Policy Implementation in Urban Bangladesh: Role of Intra-organizational Coordination

Bangladesh is a South Asian Country became independent on 76th December, 1997 after a bloody war of liberation which lasted for nine months.

It is not feasible to explore impact of intra-organizational coordination on policy implementation of whole Rajshahi City Corporation in a single case study. That is why; implementation of infrastructure policy has been selected as a case.

Engineering Department requires cooperation from Finance Department as money are released from Finance department. For circulation of tenders and biddings, engineering department requires cooperation from Public Relation Office.

Total territory of the Dhaka City Corporation, which is the largest City Corporation in Bangladesh.

Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh.

Infrastructure policy refers to those projects which are initiated and implemented by RCC for development of roads, drains etc.

Corporation Parishad is the highest decision making of Rajshahi City Corporation.

Examples from Dhaka City Corporation are mostly mentioned in this paper. Being located in the capital, Dhaka is well focused and highlighted by the Medias. Rajshahi as being located in the periphery, are not given much attention.

‘Karwan Bazaar’ is the name of a place in the Dhaka City where the largest wholesale vegetable market is situated.

Democratic in the sense that Rajshhai City Corporation is administered by elected people’s representative and these people’s representatives are accountable to the general public for all of their activities.

Hierarchic in the sense that, all decisions need to be approved by the Mayor (administrative head of the City Corporation).

Hat is the Bengali name of big markets which generally sits one or two times in a week in a village.

Bazar is the Bengali name of small daily market which is generally seen in the village level in Bangladesh.

First, the term manageability that often used for conducting social science research is one reason to choose Rajshahi City Corporation. Second, Rajshahi is the fourth largest city of Bangladesh with reasonable growth rate and a semi cosmopolitan nature. I had purposefully selected Rajshahi as an urban unit that may be representative of urban Bangladesh. Dhaka being the largest city of Bangladesh has lost its ability to represent the urban Bangladesh as a result of being the capital and having some other special historical features. I made such comments because it is very difficult to compare Dhaka City Corporation with other City Corporations in Bangladesh in any respect. From the point of view of the size of the territory, its financial ability and access to central government, Dhaka is superior to any other city corporations in Bangladesh. That is why; study on Dhaka City Corporation would not have been a proper representation of urban Bangladesh. But Rajshahi has some similar characteristics (such as income generation, industrialization and rate of urbanization), which are closer to other urban areas of Bangladesh. Third, I have selected Rajshahi as the field of study for personal reason. Rajshahi is a city where I had spent the last 15 years. I know the city to a great extent and have access to information. Having this consideration in mind, I liked to use my experience and network during the research work. Besides, it would be an intricate task for me to go to an unknown city for field study within the stipulated time of only 2 months.

Rajshahi college is one of the most ancient and reputed educational institution in Rajshahi Town.

Like the central government, the RCC do no have different policies like, health policy, education policy, infrastructure policy etc. They undertake various projects for the development of different sectors. For example, for the development of the infrastructure of RCC, they undertake several projects in the beginning of each financial year. They do not call all these projects as infrastructure policy.

Financial year starts in 1st July and ends in 30th June.

The engineering department is one the most important department of RCC that deals with infrastructure development and construction works.

Analysis of this chapter is based on information collected during interview with six City Corporation officials that includes Mayor, Chief Executive Office, Chief Executive Engineer, Chief Medical Officer, Budget Cum Accounts Officer and Public Relations Officer.

Five options that were given to respondents were hierarchic, informal, routine based, leadership oriented and objectives. Hierarchic denotes that the basis of relationship is based on the principle of chain of command which is seen in bureaucratic organization. Informal denotes no formal way of making communication. If problem persist, that may be solved over telephonic conversation or by meeting with the aggrieved party physically. Routine based means, corresponded are made only when it is needed. There is hardly any scope for informal communication among various departments. Leadership oriented means communication is based on the leadership quality of the departmental heads and finally objective oriented means relationship is maintained only to meet demands. This question was asked with a view to mapping the fact that whether RCC follows any unified rules regarding intra-organizational relationship or not.

Old in the sense that when the City Corporation Ordinance was passed in 1987, the population size of Rajshahi city was small and the activities of the City Corporation were confined to a manageable size. As time passes, people’s demands are mounting. Consequently, the activities of the City Corporation are also expanding to a wide range. That is why, very often, it becomes problematic to handle situations as every thing is not well defined in the existing law.

Here vehicle facility means use of transport of RCC and avail the fuel subsidy that is provided by RCC.

But in actual practice, there is no coordination committee in RCC for ensuring intra-organizational coordination. In 1996, the AL government established a coordination committee for every City Corporation in order to ensure inter-organizational coordination. But, Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) after coming into power in 2001, by an official order, discontinued the functioning of this committee.

We have already discussed that RCC suffers from serious resource constraints. At the same time, it also suffers from clear and specified laws. As a result, these scarce resources are distributed among contesting departments based on the strength of relationship of the departmental heads with the Mayor ignoring the importance and priority of projects. Those departments receive much allocation whose heads are very close to the Mayor. That is why; I have used the term unequal resource distribution.

There is dam on the bank of the river Padma to protect the city from the flood water.

Futkipara is a name of place of Rajshahi City.

‘Sonali Sangbad’ is the widely circulated local daily news paper published from Rajshahi.

BDT stands for Bangladeshi taka.

Before the work order being handed over to the contractor, the file needs approval of the Mayor number of times traveling through engineering, general administration and finance department which is a lengthy process. The total journey is called procedure and delay in this procedure is called procedural delays. A more detailed discussion about the procedure has been discuses in the fourth chapter.

‘Sonali Sangbad’ is a widely circulated local daily news paper published from Rajshahi.