 So I guess we we are on the second of a very foggy day in Delhi So we've lost some of our colleagues, but it's always nice to have a posey a crowd To discuss with this is the first time I'm sitting in this kind of format. I can only hope that You do have a ball patch you don't You have a ball patch at the moment. No, I don't either. So I think we are okay Anyway And so we are here to talk about de-risking urbanization and the development of cities and I was warned As I took over this This this responsibility to focus on the positive and not dwell on what the challenges are The challenges are too many and we don't think but we need to try and focus on what the solutions are now as I was looking at some of your comments about the subject matter I thought might be useful to Subdivide the conversation into three segments. So maybe the first 10-12 minutes We will focus on innovations in the delivery of services and Innovations in catering to the multiple stakeholders in urban India including in particular the Urban work second we can spend a few minutes on financing and funding of City development and third and probably the most important we should spend a little time on on on governance So I Guess all of you know the broad contours of the challenge according to the 2011 census, I think we are 380 million in urban India today Probably going up to five six hundred million over the next couple of decades But what I think a lot of people don't fully appreciate and this is a very important and frustrating aspect of the narrative in India is that over the next couple of decades we will probably end up With more poor in urban India absolute numbers than in rural India that could well be the case As urbanization proceeds so whereas a lot of the discussion and debate in our country is focused on You know improving the lives rule in there. There is not nearly enough discussion to figure out how we manage the transition inevitable transition To urbanization what has been happening is that urbanization has been taking place in an ad hoc manner and service delivery is completely shall we say chaotic So when I say service delivery just to make it more specific water and sanitation Affordable housing Public transportation these are just three. Let's not talk about education and public health care But if you wanted to cover the gamut that would be service delivery So challenges of delivering these services To a population that an absolute numbers is huge and humongous growing and a large number of poor people Without housing 25 million is the shortage in housing the bulk of it is with the poorest So to start to kick off that discussion maybe Priya Again the accent on the positive you spent a lot of time What what you think are the have you have you come across what are the innovations? promising innovations and trying to meet this challenge of service delivery Thank You Rajiv first of all the You're absolutely correct. This is a I look at it as an opportunity not just a challenge Primarily because of what we do in real estate, which is developing communities Where we do provide sort of mixed-use townships, which have waters sanitation roads education health care, however Clearly what we do is not enough. You know the GDP will have multiplied five times by 2030 There'll be 13 cities with a population of over four million and we have to build seven to nine billion square feet every year Which is a new Chicago every year just to meet the growing demand You're right to talk about affordability 54% of Mumbai lives in slums perhaps higher if you if you get the proper census numbers and Job creation is critical 70% of net new employment is going to be in cities What what I'd like to talk about is really the fact that a lot of this to this end We have to invest in capital expenditure So we need we're investing about a tenth as much as we should China invests about For $500 a square foot. I mean a per capita. I apologize per capita in infrastructure We need to invest at least $200 a square foot as per capita Sorry, I think in square feet, but I should state this in per capita and we are investing a tenth of that So clearly the the key emphasis needs to be On investment investment investment and whatever we can do to improve that Now we spent a lot of time in a discussion around our vision for India And I said one of the big things we could do is we there was a big study done by IFC and World Bank Which said that we are the 183 countries they ranked all of them in in terms of ease of doing business and We came 130 second probably no surprise But we came 181st in ease of getting construction permits and 182nd in ease of enforcing contracts That's too difficult for a country that needs to attract so much capital expenditure It's a very relatively a very easy fix for what we need to do I say very simplistically because construction permits obviously covers a lot of things we all experienced it All of those wind real estate, but it's a tremendous huge headache and to articulate that as a number makes us clearly understand how Awful we are at getting construction permits a lot of innovation in that area a lot of directional movement in that area is required The second thing is to elect executives in cities who have power, you know, we went to Tianjin for the weft There was a lot of Discussion with the vice mayor Ren who's wonderful the GDP is the fastest-growing GDP in China It's a city that has partnered with the weft we're doing some lot of development initiatives there with the weft and You know in transport and service industry, etc. But what Sort of made me realize where India is completely different is there are no executives in power in these cities that have real power to make decisions And that is a huge innovation I think that needs to occur People need to be in charge of these cities that really have power not like the municipal commissioners were Controlled by the corporations controlled by who we need politically elected leaders with absolute or a lot of power over these They will come back to that question of governance. So if I could Paraphrase what you said is that Creating space for the private sector through some form of deregulation Could really unleash a lot of potential growth in the construction industry And that would go a long way towards creating More affordable housing and jobs for the urban world. I mean the you you come at all this from a very different perspective There was social entrepreneur Would you agree with that? What is your? If you had to focus on what is the way forward for improving service delivery to India's growing urban population When you talk about the positives just in September there was a bill introduced in the Lok Sabha And we hope that it will be passed in the winter session ever is about Regulating the street vendors. So the bill talks about that in every city There would be a town vending committee and the town vending committee would demarcate vending zones and no vending zones And in the vending zones the street vendors would have licenses and they would be allowed to sell So that would That would rain in lot of chaos in the cities that some cities who have done quite good on creating vending zones So such kind of positive steps are needed. So when you talk about say sanitation when you talk then we also work with the waste pickers and We have organized them into a company which is doing waste management Presently we are doing it into three four cities But when you the only negative thing is that we are not allowed to talk about the challenges But the challenge is as she was saying that the governance You know everything in cities will come back on governance whether you like or you don't like because the city governance Is very bad in the country and the third thing is that there is no Efforts to unleash the potential of the urban poor You know say for example affordable housing if an urban poor wants to build a house Where we he or she will get money. There is no financing for that You know most of the time this genuine money on housing is blocked. It's not being spent They don't need money They just need land where they can build their houses and they can build on their own that Understanding about urban poverty. We seriously lack, you know, we need to unleash their potential That is not happening in the country and in the cities. Okay, I Just wanted to And trying to keep the conversation positive There are despite the governance challenge despite the government challenge This is what is fascinating about in there There are a number of examples perhaps not as many as they should be but there's nevertheless a number of examples of Incipient success in new delivery models for urban services So in water supply and solid weight disposal, I can point to at least half a dozen examples where Public-private partnerships have actually begun to have a serious impact. So in Karnataka, for example with in partnership with a French company Delivery of 24 seven water services at very affordable rates including to the smart slum communities In the city in the style has been achieved With not too much stress You know all the normal things that we we have focused on the rules going to allow the right of way Where is the capex going to come from to to redo the pipes and all that so a combination of technology a little bit of goodwill and pragmatic negotiations between energetic leadership at the city level and the state level and private enterprise has delivered Some success Question for you, I mean, I know that you have Held the view for quite some time that we cannot in this country solve our urbanization problems unless we take on the challenge of building new cities, right? if the problems of governance that both PR are being have alluded to were not hard enough in existing cities, how would you challenge? How would you solve the problem of governance in building new cities? Well When you are discussing I thought you kept the governance to the last I know but the pressure is overwhelming First thing is that the city should be allowed to manage Whether it's a big city like Bombay or Delhi or whether it's a small town like Surat or Ratnagiri, I think this is something that is missing in India The institution of the mayor is missing in India Without this you are not going to be able to get sufficient urbanization and successful It has many advantages first advantage is that the city governs itself and therefore The those who govern the city and manage the city are Accountable to the people and they're very closely Accountable that keeps them more honest that keeps them more getting the job done Second important thing about this is that We need to understand that the city may have to decide what it wants to do. I completely I'm horrified at the idea that the Indian parliament should be passing a law of how each town or city Would be managing its vendors is none of the government of India's business It is the business of the city how it wishes to deal with its vendors How it wishes to do until you leave it at that level vendors have many uses Apart from providing services and cheap services They also provide eyes on the ground and provide security to the place So there are a variety of things which I think would be still left to the city to decide So until we create these urban units and we are going to urbanize rapidly You've talked about already 200 million and 20 years will be 400 in another 10 15 years So we are discussing a huge migration So coming back to the point that so this is absolute imperative one might say oh the We will not be able to do that first. Let's get down to doing something else. Yes We will still manage to get something going but your final and ultimate way things will improve is only when you create sweet city Now when you come down to some we have got some very great Holy cows that we always keep discussing affordable housing affordable What do you mean the very definition of the word poor means the person does not have the money to build out So you have to create rental housing in city today all the policies are such that they discourage From rent tax to giving tenants almost rights of ownership Therefore you don't get if you go back to Bombay for example And you see Ballard estate or any place These are five and six stories tall buildings sitting on a footprint the size of the floor