Call for greater citizen participation in ward meetings

“While citizens raised their grievances, officials continued to give their excuses for not resolving them. It has become a never ending story which is repeated with each meeting”

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: In the month of October, a coalition of citizen groups under the banner of Bengaluru Ward Samiti Balaga, organised a convention to push for more citizen participation in governance through ward committees.

Keeping the BBMP polls deadline in mind, the convention had passed eight resolutions on ward committees and demanded that all political parties must seriously take up the resolutions within their manifestos for the upcoming civic polls.

“The city budget must be set by actively involving citizens and ward-level budget allocations and details of expenditure must be published. The ward committee resolutions must be implemented. Meetings must be held on the first Saturday of every month and should be chaired by the elected corporator,” the resolutions read.

Since this convention, ward committees for the month of November were held across the city on Saturday and residents from different wards have shared their opinion. Shrikant, who attended the meeting in Ward 143 belonging to VV Puram said it was useful.

“For issues such as potholes and garbage segregation, the officials were blaming the behaviour of people. When the issue of potholes was brought up, we expressed our discontent with the type of materials used by the municipal body,” he explained.

As a next step, the officials and consistent ward committee attendees have decided to create a WhatsApp group to address all the issues. As noise is a significant issue in the ward, the attendees even met with the DCP at the South End Circle police station, who orally assured that the problem would be looked after.

However, pointing out that only one woman attended the meeting, Shrikant said, “The minority community does not have enough representation so major issues might be curbed from being brought to light.”

On the other hand, “While citizens raised their grievances, officials continued to give their excuses for not resolving them. It has become a never ending story which is repeated with each meeting,” said another citizen, Achuta Rao who attended the Begur ward meeting along with 20 more citizens.

“In Ward 60, the minutes of meetings were prepared and got a copy. This helps to get updates in the following ward committee meetings,” Chaitra, a resident, suggested a way to navigate the issue.