NEWS AND UPDATES
An op-ed piece on public toilets in The Hindu by Transparent Chennai
Transparent Chennai’s work in the Journal of Community Informatics
Transparent Chennai’s director Nithya V. Raman recently published a piece about our work in the Journal of Community Informatics in a Special Issue entitled “Community Informatics and Open Government Data.” The piece, which draws from our experiences collecting data on public toilets and bus routes in the city, talks about the limitations of the demands of the open data movement in the Indian context. The piece argues that just passing a law on open data may not be able to overcome institutional hurdles to openness in the Indian bureaucracy. It also argues that making existing government data available is not going to be enough to hold government accountable for better outcomes, especially on issues concerning the poor, because of the poor quality and limited quantity of that data. The full text of the piece is available on the web here.
Some of the material from this piece was also presented at the Open Data Camp held in Bangalore, where Nithya was invited to speak on the opening panel. The videos of the whole conference, including the opening panel, were recently posted. Check it out! –The Transparent Chennai relevant stuff starts at minute 14:00, but the whole panel is interesting!
More press coverage for Transparent Chennai’s research!
The past few weeks have seen a number of articles reference Transparent Chennai’s research outputs. We’ve been a little late in putting them up, but here they are!
In early March, this blogpost (with a hilarious concluding image – make sure and read through to the end!) on India Today’s website talked in detail about the lack of public toilets in Chennai. Another article in early April about India’s problem with open defecation in Firstpost.com also cited our research about toilets in the city, and even linked to our toilets layer on our Build a Map page!
An article in the New Indian Express about how the city’s records of the poor are inadequate cited our research finding that no new slums have been officially recognized in the city since 1986, 26 years ago!
Finally, two articles, one in late March and one in April, cited our work on pedestrian infrastructure in the city. This article in the New Indian Express highlighted some of our findings about the poor quality of data in the city about sidewalks. Another recent article in the Deccan Chronicle quoted our transportation researcher Roshan Toshniwal talking about our study’s finding that hawkers actually take up a very small percentage of pavement space, “busting the myth” that hawkers and pedestrians are natural enemies on the city’s streets. Our research suggests that, in fact, a little imaginative planning could accommodate all road users!
Transparent Chennai participated in the city’s first ever Youth Health Mela in February!
The Cancer Institute in association with various institutions in the city organized the first annual Youth Health Mela from February 22nd – 26th in Valluvar Kottam. They invited Transparent Chennai to put up a stall on their work on road safety and pedestrian infrastructure, since these issues have a big impact on public health in the city.
The stall, designed by our researcher Roshan Toshniwal, displayed accident prone roads in the city, pedestrian infrastructure (subways and FoBs), traffic signals, locations of CCTV cameras, and the new zonal boundary of the city marked on a large map of Chennai city measuring 3 feet X 4 feet. We also had a presentation which explained the nuances of road safety to the public, including looking at the institutions involved in managing safety in the city, and how much finances were available for improving it.
To engage the young people who attended the Mela, we asked visitors to our stall to fill in a survey form identifying important junctions on their daily commute in Chennai, which they find difficult to cross as pedestrians. We also held a quiz on road safety, which over 175 people took over three days at the Mela. The quiz constituted of 12 multiple choice questions on road safety, most of which were based on the information displayed in the stall. The participants ranged from school-going children and their parents, as well as college students, young professionals, and even some elders. After the participants submitted their answer sheets the Transparent Chennai team manning the stall told them the right answers, and 10 high scorers were selected for prizes – gift certificates to a bookstore! All in all, we found that the Youth Health Mela enabled us to engage closely with the public on an issue which affects each and every resident of the city, but about which people know very little!
Transparent Chennai organizes meet with the Councilor of Ward 176
On Saturday Mach 17th, citizens who had participated in TC’s ward accountability experiment along with residents from Urur Kuppam met the Councilor Smt. Valliamal and her husband to discuss civic issues in the ward. The meeting was organized in the Urur and Olcott Kuppam Boy’s Club and was called to formally demand that the Councilor improve drainage and waste management within the Kuppams. The demands were made based on data collected by TC in November, which revealed that Arunachalapuram, Kakkan Colony and Urur and Olcott Kuppam to be the most neglected areas of the ward with regards to waste management and public sanitation.
Dr. Joop de Wit talks about whether municipal councillors are agents of exclusion or inclusion for the urban poor
Transparent Chennai hosted a talk by Dr. Joop de Wit during his recent visit to Chennai. Dr. Wit is a social anthropologist who has been observing the relationship between councilors and slum dwellers in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. Dr. Joop de Wit is a senior lecturer at the International Institute of Social Studies, Netherlands. He has published numerous books and articles on urban India, particularly focusing on politics and the poor.
In his presentation on February 29th at the IFMR office, Dr. De Wit talked about the promise of decentralised urban governance as visualized in the 74th Constitutional Amendment and the potentially positive role that councillors can play in mediating between the poor and urban governance agencies. His research shows that while councillors do play a useful role, it is limited and personalistic, and minimal when it comes to poverty reduction. The presentation was attended by students and researchers interested in urban governance, and the questions reflected the audience’s interest in the roles and responsibilities of elected representatives.
Mark Gorton drew a crowd to Transparent Chennai’s office!
We hosted a talk by Mark Gorton, a well-known entrepreneur and outspoken advocate of walkable cities, on February 7th at the Transparent Chennai office. The event drew more than 80 people, who came from both local universities and companies to hear the talk and participate in the discussion afterwards. The Hindu covered the event in an article provocatively titled Flyovers ruin planning, as did the Businessline in an article titled: Move people, not cars. We were delighted to have so many new faces in the audience learning about these important issues, and hope that the attendees were inspired to work for a better city, and to volunteer for Transparent Chennai in the future!
