Metropolitan governance and local decentralisation in India: case of Chennai and Kolkata metropolitan regions

India is one of the very few countries which have metropolitan administration in place to administer its metropolis. ‘Metropolitanisation’ of existing big cities is growing cause of concern for India. Very soon, India needs to dwell upon development of its newly growing metropolitan region along with the existing ones. Yet a comprehensive framework has not emerged to address administrative and governance complexity of metropolitan region and local government. This paper examines India’s metropolitan governance, its functioning under the decentralisation of 74th Constitutional amendment act of 1992; its variation in implementation by different states; and critique on the opportunity of having a metropolitan governance mechanism with decentralised local government. Irrespective of the central legislative foundation, state governments are unable to establish a functioning module with decentralised local government and independent metropolitan government. Finally, the paper shall record the findings and discuss the possible policy recommendations.