Media Release

Mangaluru, Feb 16: The 2nd edition of My City My Budget', the annual participatory budgeting campaign run by the MCC in collaboration with Janaagraha was launched on January, 21 at the Mangaluru Mini Town Hall.

The budget bus covered all the 60 wards spread across 3 zones for 9 days to receive budget inputs. Over 5,007 inputs were received including both offline and online.The detailed report is submitted at the Commissioner’s office for including in the MCC budget for 2023-24.

"Mangaluru City Corporation is preparing a citizen-centric budget for which various initiatives to elicit citizens opinion was taken up. The Corporation aimed at reaching the grassroots levels to gather inputs through citizen participation by organizing the My City My Budget campaign in coalition with Janaagraha. The corporation will now prepare a citizen centric budget for FY 2023-24 taking into the cognizance of the public consultation meetings conducted by the mayor at the zonal levels; report analysis, elected representatives and government officials suggestions. We are pleased that Mangaluru City will become the 2nd city in Karnataka after Bengaluru to consider the citizens inputs and prepare a citizen centric budget," said Channabasappa K,KAS Commissioner, MCC.

Highlights of the My City My Budget Campaign:

• The top 3 priorities are good quality roads, footpath and streetlights.
• 45% of inputs received showed citizen prioritising safe, walkable and well-lit roads and footpaths in Mangalore
• 1 out of every 4 citizens registered the need for cleaner Mangaluru through better garbage collection infrastructure
• Around 1/4th of the wards demanded for well-maintained underground drainage system
• 20% of the city’s wards want focus on improvement in Public Health and hygiene by providing well-maintained public toilets
• 6 out of every 10 wards in Mangaluru prioritised the need for improvement in road infrastructure with focus towards good roads and walkable streets with footpaths
• In Central Zone and Kadri Zone, citizens top priority focused on having well-maintained roads and the Surathkal Zone citizens prioritised to have a robust underground drainage system
• Holistically, Environment & Climate Resilience is the priority for Mangaluru citizens.

“The My City My Budget participatory budgeting campaign has been received very well by the citizens of Mangaluru. This is a significant step towards institutionalization of citizen engagement in the making of city budget and implementation of development works in the city. The next natural step would be aggregative incorporation of full-fledged bottom-up budgeting from ward level to city level by enabling the 60 ward committees to develop their own annual ward development schemes. Janaagraha is proud to have led the campaign for MCC, in association with the Mangaluru Ward Samiti Balaga and hundreds of RWAs, NGOs and active citizens. We thank the MCC and all our citizen collaborators in this endeavor,” said Santosh Nargund, head of Civic Participation, Janaagraha.

“The second edition of MCMB launched in Mangaluru to elicit citizens’ opinion was received well by the Mangaluru citizens. It was overwhelming to see the citizens coming in thousands of numbers to voice their opinion on the developmental works that needs immediate attention at their ward level. With the assistance of Mangaluru Ward Samiti Balaga, the MCC has successfully translated the Participatory Budgeting into reality and in true spirit. Now, the cascading effect of this can be witnessed only when the appropriate allocation happens for the given inputs in the MCC Budget for FY 2023-24," said ManjunathaHampapura L, Karnataka Programme Manager for Civic Participation, Janaagraha.

“It is very heartening to see a more number of citizens want to have their say in the development of Mangaluru city. This is a very positive trend and clear indication that we are moving from a representative democracy to citizens democracy," said Kishore Attavar, convener, Mangaluru Ward Samiti Balaga. 

”After submission of MCMB reports, I have high hopes that the budget allocation by the Corporation will be fair and just based on citizens priorities. If we see reforms, more people will participate from next year and the budget will truly become democratic! It will be a very good model for other cities and countries as well!” said Dr Ashwini, Ward No 34, Shivabagh. 

“Identifying needs of the ward and supporting Corporators in practicing democracy in its true essence is the framework of the Campaign. I am hopeful to see more development in Mangaluru,” said Sudhakar Kamath, Ward No 17, Derebail North.

“Taking citizens opinion into cognizance to include them in the upcoming budget and allocating appropriate funds for the same is a welcoming move. It’s good to see that citizens have responded positively to the campaign, and we expect that the Mangaluru Ward Samiti Balaga and Janaagraha will initiate more citizen centric events in the coming days,” said Ramananda, Ward No 20, Thiruvail. 

“It is pleasing to see that the citizens have come in thousands to give their opinion in the MCMB campaign. The campaign captures the pulse of citizens opinion about the ward level developmental issues. The citizens of Surathkal zone prioritizes the maintenance of underground drainage system, park maintenance, footpath development, we request the Corporation to allocate appropriate funds for the outer zones,” said Naveen Baikampady, Ward 10, Baikampady

One can refer to the detailed report submitted at the Commissioner's office.

About Janaagraha

Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (www.janaagraha.org) is a non-profit trust, working towards the mission of transforming the quality of life in India’s cities and towns. Founded in 2001 by Ramesh Ramanathan and Swati Ramanathan, it started as a movement to include people’s participation in public governance and has now evolved into a robust institution for citizenship and democracy. The core idea of Janaagraha’s work does not revolve around fixing problems but instead seeking to fix the system that can solve the problems. To achieve this objective, Janaagraha works with citizens to catalyse active citizenship in city neighbourhoods and with governments to institute reforms to city governance (what we call “City-Systems”).

Janaagraha believes that improved quality of life is directly linked to improved quality of infrastructure, services, and citizenship. Janaagraha hence works at intersections to fix the city systems across law, policy, institutions with a specific focus on sectors such as Climate Change, Gender Equality & Public Safety, Water and Sanitation, Education, and Public Health using tools and activities like Civic Participation, Municipal Finance, Advocacy and instilling 21st Century skills among youth to empower them to become active citizens. By strengthening urban capacities and resources, Janaagraha aims to achieve its mission of improving City Systems and Quality of life.

About MyCityMyBudget

MyCityMyBudget campaign is a city wide annual participatory budgeting initiative of the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) supported by Janaagraha in collaboration with civil society organizations, Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and the Mangaluru Ward SamitiBalaga. Through the MyCityMyBudget campaign, citizens can suggest their priorities for roads, footpaths, streets, waste management, storm water and underground drains, parks, streetlights, public toilets, etc. in their wards for inclusion in the upcoming MCC Budget

To access the report

https://www.mycitymybudget.in/#/mangaluru/report

https://www.mycitymybudget.in/Mangaluru-MCMB-2023-24.pdf