Which means you are talking about six emphasize and they will build them. You'll see large amount of housing Except for the very rich Everybody in in Bombay live from the lowest worker to a middle-class civil servant lived in rental house So they have not built any rental housing in this country nor do we have a policy All our ministers get big bungalows whatever start of society economic start as they come from when they come to Delhi or they come to Bombay or Hyderabad if they were forced to live in rental housing to fully think of better policy And the slums therefore is the answer the slum Lord has provided That answer of creating rental housing because a poor man that travels to the city for work He comes there because he knows he's going to get work He doesn't have money to quickly build a house He quickly needs some place to park himself and he finds the slum is the cheapest form of housing And so if you don't build cities in a planned way if you don't give them independence Slums is the way things will happen. Can I just take that up? I'm just gonna I'm going with the flow. So I'm gonna mix everything up now Thought just occurred to me and this is a question addressed you first actually to you I've been do you think that? Urban poor would actually take to rental housing if it were provided in a you know So as you said in any case they are taking to rental housing and that doing a shanty way the poor condition So I would I would say that they should be Finance should be accessible to them. Okay, so that they can purchase houses over a period of time rather than wait for This is then a question for Priya from a real estate developer point of view, right Would you develop housing stock for renting? If let's say you were we were to come up with innovative schemes to improve the yield to you and Yet keep it affordable to the person that is paying First of all absolutely yes, and secondly, I mean if you look at the model of let's say the UK where rental housing is very common Policy supported the financing is available for it And more importantly the government provides subsidies to the poorest who cannot afford it So for instance at any time a development is made a certain amount is reserved for affordable housing and then just like in China Subsidy vouchers are provided to people so that when they move to an urban area They cannot afford rental housing and they get a subsidy not dissimilar to our public a food subsidy I mean obviously a public food subsidy subsidy has its own challenges But if it's a direct rent subsidy provided it will allow people not to move to slums and allow developers To actually create a market which even the poorest can afford James do you have one retirement on this? Well, I just to pick up that point I mean it in the UK I think the government played quite a neat trick because as Priya says there is housing benefit which goes to the poor Remember society and the way the social housing is financed is By by Securitizing in effect the housing benefit So the cost of capital comes way way down because the risk the financiers is the government housing benefit cash flow Rather than rather than the use that you know the poor members of Saudi who are obviously not going to be a good credit risk at all So in that way, I mean over the last I think the current figure is around 50 billion pounds worth of debt has been raised to fund social housing in the UK At a very very low cost of capital against the receivables of the rent against the receive note against the receivables of the housing benefit So it's the government cash flow that's Providing the security rather than rather than the rent from the from the from the tenant and the debt is raised against that Yeah, that's very interesting. Yeah, and and We've come up with a very concrete suggestion in this You know concrete suggestions wonderful ideas are sitting around the streets of this land Right, nobody's willing to pick them up. All right. I'm glad you started so let's so let's shift gears to that I want to pick up Come back to the issue of governance. I think we are all and your international experience would be very helpful to get a Some point as for how we go about it. I think everybody there's everybody knows that governance needs to be decentralized in Indian cities right What can we do? To make that happen Can I get James what just the internet? I mean, I just want to support the mayor point I mean, I mean the fact is if you look around the world successful cities have mayors and And you know, you only have to look at the crisis in New York and see the role of my Bloomberg and in dealing with it This is about de-risking cities But but I think we talk about mayors But I think there's a more important point that lies below the appointment of mayor when a mayor is appointed central government delegates powers to that mayor and It's it's not just the man I mean, there are lots of ceremonial mayors that to be honest do very little the substantive mayors of those where central government has Made a conscious decision to delegate both both tax tax-raising powers But also powers to to control matters in the city and that's where they become affected I mean this doesn't that means the mayor does not report to the chief Correct like the chief minister does not report to the private He's an independent and what he does in the city is what he does and doesn't have to ask the chief minister What he does but in our federal structure fun in our federal structure even in the federal structure of America federal structure of Germany Federal structure of of Switzerland several federal structures. It's federal structure of China China where there's so much control The mayors are fairly independent people and therefore it's important to understand that city can Work best only when it governs itself, right? Of course, there are some intercity issues with the state has to look at just as interstate issues with the central government has to look at but the whole idea is that let the city develop and The powers be delegated when you talk of that if the mayors and that city decides it's going to provide only Education and it does not wish to have factories so