Government Community Interface (GCI)

... Toolkit for stakeholders consultations at grassroots level

Executive Summary

Over the last six decades, India has been striving hard to ensure basic needs and equal opportunities to all and all-round efforts for a self-reliant and prosperous national economy. We have moved forward in areas of food-security, industrial infrastructure and science and technology. Still, the nation is confronted with serious problems related to poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, social and economic disparities and regional imbalances.

The Government is committed to overhauling its systems & procedures and institutions to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery. Government recognizes that public services have to be delivered in a manner that is people-centred, efficient, effective, equitable, affordable, sustainable and accessible to all. Most of the Government Department and Government institutions that provide services to the public do focus more on management of various inputs like spending budgetary allocations, distributions and utilizations of physical resources, etc and less on the actual outcomes, results and benefits to the people.

Community is in the center of all the activities, yet it, as has been observed, is being sidelined by the decision makers unintentionally. The community or the client groups are made to merely wait & watch in the activities undertaken by the Government. Ultimately what people get in hands is what they don't want or what is not their priority. This creates a void between the administration (service providers) and the administered (for whom the service is prepared) and an atmosphere of apathy is created unknowingly that distances people from the government initiatives through various anti-poverty programmes and schemes, MPLAD, MLA Fund and other funds earmarked as local area development. That might be the reason the village infrastructures-institutions constructed and developed by Government efforts with huge spending have remained Government property only, these have never been thought of as community assets.

The schemes and Yojanas of Government should result in enhanced community capacity to effectively engage people and take on responsibilities. There needs to be a clear plan for operation, maintenance and sustenance of the activities at the Govt level. Community participation ensures local ownership, address local needs, promotes volunteerisms and mutual help to accelerate Government programs. At the same time it is being felt that the communities have little capacities to participate. The spirit of collective decision-making on local issues and the problem solving mechanisms is highly missing. There seems to have no actual platform for them to participate in the discussions at the larger level. Providing a platform for discussion as described above is only the aspect of enabling community participation to make the yojanas fruitful. The other is to ensure that communities have capacities to fully utilize these spaces and participate meaningfully in order to attempt for effective implementation of schemes.

The Government of our nation that is committed to the welfare of its people and the development of the state has intensively trying to provide high quality services to its citizens in an equitable and fair manner. With decentralization, the local selves Governments have been entrusted with the task of providing a large number of public services. There are several kinds of public services. These include civic services like electricity, water supply & sanitation, welfare services like social security, human development services like health & education and basic

minimum services like housing. In addition, Gol and local self Governments provide several regulatory and administrative services.

The service delivery policy of Government is intended to establish the mode and manner in which services are delivered to the citizens. In a broad sense, it covers the whole range of interfaces between the Government & the people and the whole gamut of interaction between the people and the Government.

This model experiment of Government -Community Interface (GCI) is aimed at catalyzing the process of community participation by creating a " Participatory Incubator" in some sense-allowing service providers & communities to experience dialogue delivery and collective decision -making for themselves and taking full accountability for these decisions on themselves.

This GCI approach would ensure that local solutions emerge to address local issues. This approach .may· also" consistent with the calls for greater decentralization, local emocracy and citizen participation. This toolkit would also require that the Government assisted antipoverty plans being realized with due level of stakeholder consultation at the ground plane. This is a plenary session at the Grampanchayat (GP) level to discuss the outlines of various plans and programmes, the missing links, the gaps in implementation of programmes and activities, the implementation challenges, major concerns and issues in successful carryout of the schemes and the role of community to assist-cooperate and capacity to own in this regard.

The proposed dialogue and information sharing session through GCI is a model attempt to evolve developmental reforms with Indian perspective. The government is committed to usher in a new era of development for a proud and prosperous Bharat. In this paradigm shift, the country has to ensure peoples' participation, including all types of institutions, organizations and the community - in true spirit of our excellent democratic tradition. The challenge is to chalk out the best possible action-plan in present globaj scenario keeping our national priorities in sharp focus.

PRAYATN, The implementing Agency: A short Introduction

PRAYATN is a not-for-profit social organization. PRAYATN is a secular and nonpolitical grassroots development institution. The lexical meaning of PRAYTAN drawn from the Hindi literature is to sincerely striving for. PRAYATN struggles for a dawn of change; change in peoples' approach to development. PRAY A TN supports and facilitates village institutions building i.e., CBOs (Community Based Organizations). PRAYATN is committed to organizing and empowering people, peoples' institutions and CBOs. We facilitate building peoples' alliances and support networking. We work in strategic partnership with the Government. We support lobby and advocacy activities in state and national level. We participate in International and National level dialogues and consultations.

