bjp 2014 manifesto

Jobs, Justice and Smart Cities: The Promises BJP Made in Its 2014 Manifesto

Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it’s imperative to examine whether the BJP has transformed its lofty words into reality.

Bengaluru/Raipur/New Delhi: In 2014, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had presented an ambitious manifesto, promising speedy justice to all. However, recent events, such as the mishandling of the wrestlers’ protest and turning the inauguration of the parliament into a one-man show, has left many wondering whether the party has focused on the promises it made while in power.

These instances, among others, suggest that the ruling party may have prioritised the appearance of justice to flatter the masses rather than genuinely delivering it.

Ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election, it’s imperative to examine whether the BJP has transformed their lofty words into reality.

There are several domains where the BJP’s performance raises significant concerns.

Price rise

The 2014 manifesto said, “The BJP-led NDA government’s record of holding the prices is a demonstration of our commitment to break the vicious cycle of high inflation and high interest rates.”

However, retail inflation hit an eight-year high of 7.8% in April 2022 and wholesale inflation surged to a nine-year high of 15.08% in the same month of that year.

In fact, retail inflation has remained above the Reserve Bank of India’s 6% for quite some time in 2023.

For a moment, let go of the technical jargons and ask, isn’t everybody (of course, except the rich) feeling the pinch of rising costs of basic commodities?

The persistent high inflation likely pushed household financial savings to a 30-year-low in the first half of financial year 2023. A report by Motilal Oswal Securities indicated that these depleted savings were being used for consumption.

But despite rising prices of essential products, people are still buying them, most probably, by using their savings.

However, not everybody can afford to buy essential products at a high price.

This can be shown from the fact that while cookie demand has grown, biscuit sales have slowed. Two-wheeler sales are in the slow lane. Meanwhile, demand for luxury products is booming.

Several reports also point that inequality and poverty have risen during the Modi years.

Despite rising prices of essential products, people are still buying them, most probably, by using their savings.

Employment

Creating employment opportunities is crucial for the economic growth and social stability of a country.

The BJP had promised in its manifesto that it would transform employment exchanges into career centres to connect youngsters with job opportunities. It had said it would focus on labour-intensive manufacturing, and tourism. It had also emphasised on job creation in rural areas.

“Labour-intensive jobs are the right way to tackle unemployment, if not, this will lead to a social explosion that is politically damaging,” said retired Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Arun Kumar.

However, the professor said that “unfortunately, the government is only promoting capital-intensive jobs like the PLI [production-linked incentive] scheme”.

“The government needs to shore up the micro (48%) and the agriculture sector (46%) in order to strengthen the job environment in India. An urban employment guarantee scheme can be brought in like the rural scheme for which we have been campaigning since 2012. They are increasing the allocation of capital-intensive [jobs] by reducing the allocation of labour-intensive [jobs], so the opposite needs to be done,” he added.

Interestingly, ahead of the 2019 general elections, in an interview to Zee News, Prime Minister Modi had said: “If someone opens a pakoda shop in front of your office, does that not count as employment?”

He claimed that the person’s “daily earnings of Rs 200 will never come into any books or accounts. The truth is massive [that] people are being employed.”

After the prime minister’s comments on the job environment in India, a group of professional degree holders, in February 2018, staged a unique protest, putting up an “acche din pakoda shop” in Lucknow.

In the next year, government data showed that unemployment touched a 45-year high in 2017-18. The data was published as part of a leaked report ahead of the 2019 general elections.

In Noida’s Labour Chowk, a labourer had in January 2022 told The Wire that despite having a college degree in IT (electrical), he’s not able to find a salaried job.

In May this year, the chief of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, Mahesh Vyas, had told The Wire that India’s workforce – which is usually understood as the set of people who are employed – is not rising. He added that the quality of jobs in India is very low.

So therefore, since 2017, people have been vociferously voicing their concerns over joblessness in the country.

In terms of rural employment, note that the 2023 budget for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) scheme – which protected the most vulnerable households from income loss during the COVID-19 pandemic – was sharply cut in the Union Budget.