it be if they want to have six airports so it be As long as they are safe and therefore this is the most important aspect of yet We are forgetting for panchayat. We want this and we talk of the freedom That's precisely the and when all these panchayats are going to finally become little cities or towns, right? Then what happens now here you will find another interesting future No, panchayat can actually spend the money without the permission of the collector No municipality can do anything without the permission of the municipal commissioner. This is not local self-governance You know how strong the local self-governance was when Kaurji Jagger was the mayor during British times And the Indian standard time was introduced. He did not agree with it So Crawford market showed Bombay time on his watch during his tenure I want to I want to come in this idea of a strong mayor I have seen in Uttar Pradesh for example They have direct election of mayors, but many of the municipal bodies with which we work They have indirect election of the mayor. So the municipal commissioners are elected this Counselors are elected what what councillors or what commissioners and they go to elect the mayor Here a lot of trading happens and I tell you the dirty pictures some of the municipal bodies with which we work There's the actual the businessman who has invested in the election of the mayor sits next to the mayor in deciding most of the issues So I would go for a direct election of the mayor where the mayor is powerful in the city rather than Otherwise it has become quite cosmetic cosmetic and it's become quite complicated in that way Just I mean just it's an interesting statistic in in in the UK The prime minister is elected by about 50,000 votes in his constituency The mayor of London is is elected by four or five million people The fact is London would not have got a congestion charge with national policy No prime minister of the UK would have been able to implement congestion charging in London It was only a mayor that could introduce that policy because that was on his on his election mandate Yeah, there's also one more thing While the mayor exists The ability to manage cities the professional capabilities to manage cities are equally lucky It's one thing to have a mayor who has been delegated the city has been delegated the power to do what it likes Is that building the city capable administration you got a municipal commissioner that the state government appoints The whole and he moves on to another job The city must appoint it the city must choose it and if he does a bad job He gets sacked from the city And if he does a good job, maybe other cities will deploy him We must have city management as a Separate civil service professional line creative. I don't sorry. No, no, please specific question We all agree direct election of mayors is the way to go from where we are today to where we want to go What is the one or two things we need to do to accelerate that process? So we have a 74th amendment of the constitution which talks about this transitory phase Which we've all sort of been talking about where every state gets money Every state gets money directly and that leads the path to the city's getting money directly I think that's very important Which is establishing a clear formula by which the cities make money So for instance today cities in india grow at the same rate as the rest of the country That's unacceptable. Usually the gdp in cities has to be faster And so for example the way the you the way china works is they get 25 of the vat They raise they can sell land they can raise money For example, the uk they can raise a special spv which can go out and raise money They can sell land again and they also get grants So for instance, this is all very clear very formulaic so that we don't have We don't kill the golden the proverbial golden goose the city of mumbai or delhi etc Which raise the vast majority of the tax receipts of the country and all in really almost all of urban india that raises The tax receipts doesn't get any proportion of the money it deserves and needs And therefore I think if you start with that then you clearly start to create a pot of money that then People in government are interested in spending and you empower and have something That the election is worth talking about can I can I um I'd like to make an observation and then get your comments on it We're all struggling with this or how do we how do we get from where we are to where we need to go And I'd like to submit the following hypothesis That we are actually further along this journey than we give ourselves credit for The reason why We are further along is actually just pure and simple the logic of politics One of the very interesting features of the 2011 census is the Capturing of data on what they call census towns Census towns are not urban local bodies are actually gram panchayats village You know governed as villages right, but In physical form Population density everything else. They are exactly like Urban areas right now My hypothesis is maybe not in the next election certainly not but certainly over the next decade right Given this shift of population Um and the nature of urbanization that is taking place The urban and peri urban population that is politically active and influential in this country It becomes so large that these changes will become inevitable Do you have a as an outsider? Do you have a comment? Well It's interesting when you think of hierarchy in a country. It's this Priya's point I think that that you know most most countries have a hierarchy of Central government state city Local government Now the reality is with the growth of cities and the importance of cities in the economy that hierarchy is actually not right And you have to bring cities up in the hierarchy and interestingly in South Africa In their constitution cities have an equivalent place to to the the surrounding of province state Which is a recognition of their importance to the economy and the fact is that if you look at the credit rating in most countries The credit rating of a city the major city in that country will be higher The per capita income will