ULB Website Ltr MRC 2011Sep28

8/3/2019 ULB Website Ltr MRC 2011Sep28

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Annexure - 1

Summary Audit of Haveri CMC Website & other ULBs

1. General Recommendations

Education / Awareness

We did a short survey of people in the city of Haveri. Only 1.5 % of citizens (i.e. 3 out

of 200 educated people we surveyed) are aware that there is website for Haveri City

Municipal Council (CMC). None of them had accessed the website even once. As

with laws and many government schemes, there is great lack of awareness among

the citizens on functions and benefits of these websites. From the information we

have received under the RTI Act, 2005, we understand that ULBs have spent some

money on education and awareness programs. However, they have failed miserably.

The website visitor count was 1454 as on 24-09-2011. Universally, the measure for

effectiveness of any training is its application by the target users. If there’s no usage,

it’s very apparent that the training has not achieved its objectives. ULBs need to

educate citizens on their respective city / town websites so as to encourage them to

make the best use of the portals and participate in local governance.

The KMC Act, 1976 was amended in Feb. 2011 (Act No. 03 of 2011; 04-Feb-2011)

by the Karnataka Legislature to enable and institutionalize Community Participation

in Municipal Administration. Citizens at large and the Area Sabhas and Ward

Committees can participate effectively if they are informed well about the happenings

in the Corporations/Municipalities. Hence, it is also important to educate citizens

about the e-governance initiatives of the department, to meet the ends of the said

amendment.

Public Disclosure Law (PDL)

Under the Karnataka Right to Information (Disclosure of Information by Authorities

Providing Municipal Services) Rules, 2009 (vide notification UDD 92 CSS 2009 dt.

26-11-2009) it is mandatory for all ULBs in the state, to publish Public Disclosure

data as per the prescribed template by 26-11-2010. The ULBs are required to make

full disclosure of all information on their respective websites.

Hardly any ULB website is complying to this statutory requirement. It is observed that

most ULB websites either do not have this data or have only the template displayed

on their websites.

Right to Information (RTI) Act

Declaration by each ULB u/s 4.1(a) and 4.1(b) of RTI Act is mandatory. It is also an

objective of the MRC to publish information under RTI Act on the ULB websites.

However, most of the ULB websites do not have a section / link to RTI. Even those

few that have do not have the right and most updated information.

Format / Look-and-Feel

The look and feel (web formats, and page layouts) of all ULBs is not uniform /

common. As an example the websites of Gadag (http://www.gadag-betagericity.gov.in/ ), Davanageri (http://www.davanagerecity.gov.in/ ), Haveri

(http://havericity.gov.in/ ), Hubballi-Dharwad (http://www.hdmc.gov.in/ ), Bijapur



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(http://www.bijapurcity.gov.in/ ) are all different. As functions / services and duties of

all ULBs in Karnataka are same, there is a great opportunity for having a single

standard format for all ULBs. It would greatly facilitate the maintenance and updating

of the websites, and training of the officials as well as benefit the citizens and reduce

the costs. Moreover, it is the avowed objective of the MRC, which must be

implemented completely.

Incomprehensive

One of the primary objectives of e-Governance is to introduce Transparency in

administration. The ULBs posses and generate lot of basic and important

information, which citizens must know to participate effectively in local governance.

For example, schedule of street sweeping, details of garbage collection like ward-

wise contractors, contact persons, etc.; ward-wise schedule for water supply; various

service contract agreements for SWM and park maintenance; funds received /

utilized under various Schemes; tender agreements for various civil works, etc. All

the websites we came across either don’t have these published or have old /

obsolete data. Due to lack of this simple data / statistics, citizens are compelled to

seek cumbersome alternate routes like RTI, which leads to increase in workload of

ULB staff as applications on same subject and data are repeated.

