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“The
news on page three of our local newspapers is always the same:
choked culverts, overflowing drains and shoddy roadwork being
exposed by the rain gods. Equally predictable is the response of
the civic authorities: promises of rapid action, allotment of huge
sums of money for desilting, etc. People have witnessed this
scenario year after year like ‘coming soon’ trailers in cinema
theatres”, notes Ramesh Ramanathan, the visionary behind ‘Janaagraha’.
Janaagraha is a nascent citizens’ movement launched in Bangalore
with the immediate goal of seeing a beautiful and clean Bangalore
and the long-term goal of making democracy a reality by bringing
in transparency and accountability in urban governance. Ramesh
Ramanathan, a post-graduate from BITS, Pilani, with a MBA from
Yale, left a lucrative position at the Citibank in USA to come
back to India. Along with his wife, Swati, a qualified architect,
who supports him completely, they are proving to be ideal role
models for all non – resident Indians who wish to “do
something” for their country of origin but do not know how. All
the resources for Janaagraha come from a charitable Foundation set
up by Ramesh’s father, called the Ramanathan Foundation.
Ramesh
began his involvement with Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) as a
member of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force (BATF), a team of people
from the corporate sector hand-picked by Chief Minister SM Krishna
to work for a better Bangalore in a unique public-private
partnership. As a member of BATF, Ramesh reformed the notoriously
ill-managed accounting system of the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike
and brought in the Fund-Based Accounting System, claimed to be the
first such in the whole of India. Now anyone can get a daily
update on the finances of BMP by just pressing a button. After
this supply-side intervention, he has initiated the demand-side
intervention involving citizens by facilitating ‘Janaagraha’,
a citizens’ movement for participation in governance through
participative budgeting.
Ramesh
was inspired by the now well-known experiment in Porto Alegre in
Brazil, that was able to improve its human development index by
leaps and bounds through citizen engagement in participative
budgeting and Ramesh hopes to replicate it in Bangalore. He
estimates that the total amount of funds required to transform
Bangalore is about Rs 2,500 crores or roughly, Rs 500 crores every
year over a period of five years. But the current core revenues of
the city are barely Rs 400 crores while the core expenditures are
around Rs 250-300 crores, and the interest on borrowings is
already Rs 100 crores.
Where
are the additional funds going to come from? There are at least
ten lakh taxable properties in the city but BMP currently gets its
property taxes only from about four lakh properties. “Given that
property taxes are currently about Rs 175 crores in BMP, we could
still generate an additional Rs 250 crores from property tax
alone, WITHOUT raising tax rates, or levying new taxes,”
believes Ramesh.
The
key question therefore is: ‘Why are all citizens not paying
their fair share?’ The answer, according to Ramesh, is because
“citizens do not have faith in the system. When the citizens are
taken into confidence, when they participate in, for example,
determining how the ward works will be allocated, they see their
money working for them. Their confidence in the system increases
when they see that the additional funds are used to build
infrastructure that they have identified. Then they take ownership
over their city, over public assets.”
“Citizens
have forgotten that they are part of the problem. They have to
become partners in the solution, simplifying the job of the
administration. A virtuous cycle of increased revenues needs to be
built up by bringing the voice of the citizen into the heart of
the BMP’s functioning, which is the budget, and by making the
process of financial functioning transparent. This is not a dream.
Just a clear, organised vision of the future. It is in our
capacity to make this a reality,” believes positive-thinking
Ramesh.
Ramesh
hence named his movement Janaagraha, which means ‘moral
force of the people’ – a take on the earlier struggle for
independence, Satyaagraha – the moral force of truth.
“Janaagraha is a giant experiment at several levels: getting
citizens to collaborate with the corporator and government using
the budget as the instrument of change is one; but, most
importantly, believing that barriers between citizens can be
broken in a permanent way, so that different communities recognise
the strength of positive purpose is the other”, says Ramesh.
Ramesh
chose to mobilise citizens in support of the movement by getting
them to first build a database on the roads, footpaths and drains
in their areas. For this, a field report form (FRF), to be filled
out by the citizen for capturing the data on a road, was designed
with the help of Prof Justo, an expert on roads.
