Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (2005): Inception, Progress and Way Forward

Policy Update
Sayantani Ghosh

Rapid urbanization in India creates simultaneous developmental advantages and various complications for national growth. The Government of India introduced the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2005 as its principal urban development program to manage increasing urban demands. The analysis provides an extensive evaluation of JNNURM by studying its historical development along with its important key objectives and implementation aspects and presenting accomplishments with encountered barriers and potential future directions.

Background: Impetus for Urban Renewal

India experienced a historically rapid urban growth rate during the latter part of the twentieth century. The time-based Census of India from 2001 demonstrated that India had 286 million urban residents, constituting 28% of the overall population (Census of India, 2001). The population shift to the cities gave rise to infrastructure problems, leading to deteriorating living conditions and increasing poverty for the city dwellers. According to a Ministry of Urban Development [MoUD] (2005) report, only 70% of cities had access to piped water supply, and 63% received sewerage facilities. Yet, solid waste treatment remained at a science-based rate of 31%.

According to the National Commission on Urbanisation (1988), urban governance has demonstrated significant deficiencies, inadequate infrastructure deliveries, and insufficient public service operations. Subsequently, the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act of 1992 established urban local bodies (ULBs) as the third tier of government. Despite the efforts to empower local bodies, there were clear limitations since the Planning Commission recorded insufficient power and financial resource devolution (Planning Commission, 2002).

The JNNURM emerged as an investment program for reform-linked development to solve various urbanization problems in India. On December 3rd, 2005, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh introduced the Mission through which the program pursued two primary objectives: accelerating planned development and encouraging reform implementation for specified cities (MoUD, 2006).

Significance of the Mission

The JNNURM introduced significant changes to India’s urban policy structure. The JNNURM established itself as India’s most significant urban development initiative because it received an initial investment of ₹50,000 crore equivalent to $11 billion between 2005-2012 (MoUD, 2006). The Mission introduced reform-linked funding, which provided financial help based on implementing mandated urban governance and sector reforms to obtain access to funding (Planning Commission, 2008).

The JNNURM adopted a comprehensive strategy in urban development by connecting multiple components ranging from infrastructure build-up to governance transformation to social service delivery. The Mission specifically addressed the requirements of the urban poor through separate submissions and components that appeared in the municipal policy (Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation [MoHUPA], 2009). As a catalyst, the JNNURM initiated national dialogues about urbanization alongside elevating urban problems to become core development matters (World Bank, 2011).

Objectives of the Mission

The JNNURM had two sub-missions, which included Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG) alongside Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP). The overarching objectives included:

  1. The Mission works to provide stable and lasting urban infrastructure services
  2. The programs established connections between creating assets and performing maintenance operations.
  3. The process accelerates investments to reach urban infrastructure faster.
  4. The planned development initiative targets all cities and their peri-urban zones.
  5. Special focus on urban renewal of old city areas
  6. Providing essential services to the urban poor
  7. The government seeks to enhance municipal governance and local authorities’ performance (MoUD, 2006).

Addressing Rapid Urban Expansion

The JNNURM pursued various strategies to handle urban expansion at a rapid pace.

Comprehensive City Development Plans (CDPs)

Through the Mission, establishing CDPs became mandatory as integrated strategic plans for urban development—these provided institutions with tools to detect which projects received priority funding status (MoUD, 2006). The mission cities reached 65 preparations of CDPs in 2012, which included essential components concerning spatial planning, land use optimization, and infrastructure development (Grant Thornton, 2011).

Infrastructure Development

The major focus of the UIG component was to develop infrastructure for water supply and sewerage systems, solid waste management, road networks, urban transport systems, and inner city redevelopment. The sanctioned projects under the UIG program amounted to ₹60,730 crore through 538 sanctioned projects located in the 65 mission cities, according to data from March 2014 (MoUD, 2014).

The JNNURM introduced 23 necessary reforms for state and urban local bodies to resolve structural urban governance problems. These included:

Accounting reforms and E-governance

  1. Repeal of Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act
  2. Rationalization of stamp duty
  3. Introduction of user charges
  4. Public disclosure law and community participation law (MoUD, 2006)

Housing and Basic Services

The BSUP and IHSDP dedicated their efforts toward delivering comprehensive basic services to urban poor communities by providing them with housing security and economic housing with water services, sanitation facilities, and educational and healthcare resources. Under these components of BSUP and IHSDP, the government-sanctioned 1.6 million dwelling units, according to MoHUPA (2014) reports.

