Md. Habibul Alam
Most probably, like me, the word ‘capitation grant’ remained a dark horse to many of us. Even, to many journalists it has been quite new. It came to my vocabulary while digging out investigative report plan for local and national level journalist, as one of my official assignments. It was a successful task, as one upazila correspondent of Daily Jugantor did an exclusive story on capitation grant which eventually forced local administration to form an investigative team.
‘Capitation Grant’ is one of the social safety net allowances which mainly eyes at orphans. The logic behind citing this example for the article was ‘capitation grant remained unearth as issue of reporting’ to many of our local and national media. However, ‘capitation grant’ is merely an example of reporting on local government which can easily be connected to hundreds of other issues ahead of upcoming election e.g. extended budget on social safety net.
Budget for social safety net has become bigger during the tenure of current government. So, question should be posed by media, if budget increased, services quality should increase as well. If this questioned has not been raised yet, it is the right time to extract, how far extended budget has affected people’s living standard. It would be wise not to concentrate on negative aspects of an issue rather positive also, depending on news value e.g. success of tax collection, fair distributions of resources/allowances of local government institutions (LGIs)
In achieving the goal of Digital Bangladesh, government with the support of UNDP has introduced Digital Centers (DC) in UP and incorporated few new services like one shop, electricity bill payment, high-speed internet, passport etc. Though there have been good numbers of reports on earlier services but impacts of new services can be revisited as well. At the same time, how these centers have contributed to empower thousands of male, female entrepreneurs and its impact on their livelihood, going to be a smart assignment for reporting on ICT and Development perspectives.
Couple of years back, for study purpose we visited one of the UP’s of Rajshahi sadar. While conducting an interview with UP chairman, he called the entrepreneur of Digital Center (DC). At one point of interview, the chairman became angry with entrepreneur and started shouting at him, only because he (entrepreneur) did not agree with the opinion. So, it is quite an open secret that like above mentioned chairman, elected representatives, mostly male chairman and male members has been very non-cooperative towards their female counterparts and often does not come up with allotted development works for female members, which sharply contradicts with Local Government Act (2009).
On the other hand, the same act orders chairman to form several committees e.g. standing committee in a bid to strengthen UP’s capacity but unfortunately in most of the cases those committees have not been formed even if formed, it perishes or becomes non-functional soon. So, what is the point of such laws unless it strengthens our local government systems? In this circumstance, journalist can take the role of advocate to unearth the implications/ relevance of such laws.
Many of us are aware that, local government has a mandate to make each UP sustainable in terms of income generation which has become more intense since the increase in honorarium of Local Government representatives. Considering the context, it would not be a bad idea to run stories on, how far government has become successful to make UP’s sustainable
For any organization, being transparent and accountable to its internal and external people has been very key. In a bid to make government and non-government organizations accountable, in 2009, the then government introduced Right to Information (RTI) act. So, linking RTI with development, both local and national media can make stories/ reports on LGI’s. For instance, how many LGIs in a particular district or upazila has introduced ‘citizen charter’ and its impact on service delivery.
By the end of this month, we will be experiencing a fresh election and definitely voters will have deep look at the promises of Parliament Member (MP) rather believing their leap and rhetoric service! Like voters, media will also publish niche stories and reports on MP’s successful development works, also failures. Though news like job aspirants asking MP to return their money draws much attention of readers but turning your area into Upazila, starting a medical college, nationalization of few educational institutes etc through MP also can be news worthy ahead of election. Though it is very tough to claim media has direct and immediate effect on voter’s decision to vote but definitely published report, analysis will give a solid and objective scenario on how far our MP’s were successful to make their citizens happy.
No doubt, the area of local government is quite huge and there are hundreds of issues which still remains in dark. It is the duty of journalist to dig out issues like capitation grant but it is only possible when they are well informed and acquired enough knowledge on a particular issue. But unfortunately, apart from few journalists, the habit of reading has been a missing issue! However still there are many opportunities such as fellowships, workshops, seminars and trainings offered both by government and non-government organizations. Apart from these opportunities, few embassies like USA, Germany announces exchange programs on journalism or provides grants for conferences, fellowships which can be handy for professional development.
The author is a former student of Mass Communication and Journalism at University of Dhaka.