印度主要注重于改善农村地区 亟需反思城乡关系

India’s revered independence leader Mahatma Gandhi was of the view that “authentic” India lived in her villages while its cities were bastions of corruption and foreign influence. This bias has strongly influenced decades of Indian policy, which mainly focused on improving rural conditions while largely ignoring growing cities.

印度备受尊崇的独立运动领袖圣雄甘地(Mahatma Gandhi)认为,“真正的”印度存在于乡村中，城市则是腐朽堕落、外国势力汇聚的堡垒。这一偏见深刻影响了数十年来印度的政策——这一政策主要注重于改善农村地区条件，而基本忽略了不断发展的城市地区。

India is urbanising rapidly as young people from the countryside flock to cities in search of jobs and economic opportunities. Some estimates suggest that 30 Indians move from a rural to an urban area every minute.

印度正在迅速走向城市化，来自乡村的年轻人大量涌入城市，寻找工作以及赚钱机会。一些估算显示，平均每分钟就有30名印度人从农村迁往城市地区。

Yet, after decades of neglect, Indian cities are struggling to cope. They are plagued with problems including choking air pollution, snarling traffic, and shortages of everything from water and affordable homes to schools, public transport and open spaces.

但在被政府忽视了数十年之后，印度城市眼下难以招架这样的人口涌入。困扰印度城市的问题包括呛人的空气污染、喧嚣嘈杂的交通以及各种资源的短缺（从自来水、价格合理的住房到学校、公共交通以及公共空间）。

Indian cities fare poorly on liveability indices. Experts on urbanisation warn that conditions are likely to deteriorate without dramatic action that changes how Indian cities are governed, including new finance arrangements for urban infrastructure.

印度城市在宜居指数排行榜上名次不佳。城市化领域的专家警告称，如果不采取重大举措改变目前印度城市的管理方式——包括针对城市基础设施建设的新融资安排——城市地区的状况很可能进一步恶化。

“India has been a very reluctant urbaniser,” says Amitabh Kant, head of the government’s National Institution for Transforming India. “In today’s world, it is not nations that are competing with each other. It is cities. Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi — they should have been world-class cities.” Instead, he says, they do not figure in the world’s top 100.

印度政府下属的“改造印度国家研究院”(National Institution for Transforming India)负责人阿米塔布•康德(Amitabh Kant)表示：“印度对待城市化一直是不情不愿的。当今世界，互相竞争的已不是国家，而是城市。孟买(Mumbai)、金奈(Chennai)、德里(Delhi)——它们本应发展成为世界级大都市。”相反，他指出，这些城市没能跻身全球前100大城市。

But India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, elected two years ago, differs from many of his predecessors in his view of cities, which he touts as hubs of entrepreneurial energy that can drive economic growth and potentially offer ways to lift people out of poverty.

但两年前当选的印度现任总理纳伦德拉•莫迪(Narendra Modi)对城市的看法不同于以往的许多任印度总理，他将城市宣扬为汇聚创业活力的中心，能够推动经济增长，同时还可能提供帮助民众摆脱贫困的方式。

During his 2014 election campaign, Mr Modi spoke often of the need to create “smart cities”.

在他2014年的竞选活动中，莫迪常常谈到打造“智慧城市”的必要性。

Now in power, he is putting the management of India’s urbanisation process higher than it has ever been on the country’s policy agenda and he has started two programmes aimed at improving urban infrastructure and planning.

作为现任总理，莫迪把对印度城市化进程的管理提到了该国政策议程表上前所未有的靠前位置，此外他还启动了两个旨在改善城市基础设施和城市规划的项目。

“In this country, it is very hard to be overtly pro-urban,” says Barjor E Mehta, an urban specialist at the World Bank. “But right from the beginning, this prime minister used the word urbanisation as an opportunity, not with a negative connotation.”

世界银行(World Bank)城市化专家巴哲•E•梅赫塔(Barjor E Mehta)表示：“在印度国内，公开支持城市化是一件很不容易的事。但现任总理从一开始就把城市化这个词当做机遇来说，不带任何负面含义。”

The first programme, known as Amrut, plans to give about $7.5bn to 500 Indian cities over five years for investments in basic amenities such as clean drinking water, sewerage, public transport and public spaces.

莫迪启动的第一个城市化项目名为Amrut，该项目计划在五年的时间里向500个印度城市提供约75亿美元资金，用于投资清洁饮用水、下水道系统、公共交通以及公共空间等基本的基础设施。

Mr Modi’s government has also launched its so-called Smart Cities Mission, in which cities compete for funds to redevelop different zones and improve public services.

