A young Member of Parliament representing, Ernakulam Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, Hibi Eden, has caused a minor stir with a startling proposal to relocate the administrative capital of the state from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi, a metropolis which is an integral part of his constituency. 

Eden’ s plan to present a private bill in this regard in the Parliament came into public gaze after the Ministry of Home Affairs reportedly forwarded it to the Kerala government for its opinion. Following intense criticism of this proposal, including from his own party, the Indian National Congress (INC), Eden had to eventually drop his plans to move the bill.

The tussle for capital city choices is not new in the country, particularly at the time of state formations with the most recent instance being of the Amaravati-Visakhapatnam contestation as the new Andhra Pradesh capital. While the country has a unique and successful example of two states - Punjab and Haryana - sharing a common capital city in Chandigarh, we have also seen occasional murmurs of new state demands in some of the bigger states where too the question of capital city choices have been integral to such sub-regional campaigns.

Eden overlooked the Brahmapuram lesson? 

Eden’s proposal was censured across party lines in Kerala as it looked like a Tughlaqean and preposterous idea to shift the Kerala capital from its historical location in Thiruvananthapuram to the fast-growing but increasingly cramping metropolis of Kochi. The city, known as the queen of the Arabian Sea, is closeted on one side by the sea and by the foothills of the Western Ghats on the other, and a north-south corridor cuts through the fledging city centre. 

A labyrinth of waterways cleaves through the city’s heartland, dividing it into numerous islands. From one of the many natural seaports dotting the Arabian Sea and doubling up as Kerala’s commercial capital, Kochi has since grown into a thriving metropolis, a key industrial hub and a vital intersection in the international oceanic and air traffic networks. 

In terms of the industrial scale, Kochi squarely matches the profile of metros like Mumbai and Chennai being home to an international seaport, an international airport, a world-class shipyard, an international transhipment facility, petroleum refinery plants, a fertilizer production plant, a fledging IT park, a special economic zone, and much more. 

Such has been the rapid growth of the city in the last two decades that once desolate mofussil regions like Kakkanad, Vypin, Kalamaserry, Ambalamedu, and so on, are fast emerging into satellite towns. This exponential growth has not just spectacularly transformed the urban landscape of the city but has also, in turn, triggered a bullish run for housing with the spiralling cost of real estate.  

As a result, the city has, for the last few decades, encroached into its wetlands, marshes and swamps that form the island peripheries. The gravity of the ecological intrusion was revealed in 2018 when the state experienced an unprecedented scale of rainfall and floods. The gushing waters of the Periyar River, when unleashed from the Idukki-Cheruthonni dam, not just inundated the city, its wetlands and low-lying areas, but also revealed the extent to which the natural flood plains have been encroached in the city. 

Kochi’s next assignation with urbanization nightmares was the fire at the Brahmapuram landfill in March this year with the billowing smoke pushing the city into a gas chamber. The episode revealed how uncontrolled urbanization and population surge leads to systemic problems like waste management, pollution, congestion and much more, which, at some stage, could overwhelm the gains and benefits of the city’s very raison d'être. 

Brahmapuram illustrated the urban crises that Kochi faces, like many other Indian metros. Post-liberalisation India has mimicked the Western model of development and progress: huge tinted-glass megastructures in commercial districts and housing condominiums that lined up along the major metros and cities but with little consideration for local ecology, groundwater conditions, and sustainable waste management methods. 

Consistent with the economic surge, four-lane highways flourished across the country even as India emerged as one of the world’s biggest automotive markets. The outcome was a passenger-car explosion that clogged arterial roads and bye-lanes in the Indian metros. A concomitant and expectant expansion of public transport, other than the slowly-expanding urban rail networks in most metros, did not materialize. The contingent effect, however, has been the excruciating congestion and resultant air pollution for which the country has failed to come up with durable solutions. 

The case of Kochi has been no different. Added, the city has grown vertically and horizontally on swamps and marshes that threaten not just the long-term sustainability of habitats but also the irreparable impact on these natural ecologies. While future expansion towards the northern and southern peripheries could spill over into adjoining districts, the eastward progression could mean further encroachment into ecologically fragile hilly tracts even as the western end is curtailed by the sea. 

Hibi Eden envisages moving the administrative capital of Kerala into this urbanised mess. 

The reasons why Eden seeks a shifting out of the Kerala capital from its historic abode in Thiruvananthapuram to his constituency is not yet clear as the contents of his private bill have not been discussed in the public domain. 

