Executive Summary
As per the 74th amendment of the West Bengal Municipal Act the ULBs are envisaged as the third tire of governance with Centre and Sate being the preceding ones. More over the rapidly changing national scenario in terms of globalisation and decentralisation the role of the ULBs has taken a centre stage. The rapid urbanization has also put a lot of pressure on the municipal authorities to keep up to the standard of services delivered.
Keeping pace with this, it was perceived to be of utmost importance that these ULBs prepare a development plan.In line with this the ULBs have engaged themselves in the preparation of a Draft Development plan. Based on this the ULBs would deliver its services to its residents in the next five years. For each of the year an Annual development Plan would be drafted to carry out the comprehensive development work throughout the municipal area.
Vision
To prepare a comprehensive plan for the period 2007-2012 (First Generation), it was essential to have a futuristic vision for the municipality towards which the planning may be framed. The vision was defined what the leadership desires to see their city achieve over the next 5-10 year period.
Vision is to achieve pro-poor, transparent and effective urban development and good governance along with improving on the basic infrastructural services provided to all, living conditions, healthy environment, educational standards, with special employment generation programmes for the poor, marginalised and economically vulnerable groups people.
Preparation Process
The process of preparation of this plan has been essentially a participatory one. To ensure participation at all the stages, different stakeholders were brought together to gather in-depth views and opinion on various aspects of municipal service delivery mechanism.
Process overview: steps and events
Preparation of the DDP involved various stages. All the stages had involvement of different group of stakeholders to enrich the planning process. Following are the different tasks taken up for launching DDP.
1. Central workshop at the Municipal Level
DDP was launched to introduce the development planning process and the DDP in the Municipality. The key objective of this Step was to create awareness of the DDP among the key stakeholders (including councillors, ULB staff, ward committees, CDS and local citizens) in the Municipality.
2. Orientation and sensitisation workshop
Subsequent to the Launch Workshop, Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality had organized Orientation and Sensitisation Workshops at a ward level, to rollout the process of participation at the ward level. CIC members along with a team of officials (including the members of the technical groups) led the process.
To make the public aware of these workshops, an Awareness Campaign in the municipal area was undertaken through distribution of pamphlets, leaflets etc. in the wards.
3. Formulation of DDP Policy Groups and Technical Groups
The Chairperson of Rajpur Sonarpur Municipality heads DPG. The Committee oversees the DDP preparation process and provide guidance to the DDP Technical Groups. Where as the Day-to-day responsibilities for preparing the DDP is on the DTGs. There are three DTGs for each of the three areas of planning, Municipal Infrastructure, Land use and Environment – the Component 1; Social and Livelihoods Development – the Component 2 and Municipal Institutional Strengthening – the Component 3.
4. Planning Workshop
This workshop was held on 23.08.2005 to estimate the timeline and overall resource availability for the DDP Planning Period including the technical expertise under the disposal of the municipality.
The areas covered under this workshop were:
- Sub-components of each of the 3 components to be taken up for planning as well as the areas to be covered in each of the sub-components.
- Roles and responsibilities of each of the 3 DTGs
- Roles and responsibilities of each member of the DTGs and DPG
- External support required for preparing proposals for each sub-component
- Overall time frame for DDP preparation and time frame for each stage of DDP preparation
- Dates of key workshops, including “Municipal Visioning & Problem Identification Workshops”, future “Sensitisation Workshops” and meetings with Ward Committees.
- Estimate budget for preparation of DDPs – approval for this budget should taken from the Board of Councillors
5. Formulation of Vision and Development Objectives
A workshop was held on 15.11.2005 to arrive at a Municipal level “Vision” and to finalize the development objectives of the individual sub-components under DDP.
Development objectives are set realistically to align with the overall municipal vision and are addressed in the subcomponent plans.
