Proceedings of the Workshop on Area Sabha Act held on August 18, 2010 at Yashada, Pune
The Area Sabha bill has been passed in Maharashtra Legislative Assembly as the Government of Maharashtra is expected to enact the Community Participation / Nagar Raj law as part of the commitments made to Government of India in order to participate and access funding from the JnNURM. However, the nature and scope of participation by citizens envisaged in the bill placed is rather weak. The state government has provided with only advisory powers to Area Sabha. This provided an opportunity for citizens to study the bill and ask for amendments to make it more effective. Against this backdrop, a seminar on implementing Area Sabha in Maharashtra was jointly organized by Janwani, CEE, Yashada and Sadbhavana Sangh, Mumbai on August 18, 2010 at Yashada.
In his key-note address, Magsaysay award winner and well known RTI activist, Mr. Arvind Kejriwal, expressed his concern over Area Sabha Act passed by GOM. He said that the Maharashtra Government has insulted the people of the state by not granting any powers while making a legal provision for an Area Sabha, the local citizens' committee comprising all voters in that area. He observed that the Area Sabha has no financial and executive powers. Due to this constraint the citizens will not attend the AS meetings and this would be used as a plea by the corporators for not convening such meetings. The amendment made to the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations (BPMC) Act, 1949 providing for AS is irrelevant till the AS has powers to decide and monitor development works within its locality. The whole concept of Area Sabha is to move away from representative democracy to participatory one by ensuring that the beneficiaries of a scheme decide for themselves. People can come together and can generate revenues within mohalla ensuring financial autonomy for the ward reducing the financial burden of the civic body. He expressed that the institution like Ombudsman helps people in ensuring accountability. He explained the provisions from the alternative bill prepared by Parivartan, a movement towards participatory democracy. Mr. Kejariwal also urged the PMC to take initiative in starting genuine AS.
Independent corporator from Delhi, Mr. Santosh Kumar who started Area Sabha/ Mohalla Sabha in his ward for last couple of years, said that the AS meetings helped him to directly communicate with local citizens. He shared various experiences of Area Sabha meetings. Initially people were skeptical about the exercise, however, participation increased gradually helping the residents and bringing transparency in the governance. It helped the really needy people to become the beneficiaries. He observed that the municipal officials have become responsive to the problems as well.
Independent corporator from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Mr. Maruti Bhapkar, shared his ward sabha experiments in PCMC area and how he is involving the citizens in decision making.
Dr. Kedar Diwan, Loksatta Party, Mumbai supported the concept and said that his organization has advocated the concept in Mumbai by organizing signature campaign of six lakh people. He said that there should be representation to the business entities from the area along with NGOS who help in revenue generation and celebrities and other dignitaries from the area help the movement so they need to be involved. Mr. Sitaram Shelar, YUVA, shared his experience of organizing ward sabha in Mumbai.
Mr. Anil Lad, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation enlightened the participants about the structure and powers envisaged to Area Sabha.
Mr. Shekhar Gaikwad, Registrar, Yashada gave a presentation on periodic one time open distribution of food grains in villages and how the transparency in the distribution system helped the villagers. Mr. Prahlad Kachare, Addl. Director, RTI Cell, Yashada informed the participants about the Gramastha Din, a scheme of involving all the concerned government officers and making them available for the citizens at one platform for grievance redressal and for generating awareness among the public about processes and schemes.
Ms. Seema Redikar, Advanced Locality Management, Mumbai and Ms. Shyamla Desai, National Society for Clean Cities expressed their concerns and shared their experiences in people participation.Ms. Kishori Gadre, Director, Janwani delivered introductory remarks. Ms. Sanskriti Menon, Director, CEE welcomed the audience and Mr. Nirmalkumar Jhangiani, Sadbhavana Sangh proposed the vote of thanks. Mr. Avinash Madhale compered at the workshop. The workshop was attended by NGOs, corporators, government officials, academicians and general public.
Recent update on Area Sabha
The Maharashtra government has formed a study committee to recommend improvements in the present Nagar Raj Bill of Maharashtra. It has appointed Dr. Justice Chandrashekhar Dharmadhikari, Prin. P. B. Patil and Mr. Arvind Kejariwal on the committee as non governmental representatives. The committee has to submit the report by December 2010. Notification is attached for your ready reference.
The Municipal Commissioner from Aurangabad (Maharashtra) Dr. Purushottam Bhapkar has shown positive interest in implementing the Area Sabhas in Aurangabad Municipal Corporation. Mr. Kejriwal is ready to assist in implementing the same.
Compilation of Group Discussions
Group 1 : Composition of Area Sabha
• Composition
• Rules re conducting the meetings, periodicity
• Reporting
Group Members
1. Shivanand Tupkari – S.P.College 9970517620
2. Amol Kolawle – S.P.College 9028540405
3. Meghana Kulkarni - Janwani 9881828300
4. Sunil Makhare – 9833571502
5. Jayashree Raut – 9011292853
6. Sagar Kamble – 9850317355
7. Sheikh Husain – Sadbhavna Sangha – 9869289448
8. Rasge Vasant - 9881692094
Act Provision
• Area may consist of one to up to five adjoining polling stations
• A S to meet twice in a year and the gap between two consecutive meetings should not exceed six months.
• Rules of conducting meetings are not mentioned.
• Mention about giving wide publicity to the meeting notices but silent on how ?
• No mention about Quorum, Agenda
• No obligation on Councilor to report to the voters
Concern : There may be practical difficulties of convening the Area Sabha, since the number of registered voters in a single polling booth would be 1200, and if 5 polling booths are to form an Area, then the number would be 6000.
Suggestions and points raised during the Group Discussion
• Area may consist of one to two adjoining polling stations.
• In the composition of A.S. the following individuals to be involved:
o All the registered voters
o Tenants - Residing in that electoral ward more than for 11 months.
o Age limit – more than 18 years.
• Sanitary inspector should be the secretary of A.S.
• Periodicity and rules for conducting the A S meetings:
o To meet once in the three months i.e. four meetings per year, eight meetings in two years
o Holding a meeting should not remain a formality; however; the issue oriented approach need to be inculcated among the public and the representatives as well
o Government officers, police, businessmen, members of NGOs from that ward should be present at the time of every meeting.
o To be organized on public holidays and Sundays, timing needs to be convenient to women members.
o Organising one Area Sabha meeting exclusively for women from that locality
o Minimum quorum: 1/3 of total members of A.S.
o Provision of gardens, open spaces having platforms, landscaped corners, society club houses, community halls to be used for area sabhas so as to solve the problem of lack of common venue
• Agenda for the meeting:
o Participatory approach : Suggestions should be taken a week in advance from the members of A.S.
o Councilor will decide the priorities in the agenda with the help of A.S. representatives and secretary
o Constant dialogue, no individual criticism would be done so as to avoid unwillingness on the part of Councilor or ASR to convene regular meetings.
• Publicity of the meetings
o Wider publicity through local newspapers, word of mouth, notice boards, society boards, through Ganesh and Mahila mandals so as to tackle lack of awareness among citizens to attend meetings.
o With the help of wide spread communication technology , efforts need to take to evolve the communication culture. Informing people through sms, telephone calls, email alerts, through local cable network, society portals and blogs to induce people and having chain effect by linking people for the common cause.
• Municipal Commissioner to be made responsible regarding the complaints
• A system to be set up to ensure the councilor reports to the voter
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City Structuring 
