The Chennai Corporation began the process of notifying the delimitation of 2,000 area sabhas in the city towards the end of November with the intention of completing it by the beginning of December. However, with the first area sabha meetings set to take place in January, citizens still haven’t received any communication regarding the area they belong to. In fact, there hardly seems to be any awareness amongst citizens regarding area sabhas.
This is why ‘Voice of People’ and ‘Thannatchi’, two civil society groups interested in participatory democracy, jointly produced a 16-page booklet titled People Participatory Platforms in TN Urban Local Governments Area Sabha & Ward Committee: An Introduction, that provides basic information on area sabhas, ward committees and an outline of the State government’s rules on them. “An area sabha is the perfect opportunity for citizens and elected representatives to engage in dialogue and make joint decisions”, says Charu Govindan, coordinator, Voice of People. The two societies have been active in petitioning the government for area sabhas and providing recommendations to the rules.
However, as Ms. Charu points out the rules of area sabha allow the ward ‘s councillor to appoint the sabha representative. “The councillor for ward 179 has already appointed representatives but in my ward, 174, we haven’t even been notified about the area demarcations”, says T.D. Babu, founder, SPARK. “What if the councillor just appoints members of political parties as area representatives and not citizens? This makes no difference to the situation at all”, says JMS Nagarjunan, convenor, Federation of Chennai United Societal Services. Ananthoo, a resident of Alwarpet, says that he has received no communication of area demarcations but is aware of sabhas through the booklet.
“Sabha rules state that a meeting must be held every three months, on a public holiday chaired by the councillor. But how is a councillor supposed to conduct 10 separate meetings on a single day?” says Ms. Charu. According to her, the rules are still diluted but it is still a milestone worth celebrating.
