A background note can be accessed here: NITI Aayog’s proposal for directly elected mayors in million-plus cities
The proposal for directly elected mayors in million-plus cities seeks to strengthen political accountability and leadership. To what extent can electoral redesign alone improve urban governance outcomes in India without parallel devolution of executive, financial, and administrative powers?
The proposal approaches electoral redesign and governance fragmentation as interconnected challenges. Rather than relying only on formal devolution under the 74th Constitutional Amendment, it adopts a more strategic and operationally effective approach: ensuring that city governments exercise meaningful authority over decisions, budgets, and oversight in functions currently handled by parastatals and state-level agencies. The recommendations therefore extend beyond how mayors are elected to how urban governance is actually exercised in effect.
It also clarifies institutional roles of the Mayor and the Municipal Commissioner, recognising that both democratic leadership and administrative capability are necessary for effective city governance. Governance provides political direction, accountability, and responsiveness to citizens, while administration contributes continuity, technical expertise, and implementation capacity. The intent is to align and synergise these roles further by design.
Importantly, the recommendations integrate parastatals or state-appointed officials leveraging their technical strengths, capacity and economies of scale. They reposition decision-making closer to elected urban governments so that services and infrastructure affecting citizens are guided by institutions with a direct local mandate and public accountability.
Directly elected mayors derive legitimacy from a city-wide mandate, while urban governance in India remains structurally embedded within state governments. How might this duality reshape centre-state-city power dynamics?
Urban governance in India has long been shaped by a structural imbalance in which many key decisions relating to planning, infrastructure, and service delivery are concentrated at the state level. This has naturally amplified the influence of MLAs and MPs in city affairs, even though city governance formally falls within the domain of urban local bodies. The report seeks to recalibrate this imbalance by strengthening the authority and legitimacy of elected city governments.
Most of the recommendations are changes proposed to be taken up by the State Governments, as urban governance is a State subject. Hence, they remain fully within the constitutional framework. Reform action by State Governments would be through amendments to municipal laws, where necessary, else through simple executive orders related to the re-casting of institutional arrangements. Once implemented, empowered city governments would exercise greater authority across schemes and missions supported by both Union and State Governments. Both Union and State Government can focus on more strategic policy matters.
A directly elected mayor, backed by a city-wide mandate, alongside councillors or corporators representing wards, can create clearer lines of democratic responsibility within cities. In that sense, the report introduces a shift in how urban accountability is organised, while leaving the broader Union–State constitutional relationship unchanged. The emphasis is on enabling cities to respond more effectively to their own growth, liveability, and governance needs.
The “strong mayor” model emphasises unified leadership and clearer accountability in large cities. How does this concentration of authority interact with India’s existing fragmented urban governance architecture involving multiple agencies and parastatals?
The report distinguishes between institutional pluralism and fragmentation of authority. It recognises that large urban systems require specialised agencies, technical expertise, and operational scale across sectors such as transport, water, planning, and infrastructure. The recommendations therefore do not argue for dismantling of multiple agencies. Instead, they seek to ensure that elected city leadership has a stronger coordinating and decision-making role across these institutions, while retaining their strengths.
In this framework, the “strong mayor” model is linked to greater localisation of authority in contrast with centralisation at the State level. The report proposes that decisions affecting citizens more directly should be guided by elected urban governments, while specialised agencies continue to contribute domain expertise and implementation capacity.
At the same time, the report avoids concentrating authority in a single office. It recommends a mayor-in-council system where the directly elected mayor works with elected city leaders holding defined portfolios and responsibilities. This arrangement resembles cabinet-based governance at the State or Union level. By distributing responsibilities across elected representatives, the model encourages delegation, consensus-building, and collective accountability on city-wide issues while still providing unified political leadership.