Partnership shibboleths

Partnership shibboleths

Something's not happening in the state of Karnataka. That is because the it -driven agenda has worked, with parastatal agencies allowed to take over the urban planning process in Bangalore, to the detriment of elected bodies. The rhetoric of participation has been used to make the public passive -- that hasn't helped.

The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments were passed in 1993, to decentralise and give an imprimatur to self-governing authorities. The Constitution mandates setting up metropolitan planning committee and district planning committees, but these have not been set up in Bangalore. Ward committees were recently set up, but experts say these are only on paper and remain non-functional. D'Rozario notes: "The spirit of these amendments was to enforce decentralisation and development planning through local governance. However, despite the implementation of these amendments through consequent state legislations, in the context of Bangalore's rapid urbanisation, what we are witness to is the further concentration of development planning and de facto governance (of areas coming under the panchayat and municipal council jurisdiction) with the urban bodies such as the bda and parastatal bodies... the State government has played truant in the application of these decentralisation processes... the State is still pursuing the policy of envisaging and implementing projects in a centralised manner with no participation of the local bodies of self-governance. These projects include the International Airport, Arkavathy Layout, the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor, and the it Corridor."

Ward or guardian?
In 1997, the Karnataka government constituted a committee on urban management to address Bangalore's problems and to suggest measures for more effective delivery of urban services. A Ravindra, then commissioner of Bangalore City Corporation (now bmp), chaired it. The committee submitted its report, 'The committee on urban management of Bangalore city', in November 1997 highlighting issues relating to decentralisation. "The urban management of Bangalore city should be based on principles of decentralisation, rationalisation of functions between the State government and the urban local body, unified administrative organisation, allocation of adequate resources, and capacity-building within the urban local body for efficient discharge of its functions," was a fundamental observation. Its logic led to key recommendations:

• bda should be wound up;

• Ward committees (of local bodies) should be given due status by being declared municipal authorities under Section 6 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act;

• Water and sewerage services should be made a wing of the bcc under an additional commissioner. The board of bwssb should be abolished and bwssb staff transferred to bcc;

• bcc should create a cell to deal with all environmental issues relating to air, noise, water, and visual pollution.

While none of these recommendations were implemented, in 1999, batf was set up, with Nilekani at its head. Its mandate was to "consider the ways and means to upgrade Bangalore's infrastructure and systems, raise resources for its development and secure greater involvement of citizens, corporations, industry and institutions in the orderly development of the city with enhanced quality of life of its residents". Its members included five people from the corporate sector, one from an ngo, a retired academic, two bureaucrats, and a member of Parliament. batf identified seven more stakeholders in the city government as partners -- bda, Bangalore Water Supply and Sanitation Board (bwssb), Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (bescom), Bharati Sanchar Nigam Ltd (bsnl), bmtc, Bangalore City Police and bmp. The organisation of batf and its functioning typifies the emergence of a corporate system of governance that is now being replicated in other Indian cities and has also formed basis of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

In an article entitled 'Public-private or a private public?', in the November 19, 2005, issue of the Economic and Political Weekly, Asha Ghosh illustrates how batf made inroads into political decision-making circles. "Since batf was established under a government order, S M Krishna created a new model of engagement with the government, and the batf considered itself an extra-constitutional body, working with the government...The batf members, primarily successful corporate leaders, noticeably chose to work with the municipal agencies that provide the core infrastructure for the city, and the services that most impact their businesses and private lives. The agencies selected represented land development and planning; water, power and telecommunication services, public transportation and enforcement of traffic management; enforcement of law and order; and last but not least municipal budgeting. Meanwhile, this clear bias towards urban infrastructure providers exhibited a glaring absence of representation on the part of social welfare departments, including department of education and department of health, as well as institutions meeting the needs of the poor, such as the Karnataka Slum Clearance Board (kscb)." She goes on to say that batf influenced municipal budget allocation. For instance, a recent municipal budget allocates Rs 750 lakh to the redevelopment of a defunct jail into a park -- a scheme generated by batf, and Rs 700 lakh towards slum redevelopment.

Ghosh made an important fiscal point. " In order to raise city revenue, (batf) set up a self-assessment scheme (sas) for property tax collection. To manage revenues, they instituted a fund-based accounting system (fbas) at the bmp. They created forums for citizen input with the summit and opinion polls. And finally, to implement a technology initiative for planning, batf encouraged the bda to hire a French Consortium to revise the comprehensive development plan (cdp)." fbas, prepared at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore, modified the accounting system within the bmp but cannot be replicated in any other Indian city. Experts allege that both fbas and sas were implemented not on the basis of political debate but rather via a memorandum of understanding forced on the city council. Ghosh warns that fbas "creates an opportunity to centralise management of municipal funds and allows entry to new political pressures on budgetary allocations. This takes places as increased transparency in the municipal budget opens opportunities for interest groups to access the information and pressure the bmp on budgetary allocations." Since this is an expected outcome of urban administration improvement, it is important that government helps elected leaders and general public understand these changes.

