ABSTRACT
The City Development Plan (CDPs) submitted by the 63 Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission cities and townships in 2006 were only wish lists, they were neither structured in any way, nor based on any participatory process. The Government of India had been releasing ad hoc amounts under political and other pressures, but nobody was happy with the CDPs. The 74th Amendment has formalised the democratic process. The participants came up with a lot of interesting ideas and almost all their suggestions have been incorporated into the CDP. A central component of this is the establishment of the Metropolitan Planning Committee in compliance with the 74th Constitutional Amendment, which would vest substantial planning and development powers in elected local bodies and bring about coordination and cohesion among various urban local bodies, special agencies/parastatals and rural and urban local bodies, thus bringing the entire metropolitan area under a uniform governance system.
