Equi-City Project aims to promote equity in delivery of municipal services and diversity in local authority organisations in India and engage in collaborative solutions through participatory forums such as City Development Forum (CDF). The CDF is an advisory forum which acts as a knowledge sharing and problem-solving sounding board between and among local authorities for diversity and efficiency in provision of civic services. The coordinated actions of the stakeholders and local authorities can help to achieve the goal of equitable delivery of municipal services. Hence, the Equi-City team along with Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) organized a CDF meeting on April 23, 2019 to update the CDF members on the status of Equi-City project-based work activities in the past one year and take their review, feedback and suggestions for furtherance of the main project objectives.
The following project activities were carried out under Equi-City project in the year 2018-19:
Participatory Forum
Organisational Diversity
Capacity Building and Research
Monitoring and Implementation
Information Dissemination
Highlights of CDF meeting
Girish Gandhi, CDF convener, said that the City Development Forum needs to be regularised after the term of Equi-City project is over. Abhijit Bangar, Municipal Commissioner of NMC gave assurance that the City Development Forum will be regularized and an action plan will be prepared for CDF members so that they can contribute in improving efficiency of service delivery by the NMC. The CDF if made a statutory body within the NMC, it will create a direct platform between the corporation and citizens.
Dr Neelima Deshmukh, Head of Department of Public Administration, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University (RTMNU) suggested that assessment of administrative efficiency of the trainees before and after the training should be done in order to understand the impact of trainings imparted. Abhijit Bangar said that the trainings will be organized more frequently if there is need and also refresher courses/workshops will be organized regularly and Equi-City/AIILSG can contribute in this regard. The impact of training thus can be judged if head of department evaluates the pre-training and post-training difference in the performance of officers who received training.
GS Saini, Director, National Civil Defence College suggested that the impact of studies carried out by the Equi-City should be reflected in the actions taken by the NMC in order to resolve the prevalent issues of the citizens as found in all the studies and reports. He further suggested that a follow-up of the reports submitted to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation should be taken by the Equi-City team from time to time. Abhijit Bangar reaffirmed that the Equi-City team is already in process of making a mobile-based application which will act as important medium of getting direct assessment of services provided by the NMC from the citizens, and thereafter addressing those issues.
Vijay Limaye, Director, Ecofriendly Living Foundation, suggested that competitions for cleanliness should be arranged among slums in order to sensitize people for maintaining cleanliness. Sameer Deshkar, Professor, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, suggested that instead of targeting only slums, neighbourhood level competitions should be organized and incentives should be given in order to inspire citizens for participation in the social and civic development toachieve complete sanitation; this can only be addressed by citizen awareness and sensitization. Thus, citizens also need to be more sensitized as behavioral change is the key in order to achieve the goal of complete cleanliness.
The meeting thus came to an end with various useful suggestions and recommendations. The documentation of citizen’s feedback, identification of issues and reports generated by the Equi-City team regarding service delivery of the NMC will serve as a great input for the NMC in order to improve their services. Significant amount of sensitization of citizens can be achieved if all themembers take up the responsibility to spread awareness within their own groups.
Developing mobile based application as a solution for municipal services delivery
Equi-City Project under its objectives of developing a Monitoring & Evaluation Tool for Nagpur Municipal Corporation is launching a mobile based application as a feedback mechanism for Municipal Services mainly focusing on sanitation and water supply services. This activity will allow both, stakeholders (citizens, NGOs etc.) and local authorities to ensure transparent and accountable delivery of municipal services through real time feedback on current level of service status following with recommendations for effective control and intervention.
The feedback system based on mobile application not only integrates the services on one platform but also brings a level of accessibility for citizens to use those services. Along with making things simpler for citizens, the mobile application also gives a helping hand to the municipal employees. As all the data is available online and can be accessed digitally, officers can review and act swiftly upon any issue citizens are facing in any part of the city and the results can be posted online in the form of feedback. All this data can be stored and later be analyzed to conclude the performance and activity of a worker throughout the month or year. This improves the efficiency of the employees and the service delivery of the municipal corporation.
Currently municipal performance in most Indian cities is assessed primarily based on qualitative and quantitative information provided by the ULBs and service providers. Citizen feedback surveys can act as additional diagnostic tool that can measure the level
of satisfaction of actual users of municipal services.
Citizen feedback can also allow ULBs to assess the level of awareness among citizens about their rights and responsibilities. Citizens feedback has become a major data collection tool for ‘program evaluations’ and ‘performance-based budgeting systems’ in many countries.
Equi-City chose to conduct feedback surveys using mobile technology as it offers the following advantages over traditional paper-based surveys:
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