MANGALURU: Over 1,000 Mangalureans submitted inputs to the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) through MyCityMyBudget, a campaign was launched by MCC commissioner Akshay Sridhar recently.
Citizens, people representatives, residents’ association and NGOs were among the various stakeholders who submitted their thoughts on the city budget allocation in their respective wards.
In three days, Janaagraha was able to garner 1,060 responses (856 online & 204 offline) through the MyCityMyBudget campaign launched by Janaagraha Centre For Citizenship and Democracy.
The public opinion aggregated showed that construction and repair of roads, solid waste management (SWM) and completion of underground drainage (UGD) works, were among the top three priorities that they want their civic agencies to focus and spend.
Over 27% citizens prioritised roads, 20% prioritised SWM, whereas 16% wanted the public money to be spent on UGD Works. Footpaths was the fourth priority with 14% citizens voting for the issue redressal, followed by drinking water supply at 10%, public toilets at 7% and streetlights at 6 %. Inputs were received from all 60 wards of Mangaluru, and highest were received from Bejai, followed by Bendoor and Kadri South wards.
“The citizens of Mangaluru showed that when an opportunity is given to participate, they will make the best use of it. The ball is now in the court of MCC,” said Srinivas Alavilli, head, Civic Participation at Janaagraha.
The priorities, inputs and suggestions by the citizens were handed over to Mayor Diwakar, MCC commissioner and Taxation, Finance & Appeal Standing Committee President Kiran Kumar on Saturday.
“We have received the MyCityMyBudget report from Janaagraha. We will go through this public consultation document, review the suggestions and priorities that are submitted by the citizens. The MyCityMyBudget report will help us understand what the citizens want and plan, discuss in our meeting on effective utilization of the budget,” said Akshy Sridhar.