absolutely their ability to raise money will be higher And and therefore if you give them the self sufficiency if you give them the ability to govern themselves They will they will thrive And not be be be hampered by by everything that's going on outside that city So urban you'd agree with that that um I mean am I being too optimistic naively optimistic. No next decade The forces of politics will inevitably drive us towards a better urban governance. So that's a reality Actually, the city administration issue is a new issue for the country We have not been thinking about it since quite some time So it's just recent issue and this regarding the tax structure and all So that's very important. See if you look at most of the municipal bodies in the country They are heavily dependent upon center state government and central government fund They are not made to be Self-sufficient, you know or financially stable. They are may they they they're planned like that You know that they don't become self-sufficient. They are dependent on the state governments for that Yeah, so like simple thing like advertisement many of the municipal bodies do not know how to raise money from You have advertisers running after them, you know for giving money, you know We have street vendors running after them for giving tax, you know, but they don't want, you know Because that's not what they're made to be and the officers who get posted They don't have any experience in urban administration. That's the worst part That's why I agree that let the mayor appoint a person who has exposure on urban administration They come from district They have been district my state in some states and they come with big egos And they don't want to understand the urban issues and so so there's a conflict and another Problem with this indirect election is that the the ward councillors the ward commissioners they Those who get elected in the ward, they are only interested in people who have voted for them. So in a ward In a ward, there would not be there would be people who have not voted You know, they they would be residing somewhere else their name in the voter list would be somewhere So they are not interested in the market. They're only interested in few localities, which is their vote bank That's why I'm saying that indirect election a direct election of the is the of the mayor is the right so that the mayor is Otherwise, the mayor is not a mayor is only accountable to the ward councillors who have elected them And the ward councillors are accountable only to certain pockets in the constituency to who have voted them See, there's also one more thing just as we talk of mayor while you're right your your your Analysis of how the population will now live in cities and therefore it will be The insurance that this will happen But that means you will now get get votes for making this happen Yes, but leadership will have to be shown of what is that power to this And that would include the right to appoint the municipal governor and staff You may have schools or colleges or things that are creating a cater of officers that you can choose from But the choice should be that of the city The police is not accountable to the city in this country And this is another big because the police is yeah, so Really is another story because it's a union territory. The fact is that every other place we we've got to have From this so we have to create as leaders as thought leaders. We have to create this structure Pursuant to the 73rd 74th amendment and put it forth to the On for conversation and discussion and debate Pursuant people in members of parliament that please pass this legislation quickly Perhaps some state wants to pass that legislation quickly because there's no timing on that legislation So once we do that we'll get a model that people can follow as I said Why directly elected men why the police commissioner should be reporting to the city? Why should the municipal commissioner report to the city? How to create a cater of city managers that understand the city? And we have to do this so fast We also have to understand the public-private partnership model better Because we can't do so many cities in such a short time without this kind of participation And we have to bring in civil society and NGOs into this discussion At the end the cities will be governed by NGOs support Exactly, there's no other way that can in fact so we have a really little time remaining before we open up for Q&A I wanted to address Use that as a segue into the one set of issues we have with this and that's funding and financing Um, so you talk about public-private partnerships There's another aspect to The funding challenge that I want to be placed on the table It's always struck me that when you compare China and India That in China because land belongs to the state And as land use changes from agriculture to non-agriculture rapid to rapid urbanization That increase in the value of land is actually captured by the municipalities Then after a few inevitable leakages, it is however Reinvested in municipal infrastructure in our country. What is fascinating is that this Value accretion that happens through change in land use is captured entirely in the private space And the private space Or in the or in the hands of the state government Is it really most political parties have created made cities. They are colonies, right? So but it is so what I said in the private space meaning it's not coming through government program It's either being funneled off. So this is where the big corruption happens So it's spent it's spent in the the villages of India right and it's collected in the city Right, that's why I say that the political parties of India at the state level Have used the cities as their colonies, right to to reef. Yeah, so exactly So they send land land use rights in Mumbai To take the service to reinvest in and that money is spent in sub quadruple Factory in the middle, correct of nowhere, correct a planting gain where there shouldn't be plenty tonight So James, do you have any Lessons from elsewhere in the world about how we can unlock the value of land Well, I think the two most successful