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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 theres no usage, its 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.gadagbetagericity.gov.in/), Davanageri (http://www.davanagerecity.gov.in/), Haveri (http://havericity.gov.in/), Hubballi-Dharwad (http://www.hdmc.gov.in/), Bijapur

(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 wardwise 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 dont 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 the ULBs 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 the functioning of the website and the services available online to public. Vision and Mission of CMC Haveri would be of good topic for this page.

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 be available on this page (may be in pdf form). Its very important to publish the date of next meeting / Sitting in this page. The date of update of this page must be provided. 2.4 City Staff 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. 2.5 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 city statistics format common across all cities. Data on Streets not having lights should also be there. The date of update of this page must be provided. 2.6 Works Information Present Status Some information is available

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, target completion 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 system automatically 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

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. Its 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? To make 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 The RWH, SWM & Water Supply pages are still Under Construction.

Present Status

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 implementing the SWM, role of citizens in SWM, how doortodoor waste collection works, etc would be very important information for the residents of the city. The information on

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 The page is still Under Construction. Asthi The page is still Under Construction. 100 Crore Project / SJSRC Pages Link leads to MRC asking for user login credentials.

Present Status

2.12

Present Status

2.13

Present Status

Desirable 100 Crore grant Project should appear only if the ULB is covered under the 100 Crore Project scheme. Its 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.