Transparent Chennai launches new initiative to bring in accountability in local bodies

Chennai:

In a bid to provide ward-based citizen driven intervention that will facilitate the creation of information for accountability in a ward and bring about more informed conversations between candidates for councillor and the public, Transparent Chennai is launching Ward Accountability Experiment.

As per the initiative, Transparent Chennai plans to leverage low-cost, easy mapping and survey methods to create records of local needs and local problems in partnership with students and local citizens groups, according to Siddharth Hande, Consultant Researcher, Transparent Chennai, Centre for Development Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR).

“Using internally developed mapping and survey methodologies, we plan to conduct citizen driven audits, which are open to the public that create information about the state of the pedestrian environment, the efficiency of the waste management system and the state of public sanitation in a particular ward,” Hande said.

Interestingly, the initiative comes in the wake of upcoming local body elections.

Creating such information will provide a baseline of data against which performance of local elected representatives in addressing local issues can be measured, and create new avenues for communication between constituents and legislators, he added

Many local problems are easily experienced, but are difficult to quantify and monitor. Problems like piles of garbage, waterlogging, and broken sidewalks remain in the realm of the informal; the government

does not record them systematically, even though these are the problems that define our day-to-day lives.

Different groups of residents also experience problems differently. Lack of public transportation and public toilets may affect low-income residents, but may never even appear to high-income residents as a problem. Likewise, the lack of adequate parking will not be an issue for those without private

automobiles.

“We have already created a ‘core group’ citizen base comprised of volunteers from our partner institutions- The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), Center for Environmental Education (CEE), Human Rights Department of Ethiraj College, Environment Club of Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Department of Marine Studies and Department of Social Work at Madras Christian College, Madras School of Social Work and the ROTARACT club of Madras.

Apart from these institutions, student volunteers from Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB) and the Humanities Department of the Indian Institute of Technology- Madras (IIT- M) have expressed a desire to participate,” Hande added.

“Once the data has been gathered we will invite the candidates for Councilor, the constituents of Ward 152 and the general public to a public meeting where the implications of the findings will be discussed, and where candidates will be invited to make a commitment to improving conditions in the ward. This will also provide an opportunity for the core group teams to share some of the insights that they will gain during the data collection,” he added.

 

There will be three public data gathering sessions on September 10, 17 and 24 on Saturdays from 10 AM to 6 PM and is open to the public.

The public meeting will be held in the first week of October (date to be decided) in collaboration with different institutions and citizen groups that took part. For more queries visit www.transparentchennai.com