GURUGRAM: The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has tied up with an NGO, Janagraha, in order to ensure active participation of residents in policy making and development plans for the city.
Janagraha will help
GMDA in
public consultations on its various projects.
According to officials, the GMDA Act 2017 provides for citizen participation in areas of liveability and urban governance, through a legal mechanism. It is in this regard that Janagraha will help GMDA by designing mechanisms and processes for citizen’s participation.
“We want citizens to actively interact and engage with us. Hence, we’ve chosen Janagraha, as they have expertise in citizen engagement and have successfully concluded many such projects in southern India,” said GMDA chief V Umashankar.
One of the first projects where the NGO will help GMDA is public consultation in the liveability index, by designing a process and strategy for citizen’s participation in defining the liveability matrix and their status in Gurugram. GMDA is currently seeking citizen’s feedback on the draft liveability index, however, so far only one person has provided their feedback in a city with a population of 20 lakh.
“As of now, most of the citizen
interaction is limited to just Twitter. We’re hoping to change that, making it a more constructive process rather than a critical one,” said Umashankar.
Besides liveability index, the organisation will also help GMDA in getting public consultation on its upcoming projects. One of the other areas would be the Residents Advisory Council (RAC) as provisioned under the GMDA Act. Janagraha will work with RAC and come up with a framework that lets the RAC review GMDA’s progress against the plans, on a quarterly basis.
GMDA will also seek assistance from the NGO in digital citizen engagement. “Janagraha shall provide mobile apps, web portal and strategies for GMDA to deepen citizen engagement on its online properties,” states the MoU.
