Narendra Modi is a leader with an urban vision. As the chief minister of Gujarat, he transformed Ahmedabad with an award-winning sustainable bus transit system and a ‘world-class’ river-front recreation space.Modi’s most ambitious projects in Gujarat are the two planned new ‘smart cities’: the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, and Dholera, an industrial hub on the Delhi-Mumbai corridor. Still in inception, these cities are at the heart of the new administration’s ambitious plan to transform the crumbling and chaotic image of Indian urbanisation by building a hundred new smart cities.
China is an inspiration for Modi, in the country’s push for modernisation through urbanisation, as well as its state-of-the-art cities such as Tianjin’s famous Eco-city. For urbanising countries such as India and China, smart cities are an opportunity to harness urban growth to sustainable development. Top-of the-line infrastructure is a means to leapfrog the development ladder, jettisoning older, inefficient and unsustainable systems and avoiding the costs of retrofitting. Modi’s new policy has generated excitement amongst business leaders and upwardly-mobile middle-classes tired of living in ‘third-world’ environments. Whether India’s smart city policy will translate into desired outcomes—more sustainable, productive and better-governed cities—is debatable.
Megacities in India, unlike in most other countries, lack autonomous governments with the power to shape their affairs. They are controlled by provincial administrations and managed by a patchwork of state, city and municipal bodies, public and private corporations and village panchayats. For smart systems to substantively improve planning, coordination and governance, it will be necessary to have a centralised metropolitan governing structure in place, accountable to city residents.
City and local governments, responsible for basic public services, have the most direct impact on well-being, particularly that of the poor, but there is a glaring mismatch between their functions, and their finances and capabilities. In India, urban local bodies account for a third of public expenditure but just 3% of revenue. In China, they account for half of public expenditure and 25% of revenue. Property taxes, the main revenue base for municipal governments, constitute just 0.44% of India’s tax revenues, strikingly lower than in other emerging economies. This figure remained stagnant over the past decade, over period of high urban population and GDP growth. The more dependent urban local bodies are on higher-level transfers, the more they underspend on public services and amenities.
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About Us
MCHI-THANE has always been very clear that fine housing complexes and shopping malls cannot stand in isolation. A great City is the sum total of great buildings, great infrastructure and great people. MCHI has been committed to growth of the real estate sector and is credited with the harmonious growth and rise in quality and standards of construction in Thane City in the past decade.
Its aim as an Association of Developers has been to seek rational rules and regulations which are uniformly applied across the board as this will to a great extent result in speedy construction, cost reduction, fair pricing and a push for better quality standards at par with the developed world, with a high level of transparency.
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