Pahal – Shasan Sudhar Ki Ore (Step towards
improving Governance) is an initiative of Transparency
International India (TII) with a view to empower those
living below poverty line (BPL) in both rural and
urban areas of the country. The project aims at improving
governance in rural India by raising awareness among
people about tools of good governance that will enable
them to avail hassle free public services, since corruption
is principally a symptom of bad governance.Funded by Concern Worldwide, an Irish developmental
organization and some Indian corporate houses like
ONGC, Coal India Limited, Mahindra &Mahindra,
the project aims at studying corruption in various
government schemes in the country and then taking
steps to combat corruption for stimulating economic
growth and reducing poverty. Besides, an assessment of different government schemes
have been taken into account in this project including
Health, Education, Housing, Public Distribution System
(PDS), Water & Sanitation and some targeted schemes
like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA),
Voter Identity Card and Ration Cards. The idea is
to probe into corruption – perceived and experienced,
affecting these services, and steps that can be taken
to deal with it.The project has been divided into three parts –
the first part comprises research to study and understand
the various dimensions of corruption affecting the
common man in availing the public services and systemic
issues responsible for such a situation. Conducted
by the Center for Media Studies (CMS), the study proposes
to cover all the Indian states and includes general
perceptions and actual experiences, reasons for which
the common man is forced to pay bribe and to identify
solutions to put the public service system on proper
lines. The findings of the study will be shared with
different civil society groups, government officials,
media, rural masses and other stakeholders.The second part of the project is training and capacity
building of government and local government officials,
school teachers, health workers, opinion leaders,
NGOs and community based organizations in RTI, social
audit, Citizens Charter and e-Governance.
The third dimension of the project is to familiarize,
sensitize, and raise awareness, in order to empower people
and government about various tools of good governance
– Right to Information (RTI), Social Audit,
Citizen’s Charter and e-Governance.The main focus of sensitization and awareness raising
would be to identify community participation and collaborative
activities that would help government to understand
the specific needs of the community. Participatory
activities includes activities such as holding community
meetings to understand needs and acquire feedback
at the preliminary level, camps at village, block
and district level, capacity building of government
and local government officials and targeted beneficiaries,
effective use of communication materials in local
language and street plays to involve children women
and underprivileged groups and use of community radio.The pilot project will be conducted in selected rural/semi-urban
areas of Haryana.It is expected that after the completion of the project,
there would be increased use of RTI and social audit
as a tool to access information and entitlement It
is also expected that Government would be more responsive
to formulation and implementation of citizens charter
and incorporation of citizen friendly e-Governance
for ensuring greater transparency. An important outcome of the project will be greater
involvement and participation of women and disadvantaged
sections in local self governance. Also there would
be increased responsiveness from district and block
administration towards Gram sabha (primary level meeting
of local self government) making them more accountable
to people. Further, local self-government such as
Panchayat will be more actively involved in bottom-up
planning and monitoring the social sector programmeThe Project will lay special emphasis on tribals,
marginalized communities and women. Attention will
also be paid to identifying needs and build the capacity
of TII and its state chapters to effectively carry
out its initiatives to increase transparency and accountability
in various government departments in India. Monitoring of the project will be carried out at
two levels. At the grass roots level project will
be monitored by a fellow appointed by TII from the
local targeted community. At the organizational level, project team will monitor
the progress, document processes of the project, lessons
learned, best practices and take steps for future
planning. For more information, please contact:
Anupama Jha
Ph: 011-26460826
Email : anupama@transparencyindia.org
