Kejri makes list of mohalla sabhas' assets

Following up on his promise to empower citizens, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has directed an early listing of the assets of all the 2,969 mapped mohalla sabhas so that government departments can start executing development plans.

The list for each mohalla sabha would carry details of assets like community centre, school, library, health centre, park, water tank, underground reservoir and open gym falling within its jurisdiction. The list would be prepared by the respective departments.

Sources said Kejriwal has also directed Chief Secretary K K Sharma to ensure an administrative system in all departments to implement the projects approved by these citizen groups.

“Like public information officers in the case of RTI, all departments have been directed to identify nodal officers for interaction with the mohalla sabhas, which will hold a meeting once in two months to set the development agenda,” said an official.

Apart from encouraging participatory governance, the AAP government is committed to crowdsourcing the development agenda in colonies by empowering a mohalla sabha that would represent around 4,000-5,000 residents each at the polling booth level.

As an experiment, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia last year started a pilot project in 11 Assembly constituencies. Each sabha was given a limit of Rs 20 crore within which it could suggest local development work.

This year Kejriwal’s dream project of implementing “Swaraj” – local self governance – has been extended to all the 70 constituencies and Sisodia, while presenting the Budget for 2016-17, allocated Rs 350 crore under the Swaraj Nidhi Yojna.

Within six months each mohalla sabha would conduct elections and coordinators and other representatives would be elected for efficient decentralised planning.

Voters registered at polling booths falling under the jurisdiction of the mohalla sabhas would be eligible to contest and elect its members.

Kejirwal has also advised all legislators to use their area development funds according to the priorities set by these citizen groups.

During last year’s experiment, Delhiites were made a part of the budgeting process through meetings of mohalla sabhas  in 11 constituencies and during the process the government received nearly 1,500 suggestions.

According to the Chief Minister’s blueprint, the role of mohalla sabha residents would continue even after the implementation of projects approved by them. The onus will be on the contractors for the successful completion of the project as they will be paid only if the locals are satisfied with the work done by them.