At present, local governments and urban dwellers don’t have much say in the urban planning apparatus, and urban under-representation at state and national levels is leading to political neglect. For example, in Maharashtra, India’s most urbanized state, 47% of the populace lives in urban constituencies and yet, these constituencies hold only 31% of assembly seats. In that period, urban population growth surpassed rural population growth for the first time in India’s history. For truly empowered mayors to get elected, political representation has to align with population representation at the state and national level. One way to address this challenge would be to improve the representation of urban constituencies in decisionmaking.

Source: Mint April 09, 2018 20:03 UTC