The most successful two of the most successful cities in the world are Hong Kong and Singapore Where clearly land monetization has driven growth. China would be would be another example I mean the mtr, which is the the the the transport authority in In Hong Kong is a property company masquerading as a as a metric It is a property company this so I think the first point I would make is for new cities This should be much more manageable because because the the city should be able to grab hold of the land Before the public money goes in Before the private sector money comes in I think to be clear public money Always has to go in before to to to enable the private sector investment Rajiv, I think I think that's sort of a little bit hard in Indian politics I'll tell you why I say that I think we've already fragmented our land holding. They're already under the under the old engine laws All land holdings are heavily Mostly fragmented unless they've been aggregated for development And so to go out and say well, we'll do what Singapore does, which is 90% Singapore housing board 90% of housing in Singapore Singapore housing board htp And to try and do that is going to be relatively hard. I think I'd love to hear your opinion on that in in the Indian context to monetize directly However, you know, we've seen that happen with sit go and mara and all these other places where they are working To provide and which which is where the government really needs to work Extensively is to try and get some of that uplift in value by permitting So what they can say to a developer like anybody and say go up to them and say well, actually if you have managed to aggregate 500 acres Then we'd like to work with you and and work with you on getting some of that accretion and value Which is where the informal channels are working versus the formal channel if there is more Succinct simple policy on that. I think that's going to be much better Then trying to go out and go down the path of compulsory land acquisition, which is probably Sorry, but there is another method. Sorry. I agree with I think there are big difficulties I mean mmrda in Mumbai is an example of a body that does effectively monetize and then But but there is another way of doing this if you can't grab hold of the land And I agree with you that is a problem everywhere particularly in modern. Sorry in particularly in mature cities Then the other way is to is you have to do is to capture Some of that upside through some kind of property tax over time And increasingly that is you've been used as a mechanism and then cities are Securitizing that property tax And raising capital off the back of that property tax To fund infrastructure and what they're doing is ring fencing the incremental property tax Now the trouble that all ministries of finance have without methodology is is that they they ask you to prove That the the the the property tax it is genuinely incremental and not substitution But that is an increasing way in which cities are are using uplift or using Development to fund infrastructure We have one more big challenge and we need to discuss that too Is that while you see what happened in europe and what happened either has happened over a long period of time and small villages grew into cities and then they became thousands and It is a very serious evolutionary process by which they have arrived at what they're doing The migration that we are going to see in india happened in europe over a thousand years Now We need to understand this is all going to happen to us in a very short time In a very young country And this is posing the bigger challenge and a lot With with the right kind of policies that we get we get reforms and we get prosperity at employment You're going to find that 95 percent of the new middle class or middle income Is born not born of yesterday's middle class She's going to get a very different kind of population in this place So there are social issues that are also going to creep up Migrations going to come from different parts of the country and not just one area And these are all issues that can only be sorted out If we have more power to the cities on one side At the same time we also look at the the concept of funding and taxation the finance commission can be given the task How can this be done? We have brilliant people who have done a more excellent job in finance commission And you will get these solutions very quickly. We have not begun the conversation adequately not dependent enough It hasn't caught the imagination of people will need some leadership there that should own this Put it out there in the public forum for discussion and hope like that with the new urbanized population It'll it'll catch traction So with that We have 15 minutes left. Maybe we can open up the floor to You just introduce yourself before you ask the question So vikram Gandhi from vsg capital advisors You know you talked about mayors, which obviously is critical and everyone agrees with that But if you take the large cities So so maybe agit you or people other people who are very familiar with Mumbai or Bangalore So having a Mumbai mayor with power is good. How do you get from point a to point b? How do you make that happen? Is it is it realistic to expect that to actually happen? No, but Don't that it's not realistic to expect serious improvement in the cities also Because this is something that you have tried and you will get like jn and use some funding some improvement And then then because of the urgency of things Parliament is spending its time passing laws on what vendors should stand on what street in which Which town and village of this country rather than protecting our borders and securing the energy energy security of this country So you will have to understand that this structural change must take me and this is talked about This same parliament has accepted it and incorporated it in the 73rd and 74th amendment All it did was not put a date to each state and it's time that But we are occupied with other things in the country at the moment But i'm sure they will sense will prevail and only then will it happen But we've got to have leadership Produce enough