Section 13A of Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act is amended as CHAPTER-IIIA on Area Sabhas and Ward Committees to facilitate people’s participation at grassroots level. This Act was passed in the Assembly on 13th January 2011 and got the assent of the Governor.
The essence of the Community Participation Law is to institutionalise citizen participation in urban governance, to provide a formal platform for the citizens to participate, plan, prioritise and decide for themselves on what they need from the urban local body, which operates on their money – in other words, to decide how their money should be spent by their local government, keep a watch on the development works and prevent corruption. In the ‘area’ or the ward or the city, people shall have their say in the planning directly.
The intended law has noble intentions. But the law in its current form is woefully short on all of them.
Currently the law applies only to Corporations, depriving people of other 224 towns and cities of Karnataka their right to participate in governance of their cities/towns.
In its present form it is fraught with undemocratic and people-unfriendly provisions.
In the entire Act the word ‘community participation’ appears only twice, in the introduction and in the customary definition. That’s it. Then the ‘community participation’ is forgotten throughout, conveniently, though the entire Act is meant to institutionalise the same. The definition is totally inadequate.
In the Act, an ‘Area’ comprises the area of a few contiguous polling booths. The Area Sabha Representative (ASR) is to be ‘nominated’ by the Corporation on the recommendation of the Councillor, instead of being elected by the Area Sabha (the body of electors of the polling booth areas), as suggested by the Model Nagararaj Bill circulated by the Union Ministry of Urban Development. Any nomination process is undemocratic. It will only reproduce the voice of the existing political forces and not let the different voices of civil society be heard. Being nominated, the ASR will not be accountable to the people of the area but only to his political bosses.
The Area Sabha has been given the functions of merely ‘suggesting' plans and remedies for deficiencies in a few basic services, such as water supply, sanitation and street lighting, and ‘assist the activities' of public health centres ‘promote' harmony, ‘cooperate' with the ward committee, etc.
There is no link between the Area Sabha, the ASR and the ward committee. The ward committee members are again nominated, independent of the Area Sabha Representatives. The model Community Participation Bill circulated by the Union Ministry of Urban Development says that the ASR should be a member of the ward committee and represent his area. As per this Act, the Area Sabha and the ASR will merely be decorative and powerless and have no role in the ward committee which is the main decision-making body.
More than anything else, the Councillor is to be given veto powers over any decision taken by the ward committee making the concept of people’s participation meaningless. This strengthens and perpetuates the prevalent wrong perception that elected representatives are our ‘rulers’ and not ‘representatives’.
The functions assigned to the Area Sabhas and the Ward Sabhas are minimal and they are not in consonance with the true spirit of the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (Nagarapalika Act).
The powers given to the members of the Area Sabha, who are the true sovereigns, are minimal and they have only been given powers to ‘suggest’, ‘recommend’ and ‘assist’ and have no independent decision-making powers for their areas. These powers are less than those given to Grama Sabhas in rural areas.
Area Sabhas are not given powers to get all information pertaining to their areas, take decisions regarding the use of the ward’s properties and resources, plan, prioritise and budget for their wards, hold officials accountable, monitor all works, get their grievances redressed at area level and conduct social audits of works. Without these powers, the concept of citizen participation will be meaningless.
We made necessary suggestions to the Act through wide consultations to correct all the above deficiencies and presented these to the government. But, these positive changes are opposed on the ground that ours is a ‘representative' and not a ‘participatory' or ‘direct' democracy. Then the question arises – why this Act at all?
Therefore how do we, the people/citizens’ groups, get together and take concrete steps to press for desired changes in the Act at this juncture.
To answer this question, we have planned a series of consultations across the State with all stakeholders, beginning with a brainstorming session in Begaluru to chart out our next steps collectively.
We look forward to your participation and contribution in this direction.
Date: 26th April 2011
Time: 10 AM-12 PM
Venue: Ashirwad, St. Mark’s Road, Bangalore
CIVIC Bangalore Urban Research Centre
