GIS@development March 2003: "Step-by-Step approach to build a municipal GIS"

The experience shows that a GIS based computer system can be a valuable tool in supporting a small town municipality. It also shows that each step has to be made together with the municipality staff. They have to be fully involved and they should be made to understand the advantages of the system, both for themselves and for their clients, in the form of better services. The main problems in municipal management in small towns in India can be summarized under the following:

bad and deteriorating urban infrastructure
lack of management capacity and motivated municipal staff
lack of (up to date and reliable) data and information
lack of funds

These four problems actually reinforce each other, leading to the present situation characterized by abysmal services and indifferent municipal staff. The only way to tackle the problems is to tackle all of them simultaneously. A GIS based computer system for urban management is a good tool to improve data and information availability, thus providing the opportunity to increase revenues which will make more money available for salaries of municipal staff. A better-paid and more motivated staff might use additional revenues to improve urban infrastructure, therefore encouraging the population to actually pay the required tax.

However, it will be very difficult to convince the population that the taxes will indeed be properly used to their advantage. Their experience has (probably rightly) made them suspicious. In such an environment, where the majority of people are not paying their due taxes, everybody will try and avoid paying. The solution here is twofold. First, the population will have to witness that the municipal tax income is properly spent on infrastructure that serves their needs. Second, it must be made clear that everyone is paying their dues. The keys here are transparency and accountability, coupled with enforcement of the law. People are willing to pay for basic services as long as these services are actually delivered at a realistic cost to them.

Implementation - General Observations
The objective of a municipal management support effort should not be just providing the municipality with a tool, be it GIS or anything else. It should be to assist the municipality in tackling all the problems mentioned above.

The experience shows that a GIS based computer system can be a valuable tool in supporting a small town municipality. It also shows that each step has to be made together with the municipality staff. They have to be fully involved and they should be made to understand the advantages of the system, both for themselves (more revenue, better control over data preferably with less work involved, better reports easier prepared) and for their clients, in the form of better services. Transparency is important in implementing the changes but it is equally important that the changes become acceptable for the municipality staff. A rigid model may well offer high transparency, but may not be acceptable for the municipal staff, and will not be implemented.

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