Community structures and platforms for collective action vary significantly as we shift from villages to cities. During our landscaping study in the transitioning cities of UP, people often shared how things have changed for them ever since their areas got notified as urban areas. The local PRI members ceased to hold positions, and while some of them fought elections for ward parishads (ward councillors), few emerged victorious while others did not. 

Villages have panchayat committees and sub- committees for health, sanitation and so on. Transitioning cities (cities with less than 100,000 population), however, like other cities are divided into wards. However, they do not have ward committees. Ward Committees, comprising the ward councillor and ward members, are only constituted for cities that have a population greater than three lakhs in UP. What we found during our landscaping work was the presence of Swachhta Protsahan Committees (SPC) instead.

Swachhta Protsahan Committees are constituted at the ward level, by the Nagar Panchayats that generally govern transitioning cities. They are expected to be created by the ward councillors, comprising eight to ten members, who are generally the sanitation workers, health workers, ICDS workers, social workers active in the area and a few residents of the ward. Attached to the Nagar Panchayat office, the primary mandate of these committees is ensuring overall swachhta of the ward. 

As we delved deeper into the functioning of these committees and spoke to local actors, we realised that SPC, similar to many other such community platforms, while present, remained mostly inactive. It rarely met to discuss local sanitation challenges, with most members unaware of their role within the SPC. In fact, most of them did not even know all the other members. 

Although presently dysfunctional, the SPC is an institutionalised platform for collective/ citizen action at the ward-level, a rarity in the case of transitioning cities. Seeing this as an opportunity, in December 2024, we started initiating discussions at the Nagar Panchayat to revamp the SPC, expand its mandate and activate them as vibrant forums for community engagement in urban areas.

Our first steps towards this process has been to reimagine SPCs as interim ward committees for transitioning cities. Their mandate therefore expands beyond sanitation issues, to cover health, nutrition, education, WASH and all other components that affect the quality of life of the residents of the ward. Imagining them in the context of the UP Akankshi Nagar, a multi-sectoral program which is recently launched by the Urban Development Department and embedding the committee within the larger governance processes of the program further creates opportunities for localised planning and community action, not only for health but social and environmental determinants.

The second step has been to expand the membership of the SPC and include teachers, ASHA and ANMs, Anganwadi workers and local influencers; along with social workers, local ward leaders and few representatives of the general public. And the third step has been to align Nagar Panchayat heads – the Chairman and the Executive Officers to this idea and with their support, the Ward Councillors of every ward. 

We started off this work in Kaiserganj, and three months since, we are happy to share that 8 out of 16 wards now have a functional ward committee (reimagined SPC). These committees now have monthly meetings, there is almost full attendance in the meetings and most importantly, the members gather to discuss and resolve hyperlocal issues related to their wards. Our belief that this platform could emerge as a space for collective action at the local level remains steady, as we continue this work in the remaining wards of the Kaiserganj, and eventually in other transitioning cities.