{"id":6369,"date":"2020-02-20T10:24:46","date_gmt":"2020-02-20T04:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=6369"},"modified":"2020-02-20T10:24:46","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T04:54:46","slug":"empowering-mayors-role-of-urban-local-bodies-in-the-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/empowering-mayors-role-of-urban-local-bodies-in-the-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Empowering Mayors: Role of urban local bodies in the society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity: Governance<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This development may again give rise to the demand for a \u2018strong mayor\u2019 helming urban local bodies (ULBs), as the role of the Delhi Chief Minister is treated on a par with the role of a mayor of a municipal corporation.<br \/>\n\u2022 With electoral politics in India becoming increasingly personality-centric, the idea of an empowered mayor may find many takers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-municipalities-6-638.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6371\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-municipalities-6-638.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"638\" height=\"359\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-municipalities-6-638.jpg 638w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-municipalities-6-638-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-municipalities-6-638-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Indirect elections:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The larger issue at hand is the quality of urban governance. It is unrealistic to expect a high quality of governance as long as political parties have a complete grip over the way civic bodies function.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is time policymakers and political leaders began to seriously contemplate party-less elections to ULBs.<br \/>\n\u2022 It has been debated at the All India Mayors conference. But due to the unwillingness of parties to examine the concept, the idea has not taken off.<br \/>\n\u2022 Already, in a majority of the States, the election for the posts of presidents and councillors of gram panchayats is done on non-party lines. At least in respect of rural local bodies (RLBs), there is some justification for the presence of political parties as, otherwise, caste alone might determine votes.<br \/>\n\u2022 In ULBs, the caste factor remains subdued, especially during elections. Besides, there is no sound rationale for holding polls for ULBs on party lines as these bodies neither legislate nor frame policies.<br \/>\n\u2022 Also, there is no scope for any political ideology to play a role in the affairs of ULBs. The main task of the bodies is to handle problems concerning sanitation, water supply and solid waste management.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-munici.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6370\" src=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-munici.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"638\" height=\"479\" srcset=\"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-munici.jpg 638w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-munici-150x113.jpg 150w, https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/the-munici-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Criticism:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Protagonists of the party system may point out that there has been a tradition of political leaders heading ULBs.<br \/>\n\u2022 They may also argue that the participation of political personalities in elections to ULBs cannot be prevented. But the reality is that the calibre of the political leadership is in short supply and the issues concerning ULBs have undergone a sea change over time.<br \/>\n\u2022 According to the 2011 Census, there are about 8,000 towns in India.<br \/>\n\u2022 There are at least 50 cities or urban agglomerations with more than a million people, says the 15th Finance Commission.<br \/>\n\u2022 These cities face challenges of pollution, ground water depletion and sanitation.<br \/>\n\u2022 There are also inter-State disparities in the level of urbanisation and in the urban poverty ratio. ULBs don\u2019t have finances, a problem ignored by the elected representatives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Parties have nothing to fear:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is also political justification for why elections to the ULBs should take place on non-party lines.<br \/>\n\u2022 Under the present scheme, Chief Ministers do not want strong ULB chiefs to emerge, especially if the person happens to be from his or her party.<br \/>\n\u2022 This explains why parties prefer indirect elections. On the contrary, if the polls are held on non-party lines with direct elections for chiefs of ULBs, a new crop of leaders will emerge outside the political class.<br \/>\n\u2022 Well-educated and well-qualified youngsters will be encouraged to take part in the election process.<br \/>\n\u2022 More importantly, municipal elections are bound to become cheaper as there will be no need for competitive spending by nominees of rival parties.<br \/>\n\u2022 Even if some successful mayors emerge in the process and want to take on established parties in the Assembly or Lok Sabha polls, this will be a herculean task for them, so parties have nothing to fear.<br \/>\n\u2022 In fact, parties stand to gain, as MLAs may not be villified for all the wrongdoings of local bodies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Way forward:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Questions will be raised about the credentials of candidates for the post of mayor.<br \/>\n\u2022 State Election Commissions can prescribe qualifications for mayors, over and above the existing ones, to address them.<br \/>\n\u2022 The issue of cohesion between mayors and councils will also be raised.<br \/>\n\u2022 ULBs can have meaningful empowerment only if the concept of non-party elections is adopted. This is a prerequisite for the implementation of the \u2018strong mayor\u2019 model.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity: Governance Context: This development may again give rise to the demand for a \u2018strong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-6369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6369"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6372,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6369\/revisions\/6372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}