Emergent narratives in the domain of public accountability increasingly point to the role of user feedback in demanding and catalyzing responsiveness and accountability from providers of public utilities. Faced with very few exit options, users of public utilities are finding creative use of voice mechanisms to effectively highlight critical issues and bring in reforms. One such tool is the Citizen Report Card pioneered by Public Affairs Centre – an independent not for profit institution in Bangalore India. Anchoring around the twin concepts of measurement and comparison, Citizen Report Cards provides citizens and agencies with qualitative and quantitative information about gaps in service delivery.
This paper discusses how Citizen Report Cards triggered reforms in public utilities in the city of Bangalore, especially in enhancing accountability and responsiveness. In Bangalore, three report cards were prepared through a civil society initiative in 1994, 1999 and 2003. The first report card gave very low ratings to all the major service providers of the city, creating a sense of shame in the process. But it did not make an immediate impact as only a few of the providers acknowledged their problems and took corrective action. The second report card showed that partial improvement had occurred in some services, probably due to the actions taken by their providers and the pressure from civil society.
The third report card that followed after four years revealed substantial improvement in almost all the service providers. There was not only a significant increase in citizen satisfaction with the services, but also a visible decline in corruption. The big question is: what caused this surprising turnaround?
The drivers of change were several. Some worked on the demand side of services. Others influenced the service providers from the supply side. In terms of sequence, the trigger for public action seems to have been the report cards and the public glare and media publicity they created. This led to important interventions from the supply side. A strategic decision came from the state government that set up a new public-private partnership forum to catalyze and assist the service providers to upgrade their services and responsiveness. The political support and commitment of the Chief Minister of the state of Karnataka (a province in Southern India, with Bangalore as the Capital) the innovative practices brought in by the partnership forum, the proactive role of external catalysts such as civil society groups and donors, and the learning that came from the experiments initiated by the different players all jointly contributed to the better performance of the city’s service providers.
There are many lessons to be learned from this experience. Improved performance does take time. It took several years for a turnaround to occur in Bangalore’s services. But it does highlight the continuing pressure that community-initiated voice mechanisms like citizen report cards can exert on service delivery agencies. It is clear that a relatively open and democratic society is a pre-requisite for the use of this monitoring and accountability tool. Advocacy and public glare through civil society and media pressure can stimulate positive responses from the government. Above all, the political commitment and support that eventually emerged in Bangalore is an essential enabling factor to promote and sustain reform.
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Last updated January 30, 2013.
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Last updated: April 26, 2024
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| COOKIE NAME | PROVIDER | CATEGORY | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|---|
| wp_lang | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | necessary | |
| wordpress_test_cookie | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | necessary | Cookie set by WordPress to check if the cookies are enabled on the browser to provide appropriate user experience to the users |
| _gat | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager |
| lidc | linkedin.com | advertisement | Used by the social networking service, LinkedIn, for tracking the use of embedded services. |
| __hssrc | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | Used to determine if a session is a new session |
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| _ga | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | ID used to identify users |
| bcookie | linkedin.com | advertisement | Used by LinkedIn to track the use of embedded services. |
| _ga_W3R156NSLL | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | Used to persist session state |
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| __hs_do_not_track | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | necessary | Prevents the tracking code from sending any information to HubSpot |
| __cf_bm | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | necessary | Cloud flare's bot products identify and mitigate automated traffic to protect your site from bad bots. Cloudflare places the __cf_bm cookie on End User devices that access Customer sites that are protected by Bot Management or Bot Fight Mode. The __cf_bm cookie is necessary for the proper functioning of these bot solutions. |
| _gid | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity |
| hubspotutk | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | Contains visitor's identity |
| __hstc | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | Analytics tracking cookie |
| __cf_bm | vimeo.com | necessary | Cloud flare's bot products identify and mitigate automated traffic to protect your site from bad bots. Cloudflare places the __cf_bm cookie on End User devices that access Customer sites that are protected by Bot Management or Bot Fight Mode. The __cf_bm cookie is necessary for the proper functioning of these bot solutions. |
| _gcl_au | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | advertisement | Used by Google AdSense for experimenting with advertisement efficiency across websites using their services. |
| bscookie | linkedin.com | advertisement | Used by LinkedIn to track the use of embedded services. |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | youtube.com | advertisement | Tries to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. |
| AnalyticsSyncHistory | linkedin.com | functionality | Used to store information about the time a sync with the lms_analytics cookie took place for users in the Designated Countries |
| __hssc | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | analytics | Analytics session cookie |
| vuid | vimeo.com | analytics | This first party cookie created by Vimeo is used to assign a Vimeo Analytics unique id. |
| __hs_cookie_cat_pref | grassrootsjusticenetwork.org | necessary | The HubSpot Cookie Banner's consent preferences cookie. |
| ar_debug | google-analytics.com | ||
| VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA | youtube.com | ||
| NID | google.com | necessary | This cookies is used to collect website statistics and track conversion rates and Google ad personalisation |
| cf_clearance | vimeo.com | ||
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| _cfuvid | vimeo.com | necessary | This cookie is used to apply rate limits to traffic. It allows the Cloudflare WAF to distinguish individual users who share the same IP address. |
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This Policy will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, without regard to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree that any action at law or in equity that arises out of or relates to any use of the Site may be filed:
The section titles in this Policy are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect. The Site, the Forum, and any third-party services they use, may be subject to additional terms and conditions regarding privacy and use of information. Your use of the Site and the Forum is subject to those terms and conditions, which are incorporated into this Policy by reference. In the event of an inconsistency between this Policy and any additional posted conditions, the provisions of the additional conditions shall control.
We may need to change the Policy from time to time in order to address new issues and to reflect changes on the Site or in the law. We reserve the right to revise or make any changes to the Policy, and your continued use of the Site subsequent to any changes to this Policy will mean that you agree to and accept such changes. You can tell if the Policy has been updated by checking the last revised date posted on the top of this page. Historic versions can be obtained by contacting us at privacy@namati.org
You can access, remove, update or correct your information in your Site profile (https://grassrootsjusticenetwork.org/connect/member/YOUR USERNAME HERE/?edit=1) and your Forum profile (https://connect.grassrootsjustice.network/u/YOUR USERNAME HERE/preferences/account).
You can also access, remove, update or correct your information, and raise any questions or concerns regarding the Site or the Policy, by emailing privacy@namati.org, or mailing:
Namati Data Protection Officer 1616 P Street NW, Suite 101 Washington, DC 20036, USA
It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.
You have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it has an impact on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
If you live in an EEA Member State, all of which have adopted the EU GDPR and national , you have a right to lodge a complaint with your relevant supervisory authority about this policy and its application. The European Commission has a list of EU national data protection authorities here:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/structure/dataprotectionauthorities/index_en.htm
If you live in the United Kingdom, you have a right to lodge a complaint with your relevant supervisory authority, the ICO, about this policy and its application:
https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/