Articles by Anirban Choudhury

As we have seen in an earlier article, the Government of India, as it works to implement the Smart City Initiative of the MOUD, has realised the need for a paradigm shift in education and recruitment of urban municipal staff in the country. Perhaps in alignment with this perceived need, the NDA government is reportedly set to take architecture education out of the purview of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and allocate it to the Urban Development Ministry, as reported by The Indian Express recently. It is further reported that this was despite the HRD Ministry’s opposition to…

Smart cities need a vision. But perhaps more importantly, they need people who are able to draft that and take it to fruition. On February 28 2017, the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) of the Government of India asked states to create a professional municipal workforce and carry out merit-based recruitment of suitably qualified people. It also urged lateral entry of experts and professionals for specific posts and for a specified contract period in their bid to ensure "professionalization of municipal cadre" in the states. A similar thrust was evident even in the formulation of the implementation policy of the…