Citizen activism corrected a wrong in Richard's Park

In a perfect example of the citizen’s power of vigilance, a group of residents from around Richard’s Town not only exposed leakage of funds with regard to developmental work of a park undertaken by the BBMP in the area, but also got the authorities to immediately correct the wrongs.

Back in 2010, a citizen’s project to promote transparency and accountability in the BBMP was being tested under the guidance of the NGO, Civic. Residents here did an audit of developmental works in Richard’s Park.

They accessed various documents through RTI and undertook a social auditing exercise of the works planned for the park in the same year. They found a number of unanswered questions on the amount allocated for various works and the actual results on the ground.

Sivashankaran, who was part of the social auditing, recalls: “Once we showed what was wrong, the authorities took action within three months. Subsequently, the developmental work was done under our supervision within a period 10 to 15 days. Citizens need to be vigilant and make authorities accountable for whatever they are undertaking in the name of the public,” he says.