I
once spoke to the then- MMRDA Chairman about the need for engagement with the
local people before making a city plan. He told me "What does a paanwala
or shopkeeper know about planning?" I retorted "The paanwala probably
knows more about where to locate the market, parking and local road more than these
foreign planners" and in an excess of anger I added "Whose city is
it? Yours or the people of Mumbai".
That is the real
problem. Not only is there no institutional process to engagement with the real
stakeholders, but the decision makers do not even acknowledge that citizens
need to be consulted. It is so different from other democracies in the world,
where citizens are the primary stakeholders in most decisions that affect them
and structures are built for people-consultation.
For example, when Bill
Clinton was the President of the USA and probably the most important man in the
world, and he wanted to change the outer facade of his house, he had to go and
seek permission from the local borough (kind of local neighborhood government).
That is the kind of power that the local government wields.
During my urban planning phase, I went and stayed with an
Indian-origin city planner in a small town called The City Of Ventura in
California, US. They made the master plan for the town, then uploaded it on
their website, communicated it to all citizens and after 2 weeks, in the town
hall, citizen, mayors, elected representative, the architect came together and
they discussed some of the crucial changes suggested by the locals. The
following week, the architect brought in the revised plan and then finalized
the same. That is the citizen interaction that is needed. http://www.cityofventura.net/. Every
weekend citizens volunteer to clean the beach, do community service and be
involved and engaged with the city.
In rural India, after the restructuring based on the Panchayati
Raj Bill, there is now, one elected representative for around 425 people. In Mumbai
there is one elected representative viz the municipal corporators for every
55000 people. Therefore democracy in Mumbai is 110 times away compared to rural
India. So, in villages, there is low economy but good democratic governance,
while Mumbai has high contribution to economy but lesser democracy.
There are 3 levels of urban governance today- the central
govt, the state government and the local government. Is that good enough? I
believe that there should be one more tier of governance structure.
In cities, this additional level is in the spirit of the 74th
amendment on devolution of power to the people. A tier that is much closer to
the people. A polling booth is made up of 1100 voters. If we can create a
mohalla Sabha of 3 polling booths, then we would have around 10 to 12 mohalla
sabhas in each corporators ward. Hence an elected representative that is
accountable between 3000 to 4000 voters.
Along with Municipal elections, mohalla Sabha elections should
take place. So, two electronic voting machines would be placed and votes cast,
one for the corporators and one for the mohalla Sabha representative. These
mohalla sabhas representatives along with the corporators will form a Ward
Sabha, with the elected corporators as the Chairman of the Ward Sabha. The
staff of the Municipal Corporation will work under the instruction and guidance
of the Ward Sabha.
This ward Sabha will now start taking all decisions, instead
of the Corporator, on various issues like the planning, supervision of
maintenance of parks, gardens, roads, footpaths and other infrastructure of the
locality. It will help the EC in voter list enumeration, ration card issues,
getting proper municipal service as well as police support. Most importantly,
it will create a budget planning of their area and then monitor and supervise
implementation of all activities.
This will also reduce corruption and pilferage of government
treasury. The feeling of alienation that city-people feel will also get reduced
due to these neighborhoods.
What needs to be done is to plan the funds, functions and
functionaries based on mohalla Sabha, corporation and state parastatal bodies.
Gandhiji believed that the whole basis of government was that it could provide individuals the opportunity to participate in the management of their own affairs and self-government.
Gandhiji believed that the whole basis of government was that it could provide individuals the opportunity to participate in the management of their own affairs and self-government.