paper reduce the conversation launch it at every every forum we can And I think over a period of the next two three years This consciousness will come I don't see any other way and then also things happen Like if you don't plan a city slums happen And when slums happen take gurga for example, where we are sitting See all those lovely big glittering small small small low-cost hotels along the road As you leave deli and come along those were slums before As the city came in and as prosperity came in these those slums became hotels So this is the other organic way that things will grow Right and some big fire will burn out a good part of it and again will be rebuilt like it happened in london So that's some some other way things will happen and I don't That's one solution Yellowstone national park you have A high chance of James I mean, I'm not familiar with enough of the political situation in India But what I would say is around the world When mayors Empowered mayors have been appointed it requires the central politicians to accept A devolution of power to that individual a loss of power to that individual And you know if you if you take london as a good example and you take transport The fact is the mayor of london probably has As much influence if not more power over national transport not national but london transport Than than the secretary of state for transport and that's a big That was a big loss of power for the secretary of state for transport And the the mayor of london is would rank amongst the top suddenly the top five politicians in the country Suddenly So There is a practical difficulty in my mind in terms of the central By definition, it means people will be giving up serious power to make it happen So but just to we need to take one more question. I just to again try and Bring the conversation to a positive note You know after all what were the political uh pulls and pressures that led to the creation of chattis go of Uttar khand Or jharkhand and jharkhand now the empirical evidence is really compelling after the creation of these states that were carved out of much larger agglomerations The performance has improved dramatically Delhi became a state. So it's a matter of time I think the the politics of the state of maharashtra will change over the next decade And there will be a growing constituency that will force the hand Or future chief ministers that they will not be able to ignore The 40 to 45 million people who will be living in the greater Mumbai region Now what form it takes whether it'll be a directly elected mayor or not Difficult to predict but clearly the interests of that region will have to be reflected Sorry, we had one more question. Just just what I just want to give you on a positive note If in 1989 somebody would have told you in 10 years you'll have 500 television channels Would you have believed? They have happened right we had Two states run unwatchable challenge All 700 today may be still unwatchable, but there are seven So if that can happen, why won't this? Right Raji may I draw your attention and then pose a question behind what I'm drawing attention to which is It says de-risking Indian cities one of the biggest risks is health And health linked to something called the vectors of disease which are born out of garbage not collected And which is enshrined in a very strict law created in the year 2000 the ms municipal sort of is management rules 2000 Where the clauses in inserted there enjoin upon strict penalties including imprisonment of municipal commissioners if they don't follow the law In creating sanitary landfills within a time-bound framework ajit, which you said low hanging fruit I'm absolutely amazed that despite the plague in surat despite everything that is happening nidan Why don't you take it up as something which is you've got the law You've got magisterial powers within the law and yet you have news appearing every other day in places Like Mumbai or Delhi or Bangalore which become unlivable for something as simple as a low hanging fruit Which is collection and sanitary disposal of garbage See whatever we discuss in cities will come back on governance And I'll give you example of some of the municipal bodies with which we are working without naming them You know, we are working on the waste management of say one city I will not name the city and that's part of the best governed one of the best governed states now A lot of talk about Bihar and in that city, you know the municipal commissioner is giving you different orders The mayor is giving you different orders. The ward commissioners are giving you different orders The person who has got the mayor elected by paying money is giving you different orders There are resident associations giving you different orders and it's a chaos It's a who is the leader in the city to whom you should listen to there are the sanitary inspectors who are Previously there. They are giving you different orders. They are the trade unions who are there from previous They are giving they are trying to pull you in different parts And if the municipal commissioner is angry what they what they he will do He will put the worst people the best leaders of the union at the garbage collection site, you know Yeah, so that you know when your vehicles go there for weightage for tonnage that person will create problem And so, you know and ultimately you are paid by tonnage So the financial system doesn't work and for getting the money paid We have one person who spends the whole day in the municipal office and he says that the file goes to 17 places 17 places before the money is sanctioned, you know, and he cries every time he's able to get the money It's only our passion for municipal reform that keeps us there. It's only our passion for that Otherwise, I will tell you the condition of the waste management in India Many many municipal bodies are outsourcing I will not it's not be it will not be an understatement that many of the so-called Waste management companies are playing a fraud with the people with the municipal bodies You know the somehow we have shifted to the tonnage based system Whereby the municipal body pays the waste management company