Municipal Service Delivery in Small Cities of Punjab

Abstract

Punjab is the most populous province of the country with 53 percent of its population. It had a total population of 110 million in 2017, out of which over 40 million were urban dwellers.8 While at present, only seven percent of the urban dwellers in Punjab live in small cities, having populations between 100,000 and 250,000, the share of the urban population living in small cities in Punjab is expected to almost double to 13 percent over the next 30 years.9 All the same, small cities have largely been ignored in both academic and policy discourses relating to municipal service delivery (MSD). Owing to limited infrastructure and enhanced pressure due to increasing population, service delivery in small cities of Punjab is coming under pressure