PRAYATN is a registered. organization under societies Registration Act of 1860, FCRA, 80-G and 12-A Act of income tax. We are a change agent, capacity building organization. We build the capacities of communities. We came into existence during 1992 in response to the growing needs in development sector to

Organize people and help them to help themselves. This rights based seed sown during 1992 by a couple of experienced and matured professionals has now grown up to a full-fledged tree which has been received supports and recognition not only at Rajasthan level but in some issues, we are the lead and premier social organization in the country like the most alarming female foeticide issue, we are proud to hit the list.

We are a small, dedicated multidisciplinary professional team drawn up from various fields of social development and backgrounds like social work, rural development, HR, Finance, counseling, legal and health, training & capacity building, communication, documentation and research, policy & Advocacy and project planning & monitoring. We strive towards achieving a climate of self-reliance, self-sufficiency and look forward to bring about social change.

We build the community capacity and promote them to take up issues of the socially excluded, oppressed and marginalized sections of our society. We work directly with the people and the community without discrimination. PRAYATN is having its head office in Jaipur of Rajasthan and has spread across Rajasthan and Morena region of Madhya Pradesh. We have our project office located in Dholpur.

The other field offices are in Badi, Jhalawad, Bharatpur , Karauli and Morena. We at present have been working in 218 villages of Dholpur district.

Our emphasis is on Women & Men, Children, Adolescents, Differently abled and challenged category, socially marginalized, PLWHIVs... to channelize their energies into a movement that would catalyst for social transformation. We are simply a guiding force, motivator and facilitator.

PRAYATN's dream is for creating a society where each individual men-women-children lives with dignity, where each one would participate in society and where every one would contribute effectively cutting across communities-religion-caste-class-other social factors... for village development.

PRAYATN has launched its Rights Based Approaches (RBAs) since 2003. The mission is to relate work in line with RIGHTS TO END POVERTY. Through rights first, we, in PRAYATN, seek to enable the poor and marginalized, the socially deprived sections to make their alliances with the help of institutions of state and civil society to ensure the realization of basic human rights to live security, dignity and peace. Currently we work on two major issues, Declining Sex Ratio-female foeticide -women violence-gender disparity... Gender Equality through 'Chahat Hai Jine Ki' project and 'Making Child rights a reality in the mining areas of Dholpur' project. We build peoples' organizations and institutions, conduct capacity building programmes for awareness generation, undertake research and study, carry out experiments on sustainable peoples' centred development processes, help people especially women, in alliance building for social and political empowerment. We provide support services in the field of legal, social and health sectors to the women and the community. PRAY A TN has taken up the task of effective implementation of NREGA in Jhalawad and Karauli districts of Rajasthan.

 Genesis of Government-Community Interface (GCI)

Historically, Government of India and State Governments have been consciously following a path of development with a focus on providing services to its people, especially in the area of human development. There has been a powerful tradition of a demand for increasing the quality and the quantity. Over the years, the Governments have generally been quite responsive to the demands of the people to provide the uniform spread of services with easy accessibility. However, in recent years due to a combination of factors like fiscal stress, deterioration in work ethics, unfair competitions from the private sectors, negative and adversial public action. etc, the quality and access to public services has declined, is sinking day by day. This problem needs to be tackled as the first priority of Government in a welfare state.

The constitution of India conceptualizes Government as the compassionate and caring entity reaching out to the poorest of the people with the objective of bettering the lots of the last man among the poorest category. It is this approach, the guiding principle of Good Governance system. It is the poor who need more of public services and improving the quality of service delivery is probably one of the most important strategies to tackle poverty eradication. The reasons, causes and factors associated with the declining trend of service delivery systems do include

~ Lack of continued political will and official commitment.

~ Implementation as an isolated exercise unlinked to the mainstream process of planning & budgeting.

~ Absence of a framework for continued guidance and serious lack of follow ups and monitoring of implementation at Government level.

~ Limited involvement of the stakeholders, communities and civil society groups.

~ Lack of Down-top approach of planning-implementation-budgeting follow-ups -review- right inclusion or wrong inclusion of stakeholders community consultations.

~ Absence of an appropriate forum for discussion, dissemination of information, lack of a coordinated efforts regarding the effective and successful implementation of Government supported schemes -yojanas programmes at the village / GP/ Block / District level.

