There has been more acceptance and impact of social accountability initiatives and citizen participation in rural governance institutions in India in comparison to urban local governance institutions. Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) tend to be more rigid and fraught with multiple issues in adopting mechanisms that would enhance their accountability towards people. Equally, there is absence of spaces or platforms for people's participation, like a counterpart of gram sabhas or village councils/meetings that have existed historically in rural India.
Under this project, PRIA supported 6 ULBs of selected JNNURM cities to institutionalise social accountability mechanisms and strengthened area and ward sabhas in the selected cities.
Objectives
To establish models of area sabhas and ward sabhas in the selected cities as suggested in the Model Community Participation Law.
Geographical spread
Jaipur (Rajasthan), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Patna (Bihar), Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) and Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh)
Key components
Facilitate people to organize themselves and conduct regular area sabhas at least once or twice every month in two selected wards of the cities.
Citizen leaders were facilitated to carry out these meetings on their own and engage the youth and women effectively.
Orientation of citizen leaders and ward councillors on the Community Participation Law and the 74th Amendment; importance of community mobilization and people’s participation; and importance of involving women in the local development process
Mobilising citizens at the (sub) ward level on various development issues
Orientation of municipal officials on Community Participation Law
Key outputs
Area sabhas and ward sabhas were formed in at least two wards of all intervened municipalities
Area sabhas and ward sabhas conducted their meetings regularly and also monitored the performance of municipalities
The people of the two select wards in all three cities have gone through a gradual process of getting empowered and local CBOs and the ULBs have realized the importance of enabling participation and listening to people’s voices.
Year/period
2009 to 2010
Client
Water and Sanitation Programme