Transparent Chennai’s research well received at Municipalika:
Transparent Chennai director Nithya V. Raman presented on the final day of the conference in a session on E-governance. Her presentation encouraged participants to think about e-governance not just for improving government’s internal functioning, but also improving access to information for the public. She said that for information to help make government transparent, it needs to be available in formats that are easy to process and use. Data needs to be updated so that it actually reflects the changes in the city. It also needs to have enough granularity to differentiate between electoral and administrative boundaries, and to enable residents to monitor local conditions over time. It also needs to reflect citizens’ experiences of local problems in the city. She then described ways in which Transparent Chennai tried to solve these problems, partly by processing existing government data and partly by using citizen-generated data to fill existing gaps in information.
Transparent Chennai’s team member, Somya Sethuraman, also presented the team’s work on “Sanitation in Tamil Nadu: Vision, Challenges and Way Forward” during a panel discussion chaired by the Managing Director of Metro Water, Dr. K Gopal, IAS. Somya showcased the findings from Transparent Chennai’s field research on public toilets in the city. Her talk highlighted the need for better data for better planning, and the lack of clear lines of accountability at all levels of the bureaucracy. Through a map of public toilets and slums in the city created by Transparent Chennai, she talked about how public toilets are not in areas of apparent need. She concluded the talk by giving a clear set of recommendations for improving sanitation in the city.
The panel discussion was a part of a 3-day event called Municipalika, which brings together government policy makers, mayors and municipal commissioners, urban stakeholders, professionals, industry experts and international agency representatives to discuss about urban development issues and municipal solutions. Many members of the Transparent Chennai team attended the conference as well, and we were delighted and grateful to the organizers of Municipalika to have the opportunity to participate in it.
Meeting to decide residents list of demands to the Councilor of ward 176 (ADYAR)
There is a meeting this Saturday the 11th of Feb at 5 PM on Elliots Beach (near the police booth) to discuss what residents demands to the councilor of ward 176 will be. Demands will be based on the analysis of data collected from the ward accountability experiment held in late November of last year. If you would like to take part in these discussions please do join us, the more people involved the better it will be.
These are links that provide more info about the experiment:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Chennai/article2524887.ece
http://www.accountabilityindia.in/accountabilityblog/2340-mapping-local-accountability
You can also call Siddharth Hande on 9840295081.
Meeting call: Saturday 11th FEB
Venue: Elliots Beach near the police booth
TIme: 5 PM
Transparent Chennai hosts a talk by Mark Gorton, founder of LimeWire, on livable cities and how we can build them
How can technology help create a better city?
Transparent Chennai invites you to hear Mark Gorton, an advocate of open data, serial entrepreneur, and founder of LimeWire and OpenPlanstalk about the future of transportation in cities and on his experiences in using technology for improving urban management and citizen participation.
Date: February 07, 2012 | 5pm
Venue: IFMR, Kerala conference room
IFMR, A1, 10th Floor, IIT – Madras Research Park, Kanagam Road,
Taramani, Chennai-600113, Tamil Nadu, India
Phone: (044) 6668.7227
Transparent Chennai aggregates and disseminates maps, data, and research on neglected issues in the city, and works with residents to use data to address local problems. www.transparentchennai.com
TC invited to present at the 2nd Exposing Data Series in Bangalore
Siddharth Hande, one of our researchers was recently invited to present at the 2nd installment of the Exposing Data Series, which was organized by Tactical Technology Collective and the Centre for Internet & Society in Bangalore. This event focused on questions around data ownership, open government data and community-based data aggregation. It also aimed to explore the various levels of data collection, the movement of data and its exchange, its representation, and dissemination in different contexts. More on this event here.
His presentation was based on case studies that focused on initiating discussion around the following questions.
Is there a disconnect between government collected data and what is needed to actually promote accountability in urban service delivery at the ward level?
What can citizens do?
How do we integrate community created data into spatial planning?
Is the kind of data that is sought out by the government (data that is considered ‘useful’) dictated by certain knowledge and planning paradigms?
Urban Sanitation in Tamil Nadu: A Report on Toilets, January 2012
As a member of the Steering Committee on ‘Urban Water Supply and Sanitation’ for the State Planning Commission’s Twelfth Five Year Plan, Somya Sethuraman, a member of Transparent Chennai, compiled a report on Urban Sanitation in Tamil Nadu. The report was submitted to the State Planning Commission on January 15, 2012, after a detailed discussion with the other members of the Committee including officials from Metrowater, Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage and the Vice Chairman of the TN Planning Commission. Inputs from a meeting that Transparent Chennai had organized in December 2011, along with local sanitation experts, were also incorporated in this report. Click here to read the report.
Transparent Chennai begins new work on electricity governance
India faces a seemingly unquenchable thirst for energy evidenced by a large gap between the amount of electricity required and the amount produced. This problem is further aggravated by the limited impact new electricity generation has had on improving energy access and improving reliability and quality of supply to existing and new consumers.
The situation in many Indian states is characterized by large inefficiencies which continue to grow, solutions such as renewable energy and enhanced energy efficiency to meet the growing demand and to improve access not being identified or implemented, and clean energy investment lagging far behind investment in conventional capacity addition.
It is in this context that Transparent Chennai is coming together with a number of partners, both locally and nationally, to explore avenues to enable holistic and inclusive energy planning in the state. Our local partners are the Citizen, consumer, and civic action group, and the Madras School of Economics. National level partners include the Prayas Energy Group, New Ventures India, and the World Resources Institute, as well as the Indian Institute of Science working in Karnataka.
There are four key results expected under this research program: (a) identifying key changes that will help Indian states overcome current electricity shortages; (b) new analysis and research on overcoming barriers to increasing energy access, energy efficiency, renewable energy; (c) strengthening the decision making process for capacity addition by making it more inclusive in process and content and; (d) establishing a local civil society coalition that will work with other stakeholders to build capacity, exchange ideas and knowledge through participation, and build on the learnings from the project.
