Equi-City to evaluate municipal services, diversity in 2018

The main vision for the third year is on developing the monitoring and implementation mechanisms to ensure accountability and transparency in delivery of municipal services, using tools that create a demand push by citizens and supply pull by Local Authorities

Equi-City Project aims at promoting inclusive and sustainable growth of Indian cities through collaborative multi stakeholder approach using participatory governance between local authorities and stakeholders to ensure equitable provision of municipal services, which would be achieved through a set of diverse activities.

It is worth mentioning that the first year of the Project focused on establishing the Participatory Forum i,e. the City Development Forum (CDF), organizing zone level sensitization workshops on sanitation and municipal services, conducting the diversity survey for the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and doing the Training Needs Assessment (TNA). Following these the second year focused on formation of Diversity Committee and formulation of Training Policy, increasing the technical capacity of the NMC employees through various training workshops (10), developing the Monitoring and Evaluation Research framework for developing Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Tools, etc.

Vision for 2018

Continuing with these activities and the objectives of the Project, the third year will specifically focus on the M&E of the Project. This would include developing tools such as Municipal Rating System, Citizens Scorecards, and organize Feedback meetings, design and develop website and smart phone applications and best practices and knowledge sharing forums, Finalizing the Equality and Diversity Framework and HR Policy for the NMC and organizing awareness campaigns. The Citizen Report and Community Scorecard will directly benefit citizens. It will enhance citizen participation and effectiveness in local decision making and policy making, while at the same time improving citizen’s attitude and knowledge of Local Authorities.

Apart from this, Equi-City team will conduct number of activities throughout the year which includes organize Forum meetings with members of CDF and Diversity Committee members, develop the Diversity and Equality Policy Framework, development of an inclusive Human Resource Policy for NMC, training of Elected Officials and Representatives. A total of three training programmes for 50 Elected Representatives are on the cards.Other activities include formulation of a Citizen based Municipal Rating System and Community Scorecards, organise Feedback Meetings& developing a Web-based feedback system, organising Awareness Campaigns for sensitizing and updating citizens, especially urban poor on the initiatives of NMC.

A look back at Equi-City project activities- 2017

City Development Forum (February 28, 2017): The forum comprises of members from the NMC and various other background such as elected representatives, CSOs, academics, NGOs and other key stakeholders representing minority communities from target city Nagpur. The CDF will be headed by a Convenor .The Convenor will also convene meetings of the CDF members to discuss various issues related to project and provide strategic directions. A core group is formed for assisting the Convenor in monitoring the project. The current post of the Convener is held by Girish Gandhi. The CDF consists of a Core Group comprising of 12 Experts from the diverse backgrounds of urban development and governance along with nine municipal officials. The first core group meeting of CDF took place on 28th of February, 2017 and meeting was chaired by CDF Convener Girish Gandhi and NMC Commissioner. Presentation on past year activities including findings of the workshops, diversity and SLB report was given by the Equicity Team, AIILSG. Presentation also highlighted initiatives of good practices in case of sanitation by citizens.

Launch of City Development Forum (March 26, 2017): The Launch event and Workshop was held on 26th March, 2017 in Nagpur. It started with the welcoming address delivered by Jayant Pathak, Regional Director of AIILSG Nagpur Center, followed by the speech of the Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar. The Commissioner stressed upon the importance of delivering of the equitable distribution of municipal services. Further, the Senior Executive Director of AIILSG Delhi, Ravi Ranjan Guru imparted the theme address outlining the objectives of CDF, its aims, objectives and scope along with ways of implementation of the outcomes delivered by the Forum.

Diversity Committee (30th June, 2017): The Diversity committee consists of officials, elected representatives,

CSO’s representing minority communities and Ngo’s. The committee comprises of three NMC officials including the Hon’ble Municipal Commissioner along with three ward members with representatives from NGOs & members with primary experience in Human Resource Management. The first diversity committee meeting was held on 30th June 2017 chaired by Ashwin Mudgal, Commissioner, NMC. The second discussion session was focused on the process for formulating the Diversity and Equality Framework and also on the Training Workshop Policy.

Research and Analysis (January – February, 2017)

a. Diversity in Nagpur Municipal Corporation- a Status Report published: As an important part of the Diversityreport,thepilotdiversitysurvey started on 22nd July 2016 with an aim to target around 850-900 officials from various departments of NMC, which is about 10 percent sample size of the total number of employees in the NMC. The departmental survey consists of filling up of questionnaire form, from three members of the respective department. After studying the organizational Structure and related background information about NMC, the Equi-city Team prepared a Questionnaire. Out of the total employees, one percent employees belong to Class 1, 40 percent employees belong to Class III and 59 percent employees belong to Class IV. Presently only 5 NMC employees are in Class II. As per the NMC records, Class
III and Class IV constitutes around

99 percent of the overall employees working in NMC. Chapter 4 provides the comparative analysis of existing Diversity in NMC workforce to that of Nagpur City.

b. Municipal Services in Nagpur Municipal Corporation- a Benchmark Study Published: Draft-Service Level Benchmark has been prepared as a part of the Equicity project. Benchmarking will facilitate development of Performance Improvement Plans using information generated by the benchmarking exercises. It will address both, performance monitoring for internal decision making and reporting to higher levels of government and external stakeholders.

Training of NMC Officials: After successful completion of the training needs assessment in NMC. It was found that training is essential for nurturing skills of the staff for which several training workshops shall be conducted on selected themes which are as follows: To conduct 10 training programmes targeting 300 municipal officials, specifically on Water and sanitation, Public health, Citizen participation in delivery of municipal service. 300 Municipal officials will be trained. To conduct three training programmes targeting 50 elected representatives focusing on Citizen Engagement and Gender Equality,

Training Workshop for NMC Officials: All 10 Training Workshop for NMC Officials were successfully conducted which includes Sanitation/Solid waste management (Sanitary Inspector), Sanitation/ Solid Waste Management (Jamadars and Sweepers), Town Planning, Innovative Teaching Techniques, Disaster Response Program,Administrative Efficiency, Resource Mobilization, Contract Management, Urban Transport, and ICT training.

Developing Equality Framework and Inclusive HR Policy for NMC (November-December 2017): This activity seeks to create Equality Framework which will enable municipalities to assess their Human resources structure from an equality and diversity perspective. It will be an internal assessment tool to ensure diversity within LA.

Finalization of Questionnaire for Municipal Rating System for Monitoring and Evaluation (November-December, 2017): The aim of this activity is to develop monitoring and evaluation tools which will allow both stakeholder (citizens, NGOs etc.) and local authorities to ensure transparent and accountable delivery of municipal services. The monitoring and evaluation tools will be collaboratively developed by all stakeholders – through iteration of the Municipal rating System.