Mumbai civic body corporators did not fare well: Praja report card 2019-20

The overall performance of elected corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation – India’s richest civic body – dropped to 55.7% in 2019-20, from 60.2% in

The overall performance of elected corporators of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation – India’s richest civic body – dropped to 55.7% in 2019-20, from 60.2% in 2018-19, as they had to prioritise campaigning for their parties, with two elections in the year, over their regular functioning and governance, according to the white paper on 2019-20 released by NGO Praja on Tuesday.

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The average attendance of corporators was 72.6%, from 77% in 2018-19 and 80.7% in 2017-18. This is the lowest since their five-year term began in 2017. There was also a dip in the number of questions asked and their quality compared to citizens’ complaints. The number of questions asked by corporators fell to 2,270 in 2019-20, 2,571 in 2018-19 and 2,609 in 2017-18.

Of the 2,270 questions asked by corporators, questions related to roads were the highest (326), followed by renaming of roads/chowks (253), education (151) and health (147).

Praja’s white paper further mentions: “More corporators asked poor quality questions in this term – 133 (60%) corporators in 2020 report received poor grade (less than 50%) for quality of questions asked, while in the third year (2015) of last term’s report, 83 corporators received poor grade. 199 corporators (90%) deliberation on civic issues was poor (less than 50% score) as compared to the complaints made by citizens.”

Further, 13 corporators asked zero questions in 2019-20, of which Congress’s Supriya More, Manisha Rahate of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Gulnaz Qureshi of the AIMIM have not raised a single question in their entire term since 2017. Harish Chheda (BJP) from Borivli was ranked the best corporator, followed by BJP’s Nehal Shah from Matunga and Shiv Sena’s Anant Nar from Jogeshwari securing third rank. Of the top 10 corporators, five are from the BJP, three from Congress and two from Shiv Sena. In BMC, Sena has 97 elected corporators, followed by BJP (83), Congress (29), NCP (8) and Samajwadi Party (6), followed by two from AIMIM and one from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS).

Nitai Mehta, founder and managing trustee, Praja Foundation, said, “Corporators act as people’s representatives in the government by speaking for their constituents and interests which makes their role extremely vital in a city’s functioning. It is our sincerest hope that the councillors in Mumbai focus their attention on the duties and responsibilities that they are already entrusted with and we hope this report card enables them to understand their strengths and weaknesses and work towards betterment of their performance in the coming years.”

Mehta added, “Corporators have been in the forefront of ground-level relief and intervention in Covid-19 pandemic in many cities in India. Given the current structure of local governance in Mumbai, however, corporators have not been party to decision-making for the city in spite of being closest to the ground situation and having the most knowledge of the needs of their constituents.”

The BJP on the other hand, said administrative work may have been affected owing to elections.

Prabhakar Shinde, BJP corporator and group leader of BJP in BMC, said, “We have been taking up issues of the citizens at large every year and we also have five of our corporators in the top 10. However, elections lead to two things – party activities and imposition of code of conduct. This could have had some effect.”

Ravi Raja, leader of Opposition in BMC and Congress corporator, said, “We have secured first rank once again, and this shows that though our numbers are lower than other parties, our quality of work has been much better. We have been actively playing the role of constructive opposition and at the same time taking up issues of our voters.”