Praja

How we started… 
PRAJA is a non-partisan, voluntary organisation which was started in Bombay in 1997 by a group of 8 individuals committed to the re-establishment of accountability and transparency in public governance through people’s participation.

Our Motivation…
The efficient functioning of public services has a direct and important bearing on the daily lives of its citizens. However, lack of transparency, non-performance and corruption result in high levels of frustration in most interactions for citizens. The situation is difficult to remedy as there are no standards against which performance of public services can be measured and no structured forum within which performance is discussed or feedback provided.

Being residents of Mumbai, we had all interacted with the public service providers at some level or the other. Like most citizens, there was a high degree of frustration arising from these experiences and we began dismissing these public service agencies as "hopelessly inefficient" and "never going to improve". But we felt that this attitude led to apathy and complete indifference to functioning of these agencies resulting in complete lack of people’s participation in areas directly influencing their lives. Reviewing their responsibility as citizens in stemming the deterioration in public services, Praja was established as a body to create pressure and influencing the City Government into establishing a pro-citizen work ethic.

Our objectives… 
To increase Public Accountability - Public accountability holds individuals who provide public services responsible for performance that can be measured objectively. Though there is a system of accountability built into the hierarchy of the municipality, it does not extend to users of their services who often find themselves completely invisible in the large administrative process and therefore easily ignored.

To generate an effective feedback mechanism - In a system of mutual accountability there is constant need for service-providers to be open to feedback from people using their services. For a system of feedback to be effective, it is essential to eliminate lengthy administrative procedures and create a forum where there is a direct consumer-service provider communication and enhance collaboration.

To disseminate Information on public services- Information shared would provide both the service users and the service-providers a common point from which to work. It would also encourage transparency in the functioning of the governing and administrative bodies.