Progress of the Mission

The JNNURM was extended in March 2014 after operating for seven years, from 2005 to 2012.  Among the major accomplishments were: From 2005 to 2014, 1,336 projects totaling ₹1,32,612 crore were used to support all components (MoUD, 2014). About 50 million people had access to safe drinking water thanks to 225 project sanctions granted to the water supply sector (MoUD, 2014).

The urban transport segment of the development plan received 123 approved projects totaling ₹19,255 crore, which consisted mostly of bus rapid transit systems along with flyovers and pedestrian facilities (MoUD, 2014). Sewerage projects reached 136 numbers, which increased daily treatment capacity to 2,560 million liters (MoUD, 2014). The Mission constructed about 1 million completed houses from its total sanctioned 1.6 million units for urban poor habitation by 2014 (MoHUPA, 2014). Implementing reforms exceeded seventy percent across states, and states performed best in property tax, e-governance, and accounting reforms (Grant Thornton, 2011).

Emerging Issues and Challenges

Although successful, numerous difficulties made their appearance while implementing JNNURM:

I. Implementation Delays

The High Powered Expert Committee identified considerable time lapses during the project execution phases. Until 2011, only 231 of the total 523 UIG projects had been completed (HPEC, 2011). Contributing factors included:

  1. ULBs’ inadequate ability to plan and carry out projects
  2. Problems with land acquisition
  3. Protracted procurement procedures
  4. Issues with coordination between several agencies
  5. Implementation of Reform voids

Although states provided encouraging reports on their accomplishments, district-by-district variations existed in actual implementation. Numerous audits conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) demonstrated that urban local bodies had not developed strong frameworks for tax collection, user charge administration, or double-entry accounting. However, they presented compliance data (CAG, 2012).

II. Financial Sustainability

The Mission failed to establish strategies that would secure urban service financial sustainability. The McKinsey report (2010) demonstrated that JNNURM funding did not raise urban infrastructure spending to the necessary threshold of ₹3,400 per person annually.

III. Capacity Constraints

Insufficient institutional capability and limited human resources acted as major restricting factors. JNNURM’s capacity-building measures, as described in the Mid-Term Appraisal of the 11th Five-Year Plan, failed to develop essential technical and managerial competencies needed at the ULB level (Planning Commission, 2011).

IV. Urban Planning Deficiencies

CDPs were primarily drafted to acquire JNNURM funding, even though they lacked the primary purpose of guiding city development. CDPs frequently existed without proper integration between their frameworks, regional planning approaches, and statutory master plans, as the HPEC (2011) noted.

Way Forward

Several policy guidelines for urban development emerged from the JNNURM experience.

Comprehensive Urban Policy Framework
A complete urban policy framework should become India’s foundation for a shared understanding of sustainable urban development. The policy framework should direct all sectoral activities and programmed efforts and enable local adjustments (National Institute of Urban Affairs [NIUA], 2014).

Strengthened Municipal Governance
True empowerment of ULBs requires consistent and sufficient devolution of funding, clearly defined roles and jurisdictions, developing professional skills, iIncreasing the effectiveness of participative mechanisms, and the government must also improve accountability frameworks (Ministry of Finance, 2013).

Creative Methods of Financing
Funding sources for urban development include both municipal bonds and pooled finance techniques, balanced risk-sharing in public-private partnerships, instruments for funding based on land, funds allocated explicitly for urban infrastructure, and mechanisms for improving credit (HPEC, 2011).

Climate Resilience and Sustainability
Climate resilience and environmental sustainability must be combined in future urban development   initiatives by using energy-efficient building designs, recycling and water conservation, integrated solid waste management, and maintaining urban ecosystems with environmentally friendly city transportation (Ministry of Forests and Environment, 2012).

Making Decisions Based on Data
Effective data systems at the foundational level are essential to improving urban governance. These include spatial mapping using GIS, utility smart metering, monitoring service levels in real-time, initiatives for open data, and mechanisms for citizen feedback (NIUA, 2014)

Conclusion

Urban development in India witnessed its foremost advancement with the implementation of JNNURM. Urban policy continues to adopt principles from the Mission despite implementation challenges that have reduced its full impact. The successor programs to JNNURM, such as Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT and Housing for All programs, utilize JNNURM’s framework to direct new initiatives that address its existing constraints. The urban transition of India can benefit from the enduring valuable lessons of JNNURM that guide the establishment of sustainable urban futures with resilience and inclusivity.

References

About the Contributor: Sayantani Ghosh is a Research Intern at IMPRI and a postgraduate student of Public Policy and Governance at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad with a keen interest in the areas of climate change and sustainable development. 

Acknowledgement: The author extends her sincere gratitude to each and everyone who guided them through this process, especially Dr. Arjun Kumar and Aasthaba Jadeja. 

Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.

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