Language

Most of the information in the MRC and ULB websites is in English. High percentage

of officials and citizens are not proficient in English to maintain and understand the

websites respectively. Under the Local *** Act, *** all transactions in the local

authorities ought to be in kannada. Providing information to citizens in kannada /

local language is also the e-Governance policy objective as per the declaration u/s

4(1)(b) of RTI Act, 2005 of DPAR (AR). The websites being Notice Boards of theULBs and also important interfaces with the citizens, must carry information in

Kannada. Non-provision of information in the official language of the state would not

only result in violation of The Karnataka Local Authorities (Official Language)

Act, 1981, but would also deprive most citizens of the state of the benefits of the

whole programme, rendering the entire effort and money spent on these websites

redundant. Making the information and interfaces available in kannada is very critical

to the success of e-Gov in Karnataka.

Portal Downtime

It is observed that the MRC and the ULB websites are down quite erratically.

2. Findings from ULB portal of CMC Haveri (http://havericity.gov.in/)

2.1 Home / Main Page

Present Status

• The page briefs about the history of city and touches upon its culture. It does not

describe the Functions of the CMC.

Desirable

This page must also have the information of relevance to CMC like brief about thefunctioning of the website and the services available online to public. Vision and

Mission of CMC Haveri would be of good topic for this page.



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2.2 City Council / Members

Present Status

• The page is accessible. Not sure if the date is up to date.

Desirable

The date of update of this page must be provided.

2.3 City Council / Proceedings

Present Status

• The page is does not have any data.

Desirable

The minutes of meeting / Council Proceedings for at least the last 12 months must beavailable on this page (may be in pdf form). It’s very important to publish the date of

next meeting / Sitting in this page.


2.4 City Staff

Present Status

• The page is accessible. Not sure if the date is up to date.

Desirable


2.5 City Statistics

Present Status

• The page has the cryptic information about total roads, Land use, Solid waste

generated and Street Lights.

Desirable

Road, Land use, SW and street light data must be provided each ward wise. As new

roads are laid or tarred, lights installed the data can be stored in a table and reported

in a page rather than ULB (s) updating the file. Having database can make the citystatistics format common across all cities.

Data on Streets not having lights should also be there.


2.6 Works Information

Present Status

• Some information is available



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Desirable

All the works finalized in the Tender page have to appear in “Ongoing works” page.

There is opportunity to automate this process by moving the information to Ongoing

works page.

A Dash Board concept should be implemented for real time project tracking with

indicators for various parameters like Name / description of contract, start date, targetcompletion date, cost, status, etc. Link to copy of Work order should be provided for

each work. The status should be updated at least once in a month.

Information on all works completed in the last 12 months or till the warranty period

should be available. The completed work should provide the details of the warranty

wherever applicable.

2.7 Tourism

Present Status

•Some information is available. This does not look well researched and authentic.

Desirable

Well researched info whetted by competent agencies like Department of Tourism /

Culture / KTDC must be published here along with other Tourist info like connectivity,

Hotels, Guides, etc.

2.8 Tenders

Present Status

•The page has few links to Tenders. Links do not work consistently.

Desirable

The information is not sufficient. It should have the name of the tender, start date of

bidding, end date of bidding, cost, conditions for bidding, etc. Rather than updating

the scanned copy let there be a template, which can be used to make the tender

information standard across all ULBs. There is a great opportunity for standardization

and automation.

2.9 Public Grievance Redressal (PGR)

Present Status • The page for registering the complaint is very user friendly and it is easy to register a

complaint. For every complaint registered a complaint number is assigned and

emailed to the user if email id is provided. The section on Checking Complaint status

also works. However urgency of a complaint is not captured like about a leaking tap

or dog menace or an overflowing drain. Of late the system is not sending email to the

complainant. There are some issues in this page for example the complaint

registration will not complete if mobile number is provided. The page for Complaint

Status has good information in it including the message updated. But there is no

Status field to indicate the state of the complaint (as Received, Work in Progress,

Closed, Duplicate, etc.). The biggest concern is that it appears that the systemautomatically assigns the closure date but they are not tracked. The PGR report of

MRC shows almost all the complaints are resolved? How is this possible? Complaint



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being escalated to Commissioner should not mean closure of complaint. There is no

real-time tracking and updating for the complaints.