Check back on the site soon for new content and for ways that you can get involved with our work!
More press coverage of our work from the last two weeks
During Road Safety Week, the Times of India published an article based on researcher Roshan Toshniwal’s work on pedestrian infrastructure in the city, highlighting that most (52%) of the footpaths in the city do not meet the Indian Road Congress’s standards for minimum width. How can pedestrians be safe when they lack adequate space on the roads?
The findings from our Ward Accountability Experiment were put together in a report and released to the participants for their feedback. The report will shortly be available on the site in both Tamil and English. The Indian Express covered the release of the report here. Transparent Chennai Researcher Siddharth Hande emphasized in the piece that our data revealed where in ward interventions needed to be prioritized.
Researcher Siddharth Hande and director Nithya V. Raman were also both quoted in this piece from the Times of India that reported that Chennai ranked poorly on a livability survey of Indian cities. The article said that public conditions are poor because many residents do not respect public spaces, but also because the government has also failed to provide adequate infrastructure and services to meet surging demands.
And on a lighter note – in a report about a concert in which researcher Sid Hande played, he was identified as being of “Transparent Chennai fame.” Fame, indeed! We hope that this coming year brings a lot more activity, a lot more data about important issues, and LOTS more citizen engagement!
Presentation of documentaries made by New Media students from the Asian College of Journalism
Date: Friday, 9th December 2011
Where: Asian College of Journalism, 4th Cross St, Tharamani Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Time: 4:30 P.M
As part of their final assignment in a workshop that showcased the use of digital mapping in the field of New Media, students will be presenting 6 minute documentaries, which highlight the use of maps and location based story telling to a panel of expert judges. The event will be open to all those who want to attend.
Invitation to a meeting on Sanitation for the State Planning Commission’s Report
We cordially invite you to a meeting on “Sanitation in Tamil Nadu: The State of Public Conveniences ” with the Transparent Chennai team at the Centre for Development Finance, IFMR, Chennai.
I have been invited by the Tamil Nadu State Planning Commission to be a part of the Core Committee on “Urban Water Supply and Sanitation” for the formulation of the Twelfth Five Year Plan. My duties involve coordinating the committee’s report on “Public Conveniences in Tamil Nadu“. The due date for this report is in a week’s time, and it is a great opportunity for all of us to engage in a meaningful discussion on public toilets in Tamil Nadu.
Now is our chance to ensure that our problems and suggestions are taken to the policy-making level! We welcome you all to an engaging discussion on public toilets in Chennai and also Tamil Nadu as a whole. Your comments are extremely valuable to us, and I would be greatly obliged if you could make it to this meeting.
Venue: Parvathy Hall, Institute for Financial Management and Research, No. 24 Kothari Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai 34
Date: December 3, 2011
Time: 10am-12noon
For more details, contact Somya Sethuraman: +91 9940503894
Post Ward Accountability Experiment Planning Meeting- Sunday- December 4th 2011
Meeting Date- 4th December Sunday 2011
Time- 4 30 PM
Venue- Besant Nagar Beach next to the Police Booth!!
For more details click here
Our very own teammate joins the State Planning Commission in writing a report on public sanitation
Our team member, Somya Sethuraman, is now a Member of the Steering Committee on “Urban Water Supply and Sanitation” for the Tamil Nadu Planning Commission’s Twelfth Five Year Plan Report. As a coordinator for a sub committee on “Public Conveniences”, she would now be able to put into use Transparent Chennai’s in-depth research on toilets.
In case you want to contribute to the discussions that take place before the final report is written, please do get in touch. Also stay tuned for a public discussion on toilets very soon!
Lots of press coverage of the Municipal Councilors Report!
Transparent Chennai’s research on the roles, responsibilities and the performance of all existing councilors was released as a report on 14th October, 2011, before the elections in the city.
We collected data on the attendance of councilors at the monthly Council and ward committee meetings, the questions they asked in the Council, the number of speeches they made, and how the Councilors and the Mayor used their discretionary funds allocated to them.
Our report received extensive coverage in both the Tamil and the English press.
The Times of India wrote about the fact that nearly half of the councilors development funds lay unused The Hindu wrote about the fact that 55 councilors did not ask any questions during the Council session.The New Indian Express wrote two linked stories which explored the findings from our report in detail. The first was titled “Ward Development Funds in Cold Storage: Study,” and the second was titled “55 Councillors Kept Mum at Corpn Council Meetings.” The Times of India’s Julie Mariappan wrote a second article highlighting that “Just 13 councilors attended all corpn council meets over 5 years”.Both Dinakaran and Dinamani covered the report as well. Dinakaran’s colorful article title translated into English reads “Councillors who opened their mouths at the Council meetings only to drink coffee.” Dinamani’s more prosaic headline read in translation “Chennai Corporation: In the last 4.5 years, 16 councilors did not speak or ask questions.”
Announcing our newest Issue Brief “Municipal Councilors: Roles, Responsibilities & Performance (2007 – 2011),” and a whole lot of data!
It appeared on the site a couple of days ago, but we wanted to announce the publication of our latest issue brief titled “Municipal Councilors: Roles, Responsibilities and Performance (2007 – 2011).” Based on extensive research put together largely by our consultant researcher Meryl Sebastian and our summer intern Charumathi Raja, and with RtI assistance from Raja Dhanabal, this report looks closely at the workings of the Municipal Council. It clarifies their responsibilities and powers at the Zonal Level and at the city level, and focuses on the different means through which they can influence city level debate and take action at the ward level to address local problems.
The site also now has a treasure trove of datasets on councilor performance from the last five years some of which we could not use for the analysis, largely because we did not get comprehensive information in response to our RtIs in time.
We have translations of every single question asked by Councilors in the Council from 2007 – 2011 from each and every meeting. (See our Performance Indicators page for access to these spreadsheets.) These tables provide an insight into the concerns of Councilors, and what the response of the city government has been. It also shows the limitations of the Council’s powers, as many questions are referred to other para-statal agencies like Metrowater.
We also have details of councilor attendance to the ward committee meetings at each zone, except for Zone 10. Zone 10 refused to give us the data for many months, despite us having filed an RtI, and finally gave us the data in mid October falsely backdated to August. We will be adding their info to the database asap, but in the meantime, residents from all other zones can see the attendance record of their councilors.
Residents can also see the amount that each councilor spent from their Ward Development Funds for all Zones except for 3, 4, and 10 in this dataset.
Translations of one month of Resolutions passed at the Zone 6 Ward Committee meeting available here reveal the kinds of issues that councilors are concerned with, and show that some councilors are far more active than others.
Both the data in the report and the datasets reveal the extent of councilor’s powers – they have a lot of them! And residents need to work towards making sure that they’re using these powers for the benefit of their constituency!
Press Coverage for the Ward Accountability Experiment!
The following are the links to the press coverage we received for our public meeting held on 9th October where we discussed the results of our Ward Accountability Experiment.
The times of India 9th October 2011- Well-prepared residents pin down candidates on specifics
The Hindu 9th October 2011- Getting to grips with governance
The Indian Express 9th October 2011- Its hollow promises in ward 176
TV Coverage:
NDTV Hindu 9th October 2011- News Tonight
NDTV Hindu 9th October 2011- Headlines Now
Invitation: Public Meeting of the Ward Accountability Experiment
For the last month, dozens of young volunteers from several colleges and civil society organizations along with local residents have been meeting every Saturday to walk the streets of Ward 176 (Adyar). We have been gathering data about the ward’s most pressing civic problems: uncollected garbage, unkempt public toilets, and broken sidewalks.
This Sunday we will be holding a public meeting with residents from the ward, and with candidates for councillor to discuss our data and findings, and to hear from our volunteers about their experiences. This meeting will also serve as a platform to discuss your own assessments of local problems and potential solutions in your area.
Please join us to learn about the problems facing the ward from the residents themselves, and to help make our elected government more accountable.
Date: 9th October 2011
Time: 4 P.M- 6 P.M
Venue: Multipurpose Hall, Youth Hostel, 2nd Avenue, Indira Nagar, Chennai- 600020
New Ward And Zone Boundaries Up!
The recently re-drawn zone and ward boundaries for the Chennai corporation area has been mapped and is available on our website. Users will be able to find easily which streets come under which ward and similarly which Zone a particular ward comes under.
NDTV Hindu covers Transparent Chennai’s research on Public Toilets and Ward Accountability
September 22, 2011: Issue brief on Public Toilets in Tamil
Now you can read our report in Tamil. Click here to download the report. Please do write to us in case you have queries on the report. Email: tc@ifmr.ac.in or somya.sethuraman@ifmr.ac.in. You can also give us a call on +91 9940503894
Transparent Chennai’s Public Toilets Research in the News
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.
Ward Accountability Experiment- Public Audit 2
We welcome you to join us on the second public session of our citizen driven initiative for creating information for accountability.
To sign up or to get more information, please click here
Date: 17th September, 2011
Meeting Place: Elliots Beach, Besant nagar (next to the Elliots Beach Police Booth)
Time: 8 AM
To see some of our press coverage, click on the following links-
http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/youth-gear-up-to-make-councillors-accountable/312922.html
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Chennai/article2444250.ece
Upcoming municipal elections: Exciting new data and lots of activity at Transparent Chennai!
Transparent Chennai is excited to promote greater transparency and accountability in the upcoming ward councilor elections, scheduled for late October. We are doing this in two ways – firstly, by collecting detailed information about the roles and responsibilities and the performance of all existing councilors, and presenting all that data to you, the voters. And secondly, by putting together an experiment in crowd-sourcing the data needed for real accountability of our local elected representatives. We will be working with volunteers and students from all over the city to collect data about important civic issues like walkability and public sanitation in a single ward, Ward 152, starting Saturday September 10th. To join our efforts, click here. For more information about our efforts, see here!
Transparent Chennai’s study quoted in Times of India
Times of India recently did a story on the lack of parking spaces at metro stations in Chennai, in that Transparent Chennai’s in-depth research on road safety and pedestrian issues was highlighted. To read the complete article, click here.
Transparent Chennai releases the findings of their public toilets study
Transparent Chennai conducted extensive research on one aspect of sanitation i.e. public toilets, and their work revealed alarming findings. There are only 714 public toilets in Chennai for a population of close to 5 million. Of these 714, Transparent Chennai mapped and surveyed all 49 public toilets in Zone 4.
Despite evident need, the survey revealed low usage of toilets by women and children. Reasons for low usage were identified based on the survey and interviews with the government and civil society. Not only are these public toilets badly maintained, they are not even situated in areas of greatest need, such as market areas, undeveloped slums, informal workplaces and areas with heavy pedestrian traffic. Data on public toilets are poorly maintained, and budget allocations for improvement are meagre. There is very little clarity on who is responsible for increasing increasing access to sanitation in the city, especially for the urban poor.
Read our issue brief which summarizes our findings and also suggests recommendations based on study. This document is the first in the series of issue briefs that Transparent Chennai will release in the coming months.
Transparent Chennai hosts meeting on parking with ITDP!
Transparent Chennai hosted a meeting on parking policies in Chennai on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 along with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) at the Nungambakkam campus of IFMR. The meeting was attended by RWA members and concerned citizens, and was run by Michael Kodransky of ITDP who recently wrote a report on how parking policies in Europe have been used to contribute toward more sustainable cities. He shared his insights and methods with the audience. The meeting was covered in The Hindu here. We hope to be having many more experts from all over the world coming to Chennai to share their expertise with us!
Our road safety work in the news again!
Our work on road safety continues to get a lot of attention from the press. Researcher Roshan Toshniwal was interviewed for Kumkumam, a Tamil magazine, and the article can be downloaded as a pdf here. A report about our road safety meeting appeared in Madras Musings which can be downloaded here, a newsletter about Chennai’s issues which has a circulation among those who are involved in the city’s culture and politics, and data we collected by RtI and made available on the site was referenced in this article from the Hindu.
We hope to be doing much more in the coming weeks by way of sharing data in both public meetings and publications on toilets, transportation, and slums, so watch this space for further updates.
TC invited to speak at Ethiraj College
TC was recently invited to present their work to the students of the Human Rights Department on 20th July 2011 as part of their unit- ‘Internet applications for Human Rights Defenders’.
Governance Knowledge Centre documents Transparent Chennai as a Best Practice
Transparent Chennai was documented as a best practice case study by the Governance Knowledge Centre, a central government initiative launched by the Prime Minister to document best practices in governance in India. Our case study, written by the One World Foundation, can be downloaded here: http://indiagovernance.gov.in/listbestpractices.php Read more.
Transparent Chennai’s public toilets study in the news
Transparent Chennai has been engaged in a study on public toilets in the city. The study maps all of Zone 4′s (Ayanavaram) public toilets in the city and documents information on quality and access through interviews with caretakers and users of public toilets. The team also held interviews with officials from the Chennai Corporation, Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board as well as Metro Water to understand toilet governance in the city. As the team’s mapping of Zone 4′s public toilets nears completion, the New Indian Express writes about their work. Read more here.
Transparent Chennai will be holding a public consultation this month to discuss their findings. Check soon for further details.
Press coverage of the public meeting on Road Safety
Transparent Chennai held a meeting on June 4th to discuss road safety and pedestrian infrastructure in the city. We were delighted to have attendees from a wide range of local organizations working on traffic, transportation and mobility in the city including City Connect, Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, Vidya Sagar (a group working on issues facing those with disabilities), Walking Classes Unite, the Citizen, Consumer and Civic Action Group, the Nanganallur RWA, the Chennai Traffic and Transport Forum, as well as academics from Anna University, and many others including many concerned individuals.
The meeting received front page coverage in the Deccan Chronicle (see here), and was also covered in the Hindu (see here)!
Transparent Chennai on Facebook!
We now have our own page on Facebook. Visit http://www.facebook.com/TransparentChennai and ‘like’ us for regular updates and photos on our events and projects.
Public Meeting : Road safety and pedestrian infrastructure in Chennai: Opportunities for intervention
Date: Saturday, June 4th, 2011
Time: 11 AM – 1PM
Venue: Parvathy Hall, IFMR, No 24 Kothari Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai-600034
Transparent Chennai invites you to the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) on Kothari Road, at 11am on Saturday, June 4th to participate in a public meeting on road safety and pedestrian infrastructure in the city.
Road safety has increasingly become an important concern in Chennai. Roads are essential for the efficient movement of goods and people. But because of a lack of infrastructure and inefficient enforcement of traffic regulations, roads are dangerous places, especially for the most vulnerable users: pedestrians, cyclists, children, and the elderly.
By organizing a public meeting which will involve presentations from traffic experts, representatives from the relevant government agencies, and groups working on the issue of road safety, Transparent Chennai aims to understand how concerned citizens can understand the conditions of road safety in our city and take action to make our roads safer. We hope to develop a more nuanced discussion around the issue of road safety and pedestrian infrastructure, an especially important and urgent task considering the scale of new transport infrastructure projects in Chennai. The schedule for the meeting will be available shortly.
Transparent Chennai on air!
After Somya Sethuraman talking about Transparent Chennai on 104.8 FM in Jan, this morning (10th May, 2011) Roshan Toshniwal spoke to 104.8 FM about his research on road safety, traffic signals, and getting around the city. The topic of the program was on how Chennai is hard to navigate, with very few street-signs and signals for finding your way around. Other guests included a well known citizen activist Traffic Ramaswamy and the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Traffic Central, Sonal V. Misra, IPS.
TC Mapping workshop in the News
Students from Olcott Memorial School who participated in a mapping workshop organized by us presented their maps on the 23rd of April. The links below are to some of the news coverage the workshop and the event received.
Times of India
Yocee
The Hindu
Express Buzz
Re-envisioning our Spaces through Mapping
Date: Saturday, April 23rd 2011
Time: 11 A.M
Venue: ‘Spaces’ (No.1 Elliots Beach, Besant Nagar)
Transparent Chennai invites you to view presentations by students from Olcott Memorial School who participated in a mapping workshop that we conducted.
The students participated in a series of activities designed to teach them about reading and making maps. With the assistance of members of the Transparent Chennai team and teachers from the Olcott Memorial School, students were exposed to Google Earth and Google Maps, used paper maps to navigate through their neighborhoods, and took photographs and created maps of their own surroundings. On Saturday, the children will present geo-tagged photographs they took of their neighborhoods, with commentaries on why certain places are important to them, and how they are used by locals. Most importantly, the children will present their own maps of their school and its grounds, where they have marked everything from classrooms to fruit trees to informal play areas.
We hope to conduct more of these workshops in schools all over the city in an effort to spread awareness about mapping. Through these workshops, we are also gaining insights into how children perceive public spaces – information that could be used to help city planners make public spaces more child-friendly.
March Newsletter
A lot has been happening in TC over the last month. Here is a glimpse at some of our latest work:
- Beach Layer: Transparent Chennai, in collaboration with Reclaim our Beaches, has begun a new initiative to map Chennai’s beaches. TC is creating maps of the city’s beaches with toilet locations, informal urination spots, dustbins, dumpsters, trash accumulation sides, hawker areas, and other features, and looking at changes in usage through the day. These maps will help Reclaim our Beaches lobby the Corporation to install dust bins, public toilets and other much needed infrastructure along the beach. We invite individuals and groups to get involved with this initiative, as well as other groups to work with Transparent Chennai to create data for better advocacy work. You can view our new Elliot’s and Valmiki Nagar Beach maps under the Build a Map section of the site. Our Marina Beach map will be up soon. Please do contact us if you are interested in volunteering to collect this data.
- Police Station Layer: One of TC’s newest layers – it gives you information on police stations all over the city, including details such as address, phone number, name of the contact person for the station, as well as tells you which ones are women’s, city and suburban stations.
- Meeting with the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD): Transparent Chennai presented its research findings on sanitation in Chennai to the Ms. E. P. Nivedita, Director at the Urban School Sanitation Intiative at the MoUD. The research and
findings were well-received and TC hopes to work closely with the MoUD
in the future. - TC at Pecha Kucha: TC got an overwhelming response at the most recent Pecha Kucha Night, held in Chennai, where they presented the website, research and data. Many interested audience members stepped up to volunteer and work with us. We hope this encourages more members in the community to collect data and work towards improving our city!
Our Blog – The Chennai Kaleidoscope
TC maintains a blog, where team members actively write about ongoing data collection and projects, upcoming events, urban issues, city-related news, etc (read it here). The Chennai Kaleidoscope is an informal platform that allows the TC team, as well as the public to communicate with each other and comment/discuss on urban issues. We encourage our users to utilize this platform by actively reading, commenting and guest blogging. Please contact us if you would like to use our blog as a tool to communicate with other residents in the city.
Here is a glimpse of some of our recent posts:
:: Why is sanitation lacking in Indian cities? ::
The Government of India launched the National Urban Sanitation Policy in 2008 to achieve 100 per cent sanitation coverage in Indian cities. Why is the situation in Indian cities so bad despite the amount of money that has gone into City Sanitation Plans? Read more on our blog.
:: Mapping and Community Participation ::
This post discusses how the lack or absence of data on fisher folk has held the community back from expressing themselves and fighting for their rights over their coastal space. In an effort to overcome this gap in data, the TC team involved the Urur and Olcott fishing communities in a participatory mapping exercise. Read more about this initiative.
:: The Rag Picker Community and its place in Waste Management ::
This excerpt from Media Voice Magazine discusses the role of the informal sector in solid waste management. Rag pickers are a crucial part of the waste cycle, as they retrieve recyclables from waste, thereby reducing the quantity of garbage that ends up in dump sites and the environmental impact due to waste generation.
:: Who is responsible for our roads? ::
Many of us are under the assumption that the Corporation of Chennai is in charge of construction and maintenance of all roads in the city. But this is not true. A TC member has extensively researched the topic of transportation in Chennai and found that the Highway Department has taken over maintenance of several important roads in the city. There are many other agencies who also work on roads to provide electricity, water supply and drainage, etc. So, whom does one contact in order to file complaints about our roads? Read more about this issue!
Upcoming Events!
Mapping workshop for school children: TC is holding a workshop for 8th standard students at the Olcott School. The workshop is designed to help students understand the concept of mapping and how it can be used as a powerful tool for advocacy. TC is looking for volunteers to help us out with preparing lesson plans and teaching. The workshop will be held over four sessions. Our first session is scheduled for Saturday, March 5th. Please contact us if you would be interested in helping us out with this exciting outreach initiative.
Shanti Colony Walking Audit: 4th Avenue in Shanti Colony, is primarily a residential road in Annanagar, that is slowly transforming into a commercial zone with heavy traffic. Seven main roads crisscross the avenue, carrying traffic from the 2nd avenue and Poonamallee High Road. The road has no traffic signals and is an accident hot spot. Additionally, the planned underground metro rail through 2nd Avenue is expected to increase traffic on this road. TC intends to do a walk audit involving the resident welfare associations and road users to analyze the road, sidewalk, traffic and the street elements. We intend to have a public meeting for residents to express their concerns and create a proposal for a walkable Shanti Colony. TC plans to invite the ward councilor and the road safety committee to the meeting. TC has also created a land-use and density map and is looking for volunteers to document the sidewalks and the street elements on this road.
Heat Maps!
We have added a new visualization to our beach layer which allows users to view trash accumulation as heat maps. A heat map is a graphical representation of density of latitude and longitude points on a map using 2 or more colours to depict ‘hotspots’. Using this visualization, users can now easily view where trash accumulates on Besant Nagar and Valmiki beaches. The heat maps can be found under Beach Layer >> Pollution Layer >> Trash Accumulation Sites on our Build a Map page.
February Newsletter
The TC team has collected data on flyovers, environmentally sensitive areas, slums and slum eviction sites, public transport, administrative boundaries and much more. Click here to play around with the ‘Build a Map’ feature. You can view information about one aspect of the city in a single layer or overlay two or more layers on top of each other to generate provocative insights into our city. Here are some details about our newest layer:
Beach Layer:: Many of us feel that Chennai’s beaches are turning into garbage dumps. We often point our fingers at people who dump their trash on the beach, but fail to realize that the Corporation has simply not provided any dust bins on the beach to discard our garbage. The same goes with public toilets – many beach go-ers resort to defecating openly on the beach because there are not enough toilets in the area. But where do we install public toilets and dustbins and how many do we need? TC has collaborated with Reclaim our Beaches (ROB) to unearth the answers to these questions by mapping major areas of trash, hawker locations, pissing hot spots, etc on Besant Nagar beach.
WORKING WITH CITIZENS TO CREATE DATA: Beach mapping at Valmiki Nagar:: Transparent Chennai worked with residents from Valmiki Nagar in Thiruvanmiyur to map their beach on two different Saturday evenings. The beach has lots of residents nearby, some of whom live in a fishing village on one end of the beach, and some of whom live in flats and houses along the four Seaward Roads leading inland from the shore. The beach also gets lots of visitors, many of whom walk up from the Kottivakkam beach further south. But unlike Kottivakkam beach, this beach has hardly any infrastructure — no dustbins, no public toilets, no street lights. The beach mapping was organized in an effort to collect data that could help us understand needs and problems. What kind of trash was accumulating on the beach? Where was it piling up? Were there places that were commonly used as public urinals or toilets? Were there areas which were being used for illicit drinking or areas that could be unsafe for women? Residents, volunteers, and Transparent Chennai team members split up into three groups and walked up and down their portions of the beach, marking details onto maps printed out from Google Earth. These maps were collected, and the new layer will appear on the site shortly. All data collected is being given back to Valmiki Nagar residents and Reclaim our Beaches, a local citizens group, and will be used in their negotiations with the local authorities for appropriate infrastructure to keep the local beaches beautiful.
Volunteer with us!
Transparent Chennai is working on several initiatives to create data and improve accountability in the city. We are looking for volunteers to help us in our efforts. There are a number of ways in which you can get involved with Transparent Chennai:
- Beach Layer: Transparent Chennai, in collaboration with Reclaim our Beaches, has begun a new initiative to map Chennai’s beaches. TC is creating maps of the city’s beaches with toilet locations, informal urination spots, dustbins, dumpsters, trash accumulation sides, hawker areas, and other features, and looking at changes in usage through the day. These maps will help Reclaim our Beaches lobby the Corporation to install dust bins, public toilets and other much needed infrastructure along the beach. We invite individuals and groups to get involved with this initiative, as well as other groups to work with Transparent Chennai to create data for better advocacy work. You can view our new Elliot’s Beach map under the Build a Map section of the site.
- Waterlogging Layer: Is your area affected by waterlogging or floods? This is a user-driven layer that allows you to mark areas affected by water logging on the map. We all know where waterlogging and floods happen in our own neighborhoods. By pooling this information on the map, we can create a record of places which are regularly and badly affected by floods. This map can be used to lobby the government to take action in areas of greatest need. Click here to mark areas of waterlogging on our site!
- Bus Routes Layer: Currently, there is no easy-to-use, publicly available map of bus routes in the city. The TC team decided to create a database of bus routes in the city. We have an easily searchable map of all the routes in the city using the MTC’s stage to stage data. Just click on your origin and destination to find all routes that connect them. We have also mapped full routes (including all stops) for 50 routes by riding buses from terminus to terminus, carrying GPS units. Do you use public buses to commute within the city? If so, help us collect more bus routes for this layer.
- Write on our blog!: TC maintains a blog, where team members actively write about ongoing data collection and projects, upcoming events, urban issues, city-related news, etc. The blog is an informal platform that allows the TC team, as well as the public to communicate with each other and comment/discuss on urban issues. We encourage our users to utilize this platform by actively reading, commenting and guest blogging. Please contact us if you would like to use our blog as a tool to communicate with other residents in the city.
- Informal Meeting on Pedestrian Issues: Many residents feel that pedestrian space is shrinking in the city. TC is planning to host a series of meetings in partnership with local organizations to informally discuss walking spaces, pedestrian accidents and other pedestrian issues in different areas of the city. In order to help us plan and prepare for these meetings, we request you to send us details about pedestrian issues in your area. Is your locality pedestrian friendly? What are some junctions in your locality that are particularly accident-prone and dangerous to pedestrians? Is it easy for elderly members of your community to walk in your area? How about for children? Please send us an email with these details, so we can all learn about issues facing pedestrians in various parts of the city.
Our Blog – The Chennai Kaleidoscope
TC maintains a blog, where team members actively write about ongoing data collection and projects, upcoming events, urban issues, city-related news, etc (read it here). The Chennai Kaleidoscope is an informal platform that allows the TC team, as well as the public to communicate with each other and comment/discuss on urban issues. We encourage our users to utilize this platform by actively reading, commenting and guest blogging. Please contact us if you would like to use our blog as a tool to communicate with other residents in the city.
Here is a glimpse of some of our recent posts:
:: How safe are our roads? ::
The TC team is currently collecting data for our upcoming pedestrian/footpaths layer. Our research has yielded accident profiles, fatality rates and other information about roads in Chennai and other Indian cities. Find out what we have learned from filing RtI’s and other research on our blog.
:: Community participation and city planning ::
Why is participatory planning important? Planners and policy makers often invest in projects and policies without considering the conditions of the local community. This post discusses the importance of community participation in the area of sanitation. It focuses on the African sanitation crisis as an example of how participatory planning can help with tackling the issue better. Local residents are able to assess their problems better than planners or policy makers. They often have solutions that need to be taken into account to determine which investments and policies would work to improve their situation.
::Our bus routes layer::
Research on urban issues and data collection is not as easy as it appears to the casual TC site user. Read about how we have been collecting data for our bus routes layer. Please contact us if you are familiar with Chennai’s public transport system or have information that we can use to update this layer.
Valmiki Nagar Beach Mapping (Part II)!
Join Transparent Chennai today (Saturday, January 22, 2011) as we again work with the members of the Valmiki Nagar Residents’ Association to map the beach in front of Valmiki Nagar! The mapping will help the residents identify problems and problem areas, and to create a plan for how to make the beach cleaner! We will be assembling on the beach at 5 pm!
