‘Good governance is the sine qua non for speedy socio-economic development. This Government will address the governance deficit by bringing in better accountability, transparency and ensuring effective delivery of public services through e-Governance initiatives without corruption’.

This is a quote from a recent speech made by Mr. Panneerselvam, our Minister for Finance, while presenting the Revised Budget for 2011-2012 to the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on August 4th, 2011. It was an important statement to make- it articulates a pressing need for greater transparency in our state and acknowledges a deficit in the past.

However, if we use our government’s management of the 2011 local body elections as a litmus test to appraise its commitment to better governance in our state, it seems like pledges for greater transparency have not yet translated into action.

When saying this, I am not really referring to the fact that there are issues concerning the delimitation and reservation of constituencies (which has caused much brouhaha and allegations of misconduct by DMK Chief M. Karunanidhi and others). After all, gerrymandering is not really a new phenomenon. What I am referring to instead is the much (surprisingly) less spoken about issue concerning the date of release of the new ward maps in the public domain (22nd September, less than a month before the elections)- and how it favors established parties, and marginalizes independents.

Let me elaborate. Lets say for example you are a resident in Shastri Nagar, and you want to nominate yourself for the elections. Now, if it were five years ago you would know that you were in Ward 152 (Adyar East), and while a detailed map of the ward is not publicly available, preparations could be made to obtain it and you could have started a streetwise campaign with sufficient time before the elections. This year however, you would have no clue what streets come under your ward, let alone your ward number until September 22nd! This gives you less than a month to plan your election campaign, not at all enough time considering you will be facing off against candidates from the AIDMK, the DMK and other large parties who have access to much better resources, including an established voter base and a party cadre who can help with campaigning.

This is particularly a shame because the nature of these elections, with its small constituencies, make it an ideal place for independents to contest, like a concerned resident of that area who is savvy to the local issues that define that area. I do not mean to say that big party candidates are not locally informed, but independents do not have to align themselves with the broader goals of the party and can thus be more focused on locally salient issues.

There are certainly some improvements – there is a website devoted to the local body elections and you can download documents pertaining to the elections (although a number of links on the site are broken) but at the moment it still feels like an afterthought.

As of now our government’s pledges for governance still feel like rhetoric. With the new boundaries coming in to play this time, the chances of an ordinary, non party-aligned citizen becoming a councilor seems even more remote.

Siddharth Hande

I stumbled upon an article which talks about China’s mindless construction of expressways, airports and rail networks. Excessive investments on transport infrastructure without adequate planning and assessment of demand have only led to massive amounts of unused capacity. Lu Dao, the President of the Geographical Society of China, and also one of the leading economic geographers in China had warned the country about the risks of such blind infrastructural investments but nobody listen to him then. The recent collision of two high speed trains that killed 40 began to raise questions about transportation in China. Read the complete article here.

And while China is struggling to correct past mistakes and revise its transport strategies, India is eyeing a record road expansion in the next financial year. See here. Should we not be drawing lessons from our counterparts?

Chennai, in particular, is planning so many alternate modes of transportation. Each time the government changes, it wants to announce a new plan, a massive investment on something fancy. Earlier it was the expressways and metro, and now with the new government, it is monorail. The result is a multitude of unfinished projects and unwanted structures.

Somya Sethuraman

Transparent Chennai’s research on public toilets has been covered extensively by the media, as well as online sanitation portals. The Hindu, used our findings to write a report on the present condition of public toilets in Chennai, and how it adversely affects the health of the urban poor. Times of India also wrote at length about our research. They misquoted us when they said that we ask for “at least 1500 public toilets in the city”. Our research doesn’t make such projections. Nevertheless, the piece in ToI highlighted well the need for better and more public toilets in the city. Click here to download the report. Recently (September 17, 2011), NDTV talked about our research in great detail. A video clipping of the story, which also includes the initial reactions of the Corporation Commissioner, can be viewed here. Dinamalar also did a cover story on Public Toilets in their weekly issue “Akkam Pakkam”.