~ Absence of a central platform to listen to the challenges of service providers and grievances of the stakeholders. There is a lack of communication, understanding and thus has created a void that is visible and heard in the society.

 Approach of GCI

There are certain principles or approaches of service delivery policy and which serve as 9 foundation on which the entire operation alisation rests. They are

1. People Centredness - This is the core principle of service delivery, which calls for recognition of a new relationship between the providers and the recipients of public service. Every citizen has a basic right to expect high quality of public delivery service. The people first approach has the following features:

~ Listening to people.

~ Modifying service policy according to the needs.

~ Respecting people and individual.

~ Responding to complaints and grievances of public stakeholders.

~ Seeking feedback and providing improvement.

~ Involving people in monitoring and review process.

The users of public service would have a voice in ensuring quality. Providing opportunities of participation at all stages would ensure achieving this.

2. Laying down clear standard- Clear standards of service would be laid down and every citizen can therefore expect that guaranteed minimum level.

3. Equity- The focus would on poor and other disadvantaged groups who would be given most favored treatment not only thru easy access but also thru deliberate outreach. Equity also envisages affirmative action and positive discrimination in favor of the disadvantaged.

4. Transparency- The whole process right from selection of stakeholders to service delivery would be transparent and crystal clear. The citizens would have the right to the standards expected to be achieved, cost of service, identity of service providers, outcomes and outputs achieved.

5. Accountability- the service providers would be accountable not only to the Government but to the citizens and communities.

Public awareness, effective community participation, transparent and clean administration, accountability, holistic approach, integrity, introduction of citizens charters at all levels can only abridge this gap. GCI approach is expected to address these issues.

Why GCI

In this connection and looking to the present context thru our situation analysis survey we had conducted and after an extensive Micro Level Planning (MLPs) process we had undertaken in some villages in our project villages, we found that there is a long gap exists between the service providers and the recipients. This we felt as a serious and grief social concern and we plan to plug it. We thought of

Experimenting various development tools and social techniques to apply and implement innovative activity in order to reduce the gaps.

We held series of meetings, discussed with the communities in small sittings towards materializing this pertinent issue. After several rounds of discussions analysis -reflections, process of ·thoughts, thoughts sharing sessions, reflections and analysis of our experiences, we planned to carry out GCI model of approach, to bring the stakeholders together in a platform. We usually take the prior appointments from line department officers of the Government and community. On a suitable day , date and time, convenient to both the stakeholders, we used to facilitate the discussions and deliberations. And we found it works wonder. We have initiated this kind of innovative activity: a direct communication between the stakeholders sitting on a same plane and on a pilot basis in the selected GPs.This, we feel, is an appropriate platform to affix the responsibilities on the community-stakeholders-NGOs-civil society organizations-media fraternity. As a social organization, we playa critical role in ensuring that communities come together and feel comfortable in the one-day dialogue delivery session on all aspects. We prepare communities to shoulder their own responsibilities and they should play active part to motivate the service providers. The community should help the service providers when they land in their villages during the adverse climate conditions. The community should extend their whole support to the service providers to deliver efficiently and fair manner. They should heed to the Government personnel, allow them to function impartially. The communities have been trained not to influence the service providers. This participatory discussion forums, GCI, act as a well-defined system for redressing grievances of those who are dissatisfied with service delivery pattern. This whole process is people friendly, interactive, help learning for everybody, empower community to raise issues, help the providers to understand the ground reality. This also serves as a right platform for the people to have clear understanding on the criteria for,

 Inclusion' under a particular scheme or yojana. So these discussions lead to responses and improvements in attitudes for all the stakeholders. This also sets the ideal roadmap of bottom-top implementation process of Government assisted schemes, present level of services available and intended improvements required. These dialogues help to define the tasks of individuals and delivery time limits, outcomes and output definitions, consultative systems to be put in place, grievance redressal procedures in case of failure to provide required quality services in the given timeline. Each service delivery plan of Government should in turn mention clearly, who would, constitute the eligible client groups and the community should well aware of the eligibility criteria that would help them not to confuse and run from pillars to post. This kind of interaction in GCI helps providing appropriate information in this regard. Our Government has been floating a number of benefits schemes for the socially excluded groups like the destitute population, the aged, the PHs, the scholarships schemes, lAY, OAP, WP, ANTODYOYA, ANNAPURNA, KISHAN VIKASH, INSURANCE benefits, DEATH compensation, ACCIDENTS reimbursements, SCHOLARSHIP for students of BPL families ... these are a just a small list but in reality, the poorest category have never heard of many of these schemes. The general public is even unaware of the number of schemes being operative. This sort of GCI is the plenary session to announce the new amendments, revisions, changes, and modifications from the

Government end. The coalition and management of information is necessary in order to plan for deliver, review, and improve people-centred services. It is necessary for each service providers, from various departments to define the minimum level of information requirements for all the client groups, including the citizens.