A possible alibi for Eden could be the location of Kochi as a central intersection for a state which is now debating north-south connectivity through expanded highways and elevated rail networks. Being at the southern tip of the state, just two hours away from the border with Tamil Nadu, Thiruvananthapuram has often been seen as disadvantageous for those in the central and northern districts. But then, this has been the case with many other states where state capitals were chosen for historic reasons and had little to do with the convenience of location and access.  

Thiruvananthapuram too losing its traditional lustre 

While the dominant legacy of Travancore could have provided cultural providence to Thiruvananthapuram as ideal locale over the claims of Zamorin’s Calicut (extracted from Madras State) or the scattered dominions of Cochin – from Perumpadappu Ponnani to Kodungallur, Thripunithura and Mattancherry – the British preference for Trivandrum as the centre of government for Travancore-Cochin could have also weighed in its favour in the eventual choice. 

Nonetheless, unlike the case of Kochi, Alapuzha or Kozhikode, which were historical centres of trade and commerce, the preference for Thiruvananthapuram as solely dedicated to the administrative apparatus was seemingly ordained by the British itself and inherited as a legacy after independence and state formation. It is this principle based on historicity and legacy that Eden seemingly seeks to alter with his relocation proposal.

Albeit Kochi fails to qualify as a sustainable location to host the administrative infrastructure for the state, for reasons listed earlier in this analysis, how Thiruvananthapuram is currently transforming into a metropolis comes with the potential of eroding its traditional charm and heritage legacies. 

Since the formation of the state, Thiruvananthapuram has had two major waves of ‘development’. 

First wave of ‘development’: The first was in the early 1970s when the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) was set up in the northern nook of the city. While TERLS expanded into the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), along came supporting eco-systems like the College of Engineering (CET), the Central Polytechnic College and a few auxiliary industries. 

The arrival of engineers and scientists from across the country brought a cultural change to the city, which also then boasted the state’s first civil aerodrome and the only flying club in this part of the country. The ‘Gulf’ migrant phenomenon that swept the whole state in the 1980s saw the aerodrome elevating itself as an international airport. 

Little known to the denizens of the city is the story of how a colossal project to convert the Thiruvananthapuram airport into an international air-refuelling hub was rejected by the Kerala government in the late 1980s owing to constraints of land acquisition and other factors. Had the project materialized, it could have initiated what could have been the second wave of ‘development’ in the city. 

Second wave of ‘development’: While the state vigorously began debating ‘development’ and economic progress from the mid-to late-1990s, having missed in the boat in the first imprints of economic liberalization including the IT revolution that swept across new hubs like Bangalore and Hyderabad, Kerala slowly caught up by realigning its socialist-oriented policies and trying to attract capital and investment, including through events like the Global Investors Meet (GIM). 

The first major initiative towards this transformation was the launching of the Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram in the late 1990s. It, however, took almost a decade for this facility to make an impact, which, by around 2007-08, triggered what was the second wave of ‘development’ for the capital city (and led to similar initiatives like the Info Park in Kochi). 

The arrival of IT conglomerates like Infosys and TCS kickstarted the boom time for Technopark and consequentially, the capital city. Over two decades later, Thiruvananthapuram is giving competition to cyber hubs in Bangalore and Hyderabad with a formidable IT and IT-enabled eco-system emerging in the city. 

The outcome, though, is that the resultant growth and economic advancement have supplanted the character of Thiruvananthapuram from an administrative city to an IT hub. Unlike the case of earlier decades when Keralites from across the state used to flock to and settle down in Thiruvananthapuram to serve in various government departments, the city is now a migrants’ paradise with IT professionals coming in from all parts of the country, not to the mention the unorganized labourers who have already made Kerala their abode of fortune.

The result is a surging housing demand and a real-estate boom but with a spiraling effect on the socio-economic landscape. An expected rise in land prices has mixed effects on the community – the landed gentry stands to gain from the premium but the under-privileged and those at the lower strata have lost their dwellings to the real estate enterprises that are booming across the city. The once-agrarian zones of the city have been reclaimed to cater to the housing demand. Once known for rich groundwater deposits, many of these areas are witnessing not just severe groundwater depletion but also pollution in the absence of a well-planned drainage network. 

Third wave of ‘development’: This is when the city is right on the cusp of what could be the third wave of ‘development’, prompted by the operationalization of the upcoming Vizhinjam  International Sea Port, which is touted as one of the biggest in the country with the proclaimed capacity to handle 80 per cent of seaborne cargo. 

As a natural deep-water port, placed hardly 10 nautical miles from the international shipping route, Vizhinjam also promises the benefit of a container terminal which will enable it to handle a bulk of the traffic passing through the region. Costing over Rs 7500 crore, the project occupies over 360 acres of land (including 130 acres reclaimed from sea) and provides over 800 meters of berthing space along with 3000 meters of breakwater. 