But although jobs have increased in rural areas, there’s a dearth of good quality employment options in recent times. That could have led to a rise in low-paid work in rural India, according to the Hindu BusinessLine.

Also read: How in First Eight Years of Modi Government, Nearly Rs 12 Lakh Crore ‘Disappeared’

Smart cities

Under the Smart City Mission, launched in June 2015, the government selected 100 cities through a competitive process, wherein each state nominated a certain number of cities based on a specific criteria.

The 100 cities were selected to enhance several basic facilities such as quality of living, sanitation, transportation, electricity supply, affordable housing, digitisation, sustainable environment, and good governance.

But note that the Smart City Mission does not involve developing entirely new cities from scratch. Instead, it aims to transform existing cities and improve their infrastructure, services, and overall liveability.

For instance, Delhi, Pune and Udaipur are cities already. But they are not ‘smart’. The definition of ‘smart’, as per the government, however, is still unclear.

A view of Udaipur. Credit: Pixabay

But there are hits and misses in this mission, too. While some projects are in progress, several others have been shut.

In 2021, the mission was extended till June 30, 2023, due to a delay in the completion of the projects because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has again got an extension till June 2024.

The Indian Express, however, reported that of the 100 cities, only around 20 will be able to meet the June deadline.

In addition, concerns have been raised on whether the ‘smartness’, which has been promised by the government, is matching with what people want and need.

Environmentalists, experts and historians say that the Dehradun Smart City mission – which deployed Rs 1,400 crore between 2015 and 2022, to transform the city of Uttarakhand – has hardly made any impact on the city’s ability to manage waste, rapidly rising urban population and of slums, check pollution, and protect biodiversity.

The Wire reported in February that the city’s freshwater streams that were once the source of the famed basmati rice cultivation on the city’s periphery have all but vanished. Added to that, the city does not have a working master plan. The only industry that is alive in the city is the real estate sector.

A smart city needs a proper sewage system, an effective administration, good air, decent commute time, etc.

However, it appears that the idea of ‘smart’ for the saffron party means promoting religious tourism, real estate, technology, and the infrastructure of the city, irrespective of the available resources.

While launching the Smart Cities Mission, Prime Minister Modi had said: “…if anything has the potential to mitigate poverty it is our cities.” He said the mission aims to ensure access to basic services for the people, including affordable houses for the urban poor.

However, several news outlets highlighted how this mission leaves the poor behind.

Therefore, it’s important to ask whether the Smart City mission is only beautifying the areas marked, or are they also supporting the poor by giving them access to basic facilities.

Smart cities could create 250 million jobs over the next 10 years, as written in the BJP’s manifesto. But, as analysed earlier, it’s still to be seen how the job scenario pans out over the next few years with rising inflation and lack of incomes.

Also read: The Contradictions of the ‘Urban’ in India

Namami Gange

“It is my destiny to serve Maa Ganga,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in parliament in May 2014.

The ‘Namami Gange’ programme was launched by the BJP government in June 2014. The flagship programme is a conservation mission to ease pollution and to rejuvenate the national river.

With a budget of Rs 20,000 crore, the National Mission for Clean Ganga was planned to be implemented in three stages, depending on the intensity of the work.

The Wire had reported that the Namami Gange project has accorded undue prominence to establishing sewage and effluent treatment plants, shifting the focus away from the river’s minimum flow. Therefore, first, the government needs to come up with a realistic plan, and second, it should abandon its belief that the river will be cleaned anytime soon.

In 2018, Down To Earth had highlighted why the river Ganga won’t be clean by 2020.

The Diplomat had in July 2022 reported, citing research, that the “river’s lower stretch is the most polluted, with glaring evidence of algal bloom and signs of eutrophication compared to the middle or upper zones.”

Eutrophication is the process by which the water body becomes excessively enriched with nutrients, leading to an increase in the production of algae and macrophytes.

The research revealed the poor quality and sewage runoff in the lower stretch of the river.