by the number of tons you take it to the site So there the fraud happens that one track will make 10 rounds without actually disposing of the waste, you know So we'll collect the waste go there. There is CCTV. There are all formalities We'll do that we'll take out one ton out of say seven eight tons and then again come back in half an hour Again have the photographs again and that's how it's happening. That's why no, we must understand that why dengue is angry Why we are suffering from health? We must understand It's very easy to just give one article just blame it to the government But until the administration in the cities happen, you know, I can tell you about waste management I can tell you about other issues on which we are working. You know, it's a real painful day to day experience Yesterday somebody rang me up from that city saying that this guy who is at the tonnage He is not allowing us. We need to give him money Otherwise he will not allow us to weigh our vehicles today He returned so many vehicles and there is such a huge capital intensive for a non-profit like us, you know, and That's the horrible situation. He's given you an idea He's given you an idea There is a there's a there's a clause in the municipality's act Which can help you put one municipal commissioner in jail And you will get improvement in administration and you will rule the prime time of indian television for days All 700 channels That is not the objective To get your job done to get your job done to get your job done. We have time for one more question from the audience Yes Take a lady Hi, I'm mini menon from bloomberg tv. My question is to dr. Lal and james, you know, for the longest time We've been speaking about Novel Financial products or debt products to fund it So my first question is the the point you raised about the national housing board in england and you know how that's funded Can't we look at Customized financial products for the problems that we face because most of our cities are running out of money as well Second is that can we have a system where user charges are not being levied in most cases? I think the the largest beneficiary of subsidies in india is the middle class Is the urban middle class and they can well afford to pay for what they get So is it is the success of our cities also predicated on the ability to charge user charges and really make it financially viable Well, I I think expression that's coming out more and more is fair consumer charging One of the one of the problems with most most consumer charging mechanisms Is is i'm going to use a western world example But somebody living in a slum pays the same price for the first liter of water As the person who's filling their swimming pool with their last liter of water and there is no differential pricing for For consumer charging and that's why I think there is great difficulty in introducing consumer charging But coming to your financing point fundamentally cities I mean this is probably the country that's concentrating on city cities need to generate long term stable cash flows Whether that's from taxation consumer charging confidence in land monetization And only off the back of that will they be able to do proper long term planning which will Which will facilitate growth and reduce risk and resilience And off the back of that they will they will create a lower cost of capital And and the problem too often is a lot of the funding cash flows which are then get off the back of which You raise the finance are relatively short term relatively uncertain carry regulatory risk or whatever risk you want to call it And as a result there it is very difficult to raise low cost of capital money And anything like long term capital and therefore only in customer Okay time for wrap up Including thoughts I just go around The panel one positive thought Our best would be risk Yeah Empower the master planning and I think Already existing in the existing framework we have We have very We have the path available the regulatory path is there And I think create a strong and robust master planning department because no city in the world Any mega city has been created without great master planning that has been done looking at a 50 125 even 10 year horizon. I think that's one focus we should have Well, I would say Embrace change because I think those cities that are Pushing forward are the ones that realize that the old methods just don't work and that the world to be honest The world has changed Dramatically and say you in order to push forward you have to do things do things differently But it start a major college for creative city managers in the country And persuade a small city which is wants to go places which wants to now create itself Follow these new practices and you probably might get a model in the short And then you have the last word. Yeah, I think we should also focus on making them financially very viable That the user charge or whatever, you know, how taxes and property tax, for example Parking in cannot place is 10 rupees in Delhi. Just imagine, you know, how we are living our Our own money and if it is financially viable or financially stable, then it will attract more talent. Otherwise, nobody would like to come in government Excellent, I just want to leave you all with a vignette. Actually, you just reminded me of Of this to your point about fairness and perceived fairness of user charges You know, there's been a lot of debate about the rapid bus transit system in Delhi And ironically to the very first corridor they chose Was the corridor where the most wealthy people with the most cars were living Is not the smartest thing to do But all the time that the brt was being launched and there were all kinds of teething problems You should go back and compare the commentary on that Between the English language press And the Hindi language press English language press is all up in arms. Oh, this is terrible. Very inconvenient. Horrible. We can't stand this. You read the same Over the same day as the Hindi language press, they'll say this is great So the world is changing and I think the politics will drive it all in the end. Thank you very much. Thank you