6. Problem Identification Workshop
A workshop was conducted on 18.12.2005 with the local residents, eminent persons, representatives from CMU, different officials, technical and policy group representatives and so on to identify the major issues/problems that are required to be addressed within the next five year as being perceived by the local residents. This workshop was held to gather the point of views of the locals, which have helped immensely while designing the different surveys, and also to carry out the remaining processes even more successfully.
7. Surveys & Studies
The data, records available with the municipality were at first studied in detail. Subsequently a few surveys were also conducted to meet up the information gap. Moreover, the technical group has exchanged its views with that of other related Govt, agencies to prepare the plans of respective sub components.
The major emphasis on this planning process was to involve the people for whom the plans are prepared, to ensure participations at the grass root level. Since 1980s there has been initiatives to involve people through formation of Nagarik Committee comprised of locals of the specific area.
The following surveys were conducted:
- Infrastructure Survey: This survey was conducted to analyse the prevailing status of the municipal infrastructure namely, road, drains, water Supply, Electricity, educational and health related institutions and so on.
- Land Use Survey: This would give us an overview of the current land use practice prevailing in this area. The detailed formats are attached in the Annexure. This survey detail will be useful to plan on the availability of land for different infrastructural usage.
- Baseline Survey: Municipality has engaged an external agency to draw the baseline survey. This is a tough work for a municipality with area 49.25 sq. Km. yet the work is under progress.
- Citizens Satisfaction Survey: This was a citizen satisfaction survey carried out on a sample basis in each ward. It aims at deriving the quality of current standards of services imparted through the different departments of the municipality as perceived by the citizens themselves. A sample of around 150-200 households’ per ward was selected in ‘right hand rule’ method to conduct the survey, which will cover all stratum of the population residing within the municipal jurisdiction.
8. The secondary data and reports referred
- Vision 2025
- Census Reports till 2001
- Different master Plans Prepared by KMDA on issues like traffic and transportation, Drainage, Sewerage & Sanitation, Water Supply and so on.
- Integrated Development Plan of Sonarpur and Baruipur.
- Past survey details conducted by Municipality
- GIS conducted at an earlier stage
- Land use maps prepared by KMDA on Old Rajpur Municipality and on panchayat areas later included within the municipality
- UDPFI Guidelines
- Integrated Development Plan for Baruipur-Sonarpur by KMDA
- All Guidelines as being supplied by the CMU
9. Stake Holders Meeting
Apart form the surveys and studies conducted, a no. of stakeholders’ meetings were conducted to have participatory views from the groups itself. Meetings were held with RCVs, representatives from banks and financial institutions, doctors, medical practitioners and other related stakeholders, representatives of formal and informal sectors both manufacturing and services, school authorities, ward education committees and other related stakeholders, promoters and developers, business organisations and shop keepers associations, different transport unions including auto, van, rickshaw, bus and so on. Other than these a number of Govt. meetings with Govt. level stakeholders have also been conducted with representatives from WBSEB, Irrigation department, PWD, PWD Roads, KMWSA and so on.
10. Ward Wise Problem Identification Work Shop
Ward committees of all the thirty-three ward committees were consulted on the different issues which are identified through surveys and other stakeholder consultations exercises. For this purpose meetings with each of the ward committees were held as per through out the month of July. The ward committees filled in the formats provided for capturing the issues at separate booth level meetings and then compiled the same into ward level.
The problems that were identified through guided participatory discussions with all the thirty-three ward committees. The ward committees were asked to fill up a format having provision for issue prioritisation, problem identification and relevant suggestive measures as perceived by its members.
Based on the findings and technical analysis, suggestions put forward by the Focus group and ward level discussions, a number of plans have been prepared to be executed during the DDP tenure. Once the plans were conceived an exercise was carried out to analyse whether the projects drafted meets up with the sector wise objectives and vision set by the municipality beforehand.
11. Preparation of Financial Plan and Budgetary Allocation
The Financial Plan (FP) of Rajpur-Sonarpur Municipality (RSM) have been prepared in Version I and II keeping in view the objectives set under DDP for improvement of financial position of RSM.
