Dakshata Samities : Countervailing Power to Corruption
Esta presentción ha sido seleccionada como finalista del desafío
Ending Corruption: Honesty Instituted .
In India The 73rd Constitutional Amendment decentralizing powers to Local Self Governing Institutions & the Right to Information Act have created avenues for more transparent village governance. It consists two main pillars; Gram Panchayat (GP; body of elected representatives) & battery of officers appointed at village level. But, the Indian rural society being largely feudal in nature ‘Class’, ‘caste’ & ‘patriarchy’ structures authorize governance Systems. Hence the systems function in an opaque & unaccountable manner. Such an approach has led to rampant industrialization in Lote Industrial Area, an ecologically fragile zone of Ratnagiri, the western coast of India. It has damaged the local eco system eroded traditional livelihoods & quadrupled diseases. To tackle this Parivartan developed concept of village level citizen organizations to demand accountability from & audit functioning of the governance mechanisms. Parivartan introduced Vigilance Committees of Citizens called Dakshata Samitis (DS). The DS operates as structures of ‘countervailing power’ to balance the ‘official power’ with governance that is often prone to corruption. DS exemplifies mechanisms for establishing the delicate balance & partnership between civil society & state.
Organizing DS: 1)The concept of DS is discussed & decision to form DS is made in Gramsabha 2)Each hamlet/wadi sabha nominates two persons, a male & a female to the DS, through consensus instead of secret ballot, preventing factionalism 3)With the candidates from each hamlet, DS with minimum 11 members is formed at the village level. They are not formally registered albeit they function on the basis of written code of conduct. Through creative tools like Multi stakeholder dialogue & Community Livelihood manifesto, DS have been successful in making the industrialization pro-people with greater liability in environmental planning & also in governance systems thus assuring efficient flow of public services & goods to villages.
Sobre ti
Ubicación
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
tu idea
Focus of activity
Community Involvement
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1999
Posicionamiento de tu iniciativa en el diagrama del mosaico,
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Lack of Accountability & Transparency
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Build Citizenship
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Name Your Project
Dakshata Samities : Countervailing Power to Corruption
Describe Your Idea
In India The 73rd Constitutional Amendment decentralizing powers to Local Self Governing Institutions & the Right to Information Act have created avenues for more transparent village governance. It consists two main pillars; Gram Panchayat (GP; body of elected representatives) & battery of officers appointed at village level. But, the Indian rural society being largely feudal in nature ‘Class’, ‘caste’ & ‘patriarchy’ structures authorize governance Systems. Hence the systems function in an opaque & unaccountable manner. Such an approach has led to rampant industrialization in Lote Industrial Area, an ecologically fragile zone of Ratnagiri, the western coast of India. It has damaged the local eco system eroded traditional livelihoods & quadrupled diseases. To tackle this Parivartan developed concept of village level citizen organizations to demand accountability from & audit functioning of the governance mechanisms. Parivartan introduced Vigilance Committees of Citizens called Dakshata Samitis (DS). The DS operates as structures of ‘countervailing power’ to balance the ‘official power’ with governance that is often prone to corruption. DS exemplifies mechanisms for establishing the delicate balance & partnership between civil society & state.
Organizing DS: 1)The concept of DS is discussed & decision to form DS is made in Gramsabha 2)Each hamlet/wadi sabha nominates two persons, a male & a female to the DS, through consensus instead of secret ballot, preventing factionalism 3)With the candidates from each hamlet, DS with minimum 11 members is formed at the village level. They are not formally registered albeit they function on the basis of written code of conduct. Through creative tools like Multi stakeholder dialogue & Community Livelihood manifesto, DS have been successful in making the industrialization pro-people with greater liability in environmental planning & also in governance systems thus assuring efficient flow of public services & goods to villages.
Innovación
Description of initiative
In India The 73rd Constitutional Amendment decentralizing powers to Local Self Governing Institutions & the Right to Information Act have created avenues for more transparent village governance. It consists two main pillars; Gram Panchayat (GP; body of elected representatives) & battery of officers appointed at village level. But, the Indian rural society being largely feudal in nature ‘Class’, ‘caste’ & ‘patriarchy’ structures authorize governance Systems. Hence the systems function in an opaque & unaccountable manner. Such an approach has led to rampant industrialization in Lote Industrial Area, an ecologically fragile zone of Ratnagiri, the western coast of India. It has damaged the local eco system eroded traditional livelihoods & quadrupled diseases. To tackle this Parivartan developed concept of village level citizen organizations to demand accountability from & audit functioning of the governance mechanisms. Parivartan introduced Vigilance Committees of Citizens called Dakshata Samitis (DS). The DS operates as structures of ‘countervailing power’ to balance the ‘official power’ with governance that is often prone to corruption. DS exemplifies mechanisms for establishing the delicate balance & partnership between civil society & state.