From
December 2001 to January 2002, residents’ associations and
groups of citizens were then trained with videos in a massive
training programme on how to fill out the forms. A media campaign
was also launched by calling on citizens to “devote just two
hours on a Saturday afternoon to transform Bangalore” by filling
out the FRFs. Citizens, fed up with the apathy of the municipal
administration, volunteered in droves with the hope of seeing some
change. Citizens could be seen all over Bangalore during February
and March 2002, with a notepad in their hands, measuring their
roads with tape measures, counting potholes, and inspecting drains
and culverts. They catalogued the data on the FRF and suggested
the works that needed to be done.
The
filled out forms were given to the Janaagraha office for the
technical costing of the suggested works at standard rates and in
the manner prescribed by BMP. Looking at the scientific method
used for costing by Janaagraha, a BMP engineer asked whether they
could use this system at times for their use too! This cost output
was then given back to the citizens so that they would be in a
better position to bargain with their corporator for what they
felt their ward was due. Citizens’ groups were then facilitated
to get together ward-wise and prioritise the works that they
wished to be taken up in their wards. They next presented this
list to their corporator requesting him to include it under the
Programme of Works for the year 2002-2003 for their ward. This
first phase of ‘planning’ ended with the release of the
Programme of Works (POW) for each ward in May 2002.
65
out of 100 wards in Bangalore participated in the first phase. Of
these, citizens from 22 wards have been able to get the works
suggested by them included in the final POW. In several wards,
citizens filled the FRFs but did not prioritise or meet the
corporator to get their list of works into the final POW.
“This
year’s POW list is only one instance of a new relationship
between the corporator and the community,” says Ramesh. “The
ward works list is not the outcome that we have sought; it is only
an output of a process that we wanted to establish. When we began the campaign, we were asked, ‘Why ward works?
There are so many issues, like garbage or pollution or slums.’
The answer that we gave then was, ‘What needs to be built is a
bridge between citizens and government. When you build that
bridge, it doesn’t matter whether a car or a truck or an auto
goes over it. Ward works is only the first vehicle that will go
across the bridge of participation, showing that a process has
been established. Other vehicles will follow’.”
The
collaborative manner of functioning of Janaagraha has yielded some
results. PR Ramesh, corporator of Ward 50 and the chairman of the
Standing Committee of Works, BMP, says, “This is a transition
period … (towards participative budgeting). I am sure that in
three years, 100 per cent of the ward works in all 100 wards will
be identified by communities participating in Janaagraha. For this
year, I have advised the engineers to include some of the works
prioritised by Janaagrahis in the POW”. In his own ward, in
proportion to the number of persons who participated in Janaagraha,
he allotted 25 per cent of the ward works budget to cover the
recommendations made by them.
While
a few corporators have openly accepted citizen participation, this
number is small, just as there are very few corporators who have
outright denied citizen participation. “Most of the elected
representatives fall in between continuing to maintain a positive
tone, but not sure what this campaign really means for them,”
says Janaagraha.
“The
fact that so many communities and Corporators alike have publicly
endorsed the campaign not only confirms the relevance of
participative budgeting, but also provides legitimacy to the
collaborative process that Janaagraha has pursued,” says
Janaagraha.
Individual
citizens started grouping themselves into associations after
participating in Janaagraha. A new association called
‘Shreyas’ was formed in Jayanagar 9th Block.
In Padmanabhanagar, one of the largest wards in Bangalore,
Abhyudaya, a federation of 30 associations was born, ushering in a
new era of organised collective action to change the way the ward
looks.
With
the release of the POW on 20 May 2002, Janaagraha entered the
second phase of contracting and implementation. Citizens are now
asked to contact the BMP engineering department to get the details
of the tenders: whether the works have been estimated, tenders
called, tenders approved and work orders given to contractors. The
contracting grid sheet called WAND (Work Analysis Document)
captures this information. Two more forms called WIRE (Work
Implementation Report) and WING (Work Inspection Guide) are also
necessary for the second phase once the works start getting
implemented this year. All these documents help community members
to plan their collaborative activities and record the progress of
various works in their ward over time.
So
far, six wards are participating in the second phase. At a
community event called on 28 August 2002, ten officials of the
BMP, members of 25 communities and two contractors attended the
meeting. All the officials felt that citizens’ participation is
necessary for accountability. The BMP Special Commissioner agreed
to monthly meetings between citizens, corporators and engineers to
discuss the work status in wards.
When
citizens of Ward 54 met their executive engineer (EE), N Krishna,
he gave them all the details to fill out WAND and even provided
space for studying the tender documents. The EE welcomed the
citizens’ joint inspection of works with the corporator and him,
and put to rest the residents’ apprehension of whether the
contractor would object to their involvement as interference. Both
the EE and corporator said, “If you are unhappy with the
contractor’s work, you can ask him to do it properly. If he does
not listen to you then you can come to one of us.”