The project entailed large-scale land acquisition which led to re-settlement issues, particularly of the fisher community, and a domino effect in the real estate prices throughout the hinterland which is around 10-15 km from the heart of the city. This is apart from the ecological impact of this massive project with just 600 meters of the planned 3000 meters breakwater already alleged to be causing sea erosion in the whole belt. 

A project of this proportion is destined to transform not just the terra firma of the city, the whole district and the region, but also its socio-economic and cultural terrains as well. In a city raised on seven hills, the real estate boom has the potential to significantly alter the topography of the city with far-reaching impact. The city is already a sought-after destination for habitat and investments, particularly for people from the central districts which had faced the wrath and deluge of the 2018 floods. 

The continuing expansion of the second wave, driven by the IT eco-system, when meeting the surge of the third wave from the Vizhinjam project, could overwhelm the city in terms and intensity that are beyond the contemplation of current planning.

As Thiruvananthapuram seeks to mimic other Indian metros in building a tinted-glassed infrastructure to host IT and trading enterprises and is transforming into a landscape of residential high-rises on its hilly tracts, the original identity of being the administrative capital along with its heritage legacies is increasingly losing its lustre. 

More importantly, as the city alters its socio-economic profile, there is certainly a strong case for shifting the administrative infrastructure out of Thiruvananthapuram, either to a new capital city/town (which certainly cannot be Kochi) or initiating decentralization of administrative apparatus to the districts.  

A new capital city/town/enclave or decentralization?

Though Hibi Eden’s proposal is centred on Kerala, it is a story that could apply to all states in the country where capital cities are increasingly attaining a new corporate-commercial profile. 

Very few states in India, like Gujarat (Gandhinagar), Punjab and Haryana (Chandigarh), etc., have sought to build stand-alone capital cities/townships/enclaves dedicated to the administrative apparatus and keep them separate from commercial and corporate districts. While there is a sound case for Maharashtra’s administrative capital to the moved to Nagpur and Tamil Nadu’s to Madurai or Tiruchirappalli, states like Telangana and Orissa have the benefits of twin cities, Hyderabad-Secunderabad and Bhubaneswar-Cuttack respectively, for wider distribution of the administrative assets that are supposed to be based in the capital city.

For most other states where capital cities are blended with commercial growth profiles, the need to either find new stand-alone capital townships/enclaves or decentralize the administrative apparatus to various districts. This has become an imperative in order to not just decongest these cities, but also to facilitate sustainable urban planning and management as well as to streamline the migration influxes. 

As the most populous country, these are contingencies to which Indian urban planners, bureaucracies and political leaderships should immediately devote time. Decongestion and depopulation of capital cities is an idea whose time has come. 

A look at the top metros shows how topographical elongations define the expansions of these capital cities as prompted by their multi-dimensional profile. Delhi has multiple satellite towns complementing its growth, Mumbai has grown eastward, Chennai has expanded on a triple-axis and Calcutta is on a flowery expansion as in the case of Bangalore and Hyderabad. 

On the other hand, newer capitals like Raipur, Ranchi, and Dehra Dun are instances of lost opportunities as these states could have chosen new locations to build planned capital cities like Chandigarh. 

So is the case of Amaravati, where the Andhra Pradesh government lost a golden opportunity to build not just a new capital city, but a new template for how future Indian cities should be raised. The decision to set up the Andhra capital in Visakhapatnam, already cramped for space with the presence of a strategic naval base, a world-class ship-building facility and a well-functioning port, is clearly an unwise move that puts a question on the vision of the political leaderships on future of urban planning in India. 

Coming back to Kerala and Eden’s demand, the possibility of raising a new capital city or township or enclave is unrealistic for this small state known for its largest density of population, lack of barren land for large-scale infrastructure development and a very thin urban-rural divide. This characteristic, however, provides Kerala with the opportunity to provide a successful model for decentralization of the administrative apparatus, which other states too could emulate. 

Listed below are some aspects of this strategy:

(a) E-governance as a catalyst: Over the last many years, most states including Kerala have upgraded their e-governance infrastructure which forms a vital catalyst for the decentralization of governance systems. While networking of administrative systems will ensure that e-governance will be a smooth affair, the key is to ensure that networking happens at all levels of the administration and is structured well to reflect the hierarchy and departmental segregation even while enabling centralized policy making and streamlining of the implementation processes. 

