Chapter 7: Urban Administration

Intext Questions:

Question 1. A city is much bigger than a village and more spread out. A city has crowded markets, many buses and cars, water and electricity facilities, traffic control and hospitals. Have you ever wondered who is responsible for running all this? Do you know how decisions are made? How the planning is done? Who are the people who do all the work?

Answer:In the city, there is the Municipal Corporation that takes care of street lights, garbage collection, water supply, keeping the streets and the markets clean. The Municipal Corporation is also responsible for ensuring that diseases do not break out in the city. In smaller towns, these works are done by a little bit smaller organisation known as a Municipal Council.

The city is divided into different wards and ward councillors get elected. The complicated decisions that affect the entire city are taken by groups of Councillors who form committees to decide and debate issues. When the problems are within a ward then the people who live in the ward can contact their Councillors. After the decisions taken by Councillor’s Committees and the Councillors, the Commissioner and the administrative staff implement them.

The Commissioner and the administrative staff are appointed while the Councillors are elected. As the city is so large, the work here is divided into different departments, such as the water department, the garbage collection departments, sanitation department, etc.

Question 2. List at least four different tasks that the Municipality does :

Answer:The Municipality does the following tasks:

• Lay down the park.
• Opening of hospitals and dispensaries.
• Opens school for children.
• Ensures that the disease should not break out in the city.

Question 3. Fill in the blanks in the sentences below :

1. In a panchayat, the elected members are called ________ .
2. The city is divided into several ________ .
3. In a Municipal Corporation, the elected members are called ________ .
4. Groups of councillors deal with issues that affect the ________ .
5. Elections are held once every ________ years for the Panchayat as well as for the Municipality.
6. While the councillors make decisions the administrative staff led by the commissioner ________ these.

Answer:

1. Panch
2. wards
3. Councillors
4. entire city
5. five
6. implements

Question 4. What was Gangabai protesting about?

Answer:Gangabai was protesting because the garbage was not being collected from the streets and if it remains uncollected it attracts dogs, rats, and flies. Also, people get ill from the smell. Even the children did not play in the streets because their parents were afraid that they did get sick from staying on the streets too long.

Question 5. Why does Gangabai approach the Ward Councillor?

Answer:Gangabai decided to approach the Ward Councillor because he was elected by them.

Question 6. What did Gangabai say when the Commissioner said thatthere were not enough trucks in the city?

Answer:Gangabai smartly replied, "But you seem to have enough trucks tocollect garbage from the rich localities".

Question 7. Do you know when and how often garbage gets collected in your neighborhood?

Answer:The garbage is collected once a day, in the early morning in my locality.

Question 8. Do you think it is the same for all neighbourhoods of the city? Why not? Discuss.

Answer:It is not the same in all parts of the city because:

• Municipal Corporation does not have enough workers.
• Sometimes the workers are reluctant to work and leave the garbage on the road.
• The households throw the garbage on the streets.
• The vehicles are parked on the roadside, making it difficult for the workers to clean the city.

Question 9. Did you know that your taxes enable the government to provide roads, bridges, parks, and street lights? List three more benefits that the taxeshelp in funding, after discussing with your family:

Answer:Taxes make the Government stable so that it can protect people constitutionally, it can be used in many ways like:

• Free education
• Good health for free
• Ration for poor
• Salaries to all government employees
• Scholarship for students etc.

Questions:

Question 1. Why did the children go to Yasmin Khala's house?

Answer:Children went to Yasmin Khala's house to know about the person who is responsible for the maintenance of the street lights and to whom they should pay. Rehana's mom told them that Municipal Corporation take cares of the replacing lights. So, they went to Yasmin Khala's house as she recently retired from the Municipal Corporation and could tell them about it.

Question 2. List four ways in which the work of the Municipal Corporation affects the life of a city-dweller.

Answer:Four ways in which the work of the Municipal Corporation affects the life of a city-dweller:

• Construction and maintenance of roads, parks, street lights etc.
• Cleansing and maintenance of drainage system.
• Collection and disposal of garbage.
• Supply of safe drinking water.
• Electricity supply.

Question 3. Who is a Municipal Councillor?

Answer:A Municipal Councillor is an elected member of the committee of Municipal Corporation.

• The ward or Municipal Councillor listened to the problem of their local people and help themto get in touch with the concerned authority.
• They also make budget of their ward and put it in front of the whole council.

Question 4. What did Gangabai do and why?

Answer:Gangabai went to the Ward Councillor house after gathering small group of women shoutingslogans and described the situation in the locality to him.

She did so because there were uncollected garbage lying all over in the locality which attractsdogs,rats and flies and people are getting ill from this.

Question 5. How does the Municipal Corporation earn the money to do its work?

Answer:Municipal Corporation earns money from the taxes collected from various sources like theproperty taxes, water taxes, and entertainment taxes and also from taxes on education and otheramenities.

Question 6. Discussin the two photographs you see different ways of collecting anddisposing garbage.

1. Which way do you think provides safety to the person disposing garbage?
2. What are the dangers of collecting garbage in the manner shown in the first photograph?
3. Why do you think that proper ways of disposing garbage are not available to those who work in municipalities?

Answer:

1. The way shown in photo 2 provides safety to the person disposing of garbage.
2. The dangers of collecting garbage in the manner shown in the first photograph are:
   • poisonous gas infection
   • breathing problems
   • falling sick
   • Falling victim to the epidemic.
   • Skin disease.
3. Proper ways of disposing of garbage are not available to those who work in municipalities because of the following reasons:
   • The poor economic condition of the municipalities,
   • Pilferage of municipal funds,
   • Workers are not aware of their health,
   • They do not want to work in right earnest,
   • The government now has started providing trucks etc. but not still in adequate numbers.

Question 7. Several poor people in the city work as domestic servants as well as work for the Corporation, keeping the city clean. Yet the slums in which they live are quite filthy. This is because these slums seldom have any water and sanitation facilities. The reason often given by the Municipal Corporation is that the land in which the poor have set up their homes does not belong to them and that slum-dwellers do not pay taxes. However people living inmiddle class neighbourhoods pay very little in taxes compared to the amount of money the corporation spends on them in setting up parks, street lighting facilities, regular garbage collection etc. Also as you read in this chapter, the property taxes collected by the Municipality make up only 25-30 per cent of its money. Why do you think it is important that the Corporation should spend more money on slum localities? Why is it important that the Municipal Corporation provide the poor in the city with the same facilities that the rich get?

Answer:It is important that the Corporation should spend more money on slum localities because:

• If they do not provide them equal facilities then it is discrimination on the basis of economic condition.
• Slums are also a part of the society. The people living there contribute a lot for the society and also the major work population like domestic servants Municipal workers, cleaners etc.
• Diseases can also spread to the neighbouring locality of the slums due to dirty condition.

Question 8. Look at the image below.

The Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission on2 October 2014 to promote cleanliness in both rural and urban areas all over the nation. Under the “Swachh Bharat, Swachh Vidyalaya” campaign, many activities are also being carried out in schools to generate awareness on sanitation and hygiene amongst students. Observe the ways in which “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” is being implemented by municipality / panchayat in your locality.

Prepare a poster and display it in your school.

Answer:Swachh Bharat Mission for Urban Areas:

The focus is on establishing close to 2.6 lakh individual toilets and 2.5 lakh community toilets across 4,401 towns and cities in India. Eradicating manual scavenging and improved municipal solid waste management is part of the agenda.