Media Release

Mangaluru, May 21: As per the Notification dated 10 th Feb. 2022 of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) issued in pursuance of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, 1976, Ward Committees (WC) are formed in all the 60 wards across the city. The meetings of all the ward committees are to be conducted in the 3rd week of every month at a convenient location identified in the ward, such as a school, community hall or a park. The first ward committee meetings of MCC took place in the month of March between 14 th to 31 st March 2022 and 98% (59 of 60) Corporators and over 70% (351 of 498) ward committee members appointed so far attended the first meetings.

People discussed key issues concerning the local areas such as solid waste management, roads, footpath, pre-monsoon preventive cleaning of drains to avoid water logging, underground drainage system, street lights, water supply and tax collected, in the monthly ward committee meetings.

These are the major findings of the preliminary report presented by Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy to the MCC Commissioner, Akshy Sridhar, and the senior officials of the Corporation. The following are some more highlights of the report:

? Meeting notice was issued 7 days in advance to all the 60 ward committees, enabling the citizen members to plan and participate in the meetings

? Ward committee members in ~60% of the wards participated in framing the agenda of the meeting, to enable optimal and focused discussion on the list of business

? 100% of the ward committee members attended the meeting in ~1/4 th of the wards (i.e. 14 wards)

? In 43% (26 wards) of ward committees, non-member citizens participated in the meeting too

The report was compiled by using data submitted by the WC secretaries to the MCC nodal officer, individual interactions by Janaagraha representative with WC Secretaries, several rounds of discussion with the MCC nodal officer and review of the MCC website.

The key suggestions for improvements highlighted in the report, for the action of the MCC are as follows:

? MCC may issue a notification with details of the permanent location / venue identified for the WC meetings for all 60 wards
? Fill the 102 vacant positions in ward committees in 49 wards ? Publish all notices, proceedings, Action Taken Reports (ATRs), etc. every
month, on a page dedicated for the ward committees on the MCC website
? Steps need to be taken to invite the officials concerned from allied departments / agencies such as Water, Health, Electricity, Drainage,
Police, Transport, Smart City and Forest for the ward committee meetings depending on the agenda prepared for the monthly meeting.

About Janaagraha: Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (www.janaagraha.org) is a non-profit trust, working towards the mission of transforming the quality of life in India’s cities and towns. Founded in 2001 by Ramesh Ramanathan and Swati Ramanathan, it started as a movement to include people’s participation in public governance and has now evolved into a robust institution for citizenship and democracy. The core idea of Janaagraha’s work does not revolve around fixing problems but instead seeking to fix the system that can solve the problems. To achieve this objective, Janaagraha works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance (what we call “City-Systems”). Janaagraha believes that improved quality of life is directly linked to improved quality of infrastructure, services, and citizenship. Janaagraha hence works at intersections to fix the city systems across law, policy, institutions with a specific focus on sectors such as Climate Change, Gender Equality & Public Safety, Water and Sanitation, Education, and Public Health using tools and activities like Civic Participation, Municipal Finance, Advocacy and instilling 21st Century skills among
youth to empower them to become active citizens. By strengthening urban capacities and resources, Janaagraha aims to achieve its mission of improving City Systems and Quality of life.

Encl: Annexure
Please contact us for further details:
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