The FP Version I contains the projections for five years from 2007-08 to 2011-12 incorporating proposals for revenue income enhancement, revenue expenditure management and asset management initiatives. The detailed assumptions and basis for projections made in FP Version I have been built up on the basis of past trend analysis and proposals for finance improvement.
Major projections in Rs. Lakhs year wise are as under in the FP:
| Table 1.1 | ||||||
|
Head |
Base |
2007-08 |
2008-09 |
2009-10 |
2010-11 |
2011-12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Tax Revenues |
190.74 |
258.50 |
380.82 |
424.58 |
574.23 |
630.79 |
|
Fees and User Charges |
580.13 |
844.32 |
1,057.28 |
1,222.28 |
1,369.94 |
1,482.64 |
|
Revenue Grants, Contributions and Subsidies |
363.84 |
440.25 |
484.27 |
532.70 |
585.97 |
644.56 |
|
Establishment Expenses |
214.92 |
264.49 |
289.84 |
305.72 |
325.27 |
340.81 |
|
O & M Expenses |
445.40 |
831.93 |
1,015.35 |
1,236.47 |
1,474.21 |
1,956.43 |
The FP Version II has been prepared for five years from 2007-08 to 2011-12 incorporating the project proposals formulated and prioritized sub-component wise under Component 1, 2 and 3 of DDP. The individual project cost in terms of capital expenditures and any related revenue incomes and expenditures have been phased into the plan period of five years as per priority and fund availability.
The overview of the DDP Proposals component wise is shown below:
(This table is to be given in a more representable format)
| Component |
Capital Expenditure |
Revenue Expenditure |
Revenue Receipts |
Capital Receipts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Component 1: Infrastructure, Land Use and Environment Development
|
||||
|
Projects with Tied Funds |
6718.50 |
156.30 |
245.10 |
6629.70 |
|
Projects without Tied Funds |
3584.40 |
1228.37 |
121.08 |
4691.69 |
|
Sub Total |
10302.90 |
1384.67 |
366.18 |
11321.39 |
|
Component 2: Social and Livelihood Development
|
||||
|
Projects with Tied Funds |
276.50 |
167.90 |
229.25 |
215.15 |
|
Projects without Tied Funds |
891.95 |
649.14 |
222.42 |
1318.67 |
|
Sub Total |
1168.45 |
817.04 |
451.67 |
1533.82 |
|
Component 3: Municipal Institutional Strengthening
|
||||
|
Projects with Tied Funds |
87.00 |
276.05 |
0.00 |
363.05 |
|
Projects without Tied Funds |
0.00 |
181.85 |
2.50 |
179.35 |
|
Sub Total |
87.00 |
457.90 |
2.50 |
542.40 |
|
Grand Total |
11558.35 |
2659.61 |
820.35 |
13397.61 |
|
Projects with Tied Funds |
7082.00 |
600.25 |
474.35 |
7207.90 |
|
Projects without Tied Funds |
4476.35 |
2059.36 |
346.00 |
6189.71 |
The projects formulated under the different subcomponent level plans are then prioritised to match the fund availability. The projects funded through tied funding are first allocated the fund for and then the remaining projects are re-prioritised across the subcomponents for untied fund allocation. Source of funds will be finalised during the preparation of annual plan.
Once the plans were formulated and a draft budgetary allocation was made the draft plan was sent for public validation. 10,000 copies of the executive summary booklet of DDP were circulated across different wards to gather the feedback on the plans prepared. Subsequently ward level meetings were held to gather the feedback of public on the plans prepared for the next five years. A feedback form was circulated to the citizens and almost 500 feedbacks were received from across the wards. These were then sorted initially and a total of 150 feedbacks were put forward to the DPG. Few of them were incorporated in the revised plan document. Thus the participation at the final level was also ensured.
The ULB is going to develop Second Generation DDP for the next five years starting from 2012-13 to 2016-17.