By Chandrima Mazumdar
To reduce public urination and fix the broken footpaths within the year, Janaagraha, a non-profit organization, has teamed with Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in their annual budget campaign called MyCityMyBudget. And every citizen can play a role in beautifying the city. In the last five years, over 50,000 citizens gave 90,000 budget inputs.
My city, my budget
The Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy works for citizen participation in urban local government to strengthen democracy. Every year, the NGO teams up with BBMP for MyCityMyBudget. The budget input is collected from citizens, both online and offline. This happens with the help of resident welfare associations (RWAs) and other community groups. The inputs are sorted by ward and category and routed to the BBMP Commissioner, Mayor and other authorities who then direct the various departments to take up the relevant inputs and budget for them in future projects. About 12,500 submissions were included into projects worth Rs 600 crore. “Our main goal is to make things happen,” says Srinivas Alavilli, Head of Civic participation for Janaagraha. “We make sure that we are there for the entire life cycle of the project, till the moment it ends.”
Identify ‘yellow spots’ and bad footpaths
This year, a more focused approach is taken in which the city’s ‘yellow spots’ (public urination spots), unusable public toilets and footpaths are considered. “For yellow spots, we will analyse proximity and status of toilets and take appropriate actions,” says Manjunatha Hampapura of Janaagraha. “For bad footpaths, we will ensure they get acted upon by allocating budget and creating projects in the particular ward.” The aim is to build ‘airport quality’ toilets. The RWAs and other organisations which align with Janaagraha will be responsible for reaching out to the members and the local residents to identify such toilets and footpaths. These partners of Janaagraha will work closely with the nodal officers. From the time the projects are created to the point they get completed, these ‘partners’ and the citizens will work actively to keep an eye on the development and report any issues. “We are trying to create a partner network in the city,” says Alavilli. “We want them to take ownership of project completion. Creating the project, adding budget to it is only one step. After the public toilet is made, how will it be maintained? So, we want the collaboration of the local citizens. Decentralisation is the only way we can make sure that things keep running after they are built.”
Complaints are being taken both offline and online
Each organisation will take responsibility for their respective localities, register the grievances of the inhabitants of the areas and make sure that the projects keep running. Other than this, people can also register their complaints on Janaagraha’s platform iChangeMyCity.com or their android and iOS app. The interface has been updated to include options like “report yellow spots” in accordance with the recent initiative. Other than that, there will be special ‘Budget buses’ for the MyCityMyBudget campaign which will go across the city to collect complaints from the people.
The RWAs who are part of this initiative
Some of Janaagraha’s partners who have already signed up include Sensing Local Foundation, Whitefield Rising, Reap Benefit, I Change Indiranagar, Banaswadi Rising, Bangalore Apartments Federation, Kumara Park RWA, Jayamahal RWA, REWABE, Citizens for Citizens, Lets Be The Change, and Malleswaram Social, among others.
