Engaging public has a history

The practice of people participating in civic concerns in correspondence with the civic authority took shape in Mumbai nearly twenty years ago. 

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As soon as the concept of Advanced Locality Management (ALM) gained popularity, in only eight years, 700 ALMs were formed within the city. In 2004, the then municipal commissioner Johny Joseph introduced the concept of Local Area Citizen Committee (LACC). LACC is a bigger version of ALM where citizens across four to five roads meet junior officers of every department and inform them about local issues and problems. The practice was revised and renamed to Local Area Citizens Group (LACG) in 2006, wherein residents chose their representatives to form the committee.

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LACGs did not materialise as activists opposed it. Therefore, by 2016, there were three kinds of public participatory civic groups, but then the movement slowed down. The BMC, in 2011, restricted the work of ALMs to solid waste management alone. Newly appointed municipal commissioner Praveen Pardeshi now brings back the concept of ALM in 2019 after the groups were ordered to be de-registered in 2017.

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PROS

• Good concept, where common citizens can directly communicate with the bureaucracy
• Locals can give engineers area-specific details

CONS

• Citizens expect BMC officials to be more passionate. They say officials lack in positive approach to issues
• Officials say many members are obstinate and inflexible

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