Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy is knowledge partner to Chennai City Connect.
Janaagraha’s systems approach guides the work we do with citizens and government using the REED framework. It has four parts: R. E. E. D.
The first R stands for Regional Perspective. We cannot view the problems of the city in isolation. The city is part of a larger region and there are many interconnections. For example, when you have an international airport outside the city it’s going to impact traffic and transport in the entire region. We need a regional view for all our planning & resource requirements. Janaagraha seeks to sensitize the citizens and government to taking a regional perspective.
The second part of our systems approach is E which stands for Empowering Governments and Citizens. Inside any region there are many local governments – municipalities & panchayats. Janaagraha actively advocates decentralization, devolution of functions and the restructuring of local bodies so that our local governments are Empowered to solve the problems in our cities. We also work towards Empowering citizens. We have been advocating a law for citizen participation at the level of the Union Government, which gives citizens a formal voice in local decision-making. Today this is a mandatory reform in the largest mission for Urban India – JNNURM. We also Empower citizens with knowledge and awareness about their role in the democratic process. Bala Janaagraha, Yuva Janaagraha and the training programmes such as Citizenship Awareness Programme are aimed at educating and motivating citizens to participate in their communities.
The third part of our systems approach is another E. This stands for Enabling Citizens and Governments. In order for the municipalities to perform their functions effectively they need technology tools like Geographical Information Systems, skilled people, and so on. Janaagraha is developing programmes to Enable the local governments with such skills and tools through workshops and training. Janaagraha also Enables citizens with platforms, skills and tools to participate effectively. We have piloted the Area Sabhas in four wards of Bangalore, created platforms like City Connect, and tools such as the Ward Infrastructure & Services Assessment (WISA) project.
The fourth part of our systems approach is D. This stands for Direct responsibility. If we only empowered and enabled the local governments we could be only decentralizing corruption. We need to make the governments accountable directly outward to the people so that there is transparency and participation in their functioning. Our PROOF programme works with the government to create processes for public disclosure of financial records and performance evaluations of urban governments.
We believe that only when we have all four pieces of REED, Regional view, Empowered citizens and local governments, Enabled citizens and local governments, with Direct accountability of the government to the people, will we have a complete system to improve the quality of life in our cities. So rather than working on piecemeal Band-Aid solutions to particular problems in individual neighbourhoods, Janaagraha works with both the government and citizens to improve our system of governance, so that the system can be more effective in delivering a better quality of life for our citizens.
Regional Approach
The boundaries between urban and rural have become indistinguishable over the past decade. Greenfield airports, industrial Estates, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), large township developments, are often located in a rural local body jurisdiction while feeding off of the energy of an existing metropolis. Given the country’s rapid urbanization and the resultant pressure on land, natural resources and infrastructure requirements, it is no longer viable to look at the city in isolation. Governance, planning and development need a regional perspective. Fortunately, the 73rd and 74th, amendments to the Constitution provides for an institutional structure and geographic footprint for the regional approach. This requires to be developed, detailed, and implemented.
Janaagraha proposes three interventions for this regional perspective, planning and inter-institutional collaboration:
1. Establishment of a Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) or District Planning Committee (DPC) for less urbanized areas
This is platform for regional planning mandated by the Constitution of India will be composed of representatives of local authorities falling within its jurisdiction – Municipalities and Panchayats. The functions of these committees are focused on arriving at sustainable development plans which need to take account of the plans produced both by Municipalities and Panchayats under its jurisdiction. It is also required to take account of the overlap of rural and urban governance, the objectives of state and national governments, and the resources available for the region.
2. Creation of a Metropolitan Transport Authority
Transport requires a regional approach. It provides connectivity both within the urban centre as well as the surrounding rural areas and further afield. Transport also must be an integrated system of rail, road, air, water. This requires coordination between multiple agencies. A Metropolitan/District Transport Authority should be a planning arm of the MPC/DPC and be tasked with the responsibility for sustainable transportation planning, policy and monitoring performance.
3. Development and delivery of comprehensive city plans
Comprehensive city plans should address connectivity, natural resource planning and management, environmental planning and impact assessments, land use and zoning, protection and preservation of environment.
Empowering Local Bodies
Since the passage of the 74th Constitutional Amendment in 1992, there has been much debate about how poorly this has been implemented by various state governments. For better urban governance, the local government or the Municipalities must be empowered with functions, powers and responsibilities that are singularly in their domain. Under this, there are again three points of intervention proposed by Janaagraha:
1. Revamping municipal law
This entails devolution and distribution of powers and responsibilities across municipalities, wards and at the level of an Area Sabha.
Janaagraha has developed the concept of the Area Sabha which is an urban equivalent of the Grama Sabha found in rural areas. The constituency of the Area Sabha is the polling booth, composed of all electors. These members of Area Sabha elect an Area Sabha representative among themselves to represent them in the Ward Committee of their municipal ward, which is chaired by directly elected Councilor. The Councilors have powers through the municipal council to decide on the composition of the budget and the priority of projects to be implemented.