A system of e-files, which the central government has already initiated, will go a long way in ensuring speedy redressal of citizens’ problems, quick decision-making-to-implementation processes and, above all, make distance and location irrelevant in the whole governance system. 

(b) Pandemic showed the way: The benefits of video conferencing as a communication as well as governance tool have been harnessed for long. However, the Covid pandemic saw the mainstreaming of this technology in almost all facets of life, and most notably in all segments of public administration. While we have seen both Chief Ministers as well as Prime Ministers holding national-level meetings with district collectors and other officials through video conference, the pandemic made governments sit up to the fact that technology indeed supplants the need for physical presence around a round-table in the same room for decision-makers to meet, confabulate and take decisions. 

A significant feature of decentralization, thus, will be the cabinet meetings via VC with the ministers joining in from various districts and enabling a smooth decision-making process with the bureaucrats following it up from their respective workstations. 

(c) Distributing ministries/departments across the districts: The fundamental design for decentralization to effectively work will be to ensure that ministries/departments are taken out of the capital city and the central secretariat. 

Considering that the demography of employees working in the central secretariat could be traced to almost all districts, the first step towards depopulating capital cities should begin with the detachment of ministries from the secretariat or capital city. This could be explained succinctly with a Kerala model wherein the concerned ministries/departments could easily fit in at various districts going by the presence of adaptive ecosystems.

- While key ministries like Home, Finance, Parliamentary Affairs, Law, Information and Public Relations and General Administration, as well as those handled by the chief minister, could be based in the secretariat, the departments/ministries that could function optimally in other districts of Kerala could be listed as follows: 

Industries, IT, Shipping                        -      Kochi/Ernakulam

Agriculture, Inland waterways             -      Alapuzha

Education, Health                                 -      Kottayam

Fisheries, Coir                                       -      Kollam

Culture, Social Welfare                         -      Trichur

Consumer Affairs, Civil Supplies          -      Palakkad

Devasom, Environment                        -      Pathanamthitta

PWD, NORKA                                         -      Kozhikode

Forests, Tourism                                   -      Wayanad

Electricity, Water Resources                 -      Idukki

Cooperation, Local Self-Government   -     Kannur

Higher Education, Minority Affairs       -     Malappuram

Sports and Youth Affairs, Taxes            -    Kasargod

- This could be a broad design of how ministries/departments could be relocated to districts and their hubs being thus distributed across the states, which also enables a wider imprint of governance and administration. 

- Some fundamental features of this design will include the building of mini-secretariats in all districts from where designated ministers and officials will be functioning; setting up of zonal offices in various districts to coordinate the functioning of other ministries in each zone (in which the state could be divided), cabinet meetings and those with officials via video conferencing; re-allocation of workforce from the central secretariat to districts based on home-town criteria and preferential choices, and so on. 

- While ministerial choices could be largely based on political factors, the existence of mini secretariats could ensure that many ministers and officials could be able to smoothly function out of each district which could be hosting multiple departments/ministers. 

- This could be a long-drawn exercise which has to be done in phases, as depopulating cannot be undertaken as an instant policy. However, the phased and calibrated movement of administrative apparatus from the capital city to districts will trigger and facilitate a natural growth and development process in the districts when governance and public administration structures begin making their imprints. 

This template has been created based on Kerala as a small state where such equitable distribution is possible. The same can be differently replicated in larger states where the government could consider the zonal distribution of ministries and departments. At the same time, the larger states could also consider raising new capital townships/enclaves at locations that could be centrally accessible to all parts of the state and could also be satellite towns to any of the existing cities or big towns that are located centrally. 

Time to decongest and depopulate India’s crowded cities 

As this analysis was being prepared, we see India’s national capital and major parts of northern India being inundated. While states like Uttarakhand have in the last few years seen the consequences of large-scale constructions and tampering with the topography in the ecologically fragile zone, the national capital has this year been treated to the implications when flood plains and wetlands have been encroached and rampant construction happens on the river beds.  

Having elevated itself to the most populous country in the world and aiming to emerge as one of the largest economies, India since its post-liberalisation years has failed to conceive a development model that will suit its popular cultures and socio-economic constructs. While mimicking Western models of development and economic progress, the country failed to adopt many of the best practices of environment protection, urban planning and management, and civic life in the western societies as a result of which chaos and congestion have emerged in many Indian cities where affluence co-exists with poor living conditions. 

The need to devise a new or alternative development paradigm has become imperative in order to provide a new perspective, vision and direction to urban planning in the country. Unfortunately, governments and political leaderships are busy celebrating the progress and ‘development’ that is currently seen through the supposed ‘engines of growth’ but failing to notice the ugly side of ill-conceived planning and development.