Inept politicians, bureaucrats cause aimless growth: Prithviraj Chavan

Former chief minister and Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan has said that inept politicians and bureaucrats are the main reason behind the haphazard way in which urban development is taking place in the country. Mr Chavan also stressed on the need to be trained to ensure uniform and proper development work. He was speaking during a plenary session titled ‘Reimagining Democratic Politics in the Urban’ of the international conference on Rethinking Cities in the Global South hosted by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences on Wednesday.

While stressing on the need to sensitise and train the politicians and bureaucrats to combat urban challenges, Mr Chavan said, “Politicians are not academically trained to handle complex issues especially with regard to the urban areas. Today, the state governments have not been empowering urban local bodies and the onslaught of privatisation on them needs to be halted.”

Dr Bharti Sharma, former chairperson of child welfare committee, hinted at the need to involve women in nation building. “Proper training needs to be provided to elected women representatives for capacity building. The major issue in India and its cities is our elected bodies need to be more women-friendly. Women wings of political parties must be given greater importance. Leadership among the women coming from marginalised sections of the society must be cultivated through greater democratisation of political parties and elected bodies,” said Dr Sharma.

In another plenary session on ‘Urban Violence, Social Inequality and Spatial Justice’ speakers pointed to the failure of the government to control urban violence. Professor Amita Bhide of Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, of the School of Habitat Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, observed, “Violence is increasingly getting embedded in the very fabric of governance in the city, whether through the process of redevelopment or through symbolic means along communal lines.”

The five-day conference is jointly organised by the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, TISS, in partnership with Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano e Regional (IPPUR), Rio de Janeiro, and University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban.