Paper Title
Urban Governance in India under the 74th Amendment: A Pending Project

Abstract
This paper traces the history of urban governance and development in India from pre-independence to the passing of the 74th Constitutional Amendment and it provides an overview of its articles with the goal of finding the impact of the Amendment on electoral participation in local bodies and the ability for the same institutions to raise revenue and implement policies and the extent of implementation of the Amendment. The paper uses doctrinal methods utilising government published statistics, journal articles and think tank publications and assesses the number of States in which State Finance Commissions, Metropolitan and District Planning Committees have been established, the state of Mayoral powers and the devolution of Delimitation powers across the country with the goal of assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Despite the rapidly growing needs of Indian municipalities, the implementation of relevant articles has been incomplete. Multiple institutions such as State Finance Commissions(SFC), Metropolitan and District Planning Committees are either not formed or not allowed to be functional and other institutions require reforms for them to be functional. SFCs are often unable to function because of the lack of permanent infrastructure and are given a very small time period to produce a report which includes time needed to set up logistics, hire workers and more. Reports are often rejected without a reasonable explanation attached to it and subsequent SFCs are left with little usable information or data to go off of. Metropolitan and District Planning Committees are not given adequate powers and often do not meet outside of the instance of its formation. Workers across Urban Local Bodies are not given the adequate training and information to function at full capacity. with positions being filled by bureaucrats rather than technical expertise. This paper concludes by suggesting that several articles under the Twelfth Schedule be amended so as to mandate the State governments to implement and regularly constitute the bodies formed under the Amendment and ensure their effective functioning. Keywords - Urban Local Bodies (ULB), State Finance Commission (SFC), District Planning Committee (DPC), Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC), Urban Local Self Government (ULSG), Ward Committee, Democratic Self-Government, Urban Planning, Devolution, 74th Amendment