India is predominantly an agrarian country.

Most of the people once used to

live on agriculture. Agricultural difficulties, Industrialization, and increase in
opportunities in cities and towns led to increase in migration of the people to
urban cities. This abnormal increase in population, lack of sufficient
infrastructure in urban region degraded cities. Being the 'engine of growth ' ,
cities of a country like India needs sustainable development and growth in
every field which can be achieved by strong and effective government policies
and support of corporate sector and civil society organizations.
The acknowledgement of urban development as an engine of national growth
shows the seriousness of all level of government in this direction.
However the schemes which were launched earlier to address the issues of
urban spaces couldnt do well because:
1. In JNNURM, to receive funds cities have to do many reforms and these
reforms were classified into compulsory and optional reforms. So cities never
paid
heed
to
optional
reforms.
2. Lack of double entry accounting system resulting in corruption and lack of
accountability.
3. About 30% of expenditure is shown in urban services which is not easy to
verify.
4. Lack of coordination between different ministries related to water, power,
transportation,
etc.
5. Division of funds is more tilted toward development of infrastructure and
less
towards
services
to
poor.
6. Lack of participation of people in planning and implementation.
7. Housing and Urban development is a state subject, so problem in
coordination between state and centre in centrally sponsored schemes.
8.
Top
down
approach
by
the
policy
makers
9.Urban local bodies are not fully empowered in decision making. For funding
also
they
are
dependent
on
state
government
10. Overlapping of ministries in implementing schemes like ministry of
housing and urban poverty alleviation and ministry of drinking water and
sanitation etc
Renewed vigour has now been again pumped into urban development through
well marketed schemes like Smart Cities and AMRUT (Atal Mission for
Rejuvenation and Urban Transport) and Housing for all. With greater central
financial aid and focus on PPP models, greater foreign cooperation,
awareness, competition based selection of cities, these schemes certainly are a
step in the right direction. Holistic development of cities will ensure
improvement in governance, infrastructure, and service delivery unlike the
previous missions. But restricting the cities to a finite number can lead to
regional disparities, hence a long term plan of expanding this scheme should
be taken into consideration. Further, the establishment of Special Purpose

Vehicles and an intention to reform Urban Local bodies will certainly be a step
in the right direction. However timely evaluation measures should be deployed
under NITI AAYOG(which is currently absent), zero based budgeting should
be used to allow effective use of funds, greater citizen participation, better
governance ,will certainly helping in plugging the gaps in administration that
were observed earlier.