Working Paper: 546

Ward Committees as “Invited Space”: Is It Successful?
A Literature Review of Urban India

Riya Bhattacharya

 

Abstract

Governance of urban India has been following the decentralised governance policies. One of the major objectives of the decentralised system is to enable the common man to take part in the decision-making process, and to induce equity, transparency, and accountability. A forum for participation is facilitated under the policy, which represents the “invited space”. Under the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, a ward committee is considered an interactive institutionalised space to invite the common people to participate in urban governance in India. The success of its provision and implementation has worth being a concern and little known from different aspects. This paper tries to summarise the previous studies and tries to bring out the major issues related to the functioning of ward committees and problematise the findings.

 

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