Mr K C Sivaramakrishnan has hit the nail on its head when he states that the hierarchical central-state-municipality model of governance is unable to solve the problems of metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad (BS, March 8, 2009). These cities, which grew as homogeneous cities due to historical necessity, have amalgamated cultures and multilingual populations. Though they form part of the state in which they are located, they have the necessary financial prosperity to develop themselves as independent states. Besides transportation, water supply and drainage, waste disposal and human identity are the major issues which cannot be handled by the present municipal model of administration as the control rests with the states.
However, the states, with their multi-level problems, are not able to give the desired attention to the metropolises. It may, therefore, be desirable that all cities with a population of, say, more than a crore be given the city-state status akin to the status enjoyed by New Delhi and Chandigarh, to ensure that these cities get the necessary financial, administrative and political autonomy to foresee, plan and execute the schemes in the interests of organised responses to the various problems confronting them.
P Esakki Muthu, Mumbai