Road naming was top priority
50% of corporators asked less than 10 questions, 13 kept mum.
Mumbai: A report card on the performance of corporators prepared by the NGO Praja Foundation, shows that 13 municipal corporators did not ask even a single question in any committee in the last year. In addition to this, more than 50 per cent corporators asked less than 10 questions in civic committee meetings. Moreover, the average scores of the current corporators shows a low of 59.6 per cent, not much more than the average score of the previous term of municipal corporators (2013-16), which was 59.5 per cent.
The report card covers the working and performance of the 227 elected corporators of Mumbai for the period between March 2017 to March 2018, data from the affidavits filed by the corporators with the election commission, uploaded data on criminal records (till December 2017) and results of an opinion poll across the city.
According to the report, the 13 corporators who did not ask a single question are Kesarben Patel, Murji Patel, Anita Panchal (BJP), Gulnaz Mohammad Salim Qureshi (AIMIM), Jagdish Thaivalapill, Rekha Ramvanshi, Rutuja Tari, Priti Patankar (Shiv Sena), Winni D’Souza, Supriya More (Congress) and Naziya Jabbar Sofi, Reshmabano Khan and Manisha Rahate (NCP).
Among the questions asked, naming and renaming of roads, chowks, monuments, buildings and stations seems to have been one of the top priorities of the corporators, who asked 320 questions on this issue. The figure is second only to the number of questions on roads, which stands at 366 questions, in the list of total complaints (2609), raised. In terms of performance, the male corporators have performed slightly better than their female counterparts. The overall average score of male corporators is 60.44 per cent and that of female corporators is 59.02 per cent in 2017-2018
“Praja’s report card includes, parameters like attendance in the corporation and the committee meetings, the number of questions (issues) that she/he has raised in all legislative forums, utilisation of budget, educational qualification, criminal record, income tax reports, and the perception/impression of the people in her/his constituency”, said Milind Mhaske, director at Praja Foundation.
The report card also examined criminal cases registered against municipal corporators.