In addition, a 2019 report released by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board had said that the Ganga at Prayagraj, both upstream and downstream, is unsafe for bathing and could expose people to extremely high levels of coliform bacteria, mostly the faecal coliform, Escherichia coli, Mongabay reported.

Devotees gather to offer prayers during the third shahi snan of the Kumbh Mela 2021, at Har ki Pauri Ghat, Haridwar, April 14, 2021. Photo: PTI

Also read: Manual Scavenging Is Continuing Unabated in India – And Even Children Are Forced Into It

Manual scavenging

In its manifesto, the BJP had said that it’s committed to eliminate manual scavenging. But in another long line of hollow promises, it appears to have not fulfilled this promise as well.

As many as 330 people have died due to ‘hazardous cleaning of sewer and septic tanks’ from 2017-2022. But, according to the government, none of those people died due to “manual scavenging”.

Manual Scavenging is the practice of removing human excreta by hand from sewer lines or septic tanks. It is banned under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013. However, the practice remains prevalent in many parts of India.

Between March 22 to April 26, 2023, as many as eight people died while cleaning sewers in various parts of Gujarat, the Hindu reported.

Official data show that over 1,000 workers have died while cleaning sewers or septic tanks since 1993, but activists say the number is much higher as many are involved in manual scavenging.

Iti Dewangan and Mervin Preethi are interns at The Wire.

What the Last Five Years of Urban Policies Reveal About Our Cities

Policy must not look at the urban as only engines of economic growth, but also as the driving force of equality, dignity and sustainability.

The 2014 general elections stood out in many ways. Not just the mandate that the Narendra Modi-led NDA received, but how ‘the urban’ featured in the campaigns and political manifestos. For the first time, a political party was able to address the aspirations of its urban denizens and their needs reflected in the election discourse.

However, the past five years have revealed, that in spite of the high decibel manifesto and the ensued thrust for urban-centric policies, the various schemes proposed were not and could not be implemented – leaving major lessons for all political parties to consider for the next term.

Now is an opportune time to retrospect, reprioritise and reframe the urban challenge and seek radical shifts in the urban discourse. This article aims to enumerate the successes and failures of the past five years of government schemes focusing on the urban. It highlights the five key repositions for Indian cities to be reimagined as inclusive, livable and sustainable.

Not housing for few, but legalisation of informal settlements

The promise of ‘housing for all’ under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojna (PMAY) has remained a mirage. The prompt government measures to bring in ‘capital’ and ‘reforms’ in the housing sector have only been nominally successful, and mostly to the benefit of middle and high-income groups.

Even with a focus on housing in the last few years, we have managed to construct only 18 lakh houses of the original 1.8 crore housing shortage. That is less than a mere 10% of the total urban housing need. The now ubiquitous “land as resource” strategy in urban centres has led to the displacement of poor and other vulnerable sections to the outskirts of the city.

Also Read: Does Data Tell Us the Truth About Urban Informal Settlements?

It is a matter of shame that the ‘housing’ provided is worse-off than their original houses in ‘slums’. There is a need to change the housing debate from focusing on the ‘construction of houses’ to ‘protection and formalisation’ of existing housing stock built by people themselves.

The census recognises that 96% of slum houses are good and livable; it is the lack of services and amenities that is the problem. A housing programme should regularise and formalise existing people-built housing. The need is to provide better services and amenities and re-imagine housing as ‘habitat’, a crucial concept which the present PMAY scheme conveniently neglects.

India is urbanising rapidly, and struggling to house the millions who move from villages into urban areas. Credit: Reuters

From 100 smart cities to livable cities

The manifesto promise of a hundred new cities translated into retrofitting existing cities – realising that new cities are impossible in the Indian context. The smart cities scheme, though embellished by the right choice of words like ‘inclusivity, walkability and IT-centric solutions’, has seen little success.

As of 2019, we see that the programme has resulted in the forced removal of slums and workers from the area-based development of the smart city. Unfortunately, it has morphed into a scheme for exclusive enclave developments, exacerbating the existing urban inequalities – some even calling it a perfect recipe for social apartheid.

