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Water and Sanitation Program- South Asia The World Bank 55 Lodi Estate, New Delhi 110 003 India Phone: (91-11) 24690488, 24690489 Fax: (91-11) 24628250 E-mail: [email protected] Engaging with Citizens to Improve Services Web site: www.wsp.org Engaging with Citizens to Improve Services May 2007 WSP MISSION To help the poor gain sustained access to improved water and sanitation services. WSP FUNDING PARTNERS The Governments of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America; the United Nations Development Programme, The World Bank, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. AusAID provides WSP-SA programatic support. Technical Editors: Premila Nazareth Satyanand and Badal Malick Editors: Ananda Swaroop; A. Venkata Narayana Pictures by: Indo-USAID (FIRE-D) Project, India; The Water and Sanitation Program WSP-SA/Guy Stubbs; Sajid Darokhan Created by: Roots Advertising Services Pvt Ltd is an international partnership for Printed at: PS Press Services Pvt. Ltd., India improving water and sanitation sector policies, practices, and capacities to serve poor people Acknowledgments In 2004-05, the Water and Sanitation Program-South Asia commissioned research to identify citizen engagement and social accountability mechanisms that could be adapted to the Indian urban water and sanitation sector to improve service and customer responsiveness. This volume contains a detailed discussion of 10 of these mechanisms. The accompanying Overview volume briefly introduces the underlying program of research and its key findings. Badal Malick initiated and guided this program of research. Premila Nazareth Satyanand abridged the original case studies for publication and prepared the overview paper. WSP-SA is grateful to Janaagraha in Bangalore, Lok Satta in Hyderabad, and CUTS in Jaipur for lending their experience to the ‘Voice and Client Power’ program, as also to Robin Simpson (Consumers’ International) and Parth Shah (Centre for Civil Society) for peer reviewing this document. Thanks are also due to Benjamin Simpson (World Bank), Catherine Revels (WSP-SA), Chris Heymans (WSP-SA), David Savage (World Bank), Deepak Sanan (WSP-SA), J.V.R. Murty (WSP-SA), Junaid Ahmad (World Bank), Lant Pritchett (World Bank), Mark Ellery (World Bank), Salman Zaheer (World Bank), Shekhar Shah (World Bank), Vandana Mehra (WSP-SA) and Yamini Iyer (WSP-SA), all of whom have provided guidance and support to the development of the program, and of this publication over the past two years. The publication was task managed by Anup Wadhawan and Geeta Sharma (WSP-SA). Engaging with Citizens to Improve Services Case Studies Executive Summary viii Case Study 1: Client Power and the Poor: The Case of the Bangalore Water Board's Services to Slums Abridged from a study by Genevieve Connors 1 Case Study 2: User Contributions in Infrastructure Development in Tamil Nadu Abridged from a study by Anjana Mehta 19 Case Study 3: Ensuring Access of Urban Poor Communities to Basic Services: Ahmedabad’s Experience Abridged from a study by Shikha Shukla 37 Case Study 4: Participatory Planning and Budgeting in Kerala: The People's Plan Campaign Abridged from a study by Anjana Mehta 57 Case Study 5: Consumer Courts and Consumer Grievance Redressal Mechanisms Abridged from a study by VOICE, New Delhi 77 Case Study 6: Bringing Consumer Voice into Power Sector Reform in Rajasthan: The CUTS-FES Model Abridged from a study by Sachin Chowdhry 97 Case Study 7: Institutionalizing Partnerships around a Tool: The Case of the Online Complaint Monitoring System Abridged from a study by Badal Malick 117 Case Study 8: Role of Independent Regulation in Enhancing End-User Accountability: A Case Study of Power Sector Regulation in Five Indian States Abridged from a study by Sudha Mahalingam 133 Case Study 9: The Reach and Limits of Public Interest Litigation and Judicial Activism Abridged from a study by Lavanya Rajamani 153 Case Study 10: Citizen Report Cards Premila Nazareth Satyanand 165 About the authors Anjana Mehta has researched and worked with She has also worked with the United Nations in municipal level organizations across India since 1988. New York, South Africa, and Western Sahara; with the She has focused, in particular, on utility-consumer Economist Intelligence Unit, New Delhi; and at the relations, on water and sanitation service delivery, grassroots level in rural Uttaranchal. and on solid waste management. She has also researched the delivery of water and sanitation Sachin Chowdhry is a member of the faculty at the services to slum areas. Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. He specializes in public policy analysis, governance Badal Malick was working at WSP-SA, when ‘Voice and issues, and institutional development. He has also Client Power’ program was initiated. He is now pursuing worked as a consultant to the Twelfth Finance a business degree at Yale University, but remains Commission, and as a course writer for the Indira strongly interested in issues of governance, public Gandhi National Open University. private partnerships, and the reform of infrastructure services. Trained in Physics and Economics, he has Shikha Shukla is an urban planner, who has both also worked in the consulting sector in the areas of researched and led direct intervention programs in the telecom deregulation, antitrust, and intellectual property. thematic areas of urban infrastructure (water and sanitation) and urban governance. Shikha is currently Genevieve Connors works at the World Bank, freelancing as a social development consultant. Washington. She is currently in the East Asia Urban Development Sector Unit, where she specializes on Sudha Mahalingam, an expert on Indian energy reform services to the urban poor. She has a PhD in Urban and and security issues, has written extensively on India’s Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of power reform process, as also on the country’s evolving Technology (MIT) and an MPhil in Development Studies hydrocarbons, nuclear energy, and renewables policies. from the University of Cambridge. The case study in this Her focus areas are regulation, tariff setting, and the volume draws from her doctoral research on street-level geopolitics of energy security. She headed the electricity bureaucrats in Bangalore. governance research program at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. She is now Senior Fellow at the Lavanya Rajamani is an Associate Professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Contemporary Studies, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, focusing on New Delhi, and is writing a comprehensive book on Indian and international environmental law. She was India’s energy security. previously University Lecturer in Environmental Law, and Fellow and Director of Studies in Law, at Queens’ VOICE (Voluntary Organisation in Interest of Consumer College, Cambridge University. She has written Education) is a leading Indian consumer organization that extensively on legal issues, and has just published an serves on key governmental and private sector advisory, Oxford University Press monograph on ‘Differential regulatory, and standard-setting committees within India. Treatment in International Environmental Law’. It researches consumer behavior; complaint handling mechanisms; and accessibility, affordability and Premila Nazareth Satyanand is a consultant at quality-of-service related issues. It also contributes to WSP-SA, leading its ‘Voice and Client Power’ program. global policy-making on consumer protection standards. iv Engaging with Citizens to Improve Services Glossary and Acronyms Glossary ASCI Administrative Staff College of India AusAID Australian Aid Agency Adalat court of law AVAS Association for Voluntary Action and Chaupal baithaks meetings at panchayat places Service Chowkis area offices BATF Bangalore Agenda Task Force Chawls slum tenements BCC Bangalore City Corporation Gram swaraj village self-rule BEST Brihan-Mumbai Electric Supply and Jal suvidha kendras water sale centers Transport Undertaking Jan sunwais public hearings BDA Bangalore Development Authority Kutcha semi-finished construction BESCOM Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Lok adalats public courts BJP Bharatiya Janata Party Lokayukta People’s Ombudsman BMC Brihan-Mumbai Municipal Corporation Lok shahi din public hearing day BMP Bangalore Mahanagar Palike Mandals sub-districts BMTC Bangalore Metroplitan Transport Panchayat village council Corporation Panchayati Raj village governance BPL below poverty line Parivartan transformation BRPL BSES Rajdhani Power Limited Pucca fully complete construction BWSESMP Bangalore Water Supply and Sabhas public meetings Environmental Sanitation Masterplan Sadak, bijli, paani roads, electricity, water Project Sarpanch village council head BWSSB Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Taluk sub-district Board Vidyut adalats public electricity courts BYPL BSES Yamuna Power Limited Vidyut sudhar samitis village electricity improvement CAPDEK Capacity Building for Decentralization in committees Kerala CBO community-based organization Acronyms CCC centralized call center CCCGRM Consumer Courts and Consumer ADS Area Development Society Grievance Redressal Mechanisms AEC Ahmedabad Electricity Company CCRS centralized complaint registration system ALM advanced locality management CDS community development society AMC Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation CEO chief executive officer APDRP accelerated power reform development CERC