ABSTRACT
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) — a central government programme that was unveiled in 2005— was designed to address the problems of Indian cities. Cities were the drivers of economic growth in the country, but they were struggling to meet an explosion in demand for roads, services and power. The government fretted that growth would slow without an improvement in the quantity and quality of infrastructure and services. The JNNURM marked the largest investment by the central government in urban India, reversing years of policy and fiscal neglect and it radically changed many aspects of urban governance in India. In India, words like ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’ are often viewed with a certain degree of scepticism. In recent years, an eclectic group of theorists influential in the field of urban planning have begun to turn again to participatory practices with a great deal of hope.