Cases from different parts of the country – the slums of Indore or Bhubaneswar or the street vendors of NDMC or the houses demolished on the ghats of Varanasi – all have faced forcible eviction under the guise of developing smart cities.

People’s participation, a key tool for inclusive planning, is reduced to Facebook likes and Twitter impressions. In the present context, various multinational design firms are participating in the smart city scheme, experimenting with imported concepts of urban design and planning which often turn out to be incongruent with Indian cities and its realities.

Smart cities by design have led urban local bodies (ULB) to compete with other cities to draw in investment and are compelled to act against the pressing concerns of city dwellers. Come 2019, the concept of smart cities must give way to ‘livable and just cities’ that acknowledges the basic living and working standards of all.

This urban vision should also be strengthened by ensuring issuance of no-eviction guidelines, with additional support – both financial and technical – to ULBs to execute the programme themselves.

Moving beyond Swachh Bharat mission (SBM) for cleaner and sustainable cities

The most celebrated programme over the past five years has been the SBM. The scheme has been successful in facilitating the construction of toilets and is claimed to have made breathtaking progress. However, the challenge that plagues the mission is the lack of access to services like water and sewers. The SBM’s achievement is restricted to construction of toilets and not its actual usage. There is also a lack of afterthought on how the expanded physical infrastructure will pollute land and water resources with the lack of sewers. It overlooks how manual scavenging, in its morphed form, will continue to thrive with millions of septic tanks that have to be cleaned.

Also Read: When it Comes to Urban Planning, India Suffers From a Poverty of Imagination

Aside from toilets, the challenge of solid waste management continues to daunt us. Even now, more than half of our waste is not segregated and is dumped in landfills. What is scarier is that the Swachh Bharat Sureykshan for clean cities fundamentally rests on a flawed premise of solid waste management – collecting, dumping and burning.

There is an an undue focus on collecting, centralised dumping of unsegregated waste and encouraging waste to energy plants in the SBM. This might hide the waste temporarily, but will have undeniable environmental consequences. It also has to be kept in mind that waste pickers and collectors, who form the strong informal network of recyclers keeping our cities clean, need to be integrated into this system.

In the coming years, programmes like the SBM need to be scaled up and broadened to look at the emerging concerns of lesser visible, but increasingly felt aspects of Indian cities like air pollution and climate change. Swachata must not be envisaged just in terms of infrastructural responses to the problems, but as calculated policy and societal response required for more cleaner and sustainable cities.

File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Credit: PTI

Dignity and social security for informal labour

Even though the BJP’s 2014 manifesto acknowledges workers as “pillar of our growth” and as “key to the revival of the economy”, it is unfortunate that urban informal workers, who easily constitute more than 20 crore in population, are still mostly without any identity and social security.

Across cities, they are forced to work for abysmally low wages. Do remember that they constitute the bulk of the 800 million population of India who live on mere Rs 20 a day. These uncertainties are only exacerbated by erratic macro-economic policies like demonetisation and GST. The figures for unemployment and under-employment are amongst the highest in decades, hovering around the 8% mark. Urban unemployment is outdoing rural by just one percentage point.

The state needs to simply recognise that Indian cities are built by informal workers – the chaiwalas, the pakodewalas, the chowkidars and the kaamwali baais. Unless their right to work, basic minimum wages, social security net in the form of pension, healthcare is not secured, our urban centers will remain vast oceans of poverty with islands of opulence.

Unlike the labour law reforms initiated under the government that negate the workers’ rights and retracted state welfare, real reforms required are of basic minimum wages with social security led by state contribution. This will only cost a minuscule of the GDP and reap huge benefits to millions of informal workers and their families in Indian cities.

Decentralisation as key to urban development

In the urgency and pursuit of shortcuts for implementation of schemes, the usual-first casualty is “participatory democracy”. The 2014 manifesto recognises the need for “the decentralization of power as a primary factor in the development of the nation”. In defiance of this fundamental tenet of urban development and existing constitutional provisions of the 74th Constitutional Amendment, all urban schemes in their design are re-centralising and grabbing power away from the ULBs.

