 New urban spaces under Modi’s digital India – digitization of urban governance and state-citizen relationshipFalguni Mukherjee Environment and Planning C, 2025, vol. 43, issue 1, 95-112 Abstract: Few studies have examined how Indian urban local bodies (ULBs) have responded to the government’s informationization agenda, particularly the use of geospatial technologies for urban governance. Drawing upon insights from Critical GIS, neoliberalization and governmentality studies, this article addresses this gap by examining the case of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and the evolution of their modernization efforts that have progressed from office automation practices to active use of GIS technology for urban governance. SMC’s regional and political environment have favored their modernization efforts. However, as ULBs are expected to manage a diverse urban population and shoulder responsibilities with fewer resources they must adapt. Surat Municipal Corporation has adapted by aligning local political agenda with national agenda and adopting a strategy that echoes the dominant political discourse of utilizing technology to govern from a distance and as a modality of biopolitics. Use of geospatial technologies serves as an important tool for the ULB to introduce new modes of bureaucratic governmentality. Keywords: governmentality; neoliberalization; urban governance; Critical GIScience; India (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirc:v:43:y:2025:i:1:p:95-112 DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259316 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Environment and Planning C |
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