The Coronavirus spread from India’s biggest cities to suburbs and rural areas in the second wave. Cities that were already overwhelmed with the number of infected patients and facing a shortage of hospital beds, oxygen and other essentials witnessed the virtual collapse of their health infrastructure. The sliver of hope was an army of community groups and individuals who emerged to help the needy. Local Governments have a chance to build on this, learn, join hands with local communities and promote participatory governance for building local resilience to fight any imminent danger
Coronavirus has infected 26 million Indians and killed over 2,50,000 as of May 10. The severity of the second wave can be understood because the weekly average of daily deaths in the first wave was 580 maximum, while this time, it went up to 4000. In the same way, the daily cases being reported touched the 4,10,000 mark. Until the wave was controlled, the nation was touching a new record every other day in the number of reported cases and the number of people who died. The problem was severe in small towns and villages, too, as the citizens were solely dependent on the government health care system. The influx of patients from these areas to cities further strained the big cities. Finding a standard oxygen bed became a Herculean task. People and the governments not only faced the pandemic but the task of quickly increasing the capacity of hospitals and medical care remained challenging.
It is the fact that every system has a definite capacity, and that is why the citizens of the country had to run pillar to post during the peak of the virus spread for hospital beds, ICUs, ventilators, oxygen cylinders, medicines and whatnot. But the inefficient management at many levels and poor resilience of urban systems cannot be altogether overlooked. If cities need to build robust resilience systems to pandemics, then they have to understand and analyze what went wrong and where did they falter. As enough scientific evidence from the world over were available that suggested that the pandemic hits back, especially if the protocols are not followed and if most of the population is not vaccinated. People were relaxed, and the protocols were not followed, and many were even apprehensive about getting vaccinated. That made things worse.
Increasing cases and fast filling of hospital beds forced many state governments to announce Corona Curfew or lockdown. The restrictions imposed were not as strict as last year, but it shut down a majority of economic activities. Its economic impact was imminent. The nation recorded double-digit unemployment figures in May. Not just the budget of the general public, the budget of urban local bodies took a hit because their expenses went up and the earning took a hit because of restraint on many urban activities.
Strengthening relation of local community and local governments
Participatory governance has been at the core of local governments since the inception of the local government institutions. There have been several legal and social interventions worldwide to strengthen it further, but the response from many LGs was not very encouraging during the crisis. LGs must review how they engaged with locals during the crisis. The analytical review of the response can give insight into the required overhauling in the local governance system and throw light on improving the participatory approach. Local Governments must also study how communities and local governments worked together in different parts of the country and the world to fight the severe impacts of the pandemic.
Citizens have always found ways to ensure the smooth functioning of their day-to-day lives in case there is an administrative inadequacy in providing facilities. In the time of crisis, community groups and non-government organisations from across the country came forward to extend their helping hands to the needy. Hundreds of social media groups were created to get verified leads to get oxygen cylinders, medicines, ambulances, food, hospital beds, and even the help for the last rites of their relatives. Almost everyone tried to help the people around them. Local Governments and cities have to see how they can make systems at the local level where people get access to help immediately in case of emergency and where the governments’ intervention is needed. As local governments are closest to the citizens, people must feel their presence in the time of need. There are hundreds of examples of people coming forward and helping with all the modest resources they had. It seems incredible and wonderful that so many people came forward to help, but community groups cannot replace the State. And, there should not be a need for it.
Local Governments can take a cue from the efforts of the community groups and make sure that they develop a mechanism where LGs can assist citizens at the ward and neighbourhood level, especially in the time of a crisis like this. Urban Local Bodies have the advantage of the reach over any government body. Daily, ULBs provide essential services to the citizens and touch people’s lives one way or another. The municipal workforce reaches out to the nook and cranny of a city or town. No other tier of the government has such an advantage.
The role of the technology-enabled smart city also became crucial in the fight against the pandemic, and many Integrated Command and Control Centres were transformed into Covid war rooms to help local citizens. ULBs can build on this further for making their disaster response quick and effective. Not just the existing technologies, but these centres should adopt the best practices adopted elsewhere too. Many cities like Surat, Pune, Mumbai, Thane and many more across the country utilized their existing online platforms to provide information about the availability of medical care and other essential services through their portals. One of the biggest corporations in India, Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation, floated global tenders for Covid-19 vaccines. The BMC could decide because it has adequate financial resources, unlike many other corporations in India. It underlines the importance of becoming self-sufficient for local bodies to serve their citizens better.
This may not be the last pandemic, but the two waves have undoubtedly made us aware of the imminent dangers. ULBs must start working at all levels to manage such a crisis locally to make systematic response quicker and effective. There is a need to transform them into a resilient corporation. Then only the cities could call them smart in real terms.
Solution to prevent a hike in cases when lockdown eases
The trend suggests that the number of cases will surely subside with lockdown measures in many states. Meanwhile, the number of people vaccinated will also increase gradually. The economic activities will also begin, but in reality, it is not clear to anyone where this crisis is leading us. The governments have to think of ways to ensure the easing of lockdown measures does not result in resurfacing of Covid cases. Many questions are haunting the general public. How will we keep the virus at bay? When can we go out from our homes? When will be the normal back?
Local governments will have to play a constructive role in assisting in vaccination drives, spreading awareness of the Covid protocol’s importance and integrating community relief works to create robust local resilience. A decentralized approach should be given due diligence in planning for disaster response. Local governments in India may not have adequate resources. Still, they should be empowered to develop their response plan in case of such a crisis because of their edge over any other government institution to monitor the efforts effectively and knowledge of on-ground situations. They should not be entrusted with the responsibility only, but the efforts should be to equip and skill them in the long term. It will also create ownership and fix accountability. It was disheartening to see the limited role of city mayors in response to the Covid crisis all along. They do play a role in ensuring the continuation of essential services, disinfection of public places and delivery of necessary goods to citizens. There is no denying that it was required, but ULBs could have played a more prominent role.
An elected local government leader in every affected city and town should be at the centre of the response and action plan with adequate support from the state and central government institutions. Their collaborative and participatory action plan with the local community could address the issue of testing and tracking easily. Even they can play a significant role in speeding up the vaccination programs like it is happening in cities like Bengaluru, where Resident Welfare Association with Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike is organizing Vaccination Camps in localities and building complexes. Nandurbar District in Maharashtra established its oxygen plants after the local collector understood the city’s need. Later, the Maharashtra government asked other districts to adopt the model elsewhere too. Such success stories should be emulated quickly elsewhere too. One of the big lessons learnt from the first wave of Covid-19 was that the decentralized response to the crisis of this magnitude helped in curtailing the devastating damage.
The Bhilwara Model, Dharavi Model, Kerala Model and many such models emerged during the first wave in India. The lessons learnt should not have been forgotten. There is no denying that there is a specific role the State and central government had to play, but the control over implementing those schemes should be with the local governments. Building capacity of local governments also calls for creating a Municipal Cadre system at the state level so that the cities have experienced, specialized and skilled administrative officers to handle day-to-day urban affairs.
India has also developed 100 Smart Cities. The creation of such a workforce will aid the efforts of the government to make cities efficient, agile,
resilient and financially and environmentally sustainable.
An elected local government leader in every affected city and town should be at the centre of the response and action plan with adequate support from the state and centre government institutions. Their collaborative and participatory action plan with the local community could address the issue of testing and tracking easily. Even they can play a significant role in speeding up the vaccination programs. Local Governments can take a cue from the efforts of the community groups and make sure that they develop a mechanism where LGs can assist citizens at the ward and neighbourhood level, especially in the time of a crisis like this. Urban Local Bodies have the advantage of the reach over any government body