The BJP manifesto of 2014 says the “FFF of Governance – Functions, Functionaries and Funds” should not only reach the panchayats, but also to the ULBs, and powers be further devolved to the citizens through “Jan Bhagidari”. Going forward, there is a need to reject the ‘special purpose vehicle’ model – that dilutes the power of elected representatives and ULBs – in no ambiguous terms.

Fundamentals of governance and decentralisation should aim for the transfer of power to the last person as imagined in the 74th CAA to have a say in the matters of urban development. This, along with financial devolution for increased community participation, will ensure that city development, though marginally slow, follows a democratic ground-up process.

This election season, it will be worthwhile to keep these five key perspectives of the urban at the forefront and make it part of the election narrative to ensure that we move one step in the right direction towards inclusive urbanisation.

Or else, India with its 10,000 or more cities and 50% urban population in the coming years might lose a very good opportunity to improve the lives of millions who make our cities. It is crucial now, more than ever before, to reimagine the urban not only as engines of economic growth but also as the driving force of equality and justice, of dignity and rights, of sustainability and inclusive human development.

Aravind Unni is an activist and urban researcher. Tikender Panwar is former deputy mayor of Shimla. Both are members of a civil society platform called National Coalition for Inclusive and Sustainable Urbanization.

Four Years On, the BJP Hasn’t Kept Its Promise to Urban India

Contrary to expectations based on the BJP’s promises, the last four years of the Narendra Modi government have been a near disaster for the urban populace.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was considered to be an urban party – having more influence in the cities – was expected to address urban issues better than its predecessors. But four years of BJP rule at the Centre with a clear majority has completely disappointed people living in cities.

Who is the urban Indian?

Today, at least one-third of Indians live in urban centres. There are at least 7,935 small and big towns and 468 tier-1 cities. These (tier-1) cities are those which hold a population of over 1,00,000. Nearly 70% of the urban populace live in these tier-1 cities.

Cities contribute over two-thirds of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 90% of total government revenue. Hence, they have also been termed the power houses of growth in India. So it would follow that the people living in such spaces have great ambitions and wishes for a secure future. Even so, more than 40% of the people in large cities live in slums where life is a struggle everyday. In cities with population under a million, the percentage of people in slums is more than 60 %.

BJP’s promises for those in cities

The BJP had very explicitly made the following promises:

– Inclusive and sustainable development.

– Quality life in villages and cities, basic amenities to all.

– Massive infrastructure development, major steps in housing and transport. 100 new cities with sustainability and massive core infrastructure.

– Upgrade of existing urban centres, transitioning of focus from basic infrastructure to public utility services like waste and water management.

– Empowerment of the poor.

The tool to carry out these ‘noble’ goals was to:

– Strengthen local governance.

– Improve their finances.

– Provide cheaper housing for all.

– Plug the deficiencies in critical infrastructure and service deficiencies like water power and transportation etc.

What has been delivered

The delivery, however, has been quite non-concomitant to the promises made.

The BJP had promised to build 20 million (two crore) houses for the urban poor in the country. However, a recent appraisal has pointed out that only 3.61 lakh houses could be constructed (which is 1.8% of the total promised). Interestingly, 87% of all the houses constructed are a follow up or convergence of previous programmes.

The 100 smart cities programme was considered a major leap in planning infrastructure in cities. These cities then were supposed to be the light houses of development for others. The smart city programme is probably a complete damp squib. The reality today is that even the BJP does not want to talk much about this programme.

There is a two-component investment strategy in these smart cities. Area based development (ABD), which is for a small area based on the size of the city and pan city development which mainly is about the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions for traffic, transport etc. The core infrastructure is envisaged under the ABD which caters to a small population and region. But quite surprisingly, 90% of the total budget is consumed by the ABD which has an impact on 9% of the population in cities.

