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.