murali sir, were you there last year? can you share any material on this topic? if it is not for public distribution (though that would be strange) can you mail it to me?

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Janaagraha used to organise quarterly review of BMP's financial statements upto about two years back, or rather upto the time of Sri H D Kumaraswamy taking over as the CM. Janaagraha found themselves out of favour with the new set up, and thereafter, there were just some sporadic efforts by various other agencies which also eventually petered out. I had attended quite a few of the review meetings. They were useful, but only to a limited extent, the limitation being largely on account of the elected representatives' (Corporators) belief that these exercises amounted to intrusion into their domain. The present exercise is a workshop, with a view re-start the process of citizen participation. Muralidhar Rao

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I had the honour of moderating the four sessions spread over the entire day. The highlight was the excellent presentations by various professors from Centre for Public Policy, IIMB, apart from participation by Sri Narendra Babu, former MLA (Rajajinagar), Dr Ravindra (Dy Chairman, State Planning Commission), Dr Samuel Paul, Chairman, Public Affairs Centre, Bangalore, R K Misra, TOI Lead-India winner, Dr Rajeev Gowda (who proposes to contest the ensuing Assembly elections from Jayanagar constituency under the Congress ticket), Mr Sandeep Das, IAS, Addl Commissioner, BBMP, apart from Sri N S Mukunda, President, CAF, and Col Mathew, MC member, CAF, and a few others - certainly, a worthwhile exercise Muralidhar Rao

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With concepts like Autonomy, Sustainable growth, Forward Planning, HRD, etc becoming buzz-words in management circles, government babu’s couldn’t quite stomach the idea of being left out. So, they managed sponsorships for themselves to attend various seminars, workshops, and even full-time MBA courses, and worse still started introducing these concepts into their respective domains/ departments, irrespective of whether they fitted in with the overall government policy or not. Now, very clearly, at least in the earlier times, much of the content in an MBA course, for instance, was tailored to Corporates, with very little of it being applicable to government administration (Later, of course, IIMs, particularly Ahmedabad and Bangalore, started specific courses tailored to government administration). But, with the babu’s pursuing with them all the same, the damage slowly started getting done. Time was when the Electricity Board (the predecessor of the BESCOM), and the BWSSB would give their respective connections only after the Occupancy Certificate was issued by the local Municipal authority, thereby ensuring compliance with the building by-laws to a much greater extent than today. Down the years, with the babu’s turning into management experts, the Boards started looking at themselves as ‘profit centres’, and the checks and balances of the earlier regime just crumbled, bringing in in its wake the chaos of the present day. The sad part however is that controls continue in many other areas, pushing these organizations to the receiving end on very many fronts. The KPTCL and the ESCOMS (successors to the Electricity Board), for instance, do not have the power to charge remunerative rates to the farming sector, this leading to a subsidy regime whereby they have become totally dependent on the government. Similar is the case with water supplies to EWS colonies/ areas. And, this is not confined just to power and water supply sectors. The Transport Department, for instance, draws up its annual budget based on the growth plan for its staff, the revenue shortfall being made up by release of fresh licenses for autorickshaws, unmindful of the additional chaos that it wreaks on the already dismal city traffic scenario. The Pollution Control Board charges its so-called ‘consent fees’ in far higher proportion compared to the actual work it is required to do, and blows up the revenue generated in putting up fancy office complexes in prime commercial locations. And, so on. The imperative need of the day is for the government to redefine its role to being a facilitator, and thereafter as the regulator, for which it necessarily has to give up its role as a player. Simultaneously, it needs to become far leaner in its operations, down-sizing itself drastically wherever required, as also evolving a cost plus approach compared to the present revenue oriented approach. Muralidhar Rao For more, read: http://better-governance.blogspot.com/

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Nice job sir!

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Awesome murali sir. congratulations. what did the officials say?
you ought to be carrying a camera and do the youtube thing.

Involve us in budget process: citizen groups
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/23/stories/2008032360900300.htm

‘Performance budgeting will help in bringing financial control over the money received by BBMP’

With the BBMP budget round the corner, citizen groups have sought their involvement in the exercise.

On Saturday, Mathew Thomas of the Citizens’ Action Forum posed a few questions to a gathering. Tell me whose money that the Government is spending, he asked. “It’s the money of the citizens,” said the audience. He went on to ask three more questions, “Who should decide how much Government should spend?” “How this should be decided?” and “Who should know about the money spent?” The audience gave the same reply.

Mr. Thomas said: “It is our money that is involved in the budget ... We should get involved in the preparation of the budget and change the present system of its preparation. There is something radically wrong with the present system, where secrecy is involved. There is no performance rating at all,” he said.

Mr. Thomas was making a presentation at the seminar on “Citizen’s participation, transparency and accountability in budgeting” held here on Saturday. The seminar was organised jointly by the Citizens’ Action Forum, the Centre for Public Policy of the Indian Institute of Management, the Bangalore Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Swabhimana.

Speaking on “Citizen centric performance budgeting,” Mr. Thomas said the present system of line item/programme budgeting did not involve citizens. It did not indicate the progress made for the money spent on several programmes. The performance reports of various departments of the BBMP were no different. “If something is spent on health it does not indicate what has been achieved,” he said.

Mr. Thomas said introduction of proper performance budgeting would help in bringing financial control over the money received by the BBMP and also ensure fiscal discipline.

It would facilitate managing operations to ensure efficiency and also set budget priorities.

With this system of budgeting “resistance to payment of more tax will reduce”, he said and added that people had been generally apprehensive about the way the tax collected by the municipal authorities was being utilised.

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