As part of our new Urban Workshop Series, the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), Delhi are delighted to invite you to a Workshop on Fragmentation, Obfuscation, Contestation: The Emerging Urban Policy Landscape by Vinay Baindur and Lalitha Kamath, Independent Researcher and Assistant Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The urban policy landscape in Indian cities is an increasingly fractured and contested one. While the making of such policy has been characterised by a politics of stealth and non-transparency, its implementation has been noted for its diversity, fractious non-compliance and downright subversion. Using two policymaking cases from Karnataka and tracing their genealogy and drivers, this presentation analyses the mechanics of contemporary urban policymaking. It suggests the multiplicity of modes by which policy is being crafted and ideologically and institutionally embedded at the subnational level, greater policy convergence over time, as evidenced by overarching programmes like the JNNURM and the UIDSSMT, and the formation of a relatively cohesive network of (national and international) policy actors with shared policy imaginaries. The presentation also takes a critical look at the implementation of such policies, which is a process fraught by conflict, competing interests, and shifting regional political alignments. By juxtaposing policy visions with the translation of these visions into urban realities the presentation highlights the disconnect and the widening gaps in the processes of urban transformation underway. The presentation largely draws from an updated version of a paper titled, Reengineering Urban Infrastructure: How the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank Shape Urban Infrastructure Finance and Governance in India commissioned by the Bank Information Centre, South Asia, and presented at the World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings, Istanbul, October 2009. Vinay Baindur is an independent researcher on water sector and urban governance reforms based in Bangalore. He has been part of a Bangalore-based research collective, where he studies the politics of policy making especially with regard to the new non-profits, IFIs and governance models such as JNNURM. Over the last 20 years he has been an observer and analyst of liberalisation policies, structures of enabling environment for the private sector and public engagement with these mandates. Lalitha Kamath is an Assistant Professor in the School of Habitat Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Her research interests include critical explorations of both formal and informal practices of planning and governance in cities, especially those to do with infrastructure sectors, the politics of public participation, and urban reforms. She received her doctoral degree from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. _________________________________________________________________________________________ This is the nineteenth in a series of Urban Workshops planned by the Centre de Sciences Humaines (CSH), New Delhi and Centre for Policy Research (CPR). These workshops seek to provoke public discussion on issues relating to the development of the city and try to address all its facets including its administration, culture, economy, society, and politics. For further information, please contact: Marie-Hélène Zerah at marie-helene.zerah@ird.fr or Partha Mukhopadhyay at partha@cprindia.org
