Only 34 per cent of questions asked in BMC in past year related to Mumbais woes, 90 per cent of the corporators cannot deliberate on civic issues
The issue of roads had the maximum share of questions. File pic
While citizens are usually worried about civic issues like roads, drainage, garbage collection and water supply, only 34 per cent of the questions raised by city councillors in the BMC come under categories relevant to people, Praja Foundation's 'Mumbai Municipal Councillors' Report Card' has found.
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The number of questions asked by councillors, and their quality, has fallen from 2,609 in 2018 to 2,270 in 2020. Over 60 per cent councillors got a poor grade for the quality of questions and 13 councillors asked no questions. The BMC received thousands of complaints during 2019-2020 mainly regarding drainage, garbage, road quality, water supply, etc. The 779 questions related to citizens' complaints made up 34 per cent of the total questions. Roads got a lot of attention with 16 per cent questions. Supriya More (Congress), Manisha Rahate (NCP) and Gulnaz Quereshi (AIMIM) haven't asked a single question since 2017. "Over 90 per cent councillors scored less than 50 per cent on the deliberation on civic issues. Their questions have less than 50 per cent relation with citizens' complaints," said Milind Mhaske of the Praja Foundation.
The report also said that the corporators' attendance fell to an average of 73 per cent in 2020 from 81 per cent in 2018 and 78 per cent in 2019. On the basis of attendance, number of questions, quality of questions and criminal record, the report declared Harish Chheda from Dahisar, Nehal Shah from Hindu Colony and Anant Nar from Andheri East as top performers. The foundation said that 80 per cent citizens reported improvement in the quality of life in wards of the top ten performers as against only 59 per cent for the bottom 10 performers.
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