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This chapter focuses on Ahmedabad, which is the largest city in Gujarat. The chapter begins with a section on the socio-economic characteristics of the city, including a profile of its labour force. This is followed by the city's governance and institutional arrangements — the city is administered by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) — and its corresponding services. A comprehensive list of these services is provided in the chapter. The next section is on the contributions of land sales and/or leasing to the revenues of the AMC. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of the relationship of expenditure and service delivery, and examines the available expenditure on various services such as water supply, sanitation, municipal roads, solid waste management, and sewerage.

This chapter considers the case of Bangalore, which is located about 840 to 940 metres above the sea level. The city is also the fifth largest metropolitan area in India. It is noted that these topographical characteristics seem to contribute to increasing the cost of certain public services, such as water supply. Before discussing the city's expenditure and service delivery on these types of public services, the socio-economic characteristics of Bangalore are provided. A summary of the revenues of the Bruhath Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is included. Finally, a detailed examination of the city's expenditure on locally provided public services is provided. This examination reveals that the expenditure on sewerage, water supply, and labour-intensive services is below the national average.

This chapter studies the land leasing and sales practices in Jaipur. Jaipur is known for being the very first planned city in India, as well as the capital of Rajasthan. The first part of the chapter discusses the socio-economic characteristics of Jaipur, including the categories of workers, the constituents of the Jaipur region, and the revenue the city gets from land sales and leasing. It notes that, in terms of land use, master plan, and building bye-laws, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) is the one responsible for planning, while the JDA and the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) are responsible for operations, maintenance, and implementation. The second half of the chapter looks at the expenditure and service delivery of Jaipur, particularly on the city's water supply, sanitation, sewerage, and solid waste management.

This chapter discusses the municipal corporations in Kolkata, and focuses on the central city of Kolkata. In terms of population, Kolkata is easily the seventh biggest city in the world, and the second biggest city in India. There are three municipal corporations in the city, namely, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), the Howrah Municipal Corporation, and the Chandannagar Municipal Corporation. After looking at the socio-economic characteristics of the city, the chapter studies the expenditure allotted for services such as solid waste management, water supply, sanitation, and sewerage. A comparison of the real expenditures and the financial norms for these specified services is provided. The chapter also analyses if spending is one of the possible causes of the current state of service delivery. The Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), which handles the land in the KMC area, is also discussed.

In the years since 1972, the European Union (EU) has created a system of environmental governance. With a wide range of legislative measures, extending from pollution control in water and air through policies on solid waste management, the control of genetically modified organisms, and the protection of the wildlife and countryside, to requirements for environmental administration, management, reporting, and audit, the EU's environmental policy is broad in scope, extensive in detail, and often stringent in effort. The significance of environmental governance in the EU goes beyond matters of legislation, important though they may be. It extends to the ways in which decision-making on environmental policy has become institutionalised within Europe, both at the level of the EU itself and in the practices of its member states.

Situated in the north of India, on the edge of the Gangetic plain, Delhi is an old city in every sense of the word. In modern times, the city is host to a number of institutions, from national and state-based political party organisations to various arms of national and state-level governments, as well the judiciary. Superimposed on the political significance of the city has been its steadily increasing commercial and industrial significance in post-independence India, particularly since the liberalisation drive of the early 1990s. This chapter gives a brief introduction to the metropolitan city of Delhi, including some background statistics and information on its demographic and employment profile; pressing urban planning and development issues; the institutional framework for its governance; and the municipal solid waste management it faces.

This chapter argues that the more flexible an individual country's environmental policy regime the more likely it is to fuel innovations that can find markets overseas. Drawing on a database of patent applications from a cross section of countries, it shows the positive effect of “flexibility” of the domestic environmental policy regime on the propensity for inventions to be diffused widely in the world economy. It develops a measure of international technology transfer for technologies relating to the mitigation of air and water pollution and solid waste management. Empirical analysis results confirm the positive role of policy flexibility on international technology transfer.