Abide - Participation, PR and Networking! (edited)

Oh yeah. Murali Sir and I were there. 10 am - 4 pm, a good 6 hours. Met so many people, and heard and saw so much, that I need some time to organize and share the details. Enjoy some pictures till then, will update this post with notes pretty soon.

Now, time for some notes and tidbits from the field. Let me start with the negative highpoint of the visit, only because we witnessed this right after we reached. We saw a lady bringing in some 20 odd poor looking citizens (we guessed laborers) to the main hall. The hall was anyway packed with the babus and press, so soon after the lady left, a cop tried to force these laborers out of the hall. In response, one of them told the cop, "she just gave us money to sit here, why do you want to us to leave" !!

So we started with this interesting experience. But things got better as we progressed. To start things off, there were three presentations, first one from Yeddy, with usual stuff. Next, we had a presentation from Mr Ravidra on Kasturirangan committe's recomendations. I was watching around carefully to see how many people were actually taking the report "in". I Relatively speaking, I don't think it got that serious an attention when compared to the 2 presentations that followed it.

Next, we had Mr Sachdev from RITES present the CTTP. Few of us here on Praja know that report word by word by now, so those same maps, roads, Metros, Monos, CRS, BRTS figures etc seemed pretty routine to me - nothing new. RITES ended the slides with a figure of Rs 46000 Crores - investment needed to improve Bangalore's transportation scene, with most of it suggested towards public transport. Then came Mr Ramesh Ramanathan, and he pitched CityConnect as the cure for city government's participation woes. He cited some good examples, and certainly made the right noises about connecting with and helping the government

After the presentations, and a break for coffee, 500 odd folks were asked to split into three groups, rather workshops, one each on Infrastructure (roads, power), Governance (focus Kasturirangan's MPC) and Social services (BSUP stuff - urban poor, health, water, sanitation). As you would expect, most of the crowd headed into the infrastructure hall. All too familiar with government's plans on roads and power, I headed instead towards the "governance" session. The room was half empty, and I could easily find myself a seat.

The Q&As and suggestions were interesting. The group started with discussion around raising more revenues for Bangalore. Points like stamp duty, raising guidance value, sakrama, parking as source of revenue were touched upon. TDR (transferable development rights), group housing, housing for middle class and poor - some folks brought these up as well. But sadly enough, there weren't any deep dives into Kasturirangan report. Only good one that came up was about the concept of directly elected Mayor - what if the Mayor is from Congress, state govt is BJP, and local MPs and MLAs JD-s. Would things be smooth then, or are we creating one more cook in the show here?

I had a question myself which I asked towards the end. I asked Mr Ravindra and Dr Kasturirangan if they had published their backing research on why is it that local government bodies don't collaborate well? Are we creating a new set of umbrella bodies merely because the current system doesn't work? How did we conclude that the current system can't be made to work? Is local governance failing because the system isn't designed well, or is it just that the roles aren't being discharged well?

Dr Kasturirangan said - yes, we looked into all that, but those notes are all in the scribble pads and sketches, and would become too long. So they didn't (or couldn't) include all this in the report itself. I said I do know you would have researched all this, just that I expected to see some of it as supporting material, or as an appendix to the report. At this time, a moderator took over and gave me an email address if I wanted further details.

I will just say this, Kasturirangan Committee's recomndations make sense. But that report doesn't make easy reading for most. And just because of that, I think that it may not have gotten the amount of public debate and exposure that it deserves.

After the workshop, we headed for lunch. Lunch onwards, it was networking time. All big name builders (Brigade, Prestige, Adarsh etc), good name architects, and some corporate bigwigs were there, so were a good number of retired and present bureaucrats. A few ministers were easily reachable as well, you could so easily get to talk to them.

We went around and chatted a lot, here is a summary about some of them:

Mr Suresh Hebblikar, Ecowatch - I love him, because he is one big name who talked sense on one subject - best solution for managing Bangalore's growth is to develop tier II and tier III centers. Spread it around, prevent people from coming to Bangalore. He in fact raised this same point in the Governance workshop as well, but was promptly put down by the chair with chants of "yes, yes, we are doing all that". Anyway, I met him up later, and with high hopes that he wont laugh at me, told him that we should start a campign to shift Karnataka's capital out of Bangalore to a centrally located smaller city. He was all ears, and I heard a long but interesting lecture on similar thoughts from him. He said he had expressed similar thoughts about 9-10 years ago, but it didn't go far. Well, we must try it again I said, and he said he will certainly give this some thought.

Mr Subramanya, BBMP - Reminded him about one Capt Naveen Chandra. Told him that Naveen is away, but we are here to take the BRTS talk forward. He said yes, we should keep that alive, and he wants to talk more. His issue with Naveen's material is, he can't do narrow magic boxes just for the buses as this may not go down well with public at large - why make movement easier just for the buses? Oh gosh, I told myself. Their wasn't enough time to discuss the subject of symbolic and preferential treatment to pubic transport, but even then it all ended abruptly when a politician looking chap literally grabbed and pulled him into another conversation with a different group. That perhaps is the life of bureaucrats, quipped Mr Hebblikar and Mr Rao to me :)

Krishna Byre Gowda - I hope I got the name right. A very young chap, this Congress MLA seemed so different from what you think the average netas to be. Anyone who was not from the BJP seemed easier to get to, Mr Rao even quipped this to Mr Krishna Gowda.

We met more people than whats listed above, many of them thanks to Mr Rao. But I have kept myself to jotting down things that stuck. And now, before I close, here is one interesting moment that came when I introduced myself in that governance session. Just as I mentioned the word Praja, about 7-8 people turned their heads with the curiosity that told me that they know or read us. Two of them were big names, and 2 were journalists. One journalist happened to be from Indian Express, who said he liked Praja. I didn't get to speak properly with the other journalist, I am guessing he must be from Hindu.

Long post, and apologies for being so incoherent. But here is my takeaway from the Abide day at IISc.

• "-" It was more of a PR event for the government, and networking opportunity for many. At least the session I attended, the discussions didn't go super deep into finer aspects. Participation is a much bigger beast. I am sure most of us on Praja will agree that planning and idea generation isn't ever a problem. Execution is what we want to know more about, and hope Mr Rao too will concur with me on this - the event offered no glimpses or hints around improvement on execution front.
• "+" But, I would concede this. It felt good that you could reach out to any babu or minister and start a conversation with them. All babus and ministers seemed to be in nice "listen" mode. All of it made me leave with a certain positive feel, and I get this feeling (and certainly hope) that this event may lead to creation of proper channels and mechanisms for citizen involvement and participation. Lets wait and see.