India is urbanising at a rapid pace. It has long been recognized that cities are engines of growth at both regional and national level. To facilitate and sustain this growth, cities have to provide both a high quality of life and an efficient infrastructure for economic activities. However, today our cities are reeling under high pressures of rapid growth and struggling to provide the most basic facilities necessary for urban life. However, awareness regarding city-planning issues has improved, and this is reflected in the increased involvement of CBOs, NGOs and private sector. In the recent times, Madhya Pradesh has been fortunate to have attention of number of bilateral funding agencies like Asian Development Bank (ADB), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) etc., who have initiated number of programs in the areas of urban management and development. All these changes have helped to create a conducive environment in Madhya Pradesh for constructive work in cities.

Increasing rate of urbanization, dynamics of economics and the changing professional culture have added new parameters for achieving efficiency in urban governance. In this phase of transition, a need was felt to establish a professional forum for City Managers with the objective of promoting professional management or urban local bodies.

Need for a forum:

• Urban local bodies in the state lacked in-house capacity to handle urban issues.
• There was no forum to support professional development of urban managers.
• There was no sharing of successful experiences and no dissemination of information.
• There was no forum to raise the sensitivity of state and central govt. towards urban issues.
• There was a felt need to have a forum to address the above issues to improve the urban governance in the state.

In order to achieve the above, the first such forum of City Managers was formed in the State of Gujarat, City Managers’ Association Gujarat (CMAG), in 1997 with support from International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and USAID. Looking at the success of CMAG as a nodal agency to carry out various programs to strengthen local government, decision was taken to start similar associations in other states and fortunately, Madhya Pradesh is one among eight other states where such associations have been formed.

Formation workshop on City Managers’ Association Madhya Pradesh was organized on 24th April 2002 at Bhopal. Over 40 commissioners and city managers from all over the state participated in the one-day workshop. It was jointly organized by the Government of Madhya Pradesh, Indo-USAID Financial Institutions Reform and Expansion (FIRE) project, National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi and USAEP with International City/County Management Association (ICMA). At the end of daylong workshop, the association was formulated, and also decisions were taken on its mission, `objectives and policies, structure of association and its execution plan. The association was registered under Societies Act 1973, on 9th October 2002. CMAMP is envisaged as a common platform to the city managers to interact, exchange information and channelise their efforts to achieve common goals. The association aims at building professional capacity of the urban local bodies of the State.

Mission

To promote enhanced urban quality of life and healthy environment through professional development of city managers.

Objectives

Information Dissemination among urban local bodies: on urban issues, best city management practices, technologies, cross country management experiences through publications, workshops, seminars and audio visual media. Training and Capacity Building: for professional development through workshops, seminars, training and orientation programmes, study tours. Advocay of urban issues: by raising the sensitivity of state and central governments towards urban management issues. Consultancy

Achievements

With great determination and hardwork CMAMP has achieved milestones in the field of Urban Development. CMAMP widened its scope of work and has provided its best possible technical inputs in the various ongoing national as well as state level programmes. CMAMP contributed in the following key projects : Implementing Agency for preparation of CDPs of 96 Cities. Coordinating Agency for Upper Lake Front Development Project. 13th Finance Commission Data Collection. JawaharLal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) : Information dissemination City Development Plans- CMAMP prepared the CDP for Ujjain and gave its important inputs in the CDP preparation of Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur. CMAMP gave its technical inputs to Urban Administration and Development Department for Appraisal and Evaluation of CDPs and Detailed Project Reports. CMAMP has been appointed as Technical Appraisal Agency for JNNURM and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme.(IHSDP). Computerisation of UADD. Computer training programme for the UADD staff. Conducted seminar on e-governance in municipalities. Best practices documentation.