Apart from media coverage, the international research community has also expressed interest in our work. Sanitation Updates, a news feed on sanitation maintained by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and by USAID’s WASHplus project, published our report on their website. Our issue brief “Public Toilets in Chennai” was also published in the ISP Portal and can be viewed by clicking here.

Somya Sethuraman

Transparent Chennai is partnering with Chennai live 104.8 radio station to talk about ways in which citizen’s suggestions on traffic problems on Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) can used for resolving traffic woes. The additional traffic commissioner of police has promised that best suggestions will be implemented. Following is the information on challenges and recommendations suggested by the traffic police incharge of the OMR stretch from SRP Tools to Semancheri post:

This road is being maintained by TNRDC (Tamil Nadu Road Development Company). The traffic controlling instruments like traffic signals, speed breaker permissions, mid block and zebra crossings including monitoring advertisement hoardings etc which is usually maintained by the Chennai Traffic police in the city is being maintained and permitted by the TNRDC on this stretch.

There are totally 9 policemen and 11 signals to monitor the stretch between SRP Tools upto Semanjeri Checkpost which is about 30km stretch. On an average there are over 1 lakh vehicles passing Sholinganallur and between 20-30 cases of over-speeding cases are booked every day. Apart from this 5-10 accidents are reported every week on this stretch. Following are the signal points and their conditions on these stretches:

Table 1 Signals on OMR

S.No Name of the Signal Condition Remarks
1 SRP Tools Good condition
2 Lifeline Hospital Good condition Main signals being manned by 2 cops
3 Thoraipakkam Good condition Main signals being manned by 2 cops
4 Rajiv Nagar junction Good condition
5 CTS (Cognizent Technology Systems) Sometimes does not work. CTS  guards monitor traffic during problems but are otherwise effective in facilitating safe flow for their  company buses and vehicles.
6 Amravati hotel/ Mahindra Satyam Incomplete 1 side signal post only
7 Accenture Sometimes does not work. Every month there is a complaint about it not working
8 Sholinganallur Good condition Main signals being manned by 2 cops
9 Infosys Incomplete
10 Satyabhama Not working
11 Pazhakotachalai/ Semancheri check post Sometimes does not work. Blinks and on many occasions the signal is not working

Source: Chennai Traffic Police.

Following are the major traffic bottlenecks and accident prone zones as observed by the traffic police area in-charge.

1. Kandanchavadi: Near YMCA school; this is the most accident prone spot with over 10 fatal accidents last year causing death. Although there is a FOB (Foot over bridge) very few people use it. As TNRDC does not allow speed breakers on the road or a mid block crossing. Jay walking is quite prevalent as the school caters to over 1000 students. There is an unapproved mid block crossing carved out by regular commuters and an unauthorised bus stop at which the buses stop.

2. Life line Hospital signal: It is a traffic bottleneck because of free left and as the turning is a 2 lane road.

3. Span between SRP Tools and Lifeline hospital: This is an accident prone zone due to wrong side driving and jay walking. The discontinuity of service lane from SRP tools towards Mahabalipuram causes the confusion amongst the motorists travelling in wrong direction.

4. Before Toll Gate (Hyundai showroom Perungudi Bus stop): Traffic bottleneck due to heavy pedestrian traffic. There is an unauthorised median opening and during the peak period the road is completely taken over by the pedestrians.

5. Between Perungudi Bus stand and Toll gate: Although there is a Foot over bridge the incomplete service road on one side hampers the access. The FOB is also incomplete and hence pedestrians resort to jay walking. They have created an opening in the median and the crossing is a cause of caution for motorists.

6. Corporation Road (Madras Industrial Gear) Thoraipakkam: The vehicles turn at this junction and as there are no signals or policeman on a regular basis and thus withough proper regulation it becomes a traffic bottleneck and a soft spot for accidents.

7. Seevaram: FOB is not being used and has become a traffic bottleneck.

8. MNM Jain Engineering  College: The median is broken and student jaywalk to cross the roads. During college hours (closing and opening time) peak hours it becomes a traffic bottleneck.

9. Mettukuppam bus stop/ FOB and opposite to ASV Suntech Park: The FOB is not being used and the unauthorised median opening for pedestrian to cross causes a traffic bottleneck

10. Karapakkam PTC bus stop: There are no FOB, no crossing (mid block or zebra) and presence of heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic. It is an accident prone zone.

11. Between Mahindra Satyam and Accenture at Aravind Theater: There is a FOB and a mid block crossing but due to heavy motor and pedestrian traffic it has become an accident hot-spot.

12. Sholinganallur, between (Kelambakkam and Thoraipakkam): It has become a congestion point lately because the vehicles going towards Tambaram have a close to the turning. Although it was shifted by 100m the clinging of buses together has made it ineffective.

13. Diamond Engineering Company: The road bends and because of poor visibility many accidents occur. As there are few villages in the surrounding people cross randomly and thus it has become an accident prone area.

Recommendations:

1. The height of the median throughout is less than 2feet which eases Jaywalking. As there are several villages, institutions (schools and colleges) and Industrial area on both sides of the IT corridor it cannot be stopped. So increasing the median height will dissuade them to cross at grade and use the FOBs or cross at signals and authorised mid block crossing.

2. Incomplete service roads and limited mid block crossing has forced the motorists to drive on wrong side to the nearest signal or crossing. This is difficult to monitor considering only 9 policemen are manning these roads. The drivers are booked for dangerous driving and every day the traffic police collects 9-10,000Rs for over-speeding and dangerous driving. The police have recommended the TNRDC for putting speed-breakers and giving mid block crossing as per their observations but TNRDC takes a long time to respond.

3. Large number of wine shops in this stretch has caused drink’n’ drive problems. The drunkards also sway on the roads and are victims of accidents. The TASMAC shops should not be allowed to have bars or drinking areas at nights. It needs to be monitored regularly.

4. MTC buses do not stop at their assigned space, causing traffic disturbance as commuters dependent on the public transport cause commotion running all around the buses. In Sholinganallur the bus stop was very close to the signal which became a bottleneck and is now sorted out by pushing the stop by 100 meters away from their location. This was due to heavy traffic and short time gap between arrivals of 2 buses which eventually becomes a chain.

Through this effort we wish to have a better participation of people in resolving the traffic problem of the city. We are soon going to have an OMR layer in which you will be able to placemark the location of the traffic problem and suggest your views to resolve the problem.

Roshan Toshniwal

Manual scavenging is constitutionally banned under The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prevention) Act. Close to two decades have passed since this Act was passed in 1993, but manual scavenging is still ingrained in the lives of the urban poor in Chennai. Repeated protests by NGOs and civil society have not been able to eradicate this deplorable practice. Why has the government not taken necessary steps to rehabilitate the lives of manual scavengers? Why does a person still have to go 5 feet into the drain to manually clean human faeces? What happened to the promises of full mechanization? None of these questions fetch any answers from city managers.

An interview with Mr. R Anbuvendhan, President of the Sanitary Worker’s Union, shed light on inconsistencies inherent in government policies and practice. According to Anbuvendhan, 9727 sanitary workers were sanctioned by the government in 1996 to work in Chennai. Of these, only 3750 are currently working with the Corporation of Chennai. “Nobody knows what happened to the rest of the employees. While some retired in normal course, many have suspiciously disappeared from the attendance registers and government payroles”, said Mr. Anbuvendhan.

The sanitary workers department is under staffed and incapable of handling the load of work entrusted to them by the Corporation. Chennai’s boundaries have expanded since 1996 to include a number of municipalities. The population has increased from 4 million in 2001 to 4.7 million as per the recent Census. However, these are not accounted for when the government calculates the number of sanitary workers to be employed by the department. As per Central government norms, not less than 2.75 sanitary workers should be assigned to a population of 1000. Currently, each employee takes care of more than 1300 residents. “Unofficial corruption and bonded labour is inherent in the bureaucracy”, says Anbuvendhan. Out of all the processes, only the attendance records of sanitation workers have been computerized. “Attendance is taken at least thrice during the day and even one time absence leads to salary cuts”, he said.

