Enabling Citizens Voice From The Ground-Up
By: Antaraa Vasudev
Tags: Democracy, Civictech, Civic Engagement, India, Governance

The census of India defines slums as “residential areas where dwellings are unfit for human habitation by reasons of dilapidation, overcrowding, faulty arrangements and design of such buildings, narrowness or faulty arrangement of streets, lack of ventilation, light, or sanitation facilities or any combination of these factors which are detrimental to safety and health.”

The Mumbai Development Plan 2034 states that 42% of Mumbai’s population lives in such untenable conditions. Mumbai’s informal settlements provide a unique challenge to Governance. Corporators are often the first point of contact for issues arising in these densely populated localities. As each of us strive to better our quality of life, and provide greater economic and social security for our future generations, how can the Corporator be assisted in understanding and fulfilling these aspirations of her/his constituents?

As we work towards enabling greater participatory policy formation, questions arise about how we can encourage equitable participation across socio-economic strata. These are the questions we sought to answer.

Civis with the support of D-Prize, partnered with Mumtaz Rahebar Khan, Municipal Corporator, 102 Constituency, H West Ward, Mumbai. We conducted an on-ground citizen engagement survey, with the aim of understanding citizen’s concerns in 102 Constituency, and sharing these concerns with the Corporator to enable her to serve her constituents more effectively.

Areas for the survey were identified in partnership with the Corporator, and the Corporator facilitated introductions to community members in the identified areas. Community members served as resource persons who assisted in ensuring that the survey was smoothly conducted on-ground.

A blended approach was followed to gather feedback. Quantitative data was the primary source of feedback collected to document existing challenges and awareness levels. Qualitative feedback was gathered where quantitative data was not adequate, in addition qualitative data was gathered to understand individual’s opinions and substantiate the findings of this report.

Team Members go Door-to-Door Speaking to Residents

To collect citizen’s inputs, Civis conducted door-to-door surveys in the identified areas. The survey comprised of one primary question to understand the individual’s core areas of concern, this was followed up by awareness questions if the selected areas had a behavior change component associated with it. The surveys were conducted at a time identified as being convenient for the community. This varied from 9 am to 11 am in areas where the informal settlements had limited light to 5pm to 7pm in areas with a large working population.

In-person conversations were initiated by team members using a pictorial representation of the survey questions, responses were recorded using Civis’ online feedback collection tool. The pictures in the survey and captions that went along with it ensured that the survey was accessible to those with limited literacy as well.

Responses included an area, and the gender of the respondent as well as an estimated age, however, no personal data which could be used to identify the respondent was collected, to maintain anonymity and encourage honest responses. Respondents were given 2 to 3 minutes to look through the question and formulate their responses, an additional 30 seconds was given for awareness questions.

Team members received training before hand on the survey and the feedback gathering tool as well as a background understanding of the areas we were going to survey, cultural norms and rules for personal conduct on the field.

Team Members Receive Training

All individuals willing to speak to our team were given an equal opportunity to participate in the survey, irrespective of gender, religion, or house ownership status (renters or owners). 1,744 respondents shared their inputs with Civis. Typically, one respondent per household responded to the survey.

Community resource persons were tasked with giving us a broad overview of the area and placing team members strategically to cover ground. Resource people were not often present after such placement was achieved, thus were unable to influence the results or process. In certain cases, there was an attempt to influence the responses of female respondents by male family members, however, this was clearly flagged in the qualitative inputs made by Volunteers.

This methodology can be used widely by other non-profit organisations, individuals or government agencies looking to gather feedback in low literacy areas. While Civic Innovation Foundation relied on a technological platform for data entry, this can be easily replaced by a physical paper based feedback recording tool.

Tools Used to Gather Feedback

Using this methodology, we have created a freely available toolkit to gather citizen’s feedback and assess awareness on common issues. This toolkit supported by DPrize is available in Hindi and English. The tool kit has documentation on how to use the tools provided as well as best practices.

Find (and use!) the tool kit here: https://tinyurl.com/resources-civis

Through the feedback exercise, many challenges unique to each area, gender and demographic arose.

Among genders, the debris left in the localities was a pressing issue for men, while availability of water was a greater priority for women. Frequently, respondents shared the need for better and more conveniently located healthcare facilities; while a few shared their concerns over schools for their children.

Each area had its own dynamics ranging from a highly autonomous area which found indigenous solutions to most of their problems and managed their community in a self reliant manner, to a closely knit community where the drive to find solutions for common problems was high.

Feedback was analyzed and presented to the Corporator using simple charts. Along with the quantitative data, qualitative findings from the surveys were also shared. Recommendations for each area have been highlighted as well.

Civis’ long standing belief, that Elected Representatives and Government are keen to gather citizen’s feedback and engage with them, was upheld without a doubt. The Corporator was thrilled to receive feedback from her Constituents, she asked many questions on how she could serve better and chalked out a path for implementation of the solutions received.

The Corporator Receives The Report

Through this experiment, we’ve learnt many valuable lessons from on-ground citizens engagement, if you enjoyed reading this overview of the exercise, here are a few ways in which we can continue to this conversation: