In 2003, Seva Mandir and the National Foundation for India (NFI) embarked on a new initiative in Delwara, a small town situated some 28km to the north of Udaipur. Seva Mandir has had a long association with Delwara through the activities of Sadhna. Sadhna has enabled many women in Delwara to improve their status both domestically and within their respective communities; their newfound earning-power bringing them greater recognition and leverage in both these domains. However, for the greater part of the population, the quality of life in Delwara, as in many other similar-sized towns across Rajasthan, remained unsatisfactory. Dialogue between the community and Seva Mandir, resulting from the work with Sadhna, led to the idea of undertaking a project to improve the quality of life in Delwara through the cultivation of an active and responsible citizenry. At the same time, NFI was looking to apply its varied and extensive experiences in urban development in a peri-urban settlement and saw the initiation of a collaboration with Seva Mandir and the citizens of Delwara as an ideal opportunity to do this.

Being semi-urban, Delwara has the characteristics – in terms of physical, social, economic, environmental and political dimensions – of both rural and urban settlements. As such, it differs in a number of important aspects from the rural, predominantly tribal settlements where Seva Mandir has been working for the last 40 years. With its 28 different communities, including Muslims, Jains, tribals and the full spectrum of Hindu castes, for the most part living in their own distinct neighborhoods (mohallas), Delwara presents a high level of social complexity that is not found elsewhere in Seva Mandir’s work area. Delwara’s population of around 4,500 people, densely packed together, often in two-story houses is strikingly unlike the dispersed structure of tribal villages. Furthermore, the citizens of Delwara are, for the most part, better educated, have more ambitious aspirations and are engaged in a much wider variety of occupations. Along with the usual farmers and casual labourers, there are traditional artisans, businessmen, shopkeepers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, tailors, vegetable sellers, potters, government representatives, politicians, drivers, doctors, teachers, lawyers and police-men.

Despite its relatively advanced economic status, discussions with Delwara’s citizens held in 2003-04 revealed a host of problems faced by the local community. These included: severe water scarcity; an absence of sanitation facilities for a large section of the population; high levels of unemployment – particularly amongst the young generation whose education level raises their expectations without providing appropriate opportunities; inadequate health facilities – particularly for women; unmanaged pollution, making many parts of the town both a health hazard and unattractive; and an educational system that fails to cater to the learning needs of the more marginal sections of the community. Underlying these problems, is the lack of unity within the village. Citizens are fragmented across religious/caste identities, economic status, education status, gender and age categories, and affiliation to opposing political parties. Lacking adequate common ground and frames of reference for working together, the citizens find themselves simultaneously hosting a dysfunctional local government and being unable to organize themselves to transform their predicament. The fact that the local government is a village panchayat, having access to the same level of resources as a small village further exacerbates the problem.

Against this backdrop, a joint decision involving the citizens of Delwara, Seva Mandir and the NFI, led to the creation of a citizen’s development platform or Nagrik Vikas Manch (NVM). In line with Seva Mandir’s core approach to development work, the idea behind the NVM was to create a space where the citizens of Delwara could come together, deliberate on and take action to address the problems that affect them. This process would be moderated by certain values that are at the core of all of Seva Mandir’s work, including equality, justice, transparency, accountability, participation, inclusiveness, non-partisanship, secularism and collaboration. With the support and guidance of a young, Delwara-based project team and more senior representatives from Seva Mandir’s management and resource programme staff, a group of citizens organized themselves into an executive committee for the NVM. Further inputs from various technical experts, including architects and engineers were also brought in, wherever the local expertise was deemed inadequate. Discussions on local issues with the community led to the identification of a number of key areas for intervention: strengthening community organizations; water and sanitation; health and solid waste management; education and youth; livelihoods; heritage; and communication.

The first major project carried out by the NVM, in 2004-05, was the deepening of Palera Talab (a pond situated on the edge of the village that feeds a major share of the village’s water sources – including handpumps, wells and step-wells) and the cleaning and repair of its feeders. After several years of drought, the citizens, particularly women, found themselves having to travel long distances, queue up at hand-pumps or purchase water from private suppliers simply to secure drinking water, particularly during the driest months. The work on Palera Talab, therefore, held the promise of making a direct impact on the quality of life of a large share of the population. As luck would have it, the deepening and repair work was followed by abundant monsoon rains leaving both the pond and all the water resources it feeds full. Subsequently, the village was brought together to work on the cleaning of a stepwell (tri-mukhi baori), fed by Palera Talab, and serving as a major source of piped drinking water for the village.

Despite the good work carried out by the NVM, the project team harbored some concerns – particularly regarding the limited participation of women and more marginal (e.g. lower caste, tribal and youth) sections of the community in decision-making processes. Accordingly, it was decided to form a second tier of citizen’s organization at the mohalla level and the project staff began conducting regular monthly meetings with these new groups. In order to give a new energy to these groups, and to give momentum to raising awareness on cleanliness, it was decided to organize a ‘cleanest mohalla’ competition, wherein the mohalla members would organize and clean their mohallas themselves. The event was a great success and saw many of the mohallas participating actively.

Despite this, Delwara quickly returned to its previous state. A team of local cleaners (by traditional occupation) and a supervisor were employed by the NVM to clean the village. Waste bins, donated by Devigarh hotel, were placed in key locations throughout according to community demand. Ironically, community complaints regarding cleanliness only seemed to increase. Now that the NVM had taken responsibility for trying to keep the village clean, the citizens, not satisfied with the cleanliness, had a target for their complaints. Collecting financial contribution from households and shops, essential for making the work financially viable, proved to be very difficult. Various models for collection were experimented with. Although some fees were collected, the complaints continued. It was subsequently decided to temporarily put the cleaning work on hold so that the difference made by the cleaning work could be gauged. Within the span of a couple of weeks the village had reached a terrible state. This fact was used in discussions with the communities to emphasise the importance of the work being done by the cleaners.

Before resuming the work, representatives from all mohallas were called to the NVM for a meeting to share views and concerns regarding the future of solid waste management in Delwara. It was then decided to re-launch the cleaning work with an expanded work-force and more rigorous monitoring by the supervisor. With the new system it became possible to get a more accurate picture of how much cleaning was being done – revealing that some citizen complaints were legitimate while others were not. Over time, the cleaning team was expanded. The supervisor has been actively serving as a go-between for the community and the cleaners, helping to resolve conflicts and raise awareness of mutual expectations. Today, though there are still complaints from time-to-time, there is a more widespread recognition and appreciation of the work that is being done. In some neighborhoods, leaders of mohalla committees have taken the initiative of collecting user fees from their mohalla groups and depositing these in their bank accounts. In the coming 6-months it is planned to create a comprehensive waste processing plant where organic waste will be converted into vermi-compost and dry waste will be segregated and sent for recycling.

Besides these interventions, the work in Delwara has included the construction of community water tanks in selected mohallas; installation of individual water tanks in the most water-scarce areas; creating community sanitation systems; running a non-formal education centre for children from the tribal community; organizing youth and giving them the opportunity to participate in a wide range of creative (including writing, photography and drama workshops) and skill-development activities (including sending more than 40 youth for vocational trainings), while preparing them to become responsible citizens and leaders through the formation of a youth panchayat; comprehensive renovation of the Tri-mukhi Baori; restoration of a 13th century Hindu temple (of significant tourism value); organizing a women’s health camp at the local government hospital; running several SHGs; training and linking 60 more women to Sadhna; supporting 7 savings and credit groups. A local newspaper is also being brought out to keep all citizens informed of the ongoing activities and to provide a space for the community to share their views. All these activities are carried out with the full participation of the citizens and often require working alongside the panchayat. The very process of carrying out these activities becomes an empowering and organizing process for the citizens as they learn to sit together, resolve their differences, discuss solutions to their problems and take action to address them.

Indeed, through these activities, the community is confronted with its own development process and the barriers that obstruct it. The primary barriers that present themselves are revealed to be issues of community fragmentation (along lines previously discussed), a lack of awareness, mistrust, disorganization and a pervading sense that ‘it is someone else’s responsibility to solve the problem’. Thus, through the experience of participating in the work of the Nagrik Vikas Manch, citizens from different sections of the community interact with each other in new contexts and learn to overcome their differences in order to bring about change. They also begin to realize that they themselves can be responsible for development if they choose to be so. As the citizens have begun to organize themselves, they have also become more effective at linking with the panchayat – not merely as demanders of services but as responsible citizens seeking to strengthen their local governance system.

Now, at three years of age, the Nagrik Vikas Manch, with a great deal of work under its belt, has completed the first set of elections for its mohalla group committees and is preparing for the election of its new executive committee. Where previously there had been a deep sense of hopelessness, there is a newfound energy for change. The road ahead, of course, will present more and bigger challenges as the citizens attempt to exercise their leadership, break boundaries, and define new norms for collaboration amongst themselves and with the government. However, as much as the project is about creating change in Delwara, it is also about sharing the experiences generated through the project with government bodies, non-government organizations, citizen’s groups and academics. The hope is to be able to stimulate dialogue and demonstrate workable models for improving the quality of life in peri-urban settlements through good governance and responsible citizenship so as to influence both policy and practice across Rajasthan and beyond.

1 Sadhna is a women’s patchwork initiative that Seva Mandir helped nurture from a small income generation activity to a profitable enterprise owned by the women artisans.