<ARTICLE>Urban Governance in Contemporary India

Abstract

This article analyses how urban governance in India has changed since the 1990s as a result of the interplay of three interlinked forces. The liberalization of the economy in 1991, the good governance discourse together with the decentralization program officially pronounced under the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992 and the more recent urban reforms envisaged in the 2000s and institutionalized with launch of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) in 2005, affected urban governance in significant ways. Based on recent empirical observations in the city of Mumbai, this paper argues that the involvement of multiple players, namely parastatals, local contractors, private developers, non-government organizations (NGOs), citizen groups and community based organizations across sectors of urban governance since the 1990s, has led to contesting claims by different groups to the city's spaces and resources, articulating conflicting discourses and competing practices. These in turn have serious implications on the questions of accountability and inclusion in evolving urban governance policy and practice in contemporary India.