Categories: Equi-City

City Development Forum to improve dialogue between people, government

Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar and CDF convener Dr Girish Gandhi during the first CDF meet

Equi-City team and Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) constituted City Development Forum to improve dialogue between the citizens of Nagpur and city government, and enhance the quality and outreach of the municipal services rendered. Renowned environmentalist Girish Gandhi appointed as the convener

Nagpur: The 12-member strong CDF forum will work as a link between people and the municipal corporation and include people’s suggestions in the works being executed in different sectors and geographical areas. The forum is expected to identify issues plaguing the city, improve the delivery mechanism and address them through a collaborative approach.

Girish Gandhi, who is a celebrated environmentalist and social worker of Nagpur, has agreed to convene the forum. In the first meeting of the CDF, Gandhi said that cities are facing multiple challenges in housing, sanitation, women safety, mobility, and climate change. He said that the CDF must select a particular area of the city for implementing their ideas or solutions. This will work as a pilot project and help us in convincing people that the groups like CDF can deliver fruitful results by collaborating with local governments. It will also help us in scaling up the project easily in other areas. He stressed on preparing communication materials in local language for building better rapport and connection with people.

Another group member Leena Buddhe said that NMC must give equal attention to the areas on the outskirts of the city to ensure equal delivery of services to one and all. She emphasized on giving adequate attention to women issues specially related to sanitation and safety.

The core group of CDF has representation from different sectorsconcerning urban management. The members include Dr Girish Gandhi, Rajiv Thorat, Prof Neelima Deshmukh, Dr P Sivasawaroop, Sandeep Shirkhedkar, Aprup A Adwadkar, Kaustav Chatterjee, Leena Buddhe, Sudhir Fulzele, GS Saini, Sunil Sahastrabuddhe and Atul Zoting. A dedicated team from Nagpur Municipal Corporation has also been selected to regularly interact with the CDF for implementing the group’s suggestions for the benefit of locals.

Members were of the view that such regular dialogues between the governments and public would help in restoring citizens’ trust in the government and pro-active public participation in decision making process to improve service delivery.

The core group members of CDF include Dr Girish Gandhi (Convener), Rajiv Thorat, Prof Neelima Deshmukh, Dr P Sivasawaroop, Sandeep Shirkhedkar, Aprup A Adwadkar, Kaustav Chatterjee, Leena Buddhe, Sudhir Fulzele, GS Saini, Sunil Sahastrabuddhe and Atul Zoting. A dedicated team under the aegis of Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar has also been selected to regularly interact with the CDF

Equi-City team briefing the core group members of CDF about Equi-City project

City Development Forum (CDF), an integral part of Equi-City project being implemented in Nagpur, strives to build a platform for regular interaction between the local government and citizens. The Forum will earmark the areas which need immediate attention and generate innovative ideas to resolve them speedily. The core members of the CDF and the select municipal officials would meet regularly. Apart from the core group members, CDF would invite other citizens to be part of the forum to expand its outreach and address the issues of different sections of society.

Pashim Tewari, Technical Director, AIILSG, said that he was sure that such forums would help in improving dialogue between the government and people and in turn help in achieving equality in delivery of municipal services. Equi-City team distributed saplings to Municipal Commissioner, CDF convener and members to reinforce its commitment towards green and sustainable urban ecosystem.

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Citizen Engagement for Community Development

Public administration in the context of citizen participation is defined as “interaction of citizens and administration, concerned with public policy decisions and public services”. In this sense, citizen participation is understood as having a direct impact on public policy creation and implementation, and citizens are regarded as an integral part of governance process, significantly influencing important decisions affecting the community.

Citizen Participation in the governance structure has its own set of challenges. Most of the time, the most marginalized and vulnerable sections are rarely included in decision making process and are the most effected ones due to crisis of urbanization.

The absence of citizen participation in urban governance can be credited to weak implementation of policies and cynicism of citizens towards the whole governance structure.The urban local bodies (ULBs) in themselves, which have been assigned the task of managing towns and cities, are not adequately equipped to ensure citizen participation, as decentralization and devolution reforms have not been found productive.

