Social Watch India: Citizens Report on Governance and Development 2006

This is a report by Social Watch India, which comprises a coalition of Indian NGOs and other civil society organizations committed to making democratic processes work better through monitoring and evaluating the functioning of key institutions of government. There are social watch processes underway in 13 states in India – and they monitor such aspects of government as the budgetary process, primary and secondary education, urban and rural governance, the performance of high courts and district courts, forest and land policy, and the provision of services such as healthcare and water. The coalition and individual partners also produce a range of publications, in English, Marati and Hindi.

This 2006 report reviews the four key institutions of governance in India: parliament, the judiciary, the executive and local government (with separate sections on rural and urban governance), from a rights perspective and in light of the Indian government’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals. The review of parliament includes gender issues (currently women make up only 8.1 per cent of members in the Lok Sabha [lower house] and 10.6 per cent in the Rajya Sabha [upper house]), and the criminalization of politics (one-quarter of the members of parliament have criminal records and over half of those with the most serious criminal records were concentrated in certain states – this review is also broken down by political party and by state).

The review of public policy looks in detail at agriculture, education and health and infrastructure (including reviews on changes in proportion of funds allocated to these). The report notes the slowing down of improvements in infant and child mortality rates, malnutrition and extreme poverty in many states.

The review of the judiciary, covering the Supreme Court and the high courts, includes an assessment of judgements of relevance to disadvantaged groups, including the disabled, the victims of the industrial accident in Bhopal in 1983, child labourers and those affected by mega-projects. The review of local government focuses on the formation and performance of gram panchayats at village level, and municipal governments in urban areas. Among the issues reviewed are the extent to which women and representatives from dalits and other disadvantaged groups are getting the seats reserved for them (the picture is mixed, with positive examples in some states and worrying incidents against women and dalit candidates in others), and a look at activity mapping to see the extent to which functions that should have been transferred to local government have been. For urban local governance, there is a particular interest in the likely impacts of two policies: the Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme and the National Urban Renewal Mission – the latter being a “reforms-driven, fast track” fund for India’s largest cities. There is a worry that this is too loaded towards heavy infrastructure investment and reform processes that primarily benefit private sector interests and with too little attention to the urban poor. The report lists the conditions laid down in the National Urban Renewal Mission with regard to mandatory and optional urban local body and state reforms. There is also criticism of the World Bank-led privatization of the drinking water supply in Delhi, which seems to involve both high public investment and higher tariffs and with the private company being guaranteed payment even when it fails to deliver the service. As the report notes, the urban vision should not be just for cities that are world class in their financial prowess or physical façade but also foremost in their ability to meet global standards of human rights.