Citizens to conduct social audits of civic work orders

CITIZENS FOR THE CITY Mumbai: Taking a cue from the rural areas of Rajasthan, where locals monitor the subsidies given to villagers, residents in the western suburbs on Tuesday decided to form social audit local teams (SALTs) to keep a check on various work orders issued by the civic body to maintain quality standards.      This will ensure that citizens get better services once a report is submitted by these teams to the concerned authorities to maintain quality standards. SALTs will be formed in every corporator's constituency.      Bhaskar Prabhu of the Mahiti Adhikar Manch will conduct a workshop on Tuesday for the H (west) citizens' group in Khar (W) to set up a citizens' SALT. Prabhu said that Section 4 of the Right to Information(RTI) Act gives citizens the right to inspect the work orders issued by the municipal body.      "There is a ward working manual, trench repair manual and solid waste management functioning manual, where the schedule of garbage removal for each area and the number of vehicles allotted to the ward are mentioned. If the ward gives this manual to local residents, citizens can brush up on these facts and will be able to function as an informed group. It is mandatory for the ward to give such details to local residents. The local citizens from SALT will be trained to get this information," said Prabhu.      "There are 700-1,000 work orders released every year in the ward. The work orders for maintenance of gardens, pavements, urinals and repairs to municipal buildings are issued every year. This goes unchecked by citizens. Sometimes, this amount is more than the corporator's funds," said Prabhu.      He added that citizens will audit the work orders issued by any public authority.      At present, there are third party audits conducted by consultants appointed by the BMC, which isn't a foolproof method to ensure that work gets completed as per the work orders issued.      "Work orders have full details of how the work is to be done. One can check whether the road excavation is done as per the work order. At least 30% of the civic work can be improved if we form such groups," said Prabhu.     Citing an example, Prabhu spoke about Dr Ambedkar Road in Dadar (east), where citizens carried out physical verification of municipal work and found that 167 tree guards had not been installed but the civic body had paid the contractor.      "The contractor was then penalized. This monitoring will help keep a check on contractors who are doing a shoddy job. This is done in the rural areas of Rajasthan, where locals check the public distribution system and subsidies given to villagers. Ward officials also have an equal and legitimate interest in engaging with civil society and maintaining quality standards in civic work. By forming these teams, we will actually be networking with the authorities and not belittling or chastizing them," said Prabhu.

It rained H1N1, dengue cases, but malaria was worst killer

Mumbai: The disease pattern in the city has been springing a surprise every year and 2012, too, is no different. As the almost four-month monsoon — often associated with a spike in ailments — prepares to retreat, records show H1N1 giving the chills to the city's population showing a more than 50-fold jump in cases over last year and malaria emerging as the most lethal, claiming 30 lives despite a 62% drop in cases from 2011.      But the disease that has even doctors worried is dengue, which emerged at the fag end of the monsoon and seems likely to peril Mumbaikars for longer. Dengue cases continued their march, rising almost four fold since 2010 (see box). The volume of malaria cases and deaths      remained much      higher than dengue,      but the threat from      the second vectorborne disease seems      much greater, given that a higher percentage of patients needed hospitalization and some even ICU care.      Consultant physician and chief intensivist of P D Hinduja Dr Khusrav Bhajan labelled dengue as the most challenging of the surprises sprung by this monsoon. "Dengue patients have been arriving with chills and shivering thatare classic symptoms of malaria. It is also affecting the liver, a rare complication associated with dengue," he said. Though showers have drastically come down, Bhajan has been treating four to five dengue cases every day. "Out of those patients, at least 50% need hospitalization as the platelet count tends to fall drastically," he said.      If H1N1 showed the most wildly swinging statistics with 353 cases and four casualties in the city so far this year as against only six cases and no deaths in 2011, a strange picture of contrasts was thrown up by malaria — incidence dropped by 79% from 2010 and 86 fewer deaths were reported, yet it has been the worst killer in the city so far this year with 30 casualties.      In a story similar to malaria's, the second most lethal disease turned out to be jaundice. It recorded a 40% drop in cases from 2011, but has led to the death of seven persons in the city so far this year.      Virologists say the H1N1 influenza took everyone by surprise and would possibly take the slot of top killer at the state level. "The virus did give us a scare but we have to accept that more positive cases are because of more awareness leading to more people going in for testing," said state epidemiologist Dr Pradeep Awate.