Praja report on BMC corporators: ‘Fewer questions, poor attendance’

A dip in the number of questions asked and their quality compared to citizens’ complaints, with poor attendance – Praja’s white paper on the performance of Brihanmumbai

A dip in the number of questions asked and their quality compared to citizens’ complaints, with poor attendance – Praja’s white paper on the performance of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) corporators between April 2018 and March 2019 paints a grim picture.

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According to the report, the number of questions asked in 2019 fell to 2,571, compared to 2,609 asked in 2018. Corporators asked the maximum number of questions – 403 – related to social and cultural issues such as renaming of roads, junctions, restructuring of statues, pertaining of festivals such as Ganesh or Navratri. On the contrary, 360 questions were asked about roads, and only 55 about storm water drains that pertain to waterlogging.

Six corporators – Shiv Sena’s Dinesh Kubal and Upendra Sawant, Congress’s Supriya More, NCP’s Manisha Rahate, AIMIM’s Gulnaz Qureshi, and Samajwadi Party’s Ayesha Khan – did not ask any through the year.

“The quality of questions asked has dropped. They don’t align with citizens’ complaints. Around 93% of corporators (206) are not raising questions related to issues faced by citizens. Praja found that not addressing citizens’ complaints in the BMC directly affects the quality of life in the ward,” said Milind Mhaske, director of Praja Foundation. “In wards of top-five performers, 93% surveyed citizens said their quality of life had improved in the past two years, where as in wards of bottom-five performers, only 66% citizens said their quality of life had improved.”

However, the silver lining is women corporators have outperformed men in every aspect. The top three performers are women – Shiv Sena’s Sujata Patekar, who scored 82.30 marks out of 100, Sena’s Kishori Pednekar, who scored 81.25 marks, and BJP’s Sejal Desai, who scored 77.33 marks, well above the average of 60.15 for the year. Moreover, of the top 10 performers, seven are women. Women corporators’ overall average score stands at 60.28, compared to men’s 59.98.

Mhaske said, “Another finding of the report is that the accountability mechanism in the city is broken somewhere, which is at the root of poor performance.”

Ravi Raja, leader of the opposition in the BMC, said, “The Congress has emerged as the best performing party in BMC, which speaks volumes of our work.” Vishakha Raut, leader of the house in BMC, said, “I would only like to say that I do not believe in Praja’s report or it’s parameters.”

Rais Shaikh, leader of the Samajwadi Party in BMC, said, “Elections are the final mandate for any elected leader. Many corporators who have performed very poorly according to Praja, are being elected for five or six consecutive terms.”