Participatory Governance: First 'Booth level Citizens Committees' of India

Recently I had to answer the queries raised by a correspondent from Delhi (Hindustan Times), regarding the ‘citizen committee’ experiment in Hubli-Dharwad city. (First of its kind in the Country, on participatory governance).


I thought I will share it here, as it has got certain view points on transparency, decentralization and Participatory governance.


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1. How did the citizens’ committees come about?


After observing the difference of opinion, between the Municipal commissioners and the elected council, which used to end up in the commissioner being transferred, Nilay Mitash, IAS officer of 1991 batch and my mentor, once remarked, “Mani, try building bridge with the citizens, if they are convinced, then the elected councilors won’t create issues”.


I did agree to the logic, but then I have to wait till the spring of 2005, when I met the extraordinary person, Ramesh Ramanathan, who introduced me to the concept of ‘Citizen committees’ and motivated me to go for one at HDMC.


The idea was so simple and convincing, with few eminent citizens (Prof. Savadatti, Ex-VC of Mangalore University) of Hubli, supported by CMAK (Prarthana Rao), we went ahead in a big way to form the Citizen committees. The concept was customized to great extent. We developed in-house software to select the members, with certain criteria like 1/3 to be educated with at least PUC qualification, 1/3 women etc.



There was a good response from the citizens. We formed one committee for every polling booth, thus more than 570 booths, each having 9 members. This was the first experiment on civic participation in the lines of ‘The Nagar Palika bill’ in the entire country.



We had seminars, meetings, and handbook printed. The concept caught up well, though some of the officers and elected councilors were not so happy. Thanks to the able captainship of Prof. Savadatti, the committees survived, though there were allegations that they were not supported by the administration and council for some time.



They are still there, though their power is not fully tapped. They are a great force, and one day they will not only guide the HDMC, but also decide its speed!




2. Aren’t they an obstacle too, in some ways?


They may appear to be, at times, but, they are not. They are not obstacles in any manner except that during their growth into a mature institution, they will also make mistakes, as anyone else does!


It is not easy to learn to work in a democracy. It is like learning to ride a Bi-cycle; Disbelief in the starting, then taking control of the machine, balancing yourself, and then moving ahead. One has to fall and hurt himself in the starting. But, then you learn the art. This starting phase is very critical and prone to be dismissed as not starter. But, a persistent learner, and a wise teacher will know what lies ahead.


Similarly, with the citizen committees, it will take some time to get streamlined. But, once put on track, it has got the potential to reduce the distortions in our elected system, drastically. (As we know, the distortions are not only in the way the elections are won, but in the system itself, like the ‘first-past-the–post, wherein, one gets elected even with only 30% of the votes, if the other candidates have individually polled less than him, though their collective vote may be more than 30%.)


Compared to dictatorial and monarchical system, democracy itself is an obstacle to take speedy decision. But such obstacles are preferred over the rapid decision making capability of any other system. Let us recall the wise statement that democracy is not all that efficient, but it is a better system than all other known systems.


So the citizen committees are not an obstacle, though the transparency will lead to little inconvenience in the starting. This time is crucial. We should be able to bear the hurt and pain to learn cycling. But, they are definitely not be an obstacle.




3. There does not seem to have much political opposition to the reforms. How was it managed?


Political opposition normally takes its strength from public opposition. Hardly there will be political opposition when public support the cause. The public support can be enlisted, if we respond to the public in a credible manner.

1. The credibility of the HDMC was established in 1 year, with the following steps.The HDMC started responding to the citizen grievances effectively thru a 24x7 helpline, and 24x7 action teams.
2. Much transparency was brought into the financial system, particularly on the expenditure side.
3. Went down heavily on the illegal encroachments etc.

At the same time, we need to give credit to the political leadership of HDMC, who were not ‘insecure’, and hence gave the benefit of doubt to the administration. Also, every political leader wants development. And if reforms accelerate the development, then many welcome it.




4. How did the idea develop on urban reforms?


There is nothing great about the ideas. They are based on three simple things:

1. Transparent administration, which increases the credibility of the admn.
2. Participatory governance, where the stake holders have a say. (This was followed in office also, with the top officials meeting once in a week, to make collective decisions)
3. Use of IT extensively.

Added to this is the ‘autonomous environment’ which allows the CEO quite a lot of flexibility, which is otherwise not available in the routine bureaucratic-legal constraints. It is a sin, if any Municipal commissioner is not using the autonomy to bring in drastic changes in the live of poor people.



I also would like to sincerely thank the following senior IAS officers who moulded my ideas on urban issues, like, Ravikumar, Subhash Chandra, Nilay Mitash, Selvakumar, Amlan Biswas etc, and my colleagues like, Shanbhag, Das etc.




5. How did the process start?


The process started with cleaning the house. The following steps have been taken:

1. Put in a staff grievance redressal mechanism, where-in every month all staff, whose birth date falls in that month get to meet the Municipal commissioner, over tea. Thus whole office of 2500 employees gets to meet the Municipal commissioner face to face once in a year. This not only brought down their grievances, but also motivated them.


2. Public grievance redressal mechanism for citizens. Complaints have been divided into A (24 hrs), B (1 week), C (1 month), and attended to scientifically. Citizens started trusting the HDMC.


3. When we find that the pyramidal organization structure was not allowing us to respond to the citizens promptly, we went for major restructuring, involving decentralization, with opening of 12 autonomous zonal offices, headed by the Asst. Municipal commissioners.


4. This was a landmark event, because, it increased the efficiency greatly. Instead of one Municipal commissioner, now we have 12! There is a need to ‘decentralize’ and ‘empower’ the officers.


5. In any developing country, there will be a gap between the ‘demand’ from the citizens and the ‘supply’ from the government on all aspects of governance. This ‘gap’ will lead to grievances from the citizens. These grievances have to be addressed properly, as lapses in this regard shows the government in poor light and erodes the credibility.


6. To address these grievances properly and speedily, we need to have sufficient number of ‘decision makers’ who are ‘empowered’ to take decision, and are accountable. It’s like cloning of the Municipal commissioner and appointing each to one zone of the city.


7. More the Zones, more is the help to citizens. But, the numbers cannot be increased, due to financial constraints. The number of Zones per city has to be worked out on an empirical formula, which takes into account the population, area, revenue generation, qty of water supplied, sewage generation and disposal etc. Weightage is given to each of the factor.




6. People in both Hubli-Dharwad and Mysore greatly support the reforms, why?



The public supported the reforms due to the following reasons:

1. They look for somebody to bring in change. If there is a credible promise, citizens are ready to give a chance.
2. The credibility was built assiduously, thru grievance redressal mechanisms, which responded to the citizens effectively. This credibility was the most crucial matter for the public to support. Credibility was also ensured thru, transparency and participatory governance.
3. It benefits them! They see that the roads are improved, corruption is less, services better. (Kindly refer to the ‘citizen card’ survey made by Public Affairs Centre (PAC)). Why won’t the citizens support it?!

Needless to say, the organization can be transparent and afford to invite participation from stake holders, only when it has nothing to hide! Integrity matters!