Organizing DS: 1)The concept of DS is discussed & decision to form DS is made in Gramsabha 2)Each hamlet/wadi sabha nominates two persons, a male & a female to the DS, through consensus instead of secret ballot, preventing factionalism 3)With the candidates from each hamlet, DS with minimum 11 members is formed at the village level. They are not formally registered albeit they function on the basis of written code of conduct. Through creative tools like Multi stakeholder dialogue & Community Livelihood manifesto, DS have been successful in making the industrialization pro-people with greater liability in environmental planning & also in governance systems thus assuring efficient flow of public services & goods to villages.
Innovación
Since, DS has members from all caste & class groups, it represents interests of all the sub-groups in a village. The DS members can be recalled by a hamlet/village meeting for non-performance. The DS meets at least once in a month & presents activity report thrice a year to village. Parivartan gives training to DS members, but the real capability building has been achieved through actual work experience & handholding by the activists of Parivartan.
DS engages with the local governance machinery as a ‘partner’ in developing processes & programs that are pro-poor and pro-community. This approach was clearly demonstrated with DS’s intervention on Industrialization; while most environmental people’s movement have been confrontational & opposed to industries & businesses, Parivartan with DS has operated from the position of collaboration and dialogue. Typically, a DS is formed on the foundation of trust & consensus. Village communities nominate citizens with high ethical fiber, integrity & a track record of leading public action & gives them moral legitimacy to operate as watch dogs of governance. Hence DS acts as the most powerful check on GP members to not engage in corrupt practices. This increases the confidence of the poor & ‘lower’ castes in the DS. This, in turn deepens the accountability of the DS to serve as clean conduits of dialogue & action between the state & the community. Slowly, the DS becomes a strong countervailing power center to the village council. DS functions effectively in small rural communities due to ‘the proximity effect’; they are more accessible, enabling direct flow of information & monitoring of each others actions. The ‘power’ to the DS is not its ‘official’ status flowing from the power of the state, but power of ‘morality’. The members claim this morality by simply behaving the notions of right & wrong embedded in collective consciousness of the community. The members of the DS try to manifest this morality in their public affairs.
Delivery Model
At times the GP & bureaucracy do try to disrupt the DS. In such instances, the DS has always gone back to the people where issues are resolved only based on the principle of ‘upholding the common good’. On this forum resorting to corrupt practices to promote parochial class & caste interest is very difficult as it stands exposed in the people’s assembly. This is how corruption is controlled by the mechanism of the DS promoting a culture of good governance.
Multi-Stake Holder Dialogue (MSD): An effective tool for Improving Governance: In an atmosphere of subjugation and mistrust, instead of turning away from law, MSDs have empowered citizens to change the existing frameworks. Through community mobilization & negotiations with the government, Parivartan has effectively used MSD as a tool to change the existing policies & practices of the government agencies. The agenda of MSDs does not stop at development of plans & obtaining assurances, but also ensures persistent follow-up for establishing objectives.
The ‘Community Livelihood Manifesto’ (CLM) is an instrument prepared with objective to strengthen the DS mechanism & build the capabilities of the community to engage in micro-planning. CLM approach ensures that the plans & process do not fall prey to populist interests of certain vested-interest groups. The exclusivity of the CLM approach to micro-planning is that the community develops a manifesto, with it’s own goals & objectives for the planning process & development plans. The CLM ensures the focus on strengthening the local natural resources based livelihoods of deprived sections. The community works with the local government to translate this manifesto into a plan & then monitors its implementation.
As the village development issues relate to district and state government DS extends interventions to these levels. If needful the DS mobilizes the community & agitates struggles against to ensure transparent & accountable governance for equitable development.
Key Operational Partnerships
COMMUNITY: Numerous citizens from local to national level who relate to the social stigma around have always formed a major source for the financial as well as every kind of needful support. Businessman have been important source for fund raising, Advocates Doctors Engineers & retired govt. officers volunteer their expertise for advocacy & counseling.
MEDIA: Media has always shared a significant role in creating awareness & building mass support. 7 newspapers and 4 TV channels have helped fade away negative mindset & inertness of people, by highlighting issues of concern, struggles & success of DS.
