Vijay K. Saluja
Identification , Feting them & Telling their stories
Presently, our cities-colonies, markets, open spaces, traffic, transportation system, parking lots, basic services & other infrastructure etc etc are in a big mess. Mess is becoming bigger, day by day. Urban local bodies are the prime public bodies, whose duty/responsibility, is to take care of the state of our cities. But, unfortunately due to many reasons[some of these are, corruption, ineptitude, political interference, lack of motivation with the right qualified persons to join local bodies, wastage of already scarce municipal funds, non-accountability, non participation, lack of transparency, minimum scrutiny, presence of power groups resulting in inequitable resource[already scarce] allocation, due to self-interests, poor governance etc etc] , these[ULB`s] are not able to or not taking the needed actions to bring in efficiency & improve matters. The result is evident-Poor quality of life in most of the areas of our cities, metros in particular & non-inclusiveness, therein.
But, despite many constraints as described above, certain persons employed in the urban local bodies are producing good results/sticking their neck out, for optimum utilization of municipal funds.
To identify some of them annually, by a transparent process by assessing & grading their good performance, despite all odds, can be good morale-booster for them. After identification they may be feted at a public function. In the said function they can be feted in the following manner-
Giving a medal & a citation
Token prize money
After that, tell their stories at various fora & through various mode of media, so that they become `Role-Models`, for others, who may emulate their initiatives/actions. It is felt, it may/ will motivate the other local bodies & their personnels to improve their performance & thus obtain better quality of life for the inhabitants of the area under their jurisdiction. To start with we can consider persons from local bodies, operating in DWARKA.
This is one positive way[ though, there can be, as many other ways], to my mind, by which, we may be able to achieve the averred objectives of having better GOVERNANCE of DWARKA .
