The Centre for Public Policy, IIM-B, has informed all legislators that it is ready to conduct their constituency surveys to ascertain quality of services, needs of people and bottlenecks in providing better administration.
 Besides, IIM-B analyses the survey findings and gives suggestions to the elected representatives to perform better.
“We have offered to conduct constituency surveys for those (MLAs) interested in it. The survey will be done by students and faculty members of the Centre for Public Policy, IIM-B,” Prof Ramesh of IIM-B said.

Jayanagar survey

IIM-B has already done a survey “Constituency Management - Overview” in the Jayanagar assembly constituency, the report of which was presented to legislators at a three-day orientation programme organised at the Institute premises which concluded on Monday.
According to the survey, the quality of basic services like garbage collection, road, street lighting, footpath and power supply being provided to people in Jayanagar assembly constituency, is only average. Nearly 50 per cent of the 294 people who were asked to rate the quality of these services, have said the facilities are average.
On garbage clearance, 119 people have rated it as medium and 59 and 30 people have said that garbage collection is poor and very poor respectively in Jayanagar.
On the quality of road, 82 people have said good and only four have found the service very good. As many as 156 have said road quality is medium, 35 have said poor and 16 very poor in Jayanagar.
Garbage collection, as per the survey, is top priority for people. As many as 79 people of 294 people have said it is their number one priority. This is followed by hospital service with 71 people and traffic management with 71.

Last mile problems

The survey has also identified “wicked” last mile problems hindering service delivery. Prominent among them are: Water logging on roads despite availability of good storm water drains, potholes re-appearing on roads quite often, underutilisation of financial resources and lack of time sense in project management or delivery.
After analysing the last mile problems, the report has listed out lessons one need to learn. They are: Need to learn about resources management, learn about management and maintenance of infrastructure and the public system fails consistently in effective delivery.

As a result, the survey says, role of elected representatives is critical in ensuring effective delivery. It has given a list of suggestions to the MLA.

They include taking constituency walk, identifying problems and set deadline for actions.
More importantly, IIM-B has advised all MLAs to come out with annual performance and next year plan reports in their constituencies. Conduct a public meeting in the townhall and place a performance report.
“This study is not just about identifying problems, but taking long-term preventive steps. Hence we have given a list of suggestions also,” the professor pointed out.