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The Holy Grail of Citizen Participation
tsubba - 23 May, 2008 | Bangalore | Culture | BBMP | BESCOM | BWSSB | BCP
Muralidhar Rao forwards a report by Major Kapur of the Koramnagala Initiative, on the developments in Koramangala 1st main 1st block. One road, six agencies, one citizens group and an engineer - makes for a great insight into the holy grail of citizen participation and demolishes a whole lot of notions about the government agencies. read on.
This mail is being sent as an update on the work on 1st Main, 1st Block and a request.
Thanks,
Major Kapur
COMMENTS
Goals to Corporators and MLAs
Vasanth - 23 May, 2008 - 17:45
Each and every locality should have some organizations to protect the locality's interest. They should meet on a regular basis and list out the priorities needed and set it as goals to corporators and MLAs with timelines.
There should be review meetings and explanation by corporators and MLAs for not having achieved the goal. Parks or choultries are best place to meet.
Before election, a list should be prepared about the goals, accomplished or not, deadline date and completion date. This should also be compared to previous MLAs and corporators. This is the best way for the people to guage the effeciency of their representatives. I think JNNURM can be used for funding such meetings.
Tier 2 cities like Mysore has got more such organizations.Localities like JP Nagar in Mysore was developed with interest groups formed by the local people. They also have a night beat police duty done by citizens on a rotation basis.
Bangalore people are more reluctant to communicate to each other which is best used by thieves as well as corporators. They pay money to goto club and make friends ther e just to share a drink, but, not with neighbours. Communication is good in older and localities occupied by middle and lower middleclass people than the upper class people.
Local activism and money matters
silkboard - 24 May, 2008 - 04:31
At the end of the day its about money. Any developmental work involves money. And in present times, that is what attracts many people to become MLAs or corporators. Citizens first priority is to make money for himself and his family, so only those who have already made the money, or have time to spare (retired folks) end up driving these organizations.
Not trying to belittle those who spend time, NEVER. The city must take it gets. But we need some 'disruptive' ways of getting folks to participate. I keep thinking and here is one thought, the least half-baked of a few on my mind.
Why not have local public auditors/monitors for all development work where money spent is more than X lakhs. This would be like how jury systems work in some countries.
- Pick random or relevant educated/intellectual citizens from the area, make them partly responsible for signing off on completion of work, pending which, contractors won't get the money.
- Risk would be
- incentive for public auditors to indulge in corruption.
- But by involving more people in the process, that risk comes down.
- Benefits would be
- the incentive of "instant" results or "difference" would invite more people
- public involvement will increase transparency
agree vasanth
tsubba - 24 May, 2008 - 04:34
agree vasanth there is no substitute to ownership. in kannada/samskrutha thats antahakaraNa. nannadu anta aagbeku. it is mine that feeling should evolve. i must be very honest here. major kapur is my personal hero. i have been reading him for close to 2 years now. as i grow up i want to be like him.
exactly
Bengloorappa - 24 May, 2008 - 05:39
TS, Vasanth and others...
If you remember my earlier post "Best practices for Bangalore", this is exactly what I have been advocating. This has already been experimented in Delhi and has been a big success, to the extent of Civic officials actually fearing the local representative more than his/her immediate boss!
I am personally convinced that this is the way to go for Bangalore as well, if we have to bring immediate results in a short time frame. Local civic bodies have much more insight into their own locality, which goes without saying.
The bottomline to make it happen, I think, is to project these civic bodies as a discerning vote bank and the average MLC, MLA, Corporator, Area officer will immediately be interested; Its time democracy uses its tool to the hilt.
Ex Captains and Army Men with Senior Citizens to Lead This
Vasanth - 24 May, 2008 - 06:47
Well I see many ex army men and captains being more serious about corruption and mostly 'civic oriented'. There are some senior citizens who were eminent officers before retiring such as our Justice Venkatachala who just got retired. These people contribute for the auditing job in the best way. Corporators and MLAs will be even afraid for corruption when people like Venkatachala are in charge.
Even there are some army men who can be corrupt, but, mostly not.
Only thing I am afraid is the senior citizens like our DGs and Karghes who can change this differently.
I was thinking of having an online system wherein which we can track funds for a locality and the amount spent with details along with its bill scanned in PDF format. All the Bills should be printed bills and should not be hand written. To do corruption, people simply scramble the description in hand written bills so that nobody can read it.
This should be available to all the citizens to view. Why we need secrecy for Government funds? Secrecy will lead to corruption which is best used by MLAs and corporators.
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