Janaagraha,
in coalition with three other partners, launched a second campaign
called PROOF (Public Record of Operations and Finance) on 4 July
2002. The three other partners are the Centre for Budget and
Policy Studies (CBPS), Public Affairs Centre (PAC) and VOICES. As
a first step, PROOF plans to persuade the BMP to release quarterly
financial statements and performance reports.
According
to Ramesh, PROOF will not merely disclose financial statements,
which, though necessary, are not sufficient condition to
understand an institution. The financial data will be supplemented
by performance data in terms of Performance Indicators: How well
is the BMP doing in delivering primary education services to the
children in corporation schools? How efficiently are hospitals and
dispensaries running? However, he believes that these Performance
Indicators cannot be developed in a vacuum; they need to evolve
through debate and discussion among citizens, says Ramesh.
“PROOF
documents act as a catalyst for the average citizen to get a
firmer comprehension of how BMP works and then take the next step:
ask the question, ‘What does this mean in my ward, my lcocality?’
This will in turn spur more desegregated analysis and debate,”
says Ramesh.
Ramesh
is certain that once citizens see that their participation is
making a difference in local governance, they will transform
Bangalore in five years and serve as role models for the rest of
the country too.
A
critique
While
the whole idea and process of citizen involvement through
Janaagraha is laudable, the methodology followed raises several
questions. First of all, why look so far as Porto Alegre when the
next door neighbour of Karnataka, Kerala has actualised a system
and process of participative budgeting that allows citizens to
decide what is to be done with 40 per cent of the state’s budget
which is directly devolved to local bodies?
Second,
the idea of citizens going to municipal councillors as
supplicants, requesting that their needs be heard and
accommodated, goes against the grain of citizens’ right to
participation as a Constitutional mandate enshrined in the 74th
Constitutional Amendment. The Janaagrahis, instead of demanding
participation as their right, are accepting the crumbs the
councillors throw at them according to their whims and fancies, as
a great ‘favour’ being done to them. The protagonists of
Janaagraha somehow do not seem to have shown interest in demanding
and strengthening the institutionalised mechanisms for citizens’
participation foreseen in the 74th Constitutional
Amendment or the Nagarapalika Act which would give formal,
self-sustaining and permanent structures for citizens’
participation, such as ward committees.
One
should also not be blind to the likelihood that Janaagraha as a
movement may fade away if its chief protagonists stop breathing
life into it at every stage and once they lose the benign
blessings of the current chief minister, SM Krishna, who belongs
to the Congress party and is seen mainly as a friend of the
corporate and elite in society. Many resent the fact that he set
up the BATF (Bangalore Agenda Task Force), with hand-picked
individuals from the corporate sector, as an extra-constitutional
authority deciding the fate of Bangalore, while he ignores the
effective implementation of the 74th Constitutional
Amendment and the setting up of structures mandated under it for
citizens’ participation, such as ward committees. Many
councillors belonging to opposition parties look upon Janaagraha
as a ‘Congress-supported’ initiative and have decided not to
cooperate with it just for the sake of opposing it. And it is
likely that many officials in the BMP are cooperating with
Janaagraha because their current political bosses at state level
have blessed it.
Also,
roads, drains and footpaths are very middle-class concerns and
this was not an issue on which slum-dwellers could be mobilised.
Hence, the involvement of only a few slum organisations in
Janaagraha, though efforts were made to involve many more.
Further, creating a database and costing works for all the roads
proved a waste of time, energy and resources as only a few roads
could be accommodated in the POW. One felt that prioritisation of
the roads could have been done first to save time, effort and
resources. Of course, roads were a good rallying point as citizens
on every street could be mobilised around it.
Equally
troublesome is the lack of legitimacy to the process by which the
demands and prioritisation of works were made by individuals or
residents’ associations, who represented only themselves, or
just a small portion of the ward. Unless prioritisation takes
place taking the needs of the whole ward into account, and as many
sections and interest groups in the ward are democratically
represented and arrive at a consensus on the prioritised list in a
democratically acceptable manner, there is no reason why the
municipality should accept the list prepared by a few
self-appointed individuals who do not have the people’s mandate
to decide on their behalf.