Source: Hindu, File Photo

Nearly all workers are in their mid forties and fifties, and suffer from work induced ailments like cancer, tuberculosis, asthma and other respiratory diseases. However, the medical claims offered to sanitary workers do not cover these diseases. “More than 65 per cent of the sanitary workers are women and their rights and needs should be protected. Families of sanitary workers do not even get adequately compensated when they die during service. Metro Water, a parastatal agency, privately hires workers to manually clean the sewers. When workers die inside these sewers, they are entitled to zero compensation by the agency”, he said.

The Sanitary Workers Union was formed in 2004 to protect the rights of the sanitary workers and help rehabilitation. Have things changed since then? “Not much has changed, but workers are more aware and empowered to fight for their rights now. They no longer fear to exercise their freedom of speech”, said Anbuvendhan who hopes to completely rehabilitate the lives of manual scavengers in the city some day.

Transparent Chennai will be going on a city tour this week to check the conditions in which manual scavengers operate in the city. Transparent Chennai will also be a part of the weekly union meetings to interact with workers. If you are interested in talking about this issue, write to somya.sethuraman@ifmr.ac.in


All views expressed here are based on newspaper clippings and interviews.

Somya Sethuraman

To understand how the Chennai’s Council functions we have been reading up on the published Council reports- reading questions they asked, speeches they made and the discussions that took place. The second to last meeting of the present Council was held on August 29th, 2011 and we had the chance to attend it, and finally see and hear the people we had been reading about. As we stood at the entrance of the Ripon building, cars pulled up. Men in white and women in silk bustled up the stairs to the Council Chambers.

The meeting was chaired by Mayor Subrahmaniam. The monthly Council meetings are held at the Council Chambers near the Mayor’s office in the Ripon Building. The Mayor sits at the head of the room. To his right sits the Commissioner and on his left the Deputy Mayor. The Councilors sit according to their party. The benches in front of the Mayor are occupied by the ruling party in the city (DMK) on the right and the opposition party (AIADMK) on the left. There are two balconies on either side of the Council chambers; on the left is where the press is seated and on the right the recording equipment is kept. There are scribes who sit near the Mayor and take down the minutes of the meeting. Two scribes work at a time. This is used to compile the Proceedings Report of the Council meeting, which is published and sent to all Councilors.

The Council Secretary sits near the entrance of the Chamber. Councilors sign their attendance at the ledger there and collect the agenda for the meeting from him. The Agenda specifies the questions being asked at the meeting and the resolutions up for discussion. The Council Secretary is the head of the Council Department and is in charge of keeping attendance, preparing the agenda for every meeting and publishing the monthly reports.

The first 15 minutes of this meeting was chaotic as the CPI and the PMK members wanted to raise the issue of the High Court verdict on the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case. The State government had passed a resolution that day where they asked for the death sentence of the 3 convicts to be turned to life imprisonment[1]. This led to loud arguments between the CPI and PMK on one side and the AIADMK on the other. The Mayor called for order and said that the issue was not a Council matter and so will not be discussed. If any one wanted to express their opinion on this issue, it could be done at the Legislative Assembly. At 12:00 p.m. the CPI and the PMK walked out to show their displeasure/staunch disagreement. But they walked back in at 12:15 p.m. A Councilor we talked to opined that the Mayor took such a stance so as to not go against the State government.

The first part of every Council meeting is the question hour. Unfortunately we missed this because we were obtaining permission from the Council Secretary to attend the meeting.

After the question hour, the following people were called upon to address the Council-

Ward No. Name of Councilor
146 Selvi Sounderaraj
11 K.Kripakaran
63 Prabakaran (ABSENT)
61 Mohammed Yasin (ABSENT)
83 Nagarajan
39 P.M.Kalyani
3 P. Jayanti
154 Meenakshi Venkatraman
95 R.Durai
93 Arunmozhi Seran
102 Balakrishnan
74 Ramesh
116 P.Ravi (Opposition leader)
75 N.Ramalingam (Ruling party leader)

The Councilors use this time to address the Council about matters regarding their ward and city-related problems, as was done by Councilors P.Jayanti, Meenakshi Venkataraman and R.Durai. Party leaders P.Ravi and N.Ramalingam congratulated the Council on successful completion of their term.

