Attend civic meetings, Congress to tell corporators

A day after the Hindustan Times reported that many corporators were skipping the important civic general body meetings, the Congress on Tuesday said it will direct all its corporators to attend general body meetings regularly.

A day after the Hindustan Times reported that many corporators were skipping the important civic general body meetings, the Congress on Tuesday said it will direct all its corporators to attend general body meetings regularly.

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The HT had reported on January 10 that according to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) attendance records, more than 10% of the corporators did not bother attending general body meetings regularly.

The BMC’s general body meetings are important because they give corporators a chance to raise issues concerning the city. The BMC spends at least Rs 1 lakh to organise one general body meeting.

Civic records show that between April 2009 and March 2010, the BMC had 59 general body meetings. Twenty-nine corporators had not attended even half of these.

Seventeen of these were from the Congress and five were from the Shiv Sena, which rules the corporation. The lowest attendance was that of Sena corporator from Bhuleshwar Vijay Vashirde, who had applied for leave for almost the entire year.

Rajhans Singh, Congress leader in the civic house, said that his party had taken the issue seriously. “I am writing to all corporators from my party and telling them to attend general body meetings regularly and raise people’s issues.”

Mayor Shraddha Jadhav on Tuesday appealed to corporators to attend the meetings. “This is one common platform to raise city issues whether related to health, education or other matters of public interest,” she said.

Singh accepted that corporators Aslam Shaikh and Rameshsingh Thakur, who are also Members of the Legislative Assembly, had poor attendance because they were pressed for time. “But they should attend general body meetings because they also represent their wards,” he said.

Shaikh and corporators-legislator Amin Patel, who attended the general body meeting on Tuesday, said they would attend as many meetings as possible.