The Politics of Entrepreneurial Vision Group Plans and their Impact at the Local (Government) Level, Bengaluru
The chapter explores how corporate/private entrepreneurs try to move, beyond generating profits and providing employment opportunities, to create an enhanced role for themselves by influencing the decision-making processes of the local self-government. Si
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The Politics of Entrepreneurial Vision Group Plans and their Impact at the Local (Government) Level, Bengaluru Vinay Baindur
Introduction In recent times, India’s urban policy-making processes have begun to include various organized sectors such as not-for-profit organizations and corporate consultants. For example, the JNNURM secretariat hosted in the Ministry of Urban Development, New Delhi, had personnel from Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) consultants during the period 2006–2011 with funding both by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Manila and the Ministry. Similarly, the chairman of National Technical Advisory Group (NTAG) in the JNNURM1 was Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan, co-founder, Janaagraha, a non-profit organization based in Bengaluru with 4–5 other members also being from various non-profits in India. In certain cases, this appears to be part of a handing over process to local consultants who support urban reforms and infrastructure development in metro cities and tier-II and III towns. An example of this is the case of the ADB-financed project, North Karnataka Urban Sector Investment Program (NKUSIP), in Karnataka which was the third loan in a series of urban projects. This project created extensive opportunities for Indian firms and consortia to prepare city development plans for 20–30 smaller towns in Karnataka. It has to be noted that increasingly through such urban reforms and policies, the government, corporates and other sectors are repositioning cities as ‘engines of economic growth’ and as major contributors in generating the national gross domestic product (GDP). The JNNURM (2005–2014) of the Government of India (GoI) had hoped that, with massive urban sector reforms, and huge government investment, urban renewal 1
JNNURM: The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India from Dec 2005–March 2014.
V. Baindur (&) Bengaluru, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017 K.C. Smitha (ed.), Entrepreneurial Urbanism in India, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2236-4_6
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would occur in project cities. However, a study by Sivaramakrishnan (2011) showed that very few projects of urban renewal were actually implemented in the 65 mission cities. The current government2 has also renewed this effort with a greater focus on private sector participation, by introducing a series of urban initiatives such as Pradhan Mantri Avas Yojana (PMAY), Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT and HRIDAY.3 Some of these measures have been implemented through committees of bureaucrats at the level of state government, and a few other projects have been integrated as part of the long-term objective of implementing urban reform agenda with a consensus developed by the multilateral and bilateral development banks and agencies. These urban initiatives have been crucial in pushing towards entrepreneurial planning processes in India.
‘Let the Good Times Roll’ for Growth, GDP and Infrastructure What is the imagination about these urban reforms that such
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