LOCAL PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATIONS(POs): The issue based alliance with local Pos like Women collectives & SHGs & Youth groups, Wadi Mandal weaves a close relation with all the sectors in Village, accelerates acceptance, involves support & solidarity to promote issues relating to governance. Mumbai Mandals (migrants in Mumbai) assists in follow up of village level issues at the Ministry.
GOVERNMENT: GP & concerned govt. dept. remained to be the core partner in change. May it be in collaboration or in confrontation with GP, the correlation between village development & GP was always worked out.
NGOs: 8 NGOs from Konkan 3 international funding agencies extended expertise on aspects like Village Governance, micro-planning, CLM etc.
RESEARCH & EXTENSION AGENCIES: Institutes in social, environmental, agriculture & allied fields provide technological support to DS inititiatives.
Impacto
Financial Model
Not Applicable, However CLM ( an instrument described in Delivery model) brings forward plans for natural resource based livelihood enhancement of marginalized communities.
What percentage, if any, of the total operating costs does earned income (from products, services, or other fees) represent?
Zero
How is the initiative financed? Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? How much do beneficiaries contribute?
- How is the initiative financed? Foundation Grants for supporting activities related to training of DS members & handholding support to DS by Partivartan activists. All work done by the DS is supported by contribution from the members of the village community. All members of the DS work on purely voluntary basis. They do not receive any honorarium from any source. The members of the community make voluntary donations to the DS to ensure its smooth functioning. Citizens of the village staying & working in Mumbai also contribute to the DS.
- Is it financially self-sustainable or profitable? Yes it is financially sustainable because it works from community contributions. There is no element of profit in this initiative.
Effectiveness
Since 8 years DS have acted an effective mechanism to ensure transparency & accountability prevent corruption & force the govt. to adopt the just practices.
Presently a total population of around 10,500 persons is involved in this initiative belonging to 13 villages. In these 13 villages 115 persons are functioning in councils, 145 members are working as DS members.
The DS in almost all the 13 villages have ensured that the revenue officers, workers of the electrical utility & other line departments in the village do not engage in corrupt practices & ensure better performance.
In one village the DS conducted a public hearing following which all types of corrupt practices in the Primary Health Center was controlled. Also the performance of the teachers improved following strict monitoring by the DS.
Various schemes for agriculture development meant for individual beneficiaries & govt. pensions for aged & destitute were awarded in a transparent manner, without restoring mal-practices like bribery in the village.
The exemplary outcome of the DS was that they were able to hold the GP members to account & ensure proper conduct of the GramSabha as stipulated by law. The village accounts & budgets were submitted to & ratified by Gramsabha. There are few such villages in the country.
To summarize DS was seen to considerably enhance the decision making abilities of villagers using their indigenous intellect, as they now have the mechanism to oppose the ill intended bureaucratic decisions.
Which element of the program proved itself most effective?
The collaborative approach adopted by DS proved to be the most effective element in DS functioning. DS always prefered to work with a positive approach and from the position of dialogue. However Conforntations and Agitations against Governance remained to be another option if things did not work from the first approach.
In Asgani the forcible land acquisitions for industrialization & pollution by chemical industries had deprived villagers of both drinking water & agriculture. while the compensations for acquired land were quite unfair. DS successfully organized Public Hearing for fair compensation against lands & assets to the farmers, secured tenants rights & people’s participation in the industrial planning.
As a result a conductive atmosphere was created where Industrialization started acting in a responsible manner towards the local communities. And the tenants not only received fair compensation against lands but also receieved a greater respect and sensitivity. The social relationship between tenants and land-lord had substantially changed due to this process.
If there had been no DS, the landlord in collusion with the corrupt govt officials would have ensured non-payment of dues to tenants & illegally claimed compensation. In Asgani DS brought these mis-doings to the forefront & prevented corruption in the process. Whereas affected people in neighboring village where DS was not working had to spend 3-5% of the amount on bribing the concerned govt officers
In the Industrial area due to DS intervention, 11 polluting industries were closed down, CETP was installed, 20% agri. land was reclaimed from acquired area & a green zone was created & handed to the people for a-forestation. Pollution levels were considerably brought down & corrupt practices resulting from the nexus of industrialists, officers of the Pollution Control Board, & local politicians were checked. Thereafter the govt. made an investment of INR 1.2 million for pollution control.
Number of clients in the last year?
Not Applicable
What is the potential demand?
