Organization: Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS)

Project: Report cards for elected representatives

Country: India

Government Level: National and state level 

Overview: Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS) is a Indian civil society organization that promotes transparency and accountability in government, as well as citizen engagement with government processes. It leverages citizens’ Right to Information (RTI) to fight corruption and advocate for proper use of public funds and effective policy development. In order to inform voters and ensure accountability of elected representatives - members of parliament, state legislatures and municipalities - SNS develops and disseminates report cards on the performance of individual elected representatives.

Background: SNS was founded in New Delhi by longtime RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj to help citizens use the Right To Information Act to ensure delivery of basic rights and services. The Act was passed in 2005 and guarantees citizens the right to access information from the executive, legislature and the judiciary. SNS began its work mobilizing people and generating awareness of the law through public meetings held in low income slums of Delhi.

A major challenge for India’s poor is holding their representatives accountable for promises given during elections. People realize that a key to making democracy work in India is to make politicians perform their duties between elections, however, the specific nature of these duties is not readily known. To address this information gap, SNS researched the Constitution of India, the Representation of Peoples’ Act and various other laws to identify three principal roles members of the national parliament or state legislature fulfill:

1.   In the legislature: Attending the national parliament or state legislative assembly, asking questions and passing laws.

2.    As committee members: Supervising the executive branch by deliberating provisions of law and scrutinising public expenditure.

3.   Allocation of development funds: All elected representatives have funds at their disposal to address the development needs of their constituents.

After this research, SNS developed pamphlets on the responsibilities of elected representatives in local languages and distributed them widely. People were surprised to learn that not only did their representatives serve on committees tasked with addressing local concerns, but they also possessed development funds to spend at their discretion. Interest in assessing information on the performance of elected representatives grew rapidly and the initiative to develop and disseminate report cards resulted from this demand.

Pamphlets on the responsibilities of elected representatives being distributed in a slum

Implementation: Prior to elections for the Delhi Legislative Assembly in 2007, SNS helped interested citizens obtain information on the performance of each Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). While this information is supposed to be provided within 30 days of request, it took over a year and several appeals to access it. The information eventually obtained was voluminous and almost unintelligible – masses of acronyms that no one without bureaucratic experience could hope to unravel – so SNS worked with retired government officials to demystify the information.

Through public consultation the report card was chosen as the best method to provide a snapshot of the data while also being easily published in the media prior to elections. SNS began to develop report cards analyzing the performance of MLAs from Delhi and partnered with mainstream media to disseminate them. SNS eventually also developed report cards for MLAs from other states and, beginning in 2009, Members of Parliament (MPs).

Report cards of Members of the Legislative Assembly of Delhi published in The Times of India

For the 2014 parliamentary elections in India, SNS developed report cards for all MPs in the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament). Report cards assessed the performance of MPs on the basis of the following objective parameters:

1.   Performance in the Lok Sabha – attendance and number of questions raised.

2. Performance in Parliamentary Standing Committees – attendance in committee meetings.

3.    Performance in allocation of MPLADS – under the Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), each MP can recommend development works to be carried out in his/her constituency. The report cards provide information on the expenditure incurred from the total amount of funds available to each MP.

Report cards were widely disseminated through partnerships with the print and electronic media, and through social media, door to door campaigns in slums, information camps and meetings with interested residents and civil society groups.

Achievements: SNS has created a new awareness among citizens about the responsibilities and performance of their representatives through educational public meetings and partnerships with media outlets. Report cards have reached a vast number of people; the daily circulation of some newspapers disseminating report cards is more than 1 million. Doordarshan, the public service broadcaster in India, has done several shows on the report cards as part of their program on the Right to Information Act which is broadcast on the national news channel.

Many people are now better positioned to hold informed dialogue with their representatives and have done so in order to ensure that their community development needs are addressed. Prior to elections, people have held meetings with candidates using report cards prepared by SNS to raise questions about how the candidate will spend development funds or debate questions of local importance in parliament. In several slum settlements across Delhi people put up banners before elections reminding candidates that people will only vote for those who understand the problems of the area and engage with voters on how to resolve them.

Report cards have also been shown to increase voter turnout and election results. Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, conducted an evaluation on the impact of disseminating report cards prior to the Delhi State Legislative Assembly elections in 2008. The study found that voter turnout increased by 3.5% in constituencies where report cards were disseminated. The study also found that those with better performance records increased their vote share.

The sustained effort to develop and disseminate report cards is beginning to show impact on the political discourse. In 2014, when SNS developed and disseminated report cards on the performance of MPs, spokespersons of key political parties used the report card data in several TV debates. This was a significant change as traditionally votes are sought in Indian elections on the basis of caste, religion, and identity. See a TV debate in which the representatives of parties are debating performance here.

Advocacy for proactive disclosure

In August 2012, in response to a complaint filed by SNS, the CIC ordered the Delhi Legislative Assembly Secretariat to proactively provide information to people on the proceedings of the Assembly, the legislation introduced and passed by the Assembly, and information on the proceedings of all its committees. The Commission directed the Assembly Secretariat to provide this information in Hindi and English on the Assembly’s website and to include a live telecast of Assembly proceedings through the website.

SNS has also filed complaints to the CIC and organized public hearings to demand that information on use of local area development funds by representatives be proactively provided by the government. In February 2011, in two significant decisions, the CIC ordered the Delhi Government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to install boards in every constituency and ward of Delhi displaying expenditure details of development funds by the MLA and Councilor of that area.

Board displaying details of local area development funds in a constituency in Delhi

Critical Issues: In order to ensure the effectiveness and credibility of report cards, it is critical that:

• The information provided in the report cards must be completely objective and verifiable.

• The selection of elected representatives must be non-partisan. If report cards are not prepared for all elected representatives of the legislature, the representatives chosen must be selected randomly from all political parties and in proportion to each party’s representation in the legislature.

• Information on the performance of representatives needs to be put out in the most accessible way on a regular basis, for example, through signs written in local languages and placed in public locations. This is especially relevant in countries like India where access to the internet continues to be a challenge.

Contacts: Anjali Bhardwaj, SNS - [email protected]

Amrita Johri, SNS- [email protected]

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Additional Resources:

Harvard Kennedy School Academic Paper on SNS’s work

Short documentary on SNS’s work of using the RTI Act to demand political accountability

MLA report cards published in the Times of India

TV program on MP Report Cards on Headlines Today (in English)

Satyamev Jayate- Episode on Report Cards (in Hindi)

For a more comprehensive version of this case study with further resources on SNS’s work, please click here.