@article{2025:dubey:constituti,
title = {Constitutionalised Decentralisation and its Impacts on the Urban Housing Crisis in India and Colombia},
year = {2025},
note = {In India’s federal constitution, the urban housing agenda is
allotted to the state governments. However, the overzealousness of the
union government has meant that little of this power has been
exercised by the state governments, with policies framed by the union
government dominating the pursuit of the mandate. This overzealousness
is not unique to the urban housing agenda, even though it has been an
area of consistent interest and preoccupation, as evident in the
overarching powers exercised by the union government. Such exercise of
power appears to be facilitated by the use of the popular label of
quasi-federal, recognising the unequal and centralising power of the
union government. This situation is further complicated by the
enactment of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, 1993, which sought
to decentralise power by creating a third tier of government, local
governments. This amendment placed the urban housing agenda as a
function of local governments. However, the creation and operation of
local governments are subject to the state governments' exercise of
the authority to create and empower them with resources to perform
these functions. On the other hand, Colombia, despite having a unitary
constitution, displays a strong commitment to decentralisation, not
just in the textual framing of its constitutional provisions but also
in the exercise of power across different administrative units. This
stark contrast is explored by analysing how the urban housing agenda
is pursued in India and Colombia, through the study of the
administration of the cities of Mumbai and Bogota, respectively. The
observation from the study, elucidated in the article, highlights the
relative success of decentralisation in Bogota, enabling a
satisfactory pursuit of the urban housing agenda, in comparison to
that of Mumbai, which finds itself caught up in a complex web of
governance structures impeding its ability to meaningfully address
urban housing challenges. In doing so, the article aims to highlight
the limitations of constitutionalised decentralisation in India by
examining its federal constitution and government, as demonstrated in
India’s pursuance of the urban housing agenda.},
journal = {VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee},
pages = {495--524},
author = {Dubey, Shraddha},
volume = {58},
number = {4}
}