Here. Take a billion dollars. So, is that enough money to do anything substantial in public policy in India? Why or why not?

It’s serious money to impact public policy and its implementation. In Bangalore, we used $125,000 of private money to showcase a new way of doing roads with pedestrians at the heart of it and reckoning lifecycle cost benefit (Tender SURE—or Specifications for Urban Road Execution). It has catalysed $25 million of public spending on 12 roads based on this principle, with a promise to do another 50 roads, a likely final spend of around $100 million. So, appropriate public policy interventions could bring changes on scale.

What are some areas of public policy that you really care about? Why is it important?

I care about making our cities more liveable around principles of sustainability and eco-friendly choices, both based on citizen involvement. Cities are the engines of economic growth and challenges in managing pressures arising from this growth are huge. Fixing our cities will require addressing city governance structures and administrative delivery mechanisms that are sensitive to citizen concerns and choices.

Indian cities are at the mercy of the state, (which has) a dominant say in its affairs. The international model of cities being masters of their own destiny through strong mayor systems is a mirage. The challenge is to get the state to let go of its considerable powers in the city arena. And replace it with a city governance architecture that has accountable leadership and can align multiple silos of government agencies to get good outcomes.

The city administration is hamstrung by a legacy system with negligible personnel capacity to tackle urban problems, steeped in rent-seeking behaviour, financial mismanagement with opaque reporting practices, a disdain for planning and poor implementation. Citizens do not have a place at the urban governance table. Their voices are muzzled and there is no respect for the tribal wisdom that they can provide to make cities more liveable.

Public policy intervention in the city space is needed to address these infirmities if cities are to realize their potential. Traditionally, in the first phase of reaching out to international investors, we promoted the idea of Incredible India—it’s another debate that we need to be credible in our promises before being incredible!

We now have the spectacle of global investors’ meets where states vie with each other to attract investment. It’s a matter of time before cities, the main economic drivers of state GDP, compete for investments globally and nationally. It’s high time we made our cities more attractive as “live and work” places.

So, what is your billion-dollar public policy idea?

The billion-dollar idea is to plan, seed and angel fund public policy ideas. Ideas, like Tender SURE that can become catalysts for appropriate public spending and policy. Waiting for the government to do the right thing is not going to happen. Our cities need external intervention, but in a non-threatening, collaborative manner that can get the government on board.

I would use the $1 billion to set up decentralized City Connect platforms in 25 Indian cities—that is approximately $40 million per city. The local City Connect platform would be an inclusive platform with leading industry folks, NGOs, resident welfare associations, etc.