JOIN USBengaluru ward panels as Covid-19 warriors
Battling the pandemic spread, the city’s vastly outstretched healthcare system is in despair. But as a top-down approach fumbles and citizens get frantic, a decentralised governance setup has been lying grossly unused so far: Ward committees, which could have potentially executed containment policies with a hyper-local rigour.
On Thursday night, a belated decision by the Urban Development Department empowered the panels to function as Ward Committees for Disaster Management. This is a realisation, finally, that the third tier of governance is the key to a turnaround in the battle.
The committees are now tasked with combating the pandemic within their respective wards. Since ward populations range from 40,000 to 60,000, the panels could now constitute as many Booth Level Committees (BLCs) as their electoral booths in their jurisdiction. This further decentralisation could be a potential game-changer.
Opportunity lost
Yes, ward panels are now packed with friends and relatives of corporators. This could change after the Bruhath Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council elections later this year. But the raging pandemic offered an opportunity to get the existing panels activated for an informed Covid fight-back, when the virus spread was still manageable in March.
Desperate to stem the Covid-19 spread in the city, the government had turned to ministers, directing them to be in-charge of different containment zones. “What is the point? Ward committee members would know what the requirements are locally. These panels, 198 corporators and the city’s 28 MLAs should have been involved in the process,” notes N S Mukunda from the Citizens Action Forum (CAF).
Third tier of governance
But the approach, he says, was reversed. “The third tier of governance was reduced to a namesake system. It was deliberately kept out as the MLAs and ministers didn’t want to give up their powers.”
As Covid deaths spiral out of control, designated Covid hospitals have run out of beds, ventilators and staff. Local containment with ready information on availability of beds, testing centres and fever clinics within a geographical area could have avoided many deaths.
So far, the ward panels and even corporators have been conspicuously absent in the mechanisms being frantically put together. “If I get Covid, I don’t know which hospital to go, what is the position of vacant beds, etc. Why can’t they evolve a system that combines all the 28 constituencies down to the ward panels, where real-time data is accessible 24/7?” wonders Mukunda.
Despite their huge potential, the ward committees have not been leveraged. “That has been a huge disappointment,” says Srinivas Alavalli from Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB). “The announcement that ministers and senior IAS officers will lead the Covid battle is an acknowledgement that there is no local government involvement,” he feels.
Divide the problem
There are so many elected representatives (in BBMP), they could have been engaged from Day One. “Nobody can sit in Vidhana Soudha and decide how to deal with Padarayanapura. Divide the problem and solve it locally. Look at Kerala, where 30 years of decentralisation has helped combat the Covid pandemic in a structured way,” Srinivas explains.
The non-participation of the ward panels has also much to do with the manner in which they were constituted. Pushed by a High Court directive, the committees were constituted in a tearing hurry. Most corporators diluted the democratic essence of these panels, picking their relatives and friends as members.
Nominate or elect?
How can this dilution be addressed when the next set of ward panels are constituted later this year? Nominations or direct elections, the opinion is divided. Mukunda prefers direct elections, held along with Council polls, with a provision for 20% of members to be nominated by the respective corporators.
Nominating all the members, he feels, will mean the corporator calling the shots again. “It would also lead to representation only to the elite and urban Residents Welfare Associations (RWAs), ignoring the urban poor,” he explains.
But elections would bring in the political parties and the associated problems, reminds Srinivas. “Nomination is the better way right now since involving parties would bring in all caste / communal equations, money power and more. The system would then become too politically challenged. Even a lottery is better than election.”
Enhanced awareness
Enhanced awareness of the roles and responsibilities of the ward committee might help bring in a more robust, democratic structure when the new panels come alive by the year-end. But this is still in the realm of tomorrow.
Today, can the belated decision to involve the panels in the Covid battle inject some life into the existing committees? “The state government guidelines on empowering the panels for Covid Care is hugely encouraging and needs to be supported,” notes Srikanth Viswanathan, Chief Executive Officer, Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy.
The State, says Srikanth, “has undertaken two important steps in the right direction. Firstly, they have diagnosed that the State cannot succeed on its own and that this challenge necessarily requires citizen participation in neighbourhoods. Secondly, they have adopted polling booths as the smallest unit of citizen participation. This is the most workable footprint for citizen participation.”
Corporator view
Sharing this optimism is Vignananagar corporator S G Nagaraj, “The committee in my ward was active till last month before the Covid spread intensified. It has helped me understand and respond to local issues better with involvement of BWSSB and Bescom local officials.”
Last time, the committees were formed in September 2015, almost three years after the Council polls in November 2018. Post BBMP polls this year, the panels will have a full five-year term for the first time. The next few months will determine how the ward panels shape up as Covid warriors, redefining their role in the future.