The smart city framework also happens to challenge the direct authority of elected institutions in the cities. The special purpose vehicle (SPV) which is to carry forward the agenda of the smart city needs to be registered under the Companies Act and the elected municipality is not a member of the SPV. It is headed either by a bureaucrat or a World Bank official and is not answerable to the council. Many cities had refused to work under such a paradigm shift framework of governance.

The implementation of the smart cities scheme is also tardy. As little as 7% from the Central government has been offloaded to over 60 cities under the scheme. Seventy percent of the projects are in development stage with just 5% completion so far. The smart city mission has failed in empowering the municipal governments to bring together the institutional framework for urban development and instead proposes selective development.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the launch of Smart City Mission in Pune in June 2016. Maharashtra governor C. Vidyasagar Rao and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis are also seen. Credit: PIB India

The evictions of the poor continue unabated in the cities. The Street Vendors Act, 2014, which was an instrument to regularise vending mechanism has hardly been implemented. The homelessness in the cities has increased in the last few years and forceful eviction and demolitions of over 54,000 houses has been documented in the recent past.

Another flagship programme of the BJP has been the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). This programme was supposed to plug the gap in the water and sanitation delivery. The water networks both in slums and other areas were supposed to get a facelift under AMRUT.

It looks like there is more rhetoric and less real intent to deliver. This is simply because the central assistance to address urban poor’s access to water has been just 19% so far. There is a high cost that the poor living in cities are forced to pay for water. They do not have regular connections of water and have to look at the informal sector for the delivery. There is huge nexus of private water suppliers and even city government – including the officers and the corporators in the supply of water to such colonies either directly or through tankers.

The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) has consumed a bulk of advertisements of the Central government. It was launched in October 2014 in mission mode. The main objective was to eliminate open defecation by constructing over one crore toilets in the country and promoting scientific management of municipal solid waste (MSW).

Keeping all the high-pitched campaigning aside, till date only 34% of the promised toilets have been constructed. The target is to construct over 1.04 crore toilets . The plan is completely one-sided; without being able to dispose the waste from these toilets the situation will further worsen. In absence of proper sewage treatment plants (STPs), the dumping of sewage in nearby nalas has further worsened the situation. It is estimated that over 78% of total waste generated is untreated in urban India. Even the parliamentary standing committee on urban development (2017-18) criticised the present government for its lack of realistic projections and planning. The report of the committee also revealed gross non-utilisation of budgets allocated to major flagship initiatives thus puncturing the balloon of speedy governance in the country.

The misery continues

It is a hard fact that nearly 90% of the workforce works in the informal sector. They are the ones who require the basic services immediately The National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) was launched to much fanfare by the BJP government. The NULM is the transformation of Swaran Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) launched by the UPA. Since its launch, the progress has been slow and lower than that of other government schemes.

A Bloomberg report has stated that 30% of the youth are neither employed nor in education or training in India. It has commented that the demographic dividend can turn into a socioeconomic nightmare. Only 4.69% of the Indian workforce is presently skilled in comparison with 52% in the US, 68% in the UK, 75% in Germany, 86% in Japan, 96% in Korea and about 50% in China. The greater the skill, the larger the capacity of the worker to bargain for a fair share.

But in India, the situation continues to worsen. Interestingly, the BJP government had a target of 400 million (40 crores) young people to be skilled in various fields. It is revealed that not even 12% of the target has been achieved. Another important feature is that 69% of the jobs in the country are under threat from automation.

There is greater informalisation in the cities since the BJP government came to power. The urban informal economy takes place at homes, streets, roadside and pavements, on-site and at unplanned and unauthorised industrial areas and markets. Most of the workers are not even under the ambit of worker welfare boards. In the last four years, with large scale evictions under the informal sector, workers have become more miserable, thus increasing their economic vulnerability. Demonetisation and the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) too shattered their economy with the poor being further pushed to the fringes.

The last four years of the Modi government have been a near disaster for the urban populace with their jobs being hit, services being worsened and their liveability being compromised.

Tikender Panwar was the directly elected deputy mayor of Shimla. He is presently working in the All India Urban Forum.