This approach of interaction would help the community-citizens to know the accurarate information of the newly launched programs and schemes, eligibility criteria of inclusion, service period, regularity of services, service conditions, attachments or documents required, availability of forms and formats, avoidance of duplication of benefits, and roles and responsibilities of the communities to ensure that the services would be available to the deserving clients or the vulnerable categories. They would be shared with the brochures, handouts and leaflets to get familiar with the schemes and yojanas. This is a information sharing platform to eliminate undue approach, unfair means and unjust influence. This forum would certainly address the amicable conflict resolution mechanism and all the matter of litigation-allegation-would be dealt at the GP level officers and incharges. The citizens and stakeholders & the Government personnel would be brought to closeness thru Gel initiative. The people would not approach to block level and/or district level to lodge their grievances. Their complaints and suggestions would be addressed in their GP level. The one-day session would not only enhance the spirit of participation but also reduce the workload of the Administration. The men-women of rural community can easily reach their GP Headquarter and so also the Government line department personnel. To add here, this approach would affix clear responsibilities on each of the stakeholders, including the NGOs and other village groups exist.

What Gel would bring

1. Generate partnership among the stakeholders (Government, community, citizens)

2. Possible exchange of information among the stakeholders

3. New form of participation would evolve

4. Ensuring sustainable development of the deserving families thru right selection and right inclusion

5. Solidarity and cooperation would exist in the rural society of Dholpur

6. Good planning for implementation process might emerge

7. Togetherness would be built

8. Avoid duplication or overlapping of schemes and clients

9. Clarity of roles and responsibilities of actors

10. Ensuring public accountability and community actions

11. Setting up of a policy framework of bottom-top approach in implementation level in GP Level 12. Enabling a Framework of negotiations among the administration and community

13. Ensuring better institutional delivery service system

14. Avoid intermediary agencies or vested groups in between the service delivery

15. Smooth and timely delivery of services might be expected

16. Mutual trust and local ownership would be generated

17. Good governance system might prevail.

18. Evolve community stake in Government schemes

 Conclusion

 The Centre of Gravity of global problems has shifted from a nation-centric approach~ to a more humanitarian· one. The usage of term Stakeholders consultations is largely gaining momentum, popular support and wide acknowledgement among the scholars, academicians, social scientists and development think tanks to underline the participation of various actors in decision-making. Multi-stakeholders consultation is designed to put the people at the center of the decision making, decision-finding and implementation. Stakeholder consultations aim at moving beyond the conceptual to operational level. And GCI is an experiment to address this issue at the Gram-Panchayat level.

There lies a great disjunct between the policy making at the national level and decision making at the grassroots. GCI would highlight the gaps and challenges in the present agreement and GCI would expect to prove to be a useful critique of the moral dialogue of good governance, sustainable development that the concerned stakeholders are involved into.

PRYATN seeks the kind cooperation and friendly collaboration of the District Administration of Dholpur to guide GCI to function properly. Government is, as such, a huge and systematized machinery to initiate innovations and continue programs. We, as partner organization, would coordinate and facilitate the entire process, document the development and the impact focusing t .e micro case studies of the changes taking place and report to Dholpur Administration for necessary follow up.

The person/lei from various line departments like, Health, Education, Women and Child Development, ICDS, elected PRI members, Block level officers would be invited to t,18 GCls to put their words and discuss in the open forum before the community. This GCI approach is just like the Government's current approach on public-privGi:2 partnership model and is still on experiment mode. We are learning from this exercise and if this interaction process succeeds to fulfill the agenda of Government and Community, we will strive to replicate this process in other GPs.

Good Governance requires efficient institutions. The efficiency and effectiveness of institutions, in turn, depends on the delivery mechanism and supportive framework of Government rules and procedures that are adopted. Good Governance aims at achieving the people-centred objectives by bringing together people and the Government. Government -citizen interactions are pleasant and responsive. This genuine GCI approach would bring forward a mutually agreed consultative system so as to reduce the gaps between the stakeholders.

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