Click here to know more about Area Sabhas
2. Coordination across all municipal services
Urban Governance in India presents the challenge of multiple agencies involved in the provision of urban services though constitutionally, these are the responsibilities of the local government – Municipality. The challenges typically are lack of coordination, accountability to the state government instead of the local government, resulting in less power in the hands of the local government for ensuring a good quality of life to the urban citizens. Though ideally, these agencies should fold into the urban local bodies’ (ULBs) jurisdiction, but practically, this might take a long time to come to fruition. Janaagraha proposes intermediate solutions that can be implemented progressively, such as:
1. Creation of common jurisdictions for operational units of all agencies coinciding with the fundamental unit of political accountability within the urban local body i.e. the municipal ward.
2. Aligning reporting periods and date. This allows decisions to be made on the basis of outcomes generated and funds available. It lays the basis for credible and scientific planning.
3. Aligning reporting channels to Urban Local Bodies.
3. Integrated services for the urban poor
With fully empowered urban local governments, addressing the issues of the urban poor can become more effective. Focus can shift to outcomes, rather than input measures which are mostly irrelevant. New service delivery arrangements can be experimented with, including public-private partnerships. Innovations in locally appropriate solutions will emerge. Mistakes that are made will be localised, from which there will be learning and adaptation. The urban poor themselves will be better able to participate in decision-making on issues that matter to them through the structures of Area Sabhas.
Enabling Local Bodies
One reason for the failure of government agencies to provide services is the absence of capacity to provide those services. Supplementing the other component of REED – Empowering Local Bodies – this aspect of the framework of governance focuses on the need for capacity, financial strength and ability of the local bodies. Janaagraha’s proposal for enabling municipalities includes the following approaches:
1. Financial Enablement
Municipalities need to have the capacity to not only generate their own resources to the maximum extent possible, but also to be provided with their fair share of fiscal transfers from state governments. The first has to do with the freedom to raise revenues, but also the capacity to ensure that there is high compliance on the part of the urban residents. Municipalities will also need to increasingly access the debt market to build appropriate urban infrastructure. Here, the skills required on the part of the municipality are related to the ability to raise capital, but also to deploy these funds appropriately.
2. Human resource and capacity building
The primary need is to put people with appropriate skills and qualifications to fulfill positions where their skills are needed. The second requirement is for the capacity of the local government to independently hire both full time staff and part time staff, especially in senior administrative positions. Such a capacity would enable accountability. Finally, the provision of capacity building processes such as training courses is a necessary requirement.
3. Management Tools
There are three principal tools that are needed. The first of these are the financial management tools that speak to the needs of transparency and accountability. Secondly there is a requirement for project management skills that are central to urban infrastructure reform. The third set of tools is urban service management tools which empower the local government to competently manage issues such as solid waste disposal, health, education, water distribution, etc. A fundamental management tool, that is indispensible for good governance is a spatial data centre for the entire region of urban agglomeration. This will be the principal repository for data pertaining to the geographical scope of the urban agglomeration and is further supplemented by tools such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) that use the data available for making decisions to enable better urban management.
Direct Accountability
The first three components of the framework without accountability towards the electorate would effectively decentralize corruption! To check this, local governments must be accountable to the citizens. This accountability must be outwards through a participatory approach rather than downwards that takes a view of citizens as mere recipients of services, or “customers”. Janaagraha focuses on two components of accountability. The first of these is establishing mechanisms for participatory democracy, and the second is mandatory disclosure of financial and operational performance by the municipality.
1. Participation
Participatory democracy is envisaged through a formal system that is embedded into Municipal decision making. This needs extending the idea of participation in rural governance – that of Gram Sabha, where every registered voter is a member – to urban areas by providing a similar platform for every registered voter in the form of Area Sabhas. Area Sabhas are at sub-ward level, reducing the distance between the elector and his representative. The footprint of every polling booth defines the boundaries of the Area Sabha.
2. Disclosure
Public Disclosure goes beyond the Right-to-Information, in that it proactively requires municipalities to disclose information, rather than responding to applications for information. This requires that the municipalities disclose information on their cashflow and audited account statements on a quarterly basis and also disclose the service and service levels time to time. Disclosure gives this information three important characteristics: timeliness, predictability and standardization.
3. Management Tools
There are three principal tools that are needed. The first of these are the financial management tools that speak to the needs of transparency and accountability. Secondly there is a requirement for project management skills that are central to urban infrastructure reform. The third set of tools is urban service management tools which empower the local government to competently manage issues such as solid waste disposal, health, education, water distribution, etc. A fundamental management tool, that is indispensible for good governance is a spatial data centre for the entire region of urban agglomeration. This will be the principal repository for data pertaining to the geographical scope of the urban agglomeration and is further supplemented by tools such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) that use the data available for making decisions to enable better urban management.
