Local governments
QUESTIONS:
Do you trust your local government?
How have their services been, i.e; are your roads of acceptable quality, does your water/electricity supply get disrupted often?
Have you faced any instances of corruption while trying to avail services or have you heard/seen any incidents?
What is the level of community participation in your local government? i.e; does the community in your locality discuss local politics often, do they petition the local government for anything, etc.
And what is your take on local governments, do they need reform? Do you want to see any specific changes in your local government?
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I don't really trust my local government. They have quite a shady history and the local councilor here is closely linked to some corrupt individuals who have arrested recently.
Their services are of acceptable quality most of the time and the roads are drivable but have been very poorly paved in some areas, they cover the entire road in asphalt without any concern for smoothness. And when they make repairs or upgrade the water/underground cables, they often leave the roads unrepaired for months at a time and then pave it over without any concern for smoothness. The infrastructure here is also not very pedestrian friendly and a lot of money has been spent on the beautification of specific areas rather than any substantial upgrades to infrastructure.
I haven't faced any corruption yet and neither has my family but I hear that lower income households face many legal hurdles here while trying to get documentation.
Negligible participation, sometimes they discuss local politics but that's mostly the older senior citizen types. Most people here only participate when voting in the ward elections.
YES, they need far more transparency with their documentation and budgets. Citizens also need to be able to vote for mayors directly and they (local government) need to be empowered to be able to deal with local problems, I.e; they should have the budget and legal authority to be able to attract investment into their locality and Need to feel important enough that people to meaningfully participate in local governance. A foreign investor should not have to meet a cheif minister to invest in a locality. Local governance is quite lackluster in this country and we are quite lacking when compared to other nations, even china has more local government employees than us.
P.S: Mods please add a discussion flair.
Edit: Look we all know how bad local governments are but that's besides the point of the post, what exactly do y'all think we can do to change things? I know change is hard and dangerous but please discuss instead of going full doomer. India may be a shitty place to live but that dosen't mean we can't clean the shit, even if it's only a drop in the Ocean's worth of shit.