Plan panel wants private partners to delivery all urban sevices

In a bid to rejuveniate urban civic amenities, a Planning Commission committee has recommended role of private sector in delivery public services such as water supply and sewage management to people.

Updated on: Jul 8, 2012, 21:37:11 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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In a bid to rejuveniate urban civic amenities, a Planning Commission committee has recommended role of private sector in delivery public services such as water supply and sewage management to people.

Most Indian cities have inadequate water suppluy because of huge leakages and poor distrbution system and only 30-40 % of the sewage gets treated. Only half of the garbage gets properly disposed.Just 20 % roads in cities have storm water drains resulting in water logging and most cities lack proper water drainage system.

To address the issues, which would aggravate with half of Indians expected to be in cities by 2030, the panel has suggested People Public Private Partnership (PPPP)mode, where people should have a crucial role in design of projects and its implementation.

"The role of the people in design of projects is crucial and therefore, best practices and models for PPPPs must be evolved and deployed for India's urban management agenda to succeed," said planning commission's steering committee on urban management for the 12th five year plan, which started in this financial year.

The panel wants that everyone who get municipal water in cities should pay for it and in return the municipal bodies should assure a regular water supply. It also said that every household should be ensured proper sanitation facilities and government should create facilities for treatment of all sewage generated in the cities.

For all this, it has estimated that Rs 1,62,000 crore will be required in the next five years and asked the local bodies to seek help of the private sector to raise the funds. "This can be achieved through a National Mission on Sustainable Habitat," the panel's report said.

To ensure that the PPPP is people center, the panel has suggested setting up of an independent ombudsman (complaint redressal body) in each municipal corporation and also set up exclusive Lokayuktas to look into complaints of corruption in municipal bodies.

The committee has also asked municipal bodies to reform the property tax regime to restructure it as a "general benefit" tax and the government should also levy tax on vacant plots to prevent land hoarding.It also wants cities to have Metropolitan Development Authority to have a sustainable public transport system.

On the political level, it wants the Mayors to have five year term to ensure accountability and the ministry of Urban Development and Urban Housing and Poverty Alleviation merged for better management.

The recommendations of the committee are expected to be part of 12th five year plan to be considered by all Chief Ministers at a meeting in Delhi in September.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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