The book showcases Sivaramakrishnan’s masterly grasp over the details, and desire to bring the global best practices

Governance of Megacities: Fractured Thinking, Fragmented Setup, released just a few weeks before Sivaramakrishnan passed away in May this year, is all that you would expect from an authoritative voice on Indian urban policy. It brings a long-serving insider’s command over the process of policy-making to the challenge of metropolitan governance. The book showcases Sivaramakrishnan’s masterly grasp over the details of Indian urban policy making and his desire to bring global best practices to bear on the task of governing India’s megacities, even as he remains steadfastly loyal to the principle of policy making from above.

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Critical as he was of individual policy measures, this approach did not extend to his lifelong commitment to policy making from above. Implicit in Governance of Megacities is a belief that a degree of centralisation was needed for effective policy making. Decentralised institutions may have to be created but they would be more efficient if they followed centralised norms. Even as he made a case for a metropolitan council for each metropolitan region, he insisted that “Formal representation of the Government of India through an appropriate senior official or special representative is necessary” (p 241).