India’s Community Participation Law: The Model Nagara Raj Bill, 2008

India’s current model of urban governance has been largely ineffective in addressing the needs of the urban population because we have offered centralized solutions for disbursed and decentralized requirements. Decentralized and local governance is intrinsically important if felt needs of the local population have to be met. The Model Nagara Raj Bill, 2008 (hereinafter ‘the Bill’) is India’s first community participation legislation and creates a new tier of decision making in each municipality called the Area Sabha. The Bill is a mandatory reform under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), which means that the various states in India must enact a community participation law to be eligible for funds under the JNNURM programme.[1]

The fundamental purpose of the Bill is to establish appropriate political and accountability spaces to link urban governance with the people[2] by institutionalizing citizen participation.[3] This is crucial because the Bill has the potential to empower people by ensuring regular citizen participation in decision-making that affects the conditions of their lives. The Bill has been circulated by the central government and states are mandated to either enact a separate law or make appropriate amendments to their existing municipal laws. With the objective to integrate the involvement of citizens in municipal functioning in urban areas, the Bill is distinctive because it creates the institution of an Area Sabha which shall be the third and foundational tier of government within the municipality and ensure decentralization from below. An Area Sabha will elect members into the ward committees and shall start the process of political engagement by an election of an Area Sabha representative. By creating an additional platform, the Bill also assigns the role, functions, duties and responsibilities which are essential for the development of these institutions as institutions of self-government.

Highlights of the Bill

The Bill suggests a three-tier model of decentralization starting with the municipality on top followed by ward committees and Area Sabhas.  This is done at two levels. First, it details the process of selection of a representative of an Area Sabha as well as its functions, rights, power, and duties and secondly, it puts forth the mechanism of electing members into the Ward Committees and the scope of its functioning and activities. What follows is a brief examination of the key provisions of the legislation.

Constitution of Area Sabha

An Area Sabha shall include all persons registered in the electoral rolls in that area and the representatives of each Area Sabha shall be elected by the registered voters. In this context, reliance must be placed on the fact that the Bill excludes migrants, traders, squatters, pavement dwellers and other temporary residents and may therefore have a social exclusionary fall-out. While the Bill requires that an election be normally conducted by the State Election Commission to select the representatives, this is not a mandatory requirement. Thus, the Bill does not put forth an entirely democratic method of decentralization by allowing the possibility of nomination by members of the Sabha or the State Government without conducting elections. However, the 2008 Bill is relatively progressive as the original 2004 draft of the Bill did not even provide for an election process and only provided for a nomination process where the ward councillor was to select a nominee with the highest number of registered voter nominations.

Area Sabha Representatives – Their Role, Rights, Duties and Responsibilities

The Bill lays down a broad array of functions and duties of an Area Sabha Representative which include among others, the determination of the priority of welfare and the identification of the most eligible persons, assistance to the public health centres, tax mapping and mobilize voluntary labour. The representative of an Area Sabha also has a duty to suggest the location of public amenities within the area and point out the problems of deficiency in the water supply and street lighting arrangements in the Area Sabha jurisdiction. These are complex and varied responsibilities and there are concerns on the enormity of responsibility entrusted upon one representative.

Constitution of Ward Committees

At the second tier of government, the Bill envisages the creation of a ward committee in which 2/3^rd of the total members would be the Area Sabha representatives resident in that ward. The elected councillor of the ward shall be the chairman of the ward committee, and continue to represent the ward in the municipal council. The Bill provides for automatic variations in the size of a municipality or ward depending upon the population of an area and the number of polling booths.  The provision which provides for the inclusion of ten persons nominated by the municipality and representing ‘civil society’ in undemocratic and has been criticized with the alternative suggestion of using the domain expertise of such members in separate committees.

Functions, Rights and Duties of Ward Committees

The ward committees are given wide ranging functions which are similar to the responsibilities entrusted upon the Area Sabha representatives. They are given to right to obtain information regarding matters pertaining to the ward. Productions of ward plans, preparation of the budget, encouraging local level alternatives for implementation are some of the duties of the ward committees under the Act.

Activities of Ward Committees and Constitution of Sub-Committees

The activities of a ward committee can be categorized under the broad heads of planning, budgeting and maintenance of accounts. The Bill also calls for the constitution of a Ward Finance Committee to prepare the annual budget and a report on the financial transactions and a Ward Information and Statistics Committee to compile, maintain and update information pertaining to the economic scenario, land use and infrastructural developments and requirements.

Community Participation Laws in Other Countries

In order to better appreciate the structure and substance of the Nagara Raj Bill, reliance must be placed on the community participation laws and institutions in other countries. In comparison with other Asian countries, India has one of the most decentralized systems of governance at state level and councils at district, block and village level and the 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional Amendments introducing panchayats and municipalities as means for participation. In Nepal, the constitution and the Local Self Governance Act, 1999 calls for wider participation of the people by way of decentralization which takes the form of village and district development committees. Bangladesh has a similar law and follows a four-tier system of local government, at village, union, thana and district levels to ensure direct participation. As regards Southeast Asia, the Philippines with the Local Government Code of 1991 and its barangay system of local councils (which include participatory development planning initiatives), has the most elaborate legal framework for citizen participation and recognizes the vital role that civil society can play within different aspects of local governance. In Thailand, the level of citizen participation in urban governance is low due to the slow implementation of the Decentralisation Act of 1999 which was passed to create local government units and empower them to collect taxes and receive higher allocations from central government.

Latin American countries also have laws and policies to ensure community participation and this region has witnessed the incorporation of neighbourhood committees (Mexico), consultative bodies (Brazil) and territorial base organizations as platforms for citizen participation (Bolivia). Lastly, while African countries lag behind in terms of community participation laws and institutions, developed nations including USA, England, Finland and Switzerland have adopted ways to ensure direct participation of the people in policy decisions and empowerment programmes.

In Conclusion

Whilst there exist numerous platforms and systems for citizen participation that have developed organically, the Nagara Raj Bill is significant in that it provides a legal and institutional framework, thus making participation more effective and sustainable. It envisages the creation of numerous information channels that can provide enlarged access to information and the enactment of similar state legislations will ensure that an effective check and balance mechanism is in place for urban local governance. It is important to appreciate the underlying message of this Bill – respect for the opinion of local beneficiaries of welfare and public amenity schemes without the application of external standards.

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[1] Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No 2239, answered on 14.03.2008. The Bill was originally prepared by a non-governmental organization, the Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy and was subsequently adopted by the government prior to the launch of JNNURM.

[2] Ramesh Ramanathan, Federalism, Urban Decentralization and Citizen Participation, Econ. & Pol. Wkly., Feb. 24, 2007, at 679.

[3] Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, Rajya Sabha Starred Question No 357, answered on 26.04.2007.