In
one ward, there were too many conflicting groups, each demanding
that its needs be prioritised, and it eventually led to some of
these groups disassociating themselves from Janaagraha. But what
was more often the case was that a few groups demanded that their
needs be heard while the rest of the ward remained apathetic. In
either case, whatever was arrived at could not have been a wholly
democratic solution. Adding to the problem was the lack of
objective criteria for deciding why a particular work should be
given priority over another.
In
contrast, the prioritisation process followed by Belo Horizonte,
the third largest city in Brazil, which was also inspired by Porto
Alegro, is something like this:
After the mayor announces the regional allocations, a meeting
takes place within each region (equivalent to our zones) to look
back at expenditures for the previous year and forward to the
expenditure limits set for the current year. Then, at sub-regional
meetings (equivalent to our wards), the people list their
preferences on forms at an open meeting.
At
the second sub-regional meeting, the forms are considered and a
list of priority public works is decided in accordance with a
regional (zonal) plan. At this second meeting, community
representatives are elected to participate in the regional (zonal)
forum for budgetary priorities. 50 delegates are elected for each
region distributed proportionately according to the size and
population of the region, one each for every residents’
association and other associations working in the area. Thus it is
ensured that every part and interest group of the region is
represented in a democratic manner. These deputies are then taken
on visits to the areas where works are likely to be taken up, for
which the costing is done by the government. The ‘regional forum
for budgetary priorities’ then meets to prioritise the
components of the regional budget based on the cost of works and
on the quotas allowed to each sub-region. This ensures that all
sub-regions get their due in an agreed fashion and there are no
intra-region conflicts.
20
per cent of the delegates are then elected to the ‘monitoring
commission’ which will meet with city municipal authorities at
the ‘municipal forum of budget priorities’ to finalise the
works to be taken up. These deputies also inspect the works when
taken up and follow up on the budget.
In
general, 50 per cent of the capital budget of the municipality is
allocated to the participative budget. Due to participative
budgeting there is greater emphasis on water, drainage and
sanitation and not just on roads. It should also be recalled that
the priority concerns, even in Porto Alegre, were those of the
social sector – lack of, or poor, education and health
facilities, and not roads.
True,
many corporators of Bangalore have come forward willingly to
include Janaagrahis’ wishes in the POW and several BMP engineers
have given copies of tender documents without too much fuss. But
these are probably the 10 to 20 per cent good persons who exist in
any organisation anyway. And possibly, they do not yet see these
acts as threatening in themselves. Whether they will continue to
oblige the citizens in the same manner if the citizens start
asking for bills and vouchers, muster rolls, measurement books and
wage records, which would be the next logical step, remains to be
seen. Already, there is resistance from several executive
engineers to parting with tender documents.
Janaagraha
has been emphasising repeatedly a cooperative and collaborative
strategy while approaching corporators and officials and not one
of confrontation. It has been attempting to win the corporators
over by making them ‘feel good’ and telling them that the good
image they will be creating for themselves among the citizens by
cooperating with ‘Janaagraha’ would help them during the next
elections. Ward engineers are also being felicitated for their
‘good work’.
Given
the widely known, all-pervasive corruption in local bodies (more
than a thousand crores of it has been brought to light by the
Karnataka Lokayukta in the city municipal councils around
Bangalore), one does feel uneasy about adopting this more or less
ingratiating approach with corporators and officials. This is a
far cry indeed from the approach of an Aruna Roy, seeking
information as a right of the citizen without resorting to
backslapping of possibly corrupt elements to get it. It is indeed
curious that Janaagraha is not invoking the Right to Information
Act recently passed by the Karnataka Government to get the
information it desires, which makes it mandatory for officials to
part with information. Their persistence with informal methods of
persuasion and non-formal structures such as PROOF, with no
legislative backing to enforce accountability forces, one to
question the claimed sustainability of the process.
But
Janaagraha needs to be lauded for its ability to mobilise such
great numbers of citizens, who are often apathetic and content to
merely blame the system without doing anything themselves to
change the situation. Herein lies the revolution that Janaagraha
has initiated. As Ramesh Ramanathan puts it effectively, “The
key terms that we will continue to push are ‘practical
patriotism’ and ‘professional volunteerism’, as we ask for
greater citizen participation in government”.
[1]
”Participative Budgeting
in Belo Horizonte: democratisation and citizenship” by Paulo
Roberto Paixao Bretas in ‘Environment and Urbanisation’,
Vol.8, No. 1, April 1996
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