January Newsletter
The TC team has collected data on flyovers, environmentally sensitive areas, slums and slum eviction sites, public transport, administrative boundaries and much more. Click here to play around with the ‘Build a Map’ feature. You can view information about one aspect of the city in a single layer or overlay two or more layers on top of each other to generate provocative insights into our city. Here are some of our featured layers:
- Toilet Layer :: Do you know how many public toilets there are in the city? Is the number proportionate to the city’s population? Does the informal sector have adequate access to public toilets? Which areas in the city need more toilets? Does the Chennai Corporation take this into account when it constructs toilets? Find the answers to these questions on this layer!
- Bus routes :: Currently, there is no easy-to-use, publicly available map of bus routes in the city. The TC team decided to create a database of bus routes in the city. We have a searchable map of all the routes in the city with stage to stage data. We have also mapped full routes (including all stops) for 50 routes by riding buses from terminus to terminus, carrying GPS units. You can search for routes by clicking on your origin or destination, searching for stop names, or mapping single routes.
- Garbage Infrastructure (Solid Waste Management):: Many residents of the city are not satisfied with the cleanliness of their streets and neighborhoods. People often ask whether the Corporation is doing its job collecting garbage from every household every day. Most of us also don’t know where all our garbage ends up. Has the Corporation identified appropriate landfill sites, or does garbage end up in environmentally sensitive areas?
Help Create Data about the City!
Urban Water Logging and Floods:: Is your area affected by waterlogging or floods? This is a user-driven layer that allows you to mark areas affected by water logging on the map. We all know where waterlogging and floods happen in our own neighborhoods. By pooling this information on the map, we can create a record of places which are regularly and badly affected by floods. This map can be used to lobby the government to take action in areas of greatest need. Let’s take control of our city!
Our Blog – The Chennai Kaleidoscope
TC maintains a blog, where team members actively write about ongoing data collection and projects, upcoming events, urban issues, city-related news, etc (read it here). The Chennai Kaleidoscope is an informal platform that allows the TC team, as well as the public to communicate with each other and comment/discuss on urban issues. We encourage our users to utilize this platform by actively reading, commenting and guest blogging. Please contact us if you would like to use our blog as a tool to communicate with other residents in the city.
Here is a glimpse of some of our recent posts:
:: ROB’s ‘In your face clean up’ ::
Roshan Toshniwal writes about a new initiative that he has worked on with one of our interns, Siddharth Hande and a group called Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB). The event was held on a Saturday at Besant Nagar beach, to not only clean up the beach, but also ask the Corporation to provide an adequate number of dustbins on the beach. More details available on the blog!
:: Are more flyovers the answer to our traffic problems? ::
TC shares several articles on how cities around the world are dealing with their traffic woes. Meryl Sebastian also examines the traffic situation and government spending on elevated roads in Chennai in her post, Flyover Frenzy.
TC in the news!
TC received a lot of press coverage since its launch in October. We have been covered by the Deccan Chronicle, The Hindu, Times of India and New Indian Express. The site was also covered by the Tamil newspapers –Dinakaran and Dinamani, as well as two of the most widely read Tamil magazines, Kungumam and Kumudham. The Times of India and New Indian express also specifically wrote on the toilets and the slum layers.
Upcoming Events!
:: TC is in the process of collecting data for its new pedestrian facilities layer, to examine sidewalks, subways, over bridges, etc in the city. The team is also writing a policy note on pedestrian rights with the help of Chennai’s residents. Please help us with this layer by contributing your ideas, comments and data!
:: Join us for an informal meeting and discussion on footpaths and other pedestrian facilities in the city. More details in the next newsletter!
:: Join Chennai Trekking Club’s Coastal Cleanup on January 9th to clean up our beautiful beaches. Click here to volunteer.
Beach Mapping
Join us this Saturday (15th Jan, 5:00 pm) to clean up and map the Valmiki Nagar beach. This is a citizen based mapping project initiated by TC for the the Valmiki Nagar Residents Association. The goal of the exercise is to supervise volunteers whose aim is to create a detailed map of the Valmiki Nagar beach. In addition to this volunteers will be conducting a waste audit, whose results will be mapped. Both mapping efforts will finally be added to TC’s website.
Date: 15th January 2011
Place: Valmiki Nagar Beach (the beach opposite 4th seeeward road in Thiruvanmiyur)
Time: 5 P.M
Launch Event
The official launch of Transparent Chennai was held on the 4th of October at the University of Madras, and the event went extremely well. The launch of the website was featured in the inaugural session of the World Habitat Day celebrations in the city, organized primarily by UN Habitat’s Chennai office and the Department of Geography at the University of Madras.
Transparent Chennai received a lot of press coverage, both about the site in general and the launch, as well as of specific layers. Below are the links to some of the English newspapers that covered the launch. The site was also featured in the Tamil newspapers –Dinakaran and Dinamani.
The Deccan Chronicle covered it, as did The Hindu and the Times of India. The Hindu covered the World Habitat Day celebrations as well, and Transparent Chennai was mentioned again here, as well as in the New Indian Express.
But some of the most exciting coverage came after the launch about specific layers – the Times of India focused in on the toilets layer, and the New Indian Express wrote about both the slums and the toilets layer here.
We are hoping that we can harness all this excitement about the site into a lot of action – to continue creating the data on the site and to continue producing new and exciting findings. Please do contact us and join in our efforts to build the database to build a better city.
Please join us for the
LAUNCH OF TRANSPARENT CHENNAI
October 4, 2010, 10:00AM, Thanthai Periyar Hall – Madras University
Occasion: World Habitat Day 2010
Theme: Better City, Better Life
The World Habitat Day 2010 celebrations in Chennai will commence with the launch of TRANSPARENT CHENNAI, a project of the Centre for Development Finance, IFMR, Chennai.
You are cordially invited to be a part of this event which will showcase the inspirational efforts of women who have tried to make their city a better place to live.
For more information, contact us through the site or call Somya or Selvi during office hours at +91-44-6668 7264