consultation on People’s Participation in Urban Governance
Date: Friday, October 26, 2012 – 9:15pm to Monday, October 29, 2012 – 5:15pm
Venue: Senate Hall, Central College Campus
will preside and release the Guide
Chief Guest
Dr. Amita Prasad, IAS
Principal Secretary, Urban Development
will release
“A Comparative Study of Community Participation Laws across States”
Guests of Honour
Dr. Rajneesh Goel , IAS*
Commissioner, BBMP
Mr. Gaurav Gupta, IAS *
Chairman, BWSSB
Mr.Manivannan, IAS
Managing Director, BESCOM
*Yet to be confirmed
Date: Tuesday, 25th September 2012
Time: 10.00- 1.00 PM
Programme schedule
10.00 AM: Tea and Registration
10.30 AM: Welcome & objectives – CIVIC
10.40 AM: Release of Guide by Justice (Retd.) Mr. N. Santosh Hegde & Release of Study by Dr. Amita Prasad, IAS
10.45 AM: Presentation on Community Participation Law
11.05 AM: Presentation on the experiences with people’s participation in five wards (5 mins. for each ward)
Ward Visweshvarapuram by Mr. S. R. Venkatram of SUPRAJAA
Ward Sagayapuram by Mr. A. Sivasankaran of JAGO Federation
Ward Devasandra by Mr. Madhusudan of B. Narayanpura RWA
Ward Ganesh Mandir by Mr. Ravindranath Guru of Consumer Care Society
Ward Ejipura by Mr. MVK Anil Kumar of Forward 68
11.30 AM :Open discussion and culling out recommendations for better participatory governance
12.00 Noon: Comments by Dr. Amita Prasad and Chief Guests
12.40 PM: Chairperson’s remarks by Justice (Retd.) Mr. N. Santosh Hegde
1.00. PM:Vote of Thanks
Concept note
Decentralization of administration and governance is the key for uniform development of all the areas within the country, state, districts, panchayat raj institutions and urban local bodies. People’s participation in planning, budgeting, execution, monitoring and auditing is essential to evolve a proper mechanism for decentralized governance.
After complaints were registered on Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) poor planning and worse implementation of ward works, the Lokayukta directed BBMP to adopt better practices involving people’s participation. This was taken up by civil society groups (mainly RWAs) on an experimental basis in the form of ‘Model Ward’ activity in five wards of Bangalore involving BBMP and several concerned service agencies serving Bangalore, such as BWSSB, BESCOM, etc. These experiences have been collated by CIVIC in the form of a ‘Guide’ to people’s participation in urban governance.
Almost parallely in 2005, the Central government, under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) had asked all the states to undertake mandatory legislative reforms as a conditionality to obtain funds under the Mission, out of which the passing of a Community Participation Law was one to institutionalise people’s participation in urban governance. Karnataka incorporated provisions for community participation as an Amendment to the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act in 2011. However, an attempt has been made by CIVIC to study the Community Participation Laws passed by various States, including Karnataka, to judge their effectiveness in institutionalising genuine people’s participation.
This meeting envisages a discussion on the Community Participation Law and its effectiveness in providing a platform for people’s participation looking at the experiences and challenges faced in undertaking Model Ward activities in five wards of Bangalore. It proposes to make recommendations for better participatory urban local governance for equitable socio-economic growth of cities.