Not Applicable
Scaling up Strategy
The mechanism of the DS provides an opportunity to impose various barriers on other members not to manipulate the functioning of the village bodies as well as restrain the manipulation of electoral process. This phenomenon has been successfully demonstrated by the work of Partivartan in all DS intervened villages. The qualitative difference in the process of local elections and in the functioning of the village bodies in villages where the DS mechanism is working and where it is absent is highly visible to the community. This is reflected in the demand made by neighboring villages to Parivartan to initiate the process of forming the DS in the respective villages.
However, no explicit strategy for scaling up has been prepared as yet. Though the initiators are confident that this mechanism can be replicated in many other villages, each village has its own character and social history. Hence, it takes considerable time and effort (two years minimum) to constitute a DS and work for its social acceptance and effective functioning. However, as mentioned the growing demand from neighboring villages will itself slowly lead to the spread of this idea and many more village will accept and implement this in the coming future.
Stage of the initiative
1
Expansion plan
Parivartan strongly believes that to secure participation of the community especially the resource scarce people to make substantial improvements in governance matters, it is imperative to work on two themes the first theme is ‘security of sustainable livelihoods’ (enhancing capabilities of the resource scarce to promote their rights & to increase productivity of existing resources & activities) & the second is the ‘need to promote good governance’.
Both the themes are crucial to economic development and political empowerment of the marginalized sections, with their interventions and outcomes mutually reinforcing. While strengthening the role in Governance helps the marginalized sections to access resources, intervention for livelihoods promotion helps them to utilize these resources in a productive way to fulfill their livelihood needs.
With a view to undertake these activities Parivartan has initiated efforts to develop a ‘Center for Promotion of Livelihoods and Good Governance in Konkan’. This center would form an important information resource for capacity building of DS & village councils. Besides it would serve potent platform to scale up the model of DS to rest of the 200 villages in 5 bocks experiencing Parivartan’s interventions on various issues concerned with Village Development, Women Empowerment and Good Governance.
Origin of the Initiative
The conceptualization of the DS, & working methodology emerged from Praivartan’s work on the issue of industrial pollution in Khed block of Ratnagiri. DS were formed to ensure industrialization responsible to the local communities and ecosystems. Gradually the DS was mandated by the community to monitor the work the GP. DS was used an effective tool for making the local governance & bureaucracy more transparent & accountable. Such a monitoring of the GP by representatives of the civil society to some extent ensured that that these bodies do not act against the interest of the poor, rather function to protect the interests of the poor & promote their development. The DS draws inspiration from Gandhian approach of ‘Sarvodaya’. Offering it a more sustained institutional form that goes beyond well intent trusteeship of powerful to protect weak emphasizing consensus & empowering approach.
Esta presentación se trata de
Sustenibilidad
Main Obstacles to Scaling Up
The main obstacle to scaling up DS initiative is financial one. Though the rural communities and DS memberes contribute for GS it can not be overlooked that the communities are resource scare one.
Main Financial Challenges
Maximun share of expenditure spend on DS functioning comes from the community donations. Hence if the DS has it's own activity or resource and attains financial security, the model replication would be much easy & accelerated.
Main Partnership Challenges
Not applicable.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?
Manisha Gupta,
Executive Director,
Start up, Delhi, India.
Main Incentive to Participate:
Global conveyance of the proven model to resist corruption, thereby encouraging it’s adoption, which would lead a way to ‘Corruption free Honest world.
| Adjunto | Tamaño |
|---|---|
| DS meeting.jpg | 490.9 KB |
| MultiStake.jpg | 192.81 KB |
 | 257 weeks agoAshok Kadam said: Thanks nandabean, for your comment. I had the same feeling when I learn about Friends of Justice through operation Blind Justice. Your ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 258 weeks agoDevanayak Sundaram said: If such organised volunteerism like GLOBAL INTEGRITY is at its place, the people who give bribe and get will not indulge.D Sundaram. about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 258 weeks agoKepher Otieno said: I must admit the work that you people ared doing is superb and will keep the government's on the right track.I want also to appreciate ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 258 weeks agoNancy Bean said: Friends of Justice has been a family faith calling for more than 7 years, and now we are attempting to train others in our unique and ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 258 weeks agoNancy Bean said: Parivartan has a well-thought out, comprehensive approach to empowerment of citizens. Friends of Justice and Parivartan might both ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |
| 259 weeks agoDakshata Samities : Countervailing Power to Corruption has been chosen as a finalist in Ending Corruption: Honesty Instituted. |
| 261 weeks agoRichard Gottbreht said: Hello, My name is Rich Gottbreht from Global Insights and I am one of the entrants in the competition. Our work centers on helping ... about this Competition Entry. - leer más > |