莫迪政府还启动了所谓的“智慧城市计划”(Smart Cities Mission)，在该项目中，城市之间将竞争资助资金，以用于重新开发不同的区域及改进公共服务。

Public participation was crucial for putting together the proposals — cities that could not show citizen engagement were eliminated from the contest. So far 20 have been selected for funding.

公众参与度对于哪些城市能够获得资助提名至关重要——未能展现出公众积极参与的城市将在竞争中遭到淘汰。到目前为止，已有20个城市被选为了资助对象。

“It’s an innovation programme where new things can be done and, if the arrangements work, we will try to mainstream them,” says Mr Mehta. “You’ve also made cities compete for the first time, and generated a lot of interest.”

梅赫塔表示：“这是一个能办成新事情的创新型项目，如果相关安排行之有效，我们将尝试将其大面积推广。该项目还首次激发了城市之间的相互比拼，引发了广泛关注。 ”

“This is the first government in India that is talking about smart urbanisation,” says Mr Kant.

康德称：“这是印度首届公开讨论智慧城市化的政府。”

Even with such initiatives, however, India still faces an uphill battle to improve its cities and the quality of life of their residents.

但即便有了此类积极举措，印度要想改善城市条件以及城市居民的生活质量仍然面临艰巨挑战。

According to Shirish Sankhe, a director at consultants McKinsey, India has been spending just $17 per city resident per year on infrastructure and services while the actual need is about $130.

咨询公司麦肯锡(McKinsey)董事希里什•桑科(Shirish Sankhe)指出，印度每年在每个城市居民身上投入的基础设施和公共服务支出仅为17美元，而实际所需的支出约为130美元。

Although Mr Modi’s schemes will raise urban expenditure slightly, they still fall far short of the nearly $950bn that a high-level panel estimated that India needs to spend on urban infrastructure over 20 years to meet the needs of its cities.

据一个高规格的专家小组估算，未来二十年印度需在城市基础设施建设领域支出近9500亿美元，方能满足各个城市的需求。虽然莫迪的计划将略微提高政府在城市地区的投入，但仍远远不够。

Solving such problems is not just a question of funding. India also requires new political arrangements to help administer its growing cities, which are now managed by short-term municipal commissioners who usually serve just two years before moving on.

解决城市面临的种种问题不仅要解决建设资金来源。印度还需要新的政治制度设计，为管理日渐扩张的城市提供助力。目前印度城市由任期较短的市政官管理，他们通常任满两年即会调任。

“Indian cities are not well governed,” says Mr Sankhe. “The political empowerment of cities is poor, and you can’t really hold anybody fully accountable.”

桑科称：“印度城市的管理水平不高。城市被赋予的政治权利很小，而且你无法真的让任何人负起总责。”

Even the matter of how many Indians currently live in urban areas is a subject of significant debate. According to India’s 2011 census, just over 31 per cent of the country’s 1.2bn people live in areas that are recognisably urban, up from 27.8 per cent of its population a decade earlier.

就连目前有多少印度人生活在城市地区，也是一个颇有争议的问题。根据印度2011年的人口调查，在印度的12亿人口中，仅有略高于31%的人生活在公认的城市地区，十年前的比重为27.8%。

Yet many of these urbanised areas are not even officially recognised as cities or governed as such. India now has more than 3,900 of what it calls “census towns”, which are urbanised areas that are still classified as rural and governed with traditional rural arrangements, such as village councils.

但很多此类城市化地区甚至未被官方认可为城市，或是被当做城市进行管理。印度目前有超过3900个所谓的“人口普查镇”，这些地区已经实现了城市化，但仍然被划为农村，并按传统农村的模式管理，例如有村庄委员会。

Many places prefer to remain designated as “rural” as they gain access to more government-funded programmes — including social welfare schemes, such as the rural employment guarantee scheme — that are not available in urban locations. Yet these increasingly non-rural areas are then excluded from appropriate urban services and expand in a haphazard manner.

很多地区更愿意被继续划为“农村”，因为这样便能参与更多的政府资助项目——包括农村就业保障等社会福利计划——而这些项目是城市地区无法享受的。但这样的话，这些愈发去农村化的地区便无法获得应有的城市服务，并以一种随意的方式扩张。

India’s biggest problem is that most of the strong revenues generated by its cities — through such means as property taxes — are not spent to improve the cities themselves but are instead used to support rural areas. Answers to these problems will becoming increasingly important as up to 590m Indians, are expected to be living in cities by 2030, up from 340m in 2008.

印度最大的问题是，由城市地区创造的丰厚税收收入——例如来自物业税的收入——大多没有被用于改善城市自身条件，而被用于支持农村地区。找到化解这些问题的对策将变得愈加重要，因为预计到2030年将有多达5.9亿印度人生活在城市地区， 而2008年还只有3.4亿人。