• The reports are with Pi charts to give overall report of complaints. But there is no

option to list all the complaints in a ward. The current reports could be useful to CMC

but not to citizens. There is no way for a citizen of a ward to see if there is already a

complaint filed before registering one. This could create more duplicate complaints.Desirable

The PGR page is one of the most frequently accessed page by the public. Hence it

should be easily locatable on the portal. There must be a tab on the top as “Citizen

Services” where PGR (renamed simply as ‘Complaints / Grievances’), Citizens’

Charter, download forms, birth and death certificate and all the citizen services

through portal can be bundled together and placed.

A brief description of how every complaint will be tracked and the escalated in case

not attended can be explained in the main page. This information is already available

in the training materials, which can be provided here too. In other words, a citizens’charter for disposal of complaints must be displayed on the main PGR/Complaints

page.

All complaints under a particular Head must be visible. So that Citizens can view the

complaints on the same matter / issue filed already.

Real-time tracking and updating of the complaints must be enabled. The status of

any complaint at any time must be visible, along with the details of official with whom

it is pending and since when.

It’s very important to have a report on complaints received in each ward. (Report of

complaints by ward / ward-wise). This helps in knowing the ‘burning’ problems in any

ward at any given time.

The complaint submission does not work if phone number is provided. There should

not be ”–“ in the phone number.

SMS update of complaint status could be easily integrated in this system.

There could be a report of the channels in which complaints were received (Direct

Written complaints, Telephone complaints, Web complaints). These report could help

CMC/MRC/public to know how many people in every ward access the portal.

How many people have computes at home? How many are computer literate? Tomake the PGR system work there is a need for Kiosks like Nemmadhi Kendra or

Bengalooru One Centers, which can cater various services to people in each city.

2.10 Civic Amenities

Present Status

• The RWH, SWM & Water Supply pages are still ‘Under Construction’.

Desirable

The information on the SWM page is not at all adequate. Information like how

government is funding SWM and what is the action plan, how CMC is implementingthe SWM, role of citizens in SWM, how door–to–door waste collection works, etc

would be very important information for the residents of the city. The information on



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this page could be of generic type as well as specific to a particular ULB. Information

like amount of solid waste collected per day at each ward, location of solid waste

containers in each ward, length of streets sweeped daily, schedule of street

sweeping, name of the contractor, wards where door to door collection is available,

location of the land fill site, number of vehicles involved, etc. must be displayed. A

brief about how the area of 10 acres will be utilized is required. A diagram or plan of

the site is required. Please specify the name of the wards where the service is

experimented and the time period it was experimented. Brief explanation on how the

system works for the understanding of a common man. As CMC want to extend the

service to other wards what is the plan and proposal for expansion. Link to SWM

policy and names of agencies is required.

Information like, source of water to the city, the capacity of each source, the filtering

capacity of the equipments, location of storage tanks and their capacities, amount of

water distributed to each ward, schedule of distribution of water for each ward,

contact details of water supply staff and lot many information useful to the public

must be made available on the Water Supply page.

2.11 Online Application

Present Status

• The page is still ‘Under Construction’.

2.12 Asthi

Present Status

• The page is still ‘Under Construction’.

2.13 100 Crore Project / SJSRC Pages

Present Status

• Link leads to MRC asking for user login credentials.

Desirable

100 Crore grant Project should appear only if the ULB is covered under the 100

Crore Project scheme. It’s not clear what detail is planned to be displayed on this

page.

Note: This audit was undertaken and is presented with the sole intention of bringing positive changes

in our system and society. No insult, harm or derogation is meant to any person or institution,

whatsoever. All comments are made in good faith and should be construed as constructive

criticism, where applicable.

ULB Website Ltr MRC 2011Sep28

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