The majority of the time at the Council meeting is spent on discussing resolutions. As the Mayor called out their names, the Councilors stood up to present their resolutions. Any resolution can be passed or implemented only with the approval of the Council. In this meeting, 64 resolutions were passed. Some councilors pass multiple resolutions; some resolutions are backed by multiple Councilors.

The reports that we read from the years 2007 and 2008 gave us a picture of chaotic Council sessions while the reports of the years 2009, 2010 and 2011 seemed more orderly. At the meeting we saw, the Council was in constant chaos. At any given time, half the Councilors are at the cafeteria adjacent to the Council chambers where they eat and talk with other Councilors. Councilors who are within the Chambers pay attention to the proceedings when it has to do with their ward, party or is of general importance. Often, while Councilors ask their questions, give their speeches or present their resolutions in a pre-decided order, there are several simultaneous mini-discussions going on. We saw one Councilor admonished and sent back to his seat by the Mayor for posing in front of the cameras with a paper.

Throughout the reports we have read there is very little mentioned of the Deputy Mayor Satyabama. At this meeting she was conspicuous in her silence. The meeting was attended by the Commissioner as well but he sat in only for the first half hour. He was later replaced by the Deputy Commissioner.

At the end of the speech session, the Mayor addressed the Council congratulating the Council on the good work done in this term and the last 10 years.  He said that the within 20 days the date for the Council election would be announced. The last Council meeting will be held in September only to announce the placement of the ballot boxes. He thanked the Council for their cooperation and wished them luck for the election.

Following are the links to the media coverage on this meeting we could dig up-

The Hindu

News Today

CNN IBN via The Times of India

CNN IBN via The New Indian Express 1

CNN IBN via The New Indian Express 2

CNN IBN via The New Indian Express 3

Meryl Mary Sebastian

[1] The Hindu, ‘Tamil Nadu Assembly adopts resolution approving commutation of death sentence’, 30 Aug 2011. < http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2411347.ece>

TRANSPARENT CHENNAI provides useful, easy-to-understand information about the city that can improve government accountability and empower residents who want to take action. It is housed at the Centre for Development Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR).

The Ward Accountability Experiment

We believe that the upcoming councilor elections provide a unique opportunity to plan a 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 councilor and the public.

Many local problems are easily experienced, but are difficult to quantify and monitor. Problems like piles of garbage, water logging, 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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

For our experiment we have chosen Ward 152 (please see figure 1 and 2)

Figure 1: Corporation Zone 10 map of Ward 152

Figure 2: Google image/ Corporation mash up of Ward 152

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.

Our timeline is as follows-

3 Public Data Gathering Sessions: Which will be on the 10th, 17th and 24th of September (Saturdays) from 10 AM to 6 PM and open to the public.

Public Meeting: Which will be in the first week of October (date to be decided) in collaboration with the different institutions and citizen groups that took part.

We look forward to your support in participating in the audits and public meeting. We also hope you can help us by spreading the word so that interested citizens and citizen groups can take part in this citizen driven urban governance experiment.

Queries regarding the Ward Accountability Experiment and indications of interest to participate can be sent to:

Siddharth Hande

Consultant Researcher, Transparent Chennai

Centre for Development Finance, IFMR

E: Siddharth.hande@ifmr.ac.in

T: 9840295081

We also have a sign up page on our website www.transparentchennai.com. Those interested may also get in touch with us by visiting our Facebook page.

We look forward to working with you in the effort to hold our government more accountable!

More about Transparent Chennai:

Our research focuses on creating information for change. Through geo-spatial analysis, data collection through RtIs, issue briefs, and reports we create data on and critically analyze a number of major issues that concern our city. Currently, we are focused on four key issues: electoral accountability, public sanitation, informal settlements, and road safety. We are also an open data initiative, with all our data, research and analyses publicly available through our website www.transparentchennai.com.

One of our focuses is collaborating with NGOs, students, concerned residents and citizen groups to create data about the city in an effort to effectively disseminate and activate our findings. We have in the recent past worked or are currently working with organizations ranging from well known institutions such as the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) and the Madras Institute for Development Studies (MIDS), to smaller citizen groups and Resident Welfare Associations like Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB) and the Nanganallur Resident Welfare Association.