No evidence
But this did not happen in Bangalore, where two groups, Public Record of Operations and Finance (proof) and Janaagraha (whose founder Ramesh Ramanathan was a member of batf) decided to "take forward the upshots of the new system", while leaving out the local councillors. proof is a collaboration of four ngos including Janaagraha and Nilekani's Akshara Foundation. It claims to "...provide the opportunity to bring financial accountability and performance measurement into the public space and act as catalysts in the larger process of bringing the government and the public closer together". But Ghosh quotes a study by V Vijayalakshmi that found a majority of the councillors were not included and often not aware of proof. Vijayalakshmi's study concludes that, "It was taken for granted that elected representatives would fall in line, and even if they did not do so the participation or cooperation of the elected representatives with the campaign was less relevant. Citizens' participation is seen as an end in itself and not as a means to achieve effective governance, which also requires that corporators participate or are responsive to the campaign."

In 2004, Krishna made way for Dharam Singh (on his way out as well), who expressed a neutral attitude towards batf. Whereas batf's office has been closed down, the state government and the multilateral donor agencies continue to praise the 'successful' urban governance model of batf. A World Bank senior advisor observed in 2004, "The story of growth in Bangalore is unique because it is being led by private entrepreneurs from the it industry. The batf model of civil society being involved in all aspects of city planning can be a model to other cities in other countries". The Global Corporate Citizenship Initiative of the World Economic Forum also recognises batf as "one of the innovative solutions".

it industry stars are unhappy with the shutting down of batf. T V S Mohandas Pai, cfo o f Infosys was quoted in Business Standard (September 21, 2005) saying, "The Bangalore Agenda Task Force was (an) institutional mechanism to create a governance structure. Its absence today is creating frustration and raising protest levels. ... Bangalore's citizens should form groups like Janaagraha to identify issues and work with the government to execute projects. Industry is doing its bit but needs more from all stakeholders."

But Ghosh alleges that in this parastatal system, "while middle and upper class groups gain access to new opportunities for civic activism, the poor do not gain any new avenues to access the government and in fact, may find themselves further marginalised". Experts allege that government also did not create any institutional structure for accountability and to understand the implications of the batf- generated schemes.

Ghosh worked for two months with sce. "I had proposed that along with the two-year-long process of cdp revision, we should also hold public meetings to gather responses of the local people rather than waiting till the end of the process when the draft cdp is released for public comments more as a formality for mere two months. But this suggestion was ignored," she says. During the planning, there was no scope of public participation. After the report was release in mid-2005, a group of residents' welfare associations, ngos and research organisations signed a statement on September 9, 2005, protesting against the non-participatory manner in which the entire planning exercise was conducted. It alleged that in the name of public participation, bda had merely put out some maps in one central location for public viewing and comments. Activists demanded that maps must be put out at each ward office, city and town municipal corporation office and panchayat offices for public access. At present, these are being sold at a prohibitive rate of Rs 5,000 per set. Land use maps are not being made available, so no comparison can be drawn between what exists and that what is proposed. Those in the know say cdp-2015 is an exercise in regularising violations.

The voluntary sector has its own axes to grind. When voluntary groups were fighting against the top-down manner in which cdp- 2015 has been prepared, Janaagraha stepped in and conducted a series of cdp workshops, which were "too structured" and "over-organized". "While the Janaagraha effort to step in where the bda fell woefully short is extremely commendable, there is the question of the constitutional legality of the whole process. After all, who authorised Janaagraha to take up the task of collecting public inputs? ... The government is required by the Constitution to institute the requisite committees to involve ward-level bodies legitimately in the planning process, and Janaagraha, however well-intended, is no substitute for that," says Arati Rao in her September 2005 paper, Bangalore: Whither the future?

Another major flaw with the cdp-2015 is that in its entire period of two years when it was under preparation no inputs were sought from bwsssb, bescom, bmtc, etc. "Initially I tried approaching these agencies asking for their inputs but they turned around and said that cdp is bda's job and that they would comment only after it is prepared," says Ghosh. Experts wonder what use is a cdp 2015 that does not have important inputs such as future water and power requirements, waste management plans and financial projections. Notes Rao, " cdp 2015 also has not bothered to look back at the last cdp, created ten years ago. There are no in-depth analyses of how the city has actually developed, no reasons offered for encroachments on the green belt by residential properties southwest of the outer ring road and in industrial areas around Hosur Road, Banerghatta Road, Yelahanka, and Whitefield. There isn't even accountability for deviations from previous cdp. The bda and has simply adopted the ground situation as the baseline, made their inferences from it, and planned ahead."

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