Twentieth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

As the cities transform into city-regions and ultimately into metropolises, supra-local decision-making processes determine urban utilities and services. As the metropolitan institutes administer their complex governance through coordination with several autonomous local governments and allied stakeholders; a citizen-centric approach often becomes vital. Thus, combining a hierarchical structure for planning, development, and inter-local collaboration with decentralized metropolitan governments is a persistent challenge when it comes to delivering governmental services. On this backdrop, the paper attempts to examine India’s metropolitan institutions through the lens of the institutional arrangements provided for public participation. The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act passed by the Indian Parliament in 1992 paved a legal way for the establishment of metropolitan institutions in India, with a vision to decentralize the governance through democratic principles of local governance. The institutionalization shaped by the 74th CAA gave birth to various participatory arrangements that build on a range of institutional designs in metropolitan areas spanning across the country. In this paper, we focus on the interplay between metropolitan governance and public participation with an example of the Pune Metropolitan Region. This case study is exemplary with regards to mechanisms of metropolitan governance, functioning of metropolitan authorities, the participatory process associated with them, and challenges posed in front of the participatory democratic governance of Indian metropolises. We deploy institutional mapping as a methodological tool and discuss preliminary findings accordingly.