Untapped potential lies in forum of mayors

Decentralisation gives power to the people by establishing urban local bodies consisting of elected representatives, but leaves much at the hands of bureaucrats and state governments to decide the contours of local governance. Mayors’ Forum at the state level give them a unified and strong voice to raise their issues of concern. It brings together mayors from various cities of the state to handhold each other in the all-round development of their cities. It also gives them a platform to demand their due rights and powers.

A mayor is not only the legislative head and representative of municipal corporations, but also the representative, the voice, and ears of the citizens. Through the urban local bodies, mayors are required to ensure efficient delivery of civic services to the people and guide formation and implementation of development programmes according to the needs of the city. Mayors are the city leaders for they are involved in the development of the cities at the grassroots level and are directly answerable to the citizens.
Mayors hand holdingeach other
No city can develop itself entirely on its own – learning, evolving, and implementing ideas from other cities is an important ingredient in its progress. Learnings from China during the COVID-19 pandemic equipped nations around the world with preventative measures against the novel coronavirus. Similarly, Mayors’ Forum has been organised at the international, continental, national, and state levels to bring together city leaders on a single platform, where they can exchange knowledge and experiences that would help them develop their cities.
International Mayors’ Forums are currently organised by a number of organisations including the Green Municipal Fund Council, United Nations Office for Regional Development, UCLG ASPAC and the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. Despite having varied agendas, the basic aim of these forums remains the same – to bring together city leaders from across the world on a single platform, where they can interact with one another, learn from each other’s experiences, and even form business relations. As an attempt to promote dialogue and knowledge sharing among mayors from across India, the All India Mayors’ Conference, which is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, is organised every year. However, the conference is attended by a very small fraction of Indian mayors. India has a total of 226 municipal corporations, but only 120 mayors attended the last All India Mayors’ Conference held in December 2021. It seems that such an important platform for city leaders, and hence for urban development, is not so accessible or popular among the mayors.
States in India were divided on linguistic lines. The motive was to ease the process of governance in the nation. Each city is different in its characteristics, but cities from a particular state have many similarities, including geography, language, and culture. Therefore, Mayors’ forum, when organised at the state level, can enable city leaders to learn from each other as the challenges, and their solutions, are often similar. Moreover, state mayors’ forums have proven to be more accessible to mayors because they help them avoid long distance travel and absence from their offices for long periods of time. However, so far, only 4 states in India – Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, and Maharashtra – have taken the initiative to organise forums for mayors regularly. Mayors of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have themselves created the forums, where Mayors of the state meet on a timely basis. Sanjeev Sharma Bittu, former Mayor, Municipal Corporation of Patiala and Chairman of Mayors’ Forum of Punjab, in an interview with Urban Update informed that the state’s Mayors meet once every year under auspices of the forum. He was of the opinion that these meetings have widened Mayors’ perspectives to new ideas, technologies, best practices, and solutions to common challenges. The office of the Mayors’ Forum of Gujarat and Maharashtra is hosted by the All India Institute of Local Self-Government in collaboration with respective city Mayors. An official in-charge of organizing Gujarat Mayors’ Forum said that after the recently arranged meeting for the mayors of Gujarat under the Gujarat Mayors’ Forum in March, the plan is to arrange it on a quarterly basis. He said that the quarterly meeting will help Mayors discuss challenges, solutions and opportunities in varied sectors of urban development and get timely solutions.

Mayoral powers and their role

The 74th Amendment lists 18 roles that municipal bodies must perform to ensure that each and every citizen gets access to basic civic services. However, recent reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on the state of devolution of these roles to municipal corporations in the states of Karnataka, Rajasthan, and Haryana show that no municipal body has full jurisdiction of more than 4 roles in these states. The situation with regard to devolution of responsibilities, powers, and finances to the all the municipal corporations in India is likely to be similar to that in the above-mentioned states.
Mayors are the official representative of the people and the municipal body. A group of Mayors got together to ask for their corporations’ due rights was in 2011. Mayors from eight municipal corporations of the state of Gujarat formed a forum to demand more rights and financial powers, all of which should rightly be theirs according to the 74th Amendment. The demands of the Mayors remained similar in the All India Mayors’ Conference held in December last year. Since individual states are responsible for devolution of powers to the municipal corporations, Mayors’ forums for each individual state can create an effective platform for Mayors to collectively push for more rapid improvement in the situation. Such forums have the potential of bringing together Mayors of the nation to work towards a system of direct elections for mayoral positions, fixed tenures, and more executive authority in urban local bodies. As power ultimately belongs to the people, it should rest with the ones who are duly elected by them.

Each city is different in its characteristics, but cities from a particular state have many similarities, including geography, language, and culture. Therefore, Mayors’ forum, when organised at the state level, can enable city leaders to learn from each other as the challenges, and their solutions, are often similar