemical waste from the leak. A report by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute revealed dangerous levels of chemical remnants from the tragedy in Bhopal’s groundwater.

The GoM, headed by human resource development minister Arjun Singh, will ask the CBI to speed up the extradition of Warren Anderson, Union Carbide boss at the time of the leak, Paswan said.

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 11 Aug 2008 00:01

GATED COMMUNITIES: Free From India?

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 11 Aug 2008 01:30

This is the result of having people who have no business even living in a modern city actually running things....

Now, ban on live bands in Bangalore pubs

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 11 Oct 2008 21:24

India’s mindset must change, say Singapore leaders

Contrasting New Delhi’s economic “mindset” with the vision of China in propelling its economy at a space-era speed, Mr. Lee said Indians would have to “accept” that “a developed India means an urban India.”

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 03 Mar 2009 01:34

Bringing this thread back up, with some pertinent news:
Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Bills

The government’s failure to get land acquisition and rehabilitation bills passed by Parliament before the end of the last session of the 14th Lok Sabha could result in further delay in reforming the outmoded regime on these sensitive and controversial issues. On the other hand, it could prove a boon as the two Bills might well have proved to be ineffective. The twin bills — the Land Acquisition (amendment) Bill, 2007, and the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2007, were conceived of in order to avoid a repetition of the violent incidents that rocked Nandigram and Singur in the wake of land being acquired for a chemical project and a car plant. The Bills were controversial from the beginning, leading to a review by a parliamentary panel and then by a group of ministers. The final version, passed by the Lok Sabha without debate and in the absence of the Opposition on the penultimate day of the session, got stuck in the Rajya Sabha because of stiff resistance from both the National Democratic Alliance and the Left to their introduction. It is entirely right that such important Bills should face proper parliamentary scrutiny before they become law.

On the positive side, the Bill to replace the antiquated Land Acquisition Act of 1894 sought to balance the need for acquiring land for development with the interests of those whose land is sought to be taken over, and moved the law quite significantly to the side of those being forced to sell their land. Thus, it confined forcible land takeover to just three purposes — strategic use, public infrastructure projects and commercial ventures which are strictly in the public interest, as ascertained through a social audit. It also stuck to the norm (recommended first by this newspaper) that industry would have to commercially buy 70 per cent of the land required for a project before the state government could step in to acquire the rest. Industry has complained in some cases that such a change in the law would have made it difficult to set up new units, because land acquisition would have become next to impossible. However, this is not really true, as the experience with some of the special economic zones shows—land was privately acquired to a substantial degree, without the use of force.

The rehabilitation Bill, too, had some welcome stipulations—like undertaking rehabilitation prior to land takeover, and providing employment or equity participation to the affected families in the industries set up on the acquired land. These criteria sought to deal with two repeated complaints — that rehabilitation schemes often remained on paper, and that those who got money in return for land often squandered it and then had nothing left. It is also the case that the value of land goes up dramatically once its specified end-use is changed, from agricultural to industrial. The benefit from this flows almost entirely to industry. It is only fair that those who did not get any benefit from such change of end use should get an additional benefit, in terms of jobs or shares. Once again, the idea was to shift the balance in favour of those losing their land.

However, there were also problems with the two Bills. For instance, the whole legislative exercise could have proved futile, since the amendments would not have been binding on states as they are free to have their own policies in these areas. Some state governments have already put in place their own land acquisition and rehabilitation policies. Considering this, it would be advisable to let the new government that assumes power after the general elections decide on the best course to be adopted.

Bharat Rakshak

Indian Urban Development and Public Policy Discussion

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