Citizen Participation is necessary as it helps municipal authorities understand the needs and requirements of communities thus helping them in developing inclusive governance systems. It also enhances transparency and accountability in the governance structure. Relationship between citizen and state (ULB) can also be improved by improving citizen engagement in the governance structure. Itcreates a collective understanding and ownership among citizens on the governance issues that affect their cities/towns by ensuring participation of marginalized sections of the society.

On the whole Citizen Participation expands public spaces, enhances the relationship between society and government, gives greater legitimacy to democratically elected authorities, promotes respect for citizenship rights, enhances the quality of politics, and strengthens solidarity and cooperation.

In this background, Equi-City Project at Nagpur focuses on achieving greater demand for efficient municipal services through multi stakeholder collaborative solutions and coordinated actions by participatory mechanisms. The Project through its identified objectives will aim to reduce the communication gap between the Local Authorities and Stakeholder through increasing public participation and community engagements. It was during the various research activities and field work in the Equi-City Project that several examples of Citizen Engagement for Community participation and Community development came into prominence across Nagpur. These examples are not only inspiring but worth spreading as excellent examples of individual contribution towards greater good.

Two such case studies where citizens displayed individual efforts for the development of their locality are mentioned here. In Mominpura slum of Nagpur, two individuals take on spreading awareness on sanitation and promote collective efforts to improve living conditions in their localities. Urban Local bodies can encourage such individuals by supporting their initiatives by providing technical support.

Locals comes together to clean Nallah

Age: 33 years
Location: Mominpura, Nagpur
Occupation: Fruit Seller

Mohd Wazib Qureshi lives in Mominpura slum of Nagpur. Along the street he might be identified as a fruit seller but he is an inspiring icon for his locality. He takes social problems head on and make efforts to resove them. Wazib lives along the Mominpura Nallah which often overflows. The dumped solid waste gets collected on certain points and obstructs the flow of Nallah causing overflow almost every alternate day. The waste water from Nallah enters into the houses of people and creates unhygienic condition. Stinking of house, contamination of food-vegetables and degradation of furniture are some of the problems faced by local residents.

Wazib along with his friends and family has taken the initiative to regularly inspect the level of Nallah and accordingly clean the pockets, where the solid waste accumulates. Though this collective effort stands out as a small participation towards the temporary redressal of the problem, the act of kindness for the society has become a great example for the other people of the society. Inspired by Mohd Wazib, other people started undertaking similar practice of cleaning and inspecting the flow of Nallah for the locality. Today, on every alternate day, the people of Mominpura residing along the Nallah collectively stand, inspect and control the situation of Mominpura Nallah. This has become an exemplary piece of work for the people of the community as well as an inspiration for his fellow dwellers.

Irshad motivates people to use toilets

Name: Mohd Irshad Khan
Age: 28 years
Location: Mominpura, Nagpur
Occupation: Butcher

As a responsible citizen, Mohd Irshad Khan realised his responsibilities towards his community from the age of 21. For him, the feeling of neighbourhood is the actual habitable place for a safe, secure and healthy community.

“We are poor and we have nothing but this small piece of land which we call our home. It must be cherished and nurtured by your good deeds,” says Mohd Irshad Khan. A native of Mominpura, Irshad Khan along with his friends has always tried to be a strong support for the people of their locality. At the time of any individual family crisis, the group has always provided emotional and financial support to these families.

Helping locals in availing health care facility, resolving problems regarding water supply and solid waste are some of the assistance provided by the group. The most important initiative taken by Mohd Irshad Khan was to sensitize the people of Mominpura about the development of the individual toilet through Swachh Bharat Mission. Irshad decided to take up the challenge of motivating people for improving their sanitation conditions in the locality. He strongly believes that SBM can help in improving health conditions of people living in his community.

As a responsible citizen, he went from house to house for filling up their Swachh Bharat Forms (for allocation of funds for constructing individual toilets) and making sure that these forms were correctly submitted to the Nagpur Municipal Corporation. Due to his efforts, people came forward and a total of 70-90 SBM forms were submitted. Such efforts can bring about change in the mindset of people easily if someone from the community talks to them and tell them about the benefits of using toilets or any such issues of importance. As a result, the eligible applicants will be receiving funds from the government to construct individual toilets. This selfless act of Mohd Irshad and his group not only proved to be beneficial for the people of Mominpura but also served as an inspiration for others.